About life and consciousness.

[Eise]

12 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

You think physics will refute first principles of things including substance, cause, time and space?   I think in 500 years, people like Eise will have to grudgingly live with metaphysics as being highly integrated into technology. 

You exactly make my point. When what you now call 'metaphysics' leads to technology, then this 'metaphysics' will have turned into physics.

21 hours ago, dimreepr said:

23 hours ago, Eise said:

What you call metaphysics will be physics by then. Or refuted by it...

There's no reason to assume that... 

Do you agree now? With his remark about technology Wulphstein made pretty clear what he thinks about 'metaphysics'.

Further, Wulphstein, I am still waiting for your reaction on my arguments in this posting.

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

11 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

It would be a better life if we could have a profound thought without someone disparaging it for fun.

The profundity of your thoughts are not for you to decide. 

Exactly. Profound feelings may be subjective (e.g. the awe you feel when hearing a beautiful piece of music, or are in a sublime landscape). But a thought, when it claims not be just subjective, is open to scrutiny by others. 

2 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

It sounds like you're claiming the right to disparage someone's profound experience to satisfy....

As long as you do not distinguish between the experience, and the objective truth that it possibly contains (or not) you will feel this way. 

1 hour ago, Wulphstein said:

What are we allowed to say about consciousness that is within the rules of this forum?

Pretty much, I think, you are in the philosophy section. Personally however, I think you should give arguments, why your profound 'thoughts' should be valid for others. Otherwise your thoughts are just descriptions of how you experience the world. There is nothing wrong with telling us, but without arguments that might be valid for others, your 'thoughts' contain no truth-claim, and therefore have nothing to do with philosophy and even less with science.

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

BTW 4 negs in a row for no reason is bad form,

Yes. Therefore I compensated them for you .

Giving negative reputation points, just because one does not agree with a posting, is bad practice. But if somebody trolls, repeats the same argument ad nauseam, yells, gives very bad arguments, or offends other posters, then neg reps are justified.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Eise

[dimreepr]

9 minutes ago, Eise said:

Do you agree now? With his remark about technology Wulphstein made pretty clear what he thinks about 'metaphysics'.

Further, I am still waiting for your reaction on my arguments in this posting.

I agree with this argument "When what you now call 'metaphysics' leads to technology, then this 'metaphysics' will have turned into physics."

And I'm assuming the reaction you want is from Wulphi.

[Eise]

2 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

And I'm assuming the reaction you want is from Wulphi.

Ehm, yes. I just copy/pasted your comment in between, and forgot that it disturbs the text flow of the posting. I'll correct it.

[Wulphstein]

14 minutes ago, Eise said:

Pretty much, I think, you are in the philosophy section. Personally however, I think you should give arguments, why your profound 'thoughts' should be valid for others. Otherwise your thoughts are just descriptions of how you experience the world. There is nothing wrong with telling us, but without arguments that might be valid for others, your 'thoughts' contain no truth-claim, and therefore have nothing to do with philosophy and even less with science.

I'm starting to understand what it's like to live in a dictatorship.  Can't really say what I want to say without offending the administrators, breaking the rules or referring to a topic that is closed by the administrators.  I can't use certain words unless I have mastery of the topic.  It's like walking on egg shells in this forum.  The truly wondrous things that other people express to me, they warm my heart about what reality is really like.  I'm starting to understand what our forefathers were probably dealing with.  Yes, I support freedom of speech.

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, Wulphstein said:

I'm starting to understand what it's like to live in a dictatorship.  Can't really say what I want to say without offending the administrators, breaking the rules or referring to a topic that is closed by the administrators.  I can't use certain words unless I have mastery of the topic.  It's like walking on egg shells in this forum.  The truly wondrous things that other people express to me, they warm my heart about what reality is really like.  I'm starting to understand what our forefathers were probably dealing with.  Yes, I support freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech!!! You seem to think it only applies to you, and that you're free to spout nonsense without it being exposed as such by others. 

Are you a Trump supporter?

[Eise]

1 minute ago, Wulphstein said:

I'm starting to understand what it's like to live in a dictatorship.  Can't really say what I want to say without offending the administrators, breaking the rules or referring to a topic that is closed by the administrators.  I can't use certain words unless I have mastery of the topic.  It's like walking on egg shells in this forum.  The truly wondrous things that other people express to me, they warm my heart about what reality is really like.  I'm starting to understand what our forefathers were probably dealing with.  Yes, I support freedom of speech.

Me too. But if I think your way of thinking does not lead to truth claims, or if they do, are badly argued, I may react. That is also freedom of speech. 

You may say what you want, as long it does not offend anybody, but if you want to make methodologically valid truth claims, you should be prepared to give arguments that transcend your own experiences. The only methodology I recognise with you is, 'I experienced it', or 'my intuition tells me so'. And this methodology is debunked by the simple arising of science and the technology derived from it.

You are not offending me, so I did not give you neg rep points, and as you might notice, no moderator has intervened in this thread, not in his function as moderator (then you see green or red text boxes). So keep polite, and we can make this thread endless. Except when you start repeating the same argument over and over again.

[Wulphstein]

We're still not talking about consciousness or what it is. 

5 minutes ago, Eise said:

You may say what you want, as long it does not offend anybody, but if you want to make methodologically valid truth claims, you should be prepared to give arguments that transcend your own experiences. The only methodology I recognise with you is, 'I experienced it', or 'my intuition tells me so'. And this methodology is debunked by the simple arising of science and the technology derived from it.

