Natural and "Fortean Natural"

[Randall]

I think you misunderstood me. Let me try it another way. I am not saying that the world of mind is the basis of all reality (simply put), but what I am saying is that primordial mind (if you could call it such) is what creates the condition for the possibility of mind ...

Your response seems to deal with the issue of how minds come into being within the universe rather than directly addressing the point I made. However that also seems to make no difference because it's also working from a dualistic premise ( universe + mind ). The sooner we can agree that so long as this condition exists, dualism is inescapable, the better off we'll be. Then we can move on to whatever the next step is.

This is just another way of saying that the conditioning of your own body and primordial understanding is left aside temporarily when you turn inward to ask the question regarding the substance of thought. If you ask about the substance of thought, you are--in effect--a thinking about a mechanism that works on a substance called "thought."

It sounds like you're getting into Substance Dualism here. I make no claim to knowing what substance the mind is composed of ( if any ). I only claim that dualism in general seems to be inescapable.

This is the virtual machine falling into a trap of its own making, but because the conditioning (i.e. pre-theoretical, or firmware programming) regarding the unquestioned ground or instruction set, it likely tries to reset its own instruction set by running commands in its instruction set. Again the problem is mainly that of self-reference. Another way to put it: the questioning of the ground of "being" itself assumes the ground prior to the questioning. This is what I mean by "cannot be left alone" -- a better way to put it would be to say that your thoughts try to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but the bootstrapping procedure itself tears and rips at the fabric of the very phenomenal state machine that trying to do the work. You literally are entangled in your own web when you try to do this--as even I am illustrating right now.

The virtual machine, as you call it seems to be another descriptor for what we're calling the mind, and it still exists within the larger universe it either evolved from or was created in, and therefore we're still back to universe + mind = dualism.

The point of the breakdown was a tangent; in it I was trying to indicate an event that might coax one into de-worlding (removing the objects from their world-derived relations between Dasein relating itself to itself through its interaction with its equipment, tools and practices) their own processes of thinking and extrude them out into physical ontic (i.e. factical) time and space. The problem is that this extrusion is itself an penetration into yet another mode of being or simulation set in place by the thinking virtual machine (which is terminologically indicated as "objective presence," ) in that respect it "thinks" its found its own foundation of thinking, but instead as found a rather hilarious tricksterish imposter or decoy. The self-evidence arrives because you've being taken in by this imposter--but when you go to sleep, the imposter takes off its veneer and slips back into a frenzy of dreams and nothingness (ok I am waxing too poetic here for my own good).

The above appears to be describing a particular mode in the working of minds within the universe, and therefore we once again have universe + mind = dualism.

Again this is not to say that the mind is a mere simulation of "unreal holographic visages" dancing around--but that the mind itself stand in its own way when it models objective presence in its own mode of subjectivity. Either it models its own subjectivity in a field of simulated objective things (the embedded mind hypothesis) or it itself is the model trying to virtualize itself in a world which really exists but only as a basis input or conditioning. Either way I think the terms do us very little good in trying to ascertain being--probably better that we just try to rebuilt the system from scratch.

Although you're making some sense above, we're still dealing with universe + mind = dualism.

Regarding a better model, I think a big huge entanglement (not a reference to QM please) between beings that make their own being and issue to itself via its engagement with the world of things would be a better alternative. In this you don't assert any dominance of the "bushes and vines" of either what we call "matter" or "mind" but consider them as modes in one reality or monism.

If we consider matter and mind to be separate ( which seems obvious to me ) then we're still back to universe + mind = dualism, but above you're choosing to label it something else instead, and that doesn't seem justifiable. There is also a problem with the concept of "modes". For example what mode does a universe without minds operate in? What mode does a mind within the universe operate in?

This is not to say that these modes take away from the "existence" of the things, but again, the world "existence" is polluted by the tradition as subjective existence which is further divided from ontic existence.

I don't see how it's justifiable to call what appears to be a true state of affairs a "polluting tradition". Subjective reality and objective reality are clearly two different types of being, the existence of each supported by overwhelming evidence, and the fact that one exists within the other doesn't reduce the two realities to a homogeneous state of affairs any more than it makes the red Ferrari in our imagination something we can get a car loan on.

Aside: While driving my other half to work this morning I ended up behind ... you guessed it ... a red Ferrari, and not just any re Ferrari, but the same type of red Ferrari I imagine when I imagine a red Ferrari. This is of course sheer coincidence? Now if I could just manifest the winning numbers in the lottery, I could get the ownership papers to go with it .

