Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

[Michael Allen]

Why ask me? I'm just beginning to read Metzinger. Surely you are better equipped to make this comparison.

No...I haven't read Humphrey...I figured YOU had read BOTH. I am not as well read as you think.

 

[Michael Allen]

To be clear I skimmed Humphrey ...and found some elements that seemed to correspond with Metzinger...I was hoping you'd [Constance] be able to clear up any questions on their diffs.

Metzinger's "being no-one" thesis is a troll...just like Dennett's "Consciousness Explained"....but both of these trolls bring very disasterous questions against our own "thoughs" about our "thinking." What I gather is that "we" will understand our own basis of <we> once we decide we cannot ever "understand" that basis...but such a recognition will signal to "ourselves" the unreachable depths (event horizon of a black hole) where precisely our own cognition fails to grok it's own basis of existence.

 

[Michael Allen]

No kidding. A book doesn't have a living point of view, a unique frame of reference. People do. A copy of a person can only make a different person, regardless of the identicalness of everything else. Even two separate but identical books are uniquely individual. The book on the shelf is not the book on the table, and if the book on the table is thrown onto the burning pile of books outside, the one on the shelf doesn't suddenly burst into flames.

The Buzz Light Year in the store window is not the same Buzz Light Year in the child's toy chest. An x number of identical copies do not constitute a single giant book. They constitute x number of individual copies. But perhaps if all the copies had some sort of hive mind, the lines might get blurry. No. Let me correct that. The lines would definitely get blurry ( at least for me at the present time ).

But what makes "people" have a uniqueness even under the conditions of perfect replication?

Are you doing to rely on you're own "experience" of being a copy? We understand what it means to "copy" something static in a way that all of what we deem to be "important" is the same...but a copy is NEVER exactly the same as the "original" (as if)...

We cannot think in terms of the objects we think we comprehend....and thus we cannot retro-fit objectivity into a system that supercedes and creates the BASIS for both "objective" and "subjective"...we cannot fit a full meaning of being in the very entity or object...or subject...or any verbal or mental division of being into a box that supercedes the very entity that creates the "box"...

We get back to the very simple point....that the very point of the needle of being cannot "prick" itself

This is so obvious...I feel as though I am a broken record.

 

[Randall]

Apparently you haven't looked at enough OBE cases. How did you miss the one in which an elderly woman near-death in a hospital told a medical social worker attending her that she had floated out of the hospital and upward several floors and discovered a pair of worn red tennis shoes on a ledge?

I'd be happy to examine the case if you can provide a link. If it's not simply hearsay and can be verified as not being some sort of hoax or urban myth, then maybe, and that's a big maybe there's something to it, and you can feel as though you've enlightened some other readers here besides me.

 

[Randall]

But you are moving something from one location to the other...

“Imagine, in the early days of books, a small library consisting entirely of original manuscripts. Some of them are very old, and have been attacked by mice. Some have deteriorated so much that their pages crumble to dust when the custodian of the library tries to read them. He mourns the loss of these books, and contemplates the inevitable decay of the remaining books with sorrow. To be sure, new manuscripts are occasionally added to the library, but they cannot replace the volumes that are lost forever. This goes on until, one day, the young assistant librarian has an idea. “This book will be unreadable in five years,” he tells his elder. “But I can read it now. If I copy the words of this book onto sheets of new vellum, and bind them in a strong new binding, we will be able to read it for many decades to come.” The old librarian tenderly strokes the cracked spine of the crumbling volume, and shakes his head. “What good is a copy? It wouldn’t be the same book.”

If we copy the “pattern” of a human and replicate it, then we are teleporting the pattern. Arguably the most important aspect of the human.

Unlike the old man who sentimentally clings to the physical copy of the book and doesn’t realize the most important part is the information it contains, we can recognize that the important part of the human organism is it’s pattern, and not the biological substrate embodying the pattern.

