Subjectively there shouldn't be any difference or discrimination between them; each brain experienced the same life -- assuming far fetched perfect determinism and cloning of the brains was possible, for the sake of this thought experiment. Not that much dissimilar from replaying the same movie on a DVD over and over; the story and events don't change. Though this would be more like a computer game, relying on the aforementioned "perfection" to produce the same decision-makings / resulting interactions with the virtual environment input. It's only when "stepping outside" those common experiences of the brains that discovery of what makes them distinct is revealed-- they would have occupied different spatial and temporal locations in this higher reality.
We dealt with this ages ago Cyperium. This discussion may be destined to go in circles to some extent, but you seem to be purposefully driving the process. You're missing the point entirely. It doesn't matter how fundamentally different an unexplained phenomenon might seem when compared to all the ones we have explanations for because that fact, by itself, does not render said phenomenon a product of a different ontological category, even though that's how some people will inevitably try to characterize it. Thales of Miletus, for example, believed that what we now know as electromagnetism was actually evidence that lodestones had "souls". While his categorization may have made sense given his limited understanding of the scope of material phenomena, it was ultimately incorrect. And guess what? We are still in the equivalent of ancient Greece with respect to what we'll likely have come to understand hundreds of years from now. Yet from this position of ignorance; this lack of knowledge about the true scope of the class of phenomena we call physicality, you want to make declarations about what is and isn't ultimately part of that class? That's what you call not learning from history. Good. Oops, hold the phone. So you do actually have a problem with that. It's one of those "I think" problems too, which are the ones that almost never go away. Nothing wrong with "I think" of course, except when you are trying to use the argument to "prove" a point. And the problem with that is what, exactly? I mean don't you realize already that that is exactly what physicalism is? Have you truly not covered this ground yourself? Look, the way I see it there are 3 philosophical positions up for grabs here: physicalism, dualism and idealism. Dualism seems like a silly joke to me because it essentially posits causal compatibility between the material and the immaterial and the moment you try to do that you've watered down their respective distinctiveness to the point where it starts to seem absurd to even hold that they are actually truly fundamentally different anymore. I mean once you've posited causal compatibility, isn't dualism, in essence, little more than an attempt to account for differences like those between, say, rocks and radio waves? After all, one is clearly material and the other is spookily immaterial, right? Wrong. They are both material phenomena! So to me, that's dualism in a nutshell. It's the bullshit arbitrary classification of the apparent nature of reality, and unless we one day come to understand all there is to know it can't ever graduate beyond that (and likely not even then). So that leaves us with physicalism and idealism. If the above rant about dualism wasn't controversial enough, consider this: isn't idealism just physicalism by another name? Isn't physicalism just idealism by another name? Yeah, it's an absurd notion I know! But seriously, sometimes it all just seems like semantics to me. Of course I'm not defining idealism here in it's strong traditional sense. Rather I just want to point out that since they are both forms of substance monism, and since reality looks the way it does regardless of which view is correct, aren't they functionally the same in some sense? I mean physics would still be physics regardless of what the fundamental fabric of reality was made out of, right, since physics is simply the study of it's behaviour? In other words, even if all of reality is simply an immaterial manifestation, it is nonetheless manifest. In fact in this sense while "substance" may be synonymous with "material", it is also synonymous with "immaterial" since the immaterial, as something that constitutes reality, is clearly substantive, isn't it? It's certainly not nothing. Wouldn't it be better then to simply throw out terms like "material" and "immaterial" and simply concentrate on the substantiveness of nature? Am I the only one who is tired of all the arbitrary distinctions? The one thing I will continue arguing till' the cows come home is that reality is a single class of phenomena whatever fucking name you want to assign to it. I stick with "physical" because that's what the discipline that has revealed the most about it calls it. (this rant is not just for you Cyperium, but anyone else who is still reading as well) I really don't understand why you're finding it so difficult to get over this. If particles are "features" of the "substance" of reality, then they are essentially no different from the bumps on a basketball in terms of their individuality. The bumps may all have the same configuration, but they are different portions of the substance from which the basketball is made. Physical reality is