Death...according to Pantheopsychism

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

Post by phenomenal_graffiti »

Greta:
Is there a summary of the OP?
Death as it exists in Pantheopsychism or if Pantheopsychism and Pantheopsychic Christianity is true:

1. Pantheospychism, my invention, is a version of Berkeley's Idealism in which the external world, rather than being an infinite consciousness-independent space filled with consciousness-independent objects and events, is actually the inner mind of an infinite Person.

2. This Person is the Judeo-Christian God, who "suffers" from a cosmic form of Dissociative Personality Disorder, having three personalities (compare the concept of the Trinity) that correspond to the world experienced by others, as all other beings exist within the mind of God and are formations of the substance of his consciousness that, in the same way a fiction writer imagines others within one's mind, are formed from the consciousness of God.

3. We, as imaginary characters in the mind of God, currently exist within the mind of the personality or "alter" of God that is Christ in the process of non-lucidly dreaming of being a Jewish prisoner that is currently suffering the Roman execution of crucifixion (Personality: "The Crucified Man"). In Pantheopsychic Christianity, we currently live within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified; we believe (or those believing in the existence of Jesus Christ) that we exist outside the mind of God (those believing that God exists) in a post-crucifixion future.

4. Death in Pantheopsychism, given that we are composed of God's consciousness formed into the shape of one's own consciousness within the larger container of God's indigenous consciousness, is not the cessation of existence of consciousness, but the transformation of one's consciousness (which is a rough re-enactment of the content of the non-lucid dream of crucified Christ) into a consciousness that is not a re-enactment of the content of crucified consciousness.
PG, you seem very keen to take up the theism v atheism cudgels. Why? Does it much matter to you what others think?
Atheism irks me, although I recognize and support the right of anyone to believe what they want. I like to point out logical inconsistencies in the tale of stereotypical atheism, and point out how atheism requires its own brand of quasi-religious faith to "support" it's beliefs.
We are currently living within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified. One may think there is no God, or if one believes in God, one thinks one lives outside the mind of Christ in a post-crucifixion present.

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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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Count Lucanor:
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
A person is a conscious body?
Have you ever seen a disembodied consciousness? Show me one.
Come to think of it, a person is a conscious body, in that the body one experiences oneself as having is composed only of one's consciousness. In the mythology that brains create consciousness, the conscious body is created by the brain. But you have two bodies, not one: there's the body you experience that is created by your brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness) and the body not created by your brain, which is not conscious but simply moves.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
What body is 'conscious'...the one created by the brain or the one not created by the brain?
The body of anyone being born. Have you ever seen anyone not being born from another person? Show me one.
You didn't answer the question. The body of anyone being born in the ridiculous belief that consciousness is created by the brain is part of a "Matrix" or artificial reality, made up of your consciousness, that is created by the brain. I asked which body is 'conscious'...as there are actually two bodies for every person: one generated by the brain which exists in one's experience of one's own body and the second body, which is not created by one's brain that purportedly exists in the external world.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
In typical or stereotypical atheist mythology, reality is split between things existing only as part of a person's consciousness (which disappears when the person becomes unconscious or dies)--created or produced from a baseball glove shaped clump of neurons in a skull...and everything that does not originate from a brain within a skull.
I have never heard of that "atheist mythology", but since we have already caught you in the bad habit of putting words in atheist's mouths, I must assume that's just what you (badly) interpret from atheistics point of views. Anyway, the problem is that any good atheist, unless he is not a materialist, will not think reality is split. The split is for dualists. But the split between an objective reality and the subjective consciousness (sometimes referred as the soul) has been around since well before any atheist was ever seen around. Otherwise, an important church father like St. Augustine, unlikely an atheist, would not have thought that material bodies existed apart from his soul. Yes, it may come to a surprise, but most believers in history have been dualists, and I really hope you realize what that means: the split between a material reality and a ghostly spirit. There, your "atheist mythology"!!!!
You're kidding, right? You've never heard of the belief that the brain creates consciousness, or never heard of the belief that there are things the brain doesn't create that are said to inform the nature of sensory consciousness? Religious dualism is beside the point and doesn't factor here.

