Materialism is absurd

[SteveKlinko]

"Today it is clear that there is a causality trajectory from the Physical World to the Conscious World and not the other way around."
...
The reality of the situation is that the Neural Activity in the Brain causes or produces in some way the Redness Experience.

You seem to answer the following two questions with Yes and Yes as well. If so, why wouldn't TP's assertion "I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist")." naturally follow for you as well?

So I'm a physicalist. I'm convinced that the mind is simply brain processes.

I don't at all buy determinism.



Yes and yes. I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").

I say that the Neural Activity can be the cause but it is not the source of Conscious Experience. I say that Consciousness is Connected to the Physical Brain, but Consciousness is not the Brain. I say the Brain has no Consciousness or Conscious Experience. I try the promote the Connectist Point of View. See https://theintermind.com/#ConnectionPerspective for a more complete explanation of the Connection Perspective of Connectism.

To summarize, you seem to argue the following:

1) Conscious World exists independent from Physical World and is non-physical?

Yes.

2) A brain in Physical World - out of itself, by neuron activity - connects to Conscious World to causally create subjective conscious experience?

The Neural Activity happens in the Brain whether there is a Consciousness Connected or not. The Brain is an Electro Chemical Machine. But when Consciousness does Connect to a Brain through an Inter Mind, there can be Conscious Experiences. The Inter Mind monitors the Unconscious Neural Activity and produces the Conscious Experience for the Conscious Mind.

Why would a physical brain know about the existence of (independently existing and non-physical) Conscious World? Why would a physical brain become motivated out of itself to 'connect' to something that is non-physical? It seems to imply a moment of absolute darkness (deprivation of conscious experience) before the connection was made. If that were to be the case, a causal trajectory from the brain to Conscious World seems implausible.

The Physical Brain knows nothing about a Conscious World. The Link explains how a Physical Mind and a Conscious Mind are built up Neuron by Neuron until the Inter Mind is Connected with all Cortical Neurons. The Inter Mind learns how to use each Neuron during the development process in the womb. I would say that the Conscious Mind must know something about Neurons to be able to Connect properly, but the Neurons themselves are absolutely Not Conscious of anything. Consciousness is in Conscious Space not in Physical Space.

[psyreporter]

The Link outside of Physical World would thus have to know about the physical brain, but would it do so after or before the brain existed? Does the Link create the brain or merely connect it? In the latter case, the idea seems implausible. How would a brain know what to develop to allow connection potential with a Link, for example?

With regard the Neuron example. What about intelligence in lower life forms such as microbes? Does it connect to non-physical Conscious World via an Inter Mind?

[SteveKlinko]

The Link outside of Physical World would thus have to know about the physical brain, but would it do so after or before the brain existed? Does the Link create the brain or merely connect it? In the latter case, the idea seems implausible. How would a brain know what to develop to allow connection potential with a Link, for example?

With regard the Neuron example. What about intelligence in lower life forms such as microbes? Does it connect to non-physical Conscious World via an Inter Mind?

The Neurons evolve into what they are. If there is a survival advantage to developing the capacity to Connect then that is what the Neurons will do over millions of years. If Microbes have any Conscious Experience they will have to be able to Connect to Consciousness.

[psyreporter]

Do you view life and consciousness as completely separate? If so, on what ground?

[psyreporter]

"Today it is clear that there is a causality trajectory from the Physical World to the Conscious World and not the other way around."
...
The reality of the situation is that the Neural Activity in the Brain causes or produces in some way the Redness Experience.

The Neurons evolve into what they are. If there is a survival advantage to developing the capacity to Connect then that is what the Neurons will do over millions of years. If Microbes have any Conscious Experience they will have to be able to Connect to Consciousness.

