going inside

been a bit busy but...

spackb0y said:
Well perhaps you'd like to explain what your definition of dualism is?

...already did

spackb0y said:
Species do not have to "improve". There are species of insects that have been on this planet for millions of years, and by some measures are many times for "successful" than humans.

If there is a change in the environment and a species has to adapt, then only those who have "improved/evolved" will survive. Methinks insect evolution has plateaued over the last few million years as they haven't had to evolve to changing conditions...

spackb0y said:
*shrug* semantics. If you read around the field of philosophy of cognitive sciene, you'll find that the two terms are used interchangeably.

...semantics is all there is in verbal or written communication. My point is. if your body does something unknown to your conscious awareness. It is not a thought but an action of your brain processing reality in real time you don't think it, it just happens and what you think about it is your consciousness evaluating it's importance.

the thought follows the action (in your brain). You don't have unconscious thoughts just subconscious actions. You do have preconscious thoughts though to make up for Libet's half second delay...

what thinks you and here is the thing !!!

I want to know what YOU think not some dead philosopher or supposed expert on cognitive neuroscience...

...no evidence needed just YOUR thoughts

"I think therefore I am, I am therefore there is"
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
HELL_SD said:
been a bit busy but...



...already did

OK, so your version of dualism is a "collective mind". Why is that dualism? It's perfectly possible to argue for some sort of collective mental entity, whilst being a physicalist - and all your talk of this collective mind being located in extra curled up dimensions suggests this. If you could stop evading the question and give a proper explanation of what you mean by "dualism" that would help.


If there is a change in the environment and a species has to adapt, then only those who have "improved/evolved" will survive. Methinks insect evolution has plateaued over the last few million years as they haven't had to evolve to changing conditions...

Ok good. So do you agree that without enviromental pressure species will not evolve by natural selection? (there will of course still be sexual selection, eg those with better mating strategies etc will increase in number)
Don't forget that "improving" is a misnomer - lots of species have "degenerated" due to selective pressure - losing the function of eyes in low light environments, vestigil limbs etc.

So what's the driving force that's going to make humans evolve to "pure energy"? What are the environmental conditions that would support it?


...semantics is all there is in verbal or written communication. My point is. if your body does something unknown to your conscious awareness. It is not a thought but an action of your brain processing reality in real time you don't think it, it just happens and what you think about it is your consciousness evaluating it's importance.

the thought follows the action (in your brain). You don't have unconscious thoughts just subconscious actions. You do have preconscious thoughts though to make up for Libet's half second delay...

what thinks you and here is the thing !!!

I want to know what YOU think not some dead philosopher or supposed expert on cognitive neuroscience...

...no evidence needed just YOUR thoughts

"I think therefore I am, I am therefore there is"

Ok, we're just talking at cross purposes here. I was at a discussion last week were someone objected to the term "subconscious" because of its unclarity - does it mean below consciousness, nearly conscious, etc? And the preffered term was "unconscious" when refering to concepts, beliefs etc that are not present to awareness yet have some intentional relation to the world.

As for what you've written above, it seems self contradictory: "if your body does something unknown to your conscious awareness. It is not a thought but an action of your brain processing reality" and "You do have preconscious thoughts though to make up for Libet's half second delay..."

So on the one hand, if you're not aware of it, its not conscious or a thought, but if you're not aware of it and it happens just before something you are aware of, it is a thought?

Preconscious is still unconscious. Unless you are going to add some sort of temporal requirement. You can be unconsciously influenced by advertising etc, and then perform some aware action which is influenced by it quite a long time later.
 
here ya go spackboy...

http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/consciou.htm

...draw your own conclusions on why a collective mind extant of the body is a form of dualism. Section 3 if you want to short cut it

Could you not substitute "better" mating strategies for "improved" mating strategies ???

