I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[doronshadmi]

Do you agree with any or all of the following (please at least say yes or no for each one, but elaborate if you feel the need)?

1. The image of the set {124} under the function which maps all inputs to 125 is the set {125}.
2. {124} is not the same set as {125}.
3. The image of the set {} under any function is just {}.
​

Functions, domains and codomains are all related to membership (members or their absence), so you question is irrelevant to the difference being invariant by not being a member, or being variant by being a member.

Since you're using a different definition of "set" than normal, I have to suspect that you're also using a different definition of "transformation". Could you tell me what it is?

Being a member is being transformation.

 

[punshhh]

No, you don't.

Ah, you are a mind reader now. Well I would wager that your evidence of this is merely circumstantial.

Punshhh, by "not adequately explained", do you mean "I don't like the explanation" ? Because it sounds like you simply dislike the idea that it's entirely brain-based, despite what you otherwise say.

But the explanations you have in mind, are descriptive, derived from observation. This is all very well and may be a complex and thorough description of most of processes going on. But where is the analysis of what is required to replicate it in the lab? Where is the testable proof that an intelligent mechanism is conscious/sentient or not? Where is the understanding of the necessity or not of life in the mechanism?

Let's try this: what sort of explanation would satisfy you ? I wager that it would be impossible to explain subjective experience in a way that wouldn't have you and Doron and others say "but what's behind all that ?" or "but why ?" or something to that effect.

For example an explanation of how an AI is theoretically aware of subjects and has experience? Rather than being entirely unaware of anything, but just going through the programmed processes.

You have no evidence of this.

Show me consciousness absent of life?

No, he is not. Just like people are not justified in the absence of an explanation for the mountain exploding to come up with silly explanations like angry gods.

Idealism is based on a simple rational analysis of personal experience. It is derived from thoughts like " I think therefore I am". Perhaps it is attempts to describe or explain the mechanisms in an idealist universe which are equivalent to the angry gods in a volcano explanation.

 

[Belz...]

ctamblyn's view of the discussed subject still does not comprehend the notion of the simplest state of existence as defined by the outer "{" and "}" , whether it is found among empty or non-empty set.

As usual, that makes zero sense.

Of course you reject it since you are totally avoiding A) Practicing this process

I'm not avoiding anything. I won't do your work for you. YOU provide evidence for your own hypothesis, not me.

B) Directly aware of it by actually practicing it.

Meaningless. You have not explained how this even works. If someone sees angels by looking at the sun, and you ask them how it works, and he just tells you to look at the sun, you are correct to just tell him he's full of it.

As such your conclusions have no basis what so ever. It's not anyone's job to practicing this process for you.

Unsurprising that you don't understand the burden of proof. Or rather, that perhaps you understand it but, knowing that you have no evidence whatsoever, you try to shift the burden onto me. That way, if I try meditation, which will probably not work in the way you propose, you can blame me rather than yourself for not providing evidence for your own hypothesis. However, being not an idiot, I won't bite.

You lose.

 

[Belz...]

Ah, you are a mind reader now.

No, I'm a post reader, and your posts speak loudly for your beliefs.

But the explanations you have in mind, are descriptive, derived from observation.

As are all explanations.

But where is the analysis of what is required to replicate it in the lab?

Underway, actually. But fear not: once we actually create a conscious machine, you'll still be able to deny that it's conscious, thereby allowing yourself to continue to believe in souls.

Where is the testable proof that an intelligent mechanism is conscious/sentient or not?

That argument doesn't help you as much as you think. How do you know that _I'M_ conscious ? How do I know that you are ?

Show me consciousness absent of life?

You've been here for 4 and a half years and you are asking me to prove a negative ?

Idealism is based on a simple rational analysis of personal experience.

It's derived from the feeling of specialness; a feeling I ascribe no importance to.

It is derived from thoughts like " I think therefore I am".

Which is an obsolete conclusion. Why did you stop at Descartes ?