A quote by free will sceptics indicates that it is impossible to escape determinism in a purely physical (materialistic) world. It seems to imply that a causality trajectory from Physical World to non-physical Conscious World is impossible:

To make a choice that wasn’t merely the next link in the unbroken chain of causes, you’d have to be able to stand apart from the whole thing, a ghostly presence separate from the material world yet mysteriously still able to influence it. But of course you can’t actually get to this supposed place that’s external to the universe, separate from all the atoms that comprise it and the laws that govern them. Your consciousness is just some of the atoms in the universe, governed by the same predictable laws as all the rest.

(2021) The clockwork universe: is free will an illusion?
A growing chorus of scientists and philosophers argue that free will does not exist. Why would they do so?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/a ... n-illusion

Would you agree with the logic by free will sceptics? If not, what would be the basis for the idea that there can be a causality trajectory from Physical World to Conscious World?

A user on this forum has a similar idea that free will is possible in a purely physical world:

I'm an atheist.

So I'm a physicalist. I'm convinced that the mind is simply brain processes.

I don't at all buy determinism.

1. Do you believe in intrinsic existence without mind?
2. Do you believe that mind has a cause within the scope of physical reality?

Yes and yes. I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").

When questioning how it would be possible to escape determinism, I didn't get any further than the following:

You are dodging a simple question: how are you able to maintain a belief in free will as being a materialist?

The cited quote by free will sceptics indicates that it is impossible to escape determinism in a purely physical world.

lol - what a jackass.

[SteveKlinko]

Do you view life and consciousness as completely separate? If so, on what ground?

First of all I try not to use ambiguous words like Consciousness. But even when I do say Consciousness, I'm talking about Conscious Experience. Everybody is thinking something different when we just talk about some generalized Consciousness thing. This leads to all kinds of unnecessary arguments. I like to talk about Conscious Experiences like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste, or etc.

I only gradually became convinced that Consciousness was a completely separate thing from the Physical Universe. It all started decades ago when I thought it might be fun to learn about How we See. I discovered that the only thing Science knew for sure was that if certain Neurons fire we can have an Experience of Seeing. It was reasonable to speculate that there must be something about the Neurons that produced this Experience of Seeing. To test this, Science has Probed, Measured, Scanned, and Mapped the Brain in every conceivable way. And after a hundred years, HUGE progress was made with understanding the Neural Activity that happens while Seeing. But after all this time, Science has made exactly ZERO progress with understanding the Conscious Experience of Seeing. Ironically, the Seeing part of how we See was still a total mystery. Science has not been able to explain how Conscious Experience is in the Neurons or Emerges from the Neurons. It was only a Correlation that Neurons fire and Conscious Experience happens. It became clear to me that it was time to start thinking in New Ways. I realized that maybe the reason Science cannot find Consciousness or Conscious Experience in the Neurons is that it is not in the Neurons. Well if it is not in the Neurons then where is it? I speculated that Conscious Experience happens in a separate place or Space that I call Conscious Space. But something was still missing. I speculated that there must be an Inter Mind concept that monitors the Neural Activity and then creates the Conscious Experience for the Conscious Mind.

[SteveKlinko]

"Today it is clear that there is a causality trajectory from the Physical World to the Conscious World and not the other way around."
...
The reality of the situation is that the Neural Activity in the Brain causes or produces in some way the Redness Experience.

The Neurons evolve into what they are. If there is a survival advantage to developing the capacity to Connect then that is what the Neurons will do over millions of years. If Microbes have any Conscious Experience they will have to be able to Connect to Consciousness.

A quote by free will sceptics indicates that it is impossible to escape determinism in a purely physical (materialistic) world. It seems to imply that a causality trajectory from Physical World to non-physical Conscious World is impossible:

To make a choice that wasn’t merely the next link in the unbroken chain of causes, you’d have to be able to stand apart from the whole thing, a ghostly presence separate from the material world yet mysteriously still able to influence it. But of course you can’t actually get to this supposed place that’s external to the universe, separate from all the atoms that comprise it and the laws that govern them. Your consciousness is just some of the atoms in the universe, governed by the same predictable laws as all the rest.

