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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12


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@marduk said "The non-physical universe doesn't seem to exist given the evidence we have at hand."

Do consciousness and mind seem to exist? For example, do colors (green), emotions (anger), sensations (pain) etc. exist?
 
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@smcder

Thanks for the "like" re the short story. Too bad the thread got chopped. :(

Although I think you are likely the only participant who would appreciate them anyhow. Anyhow, I feel those three stories illustrate the following:

1st story: that the mind is related to the brain in ways that are opaque to the mind.

2nd story: that we shouldn't expect the mind and the brain to "look" the same. Therefore it's not a problem that they do not. Thus, looking for the mind in the "material" is a red herring.

3rd story: the body/brain is a representation of the mind for the mind, and thus there is no mind body problem.
 
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@marduk: "Please share a model and/or theory that explains how phenomenal consciousness might emerge from non-preexisting, phenomenally conscious natural phenomena."

Does this rephrasing ask what you want it to? How phenomenal consciousness might emerge from an existing phenomenally conscious natural phenomena? I don't think so because it doesn't make sense.

Perhaps we could ask how a mind might emerge from a phenomenally conscious natural substrate. Here you go. However, it's more a hypothesis than a model or theory.

(This one does a good job imo of laying out the problem.)

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-accept...ions-used-to-better-perceive-our-surroundings

(This one answers your question.)

https://www.quora.com/Are-particles-conscious

Goes without saying, read the entire answers before forming conclusions. I'd be happy to discuss.
 
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@marduk said "The non-physical universe doesn't seem to exist given the evidence we have at hand."

Do consciousness and mind seem to exist? For example, do colors (green), emotions (anger), sensations (pain) etc. exist?
"I think therefore I am" seems to have resolved that question neatly.
 
For those of us struggling with the idea that phenomenal consciousness (not to be confused with mind) may somehow be a fundamental feature of nature, I thought the following Quora answer was interesting:

https://www.quora.com/Does-physics-...to-the-question-Is-light-a-wave-or-a-particle

"Yes: the answer is “neither”.

Light is neither a wave nor a particle — it is something which is both more complicated, but also much simpler and more elegant.

Light is the manifestation of elementary excitations (quanta) of an underlying quantum field: the Electromagnetic Field. We call these elementary excitations “photons”."

-----

Particles and waves are classical phenomena. They emerge within fundamental nature.

What is fundamental nature? Describing fundamental nature in terms of classical phenomena is ultimately insufficient.

For me, this highlighted the idea discussed here in the past that our knowledge of nature while extensive in some ways is grossly lacking in others.
 
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"I think therefore I am" seems to have resolved that question neatly.
Ok.

So can you explain how consciousness and mind emerge from physical processes? Or are physical processes?

You don't even need to explain. Just give us a rough picture of how A causes B and B causes C, etc.
 
@marduk: "Please share a model and/or theory that explains how phenomenal consciousness might emerge from non-preexisting, phenomenally conscious natural phenomena."

Does this rephrasing ask what you want it to? How phenomenal consciousness might emerge from an existing phenomenally conscious natural phenomena? I don't think so because it doesn't make sense.

Perhaps we could ask how a mind might emerge from a phenomenally conscious natural substrate. Here you go. However, it's more a hypothesis than a model or theory.

(This one does a good job imo of laying out the problem.)

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-accept...ions-used-to-better-perceive-our-surroundings

(This one answers your question.)

https://www.quora.com/Are-particles-conscious

Goes without saying, read the entire answers before forming conclusions. I'd be happy to discuss.
Ok.

So can you explain how consciousness and mind emerge from physical processes? Or are physical processes?

You don't even need to explain. Just give us a rough picture of how A causes B and B causes C, etc.
I don’t have to explain it.

You have to explain why the universe as we understand cannot give rise to consciousness in order to justify creating a new universe as a requirement for it.
 
I don’t have to explain it.

