"Transcendence is self-defeating," as your plant spirit might say (after a few beers).
not sure I get your meaning here, unless it's a razz (and then don't get the humor), but on that note, I would say "Transcendence is self-completing"
"Intelligence is Self Teaching" A paranormal experience into A.I and Intelligence.
- Thread starter WWHP
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not sure I get your meaning here, unless it's a razz (and then don't get the humor), but on that note, I would say "Transcendence is self-completing"
So...you're saying that there can be an experience without an experiencer?
There's no such thing as an experience happening within the brain, BF. There is just processing. Yes, our brains are deeply programmed to consider that there is a persisting self which experiences. But I put it to you that it is deeply unlikely that such a thing exists, regardless of how much one "feels" it must.
Nick
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PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
Exactly. I'm trying to put my finger on exactly which logical fallacy BF is committing here - he's saying if the brain has ideas, you should be able to cut it open and show me them. It's a non-sequitur, and it's a fallacy of composition, but I think there's something more specific.
blobru
Philosopher
- Joined
- May 29, 2007
- Messages
- 6,900
Zen tangent to the thread title (transcendence defeating self and self-defeating). No offense intended. I was briefly amused by the thought of the ayahuasca plant spirits themselves getting sloppy drunk and saying things that are accidentally funny (drunkenness being our standard mode for self-transcendence).
Fallacy of reification, I think.
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Don't have a lot of time now, rushing to get out of the house, no that's not what I was getting at, but from my POV, they are one in the same. the 'feeling' creates the perception, the experience IS the experiencer. Just not what I was getting at though. More tmrw, cheers.
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
No you wouldn't.
The self that is not a self is not a self in either your model and buddhism, that's the only similarity I am finding, in addition to the transcendent nature of physical reality that appears to me that you address.
I agree you are stating the facts as you see them, and I'm glad you said "as I see them". I accept that. However, you seem to allow for a transcendent and you ultimately accept the ultimate reality, as you see it, as non dual. That's just an idea you share in common with some aspects of eastern thinking. You come from it from the front, and they from the back. Sure, you do not have a system that 'leads' one to this realization other than stating facts. It's not necessary that you lead anyone or have any intention of doing so, what I am finding ironic is the overlapping of what appears as two distinct philosophies.
Well this is how I wanted to make that distinction, because you appear to have worded it two different ways, perhaps meaning the same thing. Consciousness emerges in the brain can be interpreted different that stating that it is created by the brain. I don't believe we have evidence that it creates consciousness, but I do believe we have evidence that it emerges in the brain, but we don't know, as far as I know, what makes it conscious. If we did, we would have a conscious computer by now, right?
We don't have conscious computers to my knowledge, although Dennet thinks some computers may be a little conscious. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3133438412578691486#
I am skeptical that we will have conscious computers. I think we may be able to digitize our consciousness, but I don't think we can create it, or rather I am skeptical that we can create it.
What makes the conscious part of the brain conscious? and if we do know for absolute certainty, how is it we do not have conscious computers? I am geniunily asking that question, I may be unaware of some facts and figures. I haven't encountered anything that leads me to understand what neuro-science is saying about what makes consciousness in the brain, other than a broad statement that says it must be created in the brain because we can map (some) conscious networks.
Can you help me here?
Apologize if my communication makes it appear that way. I make a clear distinction in my mind between a materialist philosophy and materialism as a force in our culture.
I myself am a materialist in some sense. I'm also more than that. Materialism is a big part of my philosophy. I have no problems with it. I just don't think it's a complete philosophy in and of itself.
It's pretty simple to me. Materialism as a philosophy simply states that physical reality is the absolute reality. It has a dialectic with oriental or transcendent philosophy which states that consciousness, being is the absolute reality. It's either one or the other with most people.
Problem seems to be for both sides of the coin here. If the absolute reality is both material and immaterial, then neither side has a hope of discovering that absolute reality since they are limited by the framework in which they view it.
Believe me, I have similar discussions on the other side of the aisle with those of a more eastern flair.
There appears to be a clear dialectic going on there, the material and the 'spiritual'. which one is it? Logic tells us for absolute certainty that it can either be one, the other, or both. Not too complex of a menu, it seems to me.
{EDITED for eprime
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they merely are 'where'?
Well here we are in absolute and profound disagreement if I understand you correctly. Feelings are not experienced? Your telling me that when I bang a hammer on my thumb I am not experiencing pain? Your telling me it's only a thought? Your telling me when I make love to my girlfriend my brain is telling me how great it feels?
I think I am misunderstanding what you mean here because it seems contradictory to what you write above.
I don't care what the brain is doing or is not doing - it's irrelevant in terms of my experience. It doesn't even matter if experience is an illusion, it's a real illusion.
