Well the only link i see as to be honest is that current leftist parties(some of them at least)are the closest to reality that communism can get.At least so far in mankind.
They are as if communism tries to wear a more realistic - pragmatistic suit.I find that better for sure than the utopia.

have you ever noticed that a lot of atheists are anti-communist? — Merkwurdichliebe

Yeah i have.

Compare this to the competition, a metaphysical reality of infinite possibility and ethical certitude (God and religion are very compatible with the capitalist republic, which generally delivers a higher standard of living) . . . it makes sense that people can't make a spiritual commitment to communism. — Merkwurdichliebe

It makes sense for me also.There is really strong competition here ,as you mention.
It is much more easier to be followed.And doesn't require such hard fight as to change our own selves and our belief system first.
So seems also logical for me that communism remains an utopia, even if i still vote for leftist parties on elections.

For me the answer is pretty simple i think.Look around you.Colleagues, friends, neighbors,social workers even family sometimes.
Do all these people seem ready or willing for you to follow the main "all equal" path of communism??
Don't judge by what they(we)say.Just by what you see they(we) do.

Even communists are so confused that they think they act equal and at the very end they do the exact same.They are just so confused that they don't event understand it themselves.
They just find silly excuses ,as we all do, to justify their(our) own shit.

Of course not all people are like that.There are really exceptional People who believe and act like that indeed.Personally i deeply,deeply admire them.

But the vast majority of people aren't like that at all.Ego is in our genes.Totally "killing" it ,or pretend that we can totally "tame" it,well i don't know if it is even possible.
And i don't know if ever the majority of people will reach to that spiritual level as to achieve it and be ready for applying a real communist or socialist system.

Congratulations to the ones who run the site for this.Really that is really something for the site.It is an achievement which moves the site one step forward and some people worked for that.

Then how can there be any consciousness in the body, if we can remove so much of it, without becoming a less conscious creature? — universeness

I don't think it's the quantity of body as the quality.The full interaction of its parts despite how many these parts are.As a system.
Even less parts can interact even better together.
I m not fan of the moto "the more the better"

I mean, do you think their cortex would have a reduced ability, to play it's role in perception, awareness, thought, memory, cognition, etc due to having an artificial blood pump, instead of a natural one (such as a heart transplant)? — universeness

Well i guess it woud be even a slightly different consciousness compared to the one before.
But as you mentioned the artificial heart will play the exact role of the normal heart.
So i guess the rest of the body will continue to coordinate with a similar way as before.Not exact the same though.But i don't think the change would be so dramatic as someone to become a totally different person.
.

BUT do you therefore think that if before you die, we could take out your brain and connect it to a fully cybernetic body. That there is no way and no sense that the creature produced would still be you?
Still be your 'conscience?' — universeness

No I don't think it would be me if the whole body changed.Who am i is connected to my own body also and the experience i have from whole of it.
A cybernetic body would mean a total different experience.Maybe due to the same brain we might have some things in common.But i wouldn't consider myself same as my new "cybernetic self".
How for example the senses that my body has now and give data to my brain and form my consciousness be the same with the cybernetic senses that I would have?The data from them would be totally different.

If we talk to/observe, a human with no legs, would we find some difference in their 'level of consciousness' compared to people with legs? — universeness

Well they would simply have different consciousness as in every person in general.If by difference you mean lower level of consciousness for those with no legs.Then of course not.

We can consider the affects on human consciousness, if we removed parts of the brain. — universeness

Yeah, but consider also the brain without a heart to support it.

The rest you posted is extremely interesting.And really informative.I had little knowledge for R complex and now you made me wanna investigate it more.

I mostly agree to the conclusion that consciousness is a phenomenon of constant interaction of different areas and cannot be spotted only in just one specific place in the brain.I believe that myself.

My only guess is that this interaction, that makes the phenomenon of consciousness to emerge, is among all body functions.And yes brain plays a huge role as coordinate them.
But as i mentioned before nothing can stand on its own in human body.Not even brain.
It is the interaction of everything that makes it happen.
But its only my hypothesis.Does not make it true.

it would mean that perhaps information can be passed/correlated via some quantum phenomena such as entanglement (as Sheldrake himself has suggested). — universeness

And that is also a nice hypothesis.

That is a really really good argument.Your thread makes a serious point.Nice.

Maybe consciousness can't be defined as strictly brain function like the "walking example" cause it is not strictly brain that generates it.
First even brain has to interact with the external world as consciousness to take place.And to interact also with the whole body function.

