Consciousness, Death, Existentialism etc. - Page 5 - Nubblies.net Forums

Repugnant Abomination · 10-25-2016, 11:42 AM

Tables and chairs lack suffering and happiness? Really? Posting links and quoting huge blocks of text from different sources you read and using big words doesn't make you sound smart -- it makes it seem like you only have a surface level understanding of complex subjects. That said, if you don't think abstract concepts exist then there's no need for us to go any further, because we can't agree on a premise on which to base our arguments on.

Dent · 10-25-2016, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

That said, if you don't think abstract concepts exist then there's no need for us to go any further, because we can't agree on a premise on which to base our arguments on.

Maybe you could explain why they do instead of having a strop?
How sure are you that what you've said is correct? It's amazing that so many people who study this stuff day in day out don't accept what you're saying.

Mr. Blonde · 10-25-2016, 12:06 PM

I think the issue here is communication.

I think both of you can start by agreeing that, at minimum, it is a noble goal for Humanity to focus on alleviating as much unnecessary human and animal suffering as possible.

Can both of you agree on that?

Dent · 10-25-2016, 12:17 PM

Cocksure Repug says that "everything gives rise to it's opposite" I think he means that if you masturbate and enjoy it god kills a kitten, but honestly i'm not sure.
what's the opposite of the ultimate whole?
Can you come here to a conference Repug? It would save so many people a lot of time and thought on these matters, they could take up tennis.
Chimps living in the dark ages!

Repugnant Abomination · 10-25-2016, 12:30 PM

Cocksure Repug? Who are you, Donald Trump? Does everyone get an insulting little prefix before their name now? You're barely even forming coherent thoughts.

Blonde, I agree with your above statement. Of course we should try to alleviate suffering. All I'm saying is that it's impossible to eliminate completely...Not just because of practicality, but also because it exists in the abstract. Furthermore, suffering is defined as a thing only so far as it can be measured against joy and happiness. To eliminate one you eliminate the other.

Dent · 10-25-2016, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

All I'm saying is that it's impossible to eliminate completely...To eliminate one you eliminate the other.

Let's eliminate both then?
Cocksure yes, I didn't see you at the grounding conference, It really would be useful if you'd share your secrets.
Also i'm not sure why you want to alleviate suffering, you're cocksure with "of course"

Dent · 10-25-2016, 02:45 PM

Pain and pleasure aren't like positive and negative electric charge, or Newton's third law of action and reaction. Sadly, as we know there are a minority of people who undergo chronic pain and/or depression. We wouldn't tell them "That's impossible!" As far we know, its not technically harder biologically to create gradients of bliss or gradients of misery or a mix of pleasure and pain: rather, the difference is how adaptive such states tended to be in the ancestral environment of adaptation.

Dent · 10-26-2016, 06:57 AM

""Take an atom here, and atom on Jupiter, and an atom on Alpha Centauri, and call this composite "X". Does X really exist? As defined, yes. But it's an arbitrary abstract construction. Presumably we want instead to "carve Nature at the joints". (Actually, there is indeed a sense in which the entire multiverse is a single entangled object)""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction

Dent · 10-26-2016, 10:14 AM

reifying abstract objects leads to nonsense!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

I only learned of this word recently, but at least i'm not pretending!

Dent · 10-26-2016, 10:37 AM

#nominalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism

Repugnant Abomination · 10-26-2016, 01:39 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BE95qqkTc0

Dent · 10-26-2016, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

We can never eliminate suffering. Nor should we. Everything gives rise to its opposite. Without suffering there could not be happiness. Because we experience both thesis and antithesis, what we're left with is the synthesis. But that is derivative. A step back and we find existence and non-existence. The synthesis of these are are what we call life.

?

Dent · 10-26-2016, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

Of course we should try to alleviate suffering. All I'm saying is that it's impossible to eliminate completely...Not just because of practicality, but also because it exists in the abstract. Furthermore, suffering is defined as a thing only so far as it can be measured against joy and happiness. To eliminate one you eliminate the other.

O.o?

Dent · 10-26-2016, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

using big words doesn't make you sound smart

?

Repugnant Abomination · 10-26-2016, 02:04 PM

We shouldn't try to eliminate suffering, because by doing so you would eliminate happiness as an abstract concept. Both are dependent on each other to define their own existence.

Math is an abstraction. Numbers don't exist in the material world.

Repugnant Abomination · 10-26-2016, 02:07 PM

Think of it like Yin Yang. Two opposing forces relying on their opposite in order to exist and create the whole. The wholeness of life, existence, experience, must by definition contain pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, sadness and happiness.

