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Consciousness and the Paranormal

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@Constance My impression is that you're attempting to reduce the experienced world and the embodied consciousnesses that experience it to 'information', which you seem to think of in only highly abstracted and reductive terms.

That’s correct. The reason I am doing that is because so far as I can tell, all complex things in reality seem to be made up of less complex things.

Songs are made of notes. Bodies are made of cells. Liquids are made of molecules. And on and on. I don’t see how or why “mind” should be any different.


We feel, experience, and think on the macro level - the level of differentiated vortices - but just as vortices are composed of water and water composed of H2O, so too are we - both our bodies and our minds - composed of more fundamental units.

That’s correct. The reason I am doing that is because so far as I can tell, all complex things in reality seem to be made up of less complex things.

I think we have to get to that study of emergence/reduction . . . because there is something in this:

The reason I am doing that is because so far as I can tell, all complex things in reality seem to be made up of less complex things.

. . . but is it just as accurate to say that all simple things will, under most/many circumstances combine to make up more complex things? We don't usually just have simple things sitting around doing nothing! We can argue teleology but whether things get more and more complex or more and less (and more) complex doesn't matter to this line of thinking. Given the barest of opportunities, things tend to aggregate from simple to complex and when life is on the scene, it may even make its own opportunities.

So the reductionist approach is valid for a particular agenda - but I think it's a mistake to say "in reality" or "ultimately" complex things are made up of simple things without noting that "in reality" and "ultimately" simple things will aggregate to form more complex things.

Songs are made of notes. Bodies are made of cells. Liquids are made of molecules. And on and on. I don’t see how or why “mind” should be any different.

Remember your Nagel:

But the problems dealt with are those common to this type of reduction and other types, and what makes the mind-body problem unique, and unlike the water-H2O problem or the Turing machine-IBM machine problem or the lightning-electrical discharge problem or the gene-DNA problem or the oak tree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored.
 
@Constance My impression is that you're attempting to reduce the experienced world and the embodied consciousnesses that experience it to 'information', which you seem to think of in only highly abstracted and reductive terms.

That’s correct. The reason I am doing that is because so far as I can tell, all complex things in reality seem to be made up of less complex things.

Songs are made of notes. Bodies are made of cells. Liquids are made of molecules. And on and on. I don’t see how or why “mind” should be any different.

From my perspective, referring to the experienced world as ultimately information - while maybe unromantic - is not inaccurate. For instance, it may be unromantic to refer to a gourmet meal as fuel, but at the end of the day, that’s what it is.

@Constance You apparently do not want to think about consciousness in terms of our felt existence in a local palpable physical world evolved over eons out of the quantum or lower substrate.

Oh no, I actually do. I’m quite interested in that! For instance, I think evolution explains why different organisms (IPSs) experience reality differently.

For instance, when a human and a bumblebee look at (exchange information with) a flower, they see (experience) drastically different things.

So what is the real color of the flower?

@Constance In what you've described, the connectedness between what we feel and think is severed from the environment in which feeling and thinking occur, and consciousness somehow becomes 'metaconsciousness' of feelings and ideas that are not actually felt or thought existentially out of our phenomenal experiences.

I’ll never forget what my high school science teacher once told me. He said, when you reach out and touch something - such as a tabletop - you’re not actually touching it. What you feel is the atoms of which your fingers are composed pushing against the atoms of which the tabletop is composed. The particles of which those two things - hand and desk - are composed never actually touch.

Yes, this produces a very cold, isolating picture of reality, but that does not mean it’s false.

However, I don’t think we - on the macro scale at which we experience reality - “feel” that about reality. I’m not suggesting that what we feel is an illusion per se, but that what we feel is subjective. Again, what color is the flower?

Regarding the idea of meta-sentience: I’m not suggesting consciousness does not exist. It does of course.

What I am suggesting is that consciousness is distinct from sentience. For example, Helen Keller had sentience before she had consciousness. That is, she had a stream of experience before she had an awareness of that stream of experience.