So maybe consciousness isn't produced only from the brain but from the whole body.And brain just plays the central role to all that function.As in everything.The "coordinator role" let's say.
In fact not even walking is just "what legs do" if you consider it. Cause brain involves also for it.As other human organs too.

What i mean is, that it might be better starting to examine consciousness as a whole body effect and remove it from the typical theory that connects it only with brain.And all that Endless mind-brain debate.Well anyway it is only a hypothesis.
The only thing i disagree is that neuroscience has nothing to say about consciousness.
If not the only, for sure though ,brain plays a crucial role in consciousness.And neuroscience studies brain.
So if not neuroscience then who would have a better say on that? Let's not be aphoristic.

But again nice thread and great argument for the actual definition that exists about consciousness even in dictionaries.

What type of philosophy most exemplifies what philosophy is or should be to you? — Pantagruel

Basically all of your list below.Included "Other" too.
The right amount-or better combination of them-is the most difficult and crucial part thought.A real philosophy oughts,imo,to include Everything that makes human race wonder about.And all of these categories are united together somehow,as everything in general in the universe is united too.

So for me ,the type of philosophy that shows how philosophy should be indeed, is the combination of all types of philosophy.A United philosophy.I vote for "All".

But i say again, it is the way of how philosophy should achieve this combination that makes all the difference.That's the "juice" and the real question I think.

I m glad you are glad.Though supposing there is God indeed,his way of "thinking" is way more irrational than mine.

. I don't think you should choose to role play god, especially when you make such bad decisions when you do — universeness

Well it's not in my future plans.So no worries.

No, that would be very bad indeed, as you rob people of the truth of their own origins. — universeness

So now that let's say God exists you are sure of your origin aw??

but not if some omnigod just created us for its own entertainment, as it found its omni status unsatisfactory — universeness

Even if that was the case you would never know it.You would be sure for example that your existences is a random thing.So what's the harm there?You wouldn't have any anxiety at all about God as people have now that don't even know if he exists for sure.You would have an answer at least.Still sounds much better to me.

We can, and want to, and will be, masters of our own destiny as a species, — universeness

Doesn't seem that way though the way things are now.Since most people consider God as their master.
God also seems to have much fun already, seeing his "kids" as you say keep wondering about his existence or not.And slaughtering each other without him intervening.But you don't seem to be bothered by that.

So, you would choose to create beings which were inferior to yourself and then you would leave them ignorant of your existence and then you would watch as they floundered around hopelessly trying to discover why they exist. You would not help your own creation in any way. An absent creator deity who takes no responsibility for the suffering of its own creations. You would be a god that gets it's jollies in nasty ways. — universeness

Yeah more or less what is going on already with the current God.But he wishes to be worshipped also.I wouldn't.
Plus it would be better people to stop wondering why they exist and focus all of their energy on how they can exist in the best way they could.Doesnt sound that bad to me.

What would be their grandest thought regarding existence if "God" was a concept unavailable to them? — Benj96

In fact that question is mostly the reason that I would have made such a decision.

Yeah I would be a really curious God.So i wouldn't intervene at all.Plus i wouldn't be a mystery for them.Since none would believe i exist.

I would be curious to see what they could or couldn't achieve with having faith only to themselves.

If i were God i would make all people stop believing on me.

Well since you take the actualism side as i understand from the links,then we merely agree.I don't see our reality like a combination of all possible realities that could exist.But more like just one version(frame) of many possible others.At least we share the belief that we just talk for one world and its reality and not for many others.

Our reality" consists in every possible "form of how real can be presented". Analogously, chess consists in every game that it is possible to play, whether or not they are ever played, and not just instantiated by a single representative (perfect? ideal?) game of chess — 180 Proof

Yeah but our reality is just one of the possible forms.That's why is named "our".Not all possible forms together,as the use of "consists in" might make someone think.
Analogously we play just one game of all the possible games that can be played in chess.

Anyway i think we have an agreement at the core of your argument.The rest(like the word consists that i objected or your corrections)seem more like wording details that don't change much the essence.

In other words, the territory does not transcend its mapping so much as the territory is conceived of as an ensemble of all of its possible maps; 'reality as such' as a generalization from – simplification of – many different, particular realities (i.e. ways of depicting and modeling). — 180 Proof

So at the end you think that "our real" is just one form of how real can be presented? One of numerous other possible forms that can be?Or you mean something else?

