Consciousness

[LNC]

Yes, and yes. That's what I mean when I said you don't know my wife. She knows I'm a strict materialist atheist, and we are deeply in love.

 

So, when you say you are deeply in love, you mean that you have a strong neuro-chemical reaction to her. What is it about her physical being that causes the strong reaction within your physical being? Do you have that same reaction in the presence of other physical beings? If not, why do you think that isn't the case?

 

Excellent! We already do that (change the chemistry of the brain of violent offenders)! You didn't know that?

 

Here's something from Washington (state):

 

RCW 10.77.092

Involuntary medication — Serious offenses.

 

(1) For purposes of determining whether a court may authorize involuntary medication for the purpose of competency restoration pursuant to RCW 10.77.084, a pending charge involving any one or more of the following crimes is a serious offense per se in the context of competency restoration:

 

(a.) Any violent offense, sex offense, serious traffic offense, and most serious offense, as those terms are defined in RCW 9.94A.030;

 

(B.) Any offense, except nonfelony counterfeiting offenses, included in crimes against persons in RCW 9.94A.411;

 

(c.) Any offense contained in chapter 9.41 RCW (firearms and dangerous weapons);

 

(d.) Any offense listed as domestic violence in RCW 10.99.020;

 

(e.) Any offense listed as a harassment offense in chapter 9A.46 RCW;

 

(f.) Any violation of chapter 69.50 RCW that is a class B felony; or

 

(g.) Any city or county ordinance or statute that is equivalent to an offense referenced in this subsection.

 

Look, insanity is not possession by the devil. It's a chemical imbalance. Many crimes are committed because of insanity, and many insane people commit crimes. You are driving me insane.

 

It isn't some nefarious attempt to make automatons of people and take away their free will. It is about correcting a chemical imbalance - it's called treatment.

 

In some ways this sounds like a scary law - almost Naziesque. I guess you would say that there are drugs to help you with your problem... Seriously, I don't see all mental problems as being reducible to physical problems, otherwise, we wouldn't have psychologists trying to treat people, we would have pharmacologists simply issuing prescriptions to treat every mental problem. However, now that I say that, it seems that we are moving in that direction, but still, mental disease doesn't seem to be waning.

 

I really want to know how you arrive at or hold onto the concept of free will given strict materialism. I don't see the two coexisting. Maybe you could explain to me how that works.

 

LNC

[LNC]

I watch this thread with a mild interest, but y'all must be masochists! It reminds me of the Monty Python routine about the

.

 

Ah yes, one of my favorite Monty Python bits.

 

LNC

[LNC]

Yes, I'm a little burned out on it too, along with the Cosmological thread. It's just a constant back and forth and things are starting to get repeated.

 

With this thread, there is no answer other than metaphysical and those can't be proven, so yeah, I'm bored with it too.

 

Besides, what's the point? Let's say that LNC is correct and naturalism can't explain consciousness. What next? What leap of faith causes one to arrive at any given religion?

 

Why do you assume that one has to make a leap of faith? Why also do you assume that it is only the theist who makes a leap of faith? I believe that it was when people like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard started moving away from God that they started making leaps of faith.

 

If naturalism can't account for consciousness, then it would indicate that there is more to our existence than the purely physical stuff. From there, we investigate and find out what that realm is like. However, we have a lot to go by in finding out as we have one who came two thousand years ago to tell us. His resurrection also gave indication that there is more to life than the physical.

 

LNC

[LNC]

Wouldn't understanding where and when consciousness first exhibits itself provide the beginning of a naturalistic explanation? It would also confine consciousness to the being itself. I can say I know where my mind came from. It was a causal result of my conception. Of all the potential humans (sperm/ovum)in competition for being, one sperm penetrated one ovum, combining to produce me. My mind has an entirely naturalistic origin and development.

