Afterlife Thoughts!

[Kuroikaze]

A few days ago, Anwar and Samira and their 9 children came home after visiting with grandparents. The trouble had begun in Gaza, so they went to their home next to a Mosque, thinking perhaps it would be safe there. Rockets flattened their home, five daughters were killed in the collapse. The parents were inconsolable. The parents poured out their hearts, full of grief beyond understanding. Their loss is almost too difficult to consider. You and I as fathers can perhaps grasp a little of what the parents are experiencing. Shall we comfort ourselves and them with words of chemistry. "You'll get over it; your survival program will take care of your pain." or, "That's the way it works; the strong survive." Such concepts deny the truth we know; our children are so much more than group survival elements. Anwar and Samira had invested their lives in raising their children; the girls who died were between 4 and 17 and could hardly be reduced to mere expressions of survival traits. They were each unique persons, each so much more. The joy I have in my daughter's magnificent character is so far removed from such simple descriptions as to be visibly 'other'. Such emotions exist in us, yes. But are they just a computer program? No nobility, no grand endeavor? Just favorable survival traits? Or is, perhaps, the model incomplete, describing function without recognizing content?

Buddy

 

If I might offer my perspective on this. Perhaps you are confusing the Descriptive with the Proscriptive. I notice a tendency among theists to think that if the descriptive cause of something isn't supernatural in origin that somehow the whole thing looses meaning.

 

When a theist suggests that describing the cause of morality in terms of evolution fails to evoke an "ought" (or proscription) to moral behavior this is an example of what I'm talking about.

 

To address your example. Just because the descriptive cause of a persons emotional suffering at the loss of a child is explainable by chemicals reactions in the brain, and an evolutionary drive to reproduce, does not make (at least in my thinking) the emotions less meaningful than if they had a supernatural origin. Furthermore, people who are suffering are not looking for a rational explanation of why they are suffering, nor will that help them deal with the situation.

 

Just because we can talk about the causes for these emotions in purely scientific terms does not mean that science can actually describe the emotions themselves, nor can it tell you how to feel or deal with those emotions. I also do not feel that the fact that a persons love for their child is caused, in part, by biological imperatives negates the validity of those emotions.

[BuddyFerris]

A few days ago,.... Such emotions exist in us, yes. But are they just a computer program? No nobility, no grand endeavor? Just favorable survival traits? Or is, perhaps, the model incomplete, describing function without recognizing content?

Buddy

... To address your example. Just because the descriptive cause of a persons emotional suffering at the loss of a child is explainable by chemicals reactions in the brain, and an evolutionary drive to reproduce, does not make (at least in my thinking) the emotions less meaningful than if they had a supernatural origin. Furthermore, people who are suffering are not looking for a rational explanation of why they are suffering, nor will that help them deal with the situation.

 

Just because we can talk about the causes for these emotions in purely scientific terms does not mean that science can actually describe the emotions themselves, nor can it tell you how to feel or deal with those emotions. I also do not feel that the fact that a persons love for their child is caused, in part, by biological imperatives negates the validity of those emotions.

Good morning, K.

 

I agree wholeheartedly that a persons emotional experience is no less meaningful for being natural and located in the mind/computer which is a bio-chem-electric engine. And we needn't reach to the supernatural for greater meaning. What I find curious is that such a description (approaching the reductionist's view) if carried much further is so small when compared to the reality we know.

 

Add a question to the queue, if you don't mind. Emotions or feelings we might have, aren't they separate from choices and other thoughts we might have? The concepts seem to appear interchangeably.

 

With emotions being what we 'feel', (sad, glad, affection, fear), then perhaps we might consider them the uncommanded elements of mind which we experience and feel, being evoked by experience perhaps. The feelings are genuine and perhaps describable within the context of the natural mind/computer.

 

Then we have our commanded thoughts. We pick a subject, we peruse, consider, make choices and decisions. In a simple view, we might still relegate such thoughts to the computer program, but in doing so, do we not begin to diminish the reality we know? Shall we relegate the sum of human thought to this simple model of predictable synapse events? Consider the wealth of literature at our disposal. Did it all appear from biological zeros and ones on a predetermined path?

 

As an aside, let's paint the line between natural and supernatural a bit more precisely, if you don't mind. If I suggest the natural model under discussion is too simple to account for our experience, we needn't jump to God for an explanation.

 

To your concluding statement then,

"Just because we can talk about the causes for these emotions in purely scientific terms does not mean that science can actually describe the emotions themselves, nor can it tell you how to feel or deal with those emotions. I also do not feel that the fact that a persons love for their child is caused, in part, by biological imperatives negates the validity of those emotions."

We agree. I might add that talking "about the causes for these emotions in purely scientific terms" is that process of description and interpretation to which AM spoke earlier in this thread. Doing so risks diminishing the full truth over which we labor. I'll agree that science gives only little insight into the emotions themselves.

 

We might entertain ourselves in pursuing what we know about emotions and their origins, but in the context of the thread, Paladin began with curiosity about near-death experiences. Is there some component of ourselves that is perhaps somewhat loosely coupled to the body/mind/machine? Such experiences do occur in significant numbers with associated medical certifications, etc. Shall we discount them, as some here have done? I joined the thread because I was curious myself. I'm inclined to think that some percentage of the reported experiences are as they purport to be. It would require there to be something more to our existence (nothing supernatural required) than is reducible to the brain/computer program.

 

Waaaay too long. Sorry. Happy new year, pal.

Buddy

[Ouroboros]

You and I agree on many things including a preference for gut-level confrontation of life as it is. We'd both rather wrestle with truth, however difficult and personally uncomfortable it might be. I'm disinclined to fantasy except as a literary convention and like you, have gone to some lengths over the years to separate my personal convictions from wish-based dogma. The result of that sincere labor has left me with a Christian's worldview and convictions. Interesting that you would juxtapose your rationalism with (my?) idealism; I don't think I've been categorized that way before.

I just wanted to tease you a bit!

 

I'll not disagree that evolution plays a part in out history, and your comments have merit, yet can we really be reduced to the brain/survival description produced. Unselfishness and altruism being computer generated 'group survival' results is maybe valid but too small a definition. For example:

 

A few days ago, Anwar and Samira and their 9 children came home after visiting with grandparents. The trouble had begun in Gaza, so they went to their home next to a Mosque, thinking perhaps it would be safe there. Rockets flattened their home, five daughters were killed in the collapse. The parents were inconsolable. The parents poured out their hearts, full of grief beyond understanding. Their loss is almost too difficult to consider. You and I as fathers can perhaps grasp a little of what the parents are experiencing. Shall we comfort ourselves and them with words of chemistry. "You'll get over it; your survival program will take care of your pain." or, "That's the way it works; the strong survive." Such concepts deny the truth we know; our children are so much more than group survival elements. Anwar and Samira had invested their lives in raising their children; the girls who died were between 4 and 17 and could hardly be reduced to mere expressions of survival traits. They were each unique persons, each so much more. The joy I have in my daughter's magnificent character is so far removed from such simple descriptions as to be visibly 'other'. Such emotions exist in us, yes. But are they just a computer program? No nobility, no grand endeavor? Just favorable survival traits? Or is, perhaps, the model incomplete, describing function without recognizing content?