the same. In fact it's a hell of a lot less homogeneous than a basketball in the sense in which we are discussing it thus giving each identical particle an even more unique role as part of the whole. No, it really doesn't because 1) the issues as described by you are nonexistent and 2) even if they weren't, instances of subjectivity only appear as complex neural architectures (or dynamic and highly interactive collections of different sorts of matter) and are inherently unique. Yes, Cyperium, that's close enough. No! The instance is the architecture that the matter has constituted. No again. We've covered this. I'm not suggesting that there is subjectivity in discrete portions of matter, only that discrete portions of matter are the "seeds" of subjectivity, or that portions of matter are what the realm of subjectivity is fashioned out of. This happens when matter becomes organized into the right sort of interactive architecture. This is totally the opposite of what I have been saying Cyperium. I don't know why you keep forgetting what I've said but with all due respect, it's irritating! If you follow developments in neuroscience, even just casually, you learn that the brain can be damaged and rewired in all sorts of ways that can radically affect things like memory and personality. But no matter how the configuration changes, all the activity is still regulated by the brain stem which some neuroscientists believe is the seat of the sense of self. So, theoretically at least, you could give a person a whole new personality along with a whole new set of memories, but the same instance of selfhood would lie at the center of it all. But fuck with the architecture of the brain stem, even just a little bit, and you ain't gonna be anybody. And here you are again invoking those assumptions. As I've explained before, this question only makes sense if you are assuming that instances of subjectivity are immaterial entities that inhabit neural architectures, because if they are instead constituted by them then the question is just as absurd as "why is this rock this rock, and not that rock". I realize that you don't understand this, but the assumption is nonetheless clearly there and thus it continues to undermine the veracity of your arguments.
Is an idea a material phenomenon? How about a law of physics? How are you defining "physical" btw? Composed of matter? That certainly leaves out alot of other things like space, time and energy.
There is more to this than just simple body/brain physicality to me It seems to me that there is also a spiritual sense of me Not religious But a form of energy , bio-energy If you investigate the paranormal enough , programs etc. You'll find that in some instances that the ghost etc. Has emotions that are thought out. I find that interesting And these happen for the most part , emotionally
If the mind is a material phenomenon then everything it does, which includes the formation of ideas, is a material phenomenon. As above, call it something else if you like because whatever you call it the realm of the mind is what it is. It's here, it's real, it's substantive and there is causal compatibility with matter, which to me clearly suggests that we're dealing with the same class of phenomena. Why rename the class just because you move from a discussion of one subset to another? The problem I am highlighting here is that people have a habit of artificially limiting the scope of a class and then pointing at all the things that then lie outside of it. Thales of Miletus did it back in ancient Greece, but we have less of an excuse because we should have enough perspective by now to at least try to avoid making the same mistake. The second law of thermodynamics, for example, isn't exactly an entity that is floating around as part of the material soup of the universe. Rather, nature simply behaves according to it's own... nature, and we like to represent that nature in the abstract language of mathematics, and give it names. And that is something that goes on in the mind. So, see above. The entirety of that question doesn't really make sense. It's like you're asking me if matter is made out of matter. Physicalism, as a philosophical position, embraces the notion that there are no things other than physical things. So "physical", then, would simply be defined as "everything that is real" (and yes, that would include all of the rich imaginings of the mind, as imaginings). Only if you artificially limit the scope of the class called "physicality". I mean seriously, don't you understand that it's definition is a work in progress? How can you not? The history of science couldn't be any clearer on this point. Further, who is suggesting that space is immaterial? Or that energy is? This sort of thing totally smacks of working with a definition of physicality that is stuck back in the 1600's. Sure, forces are often characterized as "immaterial", but only in contrast to the more traditional view of materialism. Space is the same, as is "energy". Just go and read a Brian Greene book. Doesn't really matter which one. As for time, isn't that just a word we use to indicate that physical reality is always doing something? That rather than being static, it is dynamic? Again, time isn't an entity so much as it is simply a description. That's not to say that time isn't "real", only that it's something of an abstract description of part of the fundamental nature of reality.