That physical unthinking matter begat minds is no longer a mystery, because we have reformulated what is considered to be "physical" to a conditioning that evolves spontaneously from the relations and machines to machines that make their machinations an issue to itself.

What kind of conditioning are you talking about? Mental conditioning? And what does evolves from "relations and machines to machines" mean? What machines and what machines are you talking about? If these are analogies, what are they analogous to? Machine One = What? Machine Two = What? Did you mean to say, from the relations of machines to machines? Let's get this cleared up.

This never gets reduced to anything like "mental substance" and likewise "matter" never is reduced to "mere objectivity" -- also we get rid of the "problems" of how "mind" affects "matter" or vice versa and of the problem of how we know what we know (it becomes a comical question in this framework).

Again, the issue of mental substances isn't relevant. We don't need to presume that what we imagine in our mind's eye is composed of any substance to recognize that it exists. Simply acknowledging that it has its own context is sufficient to differentiate it from context we call the real thing.

Hope this helps.

Perhaps when we dissect the issues on conditioning and machines above, some piece will fall into place. Until then we've made progress toward a common understanding, but I don't think we've quite reached it. The universe inside my head is still as separate from the one outside it as it was before. And I hope it would be the same for you too. After all, this is what allows us to maintain a "grip on reality". Without any differentiation between what goes on inside our heads and what goes on in the so-called real world, people will consider us to be, "out of touch with reality", and they'd be fully justified in that point of view.

 

[Randall]

If only concious beings can be observers ... Then it also stands that observers are concious beings and that includes the kookaburra that just took a lizard outside my window just now.

Not perfect logic, but it's a fun story. Did you really see that happen? BTW, that video ( Scientists Confirm That Reality is an Illusion ) is filled with more Quantum Mysticism mixed with actual science and pseudoscience. It's a great exercise in sorting out the woo from the non woo.

Time ...

The time video is based on the concept of time being a dimension, but the pop-science illustrations exaggerate the whole thing to ridiculous proportions. Spacetime and relativity are abstractions used to make predictions, and are not the real thing, but what these pop-science shows do is make it look like these abstractions are the same as the real thing in order to make outrageous and entertaining statements overlaid with mesmerizing CGI effects. Sure, we can take the algorithms and run simulations back and forth and jump here and there all we want, but that doesn't mean that's the way the real universe is actually working.

In the loaf of bread analogy that the video uses, there's every reason based on actual evidence, to believe that the loaf of bread is still in the process of materializing. Furthermore, going back and pulling out a slice from the past would necessitate the creation of a whole new timeline ( a new loaf of bread ). Perhaps some scientists actually think that this loaf of bread analogy is correct. But I submit that in the absence of actual evidence, and the contradictions in logic, that they are quite simply wrong.

So what is time then? First, time itself should not be confused with the measurement of time. The measurement of time is simply an account of change using some measuring device like a storybook or a sundial or whatever type of clock we prefer. Therefore time itself is the state of change, not where the shadow of the sundial is or the number on your digital display. To clarify further, if we think of time as another dimension, then clocks are simply the "measuring tapes" of time, and just like length, width and height all existed before there were measuring tapes, time also existed before clocks.

Also, when I use the word "change", I don't simply mean slower or faster or here or there. I mean the difference between zero change and any change at all, no matter what kind or how small. For time to go backwards, every single change that has taken place has to be undone back to the point in time one wants to return to within the entire spacetime model. But even this implies a forward movement of time from the perspective of an outside observer ( someone observing spacetime from another universe ). In other words it might take + 20 minutes in the outside observer's universe to undo 20 minutes time in our universe. So in the bigger picture, the infinite recursion problem suggests that time can only be moving forward and never backward.

 

[Jeff Davis]

If only concious beings can be observers........
Then it also stands that observers are concious beings and that includes the kookaburra that just took a lizard outside my window just now

Time..........

Mike,
The thing that really throws people when considering these "Quantum Consciousness" possibilities is the notion that consciousness *is* reality. That my friend is nonsense IMO. Consciousness is not responsible for matter or time, it's just the responsible agent interpreting and controlling our interactions within the confines of the experience it generates within our universe. Remember that troublesome thing called The Double Slit Experiment? That, nor Bell's Theorem, (talk about challenging, just call me a MORON) contend that consciousness makes reality, or anything so incredulously proclamatory along those lines. The universe is real, time is real, our physical existence is real. Consciousness is merely a field of reference through which we interface that same reality that we all feel comfortable calling reality. The access and process of information post the consciousness generated experience is where our brains and cognition come into play. It's really not at all that mysterious.