Buddy

Well, it's not "just a computer program," but much more complex than that. The signal system in our body and brain is not solely electrical, but also chemical, and chemistry is very hard to reduce to a computer program. Besides the "program" we're running is analog and dependent on chaotic changes and influences from the environment it's executed in (the brain). Just a slight change in the amounts of neurotransmitters will affect the decisions and feelings. For instance, if you're tired or extremely stressed, you will feel less giving or altruistic, and it's because you're lacking the components you need to "feel" these things. You go hungry for a few days, and then go into a situation where people are fighting for food, and you'll discover that you even if you try your best to be "giving", you'll tend to be less. But this also changes over the years, because genetically when we get older our system becomes less and less inclined to save our own skin, because we had our chance to reproduce and our body doesn't need to fight for the survival as much--the goal has been obtained by living for a while.

 

Another thing too is that emotions is more than electrical signals and chemical compounds, in the sense that "feelings" or the functions of the system is the sum of all processes, not just one single process. A "feeling" or a "thought" or an "idea" etc, are all results of a network of processes, on a metaphysical level (and I don't mean supernatural, or spiritual, but in the sense of "effects emerging from system"). My most used example is to compare to Microsoft Windows. Does Microsoft Windows exists? Is it supernatural? Does Windows have a soul? In the religious perspective we would have to say it must, because the experience is beyond the zeros and the ones it consists of. You can't reduce the mouse moving over the desktop and clicking on one icon into bits and pieces and transistors, can you? And if you start two identical computers and use them differently, they will contain different data, and they will behave different, have different speed (after multiple installs of new software or downloads from websites), and they are not identical anymore. But then you turn both off, are they identical now when they're not running? Does Windows still exist when you turned the computer off? Where did "Windows" go? It exists on a metaphysical level, and has emerged from the hardware and the software. It's the process that creates the experience, but it requires the bits and pieces and the software. I see us the same way, feelings are the "happening" when our operating system (mind/"soul") runs on our hardware (brain/chemicals/electrical signals). So I agree we can't reduce an experience to binary code or a mathematical formula, but the experience can only exist and happen because of the hardware/software which it runs on, and is a result of the processes.

 

Yet another thing we have to consider is that, if nature is what nature is, we can't deny it because we feel uncomfortable with how it is. The illusion of a dualistic nature of body and mind is somewhat required for us to exist as humans. You could say that we have to fool ourselves into believing we are more than just matter and processes to survive. And it takes a certain kind of willingness for a person to accept that we are not more than what we are, and still be able to live with it and function in society. But the key is that we can't deny nature to be what nature is, just because we don't like it. And that's how I see most of the counterarguments to a natural explanation to the mind. "I don't like it, so it can't be true," but it's the wrong way of accepting nature. Once the Catholic Church was against the idea that Earth rotates around the Sun, and they brought up thousands of Biblical arguments--which most would be considered really silly today, and hardly any good counter arguments. They refused nature to be nature, only because it conflicted with how they felt about it. But that doesn't change what reality is. You probably (as Christian) heard about the story where the guy is standing in the road and a truck is heading for him. Another guy shouts to him and warn him about the truck. But the first guy refuse to believe it, and will get hit, because his belief doesn't change reality.

 

I don't know if that is well explained or not, because I'm still waking up from yesterdays party.

[BuddyFerris]

... Does Microsoft Windows exists? Is it supernatural? Does Windows have a soul? In the religious perspective we would have to say it must, because the experience is beyond the zeros and the ones it consists of. You can't reduce the mouse moving over the desktop and clicking on one icon into bits and pieces and transistors, can you? And if you start two identical computers and use them differently, they will contain different data, and they will behave different, have different speed (after multiple installs of new software or downloads from websites), and they are not identical anymore. But then you turn both off, are they identical now when they're not running? Does Windows still exist when you turned the computer off? Where did "Windows" go? It exists on a metaphysical level, and has emerged from the hardware and the software. It's the process that creates the experience, but it requires the bits and pieces and the software. I see us the same way, feelings are the "happening" when our operating system (mind/"soul") runs on our hardware (brain/chemicals/electrical signals). So I agree we can't reduce an experience to binary code or a mathematical formula, but the experience can only exist and happen because of the hardware/software which it runs on, and is a result of the processes.

 

Yet another thing we have to consider is that, if nature is what nature is, we can't deny it because we feel uncomfortable with how it is. ... You probably (as Christian) heard about the story where the guy is standing in the road and a truck is heading for him. Another guy shouts to him and warn him about the truck. But the first guy refuse to believe it, and will get hit, because his belief doesn't change reality. ...

You're up awfully early for New Year's day on the left coast.

 

Your description is apt, of course, and well laid out. Do we think and feel as a result of circumstance, experience, and the hardware/software package we represent? Sure. (Does Windows have a soul? Hardly, even from a religious perspective.) I don't have particular difficulties either with the analogy you use or the conclusions, except perhaps that it may stop before reaching the reasonable conclusion.

 

Sure, we exist within the physiological framework as you describe. With that tool set, we think, choose, live, and die, as we have described it from observation. Much remains unknown, unfortunately. Everything we have so far from the sciences suggests your description is accurate, that we are the product of the program. Even if you add the chaotic randomizations, we're still just the product of the program with some variables added. No choices, no freedom, no self-direction, no true love or noble sacrifice. Our experience insists in consonance with our careful consideration that the reality is otherwise. We observe others and especially ourselves, and conclude that we're players, not programmed pawns. It's not a small differentiation either; the farther we reach for it, the less persuasive the argument becomes as even the argument itself insists we are free. Why is that?

Buddy

[chefranden]

"Why all the preoccupation with the immeasurably grand without an equal preoccupation with the immeasurably ugly? I'm sure that some people have had "encounters" with the immeasurably ugly too, like Saint John and his Revelations. This is a question for AM as well."

 

I had the thought to answer what I just read above, so that can stand as an answer. It is significant, but unlikely someone care's to extol that since it isn't conducive to living with a well state of being. We extol and idealize things which bring about positive responses inside of us. If we were preoccupied with the ugly, well that just doesn't make sense. We consider it ugly on the basis that it repulses us, and if it repulses us, it does so for some reason of benefit. We don't eating rotting meat because it smells bad to us, and to do so would harm us. Same sort of thing in how we developing a taste for things which benefit us. Love, peace, harmony, wisdom are all things we have called with these words and imbued them with positive significance for the sake of promoting us seeking them for our benefit. In a nutshell.