 

How can the dualist explain where the mind came from, and why it has to develop simultaneously with the brain's development? For consciousness to exist, it has to develop along with the physical being which it came from, IMHO. It is never the exact same "thing" along the course of human life. Since the brain must develop, and the mind/consciousness must also develop, clearly the consciousness is entirely naturalistic in origin and location in space-time (i.e., within a human being).

 

A fetus' brain is different than a newborn's, which is different than an adult's, and so is the mind. From The Emergence O Human Consciousness:

 

A simple definition of consciousness is sensory awareness of the body, the self, and the world. The fetus may be aware of the body, for example by perceiving pain. It reacts to touch, smell, and sound, and shows facial expressions responding to external stimuli. However, these reactions are probably preprogrammed and have a subcortical nonconscious origin. Furthermore, the fetus is almost continuously asleep and unconscious partially due to endogenous sedation. Conversely, the newborn infant can be awake, exhibit sensory awareness, and process memorized mental representations. It is also able to differentiate between self and nonself touch, express emotions, and show signs of shared feelings. Yet, it is unreflective, present oriented, and makes little reference to concept of him/herself. Newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as basic consciousness and they still have to undergo considerable maturation to reach the level of adult consciousness. The preterm infant, ex utero, may open its eyes and establish minimal eye contact with its mother. It also shows avoidance reactions to harmful stimuli. However, the thalamocortical connections are not yet fully established, which is why it can only reach a minimal level of consciousness.

 

 

 

A first conclusion of this ongoing research is that the fetus in utero is almost continuously asleep and unconscious partially due to endogenous sedation. In particular, it would not consciously experience nociceptive inputs as pain. Conversely, the newborn infant exhibits in addition to sensory awareness specially to painful stimuli, the ability to differentiate between self and nonself touch, sense that their bodies are separate from the world, to express emotions, and to show signs of shared feelings. Moreover, objective signs for the mobilization of the GNW [Global Neuronal Workspace]circuits are being detected in awake infants at the level of the prefrontal cortex in sensory processing, in responses to novelty and to speech and in social interaction. Yet, its capacities for internal manipulations in working memory are reduced, it is unreflective, present oriented and makes little reference to concept of him/herself. Newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as basic or minimal consciousness (7,9,70). They still have to undergo considerable maturation to reach the level of adult consciousness (70).

 

A couple of comments. First, you claim that you know where your mind came from, it was a causal result of your conception. That is to commit what is known as the cum hoc fallacy, which is committed when it is assumed that because two things occur together, they must be causally related. This, however, does not follow; correlation is possible without causation. That would be the case with consciousness and conception, just because one follows the other doesn't necessitate the the one was the cause or explanation for the other. It still gets down to whether consciousness is reducible to the physical and many, if not most, philosophers see clear distinctions of consciousness which are not explainable by the physical.

 

You also post the following definition of consciousness as "sensory awareness of the body, the self, and the world." I would say that is overly simplistic as it does not account for first-person awareness, which is more than mere "sensory awareness." Because of that weak definition, the rest of the excerpt seems to have a lot of question-begging and surmising for which there is no validation (i.e., that the fetus is unreflective). In fact, Harvard researcher, Elizabeth Spelke has done research that shows that Babies are born with what she calls "native knowledge." I think that babies in the womb are capable of recognizing sounds which means that their brains and minds are working even before they are born.

 

LNC

[Shyone]

The breakdown with your car example is that when the parts are reduced you still have all that the car is or was. There is nothing more to that car but what the parts do when put together and when working together. If you disagree, then tell me what more exists of the car ontologically that is not contained within its parts. That is the issue here, isn't it? You have not explained what that essence is or why the car is not ultimately merely the sum of its parts working together.

 

LNC

Let me take a stab at this.

 

If one does not understand that workings of a car, then it would seem to be that the car is more than the sum of its parts. You are right that it is not, although putting all of the parts together makes something that the individual parts can't do.

 

If one does not understand the workings of a brain (and/or human), then it would seem to be that the brain (and/or human) is more than the sum of its parts. Of course, the completely functioning anatomic brain and/or human can do things that the individual parts can't do.