Your telling me that my brain, in some form of language, is 'instructing me' that I am feeling that and there is no experience? If so, are you not contradicting yourself by your own model that there is no self in the brain to instruct? the brain is instructing the mind, so the mind is distinct from the brain? it just sounds contradictory to what you are suggesting over all. Where is the mind and what is the mind for the brain to tell it something? Your invoking a dualism here that you're saying does not exist.
this is all mental, and feelings are not mental, they are direct experiences with reality, do not exist in reality, yet still exist somehow. The feeling is experienced by the whole organism. I'm finding your position here contradictory, please help me understand. I'm a fence sitter and you have the ability to throw me over to the other side. educate me where I am mistaken. please
yet every moment we are experiencing. I accept it does not exist in a material sense and there is no self in the brain. There is only processing in the brain, but there is only experiencing in my being that so far is not accounted for in neuro science if I have interpreted you correctly.
That 'belief' you mention can be transcended in experience, beyond a self. That sort of experience is possible, have had plenty.
My point here is NOT that a self exists, but that 'experience' exist in a form that is transcendent of a physical process, and physical science simply cannot address this.
The universe does not owe us a rational explanation for any phenomenon. The fact that experience is so elusive is consistent with many other phenomenon in the universe. Dark Matter is an extraordinary metaphor in this regard. 96% of the universe is not there! How's that for perplexing? Consciousness does not have to be any more clear than this either. We are not owed a rational explanation just because we have a cool thing called science. Physical science I believe has it's limitations, and many philosophical interpretations of physical science do not seem very comfortable with that fact.
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I'm working on it
thanks for the reminder. I get sloppy with eprime sometimes because I enjoy the direct conflict by stating my reality to find the contradiction, and then alter it after the fact. eprime tries to avoid this for understandable reasons. But can you tell I at least employ it at just the right moments? ahhh! get it now
Thanks for reminding me not to take myself or my position so seriously!lol, no that's implied in your position and I am showing the logical fallacy of the physical interpretation of consciousness. Nice to see you projecting again
Well let me know how that works out for ya!
No. I'm saying that the pain is there, but the notion that "I" am "experiencing" pain is a story made up by another part of your brain.
The tendency is to believe that somewhere there must be this inner "I" that is experiencing. Yet this self referred to is merely an emergent. As soon as you're looking below the level of the whole brain, or whole organism, you can forget about "experience." It only exists on the macro level.
Descartes made the same error - he assumed that the "I" is a priori. He assumed it simply must exist. Armed with this erroneous reasoning his cogito led him to postulate a soul being fed information through the pineal gland. Because he started from an unexamined premise his model proved fallacious.
Dave Chalmers appears to do the same with his "hard problem."
Nick
eta: As an aside vaguely related to the threads OP, I would be intrigued to know whether Dave Chalmers did a lot of LSD, back in the day. It's often seemed to me that the most ego-reinforced individuals are those who've used a lot of supposedly ego-destroying drugs. Not intending any disrespect here, just interested.
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Maia
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2009
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- 1,259
Topamax definitely does work to help break addictive and compulsive behavior, no question about that. Whether DMT/LSD ever do/did or not, I don't know, because I don't think that effect ever showed up in studies (as it has with T) and whether the same mechanism has anything to do with it if such is the case, I don't know either.But since topiramate's mechanism of action opposes the dissociative/hallucinogenic effect, that can't be what's causing it anyway. Subjectively, this effect of increased awareness seems to consist of:
"I've actually been caught in this cycle of destructive behavior! I finally see it. But I could get out of it..." Now to me, that's awareness. I have been made aware of something I did not understand before. There's something about this drug, though, that does seem to get the message through to people even when they'd had it hammered into them 8,000 times before and it didn't do any good up to this point. I don't know if this has any similarities to what is claimed for the psychomimetics or not.
ACK! This turned into another consciousness thread! Run away, run away!!!
If he took LSD or not I'm not sure - I don't think Dave Chalmers is a ternary thinker, I'm not so impressed with his models and any form of dualism, philosophically or logically, is going to be limited and produce contradictions eventually.
I believe the law of incompleteness assures this. Descarte was also a dualistic thinker. I believe all dualistic thinkers will eventually encounter contradictions.
I don't believe any psychedelic creates 'ego-loss', I just think they allow you to experience some thing that is transcendent above language, transcendent above the linguistic circuits.
Francis Crick took LSD and discovered the DNA molecule. I don't think that makes him a buddha, just a scientist with access to the same set of tools as everyone else.
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Eureka
This post is for both Nick and my gal Pixy Mesa - I want to thank the both of you. You have helped me become more intelligent and integrate a deeper level of understanding. I have had a eureka moment and both of you can take credit.
