Mind vs Matter: the Result of an Error of Thought

_{William Murray

June 10, 2019

Intelligent Design}

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(I think we’ve corrupted KF’s thread long enough.)

The entire problem of mind/matter dualism is rooted in a single error of thought: the reification of an abstract descriptive model of experience into an causal agency independent of the mind that conceives it and the mental experience it is extrapolated from. It is similar to the same error of thought that mistakes “forces” and “physical laws” and “energy” as independently existing causal agencies, when in fact they are abstract models of various mental experiences.

All experience and all thought about experience takes place in mind, regardless of whether or not it is caused by something external to mind. Therefore, “an external, physical world” is a mental abstraction about mental experiences. Insisting that the content of the abstraction is “real” is entirely irrelevant.

Since all we have to work from and with is mental experience and mental thoughts about mental experiences, mind is not only primary ontologically and epistemologically; it is ontologically and epistemologically exhaustive. Even if some non-mental, independent “secondary” aspect of our existential framework exists, we have no access to it nor any ability to use it. If some sort of independent physicality exists, it is therefore 100% ontologically and epistemologically irrelevent. The “external physical world” abstraction still lies within the ontological and epistemological framework of mind and it is all we can ever have access to or use.

In fact, once one understand this error of thought, the self-evidently true irrelevant nature of any supposed external world comes clearly into focus.

This error of thought has entrenched the idea of an external world as “real” so deeply into general psychology that it has contaminated thousands of years of thought. It has generated “the hard problem of consciousness” out of nothing but error. It has led to adoption of 3rd-layer abstractions about mental experience as having primacy over mental experience itself from which they are generated (much like insisting that one’s grandchild is one’s own father). It has generated an entirely false dependency on the “reality” of that abstract world in many philosophical lines of thought.

One such bizarre perspective it has generated is this: that if the external physical world doesn’t in fact exist (even though it is 100% irrelevant because it is 100% outside of our access), then mental experience – the ONLY kind of experience we actually have – is deemed “delusional,” when in fact “delusion” can factually only ever be a comparison between kinds of mental experiences and can never include any comparison to any supposed “external physical reality.” The idea that unless an actual external world exists we are doomed to delusion is entirely due to an error of thought. The delusion or reality value of anything can only ever be a comparison of kinds of mental experiences.

It gets worse. Non-materialists (people that are not materialists) insist that epistemological validity requires that some sort of external world exists independent of mind that can cause universal or near universal mental states in observers . It seems no one has figured out that if one insists that non-mental, independent external commodities can cause mental states, thoughts and experiences, they have just given up free will and have become an “in principle” materialist, consigning themselves to existence as caused automatons.

How would we determine what is an externally-caused mental state, thought or experience concerning free will and what is an independent free choice? Answer: as long as something external can cause mental states, there’s no way to know. As with materialism, even rationality is lost.

Comments

Does anyone know how WJM is doing? He hasn't posted since last June, and I greatly miss his input here.AnimatedDust_{January 16, 2020
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WJM, this was thoroughly thought provoking. I read it all to the bottom of the comments. I enjoyed it immensely. Will we be seeing something from you soon about the illusion of space and time? :)AnimatedDust_{August 14, 2019
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Let's boil it down. 1. You are conscious. 2. But wait, nobody can prove anyone else is conscious. 3. You experience things. 4. Your intellectual models that make you feel good about your world view. 5. But there's no way to know how deceived you are. About anything. 6. Humility in order. Doncha think? 7. It's a very good possibility that you're being punked by the overlords. Get used to it. 8. You have no idea what is going on here. Get used to it. 9. You're not clever enough to know what's going on here. Get used to it. 10. Don't listen to anything I say because I don't know what I'm talking about. (Neither do you.) 11. Go make yourself a Margarita and have a nice relaxing day, if you can. 12. Don't be evil.mike1962_{June 18, 2019
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WJM
Put simply, if I make changes in my mind, will my “reality experience” change – not just in the way I think about things and react to them, but in what I experience as consensual physicality? Can I produce changes that defy the “external world” model? Does the “there is no external physical world” model free up personal exploratory and experimental avenues of investigation that would not even occur to those deeply enmeshed in the external world model? Would those avenues produce results?
Do you have answers to those questions?Silver Asiatic_{June 17, 2019
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Regarding the ridiculous prospect of "experiencing things outside your experience" WJM SB, I didn’t attribute that statement to you, and I didn’t put that statement in a comment directed at you or including your name. In fact, I put that statement in an entirely different comment without your name to distinguish it from my conversation with you How, then, do you explain this: WJM @94
SB, As long as you insist that you experience things outside of your experience, virtually everything you say will be filled with irrational absurdities derived from that poisoned tree (original error of thought) – including deep semantic and inferential errors, categorical errors, and model comparison errors. I’m satisfied that I have pointed the main problems out sufficiently. I appreciate your time.
Meanwhile, I am waiting for you to explain the *process* by which you can detect design patterns in nature if matter doesn't exist. I have said several times that cannot do it. You have said that you can. So, do it. Take me through the process step by step.StephenB_{June 17, 2019
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WJM
Until you understand that is not possible, you will fail to understand that you do not have any direct connection to any supposed external physical world whatsoever.
