Lmao. Your ancestors knew panpsychism was true. It’s so funny that you cap off your dismissal of an “appeal to authority” with “woo woo”, the most base and disingenuous appeal to the authority of the scientific establishment that exists. You’re right though I should know my audience better, I always forget how many angsty atheists made their way here from reddit because they weren’t allowed to call stuff gay anymore lol.
Anyway, I won’t waste any more of your time with such worthless ideas. Enjoy your Tuesday champ.
Ironic, because everyone crying about trying to start a discussion on panpsychism is making blind appeals to the authority of the field of consciousness studies
Well that's nice, but I don't know why you're bitching to me about those people because that wasn't me. Appeal to authority is "Official head smartman says you're wrong, he must be righter than you because he is officially smarter". I've appealed to no credentials and only put forward abstract concepts, concepts don't have authority, only validity. Maybe you misunderstood appeals to authority to mean mentioning any concept someone with authority has also mentioned before, but that's not an appeal to authority, it's just a natural consequence of being logically consistent that multiple people can reach the same conclusion.
“woo woo”, the most base and disingenuous appeal to the authority of the scientific establishment that exists.
Again, you don't even know what the terms you're using mean. That isn't an appeal to authority either, it's just being disrespectful of your schizophrenic ideas. If that makes you so mad you start imagining fallacies to dismiss it, well too fuckin bad for you I guess. Just don't be so disrespectful of me and expect anything less in return.
I’ve been disrespectful of you?! Lmao - I've done nothing but try to engage with your points intellectually as opposed to the reactionary means used ITT which you just dogpiled onto. Your very first comment was just dismissing the entire discussion (in a chain of people dismissing the discussion), for no evidentiary reason beyond “I believe the materialists are right”. Like I said before, that’s great, but it’s not a theory.
Yeah I know I've been disrespectful, I freely admitted it already. But only in response.
I didn't start with a dismissal, I challenged you on what to me is the most obvious flaw in the argument: that it all rests on the assumption that consciousness must be a special irreducible parameter that matter does or doesn't have, and there was no explanation as to why you were asserting that. I even made it a conditional to make it clear it was up for debate not just an assertion to the contrary. It hadn't been addressed yet and ignoring that elephant was clearly the crux of why most your other discussions were breaking down here. So I figured a little prod might loosen the tangle you all were getting in.
But challenging people, even tersely, isn't disrespectful. If it were then the only way to have a respectful society would be to be a completely useless blob of yes-men. Ignoring that challenge to repeatedly insinuate I hadn't even bothered to read or listen to the previous arguments is though. As is falsely leveling fallacies at people, and that's a real pet peeve.
And I didn't hesitate to return that demeanor because I'm done giving more than 1 chance to strangers on the internet anymore, not when in my experience it seems like 9/10 people are just willing to take advantage of any and all slack they're given. I'd sooner apologize 10% of the time than let assholes have their cake and eat it the other 90% of the time. Plus being able to throw some heat and get over it afterwards is something everybody should practice occasionally.
I’ll start by saying thank you, for your words and for what you freely admit in the hopes of common understanding. I too freely admit I’ve taken a somewhat defensive posture in this thread to what I’ve perceived as much unjustified hostility (though I understand where you’re coming from if you were to say something like “as the person presenting an idea which is quite far outside of the mainstream, it’s incumbent upon you to explain things and facilitate a smooth discussion” - you’re totally right, and I admittedly failed at / neglected to adequately explain the status of the “Hard Problem” of consciousness - I just think that on top of that there was unjustified hostility, terseness, dismissiveness, etc)
So with all that being said, thanks again for the genuine attempts at discussion. Even if we don’t always start on common ground, you’re obviously not being trying to be dismissive which I appreciate.
So, to the crux:
it all rests on the assumption that consciousness must be a special irreducible parameter that matter does or doesn't have
Right - and so, the question becomes “what does the data/observations say about consciousness?”
It should go without saying that by suggesting a non-physical aspect of consciousness (non-“materialist”), one is by no means denying the material aspects of consciousness right. Of course, you know, brain trauma leading to brain-damage, brain-death, or death itself are obvious realities. Same with brain scans and our attempts to “map the brain”/“map our consciousness in the brain”, and a million other clear indications of the materialist nature/aspects of consciousness. That all goes without saying, and everything in this discussion is (ideally) taking that as a foundation to build on.
However - I think that same acknowledgement should, simultaneously, recognize that while we’ve kind of… “mapped the shores of the lake called consciousness” through the last hundred years of research and advancements, we still fundamentally understand very little. Y’know? We aren’t even sure if it’s water in this lake (I.e. what is the “material” of consciousness), we aren’t sure the source of the lake (underground spring? Mountain runoff? Rain? Etc - to continue the analogy is the source just…”random chance”? A panpsychic universe? God? Etc).