 

[Randall]

The thing that really throws people when considering these "Quantum Consciousness" possibilities is the notion that consciousness *is* reality. That my friend is nonsense IMO. Consciousness is not responsible for matter or time, it's just the responsible agent interpreting and controlling our interactions within the confines of the experience it generates within our universe. Remember that troublesome thing called The Double Slit Experiment? That, nor Bell's Theorem, (talk about challenging, just call me a MORON) contend that consciousness makes reality, or anything so incredulously proclamatory along those lines. The universe is real, time is real, our physical existence is real. Consciousness is merely a field of reference through which we interface that same reality that we all feel comfortable calling reality.

I'm with you all the way up to the part below:

The access and process of information post the consciousness generated experience is where our brains and cognition come into play. It's really not at all that mysterious.

Can you clarify the above a little more?

 

[mike]

Mike,
The thing that really throws people when considering these "Quantum Consciousness" possibilities is the notion that consciousness *is* reality. That my friend is nonsense IMO. Consciousness is not responsible for matter or time, it's just the responsible agent interpreting and controlling our interactions within the confines of the experience it generates within our universe. Remember that troublesome thing called The Double Slit Experiment? That, nor Bell's Theorem, (talk about challenging, just call me a MORON) contend that consciousness makes reality, or anything so incredulously proclamatory along those lines. The universe is real, time is real, our physical existence is real. Consciousness is merely a field of reference through which we interface that same reality that we all feel comfortable calling reality. The access and process of information post the consciousness generated experience is where our brains and cognition come into play. It's really not at all that mysterious.

Yeah ive always been irked by schrodingers cat myself, and that pesky tree. If it falls it makes a noise imo

The thing i took from that video is the reality that "reality" is an internal construct built inside our heads by sensory input, but its a limited picture.
For example its raining cosmic rays but we dont see them.
Imagine standing in the rain but not getting wet and not seeing the water.

So in that sense "reality" is just what we observe, but what we observe isnt the totality of reality

 

[Michael Allen]

Your response seems to deal with the issue of how minds come into being within the universe rather than directly addressing the point I made. However that also seems to make no difference because it's also working from a dualistic premise ( universe + mind ). The sooner we can agree that so long as this condition exists, dualism is inescapable, the better off we'll be. Then we can move on to whatever the next step is.

It sounds like you're getting into Substance Dualism here. I make no claim to knowing what substance the mind is composed of ( if any ). I only claim that dualism in general seems to be inescapable.

The virtual machine, as you call it seems to be another descriptor for what we're calling the mind, and it still exists within the larger universe it either evolved from or was created in, and therefore we're still back to universe + mind = dualism.

The above appears to be describing a particular mode in the working of minds within the universe, and therefore we once again have universe + mind = dualism.

Although you're making some sense above, we're still dealing with universe + mind = dualism.

If we consider matter and mind to be separate ( which seems obvious to me ) then we're still back to universe + mind = dualism, but above you're choosing to label it something else instead, and that doesn't seem justifiable. There is also a problem with the concept of "modes". For example what mode does a universe without minds operate in? What mode does a mind within the universe operate in?

I don't see how it's justifiable to call what appears to be a true state of affairs a "polluting tradition". Subjective reality and objective reality are clearly two different types of being, the existence of each supported by overwhelming evidence, and the fact that one exists within the other doesn't reduce the two realities to a homogeneous state of affairs any more than it makes the red Ferrari in our imagination something we can get a car loan on.

What kind of conditioning are you talking about? Mental conditioning? And what does evolves from "relations and machines to machines" mean? What machines and what machines are you talking about? If these are analogies, what are they analogous to? Machine One = What? Machine Two = What? Did you mean to say, from the relations of machines to machines? Let's get this cleared up.

Again, the issue of mental substances isn't relevant. We don't need to presume that what we imagine in our mind's eye is composed of any substance to recognize that it exists. Simply acknowledging that it has its own context is sufficient to differentiate it from context we call the real thing.

