Do ideas exist? Do experiential ideas exist?

[amorphos_ii]

Do ideas exist? Do experiential ideas exist?

I know I have done similar before but this is not repetition due to expansion. If we draw a simple Venn diagram with the question; what is real and what is illusion, then we have one circle with ‘what is real or exists’ and another with ‘what is not real, an illusion or does not exist’. The two circles must be in a third containing circle which is reality entire.

We could perhaps state that only one circle exists; the ‘what is real’ circle, and so reality is only that and there are no illusions [!!!]. this for me is problematic, because there are many occurrence’s of things which e.g. are not physically real, like numbers infinities and even dreams and ideas. An artist may think of an idea which they can only define et al in a painting.

so what doesn’t exist?

dictionary com/browse/exist

we could say that everything we experience is mental qualia and does not physically exist. For the purpose of argument and because we don’t know that for sure, we could say that ideas can be illusions or processes e.g. an AI could have or make ideas, facts, maths and images along with a whole host of things which we may normally consider to be mental. It could make pretty much everything that isn’t a mental qualia. In fact our experience and qualia thereof, are mostly or entirely ideas which an AI could have but without said mental qualia. Our experience is largely a reflection where ‘mind’ correlates data and other things and manifests the respective qualia image or sensation etc.

if say in a dream or in thought and imaginations, there are any instances of mental qualia interacting or communicating with each other alone, this would be an ‘idea’ or an ‘illusion’ which is thence purely mental and which an AI or computer cannot have.

Thoughts anyone?

_

[JackDaydream]

Do ideas exist? Do experiential ideas exist?

I know I have done similar before but this is not repetition due to expansion. If we draw a simple Venn diagram with the question; what is real and what is illusion, then we have one circle with ‘what is real or exists’ and another with ‘what is not real, an illusion or does not exist’. The two circles must be in a third containing circle which is reality entire.

We could perhaps state that only one circle exists; the ‘what is real’ circle, and so reality is only that and there are no illusions [!!!]. this for me is problematic, because there are many occurrence’s of things which e.g. are not physically real, like numbers infinities and even dreams and ideas. An artist may think of an idea which they can only define et al in a painting.

so what doesn’t exist?

dictionary com/browse/exist

we could say that everything we experience is mental qualia and does not physically exist. For the purpose of argument and because we don’t know that for sure, we could say that ideas can be illusions or processes e.g. an AI could have or make ideas, facts, maths and images along with a whole host of things which we may normally consider to be mental. It could make pretty much everything that isn’t a mental qualia. In fact our experience and qualia thereof, are mostly or entirely ideas which an AI could have but without said mental qualia. Our experience is largely a reflection where ‘mind’ correlates data and other things and manifests the respective qualia image or sensation etc.

if say in a dream or in thought and imaginations, there are any instances of mental qualia interacting or communicating with each other alone, this would be an ‘idea’ or an ‘illusion’ which is thence purely mental and which an AI or computer cannot have.

Thoughts anyone?

_

Your question goes back to the thinking of Plato, with his understanding of ideas as the Forms, such as truth, beauty and justice. He saw these as existent 'out there'as objectives, which can be known to human minds. It is in contrast to the the way in which many thinkers see ideas as constructs based on neurological processes? So, it comes down to whether ideas are objective, subjective or intersubjective, as with other aspects of qualia.

One key issue which I see is how this is seen for this is the significance for understanding experience. Those who see ideas as constructs, or 'illusory' may be inclined to see to see them as more abstract and see the inner world of experiences, including the archetypal or mythical aspects of consciousness, such as dreams, as insignificant. However, alternatively if ideas are seen as immutable they may be seen too concretely. In a way, it is not possible to say to what extent ideas exist objectively, as Kant's epistemological approach showed. There is the difference between a a posterior knowledge of empiricism or a priori reason, but with regard to reason, but the mind cannot know what exists outside of minds themselves.

However, if ideas are dismissed are said not to exist because they cannot be known empirically, human understanding as experienced would be meaningless. Logic and reasoning would not be possible without them and. Even if they can be deconstructed as postmodernism did, or reduced to linguistics, they ideas exist as the raw material for philosophy, all knowledge and foundations for human culture.

[Gertie]

Do ideas exist? Do experiential ideas exist?