The point being, if one believes the brain creates consciousness, and if one believes that at death consciousness ceases to exist, there are two aspects of existence: the world that is actually an artificial reality made up of one's consciousness that is generated by your brain, and the doppelganger of the visual content of that artificial reality that exists in the external world that is not created by your brain. For example, when you look at a chair, there is not just a single chair but two chairs(according to the ridiculous belief that brains create consciousness and ridiculous belief there are consciousness-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception):

1. The chair created by your brain, which is just a chair made up of your first-person subjective experience

2. The doppelganger of the chair created by your brain, which is not created by your brain (and would be too large to fit within a skull).

When you see a galaxy in a book or a Hubble telescope image, you are not looking at the galaxy not created by your brain, but a galaxy created by your brain. They are two different things, as one is created by your brain and the other galaxy is not created by your brain, and is too large to fit within your skull. This is the most elementary "fact" about the nature of our existence, if one accepts the ridiculous aforementioned beliefs.
In this mythology, before there were brains there was no consciousness.
The interesting part is that you consider the material existence of brains (a body of tissue) a myth. So why are you talking about something you don't even believe is real?
Tongue-in-cheek to show that when you perceive a body, there are two bodies: one 'conscious' and created by the brain and one not conscious, as it is not created by the brain and according to the myth that consciousness is created by the brain, the second body is not composed of consciousness unlike the one created by the brain.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
Or did consciousness exist before atoms accidentally and unknowingly created brains? (as atoms, in the absence of consciousness did not know they existed, much less know they created brains).
What's the point, I mean, you have made clear you don't believe in those doppelganger atoms, do you?
Yes, but it doesn't matter what I don't believe. What matter is that you believe it, so the concept is necessary to show how a conscious body is actually an "illusion", so to speak, created by the brain that hides an unconscious body, which all external bodies are, as, according to the belief that consciousness in order to exist requires brains to generate it, not conscious or made up of consciousness as external bodies are not created by brains.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
The point being, unless you're stating consciousness can exist without the brain, the only 'conscious bodies' are the percepts that "airbag deploy" from the brain, as opposed to bodies that are distal objects ("percepts" and "distal objects" terms used in description of the process of perception) or the bodies not created by the brain that purportedly exist outside the skull in the external world.
Nope. You need a living person with a body that has a brain to have consciousness. A dead body has a dead brain and that makes a dead person. A dead person is not conscious. It's not very complicated.
1. A living person is a first-person subjective experience that has first-person mental, emotional and sensory experiences.

2. How does the brain, a baseball glove shaped mass of electrified meat, produce first-person subjective experience? Where isthe first-person subjective experience before a particular neural circuit fires in a way that just happens to have the fictional ability to create a particular first-person subjective experience like, say, the memory of blowing out a candle at one's eleventh birthday party?

3. Did consciousness exist before atoms formed brains? Did consciousness exist before there were brains? Can consciousness exist without a brain? If not, my point above stands: brains must use the magic of creation ex nihilo to create consciousness because, well, consciousness does not exist unless and until the brain creates the next moment of conscious experience, the next experience after that, and so on. So all the worrying about whether an atheist states or uses ex nihilo magic in regard to the brain is beside the point and doesn't need mention: if one believes in the first first questions in statement #3...one implies the brain has the power to cause something that does not exist to come into existence.
We are currently living within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified. One may think there is no God, or if one believes in God, one thinks one lives outside the mind of Christ in a post-crucifixion present.

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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 5th, 2020, 10:23 am James…well, James is gone.