 

Arguing that either is more than the sum of its parts, except in the sense that they do things that the individual parts can't do, is argument from ignorance. That is, lacking knowledge of the details of the operation, no matter how complex, does not warrant the assumption of something "non-mechanical."

[dB-Paradox]

1. How do you account for the existence of consciousness (if you accept the existence of such)?

The physical brain is an organ in which a series of neurons are firing and synapsing, storing information and retrieving information. We learn from observing the world around us. It's really no different than a computer's hard drive storing data, saving files, keeping them up to date, and so on and so forth.

 

2. How do you explain knowledge from a naturalist/physicalist perspective (knowledge being commonly described as justified true belief)?

Just the same as above. Collective information passed on from one generation to the next. That's why babies born today are accustomed to their society, and that's also why you find people needing a period of adjustment when they are relocated to a new society. I'm sure if you took a person from the distant past and relocated them in today's world with all the technology we have, they would be confused and out of place. Their "knowledge" would have to be updated. The same might be true in the reverse situation.

 

3. How do you account for intentionality from a naturalist/physicalist perspective (intentionality being commonly described as the ofness or aboutness by which we interact with things in our world)?

Again, our physical brains adapting to our society. You're asking questions that deal with the brain and its ability to tranfer and store data. It really is just that simple. (Of course it's complex in its working, but simple in its principal)

 

4. Finally, do you believe that we direct apprehend or perceive objects in our world or do you believe that perception is mediated to us

No, nothing is meditated to us. That's my belief. You asked, I answered.

[Shyone]

I really want to know how you arrive at or hold onto the concept of free will given strict materialism. I don't see the two coexisting. Maybe you could explain to me how that works.LNC

I was reading G. K. Chesterton the other day, and I was surprized when he equated materialism with determinism. That hasn't been my assessment.

 

If you mean the chain of causality, and assuming that each atomic motion or chemical reaction is determined by the preceding atomic movements and reactions, then it would be difficult to escape from determinism. It seems the universe is more complicated than simple interactions of atoms like ping-pong balls.

 

You might want to read A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking. The answer I will give will have to be extremely simple in comparison, and you may not want to take my word for it.

 

Interactions of atoms are affected by quantum mechanical limitations on certainty, and the Heisenberg Principle limits the actual knowledge of subatomic events. Also, some virtual particles seem to operate in the space between atoms to affect their movements (see the Casimir Effect). Finally, time is gravity dependent and screws with the Schrodinger equation.

 

"Thus in quantum theory the ability to make exact predictions is just half what is was in the classical Laplace worldview."

 

The bottom line is that materialistic does not necessarily mean deterministic. It just means natural.

 

There are indeed things that are "determined" in the sense of inescapable. We will die and rot. The government will collect taxes.

[Shyone]

If naturalism can't account for consciousness, then it would indicate that there is more to our existence than the purely physical stuff. From there, we investigate and find out what that realm is like. However, we have a lot to go by in finding out as we have one who came two thousand years ago to tell us. His resurrection also gave indication that there is more to life than the physical.

 

LNC

You may deny it all you want, but the bolded part is an argument from ignorance. Just because you don't know how to account for consciousness doesn't mean it isn't purely natural or that it couldn't be accounted for if it were possible to analyze all of the phenomena that are taking place in the brain.

 

Once you have entered the "realm" of ignorance, anything is possible including dead people coming back to life. Except they don't.

 

Jesus is still dead.

 

Just because his body isn't found doesn't mean that he rose from the dead.

 

It's been more than 30 years since Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. The FBI believes Hoffa was murdered by the mob, but no one has been able to find his body.

[Legion]

If naturalism can't account for consciousness,...

We don't know that naturalism can't account for consciousness. Perhaps it hasn't yet, but that does not imply that it never will.

 

... then it would indicate that there is more to our existence than the purely physical stuff.