I know I have done similar before but this is not repetition due to expansion. If we draw a simple Venn diagram with the question; what is real and what is illusion, then we have one circle with ‘what is real or exists’ and another with ‘what is not real, an illusion or does not exist’. The two circles must be in a third containing circle which is reality entire.

We could perhaps state that only one circle exists; the ‘what is real’ circle, and so reality is only that and there are no illusions [!!!]. this for me is problematic, because there are many occurrence’s of things which e.g. are not physically real, like numbers infinities and even dreams and ideas. An artist may think of an idea which they can only define et al in a painting.

so what doesn’t exist?

dictionary com/browse/exist

we could say that everything we experience is mental qualia and does not physically exist. For the purpose of argument and because we don’t know that for sure, we could say that ideas can be illusions or processes e.g. an AI could have or make ideas, facts, maths and images along with a whole host of things which we may normally consider to be mental. It could make pretty much everything that isn’t a mental qualia. In fact our experience and qualia thereof, are mostly or entirely ideas which an AI could have but without said mental qualia. Our experience is largely a reflection where ‘mind’ correlates data and other things and manifests the respective qualia image or sensation etc.

if say in a dream or in thought and imaginations, there are any instances of mental qualia interacting or communicating with each other alone, this would be an ‘idea’ or an ‘illusion’ which is thence purely mental and which an AI or computer cannot have.

Thoughts anyone?

The way I see it I am only certain my own first person 'what it is like' conscious experience exists.

I assume the content of my experience represents my interaction with a real world out there.

My experience is in the form of a sense of being a unified, discrete self ('me'), an embodied subject agent with a specific first person pov, moving through time and space. Observing and interacting with a world of (not-me) objects, relations and patterns, and having attitudes about those interactions, about the world and myself. Those qualiative subjective attitudes bring meaning, purpose, value and morality into the world - mattering.

This experiential representation includes other subjects like me, and by comparing notes we can create a shared, third-person falsifiable model of the publically accessible aspects of our world, and create theories from patterns, abstract mental concepts like numbers, reason, causality and logic. This eventually results in the Physicalist model, of what the world is made of and how it works. Which is vast in scope, detail and explanatory power, and makes testable predictions. It works.

But there are issues.

Solipsism might be true, there's no way of knowing.

This physicalist reliance on third person falsifiability doesn't eliminate our shared human flaws and limitations.

Physicalism doesn't seem to have a way to explain conscious experience (our knowing toolkit) itself, aka the Hard Problem. *

Our experiential representations which result from interacting with the world might be very close to the reality. Or merely useful illusions which are 'good enough' to get by - the reality might be literally beyond our ability to perceive or conceive. Again, there's no way of knowing. Regardless, if we 'act as if' the physicalist model is about right, it works. If we don't, we're in trouble. So for all intents and purposes it may as well be.

* Because we don't understand the mind-body relationship, or even know the necessary and sufficient conditions for conscious experience to manifest, we have to make assumptions about what is or isn't conscious - based on similarity to ourselves. Other people are much like me, in make up and behaviour, and tell me they're conscious - so it seems reasonable to assume they are. Other species vary in similarity, the more like humans the more likelihood their conscious experience is comparable, if still unimaginably different. Plants, rocks, toasters and particles don't have as much similarity in make up and behaviour (notably don't have brains which contain the neural correlates of consciousness), so we assume they're not conscious. AI is becoming more similar in terms of behaviour, but we don't know if the difference in substrate means it doesn't meet the necessary and sufficient conditions for conscious experience to manifest. That's assuming, per physicalism, conscious experience is a novel emergent property of particular physical systems, but we can't rule out other possibilities like panpsychism or idealism either.

[Barkun]

Existence is prevailing more so than subsiding, if it passes all the tests, it exists. Do perfect circles exist? Yes, as concepts, but in this universe no physical perfect circle exists(which is specifically 'in this universe'; it doesn't pass the tests).

[The Beast]

The construction of a form or archetype or a geometrical design goes from possible to concrete to local reality. What is outside of the local reality is in the realm of the imagination constructing the local reality. Local reality is also the realm of feeling. When confronting an equality from imagination and local reality the thought of perfection comes to mind with the associated stelar feeling. Humans interact with and observe feelings but there is no objective measurement.