In atheism, the belief that physical brains create and generate consciousness and that consciousness can only exist if and when there is a brain and there is some electronic process in the brain that produces a certain type of experience or amalgamated content of the seven types of conscious experience at a particular moment in time, requires consciousness to exist by the magic of something that does not exist unfathomably existing or coming into existence in response to something that already exists, and death requires the magic of something in existence (conscious experience) unfathomably becoming non-existent when the object (the brain) responsible for maintaining the existence of consciousness ceases to function.
This is not atheism.
There is nothing that inheres in the atheistic position that necessitates this set of ideas.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am Count Lucanor:
Have you ever seen a disembodied consciousness? Show me one.
Come to think of it, a person is a conscious body, in that the body one experiences oneself as having is composed only of one's consciousness. In the mythology that brains create consciousness, the conscious body is created by the brain. But you have two bodies, not one: there's the body you experience that is created by your brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness) and the body not created by your brain, which is not conscious but simply moves.
WF are you going on about?
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 2:39 am Greta:
Is there a summary of the OP?
Death as it exists in Pantheopsychism or if Pantheopsychism and Pantheopsychic Christianity is true:

1. Pantheospychism, my invention, is a version of Berkeley's Idealism in which the external world, rather than being an infinite consciousness-independent space filled with consciousness-independent objects and events, is actually the inner mind of an infinite Person.

2. This Person is the Judeo-Christian God, who "suffers" from a cosmic form of Dissociative Personality Disorder, having three personalities (compare the concept of the Trinity) that correspond to the world experienced by others, as all other beings exist within the mind of God and are formations of the substance of his consciousness that, in the same way a fiction writer imagines others within one's mind, are formed from the consciousness of God.

3. We, as imaginary characters in the mind of God, currently exist within the mind of the personality or "alter" of God that is Christ in the process of non-lucidly dreaming of being a Jewish prisoner that is currently suffering the Roman execution of crucifixion (Personality: "The Crucified Man"). In Pantheopsychic Christianity, we currently live within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified; we believe (or those believing in the existence of Jesus Christ) that we exist outside the mind of God (those believing that God exists) in a post-crucifixion future.

4. Death in Pantheopsychism, given that we are composed of God's consciousness formed into the shape of one's own consciousness within the larger container of God's indigenous consciousness, is not the cessation of existence of consciousness, but the transformation of one's consciousness (which is a rough re-enactment of the content of the non-lucid dream of crucified Christ) into a consciousness that is not a re-enactment of the content of crucified consciousness.
PG, you seem very keen to take up the theism v atheism cudgels. Why? Does it much matter to you what others think?
Atheism irks me, although I recognize and support the right of anyone to believe what they want. I like to point out logical inconsistencies in the tale of stereotypical atheism, and point out how atheism requires its own brand of quasi-religious faith to "support" it's beliefs.
Thanks for that. Much more clear. I also find subjectivism appealing. When we observe reality, as Heidegger noted, we need to think about who it is doing the observing.

It seems that you are trying to meld, or shoehorn, some pretty interesting ideas with the established notions of Christianity. Why believe that there was anything special about the Middle East 2,000 years ago, that the people of that place and time had any special knowledge not available to those in other, often more advanced, places and times?

Atheists are just people who don't believe in God. Their ideas can otherwise vary considerably. It's a common mistake to consider that one's ideological "enemies" are of one mind. Both sides of every conflict do it at times.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

Post by phenomenal_graffiti »

Greta:
Thanks for that. Much more clear. I also find subjectivism appealing. When we observe reality, as Heidegger noted, we need to think about who it is doing the observing.
You're welcome. I like to think that it is important in the formation of any personal belief about reality that one observes the most simple fact about reality: that existence exists in such a manner that existence only appears in the form of a person and that which the person experiences. Everything else is an idea in the mind of the person that depending upon the idea one believes has objective existence outside the person's consciousness.
It seems that you are trying to meld, or shoehorn, some pretty interesting ideas with the established notions of Christianity. Why believe that there was anything special about the Middle East 2,000 years ago, that the people of that place and time had any special knowledge not available to those in other, often more advanced, places and times?
The special-ness and correctness of the knowledge 2,000 years ago (which could be eons ago given Panpsychism in the form of Pantheopsychism) is just an idea that my mind, by random chance, happens to believe is true as opposed to every other idea in existence.
Atheists are just people who don't believe in God. Their ideas can otherwise vary considerably. It's a common mistake to consider that one's ideological "enemies" are of one mind. Both sides of every conflict do it at times.