Also, I think consciousness must be recognized as a “special” state of matter. Special in the sense that we have no clear theories on the “switch” so-to-speak which delineates “conscious matter” and “unconscious matter” (even just saying “electrical impulses” misses important nuances of the cutting edge research in the field). Many recent mainstream theories suggest the existence of quantum processes underlying consciousness (you’ve likely heard something about this, “microtubules” as these quantum-processors are called). Also, as sheldrake points out in the above linked video iirc, to call consciousness an “illusion” or “delusion” doesn’t cut it - those notions, comically, presuppose a consciousness to be deluded and thus can be rejected as “explanations” or “solutions” to the Hard Problem.
We can talk about “speech centers” of the brain, “motor centers” and so. But we can also survive a hemispherectomy (i.e. leaving the patient with just a single functioning hemisphere of the brain - and according to reports he was still “him” after the procedure). Yes of course the “seat” of consciousness is by all indications “the brain”, but I don’t think there is justification to claim that consciousness is an exclusively material thing local to, limited to, constrained to - the brain. For a bunch of reasons which people far smarter than me have theorized about and scientifically demonstrated, some of which I hoped to expose people to through these two lectures/videos.
I feel like we all conceptually understand that our consciousness is non-physical (the famous line about “how much does a thought weigh?”) - it seems obvious (to me atleast) though that our thoughts / consciousness / feelings are not strictly “physical”, “material” things, thus the need for an explanation for the non-material aspects of the phenomena we call “consciousness”
TLDR - Just to boil that all down (sorry for the ramble it’s just how I communicate lol):
Operating under the best mainstream theories of the day, consciousness appears to have non-materialist aspects. Even if we imagine consciousness is nothing more than the “interference pattern” (trying to analogize) of billions or trillions of neuronal logic gates, we still observe non-local, seemingly non-material/non-physical aspects of consciousness which can’t (currently, according to some perspectives) be explained with a materialist model. Lastly and most importantly, consciousness is a “special” state of matter which can’t be dismissed as “illusion” because, as Sheldrake deftly points out, illusion presupposes a consciousness to experience the illusion
Again, sorry for the fkn novel lol. Heavy rain got in the way of anything more productive lmao.
Ironic, because everyone crying about trying to start a discussion on panpsychism is making blind appeals to the authority of the field of consciousness studies, which is hilarious because, again, the actual experts will be the first to admit they don’t have a fucking clue as to the roots of consciousness
Lmao. Your ancestors knew panpsychism was true. It’s so funny that you cap off your dismissal of an “appeal to authority” with “woo woo”, the most base and disingenuous appeal to the authority of the scientific establishment that exists. You’re right though I should know my audience better, I always forget how many angsty atheists made their way here from reddit because they weren’t allowed to call stuff gay anymore lol.
Anyway, I won’t waste any more of your time with such worthless ideas. Enjoy your Tuesday champ.
Well that's nice, but I don't know why you're bitching to me about those people because that wasn't me. Appeal to authority is "Official head smartman says you're wrong, he must be righter than you because he is officially smarter". I've appealed to no credentials and only put forward abstract concepts, concepts don't have authority, only validity. Maybe you misunderstood appeals to authority to mean mentioning any concept someone with authority has also mentioned before, but that's not an appeal to authority, it's just a natural consequence of being logically consistent that multiple people can reach the same conclusion.
Again, you don't even know what the terms you're using mean. That isn't an appeal to authority either, it's just being disrespectful of your schizophrenic ideas. If that makes you so mad you start imagining fallacies to dismiss it, well too fuckin bad for you I guess. Just don't be so disrespectful of me and expect anything less in return.
I’ve been disrespectful of you?! Lmao - I've done nothing but try to engage with your points intellectually as opposed to the reactionary means used ITT which you just dogpiled onto. Your very first comment was just dismissing the entire discussion (in a chain of people dismissing the discussion), for no evidentiary reason beyond “I believe the materialists are right”. Like I said before, that’s great, but it’s not a theory.
Yeah I know I've been disrespectful, I freely admitted it already. But only in response.
I didn't start with a dismissal, I challenged you on what to me is the most obvious flaw in the argument: that it all rests on the assumption that consciousness must be a special irreducible parameter that matter does or doesn't have, and there was no explanation as to why you were asserting that. I even made it a conditional to make it clear it was up for debate not just an assertion to the contrary. It hadn't been addressed yet and ignoring that elephant was clearly the crux of why most your other discussions were breaking down here. So I figured a little prod might loosen the tangle you all were getting in.
