Consciousness as a fundamental quality of the universe

[midniterider]

If I can get thru the Part V video that discusses evidence for analytic idealism, I'll try to post a list of evidence that Pan and Josh and whoever else can discuss why the evidence is good, bad or indifferent. 

 

On one hand it's fascinating to think about the possibility of the primacy of consciousness, but that doesnt mean I understand it all, understand it well, or even agree with everything Kastrup is saying. 

 

I imagine evidence will prove wanting if we try to base it on empirical science. The  universal mind can't really be observed or measured. Though maybe it can be inferred via it's effect on what we can observe, kind of like wobbly stars leading to exo-planets.  I'm guessing this idea will remain in the realm of the philosophical. The only people that seem to see through the veil of the dashboard/desktop user interface seem to be enlightened people like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta.  Could they be full of baloney? Maybe.

 

 

[pantheory]

11 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

I don't know if anyone is watching the series, but it's good to take in.

 

I see that Pantheory is a little fresh off the boat concerning eastern philosophy. But apparently the discussion must be interesting enough to have made him curious about it. We have a scientist in the spirituality section! And it's making the discussion colorful. Thanks for hanging with it this long, Pan. 

 

I'm assuming that you're open minded enough to watch the content of the video series and try and cite what sections you'd like to comment on? It would help to verify whether or not you do understand the philosopher's arguments. They're not something that you can just nail a comment on in passing based on what other people are saying about it. You'd have to take in the content yourself and weigh out the arguments, which, look pretty dam interesting. And I don't see why you wouldn't get the points that the philosopher is raising. 

 

It's important to note what's wrong with the panpsychism view which was discussed in part 3. 

 

Panpsychism is not conscious realism or this analytic idealism. And it's good to understand the difference laid out both by Hoffman and in this series as well. I noticed that you had conflated them in your last post. And I'm guessing you didn't see the content we were going through earlier outlining how and why they are different.

 

Basically, panpsychism is a dualist philosophy, and these others are non-dual. It's all within the range of pantheistic philosophy, but there's a split among pantheists concerning dualistic versus non-dual. This has played itself out in the Vedic traditions of India through Advaita Vedanta, which is the non-dual direction. It marks a series of realization about Brahman (energy-consciousness) and how a person relates to the Brahman concept. Advaita Vedanta is the apex, or high point of following the logic out to a natural conclusion. And introduces the non-dual idea. Advaita Vendanta, losely, mean 'not dual.' 

 

So, you're correct that analytic idealism reflects views that are similar in eastern philosophy. But more specifically, they only have the similarity with a narrow portion of eastern philosophy that centers around non-dualism. It's not a blanket fit. It will disagree with panpsychism and the other dualistic forms of eastern philosophy. 

 

 

Agreed. 

 

 

That's what's so different about Conscious Realism. It's a cross over from analytic idealism philosophy into mathematical based science. There's a bridging the gap effort underway with it. He wants mathematically precise language to describe reality through CR. These strictly philosophical stances like AI (spoiler alert!), aren't concerned with mathematically precise language. And it's going to bring about differences between what ancient pantheists were thinking and how it plays out through scientific theory. None of these ancient religions will turn to be literally true, but this is a dam close match. A reality of conscious agents isn't exactly Brahman and Maya, but it's really fucking close. 

 

Religion, worship, groveling, or such nonsense isn't justified through the theory of CR, or AI as I'm seeing it. They're non-dual. You'd be praising yourself. And the question would be why? Is there any need for priests, gurus, or any of that? Not really. What it does is outline a scenario that midnite gets into about the 36:00 mark of the 4th video lecture. 

 

 

I'm going through these sections now. Right away, he's done the best job that I've seen yet in terms of arguing universal consciousness. That's always been a tough one for me and I've been resistant towards universal scale consciousness. But I'm starting to see how better arguments for it can be formulated. 

 

I don't mind almost any kind of philosophy. Everyone generally has one, whether knowingly or not. But when a philosophy is also a religion,  or claims certain things to be truth in the name of science, is when I explain the science of it with links.

 

Even in science there are goof-ball beliefs , quantum physics is the best example of this IMO. I believe this is because the people involved with these beliefs are either spiritual in one form or another, or were religious and are comfortable with the irrationality and woo of religion and invent new forms of it for science.

 

According to the link below, about half of U.S. scientists believe in some form of higher power. An additional 7% of the non-religious describe themselves as agnostic.

It's interesting to me that the older the scientist, the more likely they would be a total non-believer.

 

https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

[midniterider]

Between minute 8 and 18ish (10 minutes to watch if you like) on Part V, he compares quantum entanglement to the appearances of the same soccer game on two tvs. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4RsXr02M0U

 

Comments? Pantheory? Josh? Bueller?