[amorphos_ii]

Listen people, here we just need to denote as to whether or not mental qualia can communicate with each other. Secondly if thought can occur from ground up and is not always top down [or directly as per external input] and responsive to stimuli etc.
we need to postulate what an AI or machine can do, as opposed to what we do but they cannot!!!!

jackdaydream

I haven’t read much Plato, the republic was enough for me ~ it seams as though modern politics are entirely skewed towards and by it, and I think the writer knew how this would work. Its why we druids don’t have books, nor religion and there has never been any such thing as druids.
I am speaking in contemporary terms of how we think of mental qualia. The ancient Greeks did not know enough science to target such things the way we can.

I don’t see how dreams are insignificant when artists writers and inventors sometimes use them as a tool. The best time to get ideas for me, is when one is almost asleep, not quite in rem but I do both rem and near sleep thinking with pen by my bed.

Anyhow we can be more targeted and just discuss mental qualia – specifically if they can talk or interact to one another. An AI could possibly have all the thoughts and ideas which we have except experientially based ones, nor dreams etc.

It’s a long discussion concerning mind not knowing anything exterior to themselves, to the idea is just nonsense. Also its irrelevant here because if all is in the mind then the op is the same.



Gertie

yes I concur that the me I experience is primary and also that it is unresolvable by science.

I think and have experienced varied POV, and that the mind can separate itself from observation and points thereof. So is more akin to a space which can centralise or focus into e.g. a POV or perspective other.


_

[Gee]

Do ideas exist? Do experiential ideas exist?

Damned good questions. I don't know, but I do have some thoughts.

I know I have done similar before but this is not repetition due to expansion. If we draw a simple Venn diagram with the question; what is real and what is illusion, then we have one circle with ‘what is real or exists’ and another with ‘what is not real, an illusion or does not exist’. The two circles must be in a third containing circle which is reality entire.

Think about this: If I handed you a map of a city, where would you put that in your Venn diagram? The map is real, but is the city that it is a map of real? If the city is made up and not real, does that mean that the map is not real?

We could perhaps state that only one circle exists; the ‘what is real’ circle, and so reality is only that and there are no illusions [!!!]. this for me is problematic, because there are many occurrence’s of things which e.g. are not physically real, like numbers infinities and even dreams and ideas. An artist may think of an idea which they can only define et al in a painting.

If you limit reality to one 'what is real' circle, then you eliminate the possibility of potential, which would be some serious determinism. You would also be implying that physically 'real' is permanent, which we know that it is not. Physical reality breaks down eventually and decays, so wouldn't mental reality also break down? Or is it more real than physical reality?

so what doesn’t exist?

Any potential that has not been fleshed out does not yet exist.

we could say that everything we experience is mental qualia and does not physically exist.

But saying it would not make it true. There can be a valid argument that thought may not be real, but there is no doubt that emotion is very real and very physical. It is a mental force, which we experience. Actually, all life experiences feeling and/or emotion, and we have evidence of this in the survival instincts of all life.

What I find interesting is that Tina Turner was correct when she sang, "What's Love, But a Second-Hand Emotion". Emotion and feeling work between, between people, between other life forms, between life and the environment as is evidenced by survival instincts. Emotion can not exist as a singularity, which is the best argument against solipsism. An AI robot that has no real emotion/experience could possibly be solipsist because it would not have an unconscious aspect of mind. Emotion works through the unconscious.

For the purpose of argument and because we don’t know that for sure, we could say that ideas can be illusions or processes e.g. an AI could have or make ideas, facts, maths and images along with a whole host of things which we may normally consider to be mental. It could make pretty much everything that isn’t a mental qualia. In fact our experience and qualia thereof, are mostly or entirely ideas which an AI could have but without said mental qualia. Our experience is largely a reflection where ‘mind’ correlates data and other things and manifests the respective qualia image or sensation etc.

No. Our thoughts are largely a reflection of the correlated data, but thought does not manifest into qualia. Qualia sources from emotion and feeling -- not thought. That is why AI does not have it.

if say in a dream or in thought and imaginations, there are any instances of mental qualia interacting or communicating with each other alone, this would be an ‘idea’ or an ‘illusion’ which is thence purely mental and which an AI or computer cannot have.

Thoughts anyone?

In order for AI to have it, AI would have to possess an unconscious aspect of mind.