Lots of variations of species with degenerated traits i would say are on the way out slowly especially those whose mating strategies haven't evolved to improve the species

the driving force behind human evolution to beings of pure thought is, i would say...consciousness applied to technology maybe vice versa

spackb0y said:
So on the one hand, if you're not aware of it, its not conscious or a thought, but if you're not aware of it and it happens just before something you are aware of, it is a thought? Unless you are going to add some sort of temporal requirement

yeah something like that...

... for if you broke a preconscious moment down to its conscious thought constituents, you would realise all the thoughts you are having in the moment before you hit a home run can be quantified as conscious but your brain just glosses over it and adjusts right up until about 300milliseconds before you hit the ball

preconscious is in this instance, being aware of something before it happens by calculating and projecting a best possible scenario into the future to allow for libets half second delay...

...if your weak genepool has degenerated your ability to reason and think properly you might think it was an unconscious thought or reflex action, however an evolved personal consciousness from an improved, strong genepool would not :p

thats the difference between anticipated preconscious thoughts and why a thought truly unconscious cannot be thought of as a thought, I think :confused:

If you are consciously aware of what form of advertising they use to affect your consciousness you can choose not to be affected by it..(uh oh did he just open up the free will debate affecting consciousness)
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
HELL_SD said:
here ya go spackboy...

http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/consciou.htm

...draw your own conclusions on why a collective mind extant of the body is a form of dualism. Section 3 if you want to short cut it

A potted summary of dualism vs physicalism isn't going to help here. Let me refresh the argument:

1) You say that the mind is a collective thing, hidden with "as yet undiscovered" quantum fields or dimensions.

2) You say you're dualist. But not quite a Cartesian. No explanation as to the differences.

3) Your position as stated is pefectly commensurate with physicalism (but not materialism). From the article you linked "something might be physical but not material in this sense, such as an electromagnetic or energy field. One might therefore instead be a “physicalist” in some broader sense and still not a dualist."

Again from that article "Dualists, then, tend to believe that conscious mental states or minds are radically different from anything in the physical world at all." Substance dualism proposes that there are two substances, mental and physical, with radically different properties - "something to be non-physical, it must literally be outside the realm of physics; that is, not in space at all and undetectable in principle by the instruments of physics". Non of the stuff you are talking about, from superstrings to hadrons are outside the realm of physics or undetectable by the instruments of physics. Otherwise physicists would not be conducting experiments to look for them.

"draw my own conclusions" hmm thanks, well my conclusions from that article are that you are not a dualist. If you'd like to explain aho you drew YOUR conclusions, I'm all ears.

Could you not substitute "better" mating strategies for "improved" mating strategies ???

Lots of variations of species with degenerated traits i would say are on the way out slowly especially those whose mating strategies haven't evolved to improve the species

the driving force behind human evolution to beings of pure thought is, i would say...consciousness applied to technology maybe vice versa

I'm not sure you understand. When I say "better" or "improved" mating strategies, all i mean is that the individual with those traits is going to get more mates and have more children. This is absolutely NOT linked with any kind of "advancement" - increased complexity, intelligence, etc, unless environmental pressures dictate that.

Lots of species with degenerate traits are on the way out? No, they're not. Sea dwelling mammals have "degenerated" by some yardsticks - lost limbs. Moles and other poorly sighetd creatures have lost their eyesight. None of them are on the way out. Many species are very much the same as they have been for 50 million years (especially invertebrates). non of them are going anywhere. They have reached a happy balance between enviromental and sexual pressures.

Fine if you think that driving force of human development is technology etc, but that's not the theory of "evolution". You may want to look at "Baldwinian evolution":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwinian_evolution


yeah something like that...

... for if you broke a preconscious moment down to its conscious thought constituents, you would realise all the thoughts you are having in the moment before you hit a home run can be quantified as conscious but your brain just glosses over it and adjusts right up until about 300milliseconds before you hit the ball

This is getting meaningless... thoughts that can be "quantified " as conscious but that you're not aware of?

preconscious is in this instance, being aware of something before it happens by calculating and projecting a best possible scenario into the future to allow for libets half second delay...