 

So then... looking at the extraordinary sense of well being described above (and in my own experience), this goes way beyond a general sense of well being, and as such it serves as a symbol, and ideal, a "vision", which all plays into what I've been trying to get at, and what I just mentioned above about imbuing words, or ideas, with significance for the sake of giving a symbol of inspiration to stretch towards. That's part of the process of growth is to reach. I'll pick this up later in the rest of my responses.

 

Sorry I didn't frame the question.

 

Seems like the prophets of old reported the bad with the good. Bible prophets made Israel aware of the horror of their visions about Israel. I'm sure these prophecies were mostly written after the fact, but they are presented as visions. However there is little attention paid to the opposite of what you experienced in the now times.

 

To go with your example, extremely rotten meat is easy to avoid. However, one can eat contaminated meat and not even know it until hours later when it is too late. Thus we find that it is a good idea to study rotten meat as well as the good meat.

 

So the question is do you look into the super crappy experiences which, at least for me, out number the super good experiences, for insight as well as the really good ones?

 

I've had the born again experience that was accompanied by blue light not white. I knew, then anyway, that God was there and I would be alright. Some years later (still a Christian) I sat on the back steps with my 12 gauge loaded with a slug in my mouth trying to decide if I could side step my parental responsibilities and go right to heaven.

 

Looking back on it I don't think I got any insight and perspective from either experience save perhaps a directive not to make decisions at these extremes. After the former experience, I expected to be ok from there on. From the later experience I expected never to be ok again. Neither insight proved to be correct.

 

I know the arts are often an attempt to bring peak and nader experiences into the light of mundane for all those folks that didn't get to see those things, or maybe to record for further study. Philosophy often is an attempt to bring explanations of the same into mundane thinking. I'm not sure that either bring us any insight other than, "remain in a sane place.*"

 

Peak experiences can launch a hospital for orphans, but they can also launch a war. How do we know that these happenings are not a bipolar disorder of a species?

 

Edit:

* This reminds me of instruction given to novices like, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him!"

[Ouroboros]

Sure, we exist within the physiological framework as you describe. With that tool set, we think, choose, live, and die, as we have described it from observation. Much remains unknown, unfortunately. Everything we have so far from the sciences suggests your description is accurate, that we are the product of the program. Even if you add the chaotic randomizations, we're still just the product of the program with some variables added. No choices, no freedom, no self-direction, no true love or noble sacrifice. Our experience insists in consonance with our careful consideration that the reality is otherwise. We observe others and especially ourselves, and conclude that we're players, not programmed pawns. It's not a small differentiation either; the farther we reach for it, the less persuasive the argument becomes as even the argument itself insists we are free. Why is that?

It sure is a problem. That's why I say we can't really say for sure, because it's a conundrum.

 

The problem we're facing is to describe or define what "free choice" really is. What does it mean to have a free choice, except that you have a the opportunity to choose? Even if you're given two options, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are free to make that choice. There are internal and external freedoms, and just an external freedom isn't the same as the internal. So when you have a choice between two options, why do you pick one and not the other? Is it pure random picking? Or is it a result of an inner argument you have within you which leads to the choice you make? If the former, then freedom isn't anything but the roll of dice. If the latter, then it's a deduction based on a series of events and arguments, and isn't free because you made the choice based on the parameters. Or maybe you made that choice because you feel more pleasure eating chocolate over vanilla. You think and reason based on what you know. You think and reason based on your physical capacity, which is decided by genetic disposition. You feel and desire based on genetic makeup as well as experience. So which every way you take this, you will either end up in pure chance, or pure determinism. It's not like God makes the choices for us, is is? If it was, then we'd be nothing but robots, or puppets in his show, and that doesn't mean we have any free will either.

 

Look, we can be given the situation where we could choose freely, but because of our inner presets and events leading up to the situation (maybe you're allergic to nuts, or maybe you had a bad experience as a child which makes you hate chocolate?), you will make either a complete random choice or a choice made from what lead up to this situation.

 

There are also research showing that our brains make decisions before our consciousness is aware of it. That we make our minds subconsciously first, and then our higher consciousness gets the result, and we somehow believe we "made the choice," when in fact it was already made.

[chefranden]

Is human imagination reflective of reality? Does our imagination offer a means to motivation through emotional (chemically created) responses? Yes. The power of myth. So, I don’t agree we can reduce all of humanity to the machine. We are creators of gods, which like it our not, resulted in the creation of the world we live in through the societies we've built. Humans aren’t cars. We’re gods.

 

And the gods are machines that can make other machines, but nevertheless they are machines. We gods are made out of certain arrangements of stuff. Take away either the stuff, the arrangements, or both and we are not. There are certain optimal arrangements that we seek to maintain as long as possible. Some of the optimal arrangements create states of romantic fiction that we are something else than a machine.

 

For some reason, that I can't imagine at the moment, we prefer to maintain the fictional states rather than see the real states. Pinker writes about a man who insisted he was dead. A doctor in trying to convince him otherwise asked him, "do dead people bleed?" The patient answered, "no of course not!" The doctor then pricked his finger and showed the patient the blood. The patient exclaimed, "Well I'll be damned! Dead people do bleed." Researchers give the left brain of people that have had the corpus callosum cut to reduce epileptic seizures instructions in writing to the right eye only like get up and walk through the door. When the right brain is asked why it just got up and walked out the door, it makes up a story about the action, "I wanted to get a coke." When told about the instruction given in writing through the right eye, the right brain will still insist that getting a coke was the reason for getting up. As Pinker states we have no reason to suppose that our whole brains are any less adept at making up stories to explain away reality.

[Guest end3]

FWIW,

 

Sometimes I think we are as leaves on the same branch, discussing perspectives ......I think we might should be looking to the tree for the answer.

 

Which leaf falls first in the fall? Science could not, in a lifetime, tell me which.....

[chefranden]

Well, that raises a bit of a question. Any philosophy that doesn’t take reality into account… 1. Isn’t philosophy really about defining reality? 2. Isn’t [philosophy] really about different ways of looking at the experience of living? Can’t science when used to support of philosophy of materialism, be considered co-opted for a philosophy itself? There are many scientists who are not reductionists, materialist, and rationalists.

 

1. Yes I think so, but IMHO it rarely succeeds. 2. Sure, but what is doing the looking? I think that we agree that it is not a soul. I suppose that we might say the I is doing the looking. But it seems to me that this I is as much fiction as a soul as there is something that is doing I that isn't I. If we maintain that there is no supernatural, the only thing left to be doing the I is material.

 

Suppose that I could upload my I into a computer that would be me running on hardware and that the upload didn't harm my I running on its original wetware. Which me is I? Which I is me? Each version of me would suppose that it is I and the other version is other. So what is the difference? It has got to be the material. I am my material substance doing I. If something removes enough substance I will not be, like if something removes enough trees the forest will not be.

 

How can stuff make an I or have the experience of red? I don't know, but it does. I admit this is certainly disconcerting to imagine. It feels like trying to see the back of my eyes.

 

May I ask, how do you see they come about, what drives it?

 

What drives the arts? I suspect dark energy.