Many years ago, I asked the question, "Does emotion carry thought, or does thought cause emotion?" I think it works both ways, but the source of thought is emotion, which means that the source of the conscious mind is the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is shared.

This is all just my opinion.

Gee

_

[JackDaydream]

The question may relate to the source of the process of creativity and may involve active imagination and the collective unconscious, as described by Jung. People see images and have thoughts. If people take the figures of reality in a too concrete way it can lead to psychosis, such as when a person makes the interpretation that God had spoken to them. It is a grey area because people may believe in spirit guides or channeling. So, the understanding of ideas and symbols as connected to mental states may be important. Nevertheless, being able to tap into the realm of ideas may be essential to creativity in philosophy, science and the arts.

[Gertie]

amorphous

yes I concur that the me I experience is primary and also that it is unresolvable by science.

I'd say Me IS the conscious experience.  It's the sense of being an integrated, unified, discrete subject agent embodied in space and time I talked about.  If you believe there is a Me which is a separate entity to the unity of your experience, then what is that Me?  A soul, or a mini-me homunculus watching the Cartesian Theatre play out and issuing commands to motor neurons?  Or what?

Experience is 'primary' epistemologically, it's nature is knowing things.  But we don't know if it's 'primary' as in ontologically fundamental.  It might be that experience is ontologically emergent from physical processes as physicalists suggest.  The epistemological-ontological distinction is important, I don't know which you mean is 'primary' here, or if you're claiming there's no real distinction (eg because Idealism is true)?

I think and have experienced varied POV, and that the mind can separate itself from observation and points thereof. So is more akin to a space which can centralise or focus into e.g. a POV or perspective other.

Are you talking about out of body experiences?  How does that chime with neural correlation do you think?  For example if you were being scanned by an MRI while having an out of body experience and a boffin could apply a very local anaesthetic to the neurons lighting up during that experience, wouldn't the out of body experience stop? 

More generally, experience doesn't occupy space in the way physical stuff does, and isn't observable and measurable in that way which locates physical stuff (hence it isn't accessible to the scientific method).   We have to talk in different ways about experience because it has different types of properties. We say it has extension and intentionality (meaning experience is about stuff and the space it is located in).   So what would  ''So is more akin to a space which can centralise or focus into e.g. a POV or perspective other.''  mean?  What would the actual claim be?

[amorphos_ii]

Gee, hi

Think about this: If I handed you a map of a city, where would you put that in your Venn diagram? The map is real, but is the city that it is a map of real? If the city is made up and not real, does that mean that the map is not real?

The map is abstract [a real representation in that it isn’t an illusion] and the city is real. Perhaps you mean that the city is man made and in some sense not ‘real’.

If you limit reality to one 'what is real' circle, then you eliminate the possibility of potential, which would be some serious determinism. You would also be implying that physically 'real' is permanent, which we know that it is not. Physical reality breaks down eventually and decays, so wouldn't mental reality also break down? Or is it more real than physical reality?

Well I wouldn’t limit it to one real, the idea behind the diagram is that there are no unreal illusions, and yet still the two camps of what is real and what is imaginary are in the greater circle; reality entire.

Yes everything real is in transit for sure, and potential derives from the possible multiple outcomes, especially that there are nearly always more than one causal entity involved.

Hmm well mental reality breaks down with extreme age and disease etc, or at least the informational input we derive from the senses. As to whether or not mental qualia in and of themselves degrade, is a most interesting question. I would say that they are not physical, ergo that in the very least, the only degradation is in the signals being delivered.

Importantly here, is the notion of mental qualia ideas manifesting their own kind of info i.e. the info we experience and not physical info nor data and what have you. In fact could we not say that ‘information’ does not exist, in that it isn’t what we recognise as information!

Any potential that has not been fleshed out does not yet exist.

Such as? ...If say an electron has the potential to move along a wire and even jump between contacts, that potential is direct and it cannot perform any other uninstructed potential [ something that it ‘may’ become of do.

Yet you are right in other contexts such as the mind, don’t we often start thinking something only to let it go, and then it returns at a later point as if unconnected. Well a scientist would probably say that all the info involved is stored in the brains circuits somewhere, so again we can only resolve additional or new informations from mental qualia and only if that can >do something/anything<!!!!

emotion in some ways seams to be the lesser of all mental qualia – if I may [though also the greater and most powerful]. Very simple creatures [as you say] experience it, and where it appears to be merely physical stimuli e.g. a flower reacts to something landing on it, but doesn’t feel emotional about that perhaps. ...very long topic I feel lol

No. Our thoughts are largely a reflection of the correlated data, but thought does not manifest into qualia. Qualia sources from emotion and feeling -- not thought. That is why AI does not have it.