I would love to see examples of these different views. For example, are there atheists that believe that consciousness can exist without the brain, or was not created by the brain? Recently I have seen a godless panpsychism roaming about in which it is said the brain does not create consciousness but filters it.

PG
We are currently living within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified. One may think there is no God, or if one believes in God, one thinks one lives outside the mind of Christ in a post-crucifixion present.

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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 10:52 am Greta:
Thanks for that. Much more clear. I also find subjectivism appealing. When we observe reality, as Heidegger noted, we need to think about who it is doing the observing.
You're welcome. I like to think that it is important in the formation of any personal belief about reality that one observes the most simple fact about reality: that existence exists in such a manner that existence only appears in the form of a person and that which the person experiences. Everything else is an idea in the mind of the person that depending upon the idea one believes has objective existence outside the person's consciousness.
It seems that you are trying to meld, or shoehorn, some pretty interesting ideas with the established notions of Christianity. Why believe that there was anything special about the Middle East 2,000 years ago, that the people of that place and time had any special knowledge not available to those in other, often more advanced, places and times?
The special-ness and correctness of the knowledge 2,000 years ago (which could be eons ago given Panpsychism in the form of Pantheopsychism) is just an idea that my mind, by random chance, happens to believe is true as opposed to every other idea in existence.
Atheists are just people who don't believe in God. Their ideas can otherwise vary considerably. It's a common mistake to consider that one's ideological "enemies" are of one mind. Both sides of every conflict do it at times.

I would love to see examples of these different views. For example, are there atheists that believe that consciousness can exist without the brain, or was not created by the brain? Recently I have seen a godless panpsychism roaming about in which it is said the brain does not create consciousness but filters it.
Have you questioned your beliefs?

It is an odd thing that each of us is just an object of consciousness in other people's (and animals') minds, except to ourselves. It appears that there is no, clear overarching perception of reality, only many fragmented ones. Community and science have abstractly joined the dots to some small extent, but not viscerally.