This thread is about consciousness.  Experience and intuition are major parts of it.  So your argument about "valid claims" is silly. 

[dimreepr]

Just now, Wulphstein said:

We're still not talking about consciousness or what it is. 

You first... 

[Eise]

5 minutes ago, Wulphstein said:

This thread is about consciousness.  Experience and intuition are major parts of it.

A thread about consciousness has as topic amongst others, what experience and intuitions are. That is something completely different than taking the contents of your experience and intuitions as truth claims.

It is like the difference between talking about consciousness, and 'consciousness'. Example of the latter is 'consciousness' has 13 letters.

You could pickup the discussion about consciousness, by looking up which arguments I gave in the thread, and finally would react on them. I promise you, as long as you are keeping polite, you will have no problems with the moderators.

[zapatos]

1 hour ago, Wulphstein said:

I can't use certain words unless I have mastery of the topic.  It's like walking on egg shells in this forum.

Welcome to the culture of a science forum.

[dimreepr]

9 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Welcome to the culture of a science forum.

I don't think he feels welcome... 

[zapatos]

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I don't think he feels welcome... 

Where I come from everyone drives on the right side of the road. You can still go wherever you wish but by following the norm you avoid misunderstandings and all sorts of problems. People who insist on driving on the left side of the road don't usually feel welcome either.

[dimreepr]

56 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Where I come from everyone drives on the right side of the road. You can still go wherever you wish but by following the norm you avoid misunderstandings and all sorts of problems. People who insist on driving on the left side of the road don't usually feel welcome either.

Well, we both speak English, but in my culture we drive on the left... 

I do get what you mean, but he's a foreigner and we should be charitable...

But don't look back in anger.

Edited August 11, 2019 by dimreepr

[Hrvoje1]

On 8/7/2019 at 11:29 PM, Strange said:

After all, there is no real way of knowing if another person is conscious or just does a perfect imitation of being conscious. 

Maybe, but I don’t think I ever met an unconscious person that was any good in imitation of being conscious, let alone one who does that perfectly.

[Strange]

17 minutes ago, Hrvoje1 said:

Maybe, but I don’t think I ever met an unconscious person that was any good in imitation of being conscious, let alone one who does that perfectly.

There are two meanings of “conscious”: having self-awareness/consciousness and being awake/alert. Clearly, (given the topic of the thread) I meant the former. 

[Hrvoje1]

5 hours ago, Strange said:

There are two meanings of “conscious”: having self-awareness/consciousness and being awake/alert. Clearly, (given the topic of the thread) I meant the former. 

I think I never met a person who is awake/alert, not self-aware and successfully pretends self-awareness, does that condition have a name? How do they manage to do that? Besides that, you explained really nice one meaning of the word “conscious”, as “having consciousness”. It reminds me of Baldrick’s definitions from one episode of the Black Adder..

[Strange]

3 minutes ago, Hrvoje1 said:

I think I never met a person who is awake/alert, not self-aware and successfully pretends self-awareness, does that condition have a name? How do they manage to do that? Besides that, you explained really nice one meaning of the word “conscious”, as “having consciousness”. It reminds me of Baldrick’s definitions from one episode of the Black Adder..

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are deliberately pretending not to understand the difference between consciousness and being unconscious for humorous effect. It is hilarious

[Wulphstein]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

Quit trolling.

So what do you think is the nature of consciousness? 

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, Wulphstein said:

So what do you think is the nature of consciousness? 

It embodies the set of neural processes that occur within a brain and supplemented with signals from other parts of the body. 

[Wulphstein]

30 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It embodies the set of neural processes that occur within a brain and supplemented with signals from other parts of the body.

Is that it?  So what can I do with this "valuable" knowledge from the highly esteemed scientific community whom we are supposed to emulate and look to for a vision of the future? 

Edited August 12, 2019 by Wulphstein

[Wulphstein]

If the neuro"science" community cared about humanity,  they would make a public announcement saying they don't know what the Hell a soul is, don't know how to make humanity happy, and turn that job back over to religious leaders, psychics, and those who understand human nature and the nature of consciousness. 

[hypervalent_iodine]

1 minute ago, Wulphstein said:

If the neuro"science" community cared about humanity,  they would make a public announcement saying they don't know what the Hell a soul is, don't know how to make humanity happy, and turn that job back over to religious leaders, psychics, and those who understand human nature and the nature of consciousness. 

!

Moderator Note

Enough. Stop dragging this thread off topic with your inane ramblings. 

 

[Hrvoje1]

6 hours ago, Strange said:

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are deliberately pretending not to understand the difference between consciousness and being unconscious for humorous effect. It is hilarious

In my book, being conscious and being unconscious are opposite states, just as being awake and being asleep, and I am not aware of missing some subtle meaning there. As for the distinction between being self aware and being aware of the environment, I can comprehend that possibility that not both exist, I just don’t think it is very common case, at least among people it is pathological.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Hrvoje1

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Some posts have been removed, as they seem to have tempted people to continue to follow the hijacked discussion.

 

[StringJunky]

16 hours ago, Wulphstein said:

Is that it?  So what can I do with this "valuable" knowledge from the highly esteemed scientific community whom we are supposed to emulate and look to for a vision of the future? 

What you are searching for will not be found in science.