Well this need only be done if you care whether others accept your beliefs. No one need adopt my own criteria for belief, it is for each person to decide what they believe, and why.
And as eve Cog cuts right to nub of it, if I want only to believe what is true, then how I should strive to set aside how I feel about beliefs and claims, for that honesty and rationality are necessary.
For anyone interested:
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is sometimes considered panpsychic because it posits that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of reality. According to IIT, consciousness is an intrinsic property of any system that has a certain level of integrated information (Φ). This means that any system, regardless of its composition, can be conscious to some degree if it possesses the right structure and level of integration.
Panpsychism is the view that consciousness is a fundamental feature of all matter, not just of biological organisms with brains. Since IIT suggests that even simple systems, like a thermostat or a light sensor, can have a minuscule amount of consciousness due to their integrated information, it aligns with the panpsychic idea that consciousness is pervasive throughout the universe.
Thus, the panpsychic interpretation of IIT arises because IIT extends the notion of consciousness beyond human or animal brains to any system that meets its criteria for integrated information, implying that consciousness is not exclusive to complex biological systems but is a general property of many physical systems.
Yeah we had a theist (Quim I believe), championing panpsychism, I remain fairly dubious about it, but as I told Quim, even were anyone able to objectively evidence and fully understand panpsychism, it would not represent objective evidence that human consciousness can exist independently of, or survive the death of our brain.
Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality .
The first criticism I see: " it explains nothing and does not generate testable predictions .
Essentially it is a “Science of the Gaps Argument” Arthur Eddington: the proposal that consciousness is the intrinsic nature of matter, filling the unseemly
hole at the center of the scientific story (p.132). This is an elegant move, but being elegant does not mean being right, or being useful."
“Panpsychism explains
nothing, cannot be tested in itself, does not lead to testable predictions, and may actively discourage the generation of such predictions. It is a seductive easy-out to the hard problem, and there is no need for it.”
Anil K. Seth1,2
1Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science
School of Engineering and Informatics
University of Sussex
Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK
2Program for Brain, Mind, and Consciousness
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR),
Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1M1, Canada
I haven’t claimed that human consciousness is possible outside the human mind. I’ve claimed that consciousness in general is a principle not exclusive to human brains.
Not if the verification of the claim is made via perceptual means. You cannot verify the existence of an external object via your perceptions, so why would I have to abide by criteria that you can’t even acccout for?
We’re not having the same discussion here, Sheldon. I have indeed claimed elsewhere that the experience of existence survives death.
And that would entail some kind of form of consciousness existing outside the human brain.
That is not what I’m arguing here. I am not arguing that human consciousness (as it is experienced in the human form) can exist outside the confines of the brain. The brain is essential for our experience of consciousness.
Consciousness. Have you not said that consciousness is an emergent feature of the brain?
Again, you’re manifesting the argument to suit your needs. I’m not claiming that human experience is not contingent on a working human brain.
Exactly - for you to be aware of your surroundings, shouldn’t you have some certainty that they exist?
Have you ever read Sartre? Do you even realize that the definition of consciousness extends beyond an entry in a dictionary. Philosophers have written volumes of work on the topic.
Your subjective idealism is problematic. You don’t have to accept panpsychism, but you should at least be aware of the issues raised by your belief that consciousness does not extend beyond the brain.
Right. When we go unconscious between waking and the sleep state, consciousness does not disappear? Is that your assertion?
The bizarre claim is yours. That consciousness exists limited to the confines of the brain and yet to be aware of our surroundings is the nature of consciousness … those two definitions are in contradiction with each other.
To “perceive reality”? Not to “know that reality exists”?
Except thus according to any belief system which does not ascribe reality to our perceptions, all experience of reality is 1) internal 2) illusory and 3) subjective. Is that the kind of world you choose to live in? An illusory world where you can never be sure of anything?
Ah. You take it for granted. Question your assumptions, Sheldon. That’s all I’m saying.