I think there is more to our existence than material. I call it organization.

 

From there, we investigate and find out what that realm is like. However, we have a lot to go by in finding out as we have one who came two thousand years ago to tell us. His resurrection also gave indication that there is more to life than the physical.

Ah yes, naturalism is a failure because it didn't immediately account for the mind. So instead we'll do something reasonable, like believe that a god/man rose from the dead and gave us all the answers we need.

[Kuroikaze]

Now, I will look forward to reading your response as to where, specifically, you find my arguments to be wrong

 

I have already done this, the fact that you are unable to process my claims even enough to recognize them for what they are is why you will noticed I am simply declining to engage you further on this topic.

 

This post is a month and a half old, and I am so totally bored with the drivel you keep spewing by this point I cannot imagine why anyone else is still bothering to respond.

 

I do not need your approval or your admission to the reasonableness of my position to know that mine IS the more reasonable position.

 

 

Have a good life.....or don't, I won't loose any sleep either way.

[Legion]

... I cannot imagine why anyone else is still bothering to respond.

I've asked myself the same question.

[chefranden]

I couldn't think without first being...or is it both at once?

Yes I know you want every thing to be conscious, but it isn't. Unconscious stuff produces stars, comets, rock, interstellar gas, magnetism, gravity, ..., and consciousness given the right circumstances.

 

If you want to say everything is conscious ok, but then the idea of consciousness is meaningless. Consciousness has a meaning: an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation.

 

We could redefine anything into something else. Everything is popcorn for example. I don't see what the point is though, except to give oneself a warm fuzzy. People like to do that: "God is love" sigh. "The universe is conscious" sigh.

 

Both of these ideas serve the same psychological purpose, but neither is true in the sense of being real. Both are states of delusion produced by the mind to keep itself more on the comfortable end of the continuum instead of on the end were it instructs the brain to blow it self out.

 

The mind is a virtual awareness machine, but it isn't very good at awareness. It is only good enough. Evolution is always satisfied with good enough because everything it makes is disposable.

[NotBlinded]

Yes, I'm a little burned out on it too, along with the Cosmological thread. It's just a constant back and forth and things are starting to get repeated.

 

With this thread, there is no answer other than metaphysical and those can't be proven, so yeah, I'm bored with it too.

 

Besides, what's the point? Let's say that LNC is correct and naturalism can't explain consciousness. What next? What leap of faith causes one to arrive at any given religion?

 

Why do you assume that one has to make a leap of faith? Why also do you assume that it is only the theist who makes a leap of faith? I believe that it was when people like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard started moving away from God that they started making leaps of faith.

 

If naturalism can't account for consciousness, then it would indicate that there is more to our existence than the purely physical stuff. From there, we investigate and find out what that realm is like. However, we have a lot to go by in finding out as we have one who came two thousand years ago to tell us. His resurrection also gave indication that there is more to life than the physical.

 

LNC

My statement was what is bolded above. If you are correct, what leap of faith do you take to arrive at any notion of God? You answered with the next bolded area. This is indeed a leap of faith and you do it without direct evidence that dead people reanimate. You may be able to tell me you believe it to be a possiblity, and I can accept that. But, you can't tell me it is a fact anymore than I can tell you anything of what I believe is a fact. That is the difference between you and I. I won't make a leap of faith and tell you I know what God is even though I believe it to be more Hinudistic/Pantheistic. Real faith lets God be as it is regardless of any so-called knowledge about it.

 

I wish you would admit that you cannot prove the resurrection. That would be a big breath of fresh air, although, you may not stand above everyone else if you admit that. It matters if you want to be put above others that admit they don't have knowledge.

[NotBlinded]

I couldn't think without first being...or is it both at once?

Yes I know you want every thing to be conscious, but it isn't. Unconscious stuff produces stars, comets, rock, interstellar gas, magnetism, gravity, ..., and consciousness given the right circumstances.