...if your weak genepool has degenerated your ability to reason and think properly you might think it was an unconscious thought or reflex action, however an evolved personal consciousness from an improved, strong genepool would not :p

Is that an insult?

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'll say this for the umpteenth time: strong or successful genes DO NOT necessarily equal higher intelligence or better "personal consciousness". Lots of wild animals under intense selection pressure have very strong genepools - especially, I would think, predator/prey dynamics where not being fast enough = death. In these situations, having advanced consciousness is going to be an evolutionary DIS-advantage. Relying on instinct is a much more useful strategy.

thats the difference between anticipated preconscious thoughts and why a thought truly unconscious cannot be thought of as a thought, I think :confused:

If you are consciously aware of what form of advertising they use to affect your consciousness you can choose not to be affected by it..(uh oh did he just open up the free will debate affecting consciousness)

Hah... sorry, if you think you can consciously choose to not be affected by advertising you are very wrong. And there's plenty of experimental evidence to prove it. And not just advertising - sexual attraction, attention, body language, hypnosis, etc.. Ever seen magicians do card forcing?
 
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1) You say that the mind is a collective thing, hidden with "as yet undiscovered" quantum fields or dimensions equates to..

>>"Dualists, then, tend to believe that conscious mental states or minds are radically different from anything in the physical world at all."

"draw my own conclusions" hmm thanks, well my conclusions from that article are that you are not a dualist. If you'd like to explain aho you drew YOUR conclusions, I'm all ears.

>>see above

I'm not sure you understand. When I say "better" or "improved" mating strategies, all i mean is that the individual with those traits is going to get more mates and have more children. This is absolutely NOT linked with any kind of "advancement" - increased complexity, intelligence, etc, unless environmental pressures dictate that.

Lots of species with degenerate traits are on the way out? No, they're not. Sea dwelling mammals have "degenerated" by some yardsticks - lost limbs. Moles and other poorly sighetd creatures have lost their eyesight. None of them are on the way out. Many species are very much the same as they have been for 50 million years (especially invertebrates). non of them are going anywhere. They have reached a happy balance between enviromental and sexual pressures.

>>why then are changing environmetal conditions causing more extinctions than ever ???

This is getting meaningless... thoughts that can be "quantified " as conscious but that you're not aware of?

>>you choose not to be aware of them

Is that an insult?

>>no, just an observation

Hah... sorry, if you think you can consciously choose to not be affected by advertising you are very wrong. And there's plenty of experimental evidence to prove it ?

>>prove i'm wrong and state your evidence though preferably in another thread...
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
See above? So you are going to maintain that "undiscovered quantum fields" are in fact non-physical? Good luck with that. If you want to refute my argument, and explain why collective mind = dualism, go ahead. Until then, I'm going to stick with my original thoughts: you don't understand what you're talking about.


>>prove i'm wrong and state your evidence though preferably in another thread...

I don't see why the burden of proof is on me to state evidence to prove you're wrong when you won't even explain the arguments you use to support your so-called "dualism". I'm not going to waste my time seaching for refs when you won't engage with me and state your position. It's not hard.
 
spackb0y, it seems you have trouble connecting the dots so let me break it down for you...

undiscovered quantum fields and hidden dimensions which string theory would have us believe are compactified at every point in space, are "not physical"...

...given then, that Dualists, tend to believe that conscious mental states or minds are radically different from anything in the physical world at all."

and i believe that conscious mental states emanate from a collective dimension of thought outside of our physically percievable universe, makes them radically different from anything in the physical realm...

...and thus qualifies me as a dualist

if the collective mind uses EM fields within our brains to tranfer energy from within our 4d universe to our collective mind extant of 4d, the nature of which we don't understand then that also puts me in the dualist camp...

...with regards to your advertising affecting me unconsciously. I still state that if i am aware of the form of advertising they use I can counter the effects of it by choosing not to let it affect my buying/spending habits so the only awareness affecting me is product awareness and brand recognition
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
And you seem to have trouble drawing coherent lines between your dots. You are confusing the material with the physical, and metaphysics with epistemology.

EM fields are firmly within the realm of the physical. So are quantum fields and extra string dimensions, compacted in space or otherwise. If you ask any physicist who works in these areas if they are dualists, or if they are investigating something that is "not physical", they'll strongly disagree. As I said before, physics, even cutting edge cosmology still has to propose hypothesis testable by experiment. All of these supposedly mysterious things are the subject of research projects which oneday hope to prove their existence or the negative, through physical experiment. Which would not be even something attemptable if the phenomena were "outside of the realm of the physical" (and thus, one would imagine, causally separated). What you consider to be "radically different" just isn't different enough. Radically different here doesn't mean a strange part of physics that seems esoteric to us. It means being so utterly different that by definition it falls outside the realms of physical science, and cannot interact with physical matter (if you read the rest of that article you posted you will see a section entitled "Substance dualism and its objections", that should fill you in a bit).

Your second problem is confusing our knowledge of what there is (epistemology) with statements about what there is independant of our knowledge (metaphysics). Just because things are "undiscovered" or currently not "perceivable", or not "understandable" to us doesn't mean they're not physical. Atoms, radiowaves - not perceivable, but definately physical.

A further problem with this approach - you are attempting to use ideas based on one metaphysical system (physical empiricist science) to prove or support a radically different metaphysical system (dualism), which is self contradictory argument.
 
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what's your definition of physical ???

cos to me if it exists/emanates from outside of our 4d percieved universe...

...it's not physical

and you don't think a dimension of thought is radical enough ???

do you really think that the connection to our physical realm is testable ???...maybe in death or by jumping through a black hole which probably equates to the same thing

They can't even make testable predictions about stringtheory hence the landscape debacle. Not only that but they can't even explain what light is properly.

The thing most physicists are trying to crack is super symmetry in stringtheory which implies non physicality in 4d as it deals with non locality and virtual particles none of which i would say qualifies as physical

whatever man...

I think therefore I am, I am therefore it is...

...and i think I am a dualist therefore i am and have satisfied a burden of proof, you can think differently

accept nothing as fact
question everything
determine your own truth
define your own reality

don't let someone else do it for you...
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
HELL_SD said:
what's your definition of physical ???

cos to me if it exists/emanates from outside of our 4d percieved universe...

...it's not physical

My definition of physical is not relevent. What is relevent is the substance dualist's definition of physical, as you claim to be one. So whats that? The physical is just that which is not mental. So beliefs, desires, etc are in the realm of the mental, everything else is in the realm of the physical.

If you are going to be a dualist, and say that anything that falls outside of the realm of our 4d perceived universe is not physical, then it must be mental. So where do you draw the line? Singularities, as found in black holes, are definately beyond the realms of our perceived universe. I'd say electron clouds, subatomic particles, neutrinos are also beyond that limit. So is everything outside of our light cone. Are these things all "mental" then?



and you don't think a dimension of thought is radical enough ???

do you really think that the connection to our physical realm is testable ???...maybe in death or by jumping through a black hole which probably equates to the same thing

No of course it's not testable. That would be circular, trying to prove metaphysics with physics. You have to really start out with a metaphysical position, and work from there. Physicists start out from a position of physicalism.

whatever man...

I think therefore I am, I am therefore it is...

...and i think I am a dualist therefore i am and have satisfied a burden of proof, you can think differently

I could also think I was a dualist if I changed the meaning of the term to suit my beliefs.

accept nothing as fact
question everything
determine your own truth
define your own reality

don't let someone else do it for you...

You can also learn a lot from other people. Especially those dead philosophers you dislike so much.
 
I never said i was a substance dualist...

...so you can quit trying to define me then box me into your definition

what I do believe can be broadly classified to be included within a dualist pespective...

...I haven't changed the term to suit my beliefs

singularities if latest research is to be believed no longer exist and anything beyond qualifies as non physical seeing as how it doesn't physically exist within our universe...

...also loosely speaking everything is mental

I am also learning all the time even from you...

thanx
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
Don't know why I'm persuing this, I'm sure anyone else who's looking at this thread must be very bored by now.

HELL_SD said:
I never said i was a substance dualist...

...so you can quit trying to define me then box me into your definition

what I do believe can be broadly classified to be included within a dualist pespective...

...I haven't changed the term to suit my beliefs

I did ask you much earlier what you meant by dualism, if you were talking about property or substance dualism, and you declined to respond.

I'm not trying to box you in to any definitions - you're the one who's insisting on "dualism". I'm just trying to show that there's inconsistencies in such a metaphysics and the evidence used to support it.


singularities if latest research is to be believed no longer exist and anything beyond qualifies as non physical seeing as how it doesn't physically exist within our universe...

Non-physical and "not existing" are not the same thing. Research (via the physical sciences) can never prove one way or another whether something is physical or not. Surely you must see the circularity of that?

...also loosely speaking everything is mental

Which would make you an idealist of some kind... ;)

I am also learning all the time even from you...

thanx

No, thank you. Sorry if I come across as confrontational, this is a somewaht personal area of thought to me.
 
agree bout the boredom... :p

...so anyway i'm about 2 thirds through the book and it's hard going just visualising all that he's talking about but fascinating none the less

If you're interested i'd recommend it as he draws from and cites a lot of research and references from a lot of related fields of inquiry and being a popular writer as opposed to an academic writer he manages to convey it in laymans terms...

...so i was just thinking about what happens after we die and the spark of life leaves us, yet all the potential to continue with life still exists as a bag of useless chemicals

that spark is the EM connection we don't understand so will always have an incomplete picture of consciousness...

...in line with a lot of esoteric lore i would like to think that the common spark we share with all conscious life returns to it's place of origin which is outside of our physical universe

a dimension of thought that could if you wanted equate to heaven or hell...

mental eh ??? ;)
 
D

droid

Guest
HELL_SD said:
...in line with a lot of esoteric lore i would like to think that the common spark we share with all conscious life returns to it's place of origin which is outside of our physical universe

a dimension of thought that could if you wanted equate to heaven or hell...

mental eh ??? ;)


Sounds a lot like Buddhism to me! Energy can neither be created or destroyed....
 
yeah sounds a lot like a whole bunch of stuff...

...only problem I have with buddhism is the reincarnation thing

I prefer genetic memory...

...so what you think was a past life was actually an inherited memory from an ancestor

I like the idea of life missions too, whereby your particular stream of consciousness as it abides in you and derivative of the merging streams of your ancestors has a task to complete while in this realm such that if you don't complete it, it gets passed on to your progeny...
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
HELL_SD said:
I like the idea of life missions too, whereby your particular stream of consciousness as it abides in you and derivative of the merging streams of your ancestors has a task to complete while in this realm such that if you don't complete it, it gets passed on to your progeny...
one tangental example of this is parents unresolved psychological issues being passed cyclically to their kids. patterns of behaviour etc.
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
Lets not get started on the Celestine-fucking-Prophercies. I assume bleep was taking about psychological issues apart from Lamarckian-pseudo-mystical crap.
 
try not to assume or project too much Spackb0y ;)

the celestine thing basically says...

...the ultimate aim of the individual is to resolve the conflicting philosophies of your parents so as not to pass them on to your progeny

plus being able to have/hold a vision, break it down to it's constituent parts and re create it in reality...

I get the feeling that if this was old times you would have burnt me at the stake by now :D

and remember, there is always room for improvement...

nothing is perfect
in the space where nothing exists
will one find perfection
the perfect nothing

accept nothing as fact
question everything
determine your own truth
define your own reality
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
Um, no, I think you'll find it was the superstitious and ignorant who did the burning at the stake, not the rational.

I've read the Celestine prophercies and it's selfish, anti-intellectual, with the most badly informed caricature of what science is. So I'm not "assuming" or "projecting".

The bit about you parents passing on conflicts is actually the only remotely worthwhile part, but it's ruined by the mystical-deterministic trappings.
 
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