Sorry I meant that an AI could have what appears to be thoughts and ideas, but without mental qualia it only has information and not the kind of info [mental qualia] we experience in our minds.

In order for AI to have it, AI would have to possess an unconscious aspect of mind.

Is consciousness not mental qualia? Surely awareness definitely is! Indeed is the unconscious actually not mental qualia and is in fact information ~ like a computer or an AI or both of those things..

-----------------

Gertie

If you believe there is a Me which is a separate entity to the unity of your experience, then what is that Me?

I don’t [whilst we are alive and not out of body] and definitely not homunculus lol. Nor is the ‘unity of experience’ entire in my humble opinion. Given that mental qualia is not physical, there is every chance that it may exist before and after its entanglement with physical form. We could also go into astral projection and dreams, but I would leave it simple for now and just say that there is ‘a disentanglement due to the distinction of entity’!

- we are subjective beings, and for me that requires some manner of separation. The observer can e.g. switch views and perspective, ergo is not tied to the given directive.

Experience is 'primary' epistemologically, it's nature is knowing things.  But we don't know if it's 'primary' as in ontologically fundamental.  It might be that experience is ontologically emergent from physical processes as physicalists suggest.  The epistemological-ontological distinction is important, I don't know which you mean is 'primary' here, or if you're claiming there's no real distinction (eg because Idealism is true)?

Surely we may experience without knowing, like in dreams and visions, maybe the emptiness arrived at in meditations. Indeed I think we can have ideas which don’t begin with a knowing – because we don’t know it until it is observed and that takes time. For example, we have to change our perspectives from the other 7 or so things we are currently focussing upon to view a new thing, and that new thing may be some vague image in a dream or simply in our imagination.

Are you talking about out of body experiences?  How does that chime with neural correlation do you think?  For example if you were being scanned by an MRI while having an out of body experience and a boffin could apply a very local anaesthetic to the neurons lighting up during that experience, wouldn't the out of body experience stop?

I wasn’t actually thinking oob, more meditations and various thought ‘processes’ let us say, to wit I feel that is just how the mind works [especially the artistic one].
Hmm well some oob’s occur due to the brain becoming subconscious or unconscious. Which is surely the same as if you put neurons to sleep.

Ergo…

More generally, experience doesn't occupy space in the way physical stuff does, and isn't observable and measurable in that way which locates physical stuff (hence it isn't accessible to the scientific method).   We have to talk in different ways about experience because it has different types of properties. We say it has extension and intentionality (meaning experience is about stuff and the space it is located in).   So what would  ''So is more akin to a space which can centralise or focus into e.g. a POV or perspective other.''  mean?  What would the actual claim be?

I think that in the first part we are saying similar things [to my last answer above] just in our own language.
The claim would be that the experience can view more widely than the given particulars – as you say, it doesn’t occupy in the same way physical stuff does. It is more ‘zonal’ and that can be greater than the physical zones, equally that for the experience to be that, it means it can detach and hence become subjective. Ultimately [with all the above considered] to me this means it can completely zone out and hence become more akin to a space.


_

[Gertie]

amorphos_ii

If you believe there is a Me which is a separate entity to the unity of your experience, then what is that Me?

I don’t [whilst we are alive and not out of body] and definitely not homunculus lol. Nor is the ‘unity of experience’ entire in my humble opinion. Given that mental qualia is not physical, there is every chance that it may exist before and after its entanglement with physical form. We could also go into astral projection and dreams, but I would leave it simple for now and just say that there is ‘a disentanglement due to the distinction of entity’!

- we are subjective beings, and for me that requires some manner of separation. The observer can e.g. switch views and perspective, ergo is not tied to the given directive.

An ontological separation of mind and body you mean?  Two different fundamental substances which 'entangle' somehow to form all the individual humans and other conscious species which have ever existed?  And the mind part can act causatively independently of the body part?
OK,  then what is this disembodied Me? 