Oh dear. My bandwidth has run out. As per usual, our discussion has devolved into a 1 hr response time per post. I have a job to do.
Before I go. One last thing. You don’t know shit about Buddhist religion and you don’t know shit about Buddhist philosophy. That’s not an ad hominem. Saying that your understanding is pitiful is just pointing to how woefully ignorant you are about the differences and similarities between the religious aspect and the philosophical aspect of the teachings.
Enter the scientific method. (NOT BUDDHISM).
A logical problem-solving approach is responsible for the exploration of the galaxy, the cure of disease, discoveries under the sea, and the exploration of the human mind to an extent that has never been accomplished before.
While the steps to the scientific method can vary the process remains the same. It is the most effective way humanity has ever found of perceiving reality and knowing what really exists.
First, we should have a question that is reduced to a clear, simple, and testable statement. This is a process known as ‘operationalization.’ Exactly what are you talking about? What are its parameters? What are you measuring? How will you measure it?
No, a hypothesis is never right or wrong. It is either supported or rejected by
the experimental data.
A detailed procedure is designed and carried out to test a hypothesis concerning what it is you are testing.
It should be as detailed as needed so other scientists can
duplicate the experiment exactly. (Independent verification)
The results of the experiment must necessarily be due to the variable being studied, and not some intervening variable. All care must be taken to isolate the dependent and independent variables.
Only through rigorous observation, experimentation, and independent verifications, do we arrive at anything approaching reality. That which we call real is that which comports with truth. Truth is that which is empirically supported by facts and evidence and can not be denied
What methodology do you have for finding ‘truth’ ‘knowledge’ ‘wisdom’ or ‘consciousness’ can come close to comparing itself with modern science? What you have is babbling bullshit espoused by thousands of years by old men hiding out in temples and convincing themselves they are achieving some glorious good in an afterlife. What you have is a delusion, just like any other religious belief.
Thanks for that. I have a degree in science.
The Scientific Method … also responsible for atrocities against monkeys and rats (and no, that isnt a cute aside to reference your and my avatar - that is the fact that there are 115 million animals euthanized or destoryed every year by the experiments designed to bring about scientific knowledge)
Also responsible for technology like;
White, nerdy men who, instead of getting laid, or playing sports, decided to tinker with the workings of something which wasn’t broken.
Science is GREAT. The “knowledge” is amazing. The people who bring about the knowledge are amazing. The people who CONTROL the knowledge are amazing.
Amazing things are done with this knowledge. It’s so reassuring that with the scientific method, humanity has raised itself above corruption, a desire to rule over others, a desire to subjugate others, a desire to rape the world of its resources, destroy the livability of the world at an exponential rate, and all the other beautiful things done in the name of scientific progress.
This is either a false equivalence fallacy as I said right at the start, or it is a glaring contradiction. Either is cannot exist outside the human brain, or it is not exclusive to human brains, it cannot be both, unless you’re making that false equivalence.
Yes, even then, since like everyone else, I get to decide what I believe and why, surely that much is clear by now? If all you have are the subjective claims you have offered, and the false equivalence noted above, then I cannot accept your claims.
Of course you can, you are again trying to champion entirely subjective beliefs, by suggesting there is no such thing as objective reality, even were this ludicrous assertion accepted, it wouldn;t validate your claims, just make all claims equally unevidenced and subjective. If I fire a gun into my brain the result will be the same as it would for everyone else, but your claims about meditation can and are used to believe in just about anything, pray to Jesus, Allah, and Yahweh, or meditate using Buddhism the results don’t vary if you want the belief to be true more than you want the truth to be objectively verifiable.
I know, and I don’t share that belief, cannot share it, as my criteria for belief requires a demonstration of sufficient objective evidence, and none has been demonstrated.
I’d have to say the objective evidence supports this, which is why I don’t think we can survive our own physical death in any meaningful way.
Yes, over and over, what I never claimed is not to believe human consciousness exists, so you’ve lost me utterly there. Look at your original question for context?
