Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9

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Amazon.com: The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? (Routledge Studies in Metaphysics) (9780415624657): Tyron Goldschmidt: Books

 

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Ergod

 

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@Soupie: "While it certainly is beyond our ken as to how consciousness could emerge from a non-conscious background, it is different problem then getting consciousness from a material background."

But you quote Strawson that we don't know enough about matter to say that cs can't arise from it?

 

[Soupie]

But you quote Strawson that we don't know enough about matter to say that cs can't arise from it?

Matter = Our map of the territory

 

[Soupie]

Matter = Our map of the territory

In other words, we don't know enough about the territory to say that it is not conscious.

 

[Soupie]

"I posit that reality has at least the properties needed for it to be as it is. Perhaps the core property of this reality is that it be self-sustaining.

I think that core property gets us very very far."



You can go as far as you like ... ;-)

Can you identify an alternative metaphysics in which reality is not self-sustaining?

 

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Can you identify an alternative metaphysics in which reality is not self-sustaining?

Lol ... That's my point! I guess we'd better move on.

 

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In other words, we don't know enough about the territory to say that it is not conscious.

I don't think that's what Strawson meant!

 

[Soupie]

I don't think that's what Strawson meant!

Does Strawson believe reality is fundamentally constitued of billiard balls?

 

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Does Strawson believe reality is fundamentally constitued of billiard balls?

Real Materialism - Oxford Scholarship

"This chapter discusses the following statements: materialists hold that every real, concrete phenomenon in the universe is a wholly physical phenomenon and consciousness (‘what-it's-likeness’, etc.) is the most certainly existing real, concrete phenomenon there is. It follows that all serious materialists must grant that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon. This leads on to this question: how can consciousness possibly be physical, given what we know about the physical? To ask this question is already to have gone wrong. We have no good reason (as Priestley, Eddington, Russell, and others observe) to think that we know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that consciousness is wholly physical."

 

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I'd like to move on now with the discussion of Psi and consciousness.

 

[Soupie]

Real Materialism - Oxford Scholarship

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile...sciousness-isnt-a-mystery-its-matter.amp.html

"We don’t see that the hard problem is not what consciousness is, it’s what matter is — what the physical is.

We may think that physics is sorting this out, and it’s true that physics is magnificent. It tells us a great many facts about the mathematically describable structure of physical reality, facts that it expresses with numbers and equations (e = mc2, the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction, the periodic table and so on) and that we can use to build amazing devices. True, but it doesn’t tell us anything at all about the intrinsic nature of the stuff that fleshes out this structure. Physics is silent — perfectly and forever silent — on this question.

This point was a commonplace one 100 years ago, but it has gotten lost in the recent discussion of consciousness. Stephen Hawking makes it dramatically in his book “A Brief History of Time.” Physics, he says, is “just a set of rules and equations.” The question is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” What is the fundamental stuff of physical reality, the stuff that is structured in the way physics reveals? The answer, again, is that we don’t know — except insofar as this stuff takes the form of conscious experience."

When humans perceive, observe, or otherwise measure reality, we get matter and physics.

The mistake is to assume that reality just is matter and physics.

What I am saying—and I believe Strawson and Russell were saying—is that reality just is consciousness and when we perceive, observe, or otherwise measure it, we get matter and physics.

I'm not saying that consciousness does not have properties. I believe it does. To what extent quantum and classical physics reveal those properties I'm not sure.

That consciousness has properties seems evident. I can say with as much certainty as possible that the structure of my experience changes in a geotemporal way.

Again, to what extent quantum and classical physics can explain this is a work in progress.

Ultimately what I'm saying is that matter and physics are (human) maps of the territory (consciousness). To the extent that the domain of physics is a fluid science, I don't see how Strawson's position differs.

 

[Soupie]

I'd like to move on now with the discussion of Psi and consciousness.

That's fine and I respect that. If you noticed, I only brought the topic up again as you had asked me a direct question.

 

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile...sciousness-isnt-a-mystery-its-matter.amp.html

"We don’t see that the hard problem is not what consciousness is, it’s what matter is — what the physical is.