I think there are many non-human entities that have a stream of experience such as bugs, worms, mice, etc. An entity can have a stream of experience while lacking an awareness that they are having a stream of experience.

For example:

Rock - no stream of experience (non-sentient)

Mouse - stream of experience, no awareness of stream of experience (sentient, non-self-aware)

Human - stream of experience and awareness of stream of experience (sentient and self-aware)

However, a stream of sentience and a stream of self-aware sentience both come about the same way; that is, by the physical interaction of brains (IPSs) with the surrounding environment.

@Constance So "a stream of sentience is the mind" but the mind is not "experienced by the brain {or the being that has a brain} or the environment, and "a stream of experience is a thing unto itself" that seems to take place in a 'mental unit' in but not of the physical world -- connecting directly neither with the palpable world nor with experiential being in the world.

To clarify: I’m suggesting a stream of mind doesn’t take place “in” a metal unit, but rather is composed of some type of singular, “mental” unit. For example, a stream of music (a song) is composed of notes; we wouldn’t say a song took place in a note.

@Soupie Furthermore, I think streams of sentience resulting from “simple” brains (or brain-like systems) interacting with the environment are primitive compared to streams of sentience resulting from the interaction of a human brain and the environment.

@Constance I'm confused by that reference to brains as "interacting with the environment" since you seem to allow no ground for such interaction in what you've characterized as the mutual discreteness of mind, brain, and environment, having eliminated consciousness from your theory.


Hmm, no; on the contrary, the stream of experience arises only as a result of the ongoing physical interaction of the brain/body with the environment.

Back to the music analogy: although we can say a song, instruments, and instrumentalists are discrete, they are intimately connected. Such is the relationship of the mind, body, and environment.

Also, while I do describe the mind, brain, and environment as discrete, from the perspective of reality consisting of a foam of quantum particles such discreteness doesn’t really exist. @smcder had mentioned a vortex in water. That’s a beautiful analogy!

That’s the idea of the primal substance and how this substance has differentiated into systems such as brains that interact with other differentiated things such as a gentle breeze.

Think of humans, planets, cities, cars, toothbrushes, and everything else as vortices that have differentiated - not in water - but in the sea of particles which make up our universe.

We feel, experience, and think on the macro level - the level of differentiated vortices - but just as vortices are composed of water and water composed of H2O, so too are we - both our bodies and our minds - composed of more fundamental units.

From my perspective, referring to the experienced world as ultimately information - while maybe unromantic - is not inaccurate. For instance, it may be unromantic to refer to a gourmet meal as fuel, but at the end of the day, that’s what it is.

It's not inaccurate - it's incomplete. But in a rather important way – it is inaccurate. At the end of the day a gourmet meal is an experience – created and consumed in such a way as to satisfy aesthetic and sensual appetites . . . fugu . . . gout . . . cholesterol, the cumulative effects of alcohol and over-consumption in general . . . something more than fueling the body is going on here. When you boil things down, something is distilled and something evaporates.

Oh no, I actually do. I’m quite interested in that! For instance, I think evolution explains why different organisms (IPSs) experience reality differently.
For instance, when a human and a bumblebee look at (exchange information with) a flower, they see (experience) drastically different things.


<PICTURE OF BEE AND FLOWER HERE>
use your imagination

So what is the real color of the flower?

According to The Botany of Desire - the real color of the flower is both:
The Botany of Desire: Based on the book by Michael Pollan | PBS

they see (experience) drastically different things

This raises an interesting point, that this split photo tells us nothing about what it is like for a bee to see the flower.

I’ll never forget what my high school science teacher once told me. He said, when you reach out and touch something - such as a tabletop - you’re not actually touching it. What you feel is the atoms of which your fingers are composed pushing against the atoms of which the tabletop is composed. The particles of which those two things - hand and desk - are composed never actually touch.



However, I don’t think we - on the macro scale at which we experience reality - “feel” that about reality. I’m not suggesting that what we feel is an illusion per se, but that what we feel is subjective.

