Who here believes in "Scientism"?

[cladking]

Or in your case, facile grasp of a complex issue, gleaned from a pop article by some reporter.

The bedrock floats on the mantle so as weight is added it sinks like Noah's Ark being filled up.

It's funny how people who love word games and semantics see right through them when someone else uses them.

 

[cladking]

But you still haven't told me the manner in which you think supernatural things exist, and how we can test your answer.

In many very real ways reality itself is "supernatural" to reductionistic science. Certainly the unknown is supernatural but people who believe in science can't see much of the unknown so it's easy to imagine the little that is visible to them is, or will be, completely explicable in terms of reductionistic science.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No brain, no cognitive functions, is a good place to start the discussion.

How do you say cognitive functions exist, if not as brain states and processes? Please be specific so that any impartial onlooker can test the correctness of your answer.


We are brain / body. Spirit, in the sense of a supernatural element or soul, exists only as a concept / thing imagined in an individual brain. Not the slightest examinable evidence suggests otherwise.

We can start a conversation about mind at the level of physical activity in the chemistry of the brain, if you wish. But if you are not prepared even to contemplate moving on from that starting point, the conversation isn't going anywhere.

Consciousness exists experientially, and this experience of being conscious, of being sentient and aware, has qualities of it's own, qualities unique to itself. To reduce this experience entirely to electrical and chemical activity in the brain, is to dismiss those qualities of consciousness which by definition, are functions of the mind. The electro magnetic spectrum of light, and the capacity of the eye to perceive it, may explain the physics of colour. But that does not explain the experience of seeing red, or blue, or green.

We are mind, body and spirit. The brain is an organ in the body. The mind is a phenomenon of it's own, though it may originate in that magnificently complex organ, the brain. And the spirit is the life force, without which the body would be inanimate. You simply cannot reduce these three aspects of being into one, without losing sight of something important. To reduce everything to the material, is to build a house without a window.

 

[blü 2]

I didn't say "awake" has no meaning. I said awake as a synonym for conscious is unnecessary.

You still have no idea what you mean by 'consciousness', do you. Why not just admit it and get on with your life?

ROFL

What's the joke? It follows directly and exactly from what you said.

Your body does contain billions upon billions of consciousnesses

You mean simply that the body has lots of live cells. You equate the word 'conscious' to 'alive'. So when you eat a grape, you say, you're eating a living=conscious entity.

That's nonsense, of course.

but your brain isn't one of them.

Your brain isn't conscious? So you say, your brain is dead.

That fits the evidence.

It is the individual which is conscious not its individual parts.

No, consciousness is a brain state, brought about by the functions of the brain ─ I see you didn't do any homework from that extract I posted for you.

If you don't read, you won't learn.

Anyway, as it stands, without the slightest doubt you don't know what you mean when you say 'consciousness' but you like the woo connotations.

So I'll leave you to it.

End of conversation.

 

[PureX]

At this level, that fits the definition of an effect. At quantum levels we've had to redefine 'cause' of course.

Only within a specific context ─ in the classical sense, you can't have a cause if there's no effect and vice versa.


No, they exist as physical brain states and processes.

Supernatural entities exist as concepts in an individual brain. A rough analogy might be a unicorn drawn on a sketch pad.

If by 'idea' you mean a particular brain state / process, then when they exist they exist in that form. The word 'idea' has other uses, of course.

But you still haven't told me the manner in which you think supernatural things exist, and how we can test your answer.

I said nothing about the "supernatural" because as a natural phenomenon, I know nothing of supernatural. However, even I can see the logical necessity for such a state. Even though I cannot define it. If you want an example, just look to the "singularity" theory in cosmological science. Or the quantum theories where something can happen in nothingness.

 

[blü 2]

Consciousness exists experientially, and this experience of being conscious, of being sentient and aware, has qualities of it's own, qualities unique to itself. To reduce this experience entirely to electrical and chemical activity in the brain, is to dismiss those qualities of consciousness which by definition, are functions of the mind.

'The mind' is a loosely defined word that takes in a few brain functions like perceiving, language, memory, reasoning., usually with an implicit background of awareness ─ eg consciousness rather than sleep. No 'mind' without a functioning brain.

The mind is a phenomenon of it's own, though it may originate in that magnificently complex organ, the brain.

No brain, no mind. It's very simple.

And the spirit is the life force, without which the body would be inanimate.

Ah, MacDougall's 3/4 ounce, eh?

Unfortunately, no evidence supports your statement.

 

[blü 2]

I said nothing about the "supernatural" because as a natural phenomenon,

Then you can show it to me. Please do.

 

[RestlessSoul]

'The mind' is a loosely defined word that takes in a few brain functions like perceiving, language, memory, reasoning., usually with an implicit background of awareness ─ eg consciousness rather than sleep. No 'mind' without a functioning brain.

No brain, no mind. It's very simple.

Ah, MacDougall's 3/4 ounce, eh?

Unfortunately, no evidence supports your statement.

No life, no living tissue. What could be simpler than that?

 

[blü 2]

No life, no living tissue. What could be simpler than that?

Merely because the biochemical / bioelectrical systems that allowed it to function as 'alive' have irreversible ceased, so now it's dead.