Experience is 'primary' epistemologically, it's nature is knowing things.  But we don't know if it's 'primary' as in ontologically fundamental.  It might be that experience is ontologically emergent from physical processes as physicalists suggest.  The epistemological-ontological distinction is important, I don't know which you mean is 'primary' here, or if you're claiming there's no real distinction (eg because Idealism is true)?

Surely we may experience without knowing, like in dreams and visions, maybe the emptiness arrived at in meditations. Indeed I think we can have ideas which don’t begin with a knowing – because we don’t know it until it is observed and that takes time. For example, we have to change our perspectives from the other 7 or so things we are currently focussing upon to view a new thing, and that new thing may be some vague image in a dream or simply in our imagination.

I'm using 'knowing' a little differently here, I'll try to clarify.  As I say, I think Me is the unified sense of self which emerges from all our mental subsystems being integrated into a coherent unified field of consciousness.(There are mechanisms which help us make it all coherent - filtering, focus, the thinky voice in our heads narrating a contemporaneous commentary, helping it all fit together in a usefully  coherent and comprehensible way).   In other words I don't think there's a separate Me having the experiences, I am the experiences. Whatever 'it is like' to be Gertie from moment to moment, is Me. And my knowledge of myself and the world from moment to moment, is my mental experience.

We casually use the term knowledge differently in day to day language, so I can say I know Paris is the capital of France.  But I don't have a teeny physical library in my head where a mini-me homunculus goes to look it up, what happens is I might get asked the question, which fires a certain corresponding pattern of neural circuitry, and the answer Paris manifests as experience.  The experience is the knowing. Experiencing seeing a tree is knowing there's a tree there. Experiencing hunger is knowing I'm hungry.  Hence when dreaming  I can be mistaken about the real nature of the world,   I can't be mistaken about my own dreaming experience, it is directly known. 

Are you talking about out of body experiences?  How does that chime with neural correlation do you think?  For example if you were being scanned by an MRI while having an out of body experience and a boffin could apply a very local anaesthetic to the neurons lighting up during that experience, wouldn't the out of body experience stop?

I wasn’t actually thinking oob, more meditations and various thought ‘processes’ let us say, to wit I feel that is just how the mind works [especially the artistic one].
Hmm well some oob’s occur due to the brain becoming subconscious or unconscious. Which is surely the same as if you put neurons to sleep.

Well if neural correlation holds, as it seems to, every experiential state will have some corresponding neural activity.  Presumably that would be the nexus of the mind-body 'entanglement' you propose?  There's no evidence I'm aware of that this neural correlation breaks down when we're in altered states, do you know any?  And death certainly looks like evidence that when the brain dies, experience ends.

More generally, experience doesn't occupy space in the way physical stuff does, and isn't observable and measurable in that way which locates physical stuff (hence it isn't accessible to the scientific method).   We have to talk in different ways about experience because it has different types of properties. We say it has extension and intentionality (meaning experience is about stuff and the space it is located in).   So what would  ''So is more akin to a space which can centralise or focus into e.g. a POV or perspective other.''  mean?  What would the actual claim be?

I think that in the first part we are saying similar things [to my last answer above] just in our own language.
The claim would be that the experience can view more widely than the given particulars – as you say, it doesn’t occupy in the same way physical stuff does. It is more ‘zonal’ and that can be greater than the physical zones, equally that for the experience to be that, it means it can detach and hence become subjective. Ultimately [with all the above considered] to me this means it can completely zone out and hence become more akin to a space.

If we agree that conscious experience has different types of  qualities to physical stuff, we still have to deal with neural correlation, which seems to hold.  Neural correlation is our biggest clue as to the nature of the mind-body relationship.  It tells us there is such a relationship, and what parts of the brain processes correspond to what type of experience  (the optical sub-system, memory,etc). 

So we have these two parallel types of properties, which you might say intersect in the brain.   Experiential properties don't have a physical location as such, they experientially 'represent ' physical locations, but if we mess with the physically located brain, we can affect those experiences.  We don't understand how or why.  It might be you're right, that brains are where physical stuff 'entangles' with experiential stuff, a sort of zonal/dimensional interface or something.  And maybe you're right that mind stuff can causally disentangle under some circs, like out of body experiences or meditation.  But there are other explanations, so what makes this explanation compelling in your view?  