I like that – that’s key:

I’m not suggesting that what we feel is an illusion per se, but that what we feel is subjective.

yes … and again, the issue is how do we account for the subjective?

Yes, this produces a very cold, isolating picture of reality, but that does not mean it’s false.

In what way does that produce (for you) a cold, isolating picture of reality and/or what is that picture? And what previous picture of reality that you held does it replace?

I’ve used this example several times I think, but it is good in the context of this discussion.

Moby Dick
Chapter 93 The Castaway
http://www.powermobydick.com/Moby093.html
In this chapter, Pip falls overboard and when he is hauled up he has gone mad:

“The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities,

Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.
So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.”
 
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However, I don’t think we - on the macro scale at which we experience reality - “feel” that about reality. I’m not suggesting that what we feel is an illusion per se, but that what we feel is subjective. Again, what color is the flower?
Regarding the idea of meta-sentience: I’m not suggesting consciousness does not exist. It does of course.


I think this is a good basis for suggesting that what is illusory, what does not exist - is the objective. The subjective is self-evident, the objective always comes at second hand . . . I mean I can't even touch a table anymore! ;-)

But it is a useful fiction, for some uses. For example, building bridges.
 
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Those are all examples of the physical exchange of information which can be objectively observed. However, subjective experience (mind) cannot be objectively observed.

I say that is what is being observed in everything from MRIs to EKGs to this latest wizardry. You are seeing consciousness as the molecular activity associated with the various processes of the brain. The "experience" is something that can only be realized by the brain in question. I hope that made sense.
 
@smcder Remember your Nagel:

But the problems dealt with are those common to this type of reduction and other types, and what makes the mind-body problem unique, and unlike the water-H2O problem or the Turing machine-IBM machine problem or the lightning-electrical discharge problem or the gene-DNA problem or the oak tree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored.

As I said previously, I believe the point Nagel was making was that mind-brain is unlike water-H2O not because of reduction/emergence, but because of subjective/objective.

@Soupie Yes, this produces a very cold, isolating picture of reality, but that does not mean it’s false.

@smcder In what way does that produce (for you) a cold, isolating picture of reality and/or what is that picture? And what previous picture of reality that you held does it replace?

For me, it doesn't produce a cold picture. I believe all things in reality (what-is) are differentiated primal substance or emerge from the interaction of primal substance. We are simultaneously one with reality but also discrete. We are like ripples of water on the surface of a pond.

@smcder So the reductionist approach is valid for a particular agenda - but I think it's a mistake to say "in reality" or "ultimately" complex things are made up of simple things without noting that "in reality" and "ultimately" simple things will aggregate to form more complex things.

Can you expand on this thought? I'm not sure what point you're making.

I've made my perspective clear: minds, like everything else in reality, are made of primal substance. I am open to the possibility that this perspective is wrong. I'm not sure what your perspective is, nor what evidence/logic supports it.
 
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@Soupie Those are all examples of the physical exchange of information which can be objectively observed. However, subjective experience (mind) cannot be objectively observed.

@trainedobserver I say that is what is being observed in everything from MRIs to EKGs to this latest wizardry. You are seeing consciousness as the molecular activity associated with the various processes of the brain. The "experience" is something that can only be realized by the brain in question. I hope that made sense.

It does make sense. It is the view I held previous to property dualism.

You are saying that the physical exchange of information between a physical brain and the physical environment give rise to (what would be) physical experience. If experience is physical, it would follow that it could be "realized" - as you say - objectively. It cannot. As you say, it is only realized by the brain in question. Thus, experience is subjective, not objective. It follows that this subjective experience is thus non-physical.

If a fire is burning a piece of wood - molecular activity as you've described it - which, the fire or the wood, is "experiencing" the qualia of heat?
 
@smcder Remember your Nagel:

But the problems dealt with are those common to this type of reduction and other types, and what makes the mind-body problem unique, and unlike the water-H2O problem or the Turing machine-IBM machine problem or the lightning-electrical discharge problem or the gene-DNA problem or the oak tree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored.