(2021) The clockwork universe: is free will an illusion?
A growing chorus of scientists and philosophers argue that free will does not exist. Why would they do so?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/a ... n-illusion

Would you agree with the logic by free will sceptics? If not, what would be the basis for the idea that there can be a causality trajectory from Physical World to Conscious World?

A user on this forum has a similar idea that free will is possible in a purely physical world:

I'm an atheist.

So I'm a physicalist. I'm convinced that the mind is simply brain processes.

I don't at all buy determinism.

1. Do you believe in intrinsic existence without mind?
2. Do you believe that mind has a cause within the scope of physical reality?

Yes and yes. I'm a realist and a physicalist (aka "materialist").

When questioning how it would be possible to escape determinism, I didn't get any further than the following:

You are dodging a simple question: how are you able to maintain a belief in free will as being a materialist?

The cited quote by free will sceptics indicates that it is impossible to escape determinism in a purely physical world.

lol - what a jackass.

I think you may not be understanding my use of the Causality Trajectory term. It came out of discussions about Idealism where the Idealists say that something like the Experience of Redness happens and that this causes the Neurons for Red to fire in the Cortex. My point was simply that from a Systems Engineering point of view, that was Incoherent. If you were to study how we See you would have to start from the Light reflecting off a surface and hitting the Retina which generates an avalanche of chemical processes that eventually fires Neurons to the Optic Nerve which terminates on the Visual Cortex to fire Neurons associated with Red inputs. There is a certain Causality Trajectory from the original Light happening to the final Neurons Firing. After or while these final Neurons Fire there is an Experience of Redness. So the causality is from the final Neurons to the Experience. Not the other way. The Experience of Redness comes after Neurons fire. The Firing Neurons don't come after the Experience. There is a Causality Trajectory from Neurons to Experience and not from Experience to Neurons. Your argument somehow tying this to Determinism makes no sense to me.

[psyreporter]

First of all I try not to use ambiguous words like Consciousness. But even when I do say Consciousness, I'm talking about Conscious Experience. Everybody is thinking something different when we just talk about some generalized Consciousness thing. This leads to all kinds of unnecessary arguments. I like to talk about Conscious Experiences like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste, or etc.

I only gradually became convinced that Consciousness was a completely separate thing from the Physical Universe. It all started decades ago when I thought it might be fun to learn about How we See. I discovered that the only thing Science knew for sure was that if certain Neurons fire we can have an Experience of Seeing. It was reasonable to speculate that there must be something about the Neurons that produced this Experience of Seeing. To test this, Science has Probed, Measured, Scanned, and Mapped the Brain in every conceivable way. And after a hundred years, HUGE progress was made with understanding the Neural Activity that happens while Seeing. But after all this time, Science has made exactly ZERO progress with understanding the Conscious Experience of Seeing. Ironically, the Seeing part of how we See was still a total mystery. Science has not been able to explain how Conscious Experience is in the Neurons or Emerges from the Neurons. It was only a Correlation that Neurons fire and Conscious Experience happens. It became clear to me that it was time to start thinking in New Ways. I realized that maybe the reason Science cannot find Consciousness or Conscious Experience in the Neurons is that it is not in the Neurons. Well if it is not in the Neurons then where is it? I speculated that Conscious Experience happens in a separate place or Space that I call Conscious Space. But something was still missing. I speculated that there must be an Inter Mind concept that monitors the Neural Activity and then creates the Conscious Experience for the Conscious Mind.

I understand your reasoning but I do not understand how you can perceive the physical Universe to stand on its own as separated from and primary of what you name Conscious World.

Further, the idea that conscious experience would be 'produced' in the neurons is absurd.

The 'brain in a vat' idea (causally explainable consciousness) would suppose that an empirical cause of moral valuing can have preceded the sense-data. You would need to envision an empirical cause of consciousness to reside within absolute nothingness to suddenly receive a bit of information to magically judge subjectively. It would be a nonsensical idea.