I think that's like saying that you cannot touch something with your hand, without using your hand. So, you never have a direct experience, only your hand does. In the same way, you never have a direct experience of a thought because it always comes from the brain. That would eliminate the usefulness of the concept "direct experience". It's much more complex to describe how the mind communicates, learns, compares and contrasts data and responds to apparently external stimuli (the universal experience of humanity) without reference to an external world that influences thought. And as argued previously, if there is no external reality then there is no means for validation and a dream or imagination has the same quality of existence as an observed entity. I think it violates the Law of Identity since nothing has a unique identity.Silver Asiatic_{June 17, 2019
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Hazel, Thanks. I guess I've read a little about QM vs causality in general. It's hard to imagine a situation where empirical science could overturn non-contradiction.daveS_{June 17, 2019
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SB, I didn't attribute that statement to you, and I didn't put that statement in a comment directed at you or including your name. In fact, I put that statement in an entirely different comment without your name to distinguish it from my conversation with you. That statement is in quotes in a separate comment to paraphrase a perspective (the one you have been arguing): that one can experience something outside of mental experience. In particular, you have argued that you have extra-mental sensory experience. Logically, that is not possible. Until you understand that is not possible, you will fail to understand that you do not have any direct connection to any supposed external physical world whatsoever. None. Zero. The only thing you have a direct connection to is your own mental experience, or qualia. Because this is true, the only factual statements you can make are about your own mental experience, or about qualia. Characterizing them as factual statements or true statements about some external physical world is the erroneous product of reifying an abstract model to the point that one believes they are experiencing and making factual statements about what the abstract model refers to. Nobody can make factual or true statements about any supposed external physical world; they can only make factual and true statements about their qualia, their personal mental experience. All statements about a theoretical external world are necessarily theoretical or hypothetical statements - not factual ones. There is no argument or evidence that can save anyone from this factual nature of individual, conscious experience. You can theorize all you want that such a world exists; you can never experience it nor make factual statements about it. In essence, you are arguing that the only way external objective world ideas and inferences make sense is if there is an external objective world. That's hardly surprising. You also argue that my answers don't explain things, but what I see is that they don't explain things in terms of an external physical world, and my answers don't satisfy the needs of an external world model. Again, that's hardly surprising. Your arguments and criticisms all stem from the view that such a world exists and is causing our experiences, then you make cases that unless that world exists, certain experiences cannot be rationally explained or accounted for and certain lines of rational inference about our experiences break down. The problem is that the reasoning you are are using and pointing at is reasoning derived from the assumption that the external model is true. It utterly depends on the external model being true - not just "an effective model", but actually true. It requires you to think you have some sort of direct experiential access to it when you cannot. So of course the lines of reasoning about our ontological situation and epistemological process fail when you take them outside of the very model they are derived from and are sustained by - yet you act as if that's a problem for me. You seem to think that unless there is a cat outside of my experience, I cannot know what a cat is. That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard. The only way I can know what a cat is, is if it is in my experience. You seem to think that unless a thing's essential nature exists outside and independent of my experience, there is no essential essence of "it" for me to experience, when the only place I can possibly have access to any essential "it-ness" the thing may have is ... again, inside my experience. The only quality of "it-ness" I have access to about anything ... is the "it-ness" of distinct qualia. "Cat-ness" is a quality of qualia; it literally cannot be about anything in any external physical world even if that world existed, and even if it is causing qualia. "It-ness" is a quality assigned by our mind to a particular mental experience or qualia. That is the bare root, inescapable fact of the matter, regardless of what else may exist or be causing it. The idea that the "it-ness" refers to some external commodity is theory - an abstract model, regardless of how much faith anyone has that it is true. To then say that one has no capacity to determine the "it-ness" of qualia unless the abstract model is true is putting the cart before the horse - it was the mental capacity to identify "it-ness" values in qualia in the first place that allowed the model of an external world to be built. To say one cannot identify it-ness values without the model, or without what the model refers to being true, is absurd. You ask me to explain how I identify it-ness values without the external-world model; it doesn't require explanation, it is a directly experienced capacity. The reason that identifying it-ness values requires explanation in your model is because your model is theoretical and thus requires explanation. You are theorizing an external world that causes variant experiences and so the "it-ness" quality cannot lie in the experience qualia itself because the experience qualia is caused by something external; therefore, in your model, the "it-ness" MUST lie in the external world and be causing an identical "it-ness" value in your qualia. What does my model have to explain? I refer to my this aspect of my view as a "model" as a charitable colloquialism, but much of what I refer to is not "model" at all; it is experiential fact and logical necessity. I directly, factually experience it-ness values in my qualia. That's not a model. Each distinct qualia is a distinct set of information; that's not a model, that is using terminology to express an experiential fact, only a "model" in the sense that all words are symbols and in that sense "models." The principles of logic themselves are mental qualia identifiable as distinct and directly accessible as necessary; we can only apply them to qualia; we can only use them to make distinctions between qualia, make statements about qualia, and draw inferences (qualia) from qualia. All qualia are information, and information is only information if different sets and kinds of information can be distinguished from each other. This is not a model. Those are facts. I say that I have a mental reality model; as I said, that's mostly a charitable colloquialism. What I'm actually doing is removing the model (the external world model) and making statements about and inferences from the experiential and logical facts of our existence as qualia-tive beings. We are qualia-tive beings - meaning, our existence is in and of and about qualia. That