 

Is material able to produce art? It better be if we want any. There isn't anything else around. In point of fact material doesn't even have to be in a living arrangement to produce art.

 

 

At one point in our past, the knowledge of science could easily be layered within a system of mythological symbols, but not so easily today. Instead, we’ve slashed a line through us with science on the one hand, and religious symbolism on the other. It’s my belief that we shouldn’t fear or run from either perspective. After all, it’s humans that desired and created both, isn’t it? Why?

 

I agree that humans need myth to feel ok and to keep groups together, which I suspect is its primary function. If we are going to reassign meaning to symbols, we may as well just get on with assigning reality to them. What would be the purpose of maintaining known false meanings?

 

I would like to say that I get on fine without symbols, but I don't. My mind has reassigned negative meanings to those symbols which I still notice -- like the cross or olde glory.

 

Actually, in looking that up it’s not Satori I’m talking about, but Kensho in what the NDE offered. IMO, it’s the road to enlightenment that’s the point. Just as perfection is a goal and not a reality.

 

Kensho: A Ch'an and zen term (jien-hsing in Chinese) that literally means ‘to see (one's true) nature’. This is another term for awakening (satori, bodhi), defined as seeing oneself for what one really is: impermanent, ever-changing, and one with the truth that underlies all of reality.

 

Just so. Our true nature being material.

 

Some also value the angst and the child born through it, despite the anguish at times.

 

Only if it doesn't go on for decades. I like my migraines in retrospect, because it feels so damn good when they stop. But during the actual inspection they suck.

[chefranden]

FWIW,

 

2. Sometimes I think we are as leaves on the same branch, discussing perspectives ......I think we might should be looking to the tree for the answer.

 

1. Which leaf falls first in the fall? Science could not, in a lifetime, tell me which.....

 

1. Science could tell you. All it would take is enough observation points. I doubt that you could get anyone to waste the resources on such a study though.

 

2. It appears that the tree is not talking.

[nightflight]

... I agree with much of what you say here, however I cannot fathom how any person could say Christianity is better than nihilism. How could a Christian be okay with their loved ones, not to mention vast swaths of humanity, writhing in eternal torment? I think a Christian, if he or she is a decent person would wish that Xianity wasn't true. I will take bleak, meaningless existence over billions screaming forever.

If I shared your perspective and definitions, I would probably agree. There are significant elements of Christianity, usually as presented by fundamentalists and evangelicals, with which I have real problems. Their simple formulas for heaven and legalistic approach to life seem woefully inadequate, even detrimental. The God they offer seems way too small to be real.

 

On the other hand, life needn't be meaningless, regardless of your position on God's existence. Bleak? OK, Mondays are pretty bleak sometimes. Happy new year, by the way.

 

Hi

I will admit that even though my experience with Christianity was horrible, the thought of there being no Ultimate Consciousness fills me with dread and despair. Like this guy: http://www.everythingispointless.com/

[Guest end3]

1. Science could tell you. All it would take is enough observation points. I doubt that you could get anyone to waste the resources on such a study though.

 

I wanted to say predict, predict!

 

2. It appears that the tree is not talking.

 

Yeah, He talks

[Kuroikaze]

Then we have our commanded thoughts. We pick a subject, we peruse, consider, make choices and decisions. In a simple view, we might still relegate such thoughts to the computer program, but in doing so, do we not begin to diminish the reality we know? Shall we relegate the sum of human thought to this simple model of predictable synapse events? Consider the wealth of literature at our disposal. Did it all appear from biological zeros and ones on a predetermined path?

 

determinism is something entierly different. Nos as to the sense that our creativity comes from entierly biological process, I would agree that it seems somewhat difficult to believe. I think I should point out, though, that many things we find to be true are counter intuitive. Just because it seems difficult to accept doesn't mean it isn't true.

 

As an aside, let's paint the line between natural and supernatural a bit more precisely, if you don't mind. If I suggest the natural model under discussion is too simple to account for our experience, we needn't jump to God for an explanation.

 

Just because something seems to simple too account for our experience doesn't necessarily mean that it is wrong. Personally this isn't a line of thinking I find fruitful since I'm not sure we will ever have any certainty on this. I guess I'd say that it is more important to feel emotions than to figure out what theory best explains why we have them in the first place.

 

 

We might entertain ourselves in pursuing what we know about emotions and their origins, but in the context of the thread, Paladin began with curiosity about near-death experiences. Is there some component of ourselves that is perhaps somewhat loosely coupled to the body/mind/machine? Such experiences do occur in significant numbers with associated medical certifications, etc. Shall we discount them, as some here have done? I joined the thread because I was curious myself. I'm inclined to think that some percentage of the reported experiences are as they purport to be. It would require there to be something more to our existence (nothing supernatural required) than is reducible to the brain/computer program.

 

You have an interesting choice of words. You say "we discount them." I guess it goes to how one defines this term. I don't personally think I'm discounting anything. I'm not saying people don't have NDE's, I'm not claiming they are lying or that they didn't really have an experience. I just think that, considering there no conclusive evidence that life continues once brain function ceases, there are better explanations for these NDE's. I am, of course, open to being proven wrong. I am not opposed to life after death on any account, in fact I'm in favor of it I just don't see enough evidence to support it. If it does exist then it exists, no amount of believing or not believing will change that.

 

I personally don't think that saying consciousness resides in the brain is the same as claiming we are mindless automatons, nor do I think moving our consciousness outside the brain necessarily removes that possibility. It seems, to me, to be entirely unrelated.

[BuddyFerris]

... Just because something seems to simple too account for our experience doesn't necessarily mean that it is wrong. Personally this isn't a line of thinking I find fruitful since I'm not sure we will ever have any certainty on this. I guess I'd say that it is more important to feel emotions than to figure out what theory best explains why we have them in the first place.

 

 

... You have an interesting choice of words. You say "we discount them." I guess it goes to how one defines this term. I don't personally think I'm discounting anything. I'm not saying people don't have NDE's, I'm not claiming they are lying or that they didn't really have an experience. I just think that, considering there no conclusive evidence that life continues once brain function ceases, there are better explanations for these NDE's. I am, of course, open to being proven wrong. I am not opposed to life after death on any account, in fact I'm in favor of it I just don't see enough evidence to support it. If it does exist then it exists, no amount of believing or not believing will change that.

 

I personally don't think that saying consciousness resides in the brain is the same as claiming we are mindless automatons, nor do I think moving our consciousness outside the brain necessarily removes that possibility. It seems, to me, to be entirely unrelated.

Thoughtful. Thank you.

 

The simplest explanation is most often the correct one, etc. The 'too simple' one to which I refer I perhaps poorly described. If I were to explain the substance of my relationship with our dog in terms of temperature (we keep each other warm when we sit together, as we are at the moment), that would be accurate (it isn't wrong, as you say) but too simple an account for any important use or decision making. It would leave unexamined those elements which our experience understands. You're precisely correct in saying, "... it is more important to feel emotions than to figure out what theory best explains why we have them in the first place." I raise the issue only to ask about the extent of our freedom. There are many uncertainties, as you point out.