Well not really.I don't have the fuel for that and is really late here. i have to go to bed.Plus i don't think a misunderstanding took place here.Questions were simple and specific.

You just told me what real shouldn't be considered (which I also disagreed) but nothing about what real should be considered then after all for us humans.
Turning it into definitions once again.I care much more about the actual concepts that words try to describe.And they don't have to be defined perfectly as to still find out things about them.
We lose the forest for the tree with all that endless circular definition game that takes place constantly here on TPF.Anyway i m sure we will discuss about it again.

My dear Banno.I value your opinions( despite the stubbornness and the irony that they are inhaled) but at that post exchange we had at this thread,you did waste my time and in fact i wanted to do something indeed.
If you re read our conversation you fucked me up for good.Going me from one generalization to another without discussing about the actual "juice" at all.And now this..

I'm saying that we don't always need to start with definitions - indeed, that we cannot always start with definitions.

A moment's consideration of the nature of definitions will show this to be so. — Banno

Another irrelevant generalization that says nothing about what i asked or wanted to talk about.So we might not always need to start with definitions,i agree ..anddd?
Anyway let's drop it.

On a more serious note and putting aside what I said earlier about "real" here, if a word is causing more obscurity than clarity, perhaps its best either to drop the word, or using it sparingly. We can get awfully tangled up in arguing about the meaning of words as opposed to arguing ideas. — Manuel

Manuel had seen that coming.




Once again stupid definition games that you just use and some other members here as to hide behind every time you run out of arguments.Putting Witty ahead as authority.Well sorry but Wittgenstein never said what you imply in many of your posts that we shouldn't discuss at all issues and concepts that aren't perfectly defined.
I ask you specific questions and you give me back silly generalizations.

shown in the way we use the word in our language games... — Banno

And that way also make us understand our reality as we do know.

It says nothing.Stop the games here please.So it can't be defined totally so that's it??we cant say anything about it?Make like it doesn't exist? That's your thesis?

In science things are not 'true' as such they are 'not false'. Yet. — Tom Storm

That's where the magic in science lies.

like; but be honest about it, realise that is what you are doing. — Banno

How i do that exactly?Again to the statements i made above you disagree?if yes tell me where.

Pfff..What exactly was that know?We go back to the definition game again?So we can't define perfectly what reality means so let's shut up and not talk about it at all.Hmm in fact we can't have absolute definitions about anything at all now that i think about it.So let's shut up in general and remain in eternal silence.
I expected more from you.

Reality is not defined by what we perceive. We perceive stuff that is not real, and there is stuff that is real yet unperceived. — Banno

How else is defined if not by what we perceive??We perceive stuff that are real indeed.But it is not the only way of how these stuff could be.I still can't understand your disagreement here.
Your sentence above says nothing about how you think real should be defined then and sorry but i will not read all your posts here as to find it out where you mention it.If you wanna tell me ok if not it's still fine.

What is important here is to realise that saying things like " Reality only makes sense in comparison to what humans see, hear, feel, taste, and smell" and "Reality is ineluctable", and "Reality and what we perceive as real is totally attached to the way our physiology is" we are not doing science. — Banno

Can you explain me what your disagreement is to the above statements?You find them wrong?
By the way I didn't discover America here.These are well known views that in fact many many scienctists support.Are they not doing science either?

And what we cannot know at all cannot form part of our understanding. The only response one might make to it is silence.

Anything you say about what cannot be said will by that very status be wrong. — Banno

That's exactly what science does though.Explore what we can actually know.It isn't limited only to what can be said.At the very end we can never know the borders of science.And after years what can and what cannot be said.So you can never be sure about what we cannot know.

So better that science doesn't follow the silence path that you suggest.

But the concepts of "real" and "reality" were created by humans for use by humans to describe a world of human experiences. They only have meaning in relation to us. — T Clark

Yeah but that "Something" outside of us that we are also part of it wasn't created by Humans.But we know there is.So let's suppose a different creature with different mind and physiology appear.The same "Something" would be real for it also.They would be part of the same Something,and they would understand that something exists except themselves.So they might not be able to name it as real but they will know is there.

Even in humans before we develop language and name what we perceive as real,still we could understand that Something exists.We could feel it and act like that.We just couldn't name it.

there is a reality which is mostly stable and enduring for everyone under everyday human conditions. — T Clark

True.But you have to acknowledge also that this is totally filtered by our human physiology,our senses and brain.
It would be too egoistic for humans to think that their physiology is the only "right" or possible one ,that can or has been created in this vast and timeless universe.