doesn't require "explanation" because it is self-evidently true upon understanding it. Self-evidently true statements do not require explanation; they are used to explain other things and inform our reasoning. You are using qualia to make statements about qualia to support your assertion that something non-qualia-tive exists that is causing qualia. It is your model, your theory, that requires support and explanation. I haven't said anything about the essential nature of our existence and experience that requires explanation because I'm stating experiential facts and self-evident truths. I haven't proposed anything (in this particular vein) that requires an explanation; I'm happy to give answers, but asking me "how I explain" the experience of distinct "it-ness" values (whether of cats or Intelligent design) is like asking "how I explain" my apprehension of self-evidently true logical principles. It doesn't require explanation; it is what we use to explain other things. "It-ness" identification is a necessary, essential aspect of existence that precedes all models. It's basically the experiential equivalent of the principles of logic (which must themselves be "it-ness" identifiable). The fundamental qualia-tive nature of our existence logically, necessarily means: the only thing we can possibly be looking at when we open our eyes, hearing with our ears or sensing with touch ... is our own minds, whether or not anything outside of those minds exists, whether or not those qualia sensations are caused by something external to mind. Everything we see, hear, taste, touch, think, imagine .. can factually only be our own mind. That's not a "model" that requires "explanation." It's experientially, factually and necessarily true regardless of one's faith-commitment otherwise. A meaningful question might be, if I am looking at my own mind, what - in mind - is causing it to look a certain way, change, etc. Your theory would be - an external world. This is where we get to the usefulness of theories and models. The usefulness of the external world theory is remarkable and it's easy to see why it is so deeply reified; however, it is also deeply restrictive because of associated theories of linear time causation, physical capacities, resource limitations, probabilities of outcomes, and countless model add-ons about how to get from A to a desired B through an external physical world. This is where we get to my actual model - that no external physical world actually exists. That is a model because I have no way of knowing if it actually exists or not. However, it's actually fairly simple to test. Some of those tests have been scientific (quantum research) and have produced evidence that supports the theory that no external physical world actually exists, but my interest isn't in what can be proven in a lab. My interest is whether or not my model has practical applications that demonstrate its usefulness value over and above what the physical model can provide. Put simply, if I make changes in my mind, will my "reality experience" change - not just in the way I think about things and react to them, but in what I experience as consensual physicality? Can I produce changes that defy the "external world" model? Does the "there is no external physical world" model free up personal exploratory and experimental avenues of investigation that would not even occur to those deeply enmeshed in the external world model? Would those avenues produce results? 30 years of personal investigation and experimentation has led me to adopt my model, which includes in it a version of the "external physical world model," but reformulated as "apparent consensual physicality," and is a subset of the whole of what is available as kinds of mental experiences, or categories of modes of qualia. I've found that there are many distinct consensual physicalities available to experience, among other things not addressed adequately by prior models.William J Murray_{June 17, 2019
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Dave, I'm not Stephen, but I think he rejects QM interpretations in which quantum probabilities are truly random events, with no underlying cause. I think there is a whole school of interpretation that holds that position. I don't know who he might be referring to in reference to the law of non-contradiction.hazel_{June 17, 2019
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StephenB, Thanks for the response; my question was really about whether you could post some links or references to the writings of quantum theorists who reject non-contradiction and causality.daveS_{June 16, 2019
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WJM The statement “I experience things outside of my experience” is an inherent absurdity." Of course it is, which is why I didn't say it. What I said was this: "The problem is not so much that you start with your own personal experience. The problem is that you also end there. "You don’t seem to make reasonable deductions from your experience about how it should be interpreted. Also, you often don’t take other people’s experiences seriously because, in your judgment, they are slaves to an outdated paradigm and have nothing to teach you." I trust that any fair reader can discern the radical difference between what I really said and what WJM has attributed to me. Adding insult to energy, he put his false characterization of me in quotation marks, leaving the equally false impression that I used those words. He is not only content to keep repeating this outrageous misrepresentation paragraph after paragraph, he even tries to end the discussion on that note by thanking me for my time, implying that he wants nothing more to do with me. Remarkable! Just Remarkable!StephenB_{June 16, 2019
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The statement "I experience things outside of my experience" is an inherent absurdity. Every argument that someone attempts to demonstrate that they experience something outside of their experience is necessarily making an absurd argument. Nobody - nobody - can experience a thing outside of their experience - it is an inherent logical self-contradiction. Efforts to support that idea are inherently doomed to failure - because they are attempting to demonstrate or logically prove an inherent logical self-contradiction. You cannot experience anything outside of your experience, which is synonymous with "mental experience" or "qualia" or "mental qualia". Yes, my theories begin and end with my mental qualia, my experience, because it is literally all I have to work from and with, even if I create models that something exists outside of it - those models are also mental qualia. Again, if one cannot understand that, they cannot understand my model or my argument.William J Murray_{June 16, 2019
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SB, As long as you insist that you experience things outside of your experience, virtually everything you say will be filled with irrational absurdities derived from that poisoned tree (original error of thought) - including deep semantic and inferential errors, categorical errors, and model comparison errors. I'm satisfied that I have pointed the main problems out sufficiently. I appreciate your time.William J Murray_{June 16, 2019
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WJM
As I’ve said before, existential “truth” is not something I’m interested in. What I’m interested in is the functional practicality of any model I have wrt living an enjoyable life. My models always begin with my actual, personal experience, because that is all I have to operate with and through and it is what I’m trying to both understand and affect.