Perhaps when we dissect the issues on conditioning and machines above, some piece will fall into place. Until then we've made progress toward a common understanding, but I don't think we've quite reached it. The universe inside my head is still as separate from the one outside it as it was before. And I hope it would be the same for you too. After all, this is what allows us to maintain a "grip on reality". Without any differentiation between what goes on inside our heads and what goes on in the so-called real world, people will consider us to be, "out of touch with reality", and they'd be fully justified in that point of view.

Ok I seem to have got you into a loop--time to punch the reset button. To answer the conditioning question, I am talking about replicators that develop over a period of time and therefore take the discrete steps needed to increase their reproductive abilities and carry forward these same acquired steps (not lamarkian...please) which were recorded in the code. So one particular example: genes as self-copying machines. This is what I mean by relations of machines to machines...

I will try to get to the other comments/questions later today.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I'm with you all the way up to the part below:

Can you clarify the above a little more?

Absolutely. Cognitive Mechanics is honestly something that I think will come into it's own over the next 100 years as we are better able to map out yet fully understood facilities within the human mind. Cognition represents the physical brain's, integral up link to frequency based consciousness filtering via it's frequency specific operations, memory access, thought processes, and it's own native body's neural synaptic monitoring and uptake of all it's physical systems . There's more but you get the idea. So truthfully, the physical brain itself demonstrates cognition constantly in a thorough and survival insuring manner. If all is functional that is, and not dysfunctional,whether we are asleep or awake, it cyclically perpetuates from birth to death our relative physical relationship as determined by consciousness via integral feedback between the two. (consciousness and cognition)

An attribute in part to the realm of consciousness induced experiential reference, that my model which is far from ready to present will address, is specifically why and how time is adjusted or regulated in accord with our experiences.

The truth is, honestly via my best convictions, I don't think science presently even understands memory or it's true facilitation to and of experience. It seems that memory is typically relegated strictly to the past. Wherein we find stored information that reflects past experiences or knowledge. What if I told you that I believe it's where our experiences come from? Here's a clue, but it only represents a peep into the temporally spontaneous condition of memory based perception. A New Study Finds That Memory Contaminates Perception | Wake Up World

Ufology: Here is something very import to stress. I honestly DO NOT believe that this hypothesis is any different from any other ever contrived. It is designed to be tested via falsification like any other. It's rife with properties almost guaranteeing it's empirical dismissal. The thing of it is, if it even points, or inspires, the right mind at the right time with the right information, it will all have been worth it.

My most sincere interest with respect to the ultimate subject matter of this thread here is UFOs. No question. If what I am proposing via this consciousness modeling gets us one molecule's width closer to a real understanding of their utterly elusive nature, that would be WONDERFUL.

 

[Randall]

Ok I seem to have got you into a loop--time to punch the reset button. To answer the conditioning question, I am talking about replicators that develop over a period of time and therefore take the discrete steps needed to increase their reproductive abilities and carry forward these same acquired steps (not lamarkian...please) which were recorded in the code. So one particular example: genes as self-copying machines. This is what I mean by relations of machines to machines...

Just the clearing up of "relations of machines to machines" versus "relations and machines to machines" helped a lot ( there's that precision in language we were talking about earlier ). I thought it was probably a typo. But it's not good to presume that with you because you often mean exactly what you are saying even if it looks odd at first. Good thing we have these self correcting methods to repair these "holes in the net". With your clarification it seems we have an agreement on the state of affairs, but a difference of perspective on how it is best viewed. But I think you may be able to help clear that up even further:

It dawned on me today that phenomenology and phenomenalism may be two very different concepts that I've been incorrectly using rather synonymously, and therefore phenomenology might be more correctly viewed as a particular kind of philosophical tool for a specific kind of task rather than something that is intended to dispute dualism. In contrast, "Phenomenalism is a radical form of empiricism and, hence, its roots as an ontological view of the nature of existence can be traced back to George Berkeley and his subjective idealism, which David Hume further elaborated." Wikipedia Am I making more sense now?

I will try to get to the other comments/questions later today.

OK ... thanks Michael. BTW one of the reasons I enjoy your posts are that you introduce words that are interesting and new to me. Your vocabulary is to be envied by many. Today's word is "Lamarkian" !

 

[Jeff Davis]

OK ... thanks Michael. BTW one of the reasons I enjoy your posts are that you introduce words that are interesting and new to me. Your vocabulary is to be envied by many. Today's word is "Lamarkian" !

Totally agree!

 

[Randall]

Absolutely. Cognitive Mechanics is honestly something that I think will come into it's own over the next 100 years as we are better able to map out yet fully understood facilities within the human mind ...