Dent · 10-26-2016, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

Math is an abstraction. Numbers don't exist in the material world.

I agree!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Wit.../dp/0691072604

Science Without Numbers:
The Defence of Nominalism
Hartry H. Field

Edit - Feel like some sass is needed.
Don't get reifying numbers on me now Repug.

Dent · 10-26-2016, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

Think of it like Yin Yang. Two opposing forces relying on their opposite in order to exist and create the whole. The wholeness of life, existence, experience, must by definition contain pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, sadness and happiness.

By your definitions, sure. These are contested terms and I don't think pain and pleasure are like charges on electrons/protons (abstractions!)
I don't know why you should save suffering for the sake of saving happiness even if what you say is true.

I think there's a need to remove suffering, but no need to turn tables and chairs into orgasms/utilitronium

"Whereas the badness of agony or despair is built into the nature of the experience itself, any judgement that we should convert insentient matter and energy – or a flourishing posthuman civilisation based on gradients of intelligent bliss – into pure utilitronium is a judgement imposed from without."

Dent · 10-27-2016, 06:45 AM

Kick a dog? dog somewhere else happy. or maybe cat, not sure. balance.
help someone out without it harming yourself? impossible. fuck yourself or someone else over.
throw earth into sun? earth pops up 1au away again.
vague statement? not vague statement.
wax on? wax off.

Mr. Blonde · 11-01-2016, 08:09 PM

The HBO show Westworld is the most advanced dialogue on consciousness I have seen on television. The whole show is about emergent AI consciousness out of advanced robotics, who themselves experience identity and a form of reincarnation due to the circumstances of the show.

One of the great things about shows like this are how multileveled they are. Westworld has action and sex for the rabble, but also has high-level dialogue in terms of consciousness and developing empathy for robotic beings. Dent if you can suspend your disbelief a bit I think you would really like what this show is doing to educate the masses on consciousness of other beings.

In episode 3 of Westworld, they mentioned a theory by a man named Julian Jaynes that has vexed me for quite a while, partner!

The idea works best as a thought experiment than it does as a plausible theory, however the evidence presented, in addition to my experience (both subjective and comparative research) make a pretty decent case. The theory is not well-known/generally accepted, however I view that as a historical lack of interest in consciousness (except for a select few philosophers and diplomats, and Asia) than a lack of plausibility.

The idea is called Bicameralism.

Quote:

Bicameralism (the philosophy of "two-chamberedness") is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once assumed a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes, who presented the idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality was the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind as recently as 3000 years ago.

There is a HUGE gap in consciousness ability between our nearest relatives (primates) and ourselves. Generally speaking, the difference lies somewhere in the neocortex, which is present in (I think) all, or at least most mammals.

We can create symphonies, split atoms, go to the moon, etc. etc. Dolphins can play some games and some apes can do sign language/use sticks for tools. This is a chasm of difference.

The idea is that the emergence of consciousness in proto-human animals ("apelike ancestors" and our hominid cousins) was initially interpreted, not as the voice of "I am", but as the voice of a GOD, as in, God suddenly announcing "I AM" in your head, which proceeds to tell you what to do based on the data the brain has access to. We interpret these as thoughts.

This sounds bizarre, but self-consciousness is something that some animals have (like us), and that some animals do not, or act in pacts or sub-individual group consciousness. So in-between, it is perfectly plausible that animals developing consciousness would not be able to understand that it was their brain (something they did not understand at all, except maybe "squishy stuff that if destroyed will make you sleep forever") generating an algorithm that comes on as a more personal thought structure of individual consciousness.

The key point of this hypothesis, if true, is that it would explain or contribute to an explanation for the worldwide phenomenon of gods and religions.

In the show Westworld, this theory is referenced in comparison to a phenomenon (a voice in the head) that androids are experiencing within the theme park. While it was just a minor mention, I felt it was worth adding here, as it might be of interest to some of you.

Westworld: http://123movies.to/film/westworld-season-1-16796/

Repugnant Abomination · 11-02-2016, 02:20 AM

Very interesting, Blonde. I need to look more into this. Thanks.

Dent · 11-08-2016, 02:27 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictionalism
*sass* @Repug is used to make believe!

Mr. Blonde · 11-08-2016, 02:37 PM

I've been reading a lot about John C. Lilly's explorations of human consciousness using ketamine and LSD in flotation tanks (which he invented), as well as his work with LSD and dolphins.

http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/vi...25&context=cpo

Repugnant Abomination · 11-08-2016, 03:14 PM

Considering I was mocked on these boards for bringing philosophy into the discussion, my cocksure attitude leaves me no doubt that eventually Dent will come around to my way of thinking (again), because I'm so much smarter than him.