 

If you want to say everything is conscious ok, but then the idea of consciousness is meaningless. Consciousness has a meaning: an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation.

 

We could redefine anything into something else. Everything is popcorn for example. I don't see what the point is though, except to give oneself a warm fuzzy. People like to do that: "God is love" sigh. "The universe is conscious" sigh.

Yes, I know you think we can get an apple from a dead apple tree.

 

Do you agree that all lower orders are superceeded by higher orders? An egg becomes a person by complicating itself. A person doesn't just appear fully formed and conscious. There is an evolving of consciousness and there are different levels of it and we happen to have evolved a higher state of it. I believe there are even higher states that we can achieve.

 

I really don't care what the meaning of it is. Meaning changes with common usuage, but it doesn't mean that there isn't more to that reality to which the pointer is pointing.

 

Both of these ideas serve the same psychological purpose, but neither is true in the sense of being real. Both are states of delusion produced by the mind to keep itself more on the comfortable end of the continuum instead of on the end were it instructs the brain to blow it self out.

 

The mind is a virtual awareness machine, but it isn't very good at awareness. It is only good enough. Evolution is always satisfied with good enough because everything it makes is disposable.

 

A very large delusion is thinking we can understand the nature of reality by linear thought about the symbols we use to describe it. Can you tell me what exactly is a tree? Why is it a tree? Is it because its electrons, protons, and neutrons are doing something different than that of a rock? Let's get rid of the after-image that our eyes impress on our brains so we really see what a tree is doing in order to be a tree. I want to see reality for what it is. I want to be able to see superfast so I can see the dance the tree is doing. I want to see the space between the atoms as some neutrons jump from one orbit to the next. Would that even help? Would my brain be able to process these images in a manner that allows me to see and comprehend it all at once? Could I even understand what I saw? Probably not, because I would have to think about it, step by step by step. This is your conscious awareness. It requires these things to process down a straight path in order to be understood. I don't believe that is all it is. There is more to consciousness than that.

[Shyone]

A very large delusion is thinking we can understand the nature of reality by linear thought about the symbols we use to describe it. Can you tell me what exactly is a tree? Why is it a tree? Is it because its electrons, protons, and neutrons are doing something different than that of a rock? Let's get rid of the after-image that our eyes impress on our brains so we really see what a tree is doing in order to be a tree. I want to see reality for what it is. I want to be able to see superfast so I can see the dance the tree is doing. I want to see the space between the atoms as some neutrons jump from one orbit to the next. Would that even help? Would my brain be able to process these images in a manner that allows me to see and comprehend it all at once? Could I even understand what I saw? Probably not, because I would have to think about it, step by step by step. This is your conscious awareness. It requires these things to process down a straight path in order to be understood. I don't believe that is all it is. There is more to consciousness than that.

There is a question of scale here. You know that trees are made of atoms, because that is the nature of matter. You know that cells are the tiny structures that align to create the strength of bark and wood as well as the delicate structures of leaves. You know that tubular structures carry water from the ground to the upper reaches of the leaves, and you know how that is accomplished as well.

 

It's all part of the whole, and it is pointless to try and forget it. You know it. Forever.

 

So let's consider the bark and the rings and the leaves. Is it a bush, or a tree? That is our designation, and it isn't always easy. A child can look at a leafy plant and say "tree" when it's a bush, and we all laugh. We learn what a tree is and how to distinguish it from a bush.

 

So we learn what a tree is on the scale that we perceive things. But the tree needs nutrition and water, and the nutrients are chemicals that make up the cells, and we are back down to the submicroscopic.

 

And what is a forest? Can you see the forest for the trees? Should we ignore the trees because there is a forest?

 

From atoms to forests, it is all one chain, one reality, and it makes much better sense when you understand the whole.

 

The conscious awareness percieves what is appropriate for our evolutionary scale. We don't see ultraviolet or infrared, we don't see the tiny insects that dwell within the tree. But we have the ability to use intruments to understand the tree, and we should not assume that a deeper understanding is harmful, or counterproductive.