Thanks Jeff. I appreciate you elaborating and I seem to be able to follow your train of thought here much better, but we're still in a sticky spot and I need some more help with it if you don't mind. When you said, "The access and process of information post the consciousness generated experience is where our brains and cognition come into play." I'm assuming now that "access and process of information" is what you are calling Cognitive Mechanics ( the workings of the brain ), but I'm not clear what you mean by "post the consciousness". This implies "after the consciousness". Are you referring to the subconscious aspects of cognition between each frame of conscious awareness? Or something else?

 

[Michael Allen]

Just the clearing up of "relations of machines to machines" versus "relations and machines to machines" helped a lot ( there's that precision in language we were talking about earlier ). I thought it was probably a typo. But it's not good to presume that with you because you often mean exactly what you are saying even if it looks odd at first. Good thing we have these self correcting methods to repair these "holes in the net". With your clarification it seems we have an agreement on the state of affairs, but a difference of perspective on how it is best viewed. But I think you may be able to help clear that up even further:

It dawned on me today that phenomenology and phenomenalism may be two very different concepts that I've been incorrectly using rather synonymously, and therefore phenomenology might be more correctly viewed as a particular kind of philosophical tool for a specific kind of task rather than something that is intended to dispute dualism. In contrast, "Phenomenalism is a radical form of empiricism and, hence, its roots as an ontological view of the nature of existence can be traced back to George Berkeley and his subjective idealism, which David Hume further elaborated." Wikipedia Am I making more sense now?

OK ... thanks Michael. BTW one of the reasons I enjoy your posts are that you introduce words that are interesting and new to me. Your vocabulary is to be envied by many. Today's word is "Lamarkian" !

No worries...I try to make the best of whatever words I have to work with. And I think you're right about the distinction--phenomenalism may be something that Husserl assumed in his foundation, but phenomenology would better describe the programs of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. And I would even grant that phenomenology is a tool that is not necessarily a tool meant to destroy dualism--but certainly there are some philosopher's (Heidegger being one of them) who might ascribe faulty reasoning found in Descartes formulation and distinction of the res cogitans vs. the res extensa as being rooted in bad phenomenology.

One example of bad phenomenology I can't help but repost here:

We often take our own verbal chatter as the source of our thinking--that's because we present the evidence to ourselves after we are done with the bulk of the thinking work. Some have indicated that under the hood there's some kind of language processor which rakes through piles of symbols and works certain functions on them to create an output--like a huge lego-land of words and phrases all being chomped and spliced by some machine. But as anyone has probably experienced in their lifetime, sometimes we think something but cannot form the words to express our thoughts. The funny part is that once we've formulated our thoughts into words (what thinking formulates words into sentences, whatever it is the machine working with words and sentences somewhere inside cannot itself be made of words!) we retrofit our language back into the framework as if it were the source of our meaning construction.

More to come on this later, I am still processing other posts in the thread.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Thanks Jeff. I appreciate you elaborating and I seem to be able to follow your train of thought here much better, but we're still in a sticky spot and I need some more help with it if you don't mind. When you said, "The access and process of information post the consciousness generated experience is where our brains and cognition come into play." I'm assuming now that "access and process of information" is what you are calling Cognitive Mechanics ( the workings of the brain ), but I'm not clear what you mean by "post the consciousness". This implies "after the consciousness". Are you referring to the subconscious aspects of cognition between each frame of conscious awareness? Or something else?

Extremely observant! Consciousness may be likened to a reflective experiential surface that cognition (the brain) relatively links to much like a tuner is used to achieve a frequency specific connection to broadcasts. The difference here being that instead of the old radio analogy, we are always connected to the cloud (consciousness) via a form of environmentally encapsulating electromagnetic continuity. Our cognitive facilities retrieve experiential information like a hard drive reader would retrieve information from almost any random location on the hard drive, however, unlike our hardwired analogy, we are receiving transmitted information from consciousness that is stored and then retrieved via a unity of experiential data within our memories. The feedback between the two is such that there is a specific and absolute delay of memory accessed experience. Consciousness induced sentience abolishes this delay completely due to the perceived spontaneity of cognitively determined experience itself. This consciousness business is not about a great nothingness for which consciousness supplies a native reality for us. Not at all. It's about how consciousness manipulates our relative perceptions of the universe via cognition and it's ultimate mission. Our survival. This model fully supports evolution, in fact, it makes consciousness mankind's most supportive form of it's own best natural selection. Without consciousness, cognition cannot achieve sentience. It's basically the human brain minus process because it has nothing to reflect on or process. A purely vegetative or idle state of being.