Mr. Blonde · 11-11-2016, 11:01 PM

Mckenna discusses if reality is real - YouTube

10-25-2016, 12:06 PM	#103 (permalink)
Mr. Blonde Spice Master Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 17,969 Internets: 278288	I think the issue here is communication. I think both of you can start by agreeing that, at minimum, it is a noble goal for Humanity to focus on alleviating as much unnecessary human and animal suffering as possible. Can both of you agree on that?
	Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. ― Terence McKenna

11-08-2016, 02:37 PM	#123 (permalink)
Mr. Blonde Spice Master Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 17,969 Internets: 278288	I've been reading a lot about John C. Lilly's explorations of human consciousness using ketamine and LSD in flotation tanks (which he invented), as well as his work with LSD and dolphins. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/vi...25&context=cpo
	Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. ― Terence McKenna

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10-25-2016, 11:42 AM	#101 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	Tables and chairs lack suffering and happiness? Really? Posting links and quoting huge blocks of text from different sources you read and using big words doesn't make you sound smart -- it makes it seem like you only have a surface level understanding of complex subjects. That said, if you don't think abstract concepts exist then there's no need for us to go any further, because we can't agree on a premise on which to base our arguments on.

10-25-2016, 12:17 PM	#104 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	Cocksure Repug says that "everything gives rise to it's opposite" I think he means that if you masturbate and enjoy it god kills a kitten, but honestly i'm not sure. what's the opposite of the ultimate whole? Can you come here to a conference Repug? It would save so many people a lot of time and thought on these matters, they could take up tennis. Chimps living in the dark ages!

10-25-2016, 12:30 PM	#105 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	Cocksure Repug? Who are you, Donald Trump? Does everyone get an insulting little prefix before their name now? You're barely even forming coherent thoughts. Blonde, I agree with your above statement. Of course we should try to alleviate suffering. All I'm saying is that it's impossible to eliminate completely...Not just because of practicality, but also because it exists in the abstract. Furthermore, suffering is defined as a thing only so far as it can be measured against joy and happiness. To eliminate one you eliminate the other.

10-25-2016, 02:45 PM	#107 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	Pain and pleasure aren't like positive and negative electric charge, or Newton's third law of action and reaction. Sadly, as we know there are a minority of people who undergo chronic pain and/or depression. We wouldn't tell them "That's impossible!" As far we know, its not technically harder biologically to create gradients of bliss or gradients of misery or a mix of pleasure and pain: rather, the difference is how adaptive such states tended to be in the ancestral environment of adaptation.

10-26-2016, 06:57 AM	#108 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	""Take an atom here, and atom on Jupiter, and an atom on Alpha Centauri, and call this composite "X". Does X really exist? As defined, yes. But it's an arbitrary abstract construction. Presumably we want instead to "carve Nature at the joints". (Actually, there is indeed a sense in which the entire multiverse is a single entangled object)"" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction

10-26-2016, 10:14 AM	#109 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	reifying abstract objects leads to nonsense! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) I only learned of this word recently, but at least i'm not pretending!

10-26-2016, 10:37 AM	#110 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	#nominalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism

10-26-2016, 01:39 PM	#111 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BE95qqkTc0

10-26-2016, 02:04 PM	#115 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	We shouldn't try to eliminate suffering, because by doing so you would eliminate happiness as an abstract concept. Both are dependent on each other to define their own existence. Math is an abstraction. Numbers don't exist in the material world.

10-26-2016, 02:07 PM	#116 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	Think of it like Yin Yang. Two opposing forces relying on their opposite in order to exist and create the whole. The wholeness of life, existence, experience, must by definition contain pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, sadness and happiness.

10-27-2016, 06:45 AM	#119 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	Kick a dog? dog somewhere else happy. or maybe cat, not sure. balance. help someone out without it harming yourself? impossible. fuck yourself or someone else over. throw earth into sun? earth pops up 1au away again. vague statement? not vague statement. wax on? wax off.

11-02-2016, 02:20 AM	#121 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	Very interesting, Blonde. I need to look more into this. Thanks.

11-08-2016, 02:27 PM	#122 (permalink)
Dent Lost in Hilbert Spice Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools Posts: 3,460 Internets: 174266	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictionalism sass @Repug is used to make believe!

11-08-2016, 03:14 PM	#124 (permalink)
Repugnant Abomination Almost there... Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 5,979 Internets: 161638	Considering I was mocked on these boards for bringing philosophy into the discussion, my cocksure attitude leaves me no doubt that eventually Dent will come around to my way of thinking (again), because I'm so much smarter than him.