 

[Nonpareil]

You say this, but as I have pointed out, there is the aspect of personal subjective experience in a person, which is not adequately explained. It has been observed and described. It's correlate in AI has been described, which I agree with, up to the point of being subjectively aware, which I don't see(due to a lack of life).

It has been explained. It just hasn't been explained in a way you like.

Qualia don't exist, there is nothing magical about human consciousness, and the idea that there is, aside from lacking even the most basic coherent definition as to what that magical thing might be, has absolutely no supporting evidence. It is the argument from ignorance and personal incredulity, nothing more.

This brings me back to my point that life is the critical requirement for consciousness. I know life has been observed and described, but is not fully explained in respect to the emergence of consciousness from chemical activity.

At no point has a coherent, let alone compelling, argument for life as a prerequisite of consciousness been put forth. There is no reason to believe that it is one.

An idealist is quite justified in the absence of these explanations to consider the possibility that being and consciousness may be primary.

He's really not.

What I say is that the concept of set (where a set is an abstract or non-abstract existing thing) is defined by my theory as the simplest state of existence that is not its own member because membership is, by definition, provides more complexity that prevents members from being the simplest state of existence.

The outer existing "{" and "}" that represent the simplest state of existence, is found whether the set is empty or non-empty, for example {} or {124} are both have the simplest state of existence as the invariant aspect of any set, where any possible members are abstract or non-abstract variant existence of it.

Again, given any abstract or non-abstract thing that can be a member of some set, this thing is some transformation.

Translation: doronshadmi believes that set theory is the underlying fundamental principle of the universe (as opposed to binary trees like he tried before). Since every set, even the empty set, uses "{" and "}" in their notation, "{" and "}" must be fundamental building blocks of reality. He also misdefines "transformation" as "any member of a non-empty set" rather than "a function which alters the values within a given set".

As usual, it's just him mistaking quirks of his own flawed notation as deep philosophical insights.

But where is the analysis of what is required to replicate it in the lab?

Artificial intelligence. Fascinating field; look it up some time.

Not being snarky, by the way. It's truly staggering the kinds of things that have been done with it.

Where is the testable proof that an intelligent mechanism is conscious/sentient or not?

The same proof we extend to other human beings: does it behave in all situations as if it were?

Where is the understanding of the necessity or not of life in the mechanism?

It's right here: it's not a necessity.

For example an explanation of how an AI is theoretically aware of subjects and has experience? Rather than being entirely unaware of anything, but just going through the programmed processes.

"Where is the magic?", you mean.

Nowhere. Even human beings are just going through the programmed processes. They just happen to produce self-awareness.

Show me consciousness absent of life?

Show any coherent reason that a non-organic brain should be less conscious than an organic one.

We know brains are necessary. Nowhere has it been established that being made out of squishy meat bits is.

Idealism is based on a simple rational analysis of personal experience.

We've been over this. Idealism is in no way rational. It requires you to disregard literally everything you have ever experienced, ever, in order to arrive at it.

It is coherent (well, not really, but that's beside the point), in the same way that the idea that gravity doesn't actually exist and it's all just invisible leprechauns moving things around in such a way that it looks exactly like gravity is coherent. But it is in no way rational.

If the fundamental principle of your philosophy is that it looks exactly like this other thing that explains what you experience just as well, or even better, and doesn't require additional hand-wavey magical forces, you've got a bit of a problem.

 

[ctamblyn]

Functions, domains and codomains are all related to membership (members or their absence), so you question is irrelevant to the difference being invariant by not being a member, or being variant by being a member.

Being a member is being transformation.

It seems this conversation is unlikely to bear fruit. You use the terminology and notation of set theory, but with altered meanings and logic. I've ask for clarification, but whenever I ask you a question I seem to get an answer to something else. We are evidently speaking two entirely different languages, albeit with shared vocabulary. Thanks for your efforts, but it may be less frustrating for us both to draw a line under this here.