Transmitting or copying information about something physical isn't the same as transporting the thing itself. I do believe that you know the difference. I'm sure neither one of us would be happy with the idea of someone killing us and replacing us with a copy, no matter how good that copy is, or whether that copy thinks they are us or not.

But we don't even have to go that far. Suppose a woman has a favorite doll that she's kept safe in the original packaging and lovingly cared for over the years since her childhood , dragging it from place to place, always with her, and then one day her apartment is broken into and her doll is stolen. Will it be sufficient to simply replace it with another one from eBay? Not likely. She will never see the replacement the same way she sees her original.

 

[Randall]

But what makes "people" have a uniqueness even under the conditions of perfect replication?

Primarily, from a consciousness perspective, each person experiences the world through their senses from their unique point of view in 3D space. Copy X1 on the left side of the room sees the world differently than Copy X2 on the right side of the room. So even if each copy could be identical, they are not having an experience that is one in the same.

Are you doing to rely on you're own "experience" of being a copy? We understand what it means to "copy" something static in a way that all of what we deem to be "important" is the same...but a copy is NEVER exactly the same as the "original" (as if)...

I agree that a copy is never the same as the original. No argument there.

We cannot think in terms of the objects we think we comprehend....and thus we cannot retro-fit objectivity into a system that supercedes and creates the BASIS for both "objective" and "subjective"...we cannot fit a full meaning of being in the very entity or object...or subject...or any verbal or mental division of being into a box that supercedes the very entity that creates the "box"... We get back to the very simple point....that the very point of the needle of being cannot "prick" itself. This is so obvious...I feel as though I am a broken record.

Let's unpack that. What exactly do you mean by, "We cannot think in terms of the objects we think we comprehend." Why not? Example please. Let's pick an object and proceed. For example, I look out my window at the mountains in the distance. I comprehend ( or at least apprehend ) mountains in the distance, so why can I not think of this scene in terms of mountains in the distance?

 

[Michael Allen]

Michael Allen said:
But what makes "people" have a uniqueness even under the conditions of perfect replication?

"Primarily, from a consciousness perspective, each person experiences the world through their senses from their unique point of view in 3D space. Copy X1 on the left side of the room sees the world differently than Copy X2 on the right side of the room. So even if each copy could be identical, they are not having an experience that is one in the same."

Agreed

Are you doing to rely on you're own "experience" of being a copy? We understand what it means to "copy" something static in a way that all of what we deem to be "important" is the same...but a copy is NEVER exactly the same as the "original" (as if)...

What does a "copy" mean for something that is experiencing the process that they "deem" to be "copying?" The fatal flaw is trying to derive a meaning from the meaning generator.
I agree that a copy is never the same as the original. No argument there.

We cannot think in terms of the objects we think we comprehend....and thus we cannot retro-fit objectivity into a system that supercedes and creates the BASIS for both "objective" and "subjective"...we cannot fit a full meaning of being in the very entity or object...or subject...or any verbal or mental division of being into a box that supercedes the very entity that creates the "box"... We get back to the very simple point....that the very point of the needle of being cannot "prick" itself. This is so obvious...I feel as though I am a broken record.

"Let's unpack that. What exactly do you mean by, "We cannot think in terms of the objects we think we comprehend." Example please. Please Leave needles and other analogies out of it. Pick an object that is applicable, and proceed. For example, I look out my window at the mountain in the distance. I comprehend a mountain in the distance, so why can I not think in terms of mountains in the distance?"


We cannot "think" in terms of the very objects we find as components of our own thinking....A being that thinks and realizes it's own ability to think must turn on itself as something that is beneath or enveloped in it's own feeling of completeness of it's own connection and embedded world-as-being-as-itself.... To be clear, the more you try to find clarity in the foundations of consciousness the more clouded your own self-self--....<as many levels as you can envelop in your own mind and still "feel" ownership"> ...self-self-...replicated to infinity...you cannot find the vanishing point between the mirrors of your own attempt to "reflect" and answer the gnawing question. The problem is that the basis of your "answer" lies in a fundamental abruptness in encountering itself-as-world. You cannot answer the basis of your own ability to form and question being in the way "you" wish....