Yes ,other possible forms of reality can't be known by humans and probably we shouldn't care about them at all then.Just focus on ours and end of story.It is a view indeed.But that still doesn't make our reality the only right one.

that what we mean by "real" and "reality" only has meaning in relation to everyday human experience. I think that's a metaphysical position, so I wasn't looking to see if it was right, but if it is useful. — T Clark

If you think it better,it is not metaphysical position at all.It is in fact true.
Reality and what we perceive as real is totally attached to the way our physiology is. So indeed real has meaning only in relation to humans.

As to your thread question,for me our reality is a form of the actual reality indeed.But there must be numerous of other forms also.Depending from the observer.
So we are sure that there is "Something" that we see as real.But it is real only to us.Notice that doesn't make it less real.Still is!But it is just one way of how that "Something" can be presented to the observer.
What we humans call real is ,imo, just a version(or a frame) of what actual "real" can be.

You answered my questions but you generated many more.Unfortunately my knowledge in semiotics isn't deep at all as to counter argue your thesis and keep up.
But you have interesting views, especially with the holistic way of approaching nature's function and wanting to force that holistic view in physics also.I liked that.I can't say that i m convinced that this could be the right approach to QM also but sure it's something that worths consideration.

Anyway your posts were really interesting and analytic.And made me extra curious about semiotics.I will search more.

First thanks for your time answering the questions and also for being so analytic.Excellent post.

We have the opposite desire of wanting to make the world ever more like our rationalising model of it. — apokrisis

So we agree that at the end we do try to make world-nature fit into our reasoning about it.But well that's a trap.
The real question is if we could ever figure out how nature is and works regardless of our minds or senses.The real "nature" of nature,so to speak.

We arrive at the scientific method with its formal theories and instruments designed to reduce the material world to a data set. — apokrisis

Is that enough though?Can actually material world be reduced only in data and how accurate that could be?
Is it possible that we might need a new set of semiotics then as to go further,at least to difficult questions like in QM?And can we actually establish a new set of semiotics that could go even Maths further?I have no idea of what these semiotics could be or even if it is actually possible,if you ask me.

And a new kind of self has to emerge to be able to live in such a world. For this world to make sense, we need to remake ourselves as that kind of intelligence. — apokrisis

I think now we reach to the core of our discussion.
So I guess you suggest that we need a new form of reasoning that would make us think different about what we observe.A new intelligence.A paradigm shift.Right?Is that possible then?And if yes how? Would that be a next step in human evolution? Leaving Homo behind?

Metaphysics is about seeking the logical structure that could produce a reality in some self-creating or self-necessitating way. — apokrisis

Nice.

We don't actually have to collapse to claim to make an observation. We just give nature no other choice – when it comes to the state of a switch – that it registers the digital fact of being either on or off. It returns either a 0 or a 1. — apokrisis

So you do agree also that is possible no collapse at all taking place over there and we just think we spot one?Right?

It would take a lot of training to think more contextually, structurally, or holistically about causality. — apokrisis

What could that training be?

And in a more general sense, we become the kind of minds that see their worlds in that particular kind of light. — apokrisis

Exactly.

So you have to live in that world, but you can't speak its language. Frustrating. — apokrisis

More than frustrating..

So now we are only saying that if we constrain quantum indeterminism to the point it has to answer a yes/no question, then - not particularly magically or weirdly - we get a yes or a no from our device. We have forced the world to act in a mechanical fashion. It has given us a classical reply – even if this reply failed to constrain all the other things we might have chosen to measure in the same mechanical fashion. — apokrisis

Your approach is really interesting and it triggers a question that i have for years and it applies here also.
Our senses are limited.That is a fact.We invent technology-devices to extend our already given senses.And they do, but only to the specific senses we have.

So following to what you wrote above.Can we actually escape from the mechanical way we see the nature??Can we Indeed build-invent a device that can actually give us a different from "yes or no" answer?? Or are we condemned to our realization of things in a limited way from our own consciousness?The way it is structured?Our limited senses?Can we actually achieve that?? Quantum mechanics at its core rises that questions, I think.

It is only human intelligence that allows it to construct a mechanism of measurement which will limit a quantum potential to such a degree that a device reacts in some black and white way. An event is recorded. — apokrisis

Again as above.