We may think that physics is sorting this out, and it’s true that physics is magnificent. It tells us a great many facts about the mathematically describable structure of physical reality, facts that it expresses with numbers and equations (e = mc2, the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction, the periodic table and so on) and that we can use to build amazing devices. True, but it doesn’t tell us anything at all about the intrinsic nature of the stuff that fleshes out this structure. Physics is silent — perfectly and forever silent — on this question.

This point was a commonplace one 100 years ago, but it has gotten lost in the recent discussion of consciousness. Stephen Hawking makes it dramatically in his book “A Brief History of Time.” Physics, he says, is “just a set of rules and equations.” The question is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” What is the fundamental stuff of physical reality, the stuff that is structured in the way physics reveals? The answer, again, is that we don’t know — except insofar as this stuff takes the form of conscious experience."

When humans perceive, observe, or otherwise measure reality, we get matter and physics.

The mistake is to assume that reality just is matter and physics.

What I am saying—and I believe Strawson and Russell were saying—is that reality just is consciousness and when we perceive, observe, or otherwise measure it, we get matter and physics.

I'm not saying that consciousness does not have properties. I believe it does. To what extent quantum and classical physics reveal those properties I'm not sure.

That consciousness has properties seems evident. I can say with as much certainty as possible that the structure of my experience changes in a geotemporal way.

Again, to what extent quantum and classical physics can explain this is a work in progress.

Ultimately what I'm saying is that matter and physics are (human) maps of the territory (consciousness). To the extent that the domain of physics is a fluid science, I don't how Strawson's position differs.

". It follows that all serious materialists must grant that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon."

"What I am saying—and I believe Strawson and Russell were saying—is that reality just is consciousness and when we perceive, observe, or otherwise measure it, we get matter and physics."

"consciousness is a wholly material phenomenon" must mean something different than "reality just is consciousness"

 

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Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial.

Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing."

"What I am saying—and I believe Strawson and Russell were saying—is that reality just is consciousness and when we perceive, observe, or otherwise measure it, we get matter and physics."

 

[Soupie]

". It follows that all serious materialists must grant that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon."

"What I am saying—and I believe Strawson and Russell were saying—is that reality just is consciousness and when we perceive, observe, or otherwise measure it, we get matter and physics."

"consciousness is a wholly material phenomenon" must mean something different than "reality just is consciousness"

I don't think so. I think Strawson is a little loose on this point:

"So the hard problem is the problem of matter (physical stuff in general)."

I think he has to be, seeing as some interpretations of QM deny particles as fundamental. The reality is that what matter looks like is an open book.

On his view, consciousness and matter are the same stuff. This stuff has intrinsic properties which we know via direct experience by way of being this stuff; and this stuff has extrinsic properties—which is simply to say physical descriptions.

Which is kind of funny: from the perspective of phenomenology the so-called primary properties become secondary and the so-called secondary properties become primary.

 

[Soupie]

". It follows that all serious materialists must grant that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon."

"What I am saying—and I believe Strawson and Russell were saying—is that reality just is consciousness and when we perceive, observe, or otherwise measure it, we get matter and physics."

"consciousness is a wholly material phenomenon" must mean something different than "reality just is consciousness"

Nope.

"Stephen Hawking makes it dramatically in his book “A Brief History of Time.” Physics, he says, is “just a set of rules and equations.”

 

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I don't think so. I think Strawson is a little loose on this point:

"So the hard problem is the problem of matter (physical stuff in general)."

I think he has to be, seeing as some interpretations of QM deny particles as fundamental. The reality is that what matter looks like is an open book.

On his view, consciousness and matter are the same stuff. This stuff has intrinsic properties which we know via direct experience by way of being this stuff; and this stuff has extrinsic properties—which is simply to say physical descriptions.

Which is kind of funny: from the perspective of phenomenology the so-called primary properties become secondary and the so-called secondary properties become primary.

Ok good ... Maybe I'm making progress. (And I don't want to lose track of the discussion on Psi.)

Strawson writes:

"Human conscious experience is wholly a matter of physical goings-on in the body and in particular the brain."

Is that also your position?

 

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Does Strawson believe reality is fundamentally constitued of billiard balls?

He is a hard determinist, not a compatibilist and does not believe in moral responsibility.