The problem is not so much that you start with your own personal experience. The problem is that you also end there. You don't seem to make reasonable deductions from your experience about how it should be interpreted. Also, you often don't take other people's experiences seriously because, in your judgment, they are slaves to an outdated paradigm and have nothing to teach you. In fact, your ideas are not all that new and revolutionary. Many of the ancient Greeks made the same mistake, saying that “Man is the measure of all things,” which is just another way of saying, “everything starts with me.”
The reason I like to submit my model to criticism is to see if I’ve missed something or have made an error of logic which might affect the functional application of the model. Plus, it’s just kind of fun for me to debate things I’m interested in.</blockquote? Yet when I provide you with information which shows that you did miss something, you dismiss it off the grounds that it is not compatible with your model. That is a bit ironic, I would say. You continue to suggest, well no, to insist, that I don’t understand your model, but this is not my first brush with monistic idealism, which is the opposite error of monistic materialism.
Whether or not you wrote them before I read them doesn’t change the fact that the first thing that occurs in my experience is the reading of them, and that after I filter that experience through the external-world time-linear model (which usually occurs immediately and subconsciously)
In this comment, you are confirming your ongoing theme that you do not care all that much about truth. Yes, you say, I may have written my comments before you read them, but that fact is of no importance to you because it tugs away at your hyper- epistemological, anti metaphysical model of reality. SB: I detect the design in a sand castle, for example, only on condition that the patterns produced by the arranged grains of sand (matter) are real (they exist independent of my conscious experience) and are observable as bits of information. Thus, I am not projecting my experience, I am apprehending something that is not me. ID is about apprehending, not projecting.
There’s not much further we can go on this until you disentangle yourself, at least for the sake of argument, from the idea that you can experience things outside of your experience.
One man’s entanglement is another man’s firm and informed conviction. You characterize my position as the former and your position as the latter. Do you realize that you are doing that? Meanwhile, let's not forget the context. I have shown that you cannot perform a design inference in the absence of matter, which means that as long as you are “entangled in your egoistic model, you cannot detect designs arranged by agents whose identity is different from yours. We both know that to be the case, even though you have not yet acknowledged the point. I consider that fact to constitute a serious flaw with your model. You will recall that I took you through the knowing process one step at a time and explained why matter is an indispensable element. For your part, you have presented no alternative process of knowing for me to consider. How exactly does the idea of cat’s nature get in your head? Indeed, you have yet to acknowledge that a cat does have a nature. If you don’t acknowledge a cat’s nature (as something that exists outside of your conscious experience), and can be known for what it is, then you can’t know anything at all for what it is. You appear not to understand how great this problem is for your model.
Just because you do not understand my answer doesn’t mean I didn’t provide one.
Your answer did not take the form of a design process, which is what I asked for.
As I’ve said, under my model I am a loci of consciousness that is embedded in, part of and connected to a local information structure within universal mind.
That is not a design detection process.
My local information structure, which is “my” local mind, guided by my attention (which I have free will power over), is constantly finding and processing branches and subsets of information and turning that information into experiential commodities (dog, cat) which I then organize and categorize into abstract models.
That is not a design detection process. If I don’t understand your model better than you do, how is it that I know it leaves no room for design detection - and you don’t?
I realize that you cannot understand right now how the “catness” of a cat can be apprehended without the “cat” being an external physical entity, but IMO that’s really just because you refuse to (or cannot) extricate your thinking from the external world model even arguendo.
I have already provided an explanation of how we know that a cat is a cat and why matter is required as part of the process of knowing. By contrast, you have not offered an alternative explanation about how such knowledge can be attained. Indeed, it seems that you don’t recognize that cats even exist as an extra-mental reality.
All of this (my claims about reality) is processed from the external world model.
No, not at all. I examine the facts and find that the external world model provides the best explanation. When I dialogue with you, for example, I realize that I am communicating with an individual whose identity is different from mine, which means outside conscious experience. That is the big difference between us. I don’t shape my evidence to fit my model, I shape my model to fit the evidence.
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Silver Asiatic @91: That's a good point. I was implying that I wasn't that interested in supposed universal existential truths, but I agree that my position on "enjoying my life" is a declaration of personal existential truth - the general statement of what I have organized my thought process around. First, why enjoyment? To try to be brief, let me filter years of introspection into a single hypothetical question: "If knowing existential truths meant I would be miserable as long as I existed, would I want to know existential truths?" My answer was no, I would not. That brought into focus the fact that I wasn't really interested in the existential truth part, but was only interested in such knowledge if it provided me leverage to lead an enjoyable life. I found I could apply this question to anything: If achieving or having X meant unenjoyable expereinces, do I want t achieve or have X? Obviously, for me, I realized it was all essentially about enjoying my existence and not any particular middle-man I thought might be the path to it. Something I had to grapple with at that point was the sheer self-centered nature and apparent triviality of that understanding, but that's another story. That moved my introspective analysis towards the question: what do I actually enjoy? Why do I enjoy it? What do I not enjoy, and why? What actually works in increasing enjoyment and decreasing unenjoyment? Can something really be enjoyed much unless one has contrasting experiences? What kind of "enjoyment dissonance" was I experiencing - being unable to enjoy something because of the mental model that trivialized or disparaged it? What kind of things did I think would be unenjoyable, but I only saw it as such because of abstract hierarchical models of comparative value? What models actually provided enjoyable experiences even though I realized they were abstract? Etc. So, to keep this succinct, I kept my actual experiences primary and manipulated my abstract models about those experiences according to how much I enjoyed my existence. If they had no practical application in those terms, I dispensed with it; if the model decreased my enjoyment, I dispensed with it (or modified it), and if it resulted in increased enjoyment I kept it and would tweak it if appropriate. "Knowing what I enjoy" and "why I enjoy it" and "how to generate more into my life" has become decades-long, ongoing personal research that requires a kind of unflinching self-honesty. For example, I realized I did not enjoy trying to be a good father. In fact, it made me miserable. Note that I said I didn't enjoy **trying** to be a good father. I did, to a small degree, enjoy being considered a good father. Not exactly something one wishes to admit to themselves. But, I did admit it, and I stopped trying to be a good father. My honest assessment: I wasn't a good father when the kids were growing up. I wasn't particularly bad, but I wasn't good. Today, my kids think I'm a good father and think I was a good father while they were going up. Most of my kids think I was and am a great father. So, this is just one tiny example of an immense understanding of the difference between a desired goal and an abstract model that predicts how you can achieve the goal. I've found that most of the abstract models I had were actually beyond ineffective - they were counter-productive. I found that I could completely alter my enjoyment to unenjoyment ratio of many things simply by changing my thoughts about those things with zero physical changes whatsoever. I kept note of what I enjoyed, why, and how; I kept note of how models and actions and thoughts affected my enjoyment; I searched for efficient ways of expressing those ideas and relationships into general rules and practices. I developed an overarching conceptual model of my existence in this manner, which led to what has been over the past 15 years or so an amazingly enjoyable existence - far beyond anything I imagined possible. I transformed a highly miserable existence into a highly enjoyable one. I say "I" but I include my wife as we have been partners in this effort for the past 30 years. That doesn't mean we never experience unenjoyable things; it just means we have a very successful model for dealing with unenjoyable experiences and transforming them into even greater enjoyment (as per the principle of contrast).William J Murray_{June 16, 2019
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WJM
What I’m interested in is the functional practicality of any model I have wrt living an enjoyable life.
That's a great starting point, and in fact, it is the first thing to analyze. Discussions on the nature of consciousness and of epistemology are secondary. I think you have to start with what it is to "live an enjoyable life". Why is that a goal? You state that you're not interested in "truth" but you've posited a first principle (an enjoyable life is a purpose that a practical model should support) and that needs to be measured against some standards of truth. What is required to live an "enjoyable life"? This depends on what is meant by "enjoyment". Can we find enjoyment in situations of affliction or deprivation? I think, yes. But in that case, enjoyment is not the purpose of life - there is a higher purpose that makes various sacrifices or afflictions "enjoyable" because they are necessary to serve the higher goals.Silver Asiatic_{June 16, 2019
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There are abstract models that are so enmeshed in our minds as being fundamental that it can be virtually impossible to even notice them, much less recognize them as such, much less be able to extract them from governing every thought and conclusions, much less extricating the automatic cognitive narrative of a language built upon the assumption of reified abstract models that it reinforces with virtually every word. Linear time is an abstract model. "The past" and "the future" are abstract models; all experience actually takes place in the now. An independently existing external world is an abstract model. Forces and energy are abstract models reified as causal agencies. All of these abstract models are built from and with mental qualia; mental qualia is the fundamental nature of our existence preceding and informing all abstract models. This is not an argument; it is self-evidently and necessarily true (for those of you who are interested in existential truths) once understood.William J Murray_{June 16, 2019
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DaveS
Do you support those quantum theorists who reject the laws of causality and non-contradiction on the basis of quantum experiments?
No. Quantum experiments cannot render the laws of logic obsolete. Scientific evidence does not inform the laws of logic; the laws of logic inform scientific evidence. Accordingly, I would dismiss as irrational any quantum theorist who claims that a quantum event is uncaused, just as I would dismiss any cosmologist who says that the universe is uncaused, just as I would dismiss any zoologist who says that a cat is also an elephant. In each case, I would know, going in, that the evidence used to support these absurd claims had not been interpreted in a rational way.StephenB_{June 16, 2019
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SB said @85:
So rather than expanding your metaphysical horizons in order to get at the whole truth about things, to the extent that it is possible, you seem to place undue emphasis on scientific facts, while dismissing the philosophical, and theological truths that gives meaning to those facts. I say that we cannot gain as much knowledge as possible if we are open only to those truths that our congenial with our inclinations.
As I've said before, existential "truth" is not something I'm interested in. What I'm interested in is the functional practicality of any model I have wrt living an enjoyable life. My models always begin with my actual, personal experience, because that is all I have to operate with and through and it is what I'm trying to both understand and affect. The reason I like to submit my model to criticism is to see if I've missed something or have made an error of logic which might affect the functional application of the model. Plus, it's just kind of fun for me to debate things I'm interested in.
If your experience leads you to believe that your reading of my text preceded my experience of writing them, then I think you are interpreting your experience in an overly self conscious way. Obviously, you cannot read my comments if I didn’t first write them.
Whether or not you wrote them before I read them doesn't change the fact that the first thing that occurs in my experience is the reading of them, and that after I filter that experience through the external-world time-linear model (which usually occurs immediately and subconsciously), I conclude that you wrote them before I read them. Usually, there isn't even any recognizable thought process going on here and the idea that you wrote them before I read them, though necessarily abstract, is immediately accepted as being every bit as real as my actual experience of reading your comments. Well, for most people. "Overly self-conscious?" I guess that depends on your point of view. I'm painstakingly detailed in my introspection about the nature, habits, and sequences of my experiences because, frankly, IMO it's the whole ball game. I support the theory when I present it for criticism with facts, logic, and philosophy. It has some theological implications, but not the ones you are claiming, mostly because your view of my model is still inextricably enmeshed in the exterior-world model.
No. It is based on the fact that effects require causes. Your experience of reading it is, in part, the effect; my experience of writing it is, in part, the cause. The same thing applies in reverse. It isn’t just about your experience, it is about the intersection of your experience and my experience.
I agree that effects require causes, but under my model the cause is different and arranged differently than it is in the linear-time, exterior-world model.
I detect the design in a sand castle, for example, only on condition that the patterns produced by the arranged grains of sand (matter) are real (they exist independent of my conscious experience) and are observable as bits of information. Thus, I am not projecting my experience, I am apprehending something that is not me. ID is about apprehending, not projecting.
There's not much further we can go on this until you disentangle yourself, at least for the sake of argument, from the idea that you can experience things outside of your experience.
We can dream about people that don’t even exist, which means that our senses, under those circumstances, are not as reliable as when we are awake. In this case, it could be that it is our imagination and not our senses that are at work.
I'm not even sure what this means. Are you saying that we are employing the sensory equipment of our physical hearing, touch and sight in a dream? You have talked before as if "senses" and "mental experience", in your view, are two different things, but here you seem to be equating them.
I am simply explaining the process by which I know the difference between a dog and a cat.
The only thing you can know the difference of is between two personal qualia experiences, whether or not it has anything at all to do with any supposed exterior reality. This is the reason careful thought is necessary - it can be very hard to separate reified abstract models from actual experience and experiential knowledge.
You will recall that I took you through the sequence one step at a time, making it clear that my explanation is plausible. When I asked you how you know the difference in the absence of matter, you could not provide an answer or any semblance of a process, Under the circumstances, then, it would seem that my model is more explanatory than yours, at least in that context.
Just because you do not understand my answer doesn't mean I didn't provide one. As I've said, under my model I am a loci of consciousness that is embedded in, part of and connected to a local information structure within universal mind. My local information structure, which is "my" local mind, guided by my attention (which I have free will power over), is constantly finding and processing branches and subsets of information and turning that information into experiential commodities (dog, cat) which I then organize and categorize into abstract models. The "dogness" or "catness" of an experience is something I experience directly - only in my model, there is no matter-mind qualia gap to bridge and one less entire domain of reality (external physical world) to consider. And no, this doesn't represent a different version of an external world because all of what I have described is internal. IOW, everything is internal, within universal mind, but also within every local mind (like a holographic structure where the information of the whole is within each part). In my model, everything actually exists in a single point at the same time (zero point energy, zero point information), but that's a bit too much to get into right now. I realize that you cannot understand right now how the "catness" of a cat can be apprehended without the "cat" being an external physical entity, but IMO that's really just because you refuse to (or cannot) extricate your thinking from the external world model even arguendo. You and I have a cat experience. I don't claim that your or the cat exist independently of my experience. You do. However, the difference here is that your claim that the cat and I exist independently of your experience is due to the immediate processing of your experience through the abstract exterior-world model. I don't claim that because I have disassociated myself, via a very long and painstaking process, from that model. Note: I haven't abandoned or discarded the model, I have simply extricated myself from subconsciously and automatically processing everything through that abstract model (primarily because I experienced things that the model proved insufficient in accounting for and helping me with. It became a liability in some very important ways.)
If your mental experiences do not correspond to the actual state of affairs (what is going on outside your experience) then you cannot know the truth about anything. You can only think thoughts and hope you are right, The point is to get input from the outside to test the truth value of your impressions. If you don’t believe in extra-mental reality, then there is no input to be had.
All of this is processed from the external world model. Until you can suspend that model arguendo and argue from the non-external world model I am proposing, we won't ever even be able to get past the semantics that don't track from one model to the other. Such as, your following criticism:
Does it mean that you are a conscious agent as a “part “of a universal mind? Obviously, that will not work since immaterial realities cannot be parts or contain parts,. only material things can do that, So you must mean something else.
That doesn't even make sense. Are you saying that concepts cannot be conceptually subdivided into constituent conceptual parts? Are you saying that I cannot imagine distinctly different things? I have no idea what this statement means. How could you possibly make such an assessment that "only material things can do that" outside of conceptually (immaterially) organizing qualia (immaterial) into parts?
In your model, how many conscious agents are involved; is it just one, the universal mind, or is it two, your mind and the universal mind. Or should we put the number at seven billion, paying tribute to every living human being with a conscious mind. All this needs to be unpacked. I don’t think the words “loci” or “within” can do the necessary work for making your model coherent. In this case, I think rationality matters more than efficiency, especially since the former can be evaluated and, as indicated, the latter cannot.
I'd say that there are infinite conscious agencies simply because there would be infinite information that could be interpreted an infinite number of ways, and in my model all potential experiences are necessarily simultaneously actualized in the same instant in the zero point. IOW, there is no information-experience gap; all information is actualized as experience by someone somewhere from some point of reference. In theistic terms, this translates into a kind of infinite-set omniscience because all potential information has been actualized from the theistic perspective. However, universal mind is not "conscious" at the universal level in the same sense that humans are because it has no context by which to logically extrapolate an experiential identity of self and other. In my model, from my perspective, "god" would be universal, infinite unconscious, which is internal from all conscious perspectives.
Would you agree that the same standard applies for the principle of causality? If the scientist thinks the results of research indicate that a quantum event (or any event) can occur in the absence of prior cause (or causal conditions) he, too, has sawed off the branch on which he sits?
I think this is probably a bag of cats in and of itself. You're interpreting "causality" through a linear-time, external world model. I think that model logically requires what you say - absence of prior cause would be undermining the necessary logic of those models. However, in my model, "causation" is something else entirely, but equally necessary for the logic of the model to be sound. In my model, sequences of experiences occur in the "now" and what causes different "now" experiences is one's "state of mind", so to speak. So, one would not be "causing" something "prior" to occur, because all that actually exists is the eternal now, and I cannot experience anything I am not, at some level, causing. In my model, cause and effect are actually two sides of the same coin, so to speak, separated only by psychological factors. IOW, if we could remove all psychological barriers, whatever I imagined would be instantly actualized in my experience to the point of zero distinction between mental cause and experiential effect. I would be consciously experiencing the reality of my thoughts continuously as if I were god, so to speak, but that is impossible as an individualized identity which requires some degree of separation between thought (cause) and experience (effect). However, it is possible to experience a far more direct relationship between thought and experiential reality than most people experience (I assume and gather). I don't think it can go beyond the recognition (or semblance?) of cause and effect as an individuated identity. SB @86:
According to your model, you can’t know the difference between a cat and a dog because you don’t have access to cats and dogs. It’s really that simple.
Well, it's that simple in your perspective, because you have thoroughly and completely reified the abstract model of an external world, and we can't seem to get beyond that barrier.William J Murray_{June 16, 2019
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StephenB, If I may ask about this:
Do you support those quantum theorists who reject the laws of causality and non-contradiction on the basis of quantum experiments?
Would you happen to have any links or references to writings by these quantum theorists?daveS_{June 16, 2019
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WJM
You cannot extract the nature of a cat you experience from its supposed physical nature (even if it were to actually exist) because all you have access to is your mental qualia cat experience.
No, no, no. I have access to the cat because my experience is *of* the cat. Otherwise, I could never know *what* it is that I am experiencing. I would only know that I am experiencing an undefined something or other. That is why I asked you how you know that a cat is a cat. You should have told me right then and there that you don't know if a cat is a cat or if a dog is a dog. According to your model, you can't know the difference between a cat and a dog because you don't have access to cats and dogs. It's really that simple.StephenB_{June 15, 2019
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WJM
I’m not here to argue scripture or any religious beliefs. I’m just discussing the logic of my model, which may or may not be the same as Monistic Idealism. From a look at the simple definitions I found, I can’t tell.
[1] Monism equals one realm; Idealism equals no matter. So Monistic Idealism would seem to sum up your position, just as Hylemorphic Dualisn would fairly sum up my position. [2] I introduced biblical concepts only to show that your model seems to leave no room for the prospect of a Divine creator who is both in and above his creation. You may not believe that God formed man from the dust of the earth, but your model rules out that possibility in principle. It also rules out the possibility that a human being is a composite of body and soul and many other things, So rather than expanding your metaphysical horizons in order to get at the whole truth about things, to the extent that it is possible, you seem to place undue emphasis on scientific facts, while dismissing the philosophical, and theological truths that gives meaning to those facts. I say that we cannot gain as much knowledge as possible if we are open only to those truths that our congenial with our inclinations.
There is no question; I experienced reading your response first.
If your experience leads you to believe that your reading of my text preceded my experience of writing them, then I think you are interpreting your experience in an overly self conscious way. Obviously, you cannot read my comments if I didn’t first write them.
The abstract view that you wrote it before I read it (it can only be an abstract view because I didn’t witness the event) is what you get when you interpret experiences through the abstract model of a 3D external world with linear time.
No. It is based on the fact that effects require causes. Your experience of reading it is, in part, the effect; my experience of writing it is, in part, the cause. The same thing applies in reverse. It isn’t just about your experience, it is about the intersection of your experience and my experience. SB: I don’t understand how you can detect design in the absence of matter, either scientifically or philosophically.
This really doesn’t have anything to do with the logical validity of my model or its potential, practical, every-day applications. ID detection is nothing more in essence than pattern recognition of observed information whether it is translated through senses from an external, independent world or not.
I still don't understand how you can detect design in the absence of matter. I detect the design in a sand castle, for example, only on condition that the patterns produced by the arranged grains of sand (matter) are real (they exist independent of my conscious experience) and are observable as bits of information. Thus, I am not projecting my experience, I am apprehending something that is not me. ID is about apprehending, not projecting.
That doesn’t address the point, which is that you have sensory experiences in dreams generated entirely within your mind as if you were using hands, ears, eyes, etc. This demonstrates that the mind is fully capable of generating the sensory experience without the sensory equipment.
That sensory experiences can be generated by the mind is not a matter of dispute. That is what psychosomatic pain is all about. In terms of the five senses, the impressions one has in a dream are not normally about real things and true events. We can dream about people that don’t even exist, which means that our senses, under those circumstances, are not as reliable as when we are awake. In this case, it could be that it is our imagination and not our senses that are at work. But it doesn’t matter either way. Recall that I am arguing that our senses, when they are operating properly, report the existence of things as they really exist, (this dog or cat in front of us right now, not something that may appear in a dream). SB: You will recall my earlier comment, which I will now explain in different words. In order to know that a cat is a cat, one must first abstract its form (its nature, its class, its essence, its whatness), from matter (the concrete reality of this particular animal which is the object of my experience, complete with all its material qualities).”
Until you recognize this statement about experience as absolute and self-evidently true, you’re not only not going to be able to understand my model, you won’t be able to understand my criticisms of comments like the one above.
I am simply explaining the process by which I know the difference between a dog and a cat. You will recall that I took you through the sequence one step at a time, making it clear that my explanation is plausible. When I asked you how you know the difference in the absence of matter, you could not provide an answer or any semblance of a process, Under the circumstances, then, it would seem that my model is more explanatory than yours, at least in that context.
It is factually, existentially, logically, experientially impossible for you to extract the “nature” of anything strong other than what it is in your experience – it doesn’t matter one bit if that mental qualia experience corresponds to something outside of your mental experience.
If your mental experiences do not correspond to the actual state of affairs (what is going on outside your experience) then you cannot know the truth about anything. You can only think thoughts and hope you are right, The point is to get input from the outside to test the truth value of your impressions. If you don’t believe in extra-mental reality, then there is no input to be had.
I don’t know that I know what you mean by “God” (especially given that your version can’t be assumed efficient). I also don’t know what you mean by “play a distinct causal role.” Distinct from what? From God’s will? From what God has presumably (in your model) created as how we process that information?
Whether or not the Christian God was “efficient” as a creator depends solely on his purpose for doing the creating. No reasonable judgment about efficiency can be made without knowing the purpose of the enterprise. If, for example, God created a moral universe - a stage on which individual creatures can achieve virtue or work out their salvation - then no monistic model could be used to reflect that reality, no matter how “efficient” the universe's operations may appear to be. By “distinct” causal role, I mean the ability of creatures to act as causal agents, even though that agency is dependent on Gods creative act of bringing it into being. In other words, humans, as causal agents, are not independent insofar as it was God, not they, who brought that capacity for being a causal agent into being and continues to maintain it so that it does not fall back into nothingness. These kinds of things - and others - must be accounted for. .
What I mean by “independent physicality” is “independent of universal mind” – a physical universe that exists outside of universal mind that causes mental states/experiences. In that model, I am a loci of consciousness within universal mind – much like a dream avatar.
As I said earlier, the existence of matter does not mean that matter is all that exists, though you seem to think otherwise. There is no logical pathway from the modest claim that matter exists to the radical claim that matter is all there is. Meanwhile, I don’t understand what it could mean to be "a loci of consciousness within a universal mind." That statement cries out for clarification. Does it mean that you are a conscious agent as a “part “of a universal mind? Obviously, that will not work since immaterial realities cannot be parts or contain parts,. only material things can do that, So you must mean something else. In your model, how many conscious agents are involved; is it just one, the universal mind, or is it two, your mind and the universal mind. Or should we put the number at seven billion, paying tribute to every living human being with a conscious mind. All this needs to be unpacked. I don’t think the words “loci” or “within” can do the necessary work for making your model coherent. In this case, I think rationality matters more than efficiency, especially since the former can be evaluated and, as indicated, the latter cannot.
Okay, if you’re asking me do I reject the laws of logic, the answer is no. If you’re asking me do I agree that the results of their experiment might somehow indicate (erroneously, via some error in thought) the laws of logic are not valid, I’d have to have know more about the experiment and results. I agree completely with your assessment – they are necessarily sawing off the branch upon which they are sitting if they think the results of the research indicates the laws of logic can be broken or are not valid.
Would you agree that the same standard applies for the principle of causality? If the scientist thinks the results of research indicate that a quantum event (or any event) can occur in the absence of prior cause (or causal conditions) he, too, has sawed off the branch on which he sits?StephenB_{June 15, 2019
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