The goal is to describe how things are in reality, not to produce mutually exclusive categories.

This is not physics, it’s ontology and metaphysics. So the first goal is to establish logical categories or else you end up contradicting yourself.

Do you agree or not?

Nothing gets cut, nothing gets divided, it’s a matter of speech and it can be expressed in different context with different terms, as I already explained, but you keep making the same mistake of being strangely literal about a hypothetical abstract concept.

It’s not a matter of opinion. Divisible is the opposite to indivisible, continuous is the opposite to discrete, and analog is the opposite to digital. That’s all.

At the end of the experiment there are two streams of zeros and ones on two tapes and first you have to pair them to calculate the result or “correlation”, but you can’t be sure which numbers are actual pairs because sometimes numbers on one tape don’t have corresponding pair, or have more than one pair on the other tape. So this “matching” process is a whole new kind of science on its own, or magic rather, depending on what you do here entirely determines the result and conclusion.

It’s a joke, a farce. Having seen this kind of nonsense, how it’s reinterpreted and “hidden” from common knowledge, how most people don’t know about it, I not only have no confidence in any peer-review system, to me it looks like some kind of conspiracy.

I disagree that there’s no ghost in the machine and the mind is only a virtual machine program.

Most people even today would consider software to be "immaterial” rather than virtual, and “ghost” was actually a pretty good description of software just until several decades ago, in a sense that, at the time of execution, you can not see software, you can not quite point where it is, nor what it is, and yet it makes the machine do things.

I have no objection to call my program, that is my self, a ghost, especially since I plan on uploading myself out of this body into Earth’s magnetic field, to walk around naked and transparent, go through walls, scare little children, scream at night and engage in other ghostly entertainment activities.

Do you agree, that if you divide that line at C, it then consists of the parts AC, CB, and is therefore not a continuous line from A to B?

That’s why I insist it should be referred to as “infinite divisibility” rather than “continuity”, it is far more specific and avoids this kind of misinterpretation.

Your logic is not wrong, just inadequate because you don’t get two logically opposite and mutually exclusive categories: continuous / divisible vs. discrete / indivisible.

So no, we divide a line and we do not get two parts, we get two lines, and if we supposed lines are continuous, then obviously we get two continuities. Think of it as analog vs. digital.

You keep insisting to put it in some literal or actual terms as if something really gets cut and divided. It’s all just a thought experiment, so instead of thinking about division as “cutting", think of it as how fine movement and precision you could theoretically achieve with an analog needle sliding over some gauge - then infinite divisibility, i.e. "continuous" is simply a claim there is always unique point C between any two points A and B, while "discrete" is naturally then the opposite claim of that.

Libet finds that conscious volition is exercised in the form of 'the power of veto' (sometimes called "free won't"[10][11]); the idea that conscious acquiescence is required to allow the unconscious buildup of the readiness potential to be actualized as a movement. While consciousness plays no part in the instigation of volitional acts, Libet suggested that it may still have a part to play in suppressing or withholding certain acts instigated by the unconscious. Libet noted that everyone has experienced the withholding from performing an unconscious urge. Since the subjective experience of the conscious will to act preceded the action by only 200 milliseconds, this leaves consciousness only 100-150 milliseconds to veto an action (this is because the final 20 milliseconds prior to an act are occupied by the activation of the spinal motor neurones by the primary motor cortex, and the margin of error indicated by tests utilizing the oscillator must also be considered).

This doesn't support the "bear" example the way you like but it does point towards determinism or scientific determinism. The latter i would agree with.

Again, you say you disagree, but you never say what is it you disagree with. Are you a robot?

The problem is you have drawn conclusions that cannot be drawn from the Libet experiment. Humans may not have a say in their future decisions based on billiards table effect of the universe, but your interpretation of the "bear" example is not found in the Libet experiment.

What do you think I said? What exactly are you arguing against?

However, it cannot actually be divided anywhere or else it is not continuous.

Continuous does not mean indivisible, it means “composed of no parts”, i.e infinitely divisible. Indivisible is what discrete means, it’s the opposite.