[midniterider]

9 minutes ago, pantheory said:

 

I don't mind almost any kind of philosophy. Everyone generally has one, whether knowingly or not. But when a philosophy is also a religion,  or claims certain things to be truth in the name of science, is when I explain the science of it with links.

 

Even in science there are goof-ball beliefs , quantum physics is the best example of this IMO. I believe this is because the people involved with these beliefs are either religious, or were religious and are comfortable with the irrationality and woo of religion and invent new forms of it for science.

 

According to the link below, about half of U.S. scientists believe in some form of higher power.

 

https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

 

I'm happy to not label idealism as 'science.' The label is not that important to me. Maybe the same for QM as well. We can name it all silliness if we want, but the facts about certain experiments continuing to yield certain non-intuitive results (like entanglement/non-locality) are compelling (to me anyway lol). 

 

I'll try to use the word compelling instead of 'true' or 'real'. I'm glad you're here making us (me) question idealism. It all seems far-fetched, for sure...compared to consensus thought anyway.

 

 

[pantheory]

22 minutes ago, midniterider said:

Between minute 8 and 18ish (10 minutes to watch if you like) on Part V, he compares quantum entanglement to the appearances of the same soccer game on two tvs. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4RsXr02M0U

 

Comments? Pantheory? Josh? Bueller?

 

I explain quantum entanglement via my own link below, but the explanation is science-based and belongs in the science vs. religion forum. If you or anyone wants a simpler explanation of it, ask me and I will explain it there.

 

https://papers.pantheory.org/

 

 

 

 

[midniterider]

24 minutes ago, pantheory said:

 

I explain quantum entanglement via my own link below, but the explanation is science-based and belongs in the science vs. religion forum. If you or anyone wants a simpler explanation of it, ask me and I will explain it there.

 

https://papers.pantheory.org/

 

 

 

 

 

hokey doke.

[Joshpantera]

19 hours ago, midniterider said:

Between minute 8 and 18ish (10 minutes to watch if you like) on Part V, he compares quantum entanglement to the appearances of the same soccer game on two tvs. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4RsXr02M0U

 

Comments? Pantheory? Josh? Bueller?

 

Pan, this part 5 puts up the experimental issues that are somewhat damming towards physicalism / materialism. In doing so, they are going to blanket all physicalist theories. Spooky action at a distance type of stuff. Observer effect type of stuff. And more. 

 

I'm going through the video as I can. I'm on a weekend work project on the gulf coast. So, I have limited time to watch it all. Analytic idealism looks to be pinned against these physicalist theories of existence according to explanatory ability. And again, I think it's very interesting to consider and go through.

 

I've been going over these issues for years and I'm just now starting to see how something like universal mind or consciousness even could be possible. Consciousness going all the way down scale to explain our existing consciousness, I understand as well as anyone who explains the concept. That covers our current consciousness and how and why it potentially came to exist. 

 

But then there's the issue of pushing forward beyond our current experience to the possibility of higher level experiences above that. To something universal scale. That's proven a much tougher issue to take on. Conscious Realism as a theory apparently does allow for that possibility. That was covered in the Z Dog MD interview. Larger systems of conscious agents. And it would explain a lot of the issues coming from psi phenomenon experiments that are otherwise left mysterious. 

 

I'll go through this as I can and give a more specific response to the analytic idealism argument itself. 

[pantheory]

8 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Pan, this part 5 puts up the experimental issues that are somewhat damming towards physicalism / materialism. In doing so, they are going to blanket all physicalist theories. Spooky action at a distance type of stuff. Observer effect type of stuff. And more. 

 

I'm going through the video as I can. I'm on a weekend work project on the gulf coast. So, I have limited time to watch it all. Analytic idealism looks to be pinned against these physicalist theories of existence according to explanatory ability. And again, I think it's very interesting to consider and go through.

 

I've been going over these issues for years and I'm just now starting to see how something like universal mind or consciousness even could be possible. Consciousness going all the way down scale to explain our existing consciousness, I understand as well as anyone who explains the concept. That covers our current consciousness and how and why it potentially came to exist. 

 

But then there's the issue of pushing forward beyond our current experience to the possibility of higher level experiences above that. To something universal scale. That's proven a much tougher issue to take on. Conscious Realism as a theory apparently does allow for that possibility. That was covered in the Z Dog MD interview. Larger systems of conscious agents. And it would explain a lot of the issues coming from psi phenomenon experiments that are otherwise left mysterious. 

 

I'll go through this as I can and give a more specific response to the analytic idealism argument itself. 