 

Consciousness, if it resides exclusively in the brain, raises science's favorite question of 'how does it work'. So far, the explanations are simplistic. Computer/software/input/output descriptions are popular here. Unfortunately, the model is by structure fully deterministic; controlled input = predictable output. That sort of thing. Attempts to add quantum level variations to program solutions only make the program more sophisticated, not less deterministic. At least that's my take on the various commentaries offered here.

 

Here's an interesting quote for you: "... cardiologist Pim van Lommel, MD, "Our results show that medical factors cannot account for the occurrence of NDE. All patients had a cardiac arrest, and were clinically dead with unconsciousness resulting from insufficient blood supply to the brain. In those circumstances, the EEG (a measure of brain electrical activity) becomes flat.... How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? . . . Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience. NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation. There is a theory that consciousness can be experienced independently from the normal body-linked waking consciousness."

 

I don't make much of NDE's personally, nor would I recommend anyone plan their lives based on conclusions derived therefrom. NDE's are an interesting adjunct to the issues of interest to us all.

Back to work,

Buddy

[BuddyFerris]

... I will admit that even though my experience with Christianity was horrible, the thought of there being no Ultimate Consciousness fills me with dread and despair. Like this guy: http://www.everythingispointless.com/

Ouch. Modern Christianity and the primitive church have diverged a bit, to understate the obvious. Khalil Gibran, in a poetic work I read years ago, described the Jesus of Nazareth meeting the Christ of Christianity; they didn't recognize each other. There is much for which many will have to give an account, perhaps.

 

My experience was on the other side of the world from yours. Loving people, dedicated to serving one another and the world at large. I doubt I heard an unloving word from the pulpit before I was 20.

 

Others here may chide you for struggling with your preference for life as opposed to facing the evidence. Meanwhile for us perhaps, nothing is pointless.

 

Buddy

[Antlerman]

I want to get back to other points raised earlier, but for the time being I wanted to look at this post...

 

Well, that raises a bit of a question. Any philosophy that doesn’t take reality into account… 1. Isn’t philosophy really about defining reality? 2. Isn’t [philosophy] really about different ways of looking at the experience of living? Can’t science when used to support of philosophy of materialism, be considered co-opted for a philosophy itself? There are many scientists who are not reductionists, materialist, and rationalists.

 

1. Yes I think so, but IMHO it rarely succeeds.

Ahhh... but how would you know? Have you defined reality? And if so how?

 

My point is that its about offering different approaches, points of view, ideals, that are guides for living. And that belief put into action is what defines reality for us. Clearly I wouldn't be talking about things that contradict known facts, such as believing you can defy physics and walk on water, but in taking these intangible little bits of impressions and responses to our brains and put them into some usable fashion to aid us in living. Science does not do that. Philosophy does.

 

So when someone says that believing we have significance, or that life has purpose is denying reality, isn't saying that reality is defined as meaningless itself a philosophy? It's just looking at the mechanics of it and concluding emotionally it's pointless. And that's my point about defining reality.

 

2. Sure, but what is doing the looking? I think that we agree that it is not a soul. I suppose that we might say the I is doing the looking. But it seems to me that this I is as much fiction as a soul as there is something that is doing I that isn't I. If we maintain that there is no supernatural, the only thing left to be doing the I is material.

Not exactly. I could throw everything into a spin and say that we could say we have a soul. But I'll have to be careful in explaining that. Is the only thing of the "I" as you're putting it, material? No. I don't see it like that. Is it tied to the physical? Yes, but not solely. Is it affected, influenced, and shaped through the material? Yes, but not solely or necessarily predominantly. Will it cease to be when the material that it resides in dies? Not entirely. Will my sense of "I" cease when I die? Yes, entirely.

 

So what the hell do I mean? I mean we are both material and immaterial.

 

Han's had a really good analogy he posted a few posts above. I like how he uses a modern example to talk about it:

 

Another thing too is that emotions is more than electrical signals and chemical compounds, in the sense that "feelings" or the functions of the system is the sum of all processes, not just one single process.

A "feeling" or a "thought" or an "idea" etc, are all results of a network of processes, on a metaphysical level (and I don't mean supernatural, or spiritual, but in the sense of "

effects emerging from system

")

. My most used example is to compare to Microsoft Windows. Does Microsoft Windows exists? Is it supernatural? Does Windows have a soul? In the religious perspective we would have to say it must, because the experience is beyond the zeros and the ones it consists of. You can't reduce the mouse moving over the desktop and clicking on one icon into bits and pieces and transistors, can you? And if you start two identical computers and use them differently, they will contain different data, and they will behave different, have different speed (after multiple installs of new software or downloads from websites), and they are not identical anymore. But then you turn both off, are they identical now when they're not running?

Does Windows still exist when you turned the computer off? Where did "Windows" go?

It exists on a metaphysical level, and has emerged from the hardware and the software.

It's the process that creates the experience, but it requires the bits and pieces and the software.

I see us the same way, feelings are the "happening" when our operating system (mind/"soul") runs on our hardware (brain/chemicals/electrical signals). So I agree we can't reduce an experience to binary code or a mathematical formula, but the experience can only exist and happen because of the hardware/software which it runs on, and is a result of the processes.

 

This is good illustration, but when it comes to humans it goes further than a defined set of code in a program by a programmer. Our program is self evolving, in response to the material. What's more, our actively running program also exists in a virtual space, influencing other programs running on the platform of their machine, and other programs in turn influence ours. The "I", is our looking at the program tied to our machine, which includes hardware addresses and whatnot unique to our machine, but also includes the bits of programming information coming from that virtual space where the other "I"s are running and interacting. All of this informs the program running on one machine of its uniqueness, and hence its own sense of "I".

 

So, when the machine that I live in dies, what happens to me? Because I also am part of this virtual space, participating and interacting in it, my language goes into other "I"s and becomes a part of them (as it already is). It's in this that we recognize we are not altogether distinct, but really one (which in a sense we could say that to sin against others is to sin against our own selves on several levels). Is life the material only? No. Not as I see it. Is it dependent on it? Yes, but it doesn't define it entirely. This is where our "soul" exists, so to speak. What would material life be for us if not for this immaterial bit? Would we be human anymore?

 

It's in that sphere of the immaterial that I'm talking about all these means to living. The material alone does not inform life functioning within the immaterial. Nor does the immaterial inform life for the material. I'll pick this up more later as I come back to a more thorough response...