The window...your mind and eyes staring at a window has already directed itself through a window (you are already "windowing")....
The window looking at the mountain....(you are already the mountain)
In the distance (you have already been the essence of "distance" before you saw the window and the mountain)

Comprehension...you already "comprehended" the entire affair above before you decided to ask the question "what do I comprehend?"

 

[Michael Allen]

If "you" notice the "'you' have already...." points to something which has temporally pulled itself into being through millions (if not billions) of years of "alreadys"...when "you" think about "you," include the billions of years that made "you"

 

[Michael Allen]

Consciousness, Being and Sentience....is a chain of inevitable and eventually incomprehensible "alreadys" [plural non-existent in our lexicon...not surprising]

 

[Randall]

We cannot "think" in terms of the very objects we find as components of our own thinking....

It would help me a lot if you could replace the word "objects" with an example of the objects you are referring to, and replacing the word "terms" with some specific "terms" you are referring to, and put them together in a coherent sentence or paragraph that describes how they function as the "components" of our own thinking that you are referring to, because right now, to me, it all just looks like word salad, but I know you better than to assume that's the case. So I must need help seeing what it is you're trying to convey.

 

[Michael Allen]

Michael Allen said:
We cannot "think" in terms of the very objects we find as components of our own thinking....

"It would help me a lot if you could replace the word "objects" with an example of the objects you are referring to, and replacing the word "terms" with some specific "terms" you are referring to, and put them together in a coherent sentence or paragraph that describes how they function as the "components" of our own thinking that you are referring to, because right now, to me, it all just looks like word salad, but I know you better than to assume that's the case. So I must need help seeing what it is you're trying to convey."


As thinking beings we "objectify"--lets replace the word "objects" with "noun" and then define noun as a noise that helps the "thingy-packager-thingy" make more "thingy package of pure think"

"A 'thing' is a think" -- Alan Watts

A "thing"--object--we make words like sound legos to pass between other "WEs" making and translating the same sound legos....

Now you have both "object," "term" and "think" converging to the same questioning source of the same....

 

[Michael Allen]

Example 1: "I see a tree through a window"
Example 2: "I infer and feel my own internal and transparent window to example"
Example 3: "I encapsulate and wonder about what allowed me to make example 1 and 2 connected"

First order, second order....then we stand between two mirrors facing each other and attempt to locate and "see" the vanishing point

 

[Michael Allen]

It would help me a lot if you could replace the word "objects" with an example of the objects you are referring to, and replacing the word "terms" with some specific "terms" you are referring to, and put them together in a coherent sentence or paragraph that describes how they function as the "components" of our own thinking that you are referring to, because right now, to me, it all just looks like word salad, but I know you better than to assume that's the case. So I must need help seeing what it is you're trying to convey.

And yes...I hate word salads myself...thanks for giving me a benefit of doubt

 

[Soupie]

Transmitting or copying information about something physical isn't the same as transporting the thing itself. I do believe that you know the difference. I'm sure neither one of us would be happy with the idea of someone killing us and replacing us with a copy, no matter how good that copy is, or whether that copy thinks they are us or not.

Shifting the goal posts a bit.

The question is whether something gets teleported. Something does. The “person pattern.”

Sure, some bits of the pattern may get lost in the teleportation. But as long as those changes are trivial, it won’t matter. A copy of Les Miserables is still Les Mis even if a “the” gets changed to a “they.”

Re your doll analogy and the old man’s book analogy. Trivial.

If parents are able to get a “copy” of their child with a fully identical biological body with all the same memories, temperament, personality, laugh, feel, snuggles, potential, intelligence, etc. It won’t matter.

But but but... If (if!) this technology ever exists, we will completely change the way we think about personhood.

(Again, recall that this is exactly what happens on a much slower scale as we age.)

The biological substrate is not what’s important, it’s the pattern that the substrate embodies.