As I said previously, I believe the point Nagel was making was that mind-brain is unlike water-H2O not because of reduction/emergence, but because of subjective/objective.

@Soupie Yes, this produces a very cold, isolating picture of reality, but that does not mean it’s false.

@smcder In what way does that produce (for you) a cold, isolating picture of reality and/or what is that picture? And what previous picture of reality that you held does it replace?

For me, it doesn't produce a cold picture. I believe all things in reality (what-is) are differentiated primal substance or emerge from the interaction of primal substance. We are simultaneously one with reality but also discrete. We are like ripples of water on the surface of a pond.

@smcder So the reductionist approach is valid for a particular agenda - but I think it's a mistake to say "in reality" or "ultimately" complex things are made up of simple things without noting that "in reality" and "ultimately" simple things will aggregate to form more complex things.

Can you expand on this thought? I'm not sure what point you're making.

I've made my perspective clear: minds, like everything else in reality, are made of primal substance. I am open to the possibility that this perspective is wrong. I'm not sure what your perspective is, nor what evidence/logic supports it.

I'm not trying to prove your perspective wrong - just trying to understand it, think of the questions coming out of dialog rather than argument - and see if my comments make more sense - Ill try to re-phrase a bit too.

The water/H2O bit confused me b/c you used it in the previous post ... But here you seem to agree with Nagels point that consciousness is unlike other cases of physical reduction.

So the reductionist approach is valid for a particular agenda - but I think it's a mistake to say "in reality" or "ultimately" complex things are made up of simple things without noting that "in reality" and "ultimately" simple things will aggregate to form more complex things.

Can you expand on this thought? I'm not sure what point you're making.

It occurs to me that choosing one perspective - things reduce to simpler things is useful to certain purposes but it's arbitrary to say that's ultimately how it is when it is just as much how it is that simple things ultimately aggregate into more comple
 
Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness might be illuminating for all of us at this point in our discussion.

Abstract. The integrated information theory (IIT) starts
from phenomenology and makes use of thought experi-
ments to claim that consciousness is integrated information.
Specifically: (i) the quantity of consciousness corresponds
to the amount of integrated information generated by a
complex of elements; (ii) the quality of experience is spec-
ified by the set of informational relationships generated
within that complex. Integrated information (phi symbol)
is defined as the amount of information generated by a complex of
elements, above and beyond the information generated by
its parts. Qualia space (Q) is a space where each axis
represents a possible state of the complex, each point is a
probability distribution of its states, and arrows between
points represent the informational relationships among its
elements generated by causal mechanisms (connections).
Together, the set of informational relationships within a
complex constitute a shape in Q that completely and univo-
cally specifies a particular experience. Several observations
concerning the neural substrate of consciousness fall natu-
rally into place within the IIT framework. Among them are
the association of consciousness with certain neural systems
rather than with others; the fact that neural processes un-
derlying consciousness can influence or be influenced by
neural processes that remain unconscious; the reduction of
consciousness during dreamless sleep and generalized sei-
zures; and the distinct role of different cortical architectures
in affecting the quality of experience. Equating conscious-
ness with integrated information carries several implications
for our view of nature.

Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto
 
@smcder The water/H2O bit confused me b/c you used it in the previous post ... But here you seem to agree with Nagels point that consciousness is unlike other cases of physical reduction.

Via property dualism, the primal (physical) substance has (at least) two properties: a physical and a mental.

So while I don’t believe mind reduces to the physical property of the primal substance, I do believe it reduces to the mental property of the primal substance.

A (sloppy) analogy might be that sound doesn’t reduce to light, and light doesn’t reduce to sound. But both of them reduce to particles.

Such it is analogously with mind and matter.

@smcder It occurs to me that choosing one perspective - things reduce to simpler things is useful to certain purposes but it's arbitrary to say that's ultimately how it is when it is just as much how it is that simple things ultimately aggregate into more complex.