Re: atheism, you answered your own question - pantheists and materialists do not agree when it comes to the role of the brain in consciousness. There's also differences of opinion regarding the universe's scale and origins. Just as not all theists have the same level of faith in their preferred deity, atheists are also not all equally certain of their position.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am
Count Lucanor wrote: Have you ever seen a disembodied consciousness? Show me one.
Come to think of it, a person is a conscious body, in that the body one experiences oneself as having is composed only of one's consciousness. In the mythology that brains create consciousness, the conscious body is created by the brain. But you have two bodies, not one: there's the body you experience that is created by your brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness) and the body not created by your brain, which is not conscious but simply moves.
Rather than coming to think of it, as this belief of yours doesn't come from the logical analysis, we might try to understand what is your belief. So far, it seems clear that when you refer to a body or creation of something, you're actually just referring to the idea of body, the idea of something, etc., since your solipsism does not allow you to believe there's nothing real, except your own mind and the ideas that it produces. So, for you, bodies, brains, atheists, theists, etc., are not real entities existing somewhere, but singular mental objects inside your mind.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am
Count Lucanor wrote: The body of anyone being born. Have you ever seen anyone not being born from another person? Show me one.
You didn't answer the question.
Sorry, but I did answer your question, I just didn't fall for your False Dilemma fallacy. The options you submitted were also begging the question.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am The body of anyone being born in the ridiculous belief that consciousness is created by the brain...
I still don't get it why it would be a ridiculous belief. Perhaps it is not the belief you share, perhaps it turns out to be the wrong belief, but to be a ridiculous belief it would be one that a) defied common sense, b) is not supported by many people, c) defied rules of logic, d) was indisputably proved wrong in academic or intellectual circles. None of this seem to apply to the long-held consensus that consciousness is produced by the brain. So it looks like calling it ridiculous just means that you despise it, that's all.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am is part of a "Matrix" or artificial reality, made up of your consciousness, that is created by the brain. I asked which body is 'conscious'...as there are actually two bodies for every person: one generated by the brain which exists in one's experience of one's own body and the second body, which is not created by one's brain that purportedly exists in the external world.
There you have a ridiculous belief. It also shows complete incoherence in your thoughts, because you have already advanced the view that there's nothing real, except your own mind and the ideas that it produces. Matrix of reality, people, their bodies, your own body and your own brain, don't even exist for you, are just thoughts in your mind. You're debating a Count Lucanor in internet, but neither the person represented by the avatar, neither the computer, neither the characters in the screen exist, they are being produced by your mind right now.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am You're kidding, right? You've never heard of the belief that the brain creates consciousness, or never heard of the belief that there are things the brain doesn't create that are said to inform the nature of sensory consciousness? Religious dualism is beside the point and doesn't factor here.
Didn't you read what I just wrote? I clearly explained to you that the notion that brain creates consciousness does not convey automatically the notion of a split in reality, the same way that seeing a jogger running does not invite us to split that reality between a jogger and a running that he "creates". I also explained why this split cannot be an atheistic view, and I showed you that non-atheists can support this split, precisely because "splitters" are necessarily dualists, and dualism is consistent with religious doctrine. In case you still don't get the point: you may despise the idea that the brain creates consciousness, but you have to drop the silly idea that this has anything to do with atheism.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am The point being, if one believes the brain creates consciousness, and if one believes that at death consciousness ceases to exist,
Let's get this straight first, because you have an issue with language. What you're trying to say there, according to the beliefs that you have exposed, is actually: "if one believes that there is a real physical person with a real physical organ called brain that creates consciousness, and if one believes that at the supposed death of the supposed person with the supposed brain, consciousness ceases to exist, then..." What is important to underscore here is that the only real thing for you in that sentence is consciousness, the rest are plain illusions of that consciousness.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am there are two aspects of existence: the world that is actually an artificial reality made up of one's consciousness that is generated by your brain, and the doppelganger of the visual content of that artificial reality that exists in the external world that is not created by your brain. For example, when you look at a chair, there is not just a single chair but two chairs(according to the ridiculous belief that brains create consciousness and ridiculous belief there are consciousness-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception):
Consistent with your view, you don't believe there's a real physical chair, which is represented in a physical brain as an image of that chair. Whoever believes that is holding a ridiculous belief that there are consciousness-independent doppelgangers, right?. For you, there's only the image of a chair in your consciousness. And your point is, I guess, that if one holds the "ridiculous beliefs" that mental representations of objects correspond to real existing objects, independent of the mind, then one also must hold the idea that there are actually two independent objects existing in two domains, one the brain and the other, the so called external world. That must be one of the most preposterous idea I have heard in a long time (although it matches a little with someone's idea that a telephone conversation is not a real conversation).
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 am
Count Lucanor wrote: What's the point, I mean, you have made clear you don't believe in those doppelganger atoms, do you?
Yes, but it doesn't matter what I don't believe. What matter is that you believe it, so the concept is necessary to show how a conscious body is actually an "illusion", so to speak, created by the brain that hides an unconscious body, which all external bodies are, as, according to the belief that consciousness in order to exist requires brains to generate it, not conscious or made up of consciousness as external bodies are not created by brains.
Well, so far you have only exposed what you believe, but you have not showed why what you believe would make any sense. Believing that the computer screen I'm seeing right now is really there, and still will be there when I move to the kitchen to prepare coffee and don't see it, makes a lot of more sense than your belief that this is all a dream going on in your mind. And of course, as Searle pointed out, your solipsism is instantly refuted by my own existence.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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Count Lucanor wrote: May 7th, 2020, 8:07 pm
phenomenal_graffiti wrote: May 7th, 2020, 3:18 amis part of a "Matrix" or artificial reality, made up of your consciousness, that is created by the brain. I asked which body is 'conscious'...as there are actually two bodies for every person: one generated by the brain which exists in one's experience of one's own body and the second body, which is not created by one's brain that purportedly exists in the external world.
There you have a ridiculous belief. It also shows complete incoherence in your thoughts, because you have already advanced the view that there's nothing real, except your own mind and the ideas that it produces. Matrix of reality, people, their bodies, your own body and your own brain, don't even exist for you, are just thoughts in your mind. You're debating a Count Lucanor in internet, but neither the person represented by the avatar, neither the computer, neither the characters in the screen exist, they are being produced by your mind right now.
The idea that consciousness, or proto-consciousness, exists outside of the human brain is not actually ridiculous or incoherent. It's not as though we have uncovered the basic nature of reality, with only a few details to mop up. Rather, we fundamentally do not, and cannot, perceive our actual existential situation, which is why issues around existence, consciousness and self are so contentious.

