[Selaphiel]

Originally Posted by might_duck

Mechanistic in the sense that is ultimately acting on laws. That doesn't preclude a probabilistic universe rather than a fully deterministic one.

Which is impossible if you abandon the idea of cause and effect. Probability is not an escape from the idea that if x happens, we assume something caused it.

What? Do you deny that biology can be described in terms of chemistry, or that chemistry can be described in terms of physics?

Granted, it is not a very useful way of looking at things. High level systems are better described by high level analysis.

If you take the example of a computer language, it is like trying to explain a high level object (as in OOP) with machine level bits. It can be done (painfully), but is not useful.

Biology can be partly described by physics and chemistry, but it cannot be reduced to it. In short, reductionism is a method among many, not an ontology. This isn't exactly controversial today, you will basically read it in any academic introduction to biology.
It is basically the same fallacy that Richard Dawkins' selfish gene hypothesis makes, you cannot reduce an organism to its genes. You need to invoke (for more than convenience) higher level explanations to understand biological systems properly (See the work of Denis Noble, one of the pioneers of systems biology). The theory that explains why this is the case is emergence theory, the idea that new levels of reality emerges, systems that possess properties not found in its constituents.

You can only experience one very particular consciousness. You can't observe the consciousness of others, be they human, animal, plant, brainstems, or computers.

Are you a solipsist then?

Is following our own nature a compulsion? I don't think it violates our "freedom", unless one defines freedom in such a way as it poses a metaphysical conundrum.

It is dressing for question begging, nothing more.

I think it is you who have re-defined fredom here, not me. Being dragged along the causal chain of your genetic make up and random outside influences is not freedom in any meaningful sense of the word. What you have described here is nothing less than a naturalistic form of fatalism. Freedom implies that you in some sense can escape determinism. I agree with William James, compatibilism is a "quagmire of evasion".

Speed, like bit count, is a poor measure for the organization of the brain, or the measure of a computer.

Computers are measured in terms of flops, and the brain can be measured in terms of flops. The more flops, the better the computer., the human brain also outmatches any other brain in terms of flops. So I do not think it is unreasonable to assume that the raw processing power of the brain is relevant. So I think you are shying away from the fact that a highly organized computer that operates with 4 times the raw processing power of the human brian and operates with 10 times the byte capacity does not even show signs of having subjectivity on the level of a fruit fly. Just invoking the word organization with no further evidence or explanation means nothing. Does not rule it out, but it certainly does not justify you to assert it with any form of certainty.

I ask again, freedom from what?
Cause and effect? The physical laws of the universe?

If our experience of freedom can be reduced to biological systems, then it is unreasonable to add invisible elves to the mix.

Freedom (at least to a certain degree) from physical determinism. Like I showed with the John Searle quote. It does not matter how well you understand the workings of the brian, I cannot escape my common sense belief that I possess freedom. And it is not about adding elves or another substance, you are confusing process metaphysics with dualism. Process metaphysics agrees with naturalism, it just does not think deterministic materialism is true.

Show me a testable conclusion, or anything useful that be gleamed by this.

At best, it solves a philosophical problem by sidestepping the "hard" problem of consciousness. I haven't heard of many people refer to solving philosophical questions as "useful"

How very modern of you, measuring a things worth in terms of its direct pragmatic use. I think an intellectual pursuit for logical coherent systematic understanding of all of our experience justifies itself. I ask again, what use does materialism have? As I have already pointed out: Materialism might be consistent with science, but it is inconsistent with other parts of human experience while at the same time assuming the correctness of some human experience (materialism falls without the concept of cause and effect. Process metaphysics does justice to science and it is logically coherent with human experience. Why exactly are you defending the first one again? How is 1/2 better than 2/2? Nor is process metaphysics a dogmatic system, it is by its own definition tentative, open to revision as new data becomes available, so its not like you are signing up for something.
I can agree with defending materialism as a method, a reductionist methodology, but not as an ontology. We are basically discussing two types of naturalism here, I think one is more logically coherent than the other. Where John Searle sees a hopeless conundrum, process metaphysics sees logical coherence.

[Damian]

Originally Posted by noguru

I don't care what you call it. Such labels are really not important to me, as long as what they describe is accurate. How does that differ from materialism, then?