100% hypothetical of course.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Yeah ive always been irked by schrodingers cat myself, and that pesky tree. If it falls it makes a noise imo

The thing i took from that video is the reality that "reality" is an internal construct built inside our heads by sensory input, but its a limited picture.
For example its raining cosmic rays but we dont see them.
Imagine standing in the rain but not getting wet and not seeing the water.

So in that sense "reality" is just what we observe, but what we observe isnt the totality of reality

Brother, you said a mouthful! And it's critically important to remember that everything's there whether we are or not. We just don't observe it, therefore we don't experience it, therefore consciousness does not provide us a safer and more so sentient species specific environment to observe in which we best develop within.

 

[mike]

A New Study Finds That Memory Contaminates Perception | Wake Up World

Good article


This awareness test makes the point really well

Reality as we experience is more about whats "in here" (taps side of head)
Than whats out there.

Even our widescreen view of the world is an illusion.
The eye only sees an area the size of your thumb held at arms length, and yet our field of view seems much larger.
Whats actually happening is a series of thumb sized snapshots get arranged into a composite inside our heads that create what seems like a much wider field of vision

The fovea is surprisingly small. At normal reading distance, the fovea only sees about a 1 mm diameter area, less than the size of a single letter! The resolution is equivalent to about a 20?20 grid of pixels within this region.
Human vision overcomes the small size of the fovea by jerky eye movements called saccades. These abrupt motions allow the high resolution fovea to rapidly scan the field of vision for pertinent information

 

[Michael Allen]

Extremely observant! Consciousness may be likened to a reflective experiential surface that cognition (the brain) relatively links to much like a tuner is used to achieve a frequency specific connection to broadcasts. The difference here being that instead of the old radio analogy, we are always connected to the cloud (consciousness) via a form of environmentally encapsulating electromagnetic continuity. Our cognitive facilities retrieve experiential information like a hard drive reader would retrieve information from almost any random location on the hard drive, however, unlike our hardwired analogy, we are receiving transmitted information from consciousness that is stored and then retrieved via a unity of experiential data within our memories. The feedback between the two is such that there is a specific and absolute delay of memory accessed experience. Consciousness induced sentience abolishes this delay completely due to the perceived spontaneity of cognitively determined experience itself. This consciousness business is not about a great nothingness for which consciousness supplies a native reality for us. Not at all. It's about how consciousness manipulates our relative perceptions of the universe via cognition and it's ultimate mission. Our survival. This model fully supports evolution, in fact, it makes consciousness mankind's most supportive form of it's own best natural selection. Without consciousness, cognition cannot achieve sentience. It's basically the human brain minus process because it has nothing to reflect on or process. A purely vegetative or idle state of being.

100% hypothetical of course.

This is certainly a strange pitting of consciousness as some etheric cloud vs. the mechanical cognition processes in the human brain. I once thought of the brain in a similar way, like a tuner somehow connecting to something beyond itself through a medium. My position lately has gravitated toward a similar perspective that simply makes everything evolve from one heterogeneous source of being--and its what we like to call "the physical world." I think you can still apply the tuning or more intimate coupling analogy, but perhaps along the lines of a physical being deriving consciousness and cognition (or perhaps intentionality is a better term ) through working itself over with respect to its own relations with the rest of the physical objects. There is a definite mechanism in this survival machine we call a body (which includes the brain, cognition and everything else) that worms its way through the world and then derives a virtual machine that asserts itself as fundamentally different from the "other things" -- But this survival trait, as ufology has indicated, provides us with an overwhelming "evidence" of duality fundamentals. Sure these fundamentals are in existence as long as the machine itself is "turned on," but many substances break this down (LSD, psilocybin , etc) and remind us that we're still a "reality constructing machine."

A good book on this subject:

The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self: Thomas Metzinger: 9780465020690: Amazon.com: Books

TED video:

 

[Randall]

No worries...I try to make the best of whatever words I have to work with. And I think you're right about the distinction--phenomenalism may be something that Husserl assumed in his foundation, but phenomenology would better describe the programs of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. And I would even grant that phenomenology is a tool that is not necessarily a tool meant to destroy dualism--but certainly there are some philosopher's (Heidegger being one of them) who might ascribe faulty reasoning found in Descartes formulation and distinction of the res cogitans vs. the res extensa as being rooted in bad phenomenology.