 

Physicalism and Materialism are both philosophical concepts or metaphysics, and are not part of science.

 

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

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

 

In mainstream science there are particles which are physical that make up matter, and there are waves of energy which some assert are also physical, but others consider them to be pure energy.  Light and magnetism are examples of these.

 

And of course highter-levels of consciousness are not an accepted part of science. Most scientists consider these ideas to be philosophical, metaphysics, or mysticism; granted, some educated people have tried to bring these ideas into the realm of science.

 

[pantheory]

Here's some general ideas of consciousness from mainstream science.

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/feeling-knowing-book-consciousness-origin-evolution

 

Of course this thread category is "Ex-Christian spirituality," which is based upon non-science spiritual ideas. So any kind of non-science spirituality, eastern religion etc. would be in perfect harmony with this category.

[midniterider]

Does matter have standalone existence? 

[midniterider]

6 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Physicalism and Materialism are both philosophical concepts or metaphysics, and are not part of science.

 

 

 

 

William of Ockham was a philosopher and a cleric. Is Ockham's Razor a philosophical concept or part of science? Maybe there is some crossover between philosophy and science. 

[pantheory]

1 hour ago, midniterider said:

Does matter have standalone existence? 

 

In science, most would say that matter does have a standalone existence including myself. But matter may need the pressure of the Zero Point Field surrounding it for its continued existence, but that would not be mainstream theory.

[pantheory]

13 hours ago, midniterider said:

William of Ockham was a philosopher and a cleric. Is Ockham's Razor a philosophical concept or part of science? Maybe there is some crossover between philosophy and science. 

 

In Ockham's time science was called natural philosophy. All else being equal, the simpler answer is the better answer -- is considered to be a principle of logic today, valid for both science and philosophy, and for hypothetical considerations in general.  Of course the main aspect of it must be that all else must be considered equal in the judgement process.

[Joshpantera]

7 hours ago, pantheory said:

In mainstream science there are particles which are physical that make up matter, and there are waves of energy which some assert are also physical, but others consider them to be pure energy.  Light and magnetism are examples of these.

 

Even so, considering energy can go either physicalist or idealist. It comes down to whether you're considering light, magnetism, and energy in general as literally true or just another dial on the dashboard of perception. Or put a different way, another range of desktop icons which mask the reality of what light, magnetism, or energy actually is in and of itself. 

 

In a scenario where consciousness or awareness is absolute, it then and therefore consumes the whole of reality in an explanatory sense. It's the same general issue of Brahman in Hinduism. Then worked out to the level of consideration that Advaita Vedanta eventually achieved. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pantheory]

1 minute ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Even so, considering energy can go either physicalist or idealist. It comes down to whether you're considering light, magnetism, and energy in general as literally true or just another dial on the dashboard of perception. Or put a different way, another range of desktop icons which mask the reality of what light, magnetism, or energy actually is in and of itself. 

 

In a scenario where consciousness or awareness is absolute, it then and therefore consumes the whole of reality in an explanatory sense. It's the same general issue of Brahman in Hinduism. Then worked out to the level of consideration that Advaita Vedanta eventually achieved. 

 

 

Of course such ideas are interesting, but are considered philosophy rather than science since they cannot be tested, proven, or disproved. Any valid science hypothesis or theory must be testable and disprovable by definition. But it can be considered a valid philosophy since a philosophy is simply a perspective of reality.

[Joshpantera]

Looky what I found!!! Around 20:00 Hoffman explains to Kastrup what this scientific theory entails: 

 

 

[midniterider]

32 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

Looky what I found!!! 

 

Kastrup interviews Hoffman: 

 

 

 

Will check it out 

 

[Joshpantera]

Z Dogg and Kastrup is another one that popped up too: 

 

 

[pantheory]

15 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

....... It comes down to whether you're considering light, magnetism, and energy in general as literally true or just another dial on the dashboard of perception. Or put a different way, another range of desktop icons which mask the reality of what light, magnetism, or energy actually is in and of itself. .....

 

 

You are correct. Such beliefs depend upon whether energy is physical or ethereal. As to energy being physical or something else, continues to be argued in mainstream science.

Looking at an atomic bomb, for example E = mc² ,  some matter of the bomb is turned into energy. The energy of heat and light, and the great energy near ground zero that disintegrates everything or blows it outwardly away from the blast center, which is the energy of motion.

So we know that at least some parts of energy are physical. Some theorists, like myself, believe that all aspects of energy are physical, and that physical existence is the only existence.

 

Let's consider an ocean wave, for example. Lets say that a long-distance wave is traveling at 50 mph. The water within each wave does not travel very far, but the energy of the wave, which appears as the same wave, can travel all the way across the ocean, in the case of a tidal wave. So it is the energy or a wave that travels across the ocean, not specific volumes of water within the wave. The same principle applies to sound waves.