You say consciousness exists. You claim that it is physical. You don't have to explain how it is physical.

Haha. Ok. Wink Wink.

You have to explain why the universe as we understand [it] cannot give rise to consciousness in order to justify creating a new universe as a requirement for it.
I'm not claiming there are two universes. You obviously didn't read the answers you asked me to provide. Cool.

Claiming that physics cannot currently account for consciousness and mind /= claiming there are two universes. But you would understand that, if, you know, you actually read the answers you asked someone to provide.
 
@marduk you're in the same boat as ufology.

1) Claiming that consciousness and mind are physical /= claiming that consciousness and mind are part of our universe. And vice versa of course.

2) Claiming that everything in our universe is "physical" is fine, but not helpful as regards the MBP. Fine. Say that consciousness and mind are physical. Now, explain how consciousness and mind relate to the body and brain.

3) If you want to make the claim that consciousness and mind are physical, then you need to explain how. ("Electromagnetic field" is not an answer.) As has been well documented, you'll need to explain:

- How consciousness and mind weakly emerge from matter/energy

- How consciousness and mind strongly emerge as something ontologically new from matter/energy

- How consciousness and mind just are matter/energy
 
Ok. So can you explain how consciousness and mind emerge from physical processes? Or are physical processes? You don't even need to explain. Just give us a rough picture of how A causes B and B causes C, etc.
I hope you guys don't mind an interjection here, but just because we can't explain exactly how or why physical things have the properties they do doesn't mean they aren't physical. Consciousness is a physical ( synonymous with "natural" in my usage here ) phenomena with the property of subjective experience. Explaining why that's the case is like explaining why light ( another natural phenomenon ) has a dual nature. We don't know why that's the case, or even how that comes to be the case. But it doesn't make it any less a physical phenomenon, and at some point we just need to be satisfied that when the right stuff is arranged in the right way, consciousness is what we get.
 
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You say consciousness exists. You claim that it is physical. You don't have to explain how it is physical.

Haha. Ok. Wink Wink.


I'm not claiming there are two universes. You obviously didn't read the answers you asked me to provide. Cool.

Claiming that physics cannot currently account for consciousness and mind /= claiming there are two universes. But you would understand that, if, you know, you actually read the answers you asked someone to provide.
I assert that my consciousness exists using “I think therefore I am” as an axiom.

I assert that the physical universe is all that exists because:

a) there is no evidence supporting the existence of a non-physical universe;
b) there are no explanations requiring the existence of a non-physical universe;
c) if a non-physical universe did exist, there is no mechanism for it to interact with the physical universe, so functionally it is equivalent to not existing;

Therefore my consciousness exists and is part of the physical universe.

Prove me wrong.
 
I assert that my consciousness exists using “I think therefore I am” as an axiom.

I assert that the physical universe is all that exists because:

a) there is no evidence supporting the existence of a non-physical universe;
b) there are no explanations requiring the existence of a non-physical universe;
c) if a non-physical universe did exist, there is no mechanism for it to interact with the physical universe, so functionally it is equivalent to not existing;

Therefore my consciousness exists and is part of the physical universe.

Prove me wrong.
Now, explain how consciousness and mind relate to the body and brain.
 
I hope you guys don't mind an interjection here, but just because we can't explain exactly how or why physical things have the properties they do doesn't mean they aren't physical. Consciousness is a physical ( synonymous with "natural" in my usage here ) phenomena with the property of subjective experience. Explaining why that's the case is like explaining why light ( another natural phenomenon ) has a dual nature. We don't know why that's the case, or even how that comes to be the case. But it doesn't make it any less a physical phenomenon, and at some point we just need to be satisfied that when the right stuff is arranged in the right way, consciousness is what we get.
Great. Can we move on to resolving the MBP?
 
I don’t know how that works, but it happens in the physical universe.

Just like sunspots, ufos, cats, and emotions do.

I can’t explain any of those things either.
 
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