Therefore, one is firstly to look at the senses as origin of conscious experience and secondly at the potential for sensing (which involves moral valuing) to be possible, which ultimately derives its potential from what can be denoted as 'pure meaning' or 'good per se' (good that cannot be valued).

[SteveKlinko]

First of all I try not to use ambiguous words like Consciousness. But even when I do say Consciousness, I'm talking about Conscious Experience. Everybody is thinking something different when we just talk about some generalized Consciousness thing. This leads to all kinds of unnecessary arguments. I like to talk about Conscious Experiences like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste, or etc.

I only gradually became convinced that Consciousness was a completely separate thing from the Physical Universe. It all started decades ago when I thought it might be fun to learn about How we See. I discovered that the only thing Science knew for sure was that if certain Neurons fire we can have an Experience of Seeing. It was reasonable to speculate that there must be something about the Neurons that produced this Experience of Seeing. To test this, Science has Probed, Measured, Scanned, and Mapped the Brain in every conceivable way. And after a hundred years, HUGE progress was made with understanding the Neural Activity that happens while Seeing. But after all this time, Science has made exactly ZERO progress with understanding the Conscious Experience of Seeing. Ironically, the Seeing part of how we See was still a total mystery. Science has not been able to explain how Conscious Experience is in the Neurons or Emerges from the Neurons. It was only a Correlation that Neurons fire and Conscious Experience happens. It became clear to me that it was time to start thinking in New Ways. I realized that maybe the reason Science cannot find Consciousness or Conscious Experience in the Neurons is that it is not in the Neurons. Well if it is not in the Neurons then where is it? I speculated that Conscious Experience happens in a separate place or Space that I call Conscious Space. But something was still missing. I speculated that there must be an Inter Mind concept that monitors the Neural Activity and then creates the Conscious Experience for the Conscious Mind.

I understand your reasoning but I do not understand how you can perceive the physical Universe to stand on its own as separated from and primary of what you name Conscious World.

Further, the idea that conscious experience would be 'produced' in the neurons is absurd.

The 'brain in a vat' idea (causally explainable consciousness) would suppose that an empirical cause of moral valuing can have preceded the sense-data. You would need to envision an empirical cause of consciousness to reside within absolute nothingness to suddenly receive a bit of information to magically judge subjectively. It would be a nonsensical idea.

Therefore, one is firstly to look at the senses as origin of conscious experience and secondly at the potential for sensing (which involves moral valuing) to be possible, which ultimately derives its potential from what can be denoted as 'pure meaning' or 'good per se' (good that cannot be valued).

I don't understand your arguments and you you don't understand mine. Maybe someday you will understand mine and maybe I will understand yours. For now we are at a Stalemate.

[psyreporter]

I don't understand your arguments and you you don't understand mine. Maybe someday you will understand mine and maybe I will understand yours. For now we are at a Stalemate.

Is it correct that you consider physical neurons to develop by themselves within the scope of Physical Reality to then - after millions of years evolution - Connect to non-physical Conscious Space?

What about life? Doesn't it require an explanation outside the scope of Physical Reality?

Why would life (the development of Neuron's) be of a different nature than Consciousness? Can you specifically answer this question?

[SteveKlinko]

I don't understand your arguments and you you don't understand mine. Maybe someday you will understand mine and maybe I will understand yours. For now we are at a Stalemate.

Is it correct that you consider physical neurons to develop by themselves within the scope of Physical Reality to then - after millions of years evolution - Connect to non-physical Conscious Space?

What about life? Doesn't it require an explanation outside the scope of Physical Reality?

Why would life (the development of Neuron's) be of a different nature than Consciousness? Can you specifically answer this question?

Yes.

I think yes.