We draw a line from A to B. That line is either continuous in space / time or not, but we can divide it in either case by placing point C somewhere in between.

what keywords do i google?

You said “it’s not complex enough”. It was about time delay, not complexity. Almost every neuroscientist and philosopher will tell you there is no free will based on -> Libet experiment <- and similar.

Do you have an article?

Yes, many, because what I said is not controversial at all. Google it!

Nope. Try again. Perhaps you are misinterpreting WebMD or is that your own philosophy? That doesn't line up with reality

You try again, you forgot to say what exactly do you believe doesn't line up with reality. In the meantime I will repeat what I sad. Experience is a synthetic virtual representation of the physical state of the body. This simulation processing takes time, so it is only natural that physical reaction comes first and mental re-imagination of it second.

The above quote encapsulates an argument against free will for if we didn't chose our preferences (likes and dislikes) and all our actions are determined by our preferences then it follows that we're not free; we are automatons, each with its own preprogrammed set of dispositions that will ultimately determine every course of action that we'll ever choose in the course of our lives.

You say that as if it could be some other way that unfortunately just didn’t turn out to be the case. You say “freedom”, but you describe a multiple personality disorder.

Also, I never said I believe in panpyschism. But it is worth considering.

Sorry, I thought I was talking to Pfhorrest.

However, what happens when you see a sad movie. You obviously don't start crying before processing its content and experiencing the mental state of 'sadness'.

Yes, interaction goes both ways, but the mind is secondary in many respects. For example, some people get brain seizure while driving or playing an instrument and they continue their activity totally unconscious as if nothing happened. In fact they fail to react to novel or unusual stimuli, so there, that’s what the mind is for.

Bell theorem / hidden variable - is a mix of misinterpretations about the theory, what experiments are measuring, and how to read and interpret results.

It’s not easy to find what the actual experiment looks like, everyone is theorising from their armchair, relying on a story which itself relies on a few experimental reports from fifty or more years ago. What is really going on in the experiment, what is the data readout, and how it has to be sorted, adjusted, and interpreted in a certain way... that's apparently not the kind of stuff that goes into Wikipedia.

To answer the first point, I say that the mind is the ego; the I as it meant in the original Latin. Cogito ergo sum as Rene Descartes said.

That is true, in a way, but is just a play with words, substituting one phrase with another having equally no any grounding. By “grounding” I mean empirical connection, a kind of information that actually matters in some way.

Ego, soul, self, ghost, integrated information, quantum collapse, illusion, hallucination… as is described by the most prominent thinkers of today. It’s all over the place, children would have come up with more coherent “consensus”, and yet all those words point to what the mind is, in some way, allegorically, but none are really describing it. More or less those are just empty labels, too vague and ambiguous to carry any useful meaning.

Given that there is enough evidence from the medical literature that the mind can still act and perceive in states without any brain activity; it’s a foregone conclusion to me that the mind cannot be reduced down to the brain.

There is a guy who was sceptic about near death experience and decided to debunk it. However, while investigating he became less sceptic and eventually organised an investigation to be conducted across many hospitals by placing signs or pictures on top of furniture, so if a dying patient indeed gets to float out of the body near the ceiling they would be able to see and later describe what it was.

I think this was in the UK around 5 years ago, but I can’t find any follow up on that story, possibly because the result was negative. But even if it was positive the debate would remain with all the questions still open - what does it mean, why and how it works.

What is the mind?
What is being measured in brain scans like MRIs?

The most specific and pragmatic categorisation in the scope of our current understanding is that mind is a program, a virtual reality simulation within the nervous system, a kind of virtual machine. No ghost, just another machine in the machine, but it is software or virtual machine.

Brain scans measure flow of signals, indirectly, just like we could measure flow of signals between the logic gates and other circuits inside a computer by placing ampere / volt meters around the motherboard, but raw signals are themselves only indirect representation of which program is running and what program is doing within itself, i.e. inside virtual reality simulation.

So, a mind needs a brain like a program needs a computer, but that does not necessarily mean a mind can not exist in some other kind of “brain”, it means that is actually a likely possibility.

The present is not distinct from the past and the future, it is an indefinite moment such that we directly perceive the continuous flow of time.