Different perspective, same result?

Songs reduce to notes.

Notes differentiate into song.

Re: Chalmers

I listened to the PEL podcast with Chalmers and his PQTI approach to… whatever. I noted that even the hosts seemed baffled by the project. When asked to share their thoughts, one said simply that it was “weird” and the other explained that they weren't sure how to apply the project. For a non-philosopher, that was concerning, haha.

What I did gather from the discussion - I think - was that Chalmers believes - maybe - that consciousness can be “reduced” to individual qualia. I was hoping he would speak more about qualia and what he thought about their nature. I’m not sure if he feels qualia are reducible or irreducible. (If it’s not clear, haha, I think even individual qualia are reducible.) Reduce everything, mwuhaha!

*Maybe I'm "cheating" but I want to say again that labels/language is not as important as concepts in what I am trying to convey.

For example, it's more important to think of the primal substance as having two (or more) properties than it is to think about what those properties are called. I think sometimes were see a label/word and - naturally - make assumptions about the concept the person is trying to convey.
 
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The Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin's theory of complexity and consciousness is also interesting and relevant at this point; a short summary is provided at this wiki link:

Law of Complexity/Consciousness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll have a look . . . de Chardin just came up today in something I was listening to and in terms of emergence:

if I understood correctly Christ consciousness emerged as the Omega point (teleology is another big topic to add to our list)

. . . the problem traditionalists have with de Chardin is that Christ is also the Alpha (in the form of the Logos)
 
Ah, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - amazing thinker - the noosphere......

Cyberspace and the Dream of Teilhard de Chardin
LINK: Cyberspace and the Dream of Tielhard de Chardin

The Noosphere (Part I): Teilhard de Chardin’s Vision
LINK: The Noosphere (Part I): Teilhard de Chardin’s Vision | Teilhard de Chardin

Text: "One of the key concepts of Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophy is the noosphere, which Teilhard believes is the next phase of human evolution."

One of my favorite quotes: "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."

Chardin will lead you to 'Ignatian Sprirituality': Hearts on Fire

LINK: Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits - Loyola Press

Text: "Discover the rich tradition of Ignatian prayer in Hearts on Fire, compiled by Michael Harter, SJ. Hundreds of Ignatian prayers are included here, many written by the most illustrious Jesuits—Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anthony de Mello, Karl Rahner, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and others. Each gives eloquent voice to Ignatian spirituality, which affirms that God is present in all things and at all times. Thus, this collection includes Ignatian prayers for all occasions, including the most familiar and seemingly mundane."

Here is Chardin's payer from Hearts on Fire -

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire
 
The Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin's theory of complexity and consciousness is also interesting and relevant at this point; a short summary is provided at this wiki link:

Law of Complexity/Consciousness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Teleology comes up in Nagel's latest book too . . . and Robert Wright has dealt with it in his books, Nonzero . . . I'm interested in the concept and the (good and bad) reasons it has been excluded from science.

I've posted this review of Mind and Cosmos before, but it's relevant here:

Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Natural teleology is unorthodox, but it has a long and honorable history. For example, in 1953 the evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley argued that it's in the nature of nature to get more advanced over time. "If we take a snapshot view, improvement eludes us," he wrote. "But as soon as we introduce time, we see trends of improvement."

...

But highly regarded scientists have made similar arguments. "Life is almost bound to arise, in a molecular form not very different from its form on Earth," wrote Christian de Duve, a Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, in 1995. Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and biogeologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, struck a similar note in 2007: "With autotrophy, biochemistry is wired into the universe. The self-made cell emerges from geochemistry as inevitably as basalt or granite." Harold J. Morowitz, a biophysicist at George Mason University, argued that evolution has an arrow built into it: "We start with observations, and if the evolving cosmos has an observed direction, rejecting that view is clearly nonempirical. There need not necessarily be a knowable end point, but there may be an arrow."
 
@smcder The water/H2O bit confused me b/c you used it in the previous post ... But here you seem to agree with Nagels point that consciousness is unlike other cases of physical reduction.