 

Did you know that trees produce oxygen? Of course. And did you know that we breathe oxygen? Of course. Did you know that oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley on 1 August 1774? Somehow, that seems to be important.

[NotBlinded]

A very large delusion is thinking we can understand the nature of reality by linear thought about the symbols we use to describe it. Can you tell me what exactly is a tree? Why is it a tree? Is it because its electrons, protons, and neutrons are doing something different than that of a rock? Let's get rid of the after-image that our eyes impress on our brains so we really see what a tree is doing in order to be a tree. I want to see reality for what it is. I want to be able to see superfast so I can see the dance the tree is doing. I want to see the space between the atoms as some neutrons jump from one orbit to the next. Would that even help? Would my brain be able to process these images in a manner that allows me to see and comprehend it all at once? Could I even understand what I saw? Probably not, because I would have to think about it, step by step by step. This is your conscious awareness. It requires these things to process down a straight path in order to be understood. I don't believe that is all it is. There is more to consciousness than that.

There is a question of scale here. You know that trees are made of atoms, because that is the nature of matter. You know that cells are the tiny structures that align to create the strength of bark and wood as well as the delicate structures of leaves. You know that tubular structures carry water from the ground to the upper reaches of the leaves, and you know how that is accomplished as well.

 

It's all part of the whole, and it is pointless to try and forget it. You know it. Forever.

 

So let's consider the bark and the rings and the leaves. Is it a bush, or a tree? That is our designation, and it isn't always easy. A child can look at a leafy plant and say "tree" when it's a bush, and we all laugh. We learn what a tree is and how to distinguish it from a bush.

 

So we learn what a tree is on the scale that we perceive things. But the tree needs nutrition and water, and the nutrients are chemicals that make up the cells, and we are back down to the submicroscopic.

 

And what is a forest? Can you see the forest for the trees? Should we ignore the trees because there is a forest?

 

From atoms to forests, it is all one chain, one reality, and it makes much better sense when you understand the whole.

 

The conscious awareness percieves what is appropriate for our evolutionary scale. We don't see ultraviolet or infrared, we don't see the tiny insects that dwell within the tree. But we have the ability to use intruments to understand the tree, and we should not assume that a deeper understanding is harmful, or counterproductive.

 

Did you know that trees produce oxygen? Of course. And did you know that we breathe oxygen? Of course. Did you know that oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley on 1 August 1774? Somehow, that seems to be important.

Did you just ream my ass or agree with me?

 

I think there is more to the whole than meets the eye with the instruments used to perceive and measure it.

 

I tell you...I'm really liking Spinoza. Legion saw a resemblence to my thoughts with those of Spinoza that I was unaware of. I'm going to read some more and see if I can put my thoughts into his areas (or vis-versa) to where they will make more sense.

[Dagan]

Since we're on the topic of leaps of faith, LNC's constant leap of faith is that the bible can be trusted, and is an accurate record of things that actually happened.

[agnosticator]

A couple of comments. First, you claim that you know where your mind came from, it was a causal result of your conception. That is to commit what is known as the cum hoc fallacy, which is committed when it is assumed that because two things occur together, they must be causally related.

 

So my mind is not the result of my brain/body? Maybe it is someone else's mind. Or I don't need a body to have any mind. I can also conclude from this that I wasn't born from my mother, since I cannot assume two things that occur together aren't causally related.

 

You also post the following definition of consciousness as "sensory awareness of the body, the self, and the world." I would say that is overly simplistic as it does not account for first-person awareness, which is more than mere "sensory awareness." Because of that weak definition, the rest of the excerpt seems to have a lot of question-begging and surmising for which there is no validation (i.e., that the fetus is unreflective). In fact, Harvard researcher, Elizabeth Spelke has done research that shows that Babies are born with what she calls "native knowledge." I think that babies in the womb are capable of recognizing sounds which means that their brains and minds are working even before they are born.