You know well that we perceive only snippets of reality through senses and brains that evolved to maximise survival and reproduction. An overall picture is always going to be far too complex for our ape brains, even the very clever ones using hi-tech equipment.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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It is a fascinating world. I can watch interviews of people like Max Tegmark, Paul Davies, Seth Lloyd, Giulio Tononi, and Scott Aaronson talking about information being baked into physics to the point that there's a good likelihood that information might underwrite matter, and then I can come in to places on a regular basis where that sort of idea would be called magical thinking.
Humbly watching Youtube in Universe 25. - Me
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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Greta wrote: May 7th, 2020, 9:30 pm
Count Lucanor wrote: May 7th, 2020, 8:07 pm There you have a ridiculous belief. It also shows complete incoherence in your thoughts, because you have already advanced the view that there's nothing real, except your own mind and the ideas that it produces. Matrix of reality, people, their bodies, your own body and your own brain, don't even exist for you, are just thoughts in your mind. You're debating a Count Lucanor in internet, but neither the person represented by the avatar, neither the computer, neither the characters in the screen exist, they are being produced by your mind right now.
The idea that consciousness, or proto-consciousness, exists outside of the human brain is not actually ridiculous or incoherent. It's not as though we have uncovered the basic nature of reality, with only a few details to mop up. Rather, we fundamentally do not, and cannot, perceive our actual existential situation, which is why issues around existence, consciousness and self are so contentious.

You know well that we perceive only snippets of reality through senses and brains that evolved to maximise survival and reproduction. An overall picture is always going to be far too complex for our ape brains, even the very clever ones using hi-tech equipment.
Whether it is exposed with more coherent sophistication or in clumsy fashion, it seems I always end up facing the same ubiquitous argument:

All possible knowledge is infinite, going from A to
Our actual knowledge is finite, going from A to M
Our lack of knowledge extends from N to
John Doe claims to own a truth that sits right in between N to
The point where that truth sits is unreachable for us.
Therefore, John Doe's claim is sound.


It may be only anecdotal, but many John Does have made similar claims before our actual knowledge moved a little beyond N, perhaps to P. Then our lack of knowledge changed to a segment from Q to . No problem for John Doe, he moves his truth to sit between Q to . Problem solved.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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Sure, the god of the gaps is part of it, but not all.

The fact is that reality is very strange. Pantheism is increasingly not a fringe hypotheses. Ever more serious thinkers are leaning towards IIT and some of them towards the idea of proto-consciousness. The fact is that there ARE mysteries, and the linear approach is running into limits. Math can arguably cover some of the remaining riddles, but others may require a different approach. What that different approach may look like in the end, I obviously don't know.