Via property dualism, the primal (physical) substance has (at least) two properties: a physical and a mental.

So while I don’t believe mind reduces to the physical property of the primal substance, I do believe it reduces to the mental property of the primal substance.

A (sloppy) analogy might be that sound doesn’t reduce to light, and light doesn’t reduce to sound. But both of them reduce to particles.

Such it is analogously with mind and matter.

@smcder It occurs to me that choosing one perspective - things reduce to simpler things is useful to certain purposes but it's arbitrary to say that's ultimately how it is when it is just as much how it is that simple things ultimately aggregate into more complex.

Different perspective, same result?

Songs reduce to notes.

Notes differentiate into song.

Re: Chalmers

I listened to the PEL podcast with Chalmers and his PQTI approach to… whatever. I noted that even the hosts seemed baffled by the project. When asked to share their thoughts, one said simply that it was “weird” and the other explained that they weren't sure how to apply the project. For a non-philosopher, that was concerning, haha.

What I did gather from the discussion - I think - was that Chalmers believes - maybe - that consciousness can be “reduced” to individual qualia. I was hoping he would speak more about qualia and what he thought about their nature. I’m not sure if he feels qualia are reducible or irreducible. (If it’s not clear, haha, I think even individual qualia are reducible.) Reduce everything, mwuhaha!

*Maybe I'm "cheating" but I want to say again that labels/language is not as important as concepts in what I am trying to convey.

For example, it's more important to think of the primal substance as having two (or more) properties than it is to think about what those properties are called. I think sometimes were see a label/word and - naturally - make assumptions about the concept the person is trying to convey.

I want to explore that reduction to the primal substance - I think Nagel is saying that still carries over the problems of thinking of mind as a substance - so that you still end up with the problems of materialism . . . that's why he uses hte word "subjectivity" I think - but this needs more thinking.

I'm not sure it is the same result, I think you use the two viewpoints for different things - what I am stuck on with reduction is that it seems that at some point you can't take even an infinitesimal bit more away without changing the situation drastically - (let's call this Shylock's dilemma) and the same with emergence - it appears to be a discrete change, not continuous, like a phase change of matter, this tendency to make transitions without intermediate steps . . . do we see this elsewhere in the world?

I'm also interested in the two basic world views being exact inverses of one another:

the lesser comes from the greater (traditional) - "creativity"
the complex comes out of the simple (modern) - "emergence"

as for language, labels not being as important as concepts . . . well that depends on what you mean by "cheating" . . . ;-)

since concepts reduce to words and words to letters, I will finish out the rest of this reply with the following two points (I leave the punctuation to you - and you won't need all the letters) . . .

abcdefghisjklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 2

:)

(don't worry, I do get your point . . . )
 
Ah, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - amazing thinker - the noosphere......

Cyberspace and the Dream of Teilhard de Chardin
LINK: Cyberspace and the Dream of Tielhard de Chardin

The Noosphere (Part I): Teilhard de Chardin’s Vision
LINK: The Noosphere (Part I): Teilhard de Chardin’s Vision | Teilhard de Chardin

Text: "One of the key concepts of Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophy is the noosphere, which Teilhard believes is the next phase of human evolution."

One of my favorite quotes: "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."

Chardin will lead you to 'Ignatian Sprirituality': Hearts on Fire

LINK: Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits - Loyola Press

Text: "Discover the rich tradition of Ignatian prayer in Hearts on Fire, compiled by Michael Harter, SJ. Hundreds of Ignatian prayers are included here, many written by the most illustrious Jesuits—Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Anthony de Mello, Karl Rahner, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and others. Each gives eloquent voice to Ignatian spirituality, which affirms that God is present in all things and at all times. Thus, this collection includes Ignatian prayers for all occasions, including the most familiar and seemingly mundane."

Here is Chardin's payer from Hearts on Fire -

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire

I like Hopkin's poetry ... The Windhover, sprung-rhyme

My mother worked with the Ignatian spiritual exercises in retreat as an Episcopal Deacon a few years back - very powerful for her.
 