 

Question-begging? No validation? You question his credentials?

 

Pediatric Research Journal

[Shyone]

Did you just ream my ass or agree with me?

 

I think there is more to the whole than meets the eye with the instruments used to perceive and measure it.

 

I tell you...I'm really liking Spinoza. Legion saw a resemblence to my thoughts with those of Spinoza that I was unaware of. I'm going to read some more and see if I can put my thoughts into his areas (or vis-versa) to where they will make more sense.

I don't know. I think we agree. I just like to look at the tiny and the great and realize that it's a continuum of sorts. The more you know, the better off you are.

 

Spinoza and many others are basically naturalists, but they refer to God, so it confuses a lot of people. I like to think that there is no need for a God concept at all, even in the realm of the natural, so it just doesn't help me understand things.

 

If there is more than I can perceive, then I can't perceive it. Fuck it. It doesn't affect me in the least.

 

If I get struck by lightening by Spinoza's God for not paying attention, then them's the breaks.

[Legion]

If there is more than I can perceive, then I can't perceive it. Fuck it. It doesn't affect me in the least.

 

If I get struck by lightening by Spinoza's God for not paying attention, then them's the breaks.

I think this actually ties in with a discussion of minds. I think we anticipate. We don't merely react. I believe we imagine and predict how things will be and our actions are guided by it.

[NotBlinded]

Did you just ream my ass or agree with me?

 

I think there is more to the whole than meets the eye with the instruments used to perceive and measure it.

 

I tell you...I'm really liking Spinoza. Legion saw a resemblence to my thoughts with those of Spinoza that I was unaware of. I'm going to read some more and see if I can put my thoughts into his areas (or vis-versa) to where they will make more sense.

I don't know. I think we agree. I just like to look at the tiny and the great and realize that it's a continuum of sorts. The more you know, the better off you are.

 

Spinoza and many others are basically naturalists, but they refer to God, so it confuses a lot of people. I like to think that there is no need for a God concept at all, even in the realm of the natural, so it just doesn't help me understand things.

 

If there is more than I can perceive, then I can't perceive it. Fuck it. It doesn't affect me in the least.

 

If I get struck by lightening by Spinoza's God for not paying attention, then them's the breaks.

 

I understand that totally. I just read part 1 of the Ethics and I'm pretty much dumber now than I was when I started! He is saying profound things about God/Nature and I can see why you say the things you do in your post here. I think we do agree. I just like to see Spinoza's God in the eternal/infinite sense of the essence (maybe I should use that word instead of consciousness) in things. There is much he says that I relate to and there is probably a whole lot more if I could understand what the hell he says a lot of the time.

[chefranden]

Yes, I know you think we can get an apple from a dead apple tree.

 

I do? Damn I shouldn't have cut that old tree down!

 

Do you agree that all lower orders are superceeded by higher orders? An egg becomes a person by complicating itself. A person doesn't just appear fully formed and conscious. There is an evolving of consciousness and there are different levels of it and we happen to have evolved a higher state of it. I believe there are even higher states that we can achieve.

 

If you mean there are pre-existing levels of consciousness that things evolve into, then I disagree whole heatedly. Nor do I think that there are other "levels" waiting out there. We may evolve into something that we might label a higher consciousness, but we are just as likely to go extinct. All our other hominid cousins are extinct already and most mammals make due with little or no consciousness. This doesn't say a lot for the consciousness niche.

 

You are talking about a religious belief here as if it were something real. It is not anymore real then the resurrection.

 

 

 

I really don't care what the meaning of it is. Meaning changes with common usuage, but it doesn't mean that there isn't more to that reality to which the pointer is pointing.

 

Well then we really can't discuss it. We can't discuss the virtues of chicken soup if we don't know what a chicken is.

 

I don't know what you mean by consciousness except maybe that it is some kind of spirit world, or maybe it is a way to say supernatural without saying supernatural. If you say that the universe is conscious, to me you are saying that the universe is self aware and I don't give that idea much more credence than I give my own supposed soul.