Death is simply that, an irreversible failure of the mechanisms that maintain life. It's not caused by the departure of any 'animating principle' back into the ether.

If life were instead this magic 'thing' you maintain, you could inject statues with it, oil their joints, and set them to wander the streets.

 

[cladking]

You mean simply that the body has lots of live cells. You equate the word 'conscious' to 'alive'. So when you eat a grape, you say, you're eating a living=conscious entity.

That's nonsense, of course.

No!!! You are playing semantics again. All life is consciousness and all consciousness is individual.

This doesn't mean a cell is conscious nor that the chemicals that comprise a cell are conscious. Individuals are conscious. All living things are individuals.

 

[cladking]

No, consciousness is a brain state, brought about by the functions of the brain ─ I see you didn't do any homework from that extract I posted for you.

You said that already. If you are awake you are conscious and I said why not just say "awake", remember?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Merely because the biochemical / bioelectrical systems that allowed it to function as 'alive' have irreversible ceased, so now it's dead.

Death is simply that, an irreversible failure of the mechanisms that maintain life. It's not caused by the departure of any 'animating principle' back into the ether.

If life were instead this magic 'thing' you maintain, you could inject statues with it, oil their joints, and set them to wander the streets.

You don’t think life is magical? Personally, I think the defining quality of life is wonder.

Why are you so determined to drain your existence of all that is miraculous about it? Are you not awe-struck by the almost infinite improbability of your being here at all, to bear witness to the world? You are the universe become conscious, halfway in scale between the atoms and the stars, and capable of contemplating both; yet you seem determined to remain only half aware and only half awake, clinging to the rock on which you have built what, a cell that admits no light?

 

[Aupmanyav]

Jose, how scienticism can be discussed without being defined?
However, I do believe that all answers can come only through science (and society), and not from religion and philosophy.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The bedrock floats on the mantle so as weight is added it sinks ..

I have not studied the geology of the region where New York is situated. But perhaps there is no rock beneath and it is built on sediments. It can sink because of that (just like why the Tower of Pisa tilted).

As I read, not the whole of New York is built on rocks. And how deep you will find those rocks? What is above those rocks?

 

[RestlessSoul]

I have not studied the geology of the region where New York is situated. But perhaps there is no rock beneath and it is built on sediments. It can sink because of that (just like why the Tower of Pisa tilted).

As I read, not the whole of New York is built on rocks. And how deep you will find those rocks? What is above those rocks?

The point is, that whatever ground humans build on, it isn't fixed, it inevitably shifts. It's a metaphor btw, but literal minded people often have problems with those.

 

[cladking]

I have not studied the geology of the region where New York is situated. But perhaps there is no rock beneath and it is built on sediments. It can sink because of that (just like why the Tower of Pisa tilted).

As I read, not the whole of New York is built on rocks. And how deep you will find those rocks? What is above those rocks?

Everything on the surface of earth including even the plates upon which oceans and continents sit float on the mantle. Only mountains depress the plate significantly but even feathers cause the plate to sink a little.

 

[cladking]

That's a shame. We lost a whole day's worth of some really good posts. I think it was all my fault too since it went out just as I was giving Blu2 a "like" for one of his posts. I guess we're lucky the world didn't come to an end.

 

[blü 2]

No!!! You are playing semantics again. All life is consciousness and all consciousness is individual.

This doesn't mean a cell is conscious nor that the chemicals that comprise a cell are conscious. Individuals are conscious. All living things are individuals.

A cell is alive. It has life. By your definition it is therefore conscious.

That's absurd.

And since we both agree it's absurd, well, back to the drawing board for you.

You STILL have no idea what you mean by consciousness.

 

[blü 2]

You don’t think life is magical? Personally, I think the defining quality of life is wonder.

Why are you so determined to drain your existence of all that is miraculous about it? Are you not awe-struck by the almost infinite improbability of your being here at all, to bear witness to the world? You are the universe become conscious, halfway in scale between the atoms and the stars, and capable of contemplating both; yet you seem determined to remain only half aware and only half awake, clinging to the rock on which you have built what, a cell that admits no light?

I keep telling you that I'm entirely capable of awe and wonder.

The difference between us appears to be that for you this is an end in itself, and for me it's an invitation and a spur to try to understand the nature and origins of awe and wonder.

For example, one of my memories from infancy was a pair of magnetic little models of scotch terriers, one black, one white, and when you brought them close together, they'd pivot to their magnetic orientation. I found this spectacle of action at a distance utterly extraordinary, but now I also have a workable understanding of the physics behind it ─ how we rely on the earth's electromagnetic fields to shield us from various particles, how you can make train brakes using it and so on ─ each a wonderful thing in its way, but each arising from methodical enquiry into what and how.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The point is, that whatever ground humans build on, it isn't fixed, it inevitably shifts. It's a metaphor btw, but literal minded people often have problems with those.

If you are pointing to the latest view of things in science, if it changes then it changes and science goes according to the change. What is the problem in that? Relativity and Quantum Mechanics brought changes to science and science accepted them. What is the need or advantaqge to be bound to a stake?