OK. The above seems reasonable enough. Hypothetically the pure experience of being shouldn't require that we pay much attention to rex extensa. The important thing to remember is that in this model we're only movie reviewers, and not to become so immersed in the picture that we deny that there's a whole other reality beyond the theater walls.

 

[Michael Allen]

If we consider matter and mind to be separate ( which seems obvious to me ) then we're still back to universe + mind = dualism, but above you're choosing to label it something else instead, and that doesn't seem justifiable. There is also a problem with the concept of "modes". For example what mode does a universe without minds operate in? What mode does a mind within the universe operate in?

The important phrase here is "if we consider..." which is certainly true that we have all the evidence in the world to make this distinction clear. Consider the question you ask "what mode does a universe without a mind operate in." Strangely enough, it may be that a universe like ours necessarily creates self-absorbed beings that make their own existence an issue for itself--i.e. eventually. I don't truly have the balls to pontificate this necessity, but its interesting to assert it nevertheless. Notice that this does not negate the reality of a universe in the areas of space and time where there are no absorbed selfish extants which make their own existence an issue for themselves. This speculation gives a lot of weight to both the pure idealists as well as the radical physicalists--but without the basis for one tearing down or negating the other.

I don't see how it's justifiable to call what appears to be a true state of affairs a "polluting tradition". Subjective reality and objective reality are clearly two different types of being, the existence of each supported by overwhelming evidence, and the fact that one exists within the other doesn't reduce the two realities to a homogeneous state of affairs any more than it makes the red Ferrari in our imagination something we can get a car loan on.

At this point, with all the discussion and arguing we've done, we can consider these terms safe. But to other ears just joining the discussion, subjective and objective reality are more distinct that we are apt to know and so caution is warranted. This "overwhelming evidence" of the division is more likely evidence of a virtual machine making stuff up...no less real as it forms the basis for our survival. Imagine an animal that never ran from something that was posited as the "other" because it thought to itself the division between my mind seeing the predator and myself the seer is an illusion. Such banalities or anomalous programs have been weeded out long ago by natural selection.

Again, the issue of mental substances isn't relevant. We don't need to presume that what we imagine in our mind's eye is composed of any substance to recognize that it exists. Simply acknowledging that it has its own context is sufficient to differentiate it from context we call the real thing.

But as I have shown, what we consider classically as "substances" are self-sufficient extant objects. It is the interweaving of the two contexts that make such a formulation incorrect at the start. I think you already realize this, so no quarrel here. However it is a problem when as I have indicated above when a person reads "mental" or "mind" they often draw forth from their dictionary a meaning that holds these self-sufficiencies as obvious.

Perhaps when we dissect the issues on conditioning and machines above, some piece will fall into place. Until then we've made progress toward a common understanding, but I don't think we've quite reached it. The universe inside my head is still as separate from the one outside it as it was before. And I hope it would be the same for you too. After all, this is what allows us to maintain a "grip on reality". Without any differentiation between what goes on inside our heads and what goes on in the so-called real world, people will consider us to be, "out of touch with reality", and they'd be fully justified in that point of view.

I hope my previous comments have cleared up this misunderstanding. I don't intend to dismiss dualism as a model that we create in our own virtual machines...but the fundamental bases of this phenomenon cannot be what the phenomenon itself asserts as real, as we would then forget the condition for the possibility our determination of the categories of dualism. I mix the terms "conditioning" and "condition" when I really mean the placement of the "chain of conditions" that underlie all phenomenal determinations.

OK. The above seems reasonable enough. Hypothetically the pure experience of being shouldn't require that we pay much attention to rex extensa. The important thing to remember is that in this model we need to somehow remember that we're only movie reviewers and not to become so immersed in the picture that we forget that there's a whole other reality beyond the theater walls.

Res extensa (you end up with a rather funny joke with Rex, "Extended King") is the matrix (another pun Rex extensa matri -- "King extended his mother") that helps Dasein form the necessary relations that provide this condition for the possibility of all the rest of the existential modes. Without these relations you have no Dasein.

 

[Randall]

Extremely observant! Consciousness may be likened to a reflective experiential surface that cognition (the brain) relatively links to much like a tuner is used to achieve a frequency specific connection to broadcasts. The difference here being that instead of the old radio analogy, we are always connected to the cloud (consciousness) via a form of environmentally encapsulating electromagnetic continuity ...