...
Translation: doronshadmi believes that set theory is the underlying fundamental principle of the universe (as opposed to binary trees like he tried before). Since every set, even the empty set, uses "{" and "}" in their notation, "{" and "}" must be fundamental building blocks of reality. He also misdefines "transformation" as "any member of a non-empty set" rather than "a function which alters the values within a given set".

As usual, it's just him mistaking quirks of his own flawed notation as deep philosophical insights.
...

It's fascinating in a weird sort of way, though, like reading a collection of koans written in mathematical-sounding jargon. I had a brief look at an older thread started by doronshadmi (Deeper than Primes), and read through this paper, and got much the same impression from those.

 

[realpaladin]

It seems this conversation is unlikely to bear fruit. You use the terminology and notation of set theory, but with altered meanings and logic. I've ask for clarification, but whenever I ask you a question I seem to get an answer to something else. We are evidently speaking two entirely different languages, albeit with shared vocabulary. Thanks for your efforts, but it may be less frustrating for us both to draw a line under this here.




It's fascinating in a weird sort of way, though, like reading a collection of koans written in mathematical-sounding jargon. I had a brief look at an older thread started by doronshadmi (Deeper than Primes), and read through this paper, and got much the same impression from those.

I once managed to get him into a thought experiment (see my sig).

He got caught in a logic error and became so angry with me that he now 'ignores' me.

(The quotes are there because he usually reacts to me when I catch him out in another contradiction).

He probably stopped with his Deeper than Primes because JSFisher, Apathia and yours truly refuse to stop reading and responding to his claims.

What happens is that he looks for a new audience, then restarts the exact same arguments and when he finds that he does not get anywhere he either waits for a while and restarts the story again or he goes off to another thread to repeat the exact same arguments.

Either he likes kibitzing more than truth or he thinks that if only one person were to agree with him he is right.

Mind you, the statistics against his theory are staggering: almost *all* of his posts were in a discussion in Deeper than Primes. And two threads and 7 years on he still has convinced nobody.

Not only that, try a search for his theory on the Net. He tried to convince mathematicians, physicists and he even spoke on a nuclear congress.

But everywhere the findings are the same; we use the same words, but they obviously mean different things to us and no dictionary between us.

 

[LarryS]

I don't think anyone here has suggested that human intelligence is special or unique, or that life is necessary for consciousness (maybe I'm wrong) . . . in any case I would not make these claims.

However, your claim that Idealism goes against our every experience is dead wrong. Everything I've experienced has been in consciousness, I have not found any matter outside of my being aware of it. Matter is not a fact, but an idea. We make the mistake that because we can measure and compare matter (temperature/pressure/mass and etc), this measuring and comparing is equivalent to matter being physical. For example, with practice I can learn to note, measure and compare objects in dreams - but that does not make those objects physical.

 

[Nonpareil]

It's fascinating in a weird sort of way, though, like reading a collection of koans written in mathematical-sounding jargon. I had a brief look at an older thread started by doronshadmi (Deeper than Primes), and read through this paper, and got much the same impression from those.

Mm. Both that thread and this one contain a lot of the same recurring themes: a fascination with the concepts of infinity, bounded and unbounded sets, computer programming, and so on, all with this extremely odd additional subtext about it being a gateway to enlightenment, or Unity, or whatever his phrase of the day is.

I just wish it weren't so predictable. It always goes the same way: introduce a mathematical concept related in some way to the above list of topics - or, better, all three. Then spend a while redefining terms so that they bear only the loosest possible resemblance to their actual mathematical counterparts. After everything has been sufficiently obfuscated, start introducing outright incoherency, and count on the misused technical terms to deflect the brunt of any criticism. If anyone manages to wade through the hip-deep nonsense, just accuse them of not understanding the truth behind your mangled jargon.

I miss the binary trees, personally. They were at least mildly interesting to look at.

 

[Dancing David]

Not at all. Deep coma is only the expressed material level of the simplest state of existence. By using TM one is directly aware of the simplest state of existence without any thoughts' process, where the simplest state of existence is the substance of all possible expressions.