[Ouroboros]

This is good illustration, but when it comes to humans it goes further than a defined set of code in a program by a programmer. Our program is self evolving, in response to the material. What's more, our actively running program also exists in a virtual space, influencing other programs running on the platform of their machine, and other programs in turn influence ours. The "I", is our looking at the program tied to our machine, which includes hardware addresses and whatnot unique to our machine, but also includes the bits of programming information coming from that virtual space where the other "I"s are running and interacting. All of this informs the program running on one machine of its uniqueness, and hence its own sense of "I". So, when the machine that I live in dies, what happens to me? Because I also am part of this virtual space, participating and interacting in it, my language goes into other "I"s and becomes a part of them (as it already is). It's in this that we recognize we are not altogether distinct, but really one (which in a sense we could say that to sin against others is to sin against our own selves on several levels). Is life the material only? No. Not as I see it. Is it dependent on it? Yes, but it doesn't define it entirely. This is where our "soul" exists, so to speak.

Yes. I agree. Of course we are much more than just a static computer program. It's very good that you pointed that out. We are more like an adaptive software, and every new moment we are a new version of the software. It's not only when we learn or discuss things that we change, but also when we contemplate and do self-reflective thoughts. My analogy--as I can see you understood too--was more about the metaphysical level of existence. Something can exist, without being matter or physical. Windows exists on that metaphysical level, just as our soul exists on such metaphysical level. And it's important to know that when I use the word "metaphysical", I mean it in this particular sense, and not a supernatural or outside-of-the-universe-spiritual sense.

 

It's in that sphere of the immaterial that I'm talking about all these means to living. The material alone does not inform life functioning within the immaterial. Nor does the immaterial inform life for the material. I'll pick this up more later as I come back to a more thorough response...

I think we're on the same level.

[chefranden]

I want to get back to other points raised earlier, but for the time being I wanted to look at this post...

 

Well, that raises a bit of a question. Any philosophy that doesn’t take reality into account… 1. Isn’t philosophy really about defining reality? 2. Isn’t [philosophy] really about different ways of looking at the experience of living? Can’t science when used to support of philosophy of materialism, be considered co-opted for a philosophy itself? There are many scientists who are not reductionists, materialist, and rationalists.

 

1. Yes I think so, but IMHO it rarely succeeds.

Ahhh... but how would you know? Have you defined reality? And if so how?

 

I said it rarely succeeds, in case there is any philosophy that has succeeded in defining reality. It is a fairly straight forward process to find those philosophies that don't define reality. For example you have already found Christian philosophy is a bit short of being about reality.

 

Not exactly. I could throw everything into a spin and say that we could say we have a soul. But I'll have to be careful in explaining that.

 

I have not argued against emergent properties. I have used them to illustrate my points as in carness being the emergent property of car parts and their arrangements. I fully agree that "I" is an emergent property of bio-mechanics and its stuff. And you seem to agree that if bio-mechanics and its stuff is not there neither is "I". I will further agree that different iterations of the bio-mechanics do not produce the same "I". I will further agree that what constitutes and supports the "I" and its development is not confined to the inside of the skin. Nevertheless, it is all of the material world* of necessity. I will also agree that the "I" seems as experienced to be something else than its apparatus. I think that this seeming is an artifact of consciousness that cannot be directly aware of it's physical processes**.

 

I understand you to be arguing for an "I" that is somehow unique and separate from the parts and processes on which it depends for existence -- maybe like a hologram seems to have an existence apart from its apparatus but somehow not just seeming?

 

*defined as matter and energy and their properties both known and unknown.

 

**

Error-related negativity" (ERN) is a concept that has captivated the scientific world. It refers to a characteristic wave of voltage beneath the skullcap, which can be measured whenever the brain detects that an error has been made. Especially surprising is the fact the ERN signal already begins to flicker even before a person is aware of his error. from here

[Rev R]

Actually, in looking that up it’s not Satori I’m talking about, but Kensho in what the NDE offered. IMO, it’s the road to enlightenment that’s the point. Just as perfection is a goal and not a reality.

 

Kensho: A Ch'an and zen term (jien-hsing in Chinese) that literally means ‘to see (one's true) nature’. This is another term for awakening (satori, bodhi), defined as seeing oneself for what one really is: impermanent, ever-changing, and one with the truth that underlies all of reality.

 

Just so. Our true nature being material.

 

Not quite, back to the cushion with you for at least 10 years.

 

While "just so" or "thus" is about as good as we can get at pointing toward the underlying truth of reality (buddha-nature or original mind as it is called in Zen), it does not imply that this true nature is material. It does not imply that this nature is immaterial either for that matter. It simply is.

 

Material and immaterial, birth and death, these are products of the mind. What can be called "material" that exists independently of perception, thought, feeling, and consciousness? What can be called "death" that exists independently of birth? What can be called "self" that exists independently of all things?

[chefranden]

Not quite, back to the cushion with you for at least 10 years.

 

While "just so" or "thus" is about as good as we can get at pointing toward the underlying truth of reality (buddha-nature or original mind as it is called in Zen), it does not imply that this true nature is material. It does not imply that this nature is immaterial either for that matter. It simply is.

 

Material and immaterial, birth and death, these are products of the mind. What can be called "material" that exists independently of perception, thought, feeling, and consciousness? What can be called "death" that exists independently of birth? What can be called "self" that exists independently of all things?

 

While you dust off your mirror, keep in mind that there is no mirror. There is only dust.

[BuddyFerris]

This is good illustration, but when it comes to humans it goes further than a defined set of code in a program by a programmer. Our program is self evolving, in response to the material. What's more, our actively running program also exists in a virtual space, influencing other programs running on the platform of their machine, and other programs in turn influence ours. The "I", is our looking at the program tied to our machine, which includes hardware addresses and whatnot unique to our machine, but also includes the bits of programming information coming from that virtual space where the other "I"s are running and interacting. All of this informs the program running on one machine of its uniqueness, and hence its own sense of "I". So, when the machine that I live in dies, what happens to me? Because I also am part of this virtual space, participating and interacting in it, my language goes into other "I"s and becomes a part of them (as it already is). It's in this that we recognize we are not altogether distinct, but really one (which in a sense we could say that to sin against others is to sin against our own selves on several levels). Is life the material only? No. Not as I see it. Is it dependent on it? Yes, but it doesn't define it entirely. This is where our "soul" exists, so to speak.

Yes. I agree. Of course we are much more than just a static computer program. It's very good that you pointed that out. We are more like an adaptive software, and every new moment we are a new version of the software. It's not only when we learn or discuss things that we change, but also when we contemplate and do self-reflective thoughts. My analogy--as I can see you understood too--was more about the metaphysical level of existence. Something can exist, without being matter or physical. Windows exists on that metaphysical level, just as our soul exists on such metaphysical level. And it's important to know that when I use the word "metaphysical", I mean it in this particular sense, and not a supernatural or outside-of-the-universe-spiritual sense.

 

It's in that sphere of the immaterial that I'm talking about all these means to living. The material alone does not inform life functioning within the immaterial. Nor does the immaterial inform life for the material. I'll pick this up more later as I come back to a more thorough response...

I think we're on the same level.