Physicalists believe there's only one type of fundamental substance, and experience is an emergent property.  They can point to 'lower level' physical brain changes affecting correlated experiential change as evidence of this. And they they can say we understand novel properties in nature occur via physical systems, and this is just one we don't understand yet.  What does your entangled substance dualism rely on? 

And then back to the question of what does this disentanglement mean to being a Me?  Say my 'soul' disentangles from my body at death, obviously neural correlation  which seems to be entailed in how my sense of self manifests, has stopped.  What is it then like to be 'free floating Me experience'?  And how can you know?

[amorphos_ii]

Gertie

An ontological separation of mind and body you mean?  Two different fundamental substances which 'entangle' somehow to form all the individual humans and other conscious species which have ever existed?  And the mind part can act causatively independently of the body part?
OK,  then what is this disembodied Me?

I do think that ‘mind’ is fundamental and that the universe is a projection, or that reality includes it [mind] in some kind of universal entity which can be mind and or energy/matter. Its a two-way street, in order for there to be separation i.e. the subjective observer, then mind has to be in a blank state at root. ..it is the thing looking at the various things floating around and betwen them.

Hmm, well the causality would be the attachment and not the detachment! ...or detached mind.

Consider the pre-universe reality as stateless and its own ‘space’ [read not the same as the space which is in the universe], to wit a subjective entity may emerge.
Then that this stateless space is not bound to anything and so remains after the emergence of universe or e.g. of a new born mind/child. Ergo this is what we the subjective being utilises, where there is always statelessness and emergence. They are the fundaments!

I'm using 'knowing' a little differently here, I'll try to clarify.  As I say, I think Me is the unified sense of self which emerges from all our mental subsystems being integrated into a coherent unified field of consciousness.

It is indeed, once we are in bodily form it is that set up against the stateless space, ergo we only know that and what our brains tell us is going on; imagine the chaos if everything interfered with everything else! Something like a blank canvas, then the ‘me’ [body etc] is painted onto it.

However, the ‘me’ is experiential and is a mental qualia [not physical]. So perhaps we could say that the brains idea we call ‘me’ is the self, and the experience of that is the person, the being, – ‘you’. Name it how one wants, but one thing is experiential and the other is what is being experienced in terms of sensory data.

In other words I don't think there's a separate Me having the experiences, I am the experiences. Whatever 'it is like' to be Gertie from moment to moment, is Me. And my knowledge of myself and the world from moment to moment, is my mental experience.

Ok, so now subtract what of that can also happen when sleepwalking! i.e. and there is limited or no experience of all that. So now the ‘me’ is not the sleepwalker.
There's no evidence I'm aware of that this neural correlation breaks down when we're in altered states, do you know any?  And death certainly looks like evidence that when the brain dies, experience ends.

Definitely the experience as derived from the body ends, but the experiencer may survive. I don’t think that everything we experience and the experiential ‘me’ has to cease to 'be'. It depends upon the nature of said stateless mind-space, which for me is the most amazing thing in the whole of reality. I feel that all mental qualia go in and out of said ‘space’, and so is ‘remembered’.

The most fundamental spiritual thing if I may add, is the simplest nature of reality; the unmanifest and the manifest. So the experiential ‘me’ can pop in and out of said space, become nothing and then something ~ formless and formed. After all, the universe came out of there and so the nothingness contains everything in a formless and stateless version.

there are other explanations, so what makes this explanation compelling in your view? 

It seams to be more universal, in fact greater still. That we are dealing with fundamentals of mind and body, and that ultimately they both belong to the same thing! This is why they can talk and interact with one another, they are joined at the hip but indirectly, because there needs to be the separation such that the world can do its thing, the experience its without interference, ~ which would block or change facets of their workings.

What does your entangled substance dualism rely on?

Have I described a dualism? As that isn’t how I am seeing it at all. My theory relies upon a vision of reality greater than universe, and an experience greater than sensory data. All things must be one and multiple at the same time. This simply because reality must be one and entire.

What is it then like to be 'free floating Me experience'?  And how can you know?

Because the idea exists!!!!!

_

[Gertie]

Gertie

An ontological separation of mind and body you mean?  Two different fundamental substances which 'entangle' somehow to form all the individual humans and other conscious species which have ever existed?  And the mind part can act causatively independently of the body part?
OK,  then what is this disembodied Me?