Um, I sincerely doubt that a TM meditative state is in any way like a deep coma by the medical criteria, such as response to painful stimuli.

 

[Dancing David]

Well, you can define absolute symmetry as the property of the simplest state of existence, which is the substance of all possibles expressions since it is invariant under their all possible transformations.

Then there would be no universe. If the symmetry is invariant, it can't be broken, therefore no weak force.

 

[Dancing David]

We are talking about the reliability of a given material evidence.

It is provided to your brain by your senses, or it is reinforced by the machines that you build according to the understanding of your brain.

So in both cases your brain is the main player that determines the reliability of a given material evidence.

It means that more you develop your brain, more the reliability of a given material evidence is improving.

So technologies of the consciousness' improvement are main factors for reliable evidence.

that contradicts what you said before.

 

[punshhh]

It has been explained. It just hasn't been explained in a way you like.

Welcome back Nonpareil, as I said it has been observed and the processes involved, tabulated and correlated with scientific hypothesis.

From there there are various assumptions made, which result in your certainty.
There is no independently tested hypothesis, or any sophisticated understanding of the subjective level of existence emergent in mind as manifest in humanity(other than anthropological studies, which again are observations of people).

Qualia don't exist,

Assumption based on observation and a reduction of subjective experience to convulsions of the physical brain.

there is nothing magical about human consciousness, and the idea that there is, aside from lacking even the most basic coherent definition as to what that magical thing might be, has absolutely no supporting evidence. It is the argument from ignorance and personal incredulity, nothing more.

Reference to magic is straw, you'll have to better than that.

At no point has a coherent, let alone compelling, argument for life as a prerequisite of consciousness been put forth. There is no reason to believe that it is one.

An argument is not required as all known instances of consciousness are emergent results of metabolic evolution. Note, I have repeatedly pointed out that I make a distinction between consciousness and mind, consciousness is metabolic, mind is self conscious processing of subjective abstractions.

He's really not.

Nonsense, until materialism provides a thorough description and explanation of a genuine ontology, a rational person may freely consider alternative ontologies.

Artificial intelligence. Fascinating field; look it up some time.

Not being snarky, by the way. It's truly staggering the kinds of things that have been done with it.

Quite, I am not disputing the processes of intelligence, I am disputing the phenomena of consciousness and subjective mind.

The same proof we extend to other human beings: does it behave in all situations as if it were?

No, the proof we use between other human beings is a realisation that they are essentially clones of one life form, hence virtually identical. Plus, there is no reason for any one human being to suspect that he/she is not identical to those in their community who experience the same complexity of subjective social life as themselves.

It's right here: it's not a necessity.

Bold assumption, remember, I am not disputing intelligence, I maintain that consciousness is not as a result of computation in the brain, but metabolic.

"Where is the magic?", you mean.

Straw, I presume you are referring to the ingredient in the mix specifically requiring an idealist ontology. There is none, as ontologies which ever is the genuine one, results in exactly the same phenomena in the world. Remember that we cannot actually compare a materialistic ontology with an idealist ontology as we only have the one to work with and we don't know which it is.

Nowhere. Even human beings are just going through the programmed processes. They just happen to produce self-awareness.

Yes, just like philosophical zombies. How will we know that said AI are zombies or sentient?

Show any coherent reason that a non-organic brain should be less conscious than an organic one.

It is not a result of cellular metabolism.

We know brains are necessary. Nowhere has it been established that being made out of squishy meat bits is.

To claim that consciousness is a result of brain computation alone is naive.

We've been over this. Idealism is in no way rational. It requires you to disregard literally everything you have ever experienced, ever, in order to arrive at it.

It is coherent (well, not really, but that's beside the point), in the same way that the idea that gravity doesn't actually exist and it's all just invisible leprechauns moving things around in such a way that it looks exactly like gravity is coherent. But it is in no way rational.

These are little more than caricatures of the issue.