You guys provide interesting counterpoint which looks useful. You've postulated a metaphysical (natural) soul of the individual which is dependent on the machine but which is interactive across platform boundaries, interacting with other souls and exchanging ... programming information? In my thirty years as a father, neither my daughter nor I ever noticed we were exchanging programming information as we made our way through the years. Celebrating our anniversary last month, my wife and I never thought to thank one another for the thoughtful programming information we'd wrapped and given across the virtual space. As best I can discern from the narrative, you guys are describing machines in place of people, albeit sophisticated machines. No?

 

Our experience agrees to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, the interchange of ideas, the conflicts of differing opinions, the common causes, the shared perspectives, and so on. What our experience concludes and what is perhaps missing in your description is the oversight of such processes. Our awareness of ourselves suggests we live one step above the automatic machine processes, do we not?

Buddy

[Antlerman]

This is good illustration, but when it comes to humans it goes further than a defined set of code in a program by a programmer. Our program is self evolving, in response to the material. What's more, our actively running program also exists in a virtual space, influencing other programs running on the platform of their machine, and other programs in turn influence ours. The "I", is our looking at the program tied to our machine, which includes hardware addresses and whatnot unique to our machine, but also includes the bits of programming information coming from that virtual space where the other "I"s are running and interacting. All of this informs the program running on one machine of its uniqueness, and hence its own sense of "I". So, when the machine that I live in dies, what happens to me? Because I also am part of this virtual space, participating and interacting in it, my language goes into other "I"s and becomes a part of them (as it already is). It's in this that we recognize we are not altogether distinct, but really one (which in a sense we could say that to sin against others is to sin against our own selves on several levels). Is life the material only? No. Not as I see it. Is it dependent on it? Yes, but it doesn't define it entirely. This is where our "soul" exists, so to speak.

Yes. I agree. Of course we are much more than just a static computer program. It's very good that you pointed that out. We are more like an adaptive software, and every new moment we are a new version of the software. It's not only when we learn or discuss things that we change, but also when we contemplate and do self-reflective thoughts. My analogy--as I can see you understood too--was more about the metaphysical level of existence. Something can exist, without being matter or physical. Windows exists on that metaphysical level, just as our soul exists on such metaphysical level. And it's important to know that when I use the word "metaphysical", I mean it in this particular sense, and not a supernatural or outside-of-the-universe-spiritual sense.

 

It's in that sphere of the immaterial that I'm talking about all these means to living. The material alone does not inform life functioning within the immaterial. Nor does the immaterial inform life for the material. I'll pick this up more later as I come back to a more thorough response...

I think we're on the same level.

You guys provide interesting counterpoint which looks useful. You've postulated a metaphysical (natural) soul of the individual which is dependent on the machine but which is interactive across platform boundaries, interacting with other souls and exchanging ... programming information? In my thirty years as a father, neither my daughter nor I ever noticed we were exchanging programming information as we made our way through the years.

Ahh... but you have been programmed by others. We all have and most times we don't recognize it; a great many people never recognize it and simply assume it was their own ideas alone. If you don't believe you have programmed your own daughter, that's fascinating. "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." What do you thing is going on there if not programming? Where do you think that observation behind that proverb came from?

 

Moreover, don't ever assume that what things we pick up and adopt as our language are always done through fully cognizant, direct choice. You used the word influenced. That's not a bad word, but we should recognize that that influence most of the time happens at an unconscious level. I never ceased to be amazed at how, after pondering long and hard on a particular concept, I come to some insights "on my own" that seem positively revelatory, only later to come across various schools of thought that have existed for longer than I've lived and they have a whole nomenclature in place to talk about these ideas! Where in the world do those concepts come from? God?

 

In a sense yes. Ideas are imparted through non-direct means. They come through to us in our media, our arts, our behaviors, our myths, our attitudes and responses, etc, etc, etc. We all participate in that pool of ideas through living, giving it life, feeding off of it, molding and shaping it to mold and shape others. We create god in our own image so god can create us in his. That's the general idea.

 

Celebrating our anniversary last month, my wife and I never thought to thank one another for the thoughtful programming information we'd wrapped and given across the virtual space. As best I can discern from the narrative, you guys are describing machines in place of people, albeit sophisticated machines. No?

Of course you wouldn't thank each other for your programming - in those words! But in fact you do say that when you say such things as "Thank you for being a part of my life all these years".

 

No, I'm not describing machines in place of people. Quite the opposite. I'm arguing that being human is more than being a bag of chemical responses, and my drawing off of Hans example of the emergent program is to illustrate that. I resist notions of reductionism.

 

The analogy of computers works on certain levels, but is imperfect to fully talk about the human experience. It does however talk about the immaterial aspects of how we as humans exist. We "transcend" the machine on many levels, but we are however tied to it, just as we are tied to the physicality of the universe existing as well.

 

Our experience agrees to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, the interchange of ideas, the conflicts of differing opinions, the common causes, the shared perspectives, and so on. What our experience concludes and what is perhaps missing in your description is the oversight of such processes. Our awareness of ourselves suggests we live one step above the automatic machine processes, do we not?

Buddy

As I said above, we do make conscious choices, but we also are programmed without awareness on a conscious level. That's pretty hard to deny, but difficult to accept sometimes because we want to feel we're in complete control at all times. That's simply not a fact, and explains what the whole advertising world exploits in trying to get us to buy products. They sell ideas on the notion of "feelings", not cognitive reasoning! Goodness, the examples would be endless.

 

Again, I don't want to get to drawn off into the computer analogy as it's not intended to describe everything of what it is to be human. I will get back to the earlier points shortly after having taken a few day break from this discussion. Good conversation.

[chefranden]

Our experience agrees to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, the interchange of ideas, the conflicts of differing opinions, the common causes, the shared perspectives, and so on. 1. What our experience concludes and what is perhaps missing in your description is the oversight of such processes. 2. Our awareness of ourselves suggests we live one step above the automatic machine processes, do we not?

Buddy

 

1. You've lost me here, what do you mean by oversight human relationship?

 

2. You are right our awareness suggests that we are something floating apart from the machinery. But this cannot be the case (from a materialist point of view).

 

What is not being taken into account is that awareness is easily fooled about the nature of reality. That is not to say that it knows nothing about what is real. The evolutionary process gave us enough sensory input and processing power to live well enough as social groups to, so far, bring about the next generation of the species. We don't have to know "the truth" to live. We only need to approximate it well enough. We are not reality finding machines. We are gene passing machines with a little processing power left over.

 

Since communication of ideas is a part of our survival niche we learned how to pool our bit of extra processing power to find out more. Most of the more about reality that we have produced in recorded history has proved to be bull shit of the highest order. Nevertheless, we've managed to produce a few diamonds of knowledge mostly in the last few centuries. For most of our stretch of existence the species has been content to shit in the woods so to speak. The art that we produced in prehistory, in spite of the self serving awe heaped upon it can be equaled or surpassed by the average 5th grader today.