You can not argue with “indefinite”. It means you are unable to say anything specific about it, and using ignorance to claim knowledge is the funniest paradox here, so far.

Right, an "instant" is not a real part of time, and that is why time cannot be continuous. There is something which breaks the continuity, which is called the "instant".

You can not resolve the issue by not addressing the issue, so until you start talking about continuity in terms of infinite divisibility there is no distinction what is it you two are really talking about.

Indeed, and if time is not composed of instants, then it must be continuous.

True, which means "infinitely divisible", hence the paradox.

Time is a real law that governs existents

Can you translate that into English? What is "real law", how is it different than "not-real law", and how is it different from conteporary understanding of time?

Are you familiar with Zeno's paradoxes. The substance of his paradoxes is that what is described in theory does not occur in practise. In theory Achilles cannot reach the tortoise in the race, in practise this is not so. The paradox is resolved by realizing that the theory is based in faulty premises, the infinite divisibility of space and time.

Explain that to Aletheist. That's where his confusion is, and anything else you two are talking about is beside that essential point.

I get my information from studying philosophy, where continuity is the feature of an undivided existence. So when mathematicians look at the divisibility of the undivided, it produces the paradox I described. The paradox is maybe easier to understand in Zeno's terms.

We agree about Zeno and divisibility in that sense. The problem was you then started talk about divisibility in terms of past, present, and future - where did you get that, some reference?

I can promise you even people who stay and don't run from the bear are still scared, its not that simple.

Experience is a synthetic virtual representation of the physical state of the body. This simulation processing takes time, so it is only natural that physical reaction comes first and mental re-imagination of it second.

If you go by panpyschism or functionalist panpyschism, then all of those are conscious.

I see, a tree is conscious even if all of its parts are already conscious on their own. So I am conscious and my brain is conscious, but so is my elbow and my nose, my eyelash, my pimple, my socks, and my bubblegum. How cute, and is there any actual reason, any reason at all, that makes you believe that?

Sure, anything that can reasonably be considered an object can also be considered a subject of experience.

There is nothing reasonable in what you are saying, so I'm asking you for the fifth time to explicitly name it. Leaf, branch, tree, forest.. what is conscious?

The functionality of things is what groups them. The way information flows through systems, the causal connectedness or isolation of them.

Can those words produce some examples? Leaf, branch, tree, forest... each grain of sand or the whole beach - what is conscious?

There is no such process here.

What is it you expected to find, what exactly do you claim is missing?

Yes. What now?

That, and everything else. Panpsychism fails to make any empirically useful statement, it’s no less pointless than to claim god did it. It means nothing in particular, it explains nothing at all. Panpsychism is worse mysterianism than mysterianism itself, for mysterianism has some reasoning behind it.

Emergentism claims that consciousness is more than the sum of its parts. Or put another way, that the parts are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for (self) consciousness.

Panpsychism claims that the parts (or a part) are sufficient for consciousness, but in order to make this claim its proponents need to redefine consciousness as two different things; phenomenal and access. Phenomenal consciousness being a necessary condition of access consciousness. Or, put another way Access, or self-consciousness, emerging from phenomenal consciousness.

Put this way there seems to be little or no difference between the two positions apart from the convoluted terminology required in order to argue for panpsychism.

Yeah.

When we talk about consciousness aren't we really talking about self-consciousness? After all, what could non self consciousness possibly be?

There is “self” as a system that is having mental states and there is “me” as a content of mental states. “Self” is a physical entity, “me” is a virtual entity / representation.

Feeling of “me” can be dissolved, but there always has to be that “self” that is experiencing / memorising whatever the feeling is, even if the experience itself can deny it. For example there are people who think they are dead or do not exist, but the “self” who is experiencing such mental state of course still exists.

If you think that continuity is defined by infinite divisibility, then you misunderstand continuity.

It’s not a matter of opinion, but of speaking the same language as the rest of the world. The defining and most relevant aspect of continuity when talking about space and time is infinite divisibility. You have the whole internet to see that for yoursel, where do you get your information?