If the fundamental principle of your philosophy is that it looks exactly like this other thing that explains what you experience just as well, or even better, and doesn't require additional hand-wavey magical forces, you've got a bit of a problem.

I am not presenting my philosophy, I am standing in for an idealist, playing devils advocate, for the purposes of discussion.

 

[Nonpareil]

I don't think anyone here has suggested that human intelligence is special or unique, or that life is necessary for consciousness (maybe I'm wrong) . . . in any case I would not make these claims.

Punshhh explicitly claims that consciousness cannot exist without life.

However, your claim that Idealism goes against our every experience is dead wrong.

It really isn't.

Everything I've experienced has been in consciousness, I have not found any matter outside of my being aware of it. Matter is not a fact, but an idea. We make the mistake that because we can measure and compare matter (temperature/pressure/mass and etc), this measuring and comparing is equivalent to matter being physical. For example, with practice I can learn to note, measure and compare objects in dreams - but that does not make those objects physical.

No. What makes matter real - and physical - is the fact that the universe behaves in every situation exactly as though it is material in nature.

I'm going to repeat that, because it is the crux of this entire discussion and the reason that idealism - or neutral monism, or any other alter alternatives - fail.

The universe behaves exactly, in every circumstance, as if it is material.

Therefore, it is material. That's what "is" means.

To argue that idealism is rational is nonsense. To do it, you must first discard the very notion of evidence, because literally everything you have ever experienced is absolutely, inarguably supportive of the materialistic universe. Idealism offers no explanation for this beyond a hand wave and the phrase "because"; in an idealist universe, there is no reason that everything should behave coherently at all, or that there should appear to be anything in existence other than your own disembodied mind, let alone that it should all be so precisely material.

The only way around this is to discard all notions of evidence and reject the idea that anything can ever be known about anything, which leads only to solipsism - and that crumbles as soon as you have any coherent definition of the word "exists".

To claim that idealism is somehow rational despite literally everything anyone has ever experienced, ever, is plainly and simply the special pleading fallacy.

 

[doronshadmi]

Um, I sincerely doubt that a TM meditative state is in any way like a deep coma by the medical criteria, such as response to painful stimuli.

Deep come is a phenomena at the expressed level of reality, which is simply the lack of one's awareness.

This is not the case of TM where one's awareness is not bounded by any phenomena at the expressed level of reality, including the lack of one's awareness at deep coma.

 

[doronshadmi]

Then there would be no universe. If the symmetry is invariant, it can't be broken, therefore no weak force.

Please look at this diagram:

The absolute symmetry in that diagram is defined (without loss of generality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_loss_of_generality)) by the endless non-composed 1-dimesional element, whether it is straight or not, and it remains invariant among all of its possible vibrations and their combinations with each other, defined as the expressed level of the endless non-composed 1-dimesional element.

So actually there is only absolute symmetry (only one endless non-composed 1-dimesional element, which is not one_of many thing) that is expressed as multiple phenomena that do not break its absolute symmetry.

Techniques like TM simply unfold the absolute symmetry to the human brain, first only by its straight state during TM practice, and then also by its non-straight states and their combinations, during daily life.

The benefit of naturally being aware of absolute symmetry during daily life is fulfilled by actually becoming a factor of harmony among all possible expressed phenomena, which are naturally tuned by absolute symmetry, which remains unbroken and invariant among all of its possible broken and variant expressions.

The outer "{" and "}" in set theory is exactly the absolute symmetry among all of its possible broken and variant expressions (transformations) defined as its members.

We are talking about the reliability of a given material evidence.

It is provided to your brain by your senses, or it is reinforced by the machines that you build according to the understanding of your brain.

So in both cases your brain is the main player that determines the reliability of a given material evidence.

It means that more you develop your brain, more the reliability of a given material evidence is improving.

So technologies of the consciousness' improvement are main factors for reliable evidence.

that contradicts what you said before.

Not at all, our brain is exactly the linkage that enables each one of us to become a factor of harmony during daily life.

I miss the binary trees, personally. They were at least mildly interesting to look at.