 

My point is that there is nothing very marvelous about what we are. If you were to read the works of Franz De Waal and other primatologists you would discover we are not so far removed from the animals as we like to believe.

 

I'm not writing this to put down our species. I like being a people, but I'm pretty sure that liking is part of my wiring. I am interested in facing reality about my nature as directly as possible. If that reality points to being a projection of a machine so be it. I think you mentioned above seeing through a glass darkly. I think that phrase describes well what is being done in the investigation of our nature. We are not very well equipped out of the box to do this because there was no evolutionary pressure in its favor. I think the ability we have to do the investigation is small and accidental, but cumulative.

[Ouroboros]

You guys provide interesting counterpoint which looks useful. You've postulated a metaphysical (natural) soul of the individual which is dependent on the machine but which is interactive across platform boundaries, interacting with other souls and exchanging ... programming information? In my thirty years as a father, neither my daughter nor I ever noticed we were exchanging programming information as we made our way through the years. Celebrating our anniversary last month, my wife and I never thought to thank one another for the thoughtful programming information we'd wrapped and given across the virtual space. As best I can discern from the narrative, you guys are describing machines in place of people, albeit sophisticated machines. No?

One of the most fundamental core principles of programming, especially on the machine code level, is that a program is information. Just read Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Volume I: Fundamental Algorithms, where he outlines the Mix programming language. How does he present the program? In language. By informing. By instructing.

 

When you load a computer program, it's loaded by the help of another computer program, and at the core of it all, you have physical components interpreting binary instructions. At the binary level, there is no difference between code and data, only interpretation makes the difference.

 

If you have the ASCII code for "A": 00100001, it could mean something like "LDA#" in some old CPU. And in EBCDIC coding, it's a completely different letter, and if you instead interpret it as a single byte integer (unsigned or signed), it's the equivalent of the number 65. And if I interpret the same byte (which in Hex can be represented as 41) as a BCD, it is the number 41 (as it happens, the same as the hex code). So is "programming" of our experience the same as experience and data? Yes, absolute. All is connected. All is tied into each other.

 

In RS-232 interface, when you send acknowledgments of transferred data, (IIRC), there is a specific code for start text and end text, something like hex 02 and 03. They are indicated in mnemonics as STX and ETX. Now, if I would send you the code "02", would you automatically know it was a token for "start transfer of text?" No? Why not? Because it's a matter of interpretation. Even the machines does it. If I'd made or used a different coding system, then the machines wouldn't use the same codes for the same purpose. When you say "Thank you," it's an acknowledgment of a gift or a given favor. It's a code. It's a code which has been established over many years. In Swedish we say: "Tack so mycket," which means the same thing. In Spanish they say, "muchas gracias," and yet Spanish people understand what it means. So how come can computers have a language, and we have a language, and it's not absolutely, universally, innate knowledge, that we all share the exact same code for the same purpose? So my opinion is that your counterargument is faulty. Sorry.

 

Our experience agrees to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, the interchange of ideas, the conflicts of differing opinions, the common causes, the shared perspectives, and so on. What our experience concludes and what is perhaps missing in your description is the oversight of such processes. Our awareness of ourselves suggests we live one step above the automatic machine processes, do we not?

Buddy

Yes, kind of. That's why you can call it metaphysical. Meta means that it's the "step beyond" or "after" something. It is a higher level than the mechanical, but it's not supernatural or outside of nature. It arises from the processes. Just like Microsoft Windows exists as something more than just bits on a hard-disk the moment you turn it on. When the hardware (or brain, or cells, etc) starts to process data and interact with the environment, then you have something more than just the bits-and-pieces which constructs the "device".

 

The difference to the religious views is: religious thought is that "mind" comes before the physical, while metaphysical is (in my view) something that comes after the physical.

 

If a person from the 18th century would see our computers, and interact with them, he would most definitely believe they were ghosts or demons rather than machines. We have adapted to the new world and the new technology, and we've learned to see the slight difference, but if we would meet the androids from the 24th century, we would most likely believe they were human. Our current parameters to define what a "human" or a "mind" is, will change.

 

My problem with the religious dualistic view, is that it assumes a knowledge we don't have, we can't prove, and even have several logical and philosophical problems. The idea of emerging awareness has been, so far, a more fitting answer in philosophy for how our consciousness works. (That's my understanding from the little I've read.)

[Guest end3]

You guys provide interesting counterpoint which looks useful. You've postulated a metaphysical (natural) soul of the individual which is dependent on the machine but which is interactive across platform boundaries, interacting with other souls and exchanging ... programming information? In my thirty years as a father, neither my daughter nor I ever noticed we were exchanging programming information as we made our way through the years. Celebrating our anniversary last month, my wife and I never thought to thank one another for the thoughtful programming information we'd wrapped and given across the virtual space. As best I can discern from the narrative, you guys are describing machines in place of people, albeit sophisticated machines. No?

One of the most fundamental core principles of programming, especially on the machine code level, is that a program is information. Just read Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Volume I: Fundamental Algorithms, where he outlines the Mix programming language. How does he present the program? In language. By informing. By instructing.

 

When you load a computer program, it's loaded by the help of another computer program, and at the core of it all, you have physical components interpreting binary instructions. At the binary level, there is no difference between code and data, only interpretation makes the difference.

 

If you have the ASCII code for "A": 00100001, it could mean something like "LDA#" in some old CPU. And in EBCDIC coding, it's a completely different letter, and if you instead interpret it as a single byte integer (unsigned or signed), it's the equivalent of the number 65. And if I interpret the same byte (which in Hex can be represented as 41) as a BCD, it is the number 41 (as it happens, the same as the hex code). So is "programming" of our experience the same as experience and data? Yes, absolute. All is connected. All is tied into each other.

 

Our experience agrees to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, the interchange of ideas, the conflicts of differing opinions, the common causes, the shared perspectives, and so on. What our experience concludes and what is perhaps missing in your description is the oversight of such processes. Our awareness of ourselves suggests we live one step above the automatic machine processes, do we not?

Buddy

Yes, kind of. That's why you can call it metaphysical. Meta means that it's the "step beyond" or "after" something. It is a higher level than the mechanical, but it's not supernatural or outside of nature. It arises from the processes. Just like Microsoft Windows exists as something more than just bits on a hard-disk the moment you turn it on. When the hardware (or brain, or cells, etc) starts to process data and interact with the environment, then you have something more than just the bits-and-pieces which constructs the "device".

 

The difference to the religious views is: religious thought is that "mind" comes before the physical, while metaphysical is (in my view) something that comes after the physical.

 

If a person from the 18th century would see our computers, and interact with them, he would most definitely believe they were ghosts or demons rather than machines. We have adapted to the new world and the new technology, and we've learned to see the slight difference, but if we would meet the androids from the 24th century, we would most likely believe they were human. Our current parameters to define what a "human" or a "mind" is will change.

 

Pardon my ignorace here Hans, but what has kept other species from developing a mind as humans? Do you think the dinosaurs became smart enough to kill themselves off?