 

Yes, some beliefs of some quantum physicists are masking, and thereby missing the great overarching simplicity of reality IMHO. That's why some call quantum physics, woo physics, and some of its interpretations quantum weirdness, concerning the beliefs of some practitioners and many theorists in this field. Such ideas inspire such books as The Toa of Physics, that point out the parallels between some mainstream quantum physics beliefs and mysticism.

[midniterider]

1 hour ago, pantheory said:

Some theorists, like myself, believe that all of energy is physical, and the physical existence is the only existence.

 

That would seem to be the definition of physicalism.

 

[pantheory]

5 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

That would seem to be the definition of physicalism.

 

 

Yes, materialism and physicalism are very similar. Physicalism is a philosophical and metaphysics principle which defines a material perspective of reality. Physicalism is a perspective of reality.

 

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

 

Materialism can also be a philosophical concept in its framing, but also can be a  theory of science which asserts that everything can be explained based upon its physical, substantive, and/or tactile nature.  Materialism can be a scientific statement concerning reality.

 

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

 

Most valid philosophical principles cannot be either proven of disproved, while scientific principles and theory are more than a way of looking at things; they can be tested, proved, or disproved. Therefore materialism, if properly framed, might be testable as to its validity -- if properly stated for the purpose of testing.

[Joshpantera]

19 hours ago, pantheory said:

Looking at an atomic bomb, for example E = mc² ,  some matter of the bomb is turned into energy. The energy of heat and light, and the great energy near ground zero that disintegrates everything or blows it outwardly away from the blast center, which is the energy of motion.

So we know that at least some parts of energy are physical. Some theorists, like myself, believe that all aspects of energy are physical, and that physical existence is the only existence.

 

This is what he took on in the 5th video. Around 8 - 18 minute mark. 

 

The physicality of any example given, including the above, is based on assumption. It appears that way, so the assumption is made. But everything thereafter rests on the initial assumption. If the initial assumption isn't correct then conclusion drawn from the initial assumption domino out from there. 

 

Go to around the 8:00 mark. He gives an example of a mystery and then compares the materialist versus idealist explanations. 

 

17 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

That would seem to be the definition of physicalism.

 

 

Yes, that's the way I saw it as well. This is exactly what Kastrup is referring to. Which is the position of basing one's worldview on the entry level assumption that physicalism IS correct. If someone were agnostic about it, well, then that wouldn't be too big of a deal to question the entry level assumption. 

 

But if they "believe" in the entry level physicalist assumption in some way, with emotional investment involved, then emotional responses to questioning it will necessarily rise up. Usually, it's the other way around. The religious believers are stuck with the subjective foundation stone for their worldview. 

 

But, as it stands, so too is the same situation with believer physicalists. The objective view has a subjective and emotional based core, just as religion has. 

 

We usually feel like it's a situation of pick or choose between objective and subjective worldviews. I've been involved in both. A lot of us have been involved in both. A lot of ex christians like to take on an objective minded worldview. But the problem is that we're talking about objectivity according to human perception, species wide, evolved perceptions. Objective according to what exactly???

 

 @Weezer

 

What do you think about it? 

 

 

 

 

 

[pantheory]

1 hour ago, Joshpantera said:

 

........We usually feel like it's a situation of pick or choose between objective and subjective worldviews. I've been involved in both. A lot of us have been involved in both. A lot of ex Christians like to take on an objective minded worldview. But the problem is that we're talking about objectivity according to human perception, species wide, evolved perceptions. Objective according to what exactly???

 

 @Weezer

 

What do you think about it? 

 

 

 

One cannot argue with a philosophy unless defining characteristics of it are missing or wrong. For instance, if one presents a philosophy concerning the essence of horse, but the description is that of a pig, then many would agree that the philosophy being presented is wrong based upon the facts presented. But if the so-called facts are disputable, then no consensus conclusion can be made concerning the validity of the philosophical proposal.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

3 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

 @Weezer

 

What do you think about it? 

 

 

I plead the 5th amendment.  

[midniterider]

4 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

 If someone were agnostic about it, well, then that wouldn't be too big of a deal to question the entry level assumption. 

 

Being agnostic about it is probably a good attitude to have.

 

4 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

A lot of ex christians like to take on an objective minded worldview. But the problem is that we're talking about objectivity according to human perception, species wide, evolved perceptions. Objective according to what exactly???

 

 

 

If everyone sees the Sun orbit the Earth every single day....then the consensus conclusion is that the Sun orbits the Earth. That's objective. Everyone's incorrect conclusion (haha).