Actually I lean more towards panexperientialism and Whitehead's type of Process Philosophy.

And of course when we look up your panpsychism, it is actually just a new age take on Whitehead's view of panexperientialism.

And I really could care less that you think what I have offered is "hypocritical double-talk". Because you are not sharp minded enough to actually have any substance at all to your critcisms.

At any rate, your insubstantial insult still did not address the point I have been trying to make. That evolution can explain the emergence of varying levels of subjective awareness simply through natural selection.

You're such an idiot. If you truly understood Whiteheadian metaphysics, then you would never had ridiculed my views. Because Whiteheadian metaphysics is one of my primary influences!

[freelight]

Originally Posted by Damian

The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution cannot explain why consciousness (i.e. subjective awareness) was naturally selected. Why? Because something that is invisible and causally inert cannot possibly confer any survival benefit. (On the materialist view, consciousness is considered to be an epiphenomenon and therefore causally inert. Any materialist who would argue otherwise is presupposing "free will" - a presupposition that is incompatible with materialism.)

This is not a trivial issue; it's paramount because consciousness goes to the heart of the matter. The primary difference between a materialistic worldview and a spiritual one is that the former holds that the physical world can exist completely independent of consciousness - that the objective world does not depend on any subjectivity whatsoever; the latter categorically rejects this notion.

It would appear that evolution is inherent within consciousness as inter-relating change or modifications within creation in its ability to adapt and transform itself into more viable and complex forms. Can any selection transpire apart from consciousness?


pj

[noguru]

Originally Posted by Damian

You're such an idiot. If you truly understood Whiteheadian metaphysics, then you would never had ridiculed my views. Because Whiteheadian metaphysics is one of my primary influences!

You are a moron and a coward. I have demonstrated everything very clearly about what I am saying. Yet all you can do is lash out because of your lack of comprehension. Do you really think others do not notice this?

Yes, you use Whiteheadian metaphysics, but you get it wrong. And whine about it when others point out your error. You really are a nebish. Nothing really to get upset about. Just an insignificant pimple on the but of humanity.

Damian seeems to have a far more "new agey" approach to Whitehead. Whitehead's idea of panexperientalism has been misinterpreted to mean panpsychism in many new age readings of him, that is rather unfortunate to say the least.

I will not divulge who sent me that in a pos rep. But I think you can guess.

Let's just face it you are a joke. And if it weren't for the shotgun effect of your ambiguous ideas, there would be absolutely no one who actually agrees with your nonsense. I mean who do you think you are fooling, other than yourself?

[noguru]

Originally Posted by Selaphiel

Biology can be partly described by physics and chemistry, but it cannot be reduced to it. In short, reductionism is a method among many, not an ontology. This isn't exactly controversial today, you will basically read it in any academic introduction to biology.
It is basically the same fallacy that Richard Dawkins' selfish gene hypothesis makes, you cannot reduce an organism to its genes. You need to invoke (for more than convenience) higher level explanations to understand biological systems properly (See the work of Denis Noble, one of the pioneers of systems biology). The theory that explains why this is the case is emergence theory, the idea that new levels of reality emerges, systems that possess properties not found in its constituents.

Yes, that is understood. The higher level explanation is survival of the species, or life in general. But such ideas are instrumental in outlining lower level structures upon which higher level purpose is built. Genetic variation is the factor which then brings that reductionism back up to a macro level. Call it synchronicity, or just call it coincidence.

Originally Posted by Selaphiel

Are you a solipsist then?

I am pretty sure Damian is.

[Damian]

Originally Posted by noguru

Yes, you use Whiteheadian metaphysics, but you get it wrong. And whine about it when others point out your error.

Yeah, what exactly is my error in regards to Whiteheadian metaphysics?

Originally Posted by noguru

I will not divulge who sent me that in a pos rep. But I think you can guess.

Yes, you're right; I can guess. And my guess is that you probably just lost his trust.

The term "panexperientialism" was not employed by A. N. Whitehead; David Ray Griffin is the one who coined the term.

Alfred North Whitehead incorporated a scientific worldview into the development of his philosophical system similar to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. His ideas were a significant development of the idea of panpsychism, also known as panexperientialism, due to Whitehead’s emphasis on experience, though the term itself was first applied to Whitehead's philosophy by David Ray Griffin many years later.