@smcder I want to explore that reduction to the primal substance - I think Nagel is saying that still carries over the problems of thinking of mind as a substance - so that you still end up with the problems of materialism . . . that's why he uses hte word "subjectivity" I think - but this needs more thinking. ...

since concepts reduce to words and words to letters, I will finish out the rest of this reply with the following two points (I leave the punctuation to you - and you won't need all the letters) . . .

abcdefghisjklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1 2

Haha, nice!

Yes, honestly, this is probably a case of me using terms/language incorrectly. (What I meant by cheating is that I could say 2 + 2 = 5, and if someone said I was wrong, I could say that while I said 5, I really meant 4. So from here on out, when I say 5 I really mean 4, and when I say 4 I really mean 1, 267, 700.597. Okay?)

I definitely get you on emergence/reduction.

H2O molecules combine together to create a new state of matter called liquid that did not exist previously. (Liquid can be formed from otehr molecules too of course.) This new state of matter - liquid - emerges from the interaction of H2O molecules. I don't know at what point "liquid" emerges from the interaction of H2O molecules, but it takes more than 2-3 of them.

If we reduce water to the molecules of which it is made, this state - liquid - ceases to be. So individually, H2O molecules don't have the state of liquid; however, when they interact with one another as an integrated whole, something new emerges.

[I am completely unsure of how/when to use terms like state, property, etc. For example, the concept of "property dualism" uses the term property, but in physics/chemistry, properties describe states of matter such as liquid, solid, gas.]

NOVA | Everyday Examples of Emergence

It's not magic," the physicist Doyne Farmer once said about emergence, "but it feels like magic." Birds, atmospheric disturbances, and city dwellers self-organize, giving rise to flocks, hurricanes, and distinct neighborhoods. Such entirely new properties and behaviors "emerge," with no one directing and no one able to foresee the new characteristics from knowledge of the constituents alone. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

How do I think mind relates to emergence/reduction?

Like liquid, the mind emerges from the interaction of less complex units. However, like liquid, if these less complex units are taken individually, there is no mind. Back to the analogy of the song: the song emerges from the interaction of the notes; the notes must be considered as a whole or there is no song.

Another (weak) example is a tree and a forest. Two or three trees don't make a forest, but a forest does - at some point - emerge from a "whole" of trees.

The point I am arguing, though, in each case is that while things (properties?) such as songs, liquids, forests, and minds are things which cease to be when reduced to their fundamental building blocks, they are still composed of building blocks.

Now, Nagel may be saying that a mind does not emerge from the interaction of simple building blocks. I'm not sure he is. If he is, I (very) humbly disagree with him.
 
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I like Hopkin's poetry ... The Windhover, sprung-rhyme

My mother worked with the Ignatian spiritual exercises in retreat as an Episcopal Deacon a few years back - very powerful for her.

The Jesuits - 'feared' even by Popes. They are called 'the intellectual arm of the Church'.

The great film The Mission portrayed the complexity of a time - and also the courage, strength and vision of the Jesuits at their most powerful - always allowing for the fact that all people reflect their times, good and bad - it is not to be minimized that the current unusual pope is a Jesuit -

 
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I like Hopkin's poetry ... The Windhover, sprung-rhyme

My mother worked with the Ignatian spiritual exercises in retreat as an Episcopal Deacon a few years back - very powerful for her.

My favorite Hopkins poem -

God's Grandeur
by Gerard Manly Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.


Here is Windhover: To Christ Our Lord -

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

LINK: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/1827

Text: "Again, it immediately seemed to me that this was a love poem. The density and emotion seemed to come from someone full of pent-up longing, who only just now was finding release in impersonal joy. Hopkins himself thought it was the best thing he ever wrote."

If there is anything that indicates something far more is afoot here in this world of our lived lives it is the experience of Love. So far beyond thought - that place beyond thought.
 
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