Neurons are a Categorically different Phenomenon than say the Experience of Redness. Seems pretty clear to me that, that is true. And besides, Science has been unable to explain how the Conscious Experience of something like Redness is a Physical Process of the Neurons.

[psyreporter]

I don't understand your arguments and you you don't understand mine. Maybe someday you will understand mine and maybe I will understand yours. For now we are at a Stalemate.

Is it correct that you consider physical neurons to develop by themselves within the scope of Physical Reality to then - after millions of years evolution - Connect to non-physical Conscious Space?

What about life? Doesn't it require an explanation outside the scope of Physical Reality?

Why would life (the development of Neuron's) be of a different nature than Consciousness? Can you specifically answer this question?

Yes.

I think yes.

Neurons are a Categorically different Phenomenon than say the Experience of Redness. Seems pretty clear to me that, that is true. And besides, Science has been unable to explain how the Conscious Experience of something like Redness is a Physical Process of the Neurons.

What is the basis for the idea that the origin of life and the origin of consciousness are separate? Doesn't it imply an absurd plurality with regard Physical World and 'non-physical and timeless' Conscious World relative to each other?

[psyreporter]

Neurons are a Categorically different Phenomenon than say the Experience of Redness. Seems pretty clear to me that, that is true. And besides, Science has been unable to explain how the Conscious Experience of something like Redness is a Physical Process of the Neurons.

Perhaps a similar factor is perceivable in the development of neurons compared to the development of the capacity to experience Redness? What makes both special in the sense that it is argued that empirical science cannot grasp and explain it, is meaning (intelligence) and on behalf of it moral valuing.

I have started to use the term 'moral valuing' for 'any valuing' because any valuing concerns the question 'what is good?' (what is 'pure meaning'? or what is 'truth'?). Therefore, any value can be said to have a moral origin, which would include 'the Universe'.

A priori moral valuing would perform the same as a priori intelligence.

[SteveKlinko]

I don't understand your arguments and you you don't understand mine. Maybe someday you will understand mine and maybe I will understand yours. For now we are at a Stalemate.

Is it correct that you consider physical neurons to develop by themselves within the scope of Physical Reality to then - after millions of years evolution - Connect to non-physical Conscious Space?

What about life? Doesn't it require an explanation outside the scope of Physical Reality?

Why would life (the development of Neuron's) be of a different nature than Consciousness? Can you specifically answer this question?

Yes.

I think yes.

Neurons are a Categorically different Phenomenon than say the Experience of Redness. Seems pretty clear to me that, that is true. And besides, Science has been unable to explain how the Conscious Experience of something like Redness is a Physical Process of the Neurons.

What is the basis for the idea that the origin of life and the origin of consciousness are separate? Doesn't it imply an absurd plurality with regard Physical World and 'non-physical and timeless' Conscious World relative to each other?

Not Absurd, but The Physical Universe is clearly of a different Category of Phenomena than all the Conscious Experiences that you can think of.

[SteveKlinko]

Neurons are a Categorically different Phenomenon than say the Experience of Redness. Seems pretty clear to me that, that is true. And besides, Science has been unable to explain how the Conscious Experience of something like Redness is a Physical Process of the Neurons.

Perhaps a similar factor is perceivable in the development of neurons compared to the development of the capacity to experience Redness? What makes both special in the sense that it is argued that empirical science cannot grasp and explain it, is meaning (intelligence) and on behalf of it moral valuing.

I have started to use the term 'moral valuing' for 'any valuing' because any valuing concerns the question 'what is good?' (what is 'pure meaning'? or what is 'truth'?). Therefore, any value can be said to have a moral origin, which would include 'the Universe'.

A priori moral valuing would perform the same as a priori intelligence.

I don't think Science inherently can't Explain Consciousness. I think they will someday. Scientists have painted themselves into a corner with their Physicalist Dogma. Scientists will not get funding to conduct research into Non Physicalist theories. So they very seldom think outside the Box because they can't do anything with that type of Thinking.