[NotBlinded]

Chef, I don't think we are connecting, yet I just feel that you know what I'm talking about, you symbol idolator you.

 

We all know what a chicken is, but what is a chicken really?

 

Hey, are you making chicken soup? I'll send you my address...I hate to cook and that sounds really, really good.

[Shyone]

Chef, I don't think we are connecting, yet I just feel that you know what I'm talking about, you symbol idolator you.

 

We all know what a chicken is, but what is a chicken really?

 

Hey, are you making chicken soup? I'll send you my address...I hate to cook and that sounds really, really good.

I think the Chef and I are twins. I scarcely even need to post anymore because he has already said what I would have.

 

and we both like food. And we work with knives.

[NotBlinded]

Here is what a chicken is with regards to the symbol of the chicken:

 

(Spinoza)

{15} However, if someone now asks: why are we so naturally disposed to dividing quantity? I reply that quantity is conceived by us in two ways: abstractly (or superficially), just as we imagine it; and as a substance, which is done by the understanding alone. So if we consider quantity as it is in our imagination (which we do often and more easily), it will be found to be finite, divisible, and made up of parts. But if we consider it as it is in the understanding, and conceive it in so far as it is substance (which is very difficult to do), then, as I have already sufficiently demonstrated, it will be found to be infinite, unique, and indivisible. This will be obvious enough to all those who know how to distinguish between the imagination and the understanding.

Spinoza’s language may cause some difficulty here. First, when he talks of ‘imagining’, in common with most other philosophers of the period, he doesn’t mean having a mental image of something which is not present to the senses, but having a pictorial image which might or might not be of something actually present to the senses. The imagination is the faculty of forming images under any circumstances whatever. Commentary

 

{16} This is especially so, if it is also considered that matter is the same everywhere, and that there is no distinction of parts in it, except in so far as we conceive matter to be affected in different ways. Consequently, its parts are only modally distinct, and not really distinct. For example, we conceive water, [60] in so far as it is water, as being divided, and its parts as separate from each other; but not in so far as it is corporeal substance, since in that respect it is neither separated nor divided. Further, water, in so far as it is water, comes into and goes out of being; but in so far as it is substance, it neither comes into being nor goes out of being.

 

{17} With what I have said, I think I have also answered the second argument, since it too rests on the assumption that matter is divisible and made up of parts in so far as it is substance. And even if this were not the case, I do not see that it would be unworthy of the divine nature, since (by Proposition 14) there can be no other substance apart from God by which it could be acted upon. As I say, everything is in God, and everything which happens, happens only through the laws of the infinite nature of God, and follows from the necessity of his essence (as I shall show shortly). Consequently, there is no basis on which it can be said that God is acted upon by anything else, or that extended substance is unworthy of the divine nature. Even if it were supposed to be divisible, it would still have to be admitted that it is eternal and infinite. But enough of this for now.

SPINOZA: ETHICS PART I: ON GOD

 

A couple of definitions:

 

3. By substance, I mean that which exists in itself, and is conceived through itself; in other words, that of which the concept does not need the concept of of any other thing, from which it must be formed.

 

6. By God I mean absolutely infinite being; that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essence.

 

For Spinizo, there is only one substance and that substance is infinite and all forms or things are contained in this substance. The chicken can be cut, cooked and destroyed but by mode only, not essence...what it is to begin with.

 

Chef, I'm not trying to get you to believe it, I just want to show why I do believe it. It is something that makes sense to me.

 

Anyway, Spinoza is awesome and I could probably spend years trying to get it all to sink in and still die in the dark. So, if I throw his name around a lot, it's because I have found a new toy to play with (blame Legion!).

 

Now send me some of that chicken soup...I'm starvin'!

 

P.S. I would love other people's input on Spinoza in regards to consciousness. It seems he didn't talk too much about it, but I'm still looking.