I think I might have your picture in focus now. Allow me to relay it back to you and tell me if I've got it or not. When you said, "The access and process of information post the consciousness generated experience is where our brains and cognition come into play.", the "access and process of information" is what you are calling Cognitive Mechanics ( the workings of the brain ), and what you mean by "the consciousness generated experience" is an intermediary layer between the workings of the brain and the so-called real world, and when you say "post the consciousness generated experience", you are again referring to the place in our brain below ( post ) this "layer or screen" where Cognitive Mechanics is taking place. Have I got that right?

 

[Randall]

Res extensa (you end up with a rather funny joke with Rex, "Extended King") is the matrix (another pun Rex extensa matri -- "King extended his mother") that helps Dasein form the necessary relations that provide this condition for the possibility of all the rest of the existential modes. Without these relations you have no Dasein.

You certainly capitalized on that typo LOL ...

 

[Michael Allen]

But again remembering something I've outlined abstractly but didn't provide a concrete example of--our own body and mind working its way through the "world."

We are topologically similar to a torus, or a tube. This tube starts at one orifice and ends at another. We swim in a world of things and suck them into our tubes in the examples of respiration and consumption and then extrude being out through tiny orifices on our skins and in other places. Not only to we swim in the world, we take pieces out of the world and assemble them into replacement parts and tissues from that which goes into the front of the tube--and further ejecting what we don't need at the end of the tube. We are so intimately intertwined with the world it has taken millions of years for evolution to fool us into the negation of this fact. Now that we are able to make meat sounds through our orifices and pass encoded noises to impinge on the meat cells of other organisms, we have the ability to "speak" of our "experiences" as tubes devouring, restructuring in our everyday embedded activities. When the tube dissolves long after its major functioning subsystems have dissolved or otherwise coalesced back into the matter they came--all of the "thoughts," "ideas," "worries," "moods," and other apparent "psychical" entities resolve to their end as well--not realizing of course the basis for its own existence. Why are we so terrified of this end--its because we are not yet ready to have our virtual machines turned off--instead we posit the existence of the virtual machine in another substratum, also not realizing the our basis for the experience of substratum as such is founded in the tubes relationship to the pool it swims in (for fish, its water; for fowl, its air). The universals that we contained in our "heads" find their source in their undoing. We find the conditions of the possibility of our existential nature in the cessation of the virtual machine.

Deconstructing Fortean Phenomena

So it stands to reason, with all of this in consideration (we've been talking about this for several pages now--its time to turn this understanding into the analysis of Fortean phenomena). Regarding the insight that "Fortean phenomena" is merely a label on phenomena, we also turn inward to why we applied the label in the first place. As indicated before, one of the aspects of "Fortean phenomena" is "out of place-ness" which is our concrete understanding of something that is fundamentally "weird." But the analysis of this apparent fundamental yields something else, that the basis of the weirdness is in the encountering of an intentional agency without its usual container. As humans in a phylum of animalia, as well as our distant cousins, chordata, and the primitive xenoturbellida, we are not used to seeing anything with intentionality that is not encased in some kind of biologically contrived meat--or some otherwise consumable object. This experience of something vaguely like a thinking being without its usual genetic matrix (there are probably other forms of replicators in the universe) probably represents the weirdest of the cataloged experiences in the canon of FP. Because the genetic virtual machine dasein makes its own absorbed being-in-the-world a fundamental basis for positing the rest of the universe of beings, it neglects to see any other form of life-form/environment interaction. In other words, the ontology derived in our organism is only in tune with an other which follows a similar schematic. The encountering of any alternatives it counts as some mysteriously re-appearing archetype (i.e. pattern for copying) but in not finding a container relegates the whole experience to something fundamentally unknowable. This phenomena of FP seems to be derived from the lacunae of our own genetically built ontology machine.

And now for the credits, since I believe my understanding of this has evolved a bit

Jeff Davis: Provided me the insight that the "archetypal" component could be dangerously overlooked in the positing of the categories as mere labels.

Ufology: Reminding me that, regardless of the fundamental constitution of the world, the experience of dualism is an integral part of our own human (i.e. even Dasein) nature not to be taken lightly.

There is undoubtedly more to credit here, but I will leave it at these main points for now. It is important that our understanding should evolve if we aren't to become a laughing stock for anyone else who happens to stumble on this thread.