So I see no problem with people embracing materialism, just as I have no problem with people embracing spirituality. Each is understanding. Neither is ridiculous (only the fringe). If a person is poetic and metaphorical by inclination, it's not helpful to take them literally and then scoff at the "nonsense" (unless fighting is the intent). Less cliched exchanges happen when we try to understand the gist of what people are trying to put across. It helps to think of the other as most likely being just one more reasoning human being trying to understand reality and trying their pet ideas out on the public.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

Post by Papus79 »

Count Lucanor wrote: May 8th, 2020, 12:33 am It may be only anecdotal, but many John Does have made similar claims before our actual knowledge moved a little beyond N, perhaps to P. Then our lack of knowledge changed to a segment from Q to . No problem for John Doe, he moves his truth to sit between Q to . Problem solved.
Our culture definitely needs a better way of dealing with that dynamic.

People will have brushes with N to ∞ and the question is what's the responsible follow-up for trying to process such events. Maybe the most obvious - anyone who'd get it in their heads that they're some kind of profit needs to come down from their cloud or get knocked off of it if they can't regain their humility (this is where the idea of the supernatural really needs to be struck down - ie. having had an anomalous experience says little more about someone than having seen a rare species of wild life). Outside of that there's this thorny issue where if one talks about it in a public space people will feel like something akin to Covid and 5G conspiracy talk is going on at which point they'll feel a moral imperative to shut it down, and the question is how to have an examination of outlying experiences without it being sensational.On one hand I'd like to respect the spirit in which people fight disinformation, I'm actually on board with said endeavors in every case aside from when it attempts to force public closure on matters where it's clear that said closure is politically attractive but not properly.

I get that this is a bit aside from the OP discussion but it seems like any time a conversation is involving in some way consciousness outside of brains it falls into the same machinery and I'm doubting that it's satisfying for anyone involved.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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Papus79 wrote: May 8th, 2020, 8:27 am not properly.
* not properly complete.
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Re: Death...according to Pantheopsychism

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Greta wrote:The fact is that reality is very strange. Pantheism is increasingly not a fringe hypotheses. Ever more serious thinkers are leaning towards IIT and some of them towards the idea of proto-consciousness. The fact is that there ARE mysteries, and the linear approach is running into limits. Math can arguably cover some of the remaining riddles, but others may require a different approach. What that different approach may look like in the end, I obviously don't know.
There's a difference between facing the baffleness of unexplained phenomena, once a phenomenon has been established as a real event, and constructing a narrative around a dubious phenomena, labeling it as "mysterious" and already a proof that something anomolous is shattering the physical conceptions of reality. Next thing, you end up with a lot of material for ghosts episodes in the History Channel, to say the least, not even mentioning how general culture is fed with an enormous amount of misleading information about magical powers regulating almost all aspects of our everyday lives, branding them as spirituality or transcendence.

I wonder why the mention of pantheism. I didn't see phenomenal_graffiti's arguments as particularly endorsing this view, despite adding the "pantheo" prefix to the label of the religious view he's advocating. To me it looked more as advocating an even weirdest version of solipsism. Although I find pantheism in general an appealing view, in fact very close to atheism (at least some interpretations of it), I don't see what we can do with it besides metaphysical speculations. I mean, I don't see it as something to which scientists can add more insights, and if they were trying to do so, probably they would not be dealing with pantheism, but slipping into panpsychism, which is a completely different business, one that I'm not willing to endorse. The point is that whatever one discovers in nature, it can be added as another feature of a naturalistic cosmos, I don't see a particular feature as the key to confirming pantheism.
Greta wrote: So I see no problem with people embracing materialism, just as I have no problem with people embracing spirituality.
I often have an issue with the word "spirituality", as it is usually intended to entail something that materialism could not provide itself. I take it with tweezers.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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