But challenging people, even tersely, isn't disrespectful. If it were then the only way to have a respectful society would be to be a completely useless blob of yes-men. Ignoring that challenge to repeatedly insinuate I hadn't even bothered to read or listen to the previous arguments is though. As is falsely leveling fallacies at people, and that's a real pet peeve.
And I didn't hesitate to return that demeanor because I'm done giving more than 1 chance to strangers on the internet anymore, not when in my experience it seems like 9/10 people are just willing to take advantage of any and all slack they're given. I'd sooner apologize 10% of the time than let assholes have their cake and eat it the other 90% of the time. Plus being able to throw some heat and get over it afterwards is something everybody should practice occasionally.
I’ll start by saying thank you, for your words and for what you freely admit in the hopes of common understanding. I too freely admit I’ve taken a somewhat defensive posture in this thread to what I’ve perceived as much unjustified hostility (though I understand where you’re coming from if you were to say something like “as the person presenting an idea which is quite far outside of the mainstream, it’s incumbent upon you to explain things and facilitate a smooth discussion” - you’re totally right, and I admittedly failed at / neglected to adequately explain the status of the “Hard Problem” of consciousness - I just think that on top of that there was unjustified hostility, terseness, dismissiveness, etc)
So with all that being said, thanks again for the genuine attempts at discussion. Even if we don’t always start on common ground, you’re obviously not being trying to be dismissive which I appreciate.
So, to the crux:
Right - and so, the question becomes “what does the data/observations say about consciousness?”
It should go without saying that by suggesting a non-physical aspect of consciousness (non-“materialist”), one is by no means denying the material aspects of consciousness right. Of course, you know, brain trauma leading to brain-damage, brain-death, or death itself are obvious realities. Same with brain scans and our attempts to “map the brain”/“map our consciousness in the brain”, and a million other clear indications of the materialist nature/aspects of consciousness. That all goes without saying, and everything in this discussion is (ideally) taking that as a foundation to build on.
However - I think that same acknowledgement should, simultaneously, recognize that while we’ve kind of… “mapped the shores of the lake called consciousness” through the last hundred years of research and advancements, we still fundamentally understand very little. Y’know? We aren’t even sure if it’s water in this lake (I.e. what is the “material” of consciousness), we aren’t sure the source of the lake (underground spring? Mountain runoff? Rain? Etc - to continue the analogy is the source just…”random chance”? A panpsychic universe? God? Etc).
Also, I think consciousness must be recognized as a “special” state of matter. Special in the sense that we have no clear theories on the “switch” so-to-speak which delineates “conscious matter” and “unconscious matter” (even just saying “electrical impulses” misses important nuances of the cutting edge research in the field). Many recent mainstream theories suggest the existence of quantum processes underlying consciousness (you’ve likely heard something about this, “microtubules” as these quantum-processors are called). Also, as sheldrake points out in the above linked video iirc, to call consciousness an “illusion” or “delusion” doesn’t cut it - those notions, comically, presuppose a consciousness to be deluded and thus can be rejected as “explanations” or “solutions” to the Hard Problem.
We can talk about “speech centers” of the brain, “motor centers” and so. But we can also survive a hemispherectomy (i.e. leaving the patient with just a single functioning hemisphere of the brain - and according to reports he was still “him” after the procedure). Yes of course the “seat” of consciousness is by all indications “the brain”, but I don’t think there is justification to claim that consciousness is an exclusively material thing local to, limited to, constrained to - the brain. For a bunch of reasons which people far smarter than me have theorized about and scientifically demonstrated, some of which I hoped to expose people to through these two lectures/videos.
I feel like we all conceptually understand that our consciousness is non-physical (the famous line about “how much does a thought weigh?”) - it seems obvious (to me atleast) though that our thoughts / consciousness / feelings are not strictly “physical”, “material” things, thus the need for an explanation for the non-material aspects of the phenomena we call “consciousness”
TLDR - Just to boil that all down (sorry for the ramble it’s just how I communicate lol):
Operating under the best mainstream theories of the day, consciousness appears to have non-materialist aspects. Even if we imagine consciousness is nothing more than the “interference pattern” (trying to analogize) of billions or trillions of neuronal logic gates, we still observe non-local, seemingly non-material/non-physical aspects of consciousness which can’t (currently, according to some perspectives) be explained with a materialist model. Lastly and most importantly, consciousness is a “special” state of matter which can’t be dismissed as “illusion” because, as Sheldrake deftly points out, illusion presupposes a consciousness to experience the illusion
Again, sorry for the fkn novel lol. Heavy rain got in the way of anything more productive lmao.