So the whole collapse thing is an artefact in this view. It is tied to human acts of measurement which involves the physics of flipping switches – a physics that itself exists only at this atypical moment in cosmic history, and only due to the fact that humans have invented this whole system for turning reality into numbers on dials. — apokrisis

Can we escape dials then?Maths is science's God.And they do deserve that title.It is our most reliable way for evidences.
But still as you mentioned for reality and measurement, also here reality doesn't require maths as to exist.Maths could easily be just a human invention and nothing more.

Since you seem like a person with scientific background i wanna make another question to you also.

What would you say about the idea that there is happening no collapse at all.But we just think that we "spot"one ,cause we are condemned from our own consciousness to see it like that?Cause our consciousness can't conceive something being everywhere at the same time?
It just is out of its abilities, lower than its radar.Notice ,it is not metaphysics here.Just the way that our consciousness-senses actually are built.
I mean it's not consciousness that interferes matter and "decides" for the result of what we observe.It is just what our consciousness can actually reach.And same as with the devices we build for measurements,as extensions to that consciousness.

Our consciousness "needs" a specific result for the observation cause that's how it works as to interpretate things and well it "sees" a specific result at the end because nothing else would make "sense" for it.

Do you get what i ask or am I too vague?Is that somehow going back to Coppenchangen approach??

All the players are tightly constrained to stay within the maths, but allowed to be free as they like with their ontologies. — apokrisis

Nice.

This doesn't look like a deadend. It looks more like a serious conversation about the most difficult of things. — apokrisis

Well even if you name it serious conversation (and truly is) still it is born from the deadend to explain/figure out what these observations in QM means for nature,so far at least.

That is now the least supported version of Copenhagenism. — apokrisis

You mean now in 2022 after that survey right?Well then i would call that a progress.So which is the dominate interpretation now?Decoherence?

is how actual measurements can get made when the observer is also part of the system. — apokrisis

Plus the technology machine that is used for that measurement , which is also part of the system.

You still don't know where to place the epistemic cut – the division between the observer and the observed – in a generally agreed sense. — apokrisis

Exactly.Where the line is drawn.

We should now know just where to look to find the intersection between classical observers and their quantum realities. — apokrisis

Hmm..Do we know indeed?

So it is just science doing its thing of following the evidence. Which is what makes it easy to distinguish from crackpots doing their thing. — apokrisis

But the problem is that in QM the "evidence" lead to a deadend so far.The actual theory itself is schocking and mind blowing to what we already knew about nature.And that's the reason generating so many different interpretations.And such no surprise that many of these "crackpots" are actually well known scientists.So I don't think is easy to distinguish them.Except from "extreme cases of crackpotters".

By the way, i remember how surprised (not to say schocked) I felt when i first read that the dominate interpretation in QM is Coppenchangen's.
That consciousness affects the results.Mind interferes matter.That's actually pure metaphysics!
And I never expected that the majority of scientists would hold such a metaphysical-idealistic view.

I don't have the scientific knowledge to judge if it is right or wrong but still till these days i m surprised from the acceptance it has among scientific society.
For sure though, QM theory gave a huge boost to idealism at its "eternal fight" against materialism.

A really interesting notion to T Clark's poll is also the second preferable interpretation.I didnt know that "Information theory" had so many supporters.Interesting.

Mind independence is simply what "real" means. What is your problem with this definition? — hypericin

The problem with that definition is that by that ,we cannot say about anything at all that is "real".Since every procedure that allows us know/think/consider something as "real" is made via our minds.So nothing at all is actually mind independent.

I can add nothing to your moral understanding, and only wish you and him well, whatever you decide to do. — unenlightened

Same here.Whatever you decide to do you are morally covered.Choosing keeping him for all that time you have done so far,is heroic already.Best wishes.

It will not work for a soldier, who must be prepared at times to put his own health and life at risk, — unenlightened

I suspect Tom could become a "soldier" too under some circumstances and for his own reasons.And fight like a lion.
And i suspect that these reasons are way more important and worth more than the reasons for those actual soldiers fight for.I would prefer more "Toms" than soldiers in this world.

No, I did not say that — Bartricks

Yes. It's not remotely reasonable to believe one is God. After all, my arguments apply to us all, and there are billions of us and only one God, so the odds are at least billions to one. But still, it can't be ruled out entirely. — Bartricks