(source: Wikipedia: Panpsychism)

Of course, anyone who has a basic understanding of the "philosophy of organism" knows that Whitehead's fundamental constituents (actual occasions/acutal entities) have both a "physical" pole and a "mental" pole. I have cited David Bohm (who was a world-renowned physicist) to support this view - a view which you have ridiculed in the past. (Apparently, my work here has not been in vain because you are now adopting my view.)

"Even an electron has at least a rudimentary mental pole, respresented mathematically by the quantum potential."

(source: pg. 387 "The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory" by David Bohm and B.J. Hiley)

And just in case you're interested. David Ray Griffin does not support "neo-Dawinisim." (Note that he mentions Sheldrake's "new agey" morphogenetic fields in the following link.)

"The 14 Tenets of Neo-Darwinism" by David Ray Griffin

Originally Posted by noguru

Let's just face it you are a joke. And if it weren't for the shotgun effect of your ambiguous ideas, there would be absolutely no one who actually agrees with your nonsense. I mean who do you think you are fooling, other than yourself?

I argued that Jung's "collective unconscious" actually qualifies as a world soul concept. I stand by that. This is the part of the Wiki article that you didn't bother to highlight in bold fonts.

Marie-Louise von Franz accepted that 'it is naturally very tempting to identify the hypothesis of the collective unconscious historically and regressively with the ancient idea of an all-extensive world-soul'.[9]

(source: Wikipedia: Collective unconscious)

Von Franz worked with Carl Jung, whom she met in 1933 and knew until his death in 1961. Jung believed in the unity of the psychological and material worlds, i.e., they are one and the same, just different manifestations. He also believed that this concept of the unus mundus could be investigated through research on the archetypes of the natural numbers. Due to his age, he turned the problem over to von Franz.[2]

(source: Wikipedia: Marie-Louise von Franz)

[Damian]

Originally Posted by freelight

It would appear that evolution is inherent within consciousness as inter-relating change or modifications within creation in its ability to adapt and transform itself into more viable and complex forms. Can any selection transpire apart from consciousness?

Evolutionary biologists employ the term "natural selection" figuratively or metaphorically. However, if we posit that consciouness is universal (which is actually a valid interpretation of quantum mechanics), then we may be able to reinterpret "natural selection." (Of course the naysayers will initially ridicule this proposition. Later, they will actually make this pretense that they were the first ones to propose the idea.)

But if we reinterpret "natural selection" as choice by nature in the form of Gaia-consciousness according to the creative requirements of the situation, this selection can collapse the possibilities into actuality.

(source: pg. 204, "Creative Evolution: A Physicists's Resolution between Darwinism and Intelligent Design" by Amit Goswami)

[Damian]

Originally Posted by noguru

Call it synchronicity, or just call it coincidence.

You're obviously ignorant on the subject matter. Fortunately for you, I'm here not only to debate the issues, but to educate and inform.

It [synchronicity] was a principle that Jung felt gave conclusive evidence for his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious,[7] in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience and history — social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

(source: Wikipedia: Synchronicity)

Synchronicity is an acausal connection of inner and outer events through meaning. No mechanical or energic causes connect the inner and outer events. The inner does not cause the outer nor vice versa. pg. 20

Since synchronicity is an expression of individuation, of soul-making, then some teleology, some higher purpose, or final causality operates in this expression of the self. pp. 20-21

(source: "Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making: Understanding Jungian Synchronicity through Physics, Buddhism, and Philosophy" by Victor Mansfield - physicist and Jungian therapist)

[noguru]

Originally Posted by Damian

You're obviously ignorant on the subject matter. Fortunately for you, I'm here not only to debate the issues, but to educate and inform.

Yeah, you are doing a great job at all of that.



The fact is that many people will not recognize their own delusion(s). So it becomes an excersize in futility to confront the subject with such an individual. I wish you the best in your future efforts.

You remind me of Lars from "Lars and the Real Girl". And I think it is best to just let the Dr. pronounce Bianca dead.

[Silent Hunter]

Originally Posted by Damian

You're obviously ignorant on the subject matter. Fortunately for you, I'm here not only to debate the issues, but to educate and inform.

Synchronicity