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Ah, crouching tiger, hidden dragon. Buddhism is a good fit for a materialist neurologist like Austin. His stuff is very technical and for some reason I like it even though it is beyond me.OK, that's a very Buddhist approach. Yes, that kind of mindful focusing on the here and now may well be common in other animals (for some reason it makes me think of tigers!).
In my experience with Meditation just the opposite happens in that the mind model follows the opened focus state of consciousness. In other words, the mind is constantly trying to catch up and make some kind of sense of what was just experienced.Its still a mind model initiated by intense focus on a particular state of mind.
I agree .. but its still a mind model because if your head were to be instantly removed .. that focused state would have also been instantly from the universe, eh?In my experience with Meditation just the opposite happens in that the mind model follows the opened focus state of consciousness. In other words, the mind is constantly trying to catch up and make some kind of sense of what was just experienced.
I’m not gonna deny that my analogy wasn’t great, but I was only aiming at a section of the analogy, just the part that would make the person who asked the question roll their eyes at the answer and be like “Oh come on that’s not what I was asking.” That’s the gut reaction I get when a person calls squishy matter and a series of synapses the same exact thing as bone chilling fear that I’m feeling as someone chases me with a knife.
There is an explanatory gap when someone tries to say that physical/chemical mechanisms become alive and have experiential qualities, however this explanatory gap is not present when you are explaining physical sequences. A detailed explanation of physical mechanisms does makes sense, and it makes sense at every single turn. But the only aspect of the physical mechanism’s relation to mental phenomena that ‘Makes sense’ is the ‘When’ part. We can understand pointing to a certain stage of development and saying “That’s when it happens”, but what exactly it is, and how it happens is a gapping hole of understanding.
We know, more than we know anything, that we are conscious. So consciousness is therefore an undeniable aspect of reality. When we know that something undeniably exists in reality, and when physical descriptions runs into explanatory gaps when trying to explain them then there is either more to reality than just the physical, or we just don’t know enough about reality yet. But my problem with it being the latter is that I can’t even make sense out of what a coherent explanation would even look like! Physical mechanisms at some point being experientially alive, what does that even mean from a cause & effect standpoint where you’re analyzing each sequence? So IMO we have the meshing together of two different fabrics of ultimate reality. They correlate with each other very much so, but if the scientific method isn’t able to lead us to “Aha that cause & effect sequence makes total sense” then a physical cause & effect platform isn’t enough to explain everything in reality. I can’t see how adding 100 billion more physical cause & effect sequences to the process would somehow create a moment of “Ok now it makes sense that it’s alive.” Or a trillion, or 100 trillion. That is a reply that I see a lot, that just adding more physical complexities is supposed to give it explanatory power.
So the way I see it is that we know of two forms of knowledge, scientific based knowledge and experiential based knowledge. The advantage to experiential knowledge is that it is our most direct form of knowledge, but it’s disadvantage is that it’s easy to misinterpret. The advantage to scientific based knowledge is its incredibly impressive precision, but its disadvantage is that it is a knowledge that’s one level removed from immediate experiential knowledge. We can’t throw experiential based knowledge under the microscope quite like we can with scientific knowledge, its the great humbling factor that makes it impossible to ever have exhaustive knowledge. And I think that part drives some people crazy, they refuse to admit that we can’t close in on exhaustive knowledge. So they act like the second half of the equation doesn’t even exist.
I notice that Scientism is in the habit of chopping off sections of reality and claiming that they don’t really exist “If they can’t be assimilated into the scientific method.” If the scientific method can’t verify it you do one of two things…#1 claim that it’s not real, or #2 claim that A = non-A (squishy matter and a series of synapses are the same thing as (fill in the blank) experience.
You cannot open the brain and point to consciousness or even memory. You can only detect brain waves, electrical activity. Do you want to call that consciousness? How is it different from my computer?
The focused state and mind model are different states that happen at different times in meditation. The experienced mediator won't even go into the mind model state about their meditation experience. For the Mystics that's the reason for the practice of negative theology.I agree .. but its still a mind model because if your head were to be instantly removed .. that focused state would have also been instantly from the universe, eh?
Sorry about the minor book sale aspect embedded in this article. I still found it an interesting read that might relate to some of the discussions in this thread.
The Most Amazing Things About Animal Consciousness
Sort of like smoking, or poppin' pills, eh?The focused state and mind model are different states that happen at different times in meditation. The experienced mediator won't even go into the mind model state about their meditation experience. For the Mystics that's the reason for the practice of negative theology.
So you are nothing more than a processes?So consciousness isn't something in itself either. It's a term used to describe processes. So just as it's nonsensical to search banks and shops and wage agreements looking for 'finance' it's equally nonsensical looking at synapses and chemical changes and electrical charges looking for 'consciousness'.
I don't know about the pills. But I can report that it's not at all like the smok'n.Sort of like smoking, or poppin' pills, eh?
So you are nothing more than a processes?
I thought Deepak Chopra was either an aromatic herb, or a 1960s Bollywood actor. How little I know!Interesting article. I was checking out the book and it crossed my mind that I could buy it (despite a hefty Kindle price). Until I came across this in a review: 'Lanza is the new Deepak Chopra.'
Dodged a bullet there...
Thats really good. Similar to my point about "running", where we tend to noun-ify verbs, and then fool ourselves into looking for "the thing".You can't point to pain either. Or love. Or hunger. But these are entirely natural physical events. We just use a word that saves us having to explain those events and processes in any great detail.
I could write a whole book on the concept of money and how it is used to transfer wealth and goods and the value of labour and you'd say 'Hey, it's all about finance'. So we can use one word that describes all the physical aspects of wealth etc instead of describing all the individual aspects themselves. So we can point to money. And we can point to someone transferring the money and point to someone purchasing some goods which we can watch being produced. But we can't point to 'finance'.
Does that mean that 'finance' is somehow separate from the processes which it describes? Not at all. It's simply a shorthand means to describe those processes. But it isn't something in itself.
So consciousness isn't something in itself either. It's a term used to describe processes. So just as it's nonsensical to search banks and shops and wage agreements looking for 'finance' it's equally nonsensical looking at synapses and chemical changes and electrical charges looking for 'consciousness'.
Nobody talks about the 'hard problem of finance' because we know enough about monetary processes to be able to understand what we mean by 'finance'. We don't yet know enough about mental processes to understand exactly what we mean by 'consciousness'.
There'll come a time when we realise it wasn't a hard problem that needed to be solved. It was more a problem of understanding the processes so that the term is sufficiently defined and we all know what is meant by it.
Are you then an atheistic existentialist who might claim that it is we who give the only meaning to the world around us. It has no inherent or ultimate meaning?Correct.
Edit: But which is like saying that the bottle of Lagavulin*
I am sure you are not alone. I have had many discussions with atheists. But again, what makes "you" different form your computer other than more complex processes?Seems ok to me(?)
Not sure which I prefer (leaving alone which is real):Are you then an atheistic existentialist who might claim that it is we who give the only meaning to the world around us. It has no inherent or ultimate meaning?
Let me share my own view. First there is consciousness, call it God, or nature or some kind of Logos which casts dimensions of itself out into what seems to be inconscient matter. Why? Simply for the adventure, the creativity, the experience, of developing its long way back into full consciousness. From the One, many, then back to the One.
Are you then an atheistic existentialist who might claim that it is we who give the only meaning to the world around us. It has no inherent or ultimate meaning?
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