It would follow then that consciousness dies when our brain dies. Which is why I don’t believe we can survive our own physical deaths in any meaningful way.
And responsive to them, the word certain was used by you, not me, and you assigned it to me. Please don’t paraphrase me, just quote me. I believe what we call consciousness exists, as a property of the brain, yes. Don’t add or detract anything please. I do not accept that human consciousness is in any way separate from the brain, but that it is a property of it. Unless I see objective evidence to the contrary of course.
If you want to introduce a specific philosopher’s opinion then you need to be specific, you can’t use a word then decide later you meant something different to the commonly understood definition, how many times must that be pointed out, the result can inly be confusion, the fault can only lie with you for causing that confusion, by not making your meaning clear, and we are now many posts away from your original claim, meaning I would need to reread half a dozen posts to check your new meaning, if an d when you make that clear, against your original claim.
Human consciousness, which you have agreed, you are mixing two claims together, denying that human consciousness can exist without a brain, then simultaneously claiming consciousness is ubiquitous throughout the universe.
You said it did though?
Be aware of, is only half the definition, but that aside you have admitted what you are calling consciousness in plants ( as one example) is every different to that of humans, So your claim our (human) consciousness extends out and beyond us into the universe is simply bizarre, and of course not supported by any objective evidence, only this false equivalence I pointed out at the very start, and which you have ignored and are still using.
They’re not mutually exclusive. Though I fear you have focused on another irrelevant non-sequitur. You are asserting consciousness is ubiquitous throughout the universe, I don’t believe this as you have offered no objective evidence, your response was to cite something very different (your own admission) in plants, and call it consciousness to support that claim, without any clarification, and I have explained this is a false equivalence fallacy.
Straw man, I have never made any such claim, quite the opposite, again read above. This is the second or third time, in this exchange I have explained that your straw man is not my position, and clarified what II understand to be the limits of subjective perception, and how methods like science and logic can help us remove subjectivity if we choose to value objective truth. No one has to do this of course.
You do understand what we perceive can be false, have you never seen a “magic” show? OUr perceptions and senses can be deceived, easily. I have explained this innumerable times as well? Yet we have also created methods to help us remove as much subjectivity as is possible, and thus learn objective facts about reality, science for example. Do all scientific facts match our ancestors perception of reality? Of course not…
Take what for granted? What assumptions? That’s clearly not at all what you were saying there? You have failed to explain any of your claim I quoted, and just reeled of three new assertions?
Or Harry Potter spells, but I remain disbelieving of claims they make when they are unsupported by sufficient objective evidence, and for that same reason.
Well that’s not what you said of course, but attacking me rather what I had said is ad hominem. And FYI I don;t need to know anything about your religion, only address the claims you make, how much time have you spent studying all the other religions of the world you don’t believe?
I remain ignorant of those differences, and since I am addressing your posts on the subject, whose fault do you imagine that is? They are your claims, if someone came here and said the Koran evidenced a deity, but I had to have Arabic as my first language to know this, I would remain disbelieving, as I suspect would you, the person making the claim has the burden of proof, they don’t get to wave away ojections with claims to knowledge they cannot share because they are esoteric.
As I said and you ignored, all religions use that excuse, and you have not studied all the religions you don’t believe. So you are also setting a standard you yourself don’t adhere to.
Exactly…
Again I concur, and how does his method differ in any objective way from other subjective religious beliefs and ideologies?
Nope, if a man picks up a rock and beats you to death, the rock is not culpable, only the man. Similarly scientists are responsible for their actions, not science, which is just a collection of methods.
Only humans are responsible for how they use the knowledge science gives us, you have tried this false equivalency before, and your irrational error was explained before. A method designed to accrue objective understanding of reality, is not responsible for what humans do with that understanding or knowledge.
