for Cosmin

[Terren Suydam]

Some people who were born deaf have been given cochlear implants, which give them the ability to hear for the first time. For them, this is new qualia they've never experienced. But it's only possible because of a technical device interfacing with their living nervous system. 

How does your theory account for this, when brains, and cochlear implants, don't really exist? When qualia cannot be understood in terms of neurology? When purely technical devices don't contain that special something that only conscious beings have?

What can you say about "systems of consciousnesses" that would help explain how a given person could suddenly be gifted with entirely new qualia?  What would prevent us from gaining access to all sorts of new qualia, by inventing neural prosthetics for detecting infrared light, ultrasonic frequencies, the earth's magnetosphere, and so on?  

Terren

[Cosmin Visan]

For this you don't even need idealism. You can just take the brain as a black box ready to receive the proper input in order to generate the proper qualia. You will most likely not detect infrared light and others, simply because the black box is not made to detect them.

And there is another thing here: we are not detecting "air movement" or "electromagnetic oscillation", since this is not what qualia do. Qualia are all about meaning, we detect meaning. And that meaning serves evolutionary purposes. I talk about this in the first chapter of my book, where I do an analysis of sounds and colors and show how they are meaning, not something related to any "electromagnetic spectrum". The reason is simple: if they were related to "electromagnetic spectrum", then if you were to not know the order of the colors in the rainbow, then if I were to give you the colors, you would know to put them in order by frequency. But since you cannot do that, colors are not about "electromagnetic spectrum", but are about survival criteria, like red and green for finding fruits in trees and yellow and blue for finding the sun in the sky, etc.

[Quentin Anciaux]

Le mer. 24 avr. 2019 à 09:03, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :

For this you don't even need idealism. You can just take the brain as a black box ready to receive the proper input in order to generate the proper qualia. You will most likely not detect infrared light and others, simply because the black box is not made to detect them.

And there is another thing here: we are not detecting "air movement" or "electromagnetic oscillation", since this is not what qualia do. Qualia are all about meaning, we detect meaning. And that meaning serves evolutionary purposes. I talk about this in the first chapter of my book, where I do an analysis of sounds and colors and show how they are meaning, not something related to any "electromagnetic spectrum". The reason is simple: if they were related to "electromagnetic spectrum", then if you were to not know the order of the colors in the rainbow, then if I were to give you the colors, you would know to put them in order by frequency. But since you cannot do that, colors are not about "electromagnetic spectrum", but are about survival criteria, like red and green for finding fruits in trees and yellow and blue for finding the sun in the sky, etc.

Hi,

All of which do not exists... why would consciousness need anything like that as things like fruits, trees, electrons do not exists according to you ?

Also why do you use evolution ? why do things need to evolve at all ? 

Quentin

On Tuesday, 23 April 2019 22:19:32 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

Some people who were born deaf have been given cochlear implants, which give them the ability to hear for the first time. For them, this is new qualia they've never experienced. But it's only possible because of a technical device interfacing with their living nervous system. 

How does your theory account for this, when brains, and cochlear implants, don't really exist? When qualia cannot be understood in terms of neurology? When purely technical devices don't contain that special something that only conscious beings have?

What can you say about "systems of consciousnesses" that would help explain how a given person could suddenly be gifted with entirely new qualia?  What would prevent us from gaining access to all sorts of new qualia, by inventing neural prosthetics for detecting infrared light, ultrasonic frequencies, the earth's magnetosphere, and so on?  

Terren

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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer)

[Cosmin Visan]

I don't know. These are problems to be solved. But notice that consciousness doesn't need "fruits" per se, but it needs whatever reality is behind the appearance of "fruits". Why it needs that I don't know.

[Samiya Illias]

This might be of interest: 

http://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-creation-emergence-of-species.html 

--

[Terren Suydam]

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 3:03 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

For this you don't even need idealism. You can just take the brain as a black box ready to receive the proper input in order to generate the proper qualia. You will most likely not detect infrared light and others, simply because the black box is not made to detect them.

You don't get to say, in one context, that the brain doesn't exist, and then in another, it's a black box that generates qualia. Not to mention, a black box also has zero explanatory power. I'm asking you directly about cochlear implants, which literally enable the generation of new qualia for deaf people. How does that happen?

 

And there is another thing here: we are not detecting "air movement" or "electromagnetic oscillation", since this is not what qualia do. Qualia are all about meaning, we detect meaning. And that meaning serves evolutionary purposes. I talk about this in the first chapter of my book, where I do an analysis of sounds and colors and show how they are meaning, not something related to any "electromagnetic spectrum". The reason is simple: if they were related to "electromagnetic spectrum", then if you were to not know the order of the colors in the rainbow, then if I were to give you the colors, you would know to put them in order by frequency. But since you cannot do that, colors are not about "electromagnetic spectrum", but are about survival criteria, like red and green for finding fruits in trees and yellow and blue for finding the sun in the sky, etc.

I'm color blind. My eyes don't have as many photo-receptors that detect frequencies corresponding to the color red. Because of that, my experience of color is different from ordinary people, and this can be proven. Photo-receptors detect electromagnetic oscillation of specific frequencies, and this leads somehow to the experience of color. If photoreceptors don't exist, how do you explain this?

I'm really looking for explanations I can sink my teeth into. Why am I colorblind, but you're not?  And why does it seem to matter that physiologically, you have photoreceptors that I do not have?  There are objective facts about our nervous systems that have consequences for subjective experience. We could go through a million examples, including brain damage, drugs, brain tumors, Alzheimers, genetic defects. Should we just throw all those explanatory mechanisms away?

 

On Tuesday, 23 April 2019 22:19:32 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

Some people who were born deaf have been given cochlear implants, which give them the ability to hear for the first time. For them, this is new qualia they've never experienced. But it's only possible because of a technical device interfacing with their living nervous system. 

How does your theory account for this, when brains, and cochlear implants, don't really exist? When qualia cannot be understood in terms of neurology? When purely technical devices don't contain that special something that only conscious beings have?

What can you say about "systems of consciousnesses" that would help explain how a given person could suddenly be gifted with entirely new qualia?  What would prevent us from gaining access to all sorts of new qualia, by inventing neural prosthetics for detecting infrared light, ultrasonic frequencies, the earth's magnetosphere, and so on?  

Terren

[Samiya Illias]

Salam. 

Science can only try to answer the HOW, but for the WHY questions, we need to turn to the scriptures. 

In my study of the factual accuracy of The Quran, I have been pleasantly surprised with insights into questions such as these. Though you may not find clear answers, you may find new ways to think about your questions. Here are links to a few of my blogposts: 

Divine Will and Human Free Will 

https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2014/08/divine-will-and-human-free-will.html  

Human: Body or Soul? 

https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2017/05/human-body-or-soul.html  

Wronging the Nafs 

https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2017/02/wronging-self.html 

Fate, Deeds, Omens & The Mercy of Allah 

https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2019/04/fate-deeds-omens-mercy-of-allah.html 

Our Record in Our Neck 

https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2019/04/our-record-in-our-neck.html   

The Case against Organ Transplant 

https://expeditionthink.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-case-against-organ-transplant.html 

[Terren Suydam]

Cosmin: do you have any answers to the questions below?

[Cosmin Visan]

Thanks for reminding me. I didn't see them.

On Wednesday, 24 April 2019 18:15:41 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 3:03 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

For this you don't even need idealism. You can just take the brain as a black box ready to receive the proper input in order to generate the proper qualia. You will most likely not detect infrared light and others, simply because the black box is not made to detect them.

You don't get to say, in one context, that the brain doesn't exist, and then in another, it's a black box that generates qualia. Not to mention, a black box also has zero explanatory power. I'm asking you directly about cochlear implants, which literally enable the generation of new qualia for deaf people. How does that happen?

As usual, I'm very careful with the way in which I'm using words. The definition that I'm using for "existence" is the act of self-reference of looking-back-at-itself. Based on this definition, existence is only ontologically subjective, therefore no objects-independent-of-consciousness exist. So the "brain" regarded as an object-independent-of-consciousness doesn't exist. But a system of interacting consciousness can exist. Therefore we can call that system a "black box" and allow the black box to exist. In the black box, depending on how consciousnesses interact you can have certain qualia and not have others. Cochlear implants enable the generation of new qualia for deaf people in the same way that a bike enable the generation of new qualia for people that never rode a bike before.

I'm color blind. My eyes don't have as many photo-receptors that detect frequencies corresponding to the color red. Because of that, my experience of color is different from ordinary people, and this can be proven. Photo-receptors detect electromagnetic oscillation of specific frequencies, and this leads somehow to the experience of color. If photoreceptors don't exist, how do you explain this?

You have a system of interacting consciousnesses from which certain interactions are missing.

 

I'm really looking for explanations I can sink my teeth into. Why am I colorblind, but you're not?  And why does it seem to matter that physiologically, you have photoreceptors that I do not have?  There are objective facts about our nervous systems that have consequences for subjective experience. We could go through a million examples, including brain damage, drugs, brain tumors, Alzheimers, genetic defects. Should we just throw all those explanatory mechanisms away?

 

You can still do "science" even in dreams. Even in dreams you can see unicorns flying and conclude that if you jump on their backs, you will be able to fly. It turns out that even though the objects that appear in our consciousness exist only as qualia, they nevertheless obey certain rules. And we can use those rules to do technology. Some people call it "science", but my definition for "science" is the study of existence, and since existence is only ontologically subjective, science is only the study of consciousness.

 

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 2:35 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Thanks for reminding me. I didn't see them.

On Wednesday, 24 April 2019 18:15:41 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 3:03 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

For this you don't even need idealism. You can just take the brain as a black box ready to receive the proper input in order to generate the proper qualia. You will most likely not detect infrared light and others, simply because the black box is not made to detect them.

You don't get to say, in one context, that the brain doesn't exist, and then in another, it's a black box that generates qualia. Not to mention, a black box also has zero explanatory power. I'm asking you directly about cochlear implants, which literally enable the generation of new qualia for deaf people. How does that happen?

As usual, I'm very careful with the way in which I'm using words. The definition that I'm using for "existence" is the act of self-reference of looking-back-at-itself. Based on this definition, existence is only ontologically subjective, therefore no objects-independent-of-consciousness exist. So the "brain" regarded as an object-independent-of-consciousness doesn't exist. But a system of interacting consciousness can exist. Therefore we can call that system a "black box" and allow the black box to exist. In the black box, depending on how consciousnesses interact you can have certain qualia and not have others. Cochlear implants enable the generation of new qualia for deaf people in the same way that a bike enable the generation of new qualia for people that never rode a bike before.

You really can't see the difference between the way a cochlear implant creates new qualia, versus riding a bike?  If you want to be taken seriously you'll have to do better than that.

 

I'm color blind. My eyes don't have as many photo-receptors that detect frequencies corresponding to the color red. Because of that, my experience of color is different from ordinary people, and this can be proven. Photo-receptors detect electromagnetic oscillation of specific frequencies, and this leads somehow to the experience of color. If photoreceptors don't exist, how do you explain this?

You have a system of interacting consciousnesses from which certain interactions are missing.

That doesn't explain anything.

 

 

I'm really looking for explanations I can sink my teeth into. Why am I colorblind, but you're not?  And why does it seem to matter that physiologically, you have photoreceptors that I do not have?  There are objective facts about our nervous systems that have consequences for subjective experience. We could go through a million examples, including brain damage, drugs, brain tumors, Alzheimers, genetic defects. Should we just throw all those explanatory mechanisms away?

 

You can still do "science" even in dreams. Even in dreams you can see unicorns flying and conclude that if you jump on their backs, you will be able to fly. It turns out that even though the objects that appear in our consciousness exist only as qualia, they nevertheless obey certain rules. And we can use those rules to do technology. Some people call it "science", but my definition for "science" is the study of existence, and since existence is only ontologically subjective, science is only the study of consciousness.

 

If you're equating science done in dreams and science done in reality, you're a solipsist.

[Cosmin Visan]

On Friday, 26 April 2019 16:14:07 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

You really can't see the difference between the way a cochlear implant creates new qualia, versus riding a bike?  If you want to be taken seriously you'll have to do better than that.

What is the difference ?

 

You have a system of interacting consciousnesses from which certain interactions are missing.

That doesn't explain anything.

It depends to what level you want the explanation to be taken. For the level at which you asked the question, that is the answer. If you ask the question at a more deeper level, like how exactly the difference in light sensitive cells in the eyes ultimately determine the experienced qualia, then I don't know. And nobody does.

 

If you're equating science done in dreams and science done in reality, you're a solipsist.

No. Because I allow for other consciousnesses to exist.

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 10:08 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Friday, 26 April 2019 16:14:07 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

You really can't see the difference between the way a cochlear implant creates new qualia, versus riding a bike?  If you want to be taken seriously you'll have to do better than that.

What is the difference ?

One introduces a new sense, and the other introduces new experience in terms of senses one already has. If it's too difficult to understand that difference, we can talk about creating a brand new sense to detect, say, the earth's magnetic field, and using a neural implant to feed data about the magnetic field into the brain. I wanted to stick though to something that has already been achieved, and there is no difference in principle between the deaf person with a cochlear implant, and any human getting a technology-mediated sense of the earth's magnetic field.

The original question was asking for an explanation of how this new kind of sense qualia could arise when it's mediated by a technological device.  I expect this to be a problem for you, because of your insistence that such devices don't exist, and your lack of ability to account for the correspondence between brain states and qualia.

 

 

You have a system of interacting consciousnesses from which certain interactions are missing.

That doesn't explain anything.

It depends to what level you want the explanation to be taken. For the level at which you asked the question, that is the answer. If you ask the question at a more deeper level, like how exactly the difference in light sensitive cells in the eyes ultimately determine the experienced qualia, then I don't know. And nobody does.

Do you know what I'm asking for when I ask for an explanation?  I'm asking how it works. How to the consciousnesses interact?  And how does that interaction create the situation where you can see the full spectrum of visible color, but I cannot?  

If you don't know, then you have given me no reason at all to take your ideas seriously.  You're just doing a bunch of hand-waving. Not only that, you're telling everyone else they're wrong if they don't agree with you. It's a crude strategy, but it's worked miracles for religious evangelists over the millenia. I don't think it'll work here though.

 

 

If you're equating science done in dreams and science done in reality, you're a solipsist.

No. Because I allow for other consciousnesses to exist.

Do you know for sure they do?  Or do you just allow for the possibility?

[Cosmin Visan]

On Friday, 26 April 2019 17:27:48 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 10:08 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Friday, 26 April 2019 16:14:07 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

You really can't see the difference between the way a cochlear implant creates new qualia, versus riding a bike?  If you want to be taken seriously you'll have to do better than that.

What is the difference ?

One introduces a new sense, and the other introduces new experience in terms of senses one already has. If it's too difficult to understand that difference, we can talk about creating a brand new sense to detect, say, the earth's magnetic field, and using a neural implant to feed data about the magnetic field into the brain. I wanted to stick though to something that has already been achieved, and there is no difference in principle between the deaf person with a cochlear implant, and any human getting a technology-mediated sense of the earth's magnetic field.

The original question was asking for an explanation of how this new kind of sense qualia could arise when it's mediated by a technological device.  I expect this to be a problem for you, because of your insistence that such devices don't exist, and your lack of ability to account for the correspondence between brain states and qualia.

I don't think there is any fundamental difference between a new sense and experiences in terms of senses one already has. They are both manifestations of emergence. For example, the auditory domain is not exactly "a new sense". Is just a set of qualia that emerge upon the quale of time. And then it keeps branching: from sounds in one direction you get language, in another direction you get music, etc. So it is itself a "new experience in terms of senses one already has - the sense of time". So the problem is not particular about how a certain "sense" appears, but is the general problem of how qualia appear. Now, regarding how qualia appear, the straight answer is that I don't know. And nobody knows. Nevertheless, I can give some guiding clues. For example, what we call "senses" and their basic qualia appear to be sets of qualia that serve evolutionary purposes. As I also mentioned in another post, red and green appeared to see fruits in trees, yellow and blue appeared to see the sun in the sky. We can imagine something like this: an animal was seeing only shades-of-gray and he was starving. The fruits were right in front of him, but because he didn't have the qualia of red and green, he couldn't see them. So he was one step from dying. And then all of a sudden red and green appeared in his consciousness and he survived. You can take some quantum-suicide view on this: you always continue in the universe in which you remain alive. So this might be a tentative explanation. But of course it is not the full story since in everyday life we keep getting new qualia without our lfie being in danger. So a more general principle must be sought. Of course, that principle will only show us the conditions under which qualia appear, but it will not be able to tell us what those qualia will be. All we will ever be able to do is to subject ourselves to those conditions and see what qualia appear in our consciousness.

Regarding your specific example with the implant that appear to be in direct connection with generating auditory qualia, this is not so. The conditions for auditory qualia are already present in the "brain", so that implant will just activate those conditions. But since in the "brain" most probably there are no conditions to sense the magnetic field of the Earth, you will not be able to apply the same strategy. This is not to say that it is impossible for us to sense the magnetic field. It might be possible, but you will have to satisfy some more fundamental conditions.

 

 

You have a system of interacting consciousnesses from which certain interactions are missing.

That doesn't explain anything.

It depends to what level you want the explanation to be taken. For the level at which you asked the question, that is the answer. If you ask the question at a more deeper level, like how exactly the difference in light sensitive cells in the eyes ultimately determine the experienced qualia, then I don't know. And nobody does.

Do you know what I'm asking for when I ask for an explanation?  I'm asking how it works. How to the consciousnesses interact?  And how does that interaction create the situation where you can see the full spectrum of visible color, but I cannot?  

If you don't know, then you have given me no reason at all to take your ideas seriously.  You're just doing a bunch of hand-waving. Not only that, you're telling everyone else they're wrong if they don't agree with you. It's a crude strategy, but it's worked miracles for religious evangelists over the millenia. I don't think it'll work here though.

 

See above. Also, not having an explanation doesn't mean that anything goes, like AIs. Some things are clearly fantasies.

 

If you're equating science done in dreams and science done in reality, you're a solipsist.

No. Because I allow for other consciousnesses to exist.

Do you know for sure they do?  Or do you just allow for the possibility?

 

I have 3 ideas that I take for granted in my thinking, because I don't think there is any way to prove them true:

1) Other consciousnesses exist.

2) Memories are true.

3) Reason is true.

If you don't take these 3 things for granted, there is nothing much left to do except indulging in hedonism.

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 11:21 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Friday, 26 April 2019 17:27:48 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 10:08 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Friday, 26 April 2019 16:14:07 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

You really can't see the difference between the way a cochlear implant creates new qualia, versus riding a bike?  If you want to be taken seriously you'll have to do better than that.

What is the difference ?

One introduces a new sense, and the other introduces new experience in terms of senses one already has. If it's too difficult to understand that difference, we can talk about creating a brand new sense to detect, say, the earth's magnetic field, and using a neural implant to feed data about the magnetic field into the brain. I wanted to stick though to something that has already been achieved, and there is no difference in principle between the deaf person with a cochlear implant, and any human getting a technology-mediated sense of the earth's magnetic field.

The original question was asking for an explanation of how this new kind of sense qualia could arise when it's mediated by a technological device.  I expect this to be a problem for you, because of your insistence that such devices don't exist, and your lack of ability to account for the correspondence between brain states and qualia.

I don't think there is any fundamental difference between a new sense and experiences in terms of senses one already has. They are both manifestations of emergence. For example, the auditory domain is not exactly "a new sense". Is just a set of qualia that emerge upon the quale of time. And then it keeps branching: from sounds in one direction you get language, in another direction you get music, etc. So it is itself a "new experience in terms of senses one already has - the sense of time". So the problem is not particular about how a certain "sense" appears, but is the general problem of how qualia appear. Now, regarding how qualia appear, the straight answer is that I don't know. And nobody knows. Nevertheless, I can give some guiding clues. For example, what we call "senses" and their basic qualia appear to be sets of qualia that serve evolutionary purposes. As I also mentioned in another post, red and green appeared to see fruits in trees, yellow and blue appeared to see the sun in the sky. We can imagine something like this: an animal was seeing only shades-of-gray and he was starving. The fruits were right in front of him, but because he didn't have the qualia of red and green, he couldn't see them. So he was one step from dying. And then all of a sudden red and green appeared in his consciousness and he survived. You can take some quantum-suicide view on this: you always continue in the universe in which you remain alive. So this might be a tentative explanation. But of course it is not the full story since in everyday life we keep getting new qualia without our lfie being in danger. So a more general principle must be sought. Of course, that principle will only show us the conditions under which qualia appear, but it will not be able to tell us what those qualia will be. All we will ever be able to do is to subject ourselves to those conditions and see what qualia appear in our consciousness.

Regarding your specific example with the implant that appear to be in direct connection with generating auditory qualia, this is not so. The conditions for auditory qualia are already present in the "brain", so that implant will just activate those conditions. But since in the "brain" most probably there are no conditions to sense the magnetic field of the Earth, you will not be able to apply the same strategy. This is not to say that it is impossible for us to sense the magnetic field. It might be possible, but you will have to satisfy some more fundamental conditions.

Monkeys that were previously colorblind had their retinas infected with a retrovirus to cause new color sensing cone cells to grow. Within a few months they were able to perceive an entirely new class of colors they were previously blind to: https://www.wired.com/2009/09/colortherapy/

Birds, and some humans have four types of color sensing cones in their retinas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy), by some estimates they can see 100 million colors while most humans can see only 1 million.  Some species of shrimp have 16 types of cones.  What do you think about the consciousness being able to experience altogether new colors and quale just by being given an additional input signal that is uncorrelated to the existing input signals?

Jason

[Cosmin Visan]

You first have to distinguish between colors and shades of colors. Nobody knows what those beings experience. It might well be just more shades instead of colors.

Regarding your question with the additional input signal that is uncorrelated to the existing input signal, I actually talk about such an example in my book "I Am". That is the case of Haidinger's Brush: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush Haidinger's Brush is the ability to see polarized light, the 2 axis corresponding to the electrical and magnetic vectors of the electromagnetic radiation. The reason why I found out about this phenomena is that at some point few years ago I passed through some health problems and I started to see that shape when I was looking at computer screens. What was interesting is that on the laptop screen the 2 colors were reversed as compared to the pc screen. But it didn't cross my mind what was this thing that I was seeing. I started to think that is an addition problem to those health problems that I was experiencing. And I posted on a medical forum about this and someone pointed to me to Haidinger's Brush. What is interesting about it is that it is an additional input signal uncorrelated to existing input signals that come from the eyes. Yet the qualia in which it is rendered are first: visual qualia, and second: yellow and blue colors, so not some new exotic colors. And what I argue for in the book is that if you are to see only 2 colors, those 2 colors will always be yellow and blue, because yellow will signify the very seeing of a color, while blue would be there to contrast maximally with yellow.

So having a certain number of receptors in the eyes is not necessarily an indicator of seeing more distinct colors. What matters ultimately is what meanings those colors contribute to in the survival of the being.

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 12:21 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Friday, 26 April 2019 17:27:48 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

The original question was asking for an explanation of how this new kind of sense qualia could arise when it's mediated by a technological device.  I expect this to be a problem for you, because of your insistence that such devices don't exist, and your lack of ability to account for the correspondence between brain states and qualia.

I don't think there is any fundamental difference between a new sense and experiences in terms of senses one already has. They are both manifestations of emergence. For example, the auditory domain is not exactly "a new sense". Is just a set of qualia that emerge upon the quale of time. And then it keeps branching: from sounds in one direction you get language, in another direction you get music, etc. So it is itself a "new experience in terms of senses one already has - the sense of time". So the problem is not particular about how a certain "sense" appears, but is the general problem of how qualia appear. Now, regarding how qualia appear, the straight answer is that I don't know. And nobody knows. Nevertheless, I can give some guiding clues. For example, what we call "senses" and their basic qualia appear to be sets of qualia that serve evolutionary purposes. As I also mentioned in another post, red and green appeared to see fruits in trees, yellow and blue appeared to see the sun in the sky. We can imagine something like this: an animal was seeing only shades-of-gray and he was starving. The fruits were right in front of him, but because he didn't have the qualia of red and green, he couldn't see them. So he was one step from dying. And then all of a sudden red and green appeared in his consciousness and he survived. You can take some quantum-suicide view on this: you always continue in the universe in which you remain alive. So this might be a tentative explanation. But of course it is not the full story since in everyday life we keep getting new qualia without our lfie being in danger. So a more general principle must be sought. Of course, that principle will only show us the conditions under which qualia appear, but it will not be able to tell us what those qualia will be. All we will ever be able to do is to subject ourselves to those conditions and see what qualia appear in our consciousness.

That's a move that's not available to you - you cannot reference "evolutionary purposes", because evolutionary purposes do not exist in your theory. You cannot talk about fruits that existed before a consciousness was able to perceive them, because fruits do not exist in your theory. The only move you can make in order to explain the emergence of new qualia is to explain it in terms of the only thing you postulate to exist, namely consciousness. Thus far the only thing you've said about that is that, somehow, consciousnesses interact, and their interaction creates qualia, and the rules qualia appear to obey. But this is just hand waving. 

How does one go from seeing black & white to color?  How does a deaf person begin to hear sound?  The answer you provide must not invoke anything that does not exist in your theory. If you're answer is "I don't know" then I applaud your honesty, but you leave me no reason to accept anything you've said. 

If you're equating science done in dreams and science done in reality, you're a solipsist.

No. Because I allow for other consciousnesses to exist.

Do you know for sure they do?  Or do you just allow for the possibility?

 

I have 3 ideas that I take for granted in my thinking, because I don't think there is any way to prove them true:

1) Other consciousnesses exist.

2) Memories are true.

3) Reason is true.

If you don't take these 3 things for granted, there is nothing much left to do except indulging in hedonism.

Does your theory depend on the existence of other consciousnesses besides your own?  Does it fail if there are no other consciousnesses? 

What does "memories are true" mean?  

What does "reason is true" mean?  

Terren

[Cosmin Visan]

On Friday, 26 April 2019 20:16:19 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

That's a move that's not available to you - you cannot reference "evolutionary purposes", because evolutionary purposes do not exist in your theory. You cannot talk about fruits that existed before a consciousness was able to perceive them, because fruits do not exist in your theory. The only move you can make in order to explain the emergence of new qualia is to explain it in terms of the only thing you postulate to exist, namely consciousness. Thus far the only thing you've said about that is that, somehow, consciousnesses interact, and their interaction creates qualia, and the rules qualia appear to obey. But this is just hand waving. 

There are no fruits. There are systems of interacting consciousnesses. But for some reasons, that are not known to me at this point, that interaction needs fuel, also in form of other consciousnesses. And "fruits" is an external appearance of internal interactions between consciousnesses. So evolution gives you the quale of fruits in order to make you eat them and thus get access to that fuel that allow you to maintain the interaction.

How does one go from seeing black & white to color?  How does a deaf person begin to hear sound?  The answer you provide must not invoke anything that does not exist in your theory. If you're answer is "I don't know" then I applaud your honesty, but you leave me no reason to accept anything you've said. 

I already said that I don't know exactly how it happens. Probably there is no alternative: you either see colors or you die. And in one universe you will die, in another you will see colors and live and have offsprings. 

Does your theory depend on the existence of other consciousnesses besides your own?  Does it fail if there are no other consciousnesses? 

My theory is more or less just a phenomenological description of my own consciousness. I don't think that "depends" is the proper word. It is in a way inherent in the theory that there are other consciousnesses. One reason is as I mentioned in some other post: the fact that we both hear and see is probably because we are a unification between a consciousness that only sees and another one that only hears. And this is also grounded in empirical studies in which certain brain regions are related to certain qualia and also in DID where the alters not only differ in their personalities, but you can even have alters that are blind for example, so in those alters the consciousness that sees is not unified with them.

 

What does "memories are true" mean?  

Means that if I remember that I had a teddy bear when I was 7 years old, then it means that I really had it, and the world was not just created 1 second ago with all the memories implanted in my consciousness.

What does "reason is true" mean?  

It means that it makes sense what I'm thinking, and is not all just a delirium.

[Terren Suydam]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 1:39 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Friday, 26 April 2019 20:16:19 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

That's a move that's not available to you - you cannot reference "evolutionary purposes", because evolutionary purposes do not exist in your theory. You cannot talk about fruits that existed before a consciousness was able to perceive them, because fruits do not exist in your theory. The only move you can make in order to explain the emergence of new qualia is to explain it in terms of the only thing you postulate to exist, namely consciousness. Thus far the only thing you've said about that is that, somehow, consciousnesses interact, and their interaction creates qualia, and the rules qualia appear to obey. But this is just hand waving. 

There are no fruits. There are systems of interacting consciousnesses. But for some reasons, that are not known to me at this point, that interaction needs fuel, also in form of other consciousnesses. And "fruits" is an external appearance of internal interactions between consciousnesses. So evolution gives you the quale of fruits in order to make you eat them and thus get access to that fuel that allow you to maintain the interaction.

But some consciousness is poison. I could die just by breathing too much carbon monoxide. Funny thing about carbon monoxide is it has no qualia I can detect. That's why I need a carbon monoxide detector in my house. 

How can something affect my consciousness if it has no qualia? 

 

How does one go from seeing black & white to color?  How does a deaf person begin to hear sound?  The answer you provide must not invoke anything that does not exist in your theory. If you're answer is "I don't know" then I applaud your honesty, but you leave me no reason to accept anything you've said. 

I already said that I don't know exactly how it happens. Probably there is no alternative: you either see colors or you die. And in one universe you will die, in another you will see colors and live and have offsprings.

What's a universe?  Why is there more than one?  I'm pretty sure you would say universes don't exist if I brought that up. 

 

 

Does your theory depend on the existence of other consciousnesses besides your own?  Does it fail if there are no other consciousnesses? 

My theory is more or less just a phenomenological description of my own consciousness. I don't think that "depends" is the proper word. It is in a way inherent in the theory that there are other consciousnesses. One reason is as I mentioned in some other post: the fact that we both hear and see is probably because we are a unification between a consciousness that only sees and another one that only hears.

It's fair to say that no idealistic theory can completely avoid the charge of solipsism. If you have to assume other consciousnesses, so be it.

 

And this is also grounded in empirical studies in which certain brain regions are related to certain qualia and also in DID where the alters not only differ in their personalities, but you can even have alters that are blind for example, so in those alters the consciousness that sees is not unified with them.

Grounded in empirical studies???  Why do you get to make reference to empirical facts, but when the rest of us do, it's all "such and such doesn't exist". 

 

 

What does "memories are true" mean?  

Means that if I remember that I had a teddy bear when I was 7 years old, then it means that I really had it, and the world was not just created 1 second ago with all the memories implanted in my consciousness.

But what if that teddy bear didn't exist, and your memory of it is a false one? Memory is not infallible. 

How do memories get implanted in your consciousness?  Gentle reminder: brains don't exist.

 

What does "reason is true" mean?  

It means that it makes sense what I'm thinking, and is not all just a delirium.

I don't see how you can distinguish between delirium, and whatever the alternative to delirium is, in your theory. The picture you're painting is of a world of qualia, experienced by some uncountable number of interacting consciousnesses, whose interactions form the basis of whatever patterns exist in the qualia. It has no reality beyond itself, no grounding in any principle or reason that I can see. It might as well all be a dream. 

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/26/2019 9:21 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:
> The fruits were right in front of him, but because he didn't have the
> qualia of red and green, he couldn't see them. So he was one step from
> dying. And then all of a sudden red and green appeared in his
> consciousness

And then a miracle happened, he explained.

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

On 4/26/2019 10:12 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:
> And what I argue for in the book is that if you are to see only 2
> colors, those 2 colors will always be yellow and blue, because yellow
> will signify the very seeing of a color, while blue would be there to
> contrast maximally with yellow.

https://nei.nih.gov/health/color_blindness/facts_about
Blue-yellow color blindness is rarer than red-green color blindness.
Blue-cone (tritan) photopigments are either missing or have limited
function.

Tritanomaly: People with tritanomaly have functionally limited blue cone
cells. Blue appears greener and it can be difficult to tell yellow and
red from pink. Tritanomaly is extremely rare. It is an autosomal
dominant disorder affecting males and females equally.
Tritanopia: People with tritanopia, also known as blue-yellow color
blindness, lack blue cone cells. Blue appears green and yellow appears
violet or light grey. Tritanopia is an extremely rare autosomal
recessive disorder affecting males and females equally.

[Cosmin Visan]

On Friday, 26 April 2019 21:06:11 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

But some consciousness is poison. I could die just by breathing too much carbon monoxide. Funny thing about carbon monoxide is it has no qualia I can detect. That's why I need a carbon monoxide detector in my house. 

I also need wings to fly if I am attacked by a predator. Only because something is good it doesn't mean that it is also possible. Evolution happens by bringing new qualia on top of pre-existing one, so it will be a little difficult to emerge full developed wings all of a sudden.

How can something affect my consciousness if it has no qualia? 

Because is not the qualia that you experience as such that has effects upon you, but what is behind.

 

How does one go from seeing black & white to color?  How does a deaf person begin to hear sound?  The answer you provide must not invoke anything that does not exist in your theory. If you're answer is "I don't know" then I applaud your honesty, but you leave me no reason to accept anything you've said. 

I already said that I don't know exactly how it happens. Probably there is no alternative: you either see colors or you die. And in one universe you will die, in another you will see colors and live and have offsprings.

What's a universe?  Why is there more than one?  I'm pretty sure you would say universes don't exist if I brought that up. 

 

A universe is a system of interacting consciousnesses.

 

Does your theory depend on the existence of other consciousnesses besides your own?  Does it fail if there are no other consciousnesses? 

My theory is more or less just a phenomenological description of my own consciousness. I don't think that "depends" is the proper word. It is in a way inherent in the theory that there are other consciousnesses. One reason is as I mentioned in some other post: the fact that we both hear and see is probably because we are a unification between a consciousness that only sees and another one that only hears.

It's fair to say that no idealistic theory can completely avoid the charge of solipsism. If you have to assume other consciousnesses, so be it.

 

And this is also grounded in empirical studies in which certain brain regions are related to certain qualia and also in DID where the alters not only differ in their personalities, but you can even have alters that are blind for example, so in those alters the consciousness that sees is not unified with them.

Grounded in empirical studies???  Why do you get to make reference to empirical facts, but when the rest of us do, it's all "such and such doesn't exist". 

 

Because the empirical studies that I'm quoting are about consciousness, not about non-existent material objects.

 

What does "memories are true" mean?  

Means that if I remember that I had a teddy bear when I was 7 years old, then it means that I really had it, and the world was not just created 1 second ago with all the memories implanted in my consciousness.

But what if that teddy bear didn't exist, and your memory of it is a false one? Memory is not infallible. 

I just have to take for granted that they are true. 

How do memories get implanted in your consciousness?  Gentle reminder: brains don't exist.

By providing a greater meaning towards which they contribute.

 

What does "reason is true" mean?  

It means that it makes sense what I'm thinking, and is not all just a delirium.

I don't see how you can distinguish between delirium, and whatever the alternative to delirium is, in your theory. The picture you're painting is of a world of qualia, experienced by some uncountable number of interacting consciousnesses, whose interactions form the basis of whatever patterns exist in the qualia. It has no reality beyond itself, no grounding in any principle or reason that I can see. It might as well all be a dream. 

Qualia are not necessarily random. They are selected by evolution to give consciousnesses meaningful information to help them survive. Of course, you have the dream states where things are pretty random, so all I can do is to assume that in the waking state things have a little more meaning.

[Cosmin Visan]

Every moment of our lives is a moment of creation. So miracles happen all the time.

[Cosmin Visan]

You can't know what those people are seeing.

[Brent Meeker]

And you can't know what other people are experiencing or whether they are experiencing anything.?? But you can test whether people can distinguish yellow from blue and red from green. And in fact you claimed that people could be red/green colorblind (even though you don't know what they're experiencing) but they couldn't be yellow/blue colorblind. But exactly the same kind of test works for both.

Brent

--

[Cosmin Visan]

No. All you can do is to test whether people can distinguish between X and Y.

[Brent Meeker]

But then how is red/green colorblindness, which you claimed to know about, detected? Do you test whether people can distinguish between W and Z???

Brent

--

[Cosmin Visan]

Yes.

[Terren Suydam]

Your responses to my and other's questions don't really answer anything, except in a circular way, borrowing from the physical world when convenient (e.g. evolution, brain scans) and denying the physical world for similarly motivated reasons (e.g. the brain does not exist).

Unless you can answer the following question unambiguously, I'm done. That is, what fact could you discover that would invalidate your ideas?

Terren

--

[Cosmin Visan]

You cannot invalidate the fact that consciousness is all there is, because for any fact X that you assume that you discover, that X is a thought in consciousness.

Evolution is the evolution of consciousness - I don't see where I borrow anything from materialist ideas. Evolution is deducible directly from looking at qualia. There are no "bodies" that evolve, but consciousnesses that evolve.

Brain scans is scans about systems of interacting consciousnesses - I don't see where I borrow anything from materialist ideas.

Otherwise, when you say "my ideas", what exactly are you referring to ? Is not clear to me what you consider my ideas to be. It seems to me that you don't even pay any attention to what I am saying. I don't know what you expect from me. Probably to give you all the answers in the universe. Well... this nobody is able to do. But if you would really pay attention to my ideas, you would see for example that my ideas are able to explain the passage of time, a thing that nobody done before, and in principle is a Nobel prize worth explanation.

[Terren Suydam]

At some point your theory must collide with the inescapable constraints of our universe (gravity, laws of physics, etc) or it is completely useless. In that collision there is opportunity to show how your theory could be wrong. If you can't do that, you're no different from the religious fundamentalist: "God wills it". 

Showing how your ideas could be invalidated is the only way I can take you seriously at this point, because you still haven't explained anything. Your most notable contribution to the list thus far is asserting things with absolutely certainty without being able to justify it. 

By the way, the passage of time is explained by the second law of thermodynamics.

--

[Cosmin Visan]

Saying such a thing is not even understanding what the concept of time means. I highly recommend you my paper "The Quale of Time" where I prove beyond doubts that there is no "physical time":  https://philpeople.org/profiles/cosmin-visan

The task is not only of idealism of deducting present-day physics, but also of present-day physics to take into account consciousness, otherwise it will just remain a pseudo-science with concepts that have no existence. That "gravity" makes any sense to you ? To me is a totally incoherent concept, like everything in physics. Only in consciousness you can know what the concepts are. In physics they are just pragmatic concepts, with no actual meaning whatsoever. Physics is just a fairy-tale that you grew up to believe in without questioning it. Is pretty much a religion for you. You have no idea what "gravity" is, but you say: "Ya! Ya! Gravity! Such concept, much science!".

[Terren Suydam]

Shine on, you crazy diamond!

[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Apr 2019, at 08:44, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

You cannot invalidate the fact that consciousness is all there is, because for any fact X that you assume that you discover, that X is a thought in consciousness.

But I don’t see why this invalidate that there would be something more than my consciousness, for example the possible consciousness of some other. 

In fact, all universal machine, when they introspect themselves deeply enough, are somehow obliged to assumed some reality which transcend them. Of course, they cannot prove that such reality is really there, that is why they will assumed it. Now, it is not much, as eventually it is the universal dovetailing, or the partial computable part of the arithmetical reality (which is very tiny compared to the full first order arithmetical reality, not mentioning the full second order arithmetic, which is analysis).

Evolution is the evolution of consciousness -

That makes some sense, especially for the human consciousness, but with mechanism we assume elementary arithmetic, and then we can see that each “virgin” universal code is a initial staring point for a maximal consciousness to differentiate into particular experiences and local relativisation. That is the source of the material histories, which exists only in the mind of those universal numbers.

I don't see where I borrow anything from materialist ideas. Evolution is deducible directly from looking at qualia. There are no "bodies" that evolve, but consciousnesses that evolve.

That is what you have to elaborate. I can interpret this favourably (in the mechanist frame) or not. It is a bit too much vague, as I expect, actually, from a theory which assumes consciousness.

Bruno

Brain scans is scans about systems of interacting consciousnesses - I don't see where I borrow anything from materialist ideas.

Otherwise, when you say "my ideas", what exactly are you referring to ? Is not clear to me what you consider my ideas to be. It seems to me that you don't even pay any attention to what I am saying. I don't know what you expect from me. Probably to give you all the answers in the universe. Well... this nobody is able to do. But if you would really pay attention to my ideas, you would see for example that my ideas are able to explain the passage of time, a thing that nobody done before, and in principle is a Nobel prize worth explanation.

On Sunday, 28 April 2019 23:10:31 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

That is, what fact could you discover that would invalidate your ideas?

[Cosmin Visan]

@Terren, you left out without arguments and you start to insult people ?

[Quentin Anciaux]

First thing first, you're the one who started insulting people... Secondly, as much as we've asked, you didn't provide any evidence for your delirium.

So do provide a test that could invalidate your claims or keep them for your own entertainment.

Quentin

Le lun. 29 avr. 2019 à 15:17, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :

@Terren, you left out without arguments and you start to insult people ?

[Cosmin Visan]

What is it that I claim ? I only claim that consciousness is all there is. What proof you want for this ? It is self-evident.

[Cosmin Visan]

On Monday, 29 April 2019 17:03:53 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 08:44, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

You cannot invalidate the fact that consciousness is all there is, because for any fact X that you assume that you discover, that X is a thought in consciousness.

But I don’t see why this invalidate that there would be something more than my consciousness, for example the possible consciousness of some other. 

Yes, there are other consciousness. But that's all, because existence itself can only be ontologically subjective.

I don't see where I borrow anything from materialist ideas. Evolution is deducible directly from looking at qualia. There are no "bodies" that evolve, but consciousnesses that evolve.

That is what you have to elaborate. I can interpret this favourably (in the mechanist frame) or not. It is a bit too much vague, as I expect, actually, from a theory which assumes consciousness.

Just look at human psychology. It is solely for survival and reproduction. All our emotion qualia serve these purposes. For example look at the users which their beliefs are being threatened how they become aggressive. This is because instinctively they feel that their alpha male domination is being threatened by another male, so they jump to kill him. So all these emotion qualia couldn't have otherwise appeared just by evolution. All the evolutionary history is included in present day qualia that we have. If you want to find out how the Earth was 1 billion years ago, ask yourself what does the smell of pineapple means for example, and you will find that the quale of pineapple smell has a particular evolutionary reason why it is the way it is.

[Brent Meeker]

No.?? What is self-evident is that there is a consciousness (as Bertrand Russell noted "I" is a construct).

Brent

[Cosmin Visan]

What "I" ? The ego or the Self ? And even the ego being a construct, it still exists, in the same way that red exists. And the Self exists by default, being eternal.

On Monday, 29 April 2019 22:31:24 UTC+3, Brent wrote:

No.?? What is self-evident is that there is a consciousness (as Bertrand Russell noted "I" is a construct).

Brent

On 4/29/2019 8:59 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:

What is it that I claim ? I only claim that consciousness is all there is. What proof you want for this ? It is self-evident.

On Monday, 29 April 2019 17:44:39 UTC+3, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

First thing first, you're the one who started insulting people... Secondly, as much as we've asked, you didn't provide any evidence for your delirium.

So do provide a test that could invalidate your claims or keep them for your own entertainment.

Quentin

--
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[Cosmin Visan]

I am curious. Are you aware of Husserl writings about time ? If so, then how can you believe in the "physical time" when Husserl showed clearly that you have extended temporal periods in consciousness outside of the physical time ? And this is because time in consciousness is not a succession of moments, but a retentional structure.

[Terren Suydam]

Who said I believe in physical time?

[Cosmin Visan]

Then how is the physical world in which you believe manifesting ?

[Terren Suydam]

Who says I believe in a physical world?

[Cosmin Visan]

You said by denying my obvious statement that consciousness is all there is.

[Terren Suydam]

You're failing to see that consciousness is all we can know. You go too far when you claim that it's all that exists.

[Cosmin Visan]

Not at all. As I already told you, for any claim of the form "X exists" (where in this case you assume X is something outside consciousness), "X exists" is actually a thought in consciousness, therefore X doesn't exist since it is just a confabulation of consciousness.

More than this, from phenomenological analysis, you get to the conclusion that the proper definition for the concept of "existence" is the looking-back-at-itself of self-reference, therefore existence can only by ontologically subjective, so consciousness is all there is.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Apr 2019, at 18:11, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Monday, 29 April 2019 17:03:53 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 08:44, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

You cannot invalidate the fact that consciousness is all there is, because for any fact X that you assume that you discover, that X is a thought in consciousness.

But I don’t see why this invalidate that there would be something more than my consciousness, for example the possible consciousness of some other. 

Yes, there are other consciousness. But that's all, because existence itself can only be ontologically subjective.

Why? 

In particular, if you grant the consciousness of other person, that consciousness is not personal-subjective, for me. I need some amount of “independent reality” from me to allow some other to exist.

I don't see where I borrow anything from materialist ideas. Evolution is deducible directly from looking at qualia. There are no "bodies" that evolve, but consciousnesses that evolve.

That is what you have to elaborate. I can interpret this favourably (in the mechanist frame) or not. It is a bit too much vague, as I expect, actually, from a theory which assumes consciousness.

Just look at human psychology. It is solely for survival and reproduction. All our emotion qualia serve these purposes.

? (That would make consciousness not being fundamental, contrary to your axiom)

For example look at the users which their beliefs are being threatened how they become aggressive. This is because instinctively they feel that their alpha male domination is being threatened by another male, so they jump to kill him. So all these emotion qualia couldn't have otherwise appeared just by evolution.

Why? 

All the evolutionary history is included in present day qualia that we have. If you want to find out how the Earth was 1 billion years ago, ask yourself what does the smell of pineapple means for example, and you will find that the quale of pineapple smell has a particular evolutionary reason why it is the way it is.

?

That is unclear to me. I know you will not do it, but formalising in first order logic would clarify a lot. Now, you can’t do that if mechanism is true, because consciousness is necessarily not a formal concept, but a semantical one, and the whole point of formalising is to not start from a semantic. You seem to condemn yourself into a fuzzy theory.

Frankly, consciousness and matter is what I want to explain/understand, and the mechanist assumption makes possible to build a testable theory, so let us do the test, and only invoke things like god, consciousness, reality, or alien in last ressort, if the experience violate all expressible theories.

Bruno

[Cosmin Visan]

Well, I invite you to formalize red in whatever logic you want, and then work your magic for blind people and make them see red solely by understanding your formalisation.

Good luck!

[Cosmin Visan]

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 11:37:01 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 18:11, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Monday, 29 April 2019 17:03:53 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 29 Apr 2019, at 08:44, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

You cannot invalidate the fact that consciousness is all there is, because for any fact X that you assume that you discover, that X is a thought in consciousness.

But I don’t see why this invalidate that there would be something more than my consciousness, for example the possible consciousness of some other. 

Yes, there are other consciousness. But that's all, because existence itself can only be ontologically subjective.

Why? 

In particular, if you grant the consciousness of other person, that consciousness is not personal-subjective, for me. I need some amount of “independent reality” from me to allow some other to exist.

Indeed the problem of personal identity seems to me one of the hardest problems of consciousness. I don't know what keeps me stable during the course of my life, or what keeps me separated from others. But as you know, in telepathies, you get to unify with other consciousnesses and experience common qualia. I don't think though that this changes the definition of "existence" that I'm giving. The fact that I don't experience all the qualia that happen in the world at the present moment, doesn't change the fact that those qualia have an ontologically subjective mode of being. It might even be the case that, given the fact that there is no objective time, there is also no coherent way of talking about "simultaneous" consciousnesses that *at this very moment* are outside of me and I'm not experiencing them. It might be the case that *at this very moment* no other consciousness exists, though they do exist, but not *at this very moment*. So the definition of "existence" that I'm giving, remains.

[Terren Suydam]

So far, this is all you've been able to unambiguously articulate:

• only my consciousness exists
• other consciousnesses exist
• the world appears the way it does due to the interaction of consciousnesses

As you have no way to formalize "interaction of consciousnesses", you're unable to use it to actually explain anything.

A moment's thought will show you this is indistinguishable from:

• only my consciousness exists
• angels and demons exist
• the world appears the way it does because that's what the angels and demons want me to experience

Unless you can say what kind of fact you could discover that would invalidate your theory, it's a hard no for me. 

Terren

[Cosmin Visan]

Since the theory is correct, it cannot be invalidated.

[Terren Suydam]

Exactly: "God wills it". Peace out homey

[Bruno Marchal]

On 1 May 2019, at 11:06, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Well, I invite you to formalize red in whatever logic you want, and then work your magic for blind people and make them see red solely by understanding your formalisation.

I can formalise the notion of universal machine, prove from mechanism + that theory of machine, that red is a non formalisable experience, like actually any first person experience. 

Good luck!

You asked me something which my theory, which is not mind, but the one by the universal machine itself, can prove the impossibility.

Bruno

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 11:37:01 UTC+3, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I know you will not do it, but formalising in first order logic would clarify a lot.

[John Clark]

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 11:42 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> 

>> On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 16:17:48 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

Unless you can say what kind of fact you could discover that would invalidate your theory, it's a hard no for me. 

 

> Since the theory is correct, it cannot be invalidated.

After that comment can anybody around here have any doubts about the existence or nonexistence of a brain in Cosmin Visan's head?

John K Clark

 

[Cosmin Visan]

And if that's how reality is, that God wills it, what is the problem ?

[Cosmin Visan]

Besides, you are attacking here a strawman.

1) Not only my consciousness exists, but others as well.
2) Those other consciousnesses can be anything, not only demons and angels. The type of consciousnesses that exist are constrained at least in part by evolutionary context.
3) The interaction of consciousnesses is in part evolutionary. We are not living in a "physical" world, we are living in an evolutionary world in which consciousnesses adapt one to another and evolve new qualia in order to meet those adaptations. The qualia that are present in a particular consciousness cannot be predicted, because they always appear as answers to evolutionary contexts.

[Terren Suydam]

Because God's Will is a shitty explanation of reality (it explains precisely zero), and worse, it's been repeatedly abused throughout history to justify all sorts of horrific actions including genocide, torture, theft, and so on.

I'm not saying your theory is literally invoking God's Will. I'm saying that it's indistinguishable from one that does. You come across as a true believer in a set of ideas that cannot be tested, explains nothing, and anyone who doesn't accept them is a fool. Textbook religious evangelism.

[Cosmin Visan]

You are confusing people that have by default the instinct to kill with the reasons that those people invoke to make their killing instincts noble.

Long live the scientific ayan race!

[Cosmin Visan]

As I already told you: interactions are not random: they are taking place in an evolutionary context.

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 20:14:39 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

[Terren Suydam]

No, I'm saying that cultural institutions whose metaphysics relies on authority (e.g. God's Will) lead to authoritarian systems (crazy, right?) We should rightly distrust any system that relies on revelation or obedience to an authority that cannot be questioned. 

Likewise, any philosophy that does not admit questions, explanations, or predictions (i.e., yours), should not be trusted or relied upon, because beyond the obvious reason that it has no epistemic use, it can be used as a tool by those who wish to wield authority with no accountability.

It's one thing I sort of admire about the end-of-the-world loonies (e.g. Harold Camping) who actually predict the date the world will end. At least they're willing to stake their reputations on something that will definitely happen or not happen. So that's something for you to aspire to.

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/1/2019 9:57 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:
> 3) The interaction of consciousnesses is in part evolutionary. We are
> not living in a "physical" world, we are living in an evolutionary
> world in which consciousnesses adapt one to another and evolve new
> qualia in order to meet those adaptations. The qualia that are present
> in a particular consciousness cannot be predicted, because they always
> appear as answers to evolutionary contexts.

But how do they evolve. Is it Darwinian evolution in which there is
reproduction with variation and reproduction outpaces resources so that
there is a struggle for survival and natural selection?  Or are you just
using "evolve" in the general sense of change?

Brent

[Terren Suydam]

You have no principled basis on which to make claims about evolutionary dynamics of any kind. It's a post-hoc, just-so justification of the kinds of qualia that we experience. Evolution doesn't follow in the slightest from your first principles, which is merely that consciousness is all that exists. Evolution depends on some kind of objective state-of-affairs that exists outside of an individual consciousness, because in order for those dynamics to work, some consciousnesses must persist and some must perish. Also, you keep claiming that time doesn't exist (ok by me) but evolution requires time. 

Make one prediction about new kinds of qualia that will emerge based on your so-called evolutionary dynamics or whatever. Come on Cosmin Camping, you can do it!

--

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/1/2019 10:36 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:

You are confusing people that have by default the instinct to kill

Is that a quale?

Brent

with the reasons that those people invoke to make their killing instincts noble.

Long live the scientific ayan race!


On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 20:14:39 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

Because God's Will is a shitty explanation of reality (it explains precisely zero), and worse, it's been repeatedly abused throughout history to justify all sorts of horrific actions including genocide, torture, theft, and so on.

[Cosmin Visan]

Talking about consciousness itself is a post-hoc statement. Even formulating the sentence "Consciousness is all there is." is a post-hoc statement that is created out of words that are highly contingent entities. So where do you draw the line between what is admitted to be considered "first principles" and what not ?
I don't consider the evolutionary aspect of consciousness to be post-hoc. Actually, I consider that even if we didn't have the idea of evolution in our culture, we would have still arrived at it solely by looking at qualia, though most likely much slower. I think that even if you are to take some humans  and isolate them in a totally artificial environment, without plants and animals from which to derive the idea of evolution, they would ultimately still arrive at the idea of evolution merely by paying careful attention to their qualia. One way to do this is to notice that intellectual qualia always have the form of answers to questions. We are always first in a consciousness state that we can call a question ("What should I eat today ?"), and then that conscious state leads to another state called "answer" ("I will eat some fries."). Starting from this aspect of consciousness, namely that the quale "I will eat some fries." appears as a consequence of the quale "What should I eat today ?" will make those isolated people getting to the idea that all qualia should have appeared this way, and since it wasn't them that asked the question whose answer was the quale of red, then it must have been someone else that did it. And therefore, with clearly considerably more difficulties than us, will arrive at the theory of evolution.

Now, you also mention the fact that evolution requires time. And my response to this is that indeed this is how it appears. But the fact that time is just a quale in consciousness, implies that we currently don't understand evolution properly, not that what I'm saying about consciousness is wrong. Actually, it might even be the case that those isolated people from the above example, would arrive at a better understanding of evolution than us. And then, if they were to be brought to Earth and showed them the plants and the animals, they will say: "Ah... but of course!... this is just a special case of evolution.". It is possible that we are being mislead into believing that evolution is something else than it actually is, because of the too many details that we have access to. A more purified view would show us a different view of evolution. And indeed I'm working on this, on trying to understand what exactly evolution is if you take out the physical time.

Making a prediction: An animal that only sees shades-of-gray that is about to die of starvation, will bring into existence the qualia of red and green in order to see the food.

[Terren Suydam]

OK, nice, that's a prediction that can be tested. That's getting somewhere. I would bet a significant sum on your prediction being false. A color blind animal would not spontaneously be able to see color, no matter how hungry it was. 

Anyway, you didn't address my concern about being able to posit evolution in the first place based on first principles. Evolution requires death and reproduction, neither of which follow from the statement that only consciousness exists. 

For that matter, neither does language. Where does language come from?  I know you're going to say evolution, and then I'm going to remind you that evolution doesn't follow from your theory, that you have to assume it. And then once you assume it, you contradict your statement that only consciousness exists.

[Cosmin Visan]

It's late here and I'm going to sleep. But I will add just one point. As I mentioned earlier, the definition that I'm giving for "existence" is the looking-back-at-itself of self-reference, through which self-reference finds objects in itself and identifies with those objects. "Existence" is basically that property that makes things with definite properties: red is red, sweet is sweet, etc. So it is a rather precise definition. Nevertheless, self-reference itself is unformalizable. Self-reference neither exists nor not-exists. And depending on what other characteristics this peculiar state of affairs fully entails that consciousness later on displays on its own certain characteristics, including evolution that might not necessarily be part of consciousness per se. This is where the difficulties lie: in understanding what unformal entities actually can do, what kind of powers do they have.

[Cosmin Visan]

So indeed, only consciousness exists. But there "are" other entities that are unformalizable that have effects on existing entities. Is not a contradiction what I'm saying. Is just how reality is.

[Terren Suydam]

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 5:57 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

the definition that I'm giving for "existence" is the looking-back-at-itself of self-reference, through which self-reference finds objects in itself and identifies with those objects. "Existence" is basically that property that makes things with definite properties: red is red, sweet is sweet, etc. So it is a rather precise definition.

I don't think 'precise' means what you think it means.

 

Nevertheless, self-reference itself is unformalizable. Self-reference neither exists nor not-exists.

The first sentence is false. And the second sentence is neither true nor false. It is meaningless.

 

And depending on what other characteristics this peculiar state of affairs fully entails that consciousness later on displays on its own certain characteristics, including evolution that might not necessarily be part of consciousness per se. This is where the difficulties lie: in understanding what unformal entities actually can do, what kind of powers do they have.

I can't make any sense out of this. 

Look, I think you made some progress when you gave a prediction. It really crystallizes your ideas. I now know that you really mean it when you say the physical world doesn't exist. You think that a dog will spontaneously create the ability to see color when it's starving to death. I think that's absurd. Would you be willing to place an actual bet with me on that, say $100?  We can figure out later how to settle the bet in a way that doesn't involve killing a dog... I would just like to know you're willing to put your money where your mouth is.

You also never answered my question about where language comes from. 

 

On Wednesday, 1 May 2019 23:00:30 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

 And then once you assume it, you contradict your statement that only consciousness exists.

--

[Terren Suydam]

This reveals that you confuse the map with the territory. You don't get to excuse contradictions in your theory by saying, that's just how reality is.

If you're saying the only thing exists is consciousness, that's an idea, a map. Then, there are consequences to that idea - as you flesh out your ideas, you complicate your map. Once in a while, hopefully, you look up from your map and ask, "does this map accurately describe reality?" But if there's a big hole in your map, you don't get to say, well, reality has a big hole in it.

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 5:59 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

So indeed, only consciousness exists. But there "are" other entities that are unformalizable that have effects on existing entities. Is not a contradiction what I'm saying. Is just how reality is.

--

[Cosmin Visan]

On Thursday, 2 May 2019 15:32:43 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 5:57 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

the definition that I'm giving for "existence" is the looking-back-at-itself of self-reference, through which self-reference finds objects in itself and identifies with those objects. "Existence" is basically that property that makes things with definite properties: red is red, sweet is sweet, etc. So it is a rather precise definition.

I don't think 'precise' means what you think it means.

Yes, is does. Red is red 100%. Physics itself cannot obtain such precises measurements in its most state of the art experiments.

 

Nevertheless, self-reference itself is unformalizable. Self-reference neither exists nor not-exists.

The first sentence is false. And the second sentence is neither true nor false. It is meaningless.

I strongly recommend you, if not my book, then at least the "The Emergent Structure of Consciousness" and the "The Self-Referential Aspect of Consciousness" papers. Then you will understand what exactly is self-reference and why exactly the only way it can be described is that it neither exists nor not-exists. You can then even go on my latest paper "The Quale of Time" to see that time itself is also self-referential. How aware are you of Husserl's writings about the retentional nature of time ? If you are aware, then you would know that you can only get the retention if you are dealing with unformal dynamics.

Alternatively, you can read this article that some guy posted on Bernardo Kastrup "Metaphysical Speculations" group: https://sites.google.com/site/nondualistlogic/tetralemmic-polarity which also deals with similar indeas about unformality.

 

And depending on what other characteristics this peculiar state of affairs fully entails that consciousness later on displays on its own certain characteristics, including evolution that might not necessarily be part of consciousness per se. This is where the difficulties lie: in understanding what unformal entities actually can do, what kind of powers do they have.

I can't make any sense out of this. 

That's why I recommend you do some readings before. That's why papers are created: to give the information, and then discussion groups to discuss those informations. Otherwise, if you don't read the papers, you would live with the impression that people say random things on the discussion groups (clearly so really do say random things, like living AIs).

Look, I think you made some progress when you gave a prediction. It really crystallizes your ideas. I now know that you really mean it when you say the physical world doesn't exist. You think that a dog will spontaneously create the ability to see color when it's starving to death. I think that's absurd. Would you be willing to place an actual bet with me on that, say $100?  We can figure out later how to settle the bet in a way that doesn't involve killing a dog... I would just like to know you're willing to put your money where your mouth is.

Of course, but you would need precise conditions for that to happen. For example, you mention about colorblind in your last post. There are cases of colorblind synesthesists that see what they call "martian colors". Probably those "martian colors" are actually colors that normal people see, but they don't. Nevertheless, they are able to see them, not because "electromagnetic radiations excites cells in the eyes", but because meaning excites their consciousness. And when the meaning of letter A appears in their consciousness, that meaning will be seen as a "martian color". Colors are meaning, they have nothing to do with "electromagnetic radiation". So if a colorblind animal that is starving receives some meaning that can help him survive, he will see that meaning in colors. Cones and rodes in the eyes will only later on in his offsprings will appear in order probably to make the process of seeing colors more effectively, so that for example colors wouldn't have to appear anymore only when you are starving to death, but they should appear all the time, because they are good from an evolutionary point of view.

So go ahead, to that experiment, I'll give you that 100$. But if you don't subject the dog to real life-or-death situation I don't know how you will bring new qualia into his consciousness.

 

You also never answered my question about where language comes from. 

 

I also said that life-and-death evolutionary constraints might not be the only reasons qualia appear. After all, new qualia appear every moment of our lives. So there are some other things at work as well.

[Cosmin Visan]

I should emphasize a little more what life-or-death situation means for your dog experiment. If you somehow plan to make the colorblind dog starve to death and put in front of him food and expect him to see colors and eat the food, but in case he doesn't see colors you make a back-up plan of saving the dog, your experiment will not work, because you will not create a life-or-death situation, you will just create a life-or-life situation. The think about consciousness experiments is that they don't allow faking. So I'm really curious how you will design that experiment in order to not fake the workings of nature/consciousness.

[Terren Suydam]

I'm not going to read your articles or your book or watch your videos because you've given me no reason to spend my most precious resource, which is time. Perhaps I'm being closed-minded, but under the assumption that you want as many people to read and consider your ideas as possible, you may want to see my closed-mindedness as the kind of barrier you'll have to overcome with most people. For instance, one sure-fire way to turn people off is to tell them everything they know is wrong, and then offer them nothing useful in return. 

Regarding the dog, I would never run that specific experiment because it's unethical. There are potentially other ways to settle the bet, though. If we can generalize your prediction in a way you'd be ok with, then there's potentially other ways we can test it. How about: "conscious beings on the cusp of death will create new qualia in circumstances in which that qualia would enable them to survive." Do you accept that?

[Cosmin Visan]

On Saturday, 4 May 2019 17:54:03 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote:

I'm not going to read your articles or your book or watch your videos because you've given me no reason to spend my most precious resource, which is time. Perhaps I'm being closed-minded, but under the assumption that you want as many people to read and consider your ideas as possible, you may want to see my closed-mindedness as the kind of barrier you'll have to overcome with most people. For instance, one sure-fire way to turn people off is to tell them everything they know is wrong, and then offer them nothing useful in return. 

It is not the duty of the author to do psychoanalysis with people. The author only puts the truth out-there. Open minded people will read it. Close minded people will have to solve their psychological problems first.

Regarding the dog, I would never run that specific experiment because it's unethical. There are potentially other ways to settle the bet, though. If we can generalize your prediction in a way you'd be ok with, then there's potentially other ways we can test it. How about: "conscious beings on the cusp of death will create new qualia in circumstances in which that qualia would enable them to survive." Do you accept that?

Ok, and how do you generate the cusp of death ?

[Terren Suydam]

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 12:56 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

Regarding the dog, I would never run that specific experiment because it's unethical. There are potentially other ways to settle the bet, though. If we can generalize your prediction in a way you'd be ok with, then there's potentially other ways we can test it. How about: "conscious beings on the cusp of death will create new qualia in circumstances in which that qualia would enable them to survive." Do you accept that?

Ok, and how do you generate the cusp of death ? 

The good news is that you and I don't have to. It happens in reality all the time. We just need to identify situations in which people or animals have survived because they were able to create new qualia, in a way that the null hypothesis wouldn't predict (like with your example with the dog). Alternatively, we can identify situations where people or animals did not survive but could have if they were able to create the qualia necessary... in which case your prediction would be disproven. 

For example, dogs are still color blind. Why is that?  It's certainly the case that probably millions, even hundreds of millions of dogs have starved to death throughout history. It doesn't seem likely that your scenario has never come up in all of those cases. I'm sure there's been blind people who've starved to death because they couldn't locate food that might have been available to them if only they could see. Why didn't they create that qualia?  For that matter, take every human that ever starved to death. Why didn't they create the qualia of being nourished by dirt?

Terren

[Brent Meeker]

What is this "saving the dog".  The dog will create the qualia of color
and so will not starve.

Brent

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/4/2019 7:53 AM, Terren Suydam wrote:
> I'm not going to read your articles or your book or watch your videos
> because you've given me no reason to spend my most precious resource,
> which is time. Perhaps I'm being closed-minded, but under the
> assumption that you want as many people to read and consider your
> ideas as possible, you may want to see my closed-mindedness as the
> kind of barrier you'll have to overcome with most people. For
> instance, one sure-fire way to turn people off is to tell them
> everything they know is wrong, and then offer them nothing useful in
> return.
>
> Regarding the dog, I would never run that specific experiment because
> it's unethical. There are potentially other ways to settle the bet,
> though. If we can generalize your prediction in a way you'd be ok
> with, then there's potentially other ways we can test it. How about:
> "conscious beings on the cusp of death will create new qualia in
> circumstances in which that qualia would enable them to survive." Do
> you accept that?

I suggest we see whether Cosmin can create the qualia of seeing gamma
rays.  It would a useful sense around a nuclear reactor.

Brent

[Cosmin Visan]

Here is an example of a fascinating qualia generation that helped him survive a car accident:

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1wilson_fde.html

[Terren Suydam]

So you're counting this anecdote as evidence for your theory?

Is this what you mean by evolution, that the author of that story evolved to experience new qualia in the form of a reality-selecting extra-dimensional universe-sized roulette wheel, and it's this evolution that enabled him to survive?

Why did it take all of human history for someone to evolve to see that?  Seems like that would have come in handy billions of times in the past. If you say that such people don't pass down to future generations the ability to see the roulette wheel of destiny, then you can hardly call it evolution.

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 6:16 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Here is an example of a fascinating qualia generation that helped him survive a car accident:

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1wilson_fde.html

--

[Brent Meeker]

What I wonder is how do these new qualia get passed on to his progeny, since DNA doesn't exist.

Brent

[Cosmin Visan]

Probably the same way memories from past lives are past on through reincarnation.

[Terren Suydam]

I love how you use scare quotes around the word "science" and constantly remind us that the brain doesn't exist, and you dismiss correlations between brain activity and subjective experience.

But reincarnation and telepathy are just givens, to be accepted as real with no caveats whatsoever.

--

[Brent Meeker]

First, that's one-to-one and so inconsistent with almost everyone having the same range of qualia.

Second, I don't have any memory of past lives, nor does anyone I know.  But they all report about the same range of qualia.

Brent

--

[Cosmin Visan]

Of course they are givens. It is not my fault that you cherry-pick what to believe in, against all evidence.

[Terren Suydam]

Givens?  You have proof of reincarnation and telepathy?  This is news to me. Over a thousand people took James Randi's million dollar challenge but nobody got the money. Would love to see your evidence.

On the other hand, quite a few counter-intuitive things have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt through the scientific enterprise. Gravitational lensing is an example of something that proves the highly counter-intuitive theory of general relativity. According to you though, general relativity can be dismissed, but reincarnation cannot. Does evidence count for anything?

Terren

[John Clark]

On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 11:23 AM 'Cosmin Visan'  <everyth...@googlegroups.com>

> you cherry-pick what to believe in, against all evidence.

So says the man who doesn't believe that computers or brains or atoms or even calculations exist, but does believe that reincarnation and telepathy does. I haven't heard your views on spoon bending, flying saucer men armed with anal probes, ghosts, bigfoot, virgin birth or astrology yet but I can make a educated guess.

 John K Clark

[Cosmin Visan]

Sorry mate, your ignorance is not a substitute for lack of evidence. Here it is a cure for ignorance: http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

Regarding Randi, lol, haven't you already figured it out that he is a charlatan ?

[Terren Suydam]

I know a charlatan when I see one. They tend to make claims that can't be verified and resort to emotional arguments and other rhetorical tricks to influence people. 

To your credit, you did manage to finally come up with a prediction, which puts you on the same level as someone who accepted Randi's challenge. Your prediction - that conscious beings will spontaneously create qualia that can save their lives, and then pass that ability on to other consciousnesses, is not just absurd but demonstrably false: why do so many people die of carbon monoxide poisoning?  Your prediction means people would create new qualia that allows them to detect it and live another day - and then this trait would be passed on somehow. But here we are, nobody can detect it and as a result, many people die every year. 

[Terren Suydam]

Also, I brought up carbon monoxide poisoning a couple weeks ago, and you had nothing to say about creating qualia back then. I suspect you're just making it up as you go.

[Cosmin Visan]

And ? What about the evidence that I gave you ? You are just ignoring it ?

[Terren Suydam]

There are suggestive studies. My mind is open to the possibility of paranormal phenomena. But it hasn't been proven beyond any reasonable standard of proof. It is certainly not a "given" that telepathy and reincarnation are real.

Your turn. Is the theory of general relativity true?  I know your answer. And the fact that you consider telepath and reincarnation to be ideas to take more seriously than general relativity tells me what I need to know.

You also ignored my point about how carbon monoxide deaths disprove your prediction.

On Mon, May 6, 2019 at 12:18 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

And ? What about the evidence that I gave you ? You are just ignoring it ?

--

[Cosmin Visan]

Of course GR is false since it is just a conceptual construct in consciousness that will continue to be replaced by other conceptual constructs along the centuries until a final theory will come up that will talk directly about red is red. That will be the end point because red will not be anymore a conceptual construct, but an element of reality.

Telepathy and recincarnation on the other hand are true because they are phenomena directly related to consciousness. It might seem "impossible" to you because you have an upside down logic in which you start from an invented "physical world" in which beings are "bodies separated spatially" and of course that from that fantasy that you create it seems impossible for the "soul" to move to another "body separated spatially". But once you use the problem downside up logic, you realize that consciousness is all there is so there are no more "bodies". There being no more bodies, there would be no "soul" to move from one "body" to another. It will just be the same consciousnesses that experiences different qualia. And the experience of different qualia is the most mundane phenomena that there can be.

Regarding you carbon monoxide, I already told you that evolutionary reasons for qualia generation is only part of the mechanism, since there are also new qualia that we experience each moment of our lives that clearly don't appear as a consequence of life-or-death situation. If you want to hear the magic words, here they are: I don't know how qualia are generated.

[Terren Suydam]

You have at best an incomplete theory of how things work, if you don't know how qualia are generated. Which means, for starters, you can't stand behind the prediction you made. But more to the point, what are you even doing here?  Maybe you should pivot into selling cars without engines, or houses without roofs. I don't know how you can be so certain you're right when you don't even know how your theory works.

Terren

[Terren Suydam]

[Cosmin Visan]

I don't even know what you think my theory is. Can you enlighten me ? What is my theory ?

[Terren Suydam]

That's your job, not mine. 

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[Cosmin Visan]

Then how can you say anything about my theory if you don't know what my theory is ?

[Terren Suydam]

When you admit to not knowing how a crucial part of your theory works, it's impossible for me to know your theory, because you don't even know it. 

Don't get me wrong. It's important, and good, to say "I don't know". However, that one moment of intellectual humility, however praise-worthy, gets drowned out by the unearned certainty you have in the rest of your theory, even insulting folks on this list for holding alternative positions to yours. 

So the problem isn't in saying "I don't know". It's in insisting you're right even when you know you don't know.

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[Cosmin Visan]

So according to you, there is no science, because we don't have all the answers. Nobody knows anything because nobody knows everything. Such logic, much wow!

[Terren Suydam]

Give me a break dude. The spirit of science is to say "I don't know". The scientific graveyard is littered with the bones of those who were certain about their theories. It demands intellectual humility.

That's the ironic thing. I'd have more respect for your ideas if you weren't so certain about them. 

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[Cosmin Visan]

You seem to know a lot about my ideas, without even having read them. So I ask you once again: what are my ideas ?