I do think that ‘mind’ is fundamental and that the universe is a projection, or that reality includes it [mind] in some kind of universal entity which can be mind and or energy/matter. Its a two-way street, in order for there to be separation i.e. the subjective observer, then mind has to be in a blank state at root. ..it is the thing looking at the various things floating around and betwen them.

Hmm, well the causality would be the attachment and not the detachment! ...or detached mind.

Consider the pre-universe reality as stateless and its own ‘space’ [read not the same as the space which is in the universe], to wit a subjective entity may emerge.
Then that this stateless space is not bound to anything and so remains after the emergence of universe or e.g. of a new born mind/child. Ergo this is what we the subjective being utilises, where there is always statelessness and emergence. They are the fundaments!

I'm using 'knowing' a little differently here, I'll try to clarify.  As I say, I think Me is the unified sense of self which emerges from all our mental subsystems being integrated into a coherent unified field of consciousness.

It is indeed, once we are in bodily form it is that set up against the stateless space, ergo we only know that and what our brains tell us is going on; imagine the chaos if everything interfered with everything else! Something like a blank canvas, then the ‘me’ [body etc] is painted onto it.

However, the ‘me’ is experiential and is a mental qualia [not physical]. So perhaps we could say that the brains idea we call ‘me’ is the self, and the experience of that is the person, the being, – ‘you’. Name it how one wants, but one thing is experiential and the other is what is being experienced in terms of sensory data.

In other words I don't think there's a separate Me having the experiences, I am the experiences. Whatever 'it is like' to be Gertie from moment to moment, is Me. And my knowledge of myself and the world from moment to moment, is my mental experience.

Ok, so now subtract what of that can also happen when sleepwalking! i.e. and there is limited or no experience of all that. So now the ‘me’ is not the sleepwalker.
There's no evidence I'm aware of that this neural correlation breaks down when we're in altered states, do you know any?  And death certainly looks like evidence that when the brain dies, experience ends.

Definitely the experience as derived from the body ends, but the experiencer may survive. I don’t think that everything we experience and the experiential ‘me’ has to cease to 'be'. It depends upon the nature of said stateless mind-space, which for me is the most amazing thing in the whole of reality. I feel that all mental qualia go in and out of said ‘space’, and so is ‘remembered’.

The most fundamental spiritual thing if I may add, is the simplest nature of reality; the unmanifest and the manifest. So the experiential ‘me’ can pop in and out of said space, become nothing and then something ~ formless and formed. After all, the universe came out of there and so the nothingness contains everything in a formless and stateless version.

there are other explanations, so what makes this explanation compelling in your view? 

It seams to be more universal, in fact greater still. That we are dealing with fundamentals of mind and body, and that ultimately they both belong to the same thing! This is why they can talk and interact with one another, they are joined at the hip but indirectly, because there needs to be the separation such that the world can do its thing, the experience its without interference, ~ which would block or change facets of their workings.

What does your entangled substance dualism rely on?

Have I described a dualism? As that isn’t how I am seeing it at all. My theory relies upon a vision of reality greater than universe, and an experience greater than sensory data. All things must be one and multiple at the same time. This simply because reality must be one and entire.

What is it then like to be 'free floating Me experience'?  And how can you know?

Because the idea exists!!!!!

_

Sorry amorphos, it's really hard for me to parse what you're saying. Can you lay out your basic theory more clearly?

[amorphos_ii]

Perhaps pick one part or one part at a time. I may indeed have convoluted my reply with a more general notion of what reality is i.e. including mind as fundamental or an aspect of what fundamental reality is. I have difficulty separating the two, because I don’t see how we can have ‘mind’ awareness or ideas, without those things being part of what reality is.

I have greater difficulty placing physics into what reality is than mind lol

[The Beast]

The Bell inequalities thesis applied to the local reality is IMO subject to the determinism applied by the hidden variables aroused by doctrines. The doctrine’s source is a divide of the metaphysical and the sensical. There is a local reality asserted by the senses. However, measurements are an abstract composition of the mind, and this includes predication since language is a composition/invention. There might be a quantum level connection of psyches in the energy producing ideas/feelings with many loopholes in communication attested by human psychology. In conclusion (IMO): The quantum base underlying the local reality is focused by the doctrines/ideas or that ideas are the local reality. However, the basic questions remain as in the universality of the Forms doctrine.