Sigh, false equivalence fallacy, same as last time you tried this misdirection. Cog’s post addressed the manifest successes of the methods of science, it made no comment on what people choose to do with that knowledge it successfully obtained.
This is very poor reasoning and argument, and that has been explained to you before as well, so doubly disappointing I have to say.
And your only reply is a Tu quoque fallacy. Really?
You obviously have a complete understanding of the Buddhist wars in Thailand, Japan, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, here in Korea where the different sects kill each other, Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism,
See also: Buddhism in Russia
In 2022, Khambo Lama Damba Ayusheev, the head of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia (BTSR), the largest Buddhist denomination in Russia, voiced support for the [Russian invasion of Ukraine]
The Buddhism you get and understand in the West is a whitewashed version of bullshit free of ethnic conflict, ancient prejudices, and the desire for domination. In short, you are fed bullshit, and you lap it up. Buddhism has been no different than any other religion on the planet.
I would add, that we can only address claims people make here as well, so if our understanding is a barrier to us believing claims anyone has made, that is their fault for not sufficiently and accurately explaining what their position is.
The idea one needs to be an expert on a religion, in order to decide to withhold belief is demonstrably false, and of course contradicted by the fact that like all other apologists, he is not an expert and likely has little if any knowledge of many religions he does not himself believe.
Well, Science should be able to approach the question of nothingness. I am personally aware of its existence and it is an empirical reality. I’m not aware of any condition prohibiting science from developing tests to measure its propensity to exert influence on other objects.
Besides all of this, the Big Bang theory along with Einstein’s field equations predict nothingness as a singularity at the heart of reality.
There should be a way of measuring its effects.
Of course, you could take the empirical route, verify it for yourself and then we’d have no disagreement.
That’s fairly erroneous. The Buddha declared exactly nine results of meditative inquiries. The four immersive states of meditation, the perception of infinite space; infinite consciousness; the sphere of nothingness; the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; and the cessation of perception and feeling.
He never deviated from this staircase of meditative attainments. Besides these states, like any good holy man would, he declared the four immeasurable states of:
The “religion” or, what I would call “spiritual philosophy” is entirely logical and does not deviate from itself - it is a self consistent doctrine of spirituality.
Consciousness “dies”? Do you mean something else. If you claim consciousness is “emergent” then its disappearing act is something other than “death”?
Yep. Nom nom nom 
these carrots are goooooood
But you would not disagree that consciousness is ever objective? It cannot go beyond itself and create reality outside the human brain? Despite everything common sense tells us? Ie. the world we perceive exists just as we perceive it …?
Well again. You’re passing the plate on elevated states of mind. Why someone would opt out of reading a Harry Potter novel … I can relate to that. But opting out of a rich and deep understanding of reality on a perceptual level … why would you opt out of that? Is your life sufficiently rich that there is nothing left for you to learn or experience? Have you tried LSD, btw?
I fully support the idea that nothing will happen when we die.
The method opens the door for dishonourable use.
I see what you mean. Einstein asked, “how much energy is there in a single atom?” Oppenheimer asked “how can I use atomic energy to build a bomb.”
Let me get your opinion. When pigs go to the slaughter house, who holds responsibility for the death of those pigs? The workers in the factory? The humans who drive the demand for pig meat? Or the governments and corporations who mechanize both the supply and demand for pig meat? For example, it wasn’t until the 20th century that you could drive up to any North American McDonalds and order a pork breakfast sandwich. Utilizing the human desire for convenience, corporations like McDonalds have turned the consumption of pig meat into a factory line. And the corresponding death of pigs at a rate competing with our own human population is now “the norm”. People need jobs, and Western society has built the template for what a “job” looks like. If, for example, you don’t want to go without a roof over your head, you might (despite moral objections) get a job at the pig slaughter house.
So, in a business sense, the corporations are the most responsible, since they are benefiting the most financially. The consumers are less responsible, since they are not benefiting financially, but are getting a payoff from the transaction (quick and easy calories). The slaughter house workers are doing the actual killing but are not benefiting directly from the meat and the pay they receive is far lower than a McDonalds big wig.
And yet, they are most culpable for the actual killing? Not the system they’re enslaved to? Not the common consumer who consciously chooses to use their power and position in society to the effect that there is a demand for the slaughter of these animals?
The same argument and questions apply to the pharmaceutical industry. Western society have created the underlying conditions that give rise to illnesses like:
In the name of “science” they use knowledge to manipulate the plant world into supplying them with the sacred chemicals which they use, en mass, to maintain the status quo. So, and yet, science is not culpable? Its talents are being used as per its method to derive negative results? Is Science neither good nor evil? Or, since it is a manifestation of the human condition, is science both inherently good and evil at the same time?
No tool was ever invented without a purpose.
As do I, and yet without a qualification of what nothing is, we can mean two very different things.
Let me explain what I think you think nothing is. Because there are several types which get confused.
It’s all about containment and measurability.
These are things like the “tooth fairy” and “the Flying Spaghetti Monster”.
They are a) non-perceptions which b) do not even pertain to themselves. They simply don’t exist.
Incidentally, this is the category to which God is relegated by the Atheist.
The weak Atheist argues “I do not believe in God because there is no evidence for God.”
The strong Atheist argues “I do not believe in God because it (He) does not exist.”
The theist says “prove it.” The atheist says, “I need not anymore prove the non-existence of God than I need prove the non-existence of the tooth fairy. Ie. God is the biggest, most powerful tooth fairy ever, and thus, there is exactly that much less reason for me to worry about disproving its existence.”
FAIR ENOUGH - I would not resent anyone for escaping the trap of God by following such logic. Ahem … anyway.
This … is … not … “nothing”. The Atheist would not even conjecture “God is Nothing.” That would define God.
We cannot say “nothing exists” or “nothing does not exist” because that implies “everything does not exist all the time” and “everything does exist all the time.”
Nothingness does not belong to the first category
Perhaps it belongs here:
That, at least isn’t a contradiction. But, what else? Is it measurable or immeasurable? This is the crux of the matter.
The common understanding is this:
Nothingness is a non-perception belonging to non-perception which does not measure itself as measurable.
That is the pure “absence” which the standard guy who thinks there is nothing after death understands “nothing” as (to be).
That is a good definition, however it misses these two points.
There is the further category.
Absolutely none of you (without having gone through the same experience as me) will understand this category. I will not even name it. For you to all hate on and denigrate as I’m sure you will.
Therefore, let it be known, If anyone, from this point until the internet is finished, wishes to elaborate on that category of non-perception, then by all means. I can almost guarantee this challenge will never be met. The state is too obscure and requires too much “preliminary work” to arrive at.
Ahem … where was I? Ah! Yes. The defintion of nothing.
ie. nothingness is a perception which does not pertain to itself. It does not “contain” perception.
In fact nothingness requires that it cannot be contained by perception to “be” nothing. If it is contained by non-perception, it ceases to be nothing. If it contained by perception, it also ceases to be nothing.
It is the quintessential perception which cannot and does not contain itself. Any attempt on the part of this perception to define itself as a perception results, at best, in further reaffirmation of the non-perception which it is (at worst there is a departure from nothing back to something (ex nihilo - the arrival of something from nothing is the emergence of thought).
And that is how nothing gets its name. “Nothingness” is the attempt that perception makes to contain non-perception. We do it all the time. Everytime we allude to “nothing” we are suggesting the primitive and pure reality of the thing.
“A perception which does not contain perception.”
As a perception it must be measurable. Thus, we also ask: how is nothingness measured?
Simply put, nothingness is a perception which does not contain itself and measures itself as immeasurable.
It is not a non-perception which contains non-perception and which does not measure itself as measurable. And it is not a non-perception which contains non-perception and which measures itself as immeasurable.
Why would I need to verify your claim, when you can’t demonstrate any objective evidence yourself?
No it’s not erroneous, I have encountered people making the same subjective claims about meditation and prayer as you are, they arrive at a very different belief. If it had any objective value at determining the truth of the belief that prompts it, then it would arrive at the same conclusion, yet we see the opposite.
The arguments you have presented here, have on many occasions been demonstrably irrational, so this does not support your claim, obviously. That you think your subjective beliefs are consistent, does not necessarily make them rational, and I can only judge what is offered.
That makes no sense? It is an objective fact that when our brains die, in every single instance, our consciousness disappears with it, we never see human consciousness in the absence of a functioning living human brain, that suggests that a) it is an emergent property of that brain, and b) that it cannot exist without it.
Not sure why the same question needs answering over and over, our perceptions are flawed, it can deceive us, thus methods that help us remove subjective bias, produce the most reliably objective evidence, the success of such methods, science for example, are manifest in the results. Buddhists, don’t have different scientific facts to Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews et al, but they do all have different subjective religious beliefs. This demonstrates that science is objectively reliable, and religions are not.
Why have you eschewed that same claim and experience from all other religions? You can’t all be right, but you can all be wrong, so why would I waste time on one religion over all the others, when none of them can demonstrate any objective evidence to support their beliefs?
FYI, the fact a belief lends the holder comfort or succour, tells us nothing about whether that belief is true, and again all religions make this same claim. Yet people of wildly differing religious beliefs, arrive at the exact same scientific facts. Again the inference is too obvious to ignore. We don’t have Buddhist science, Muslim science, and Christian science, or Hindu science etc etc, because the method relies on objective evidence, and doesn’t care about subjective beliefs.
No it doesn’t, that is a choice people make, like picking up a rock to hit someone with, the rock isn’t culpable anymore than science is, for how it is used.
Why wouldn’t they all be culpable?
Well this is just a subjective perception, but I don’t see the sense in measuring culpability in terms of financial gain, we make choices, those choices have consequences, if no one chose to buy McDonalds or to work in slaughter houses, that’s the end of McDonalds. Though this seems to have moved away from the topic?
Nope, science has no requirements, it has no will, no desire, it is simply an objective method for understanding reality, are you perhaps wrongly conflating science with scientists? Just as apologists often wrongly conflate atheism with atheists? The former is solely a lack or absence of theistic belief, the latter are people who lack that belief, and who appear to possess autonomy of choice.
Absolutely, how can it be either when it has no autonomy to choose anything?
Science doesn’t invent tools, it only gains knowledge, people can use that knowledge to invent tools, those people are culpable, not the method.
My atheism has nothing whatsoever to do with me not perceiving any deity, it rests solely on the fact no one can demonstrate any objective evidence that a deity exists, or is even possible.
I am still none the wiser as to what you mean by"nothingness" , but the dictionary defines it as the absence or cessation of life or existence. So claiming nothingness exists or can exist, seems to be a contradiction?
That is a misrepresentation of history. It was Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner who first thought the idea of making a nuclear bomb. And they got Einstein on their side. And since Einstein was by far the most famous of them, and therefore would have the greatest impact, he was tasked with proposing a bomb to Roosevelt. Oppenheimer was the one tasked with leading the work to actually implement the ideas of Szilard et al.
The Einstein–Szilard letter was a letter written by Leo Szilard and signed by Albert Einstein on August 2, 1939, that was sent to President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt. Written by Szilard in consultation with fellow Hungarian physicists Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, the letter warned that Germany might develop atomic bombs and suggested that the United States should start its own nuclear program. It prompted action by Roosevelt, which eventually resulted in the Manhattan Project, the development of the first atomic bombs, and the use of these bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Science is a method, it’s not sentient, and cannot make choices, and beyond removing as much subjective bias as possible, to follow the best objective evidence, it has no dogma or doctrine, blaming science for what people do with the knowledge it enables us to discover, is as nonsensical as blaming water, when someone drowns a person in it…