Personally you are (yet) misunderstanding binary trees, as clearly seen in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10381545&postcount=645.

that perhaps you understand it but, knowing that you have no evidence whatsoever.

What studies have established the effectiveness of TM at improving the performance of neuroscientists?

Take for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGijME2caEM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtd2zqDXZkA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO3AnD2QbIg

 

[Belz...]

Please look at this diagram:

Please look at this one:

 

[turingtest]

Please look at this diagram:

[qimg]https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3296/5721561558_c5b78c3152_b.jpg[/qimg]

The absolute symmetry in that diagram is defined (without loss of generality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_loss_of_generality)) by the endless non-composed 1-dimesional element, whether it is straight or not, and it remains invariant among all of its possible vibrations and their combinations with each other, defined as the expressed level of the endless non-composed 1-dimesional element.

So actually there is only absolute symmetry (only one endless non-composed 1-dimesional element, which is not one_of many thing) that is expressed as multiple phenomena that do not break its absolute symmetry.
...

Just drawing pretty diagrams to illustrate your assertions doesn't make them fact, Doron. Your reasoning is pretty symmetrical, though- it's an endless, non-composed, and one-dimensional loop.

I tried some TM once, and here's what came to me-

Infinity involves the resolution of absolute contradictions; if a circle was infinitely large, any given segment of its circumference would be a straight line. Geddit?

 

[LarryS]

Punshhh explicitly claims that consciousness cannot exist without life.



It really isn't.



No. What makes matter real - and physical - is the fact that the universe behaves in every situation exactly as though it is material in nature.

I'm going to repeat that, because it is the crux of this entire discussion and the reason that idealism - or neutral monism, or any other alter alternatives - fail.

The universe behaves exactly, in every circumstance, as if it is material.

Therefore, it is material. That's what "is" means.

To argue that idealism is rational is nonsense. To do it, you must first discard the very notion of evidence, because literally everything you have ever experienced is absolutely, inarguably supportive of the materialistic universe. Idealism offers no explanation for this beyond a hand wave and the phrase "because"; in an idealist universe, there is no reason that everything should behave coherently at all, or that there should appear to be anything in existence other than your own disembodied mind, let alone that it should all be so precisely material.

The only way around this is to discard all notions of evidence and reject the idea that anything can ever be known about anything, which leads only to solipsism - and that crumbles as soon as you have any coherent definition of the word "exists".

To claim that idealism is somehow rational despite literally everything anyone has ever experienced, ever, is plainly and simply the special pleading fallacy.

I get what you are saying, I don't deny there's a practicality to Materialism useful when negotiating on our nation's highways or looking for a cure for cancer. But it has little explanatory power.

For example, the objects while dreaming, they are measurable and comparable. The objects of dreaming also appear to be independent of consciousness and behave as if they are material.

But of course the contents of dreaming are not physical. If I dream of a car crash, the contents of the dream are real events in the brain, but the car crash itself is not physical.

While dreaming we 'behave' as if the objects of dreaming are physical, and likewise while awake we 'behave' as though the objects of waking are physical. But that does not make them physical. The easiest person to fool is our self.

So the principle evidence for Materialism; that objects behave in every way as if they were physical, so they are physical; is lacking.

We evaluate the objects of dreaming to be non-physical from the 'superior' state of waking. How are we to properly evaluate the objects of waking from the waking state - we would need a state 'superior' to waking to properly evaluate the objects of waking state.

 

[Belz...]

Just drawing pretty diagrams to illustrate your assertions doesn't make them fact, Doron. Your reasoning is pretty symmetrical, though- it's an endless, non-composed, and one-dimensional loop.

I tried some TM once, and here's what came to me-

Infinity involves the resolution of absolute contradictions; if a circle was infinitely large, any given segment of its circumference would be a straight line. Geddit?

Whatever one thinks they see during TM is entirely their own doing. It's not the evidence I asked Doron because even if my experience confirms his, I can't know if it's objective.