 

[Soupie]

Shifting the goal posts a bit.

The question is whether something gets teleported. Something does. The “person pattern.”

Sure, some bits of the pattern may get lost in the teleportation. But as long as those changes are trivial, it won’t matter. A copy of Les Miserables is still Les Mis even if a “the” gets changed to a “they.”

Re your doll analogy and the old man’s book analogy. Trivial.

If parents are able to get a “copy” of their child with a fully identical biological body with all the same memories, temperament, personality, laugh, feel, snuggles, potential, intelligence, etc. It won’t matter.

But but but... If (if!) this technology ever exists, we will completely change the way we think about personhood.

(Again, recall that this is exactly what happens on a much slower scale as we age.)

The biological substrate is not what’s important, it’s the pattern that the substrate embodies.

And yes, this does raise questions about the unitary, continuous feel of consciousness.

 

[Michael Allen]

Shifting the goal posts a bit.

The question is whether something gets teleported. Something does. The “person pattern.”

Sure, some bits of the pattern may get lost in the teleportation. But as long as those changes are trivial, it won’t matter. A copy of Les Miserables is still Les Mis even if a “the” gets changed to a “they.”

Re your doll analogy and the old man’s book analogy. Trivial.

If parents are able to get a “copy” of their child with a fully identical biological body with all the same memories, temperament, personality, laugh, feel, snuggles, potential, intelligence, etc. It won’t matter.

But but but... If (if!) this technology ever exists, we will completely change the way we think about personhood.

(Again, recall that this is exactly what happens on a much slower scale as we age.)

The biological substrate is not what’s important, it’s the pattern that the substrate embodies.

(1) you might find Les Miserables incomprehensible with "the" changed to "they"--I just downloaded the text and created a python script to do the translation...I find it most disconcerting

"
“At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six
months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said
that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a
mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be
set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me
go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is they
cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all
because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in they workroom. If
that is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her
work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery
followed. In they first place, theyre is one improvement which theyse
gentlemen of they police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison
contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you
see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, they price falls to
nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become
whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was
actually forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is
that that blackguard of a mayor caused all they mischief. After that I
stamped on that gentleman’s hat in front of they officers’ café; but he
had spoiled my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress
for evening wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately—truly,
Monsieur Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked
than I, and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who
gave orders that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak
to my landlord; I am paying my rent now; theyy will tell you that I am
perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally"



Code:



def translate_line(line):
return line.replace("the", "they")


def process_text():
buf = open("lesmiserables.txt", "r", encoding="utf8").readlines()
o_buf = open("modified.txt", "w")
for idx_line in buf:
try:
o_buf.write(translate_line(idx_line))
except UnicodeEncodeError:
pass
o_buf.close()


if __name__ == "__main__":
process_text()

 

[Michael Allen]

forgive my previous post...won't edit it because it will be flagged...somehow the whitespaces where eliminated when I copied my code...here it is in the correct form:

 

[Michael Allen]

Feel free to download and run the python script and see for yourself...try other translations by changing the translate_line(line) function

Loading…

www.gutenberg.org

For instance you can change "a" to "I" ...might want to import the re package "import re" and use regex to ensure spaces are captured...or you can include the spaces in the line.replace()

i.e. use "return line.replace(" the ", " they ") will fix a stupid bug I wrote into the first version

 

[Michael Allen]

Fixed (sort of) ...another snippet

It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure
before he would permit himself to apostrophize they sergeant as he had
done, after they mayor’s suggestion that Fantine should be set at
liberty. Had he reached they point of forgetting they mayor’s presence?
Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any
certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending
it? Or, in view of they enormities of which he had been a witness for
the past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to
recur to supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that they small
should be made great, that they police spy should transform himself into
a magistrate, that they policeman should become a dispenser of justice,
and that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality,
government, society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert?

 

[Michael Allen]

ok soupie, you win...still comprehensible because I've actually heard certain individuals using "they" for "the"...damnit...pick another translation!