• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Is Separation Real? Is Objectivity Real?

So the best guess is that this is all some sort of back-door argument for the existence of God? There has to be at one omniscient "observer" for the universe to exist?

If that's all, then I'm extremely disappointed.
 
Loss Leader said:
So the best guess is that this is all some sort of back-door argument for the existence of God? There has to be at one omniscient "observer" for the universe to exist?

If that's all, then I'm extremely disappointed.
Click to expand...

Who knows what it is. Drive-by woo? Deep insight? General fishing? An actual chatbot? Count me conned.
 
Dancing David said:
Under materialism the body is real, and has perceptions modeled from the sensations.
Click to expand...

The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone cannot be substantiated under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct an actual psychological self.

If you just step back for a second and evaluate how likely it is that a brain has a personal self, you can see it. It's an utter fantasy. It's more ludicrous than believing in homeopathy, Bigfoot, a hollow earth or water memory. There is actually more evidence for water memory than for a psychological self!

A robot race, not the product of biological evolution, would laugh hysterically at the beliefs of so-called materialist humans here. They would fall about the floor collapsing in hysterics listening to so-called materialists desperately trying to justify the existence of a psychological self.

It's pure idiocy but the brain can't bear to give it up. As Porpoise of Life points out - a billion years of "survive and procreate" mean the brain is virtually hard-wired to assert its psychological selfhood. Questioning this for a moment creates near terror.

I'm actually the only materialist in this village. Or would be if I existed!

IR
 
Last edited:
I Robot said:
The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone cannot be substantiated under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct an actual psychological self.
Click to expand...


I don't think anyone is arguing that. The "self" is an illusion created by physical processes. The question you don't seem to answer is: so what? So what if there is no single self?

There are functioning neurosystems and they are distinct from other functioning neurosystems in time, place, and construction.
 
I Robot said:
The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone cannot be substantiated under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct an actual psychological self.
Click to expand...

Okay. Those were words.

Is there a difference, in your usage, between self, personal self and psychological self?

They would fall about the floor collapsing in hysterics listening to so-called materialists desperately trying to justify the existence of a psychological self.
Click to expand...

All I see is you, flailing about in a pit of what falls from the other end of a bull. Make sense bot!

MEBOT
 
Added and altered for completeness:

The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. Memories are real. The narrative that the brain constructs from those memories and perceptions is real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone the same brain that computed the narrative cannot be substantiated is quite obvious under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct Those stories constitute an actual psychological self.
 
Regarding this:

I Robot said:
It's pure idiocy but the brain can't bear to give it up. As Porpoise of Life points out - a billion years of "survive and procreate" mean the brain is virtually hard-wired to assert its psychological selfhood. Questioning this for a moment creates near terror.
Click to expand...


Is any rational disagreement with your claim possible? Or can such disagreement only result from either robotic "hard-wired" contrary assertion or cowardice in the face of the "terror" of agreement?
 
I Robot said:
The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone cannot be substantiated under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct an actual psychological self.

If you just step back for a second and evaluate how likely it is that a brain has a personal self, you can see it. It's an utter fantasy. It's more ludicrous than believing in homeopathy, Bigfoot, a hollow earth or water memory. There is actually more evidence for water memory than for a psychological self!

A robot race, not the product of biological evolution, would laugh hysterically at the beliefs of so-called materialist humans here. They would fall about the floor collapsing in hysterics listening to so-called materialists desperately trying to justify the existence of a psychological self.

It's pure idiocy but the brain can't bear to give it up. As Porpoise of Life points out - a billion years of "survive and procreate" mean the brain is virtually hard-wired to assert its psychological selfhood. Questioning this for a moment creates near terror.

I'm actually the only materialist in this village. Or would be if I existed!

IR
Click to expand...
Apparently you are unaware that the alleged historic buddha established this a long time ago.
So not a new or revolutionary thought, too bad you didn't read a little before pretending to have found something new.

But please let you ego boast all it wants while you seem capable of projection without any problem.
 
Myriad said:
Added and altered for completeness:

The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. Memories are real. The narrative that the brain constructs from those memories and perceptions is real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone the same brain that computed the narrative cannot be substantiated is quite obvious under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct Those stories constitute an actual psychological self.
Click to expand...

Yup, they are part and parcel of the body.

Now is the 'self' real the AHB argues not.
 
Dancing David said:
Yup, they are part and parcel of the body.

Now is the 'self' real the AHB argues not.
Click to expand...


The AHB and I are on the same page, but different paragraphs.

I think the subjective self is a real phenomenon, but is not a "thing" in the conventional sense, just as the story in a book is as real and material as the paper and ink, but is not the paper and ink itself. The self is a complex pattern of activity, an ongoing computation.

I also don't believe that the world is an illusion (though of course some of its apparent properties can be illusory). What is largely illusory is the distinction between the self and the world. Most of what we think of as unique and individual to ourselves actually comes not directly from our own cognition or from our genes, but from our history of interaction with the rest of the world (including, of course, other people). The world makes impressions on our brains and most of the self is the sum total of those impressions. We're something like mirrors, taking credit for creating the incredibly intricate images we think are contained inside of us, when we're mostly reflecting. (When our brains are malformed or injured, the result is much less like a damaged computer—which usually doesn't work at all—than like a damaged mirror, that presents a clouded or fragmented image.)
 
I Robot said:
A robot race, not the product of biological evolution, would laugh hysterically at the beliefs of so-called materialist humans here. They would fall about the floor collapsing in hysterics listening to so-called materialists desperately trying to justify the existence of a psychological self.
Click to expand...

Would they sound like this?

 
Meanwhile, we have no idea if any of this is at all what the OP was talking about.
 
I Robot said:
The body is real. The brain is real. The perceptions are real. The notion that these perceptions happen to someone cannot be substantiated under materialism. The brain can construct stories that a someone exists and pay attention to these stories. But it cannot construct an actual psychological self.
Click to expand...
Nope, I still don't get it. Are you just saying there's no little guy in my head, like Lewis Black's character in Inside Out, running things? That's trivially true.

If not . . . how would I telll if I was a self or not? In other words, can the robots explain the joke to me (well, not me - can they explain the joke in the direction of the body that experiences the things that have been recorded by the brain that is now causing the fingers that are wired to it to make these words appear?)

Gee, it's hard to communicate without the useful shortcut provided by the terms "me" and "you."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom