Philosophy split from a time-travel thread

[jinydu]

_quote: 'Such methods are more reliable and accurate than "non-objectivist methods". Thus, if they can be used, they should be used; and any conclusions drawn from them should override conclusions drawn from "non-objectivist methods". '

according to what value-system ? according to what order or hierarchy of importance ? according to usability ? use for what aims ? can you even ponder backwards ? your methodologics are unfounded. but keep it if you like it shaky (though i thought you don't).

How about rigor (which I think I've mentioned enough already) and progress? Scientific theories have vastly improved over the last 100 years. Can you say the same about the subjective ideas you seem so fond of? Can you honestly claim that the ideas you extoll, such as "endotime", are really any better than what was available 10, 100 or even 1000 years ago? I think not. Why? Because such ideas are too vague and non-physical to be proven or refuted. I can spend the rest of my wrestling with unanswerable questions, or I can devote my time to displicines where real achievements are possible.

how old are you, btw ? (just curious.)

18

_quote: 'It is also true that scientific discoveries have been misused, but the fault lies not with science, but with human flaws. After all, it is politicians who order bombings, not scientists.'

i don't want to believe you are authentic and serious with this. after all, without bombings invented, noone could order them, right ? the bombings (which is anyway not what i had in mind primarily when accusing western indo-european tradition of logocentrism&nihilism) didn't invent themselves, or self-assembled.
you cannot be serious, you surely are kidding us and yourself as well. i would never say you're sucha tricksta. :wink:

Admittedly, I did oversimplify the situation. When I said "scientists", I had in mind the people doing fundamental research, as opposed to the people applying fundamental research to develop weapons.

[thigle]

though i took it to other thread, i just react to the following:

how about rigor (which I think I've mentioned enough already) and progress? Scientific theories...vastly improved over the last 100 years. Can you say the same about the subjective ideas you seem so fond of? Can you honestly claim that the ideas you extoll, such as "endotime", are really any better than what was available 10, 100 or even 1000 years ago? I think not. Why? Because such ideas are too vague and non-physical to be proven or refuted. I can spend the rest of my wrestling with unanswerable questions, or I can devote my time to displicines where real achievements are possible.

rigor is not a qualifier that satisfies wholly. it also shares root with rigidity.
i am not fond of subjective ideas. i find them applicable, and i cannot help you with your inability to discern the inner act.
btw, you really wanna claim the existence of 'objective ideas' ? you are getting Platonic

and again, endotime is not mine idea. it's hard to try to explain to uninformed uniterested, or unaware, sometimes consequentially even rigidly biased. endotime is a fact. it is observable. just be aware of the changes in your internalTime modalities.

jinydu ! all the 'objective knowledge' is ...
1. thought
2. expressed
3. applied...
by SUBJECTS !!!!!

it is YOU that is doing the 'objective' research (that surely is not 'fundamental' as long as it is dualistic), it is thousands of subjects of this civilisation, across the time and space that we spent/spanned here on this planet, that encountered, held, understood and transmitted the 'objective knowledge' (you are so fond of) subjectively. objectivity is subjective agreement for God's or math's or whatehaveyou's sake !

while mine argument for equality of subjective & objective approaches and a quest for no-objectifying modalities of knowledge is well founded on HUNDREDS of books of 'rigorous' thinkers, your argument for objectivity is just a personal preference for certain set of values and "I think not" statement, driven by unconscious cultural formatting you underwent while you grow up and interact socially.
objectivity is subject-dependent in any case, the moment YOU even start to defend it, YOU defeat it. you and objectivity cannot do without the other. subject & object arise co-dependently, mutually, interdependently, whatwantyou.

why i beat the drums is that there IS a possibility of nondual science of wisdom. because the science you defend might have progressed, might be rigorous. but surely it is not wise. i might accept that it is knowable. but knowledge and wisdom are not the same my friend. until the science you overestimate will grow to maturity, it will stay adolescent, however much it has 'progressed' (where from and where to ?)

and the vagueness and non-physicality of the subjective ? well, it might seem so to "rigor" habituated minds, untrained to penetrate the inner darkness towards the inner light (without which your objectivity would not be possible in the first place). but there is softness under that. the subjective worlds of experience all possess the SAME general qualities for anyone. they are real exactly as subjective. that doesn't mean we have to take solipsistic stance towards their exploration. what you find in 'your' world is comparable, testable and observable in other's subjective worlds. the exclusion of subjective out of the focus of the 'science' is anyway falling off soon like a ripe fruit - simply because it unnecessary. it is feeded on the ground of scientists' and academia's fear of the encounter with their own Selves.

do you even know what sub.ject & ob.ject mean ? from latin sub.jicere is to 'throw under' while ob.ject is then to 'throw before', in front of, over.
do you know that before the renaissance, the meaning of these 2 words was swapped ? what we today label 'ob.ject' meant what we consider 'sub.ject' and vice versa. do you realise the consequences ?

there is not true objectivity without subjectivity, nor the other way around. subject-object is a single structure ! know it right from the beginning.

[jinydu]

You seem to enjoy using the word "modality" a lot, even though it is is common in neither everyday speech nor science. In fact, I don't recall hearing it from anyone but you. Care to define it without using more alien words?

Objective research is done by subjective minds, but this obstacle is overcome by the use of universal facts and methods, such as the distributive property of real numbers and the replication of experiments, to choose two very different examples. Objective science is very mature already; it is able a vast number of phenomena using a comparatively small number of principles; and it grows more mature every day.

This "inner light" and "inner darkness" you speak of... Can you measure it? Can you explain where it comes from? Can you make falsifiable predictions about it, and then carry out experiments to test these predictions? If someone else carries out exactly the same experiment, will he obtain exactly the same results? No? Then, the (mis)quote Einstein: "I am not interested in it".

In any case, you still haven't answered the question I posed earlier: Can you honestly claim that there has been any progress in "subjective research" in the last 1000 years? I think the answer is no. Why? Because the answer to at least one of the questions in the previous paragraph is no.

[thigle]

jin, you seem to use your unfamiliarity with words as argument against them. play with languague, play with formalisms, understand what words are..

'modality' is so much used, i won't even be explaining it. just try for exemple wikipedia on modal logic.

on the maturity of the science i wrote what i had to.

This "inner light" and "inner darkness" you speak of... Can you measure it? Can you explain where it comes from? Can you make falsifiable predictions about it, and then carry out experiments to test these predictions?

measuring is inadequate method. simple experience is enough to understand and learn how to access. imagine, will into your inner vision, whatever you want. now observe this image. what is it made of ? how big is it ? what is its space where it is embedded ? what is its source. can you approach it ?
or are you trying to tell me that you suffer imaginal blindness ? never dream ? that you cannot imagine ? that there is not this activity repeatedly observable across millions of subjects, the clarity of mind ? surely, this shine is not seen by those who don't know how to look, but it is observable by anyone who dares and learns how to turn his mind inside-out. you ask me where does it come from ? look and find out for yourself what is the source of this image.

If someone else carries out exactly the same experiment, will he obtain exactly the same results? No?

not 'No', but a big YES. if you never try, so yo never know. millions of people accross the world agree, not because they measure (what they experience), but because they all have this same internal structuring of their minds/experience, timing proceses themselves.

actually, production is neither understanding nor discovey

[PWrong]

Modal logic is just another form of logic. A square means "necessarily", and a diamond means "possibly". It's very similar to the logic used in maths, with the back-to-front E for "there exists", and the upside-down A for "for all". But modal logic can be translated into any other form of logic, so it doesn't have any relevence to the topic.

btw, you really wanna claim the existence of 'objective ideas' ? you are getting Platonic

I like Plato's ideas, but I don't see why his objective ideas have to physically exist. Why not consider them as a kind of average over all the physical objects? Any subjective truth is an approximation to some hypothetical objective truth. When we combine an infinite number of subjective truths, we obtain the total (unique and entirely self consistent) sum of possible knowledge. Obviously we can't do that, but by combining a very large number of scientists and experiments, we obtain theories that may very closely approximate the theory of everything.

not 'No', but a big YES. if you never try, so yo never know. millions of people accross the world agree, not because they measure (what they experience), but because they all have this same internal structuring of their minds/experience, timing proceses themselves.

So this "internal structuring" is the same for everyone, yet it determines everything that we experience. Are you suggesting that, not only is the universe a figment of my imagination, but everyone else is imagining exactly the same thing?

[thigle]

exemple of modal logic was given not due to its direct relevance to the topic, but as a stepping stone for jinydu, who asked about 'modality' as if that was some obscure word.

btw, you really wanna claim the existence of 'objective ideas' ? you are getting Platonic

I like Plato's ideas, but I don't see why his objective ideas have to physically exist. Why not consider them as a kind of average over all the physical objects? Any subjective truth is an approximation to some hypothetical objective truth. When we combine an infinite number of subjective truths, we obtain the total (unique and entirely self consistent) sum of possible knowledge. Obviously we can't do that, but by combining a very large number of scientists and experiments, we obtain theories that may very closely approximate the theory of everything.

as for the Plato's ideas: i didn't claim they have to physically exist. 'objective' doesn't equal 'physical'. a good one on Plato's misunderstanding of Ideas is http://archonic.net/ia00V03.pdf especially watch the sequence Archetype>Essence>NoematicNucleus>Idea.

So this "internal structuring" is the same for everyone, yet it determines everything that we experience. Are you suggesting that, not only is the universe a figment of my imagination, but everyone else is imagining exactly the same thing?

a certain range of similarity of our minds is surely due to the collective karma we all bear: we have the same material organisation of our bodies, we are the same species. also we share the same space-time location: we are all currently at this planet, right ?
i am not suggesting idealistic or romantic possibility. universe IS NOT a figment of your imagination.
but the way you PERCEIVE this universe surely IS. perception is imagination, spirit is the body.

[jinydu]

exemple of modal logic was given not due to its direct relevance to the topic, but as a stepping stone for jinydu, who asked about 'modality' as if that was some obscure word.

I'm a second-year student at a strong university with above average grades. If I've never heard of a word before, I think it's safe to say that it is fairly obscure (except when it relates to things like pop culture; I admit I know little about that :wink: ). In fact, I'm quite sure that most professors wouldn't know it either.

measuring is inadequate method. simple experience is enough to understand and learn how to access. imagine, will into your inner vision, whatever you want. now observe this image. what is it made of ? how big is it ? what is its space where it is embedded ? what is its source. can you approach it ?
or are you trying to tell me that you suffer imaginal blindness ? never dream ? that you cannot imagine ? that there is not this activity repeatedly observable across millions of subjects, the clarity of mind ? surely, this shine is not seen by those who don't know how to look, but it is observable by anyone who dares and learns how to turn his mind inside-out. you ask me where does it come from ? look and find out for yourself what is the source of this image.

They come from electrical and chemical activity in my nervous system. If I want the details, I can ask a neuroscientist. Unlike those who have spent enormous amounts of time staring at their "inner light", they actually have some results to show for all their effort.

[bo198214]

They come from electrical and chemical activity in my nervous system. If I want the details, I can ask a neuroscientist.

Jinydu! How can you seriously state that!? I mean its ok, that you feel save in the scientific community but that shouldnt stop your own thinking. ("A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." Its a statement of Max Planck and shows how safe scientific views are. )

Hear, consciousness you cant measure. And thats not because its too vague or complex, but its because the only consciousness you can be scientificly sure of is your own. You cannot state about other consciousnesses because the only thing you can measure is their objective realizations (reactions, bio-currents, ct images, etc), not the quality of perceiving or will (whats the essence of consciousness).

Thatswhy there exists a subdivision in psychology, that is called behaviourism. It assumes that there is no consciousness in the objects of observation (i.e. animals or humans) but every insight is to be gained by measuring input output. (That this view outside the science would be an ethic desaster I probably dont need to mention.) But behaviourism is the only scientific possibility to approach consciousness.

Though its a quite tricky and interesting philosophical problem I am very inclined to, I stop here.

[thigle]

hey bo nice to come across someone skilled so well in such a rational technology (as math is) that it allows him to write such delis as 4dBuildingBlocks and still be enlightened enough to be aware of the substrate that allows not only the wholeness of rationality.

still, i strongly disagree with some of your claims on behavioralism. but if you'd like to discuss it, there's this thread http://tetraspace.alkaline.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=464 in Q&A section, where we can discuss such things without making general impression of 'spoiling' (the 'scientifically rigorous' ) landscapes of math with conceptual dreaming.

btw, anyone can help me with php syntax ? how can I enter a hyperlink with a name different from its webadress ? (for exemple i would like to name the above link by its thread name instead of what it's now.)

[houserichichi]

On this site you can type (changing { } to [ ])

{url=http://www.site.com}what the link itself will look like{/url}

which, would make what I just wrote above look exactly like this:

what the link itself will look like

Feel free to delete this post when it's no longer needed.

[bo198214]

@house Do you advertise Site Services Inc? *rofl* (just clicked the link and indeed it was a valid site! *lol*)

@thigle Ok, then do it. Whats behaviourism about?

[thigle]

@house: thanxalot :wink: . but i don't know how to delete your post.
if you can do so, you can delete my question as well as your answer, and i will then edit this post and remove this paragraph. but all can stay for sake of someonelse's reference.

@Jinydu,

''They come from electrical and chemical activity in my nervous system. If I want the details, I can ask a neuroscientist.'

do you think, that with a detailed analysis, of let's say material structure of the water, down to the tiniest figments of its discernible materiality (before the scale takes you through openess of discontinuity), as well as with explanation of its hydrodynamics, as well as with its frequency of occurence in this universe, ...would that give you understanding of what it is like for a human to drink water and quench thirst with it ?
or if a similar exposition of let's say fire would be at-hand, would that make it possible for you anyhow to know what it is like when human contacts it physically ?

do you see ? any descriptional/formal systeming of any phenomena can not but give only a formal understanding.
which surely ain't more than 1/3 of completeness.

details of the abstraction called "brain", however refined analysis you carry out, won't explain... for exemple your free will. learn to discern NAMES & THINGS (i think Foucalt or Derrida or some post-modern french philosopher wrote a book on this) :wink:

or better still, try this one: 'Book of Stones: NAMES, NATURES & THINGS', Kitab Al Ahjar, Kluwer Academic Press 1994.

[PWrong]

I'm a second-year student at a strong university with above average grades. If I've never heard of a word before, I think it's safe to say that it is fairly obscure (except when it relates to things like pop culture; I admit I know little about that ). In fact, I'm quite sure that most professors wouldn't know it either.

I have to disagree with you there. I suspect that many second year arts students would recognise those words, especially if they study philosophy. Just because we're physicists/mathematicians, it doesn't mean any word we don't recognise is meaningless. They're no more obscure than, say, "wavefunction".

do you think, that with a detailed analysis, of let's say material structure of the water, down to the tiniest figments of its discernible materiality (before the scale takes you through openess of discontinuity), as well as with explanation of its hydrodynamics, as well as with its frequency of occurence in this universe, ...would that give you understanding of what it is like for a human to drink water and quench thirst with it ?

Your analogy falls down because you're bringing in humans where they don't belong. What you're really saying is, given a complete understanding of one thing (i.e. water), and a complete lack of understanding of another thing (i.e. human taste), there is no way to know how the two things interact (i.e. drinking and quenching thirst). You're making the assumption that we know nothing about the human brain. So your argument has no relevence to Jinydu's argument, which starts with the assumption that neuroscientists do know something about the human brain. If you disagree with that assumption, you'll have to argue with a neuroscientist.

Thigle, you claim that measuring is inadequate. But you haven't really explained why. Are they any less trustworthy than your eyes? Experiments are designed to measure things to a greater accuracy than we can ourselves. In this respect, they do exactly what they're supposed to do. So what's the problem?

Hear, consciousness you cant measure. And thats not because its too vague or complex, but its because the only consciousness you can be scientificly sure of is your own.

You're not scientifically sure of your own consciousness at all. Scientifically speaking, you don't even know what consciousness is. Without a definition, consciousness has no meaning, and noone has it. On the other hand, if you had a strict definition, then you could be sure. But you could just as easily apply that definition to another person.

[bo198214]

What you're really saying is, given a complete understanding of one thing (i.e. water), and a complete lack of understanding of another thing (i.e. human taste), there is no way to know how the two things interact (i.e. drinking and quenching thirst). You're making the assumption that we know nothing about the human brain.

No, I dont think thats that what thigle really says (at least not what I say ). It has nothing to do with the deepness of understanding. It are simply two different things, seeing how one drinks a bottle water and looks satisfied after that and do it yourself. So to say the one is seeing from the outside and the other from the inside. By looking and experimenting on the outside (for example manipulating the brain) you can only look in the inside for yourself (i.e. if you manipulate your own brain). An inside of others you only can assume. But for example you can never verify if someone feels pain when he smiles. You can only measure their nervous activities and so on, compare with your own. And thinking oh, they are quite similar to my own perception if I perceive joy, so probably this human also perceives joy.

But you also know the whole debate about artificial intelligence - the turing test. So it may be possible that all data you get, points to existence of a human being on the other end of the line, but indeed there is only a computer program (of which one would assume that it has no perceptions/feeling at all).

To carry it to the extremes: Even if you would completely know a certain human being, where completely means: you can predict every reaction of that being, according to what situation you put it in; you know nothing about how it perceives or feels.

Without a definition, consciousness has no meaning

Consciousness is wholeness of what one perceives or feels.

But you can see also my thread non-dimensional beeing & consciousness where I point out the relations between subjectiveness and objectiveness as I see it (and as I recently read in that paper of Saul-Paul Sirag, Descartes and others similarely started with the own awareness).

[thigle]

i agree with bo. my exemple was indeed intended to discern the names/descriptions from the actual manifestations. states,applications,eventities,instantatons... all differ from experience-as-such.
similarly there's difference between objectifying~figurative~re-presentational~de-scriprive art and non-objectifying~abstract art in that the latter evokes&opens while the other delimits. (well this is admittedly simplified, but serves to get the point)
similarly there's this ancient debate between 'statics' & 'fluxers' as i call them, but it's just 2 different views on time: diachronic and synchronic or you can call it abstract/circular & specific/linear. Heraclitus ('all is flux') / Parmenides (static being). Being & Becoming, structure / process.
time as sequence or circular time as feedbackings - circular structures running on the flow of linear time.
in architecture this distinction is often behind the dialectics of form/function or structure/programme.
etc,etc,...

Without a definition, consciousness has no meaning

Consciousness is wholeness of what one perceives or feels.

exactly. 'consciousness' is in western indo-european tradition a term for Being of beings, with focus on its aspect of presence. con-sciousness in this sense is co-presence, is the ideal movement - the gathering roundance. such a consciousness = 'Being(focus on:presence)'. consciousness i then awareness of being aware.

the true body is the spirit. and imagination is the burning glue that flickers, its shine .

subjectiveness and objectiveness are both internal manifestations of energy - they are both '-jections'.

[bo198214]

subjectiveness and objectiveness are both internal manifestations of energy - they are both '-jections'.

I take the pro
(-jections).
Anybody wants to have the in
(-jections)?
And have you some con, ahm conjectures ... :?

[thigle]

i wanna more in(-jections) :twisted:

please i don't understand what you mean by con-jectures. some knowledge that diffuses the duality of pro/in ? some syntheses, con-clusions ?

[jinydu]

I'm a second-year student at a strong university with above average grades. If I've never heard of a word before, I think it's safe to say that it is fairly obscure (except when it relates to things like pop culture; I admit I know little about that ). In fact, I'm quite sure that most professors wouldn't know it either.

I have to disagree with you there. I suspect that many second year arts students would recognise those words, especially if they study philosophy. Just because we're physicists/mathematicians, it doesn't mean any word we don't recognise is meaningless. They're no more obscure than, say, "wavefunction".

Ok, perhaps I wasn't clear enough with my use of the word "obscure". I meant words that a large majority of the general population wouldn't know about. So according to my intended definition, the word "wavefunction" is obscure.

Also, I have heard of behaviorism as part of a Psychology course I took in high school. It was the dominant paradigm in psychology during the early part of the 20th century and featured concepts such as operant conditioning (discovered and tested experimentally by B.F. Skinner):

If an organism is reinforced (either through the addition of positive stimuli or the removal of negative stimuli) for an action, it will be more likely to repeat that action in the future.

If an organism is punished (either through the addition of negative stimuli or the removal of positive stimuli) for an action, it will be less likely to repeat that action in the future.

Simply put, behaviorism focused on (objective and observable) behavior rather than the "mind", which was regarded as a black box. In the mid-twentieth century, it fell out of favor because: 1) Advances in a field called cognitive science (which can be studied scientifically) made it possible to develop and test hypotheses about mental processes such as memory and 2) Advances in medicine and imaging technology made it possible to study the brain directly.

[bo198214]

1) Advances in a field called cognitive science (which can be studied scientifically) made it possible to develop and test hypotheses about mental processes such as memory and 2) Advances in medicine and imaging technology made it possible to study the brain directly.

I again have the impression that you dont hear me. I said in my previous post

To carry it to the extremes: Even if you would completely know a certain human being, where completely means: you can predict every reaction of that being, according to what situation you put it in; you know nothing about how it perceives or feels.

If you dont agree, then explain. But to ignore such an obvious contradiction with your statements helps in no way. And it reduces my joy and willingness of discussing such an in itself interesting topic.

[thigle]

even under the label of cognitive sciences, a lot of sub-disciplines are hidden.
not all cognitive scientists would agree that one can understand consciousness from analysis (however refined) of brain(as the material sub-system of organisms that seems to be the substrate of 'mental processes').

behind such an approach, an (un?)conscious presupposition(opinion,doxa) is operating, specifically that:
consciousness arises from matter.

which is nothing but a reductive materialistic myth. or dream ?

[jinydu]

behind such an approach, an (un?)conscious presupposition(opinion,doxa) is operating, specifically that:
consciousness arises from matter.

which is nothing but a reductive materialistic myth. or dream ?

It is certainly not a myth; it is the logical conclusion of centuries of science. Other than a visceral dislike of the idea, you have not given any actual evidence that this is not the case.

However, I will acknowledge that although "consciousness" ultimately comes from matter, it may not be practical to explain it using say, the Schrodinger Equation because the equations would be far too complicated to solve. Furthermore, when a system is made up of a very large number of particles, it may exhibit emergent properties, that is, properties that were not obvious for systems with a small number of particles, but could still be derived, in principle, from more fundamental laws given sufficient effort. An example is statiscal mechanics and the Boltzmann distribution.

[jinydu]

it is the logical conclusion of centuries of science

I gave you hard arguments, why consciousness cannot concluded by observation (i.e. objective methods) and got no answer.
To continue path of ignorance is your choice.

Admittedly, you have a point there. I should have read your post first.

To carry it to the extremes: Even if you would completely know a certain human being, where completely means: you can predict every reaction of that being, according to what situation you put it in; you know nothing about how it perceives or feels.

If by reaction, you mean behavior, I would say that you still don't completely know the human being. That would require knowing, for instance, the physical properties of his brain. Although it is probably impractical to build a machine capable of predicting complex patterns of human behavior, this is due to the inherent impossibility of doing so, but rather because the computations would be prohibitively complicated. Still, there has been some progress. For instance, it is possible, using real-time brain scans, to predict that a person will move his hand a second before he does so.

[bo198214]

I said, *assume* one could do it, even then you dont know about the perception/feeling of the person. If you cannot do it, of course you especially dont know about the perception/feeling.

Next argument: If consciousness would arise from matter, and you want scientificly prove that, then you should have a definition of consciousness that is verifyable with scientific methods. So I could give you an arbitrary physical system and you say me if it has consciousness or not. So what is your definition of consciousness? (Waiting for the one of PWrong too)
And how do you prove that for example the human brain has consciousness?
If you can not do so, then you cannot prove that consciousness arises from matter. Or what should "conclude by the history of science" mean?

[jinydu]

Admittedly, I am not well-informed enough to give a precise definition of consciousness. But claiming that consciousness doesn't come from matter but instead from "spirit" or something along those lines is thoroughly unhelpful because:

1) It does not lend itself to scientific study: that is, you can't form precise, testable hypotheses that can be verified or disproven by experiment, and

2) It doesn't tell you anything about consciousness, any more than claiming that cars are powered by "automotive force" tells you how engines work.

[thigle]

dual mindframes cling to flip from one extreme to another: that consciousness doesn't arise from 'matter' doesnt imply that matter arises from consciousness(which ~not to spirit).

brain is a technology of consciousness, it is the trace of it's past habits.

...it is possible, using real-time brain scans, to predict that a person will move his hand a second before he does so....

even if we measure that a person will move his hand before he even gets to know he should do so, we still cannot explain his WILL, the autonomy of the autopoietic living systems, operating via 'enaction' - embodied cognition.

we dont necessarily have to choose body or mind, matter or spirit, void or light. for are my mind & body same or different ? neither both, nor none.

spirit IS body

[jinydu]

even if we measure that a person will move his hand before he even gets to know he should do so, we still cannot explain his WILL, the autonomy of the autopoietic living systems, operating via 'enaction' - embodied cognition.

The second part of that sentence (from the word "autopoietic" onwards) is apparently incomprehensible; but regarding the first part, what more do you want? A pulse of electric and chemical activity flows through a certain part of his brain, therefore he has an apparent "will" to move his hand. What more of an explanation do you need?

2) It doesn't tell you anything about consciousness, any more than claiming that cars are powered by "automotive force" tells you how engines work.

spirit IS body

Case and point.

[bo198214]

Your thinking is a bit like this: "Science has given us so much, is so exact, can explain so much things in a reliable way. Who says that it can not do so with consciousness?! There is nothing mysterious about consciousness, so science will tackle it."
And probably most of the neuroscientist share those thoughts with you.

Nonetheless it is no strict reasoning at all. I gave various thought experiments that show the inherent contradictions in this assumptions. And it also seems to me that you have never thought in depth (and especially strictness) about the relations of subjectivity and objectivity (what is objective, what is subjective, what is scientific). You simply follow the mainstream assumptions of the (neuro)scientific community.

So maybe we can agree upon that it is an unproven assumption of you that consciousness arises from matter (I of course would go a step farther and say it is not provable with objective methods - as I already explained.)

But claiming that consciousness doesn't come from matter but instead from "spirit" or something along those lines

Its no question of decision. You can simply say, you dont know. (Its of course not that striking as "I know the truth." But what of both applies to you?)

[PWrong]

Next argument: If consciousness would arise from matter, and you want scientificly prove that, then you should have a definition of consciousness that is verifyable with scientific methods. So I could give you an arbitrary physical system and you say me if it has consciousness or not. So what is your definition of consciousness? (Waiting for the one of PWrong too)
And how do you prove that for example the human brain has consciousness?
If you can not do so, then you cannot prove that consciousness arises from matter. Or what should "conclude by the history of science" mean?

I won't simply state my preffered definition immediately, because that definition would be completely arbitrary. For instance, I could "prove" that the human brain has consciousness, by defining consciousness to be "something the human brain has".

Instead, I'll try to create an "axiomatic basis" for consciousness, by listing a few important "axioms"-that is, statements that we assume to be either true or false for any sensible definition of consciousness. These are used in maths all the time, but they're also useful for this kind of thing. For instance, geometry has four axioms, but Euclidean geometry has a fifth, the "parallel postulate". Set theory has only two axioms. You can't prove axioms (if you do, it's no longer an axiom). If we have different axioms, we're not talking about the same thing.

Axiom 1: most human beings are conscious, when awake.
Alternative: The alternative would seem to imply that consciousness doesn't exist at all, except in entities whose existence is also questionable.

Axiom 2: there can be varying levels of consciousness. For instance, humans are in general "more conscious" than animals, and humans may be more conscious when sober than when drunk.
Alternative: consciousness is a more binary concept- you either have it or you don't.

Axiom 3: It is theoretically possible to write a computer program with consciousness.
Alternative: Even if a program appeared to be as conscious (or more!) than us, it wouldn't really be conscious.

Axiom 4: Given two objects that are physically/experimentally indistinguishable, either both are conscious, or both are not.
Alternative: It is (hypothetically possible) to create, say, an "unconscious" clone of a human being, or a conscious rock (assuming that the original human is conscious and rocks are unconscious).

There are several axioms we can make about what we require to be conscious. For instance, do you need senses to be conscious?

Axiom 5: A conscious entity requires input from outside sources.
Alternative: "I think therefore I am". A live human brain in a jar could be as conscious as anyone else.

Axiom 6: A conscious entity requires input from itself. So if you literally "can't hear yourself think", you're not conscious.
Alternative: Everytime you have an idea, you instantly forget it, but you're still conscious.

That should be enough for a while. So far, we have six axioms, giving 2^6 = 64 possible definitions of consciousness. Axioms 3 & 4 seem to be related, so it's possible we could reduce this to 32 or 48.

If it were up to me, I would assume axioms 1 to 4, and 6, but I'm not sure about 5. Which ones would you choose?

More importantly, does anyone have suggestions for more axioms, or can anyone prove one of my axioms from another?

[bo198214]

Obviously I can't state a definition immediately, because that definition would be completely arbitrary.

What I was awaiting from you, was however regarding:

Only psychologists and neuroscientists have anything to do with consciousness. And they use an strict but elegant definition of consciousness

what I asked you in nD epistemo-,onto-& methodo- logies and other meta-issue

But your answer helps anyway to show what I mean.
I was thinking in similar direction, but it is quite unsatisfactory.
Because even if some system obeys our axioms, we are still quite unsure whether it feels and perceives (what is at least my original definition, and it should at least approximated).

The normal scientific process is however: There are some phenomenons, I find laws for them, verify them and in the end I have a model and can make predictions.

And that is not possible with consciousness, by (my) definition the phenomenons only can verified with myself as object. Because the quality of feeling cannot be observed for others it can only observed for myself (by definition!).
And each objective definition of consciousness (i.e. by measured/observed phenomenons) just fails to catch the perceived quality.
You even can approximately measure for example the intensity of your feelings, but not for others. If others tell you their perceived intensities in experiments then you have a scientific study about their answers but not about their feelings. (seems pedantic, but strictness is appropriate here.)

So I always can have a model in which I assume that the object perceives something and a model in which I assume that it has no consciousness at all. It is undistinguishable by experiment.

So, we see when determining consciousness at least my own consciousness is in play. And so I came to the following (very vague) subjective method to verify whether something has consciousness or not:
Something has consciousness when I can extend my own consciousness (perception/feeling) by contacting it.
The result is anyway that nearly everything has consciousness (of course in different shades and intensities).
As I said its no objective but a subjective definition, so please all scientific wolfs bite someone else *ggg*.

[jinydu]

So maybe we can agree upon that it is an unproven assumption of you that consciousness arises from matter (I of course would go a step farther and say it is not provable with objective methods - as I already explained.

Sure, I would agree with that. And until the day comes when it is proven, I would prefer to live with a few working assumptions (I am conscious, most people are conscious, rocks aren't conscious) and move onto other questions.