Pixy Mesa - you are correct. Consciousness is NOT a hard problem in Science. See - you were right, you did win. And so did I. I see what that really means now. I see the mistake I was making. The hard problem simply does not exist in science at all whatsoever.
So both of you are clear on what I mean, I want to spell it out very clearly. I do not see a hard problem in science with consciousness.
The hard problem still exists, however, and the hard problem of consciousness is in Philosophy. Philosophy accounts for experience, not science. Philosophy governs science while science informs philosophy. Physical science cannot address the transcendent. There is nothing science can address about the transcendent. There simply is no transcendent science can address.
Thank you, all of you here actually, for helping me refine this distinction.
Nick, Descarte found his contradiction in dualism, and he was wrong because he was half right. I exist because I can both feel and think. I can only feel and think because I have a brain/body.
It's not hard to grasp my meaning here.
It is rationally completed in ternary expression. So simple a child can understand it.
true = brain/body - has locality.
false =experience/feelings - has no locality.
I am = both of them. A transcendent.
We can never fully know ourselves, we are a recapitulating mystery. We exist and do not exist.
to me you are saying the same thing I am, to me what you are saying inherently implies what I am implying.
What I am saying is material reality must begin to transcend itself the second it is aware of itself and expansion in awareness and intelligence increase is a predictable projection inside of what both of us are talking about.
As a futurist, I like to remove the subjective and relative impression of time from the equation, which is what helps define ourselves and our environments in our material brains like you say - and conceptualize that at a universal, infinite, eternal, and cosmological level. This is what futurism attempts to account for.
i'm not trying to convince you guys of anything, I just want you to see what I mean and show you that it is rational. and real. and weird
Intelligence is self transcending.
(eprime avoided for dramatic effect)
lotsa love
Bubblefish
eta: Go James Randi in his gay 80's. Respect.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/914-how-to-say-it.html
.
This post is for both Nick and my gal Pixy Mesa - I want to thank the both of you. You have helped me become more intelligent and integrate a deeper level of understanding. I have had a eureka moment and both of you can take credit.
Pixy Mesa - you are correct. Consciousness is NOT a hard problem in Science. See - you were right, you did win. And so did I. I see what that really means now. I see the mistake I was making. The hard problem simply does not exist in science at all whatsoever.
So both of you are clear on what I mean, I want to spell it out very clearly. I do not see a hard problem in science with consciousness.
The hard problem still exists, however, and the hard problem of consciousness is in Philosophy. Philosophy accounts for experience, not science. Philosophy governs science while science informs philosophy. Physical science cannot address the transcendent. There is nothing science can address about the transcendent. There simply is no transcendent science can address.
Thank you, all of you here actually, for helping me refine this distinction.
Nick, Descarte found his contradiction in dualism, and he was wrong because he was half right. I exist because I can both feel and think. I can only feel and think because I have a brain/body.
It's not hard to grasp my meaning here.
It is rationally completed in ternary expression. So simple a child can understand it.
true = brain/body - has locality.
false =experience/feelings - has no locality.
I am = both of them. A transcendent
. We can never fully know ourselves, we are a recapitulating mystery. We exist and do not exist.
to me you are saying the same thing I am, to me what you are saying inherently implies what I am implying.
What I am saying is material reality must begin to transcend itself the second it is aware of itself and expansion in awareness and intelligence increase is a predictable projection inside of what both of us are talking about.
As a futurist, I like to remove the subjective and relative impression of time from the equation, which is what helps define ourselves and our environments in our material brains like you say - and conceptualize that at a universal, infinite, eternal, and cosmological level. This is what futurism attempts to account for.
i'm not trying to convince you guys of anything, I just want you to see what I mean and show you that it is rational. and real. and weird
Intelligence is self transcending.
(eprime avoided for dramatic effect)
lotsa love
Bubblefish
eta: Go James Randi in his gay 80's. Respect.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/914-how-to-say-it.html
.
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No. It's in the minds of certain philosophers, just as it's in the minds of certain scientists. They believe there is a hard problem...because they believe there is a persisting self. The one belief leads to the other. When this belief is examined thoroughly, or when materialist philosophy is used to understand self, then the hard problem ceases to be.
Nick
PixyMisa
Persnickety Insect
Interesting. I see your point. Removing the compulsion is like taking blinders off.
I'd say not. The way things appear to work in this case is a specific brain problem is causing unwanted behaviour, and we can chemically tweak that. In the process, we regain awareness of something that was masked by the problem.
That's very different to "expanding" awareness of a brain that is already functioning normally.
A consciousness thread with an OP who believes that "magic forest fairies did it" is a valid hypothesis, yeah.