So the continuity, in theory is divisible anywhere (infinitely divisible), but in practise (in reality) it cannot be divided anywhere or else it would not be a continuity.

Continuous / analog is defined by infinite divisibility, it means “composed of no parts”, it does not mean “composed of infinitely many parts”. Discrete / digital is defined by already being divided into unit parts which can not be further divided.

There is no theory / practice distinction here, we are talking about the most general logical categories to differentiate two possible ontologies - analog vs. digital. Then we test both via thought experiments such as Zeno’s paradoxes.

So yes, we can divide continuity and we get two continuities plus one paradox, but there is nothing “real” or practical about any of it, all is just a thought experiment and semantic / logical conclusions.

DNA does not work by being a sign, but mechanically. Hence, it needs no interpretation or interpreter.

DNA is a set of instructions and it is perfectly valid to call them symbols, as we do in genetics. Besides, there are no signs in the computer either, once the program starts execution it’s all hardware. Everything is mechanical / electrical, and that has absolutely no bearing on whether it needs “interpretation” or it doesn’t. DNA replication programs and every other biological process are obvious examples.

We use words analogously to cover new needs. As a result various uses need not mean the same thing, and what they name need not work in the same way. Normal instructions and rules are signs which must be interpreted by a mind before they can be implemented. There is no such set of instructions in human physiology. Rather, there are laws of nature that act on initial physical states to produce later physical states without need of interpretation. So we must be careful not to be fooled when the same words are used with differ meanings in different cases.

Narrow thinking will not help your understanding. Those were rhetorical questions, but instead of to realize your errors, you are trying to explain what is obviously false. Are you a zombie?

I am, however, glad that you see that the laws of nature are works of Mind.

The point was, you were wrong:

1. even computer programs are not symbolic at the time of execution
2. programs do not need programmers or interpreters to do their program
3. programs do not need programmers to exist, they can spontaneously evolve

No, programs implement the intentions of their programmers. They themselves are signs requiring human interpreters to actually signify.

No? Who is interpreting the signs in your DNA? And what do you call a process constrained by a set of instructions, such as processes in your body, your cells and organs, if not a program? Who wrote the function for your heartbeats, your blood flow, and your digestion? It’s all programs, and programs implement intentions too.

Aside from the fact that this claim is wholly unsupported by data, there is no reason to suppose simulating physical (simulation) operations can generate intentional operations.

It is supported by every single data, some of which I already explained. Programs are intentions.

Clearly, anything that can act in any way exist

Can "something that acts" be made of nothing, or it must be made of something?

I have no idea what this means. "Virtual" usually means "potential." Clearly, my actual intentions are not longer potential.

I said "it’s most accurate and pragmatic to call it “virtual reality”, a sort of simulation".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

See the OP. The same signals indicating I am seeing an apple also indicate that my retinal state has change.

What's the problem?

Panpsychism must be true in some way because it’s maximally vague and ambiguous. Consider emergentism, the opposite of panpsychism, and yet if true, panpsychist could still say the possibility of emergence was built-in throughout the fabric of the universe all along, and that would be truth, but useless truth. Too general to the point of being meaningless, like stating “everything is universe”. It’s far more reasonable to say “consciousness is a program”, because, at least in some way, that’s what it is.

For example, my intention to go to the store acts to motivate my motion toward the store.

Intentions, and other mental states, feelings and qualities, are not immaterial, they are virtual.

Would you care to show the contradiction? Please define "material" and "existence" and then show that existence entails material. I ask this because on the usual understandings these terms do not mean the same thing.

Your argument simply begs the question by assuming, a priori, that everything must be "made of something."

To exist is to be (made of) something rather than nothing. No assumptions, only logic. “Material / physical” is everything that is not nothing, but material existence can also be virtual, not just actual.

Of course, but what I am discussing is the first person perspective -- how it is that we know the difference between body states and object states.

While I agree, this does not solve the problem I am raising.

Can you give examples of what you are talking about?

What differentiates one consciousness from another - leaf, branch, tree, forest... each grain of sand or the whole beach - what is conscious? Also, what is the point of a claim that can not be confirmed in principle and has no explanatory power?