It needs to go in circles since it would illuminate what you mean. You've said that subjectivity is a property of matter though it needs to be as a certain structure (as the structure in the brainstem) in order to actually be a subjective. But I assume that the seed should be there even in the smallest particles. Matter has many properties, all the properties essential to physics are properties that we can measure, like properties of speed, location, orientation, energy, and the list goes on. Subjectivity is only manifest in one person. We can't measure the manifestation of subjectivity in any other person than ourselves and it isn't even a measurement but is "being it". By switching the actual matter but maintaining the structure between two persons I wanted to know how this property would behave since either it relies only on matter (of which it is a property after all) or the property relies only on structure (which we can count out as you said it was a property of matter) or the property relies on both structure and matter which means that if we switched all the matter but maintained the structure wouldn't we have created a combination where both persons stop to exist subjectively and are effectively replaced by two new subjectivities? To say that in the past something that seemed unphysical was shown to be physical doesn't mean that this will always apply in the future. Hence there is no lesson learned from that. It just isn't a valid argument, it's probably even a logical fallacy of some kind. The only point you can get across is that things aren't always what they seem to be, and I can agree with that, but so you too should be prepared to face new knowledge that there is in fact concepts that can't be fully explained by physical means, after all don't we all have prejudiced claims of the validity of our own "truths"? If it is fundamentally immeasurable but still a property of matter (which we will never be able to measure) then I wouldn't deem that as physical. If it doesn't interact at all with matter then how could we ever measure it with any instrument? To be able to be measured, even indirectly should count as what is physical, because in essence if something that exists cannot be observed in any way how would that differ from what we call immaterial? How would that differ from concepts such as a soul? There is only one class of phenomena and that is reality. In that sense both the material and the immaterial belongs to the same fundamental "reality". That is "what is real". Everything is real in different ways, if you imagine an apple then that apple is real as a imagination, a stone is real as a stone and subjectivity is real as subjectivity. Physicalism says that everything is material, or constituted by matter (right?). Why does everything need to be material? Why does everything need to be constituted by matter? If there was something that wasn't constituted by matter, that didn't reflect light like matter does, and actually didn't reflect anything but was something in and of itself, would that be forbidden by reality? Couldn't that be real? If we take the brain, and all of it's information and say that the information is representing something, like a imaginary apple, but only representing it by various associations to it. Then we have something that isn't made up of any material but instead is what that material represents. Couldn't that exist as a seperate entity? There is no causual link to the matter itself after all, the matter itself is just a description of the concept. Just as the word "apple" is a description of the concept but not what the concept represents. This in my view illuminates the difference between material and immaterial and how they are fundamentally seperated. I'm also tired of the distinctions, but I wouldn't call it material or physical (since that seems too reductionist for me), I would simply stick with the concept of reality as the concept which entails everything that exists, be it immaterial or material. Ok, I'll stick with reality. As I explained before a particle is no more unique than a wave on the ocean, it propagates to different positions but through unique portions of the field that it is constituted of and hence it is not a unique particle at any one point, but always at a different part of the field as it propagates. Just as the waves of the ocean can propagate while not the water itself follows. The reason I don't get over it is because you wanted this to account for how the instance of subjectivity can be unique, as you can see I have my reasons to doubt that argument. The seeds to that subjectivity is within the particles, thus it's not far-fetched to think that this seed also accounts for the uniqueness of particles, that when combined into a complex brain gives rise to subjectivity (even if the seeds aren't subjective in themselves). Ok. So the matter doesn't at all account for the instance or is it both the matter and the structure that the matter composes? Yes, I understand that, it was clumpsy wording on my part. I'm trying to understand your view so that it is clear to me, the generic subjectivity would that be the structure while the matter that constitutes it would be the instance of subjectivity? In other words; "a specific interactive structure will give rise to subjectivity, and the matter that it is constituted by determines the instance of that subjectivity". Would that be a good approximation? I have to see if the consequences are inconsistent, or consistent. They have to be consistent if I'm going to believe it after all. There are all sorts of damages that can happen to the brainstem, so it should be a very specific part of it that can't be damaged without loosing the self, if so. I can understand why you think that I am assuming things. But the issue of whether we inhabit the brain or whether we are constituted by it simply doesn't matter. As there has to be a concept of me anyway so that I could be constituted as me by the brain. The question why this is my brain is relevant in any way I look at it, you could say "why is this my constitution?" if it better fits your views. Yes, but since they are identical copies, though different instances, what would determine which subjective got to experience the character at which time? Now assuming that they are constituted by the brainstructure. They are instances - I realise that Rav will probably have something to say so I might as well account for his arguments as well - but what determines each instance of the identical brain to be a particular subjective? There seems to be no constitution to a instance than the mere fact that they are seperated as unique entities so how could a instance account for the very constitution of a subjective?
But if we are just going to hastily sweep mental phenomena under the rug of "material phenomena", shouldn't we at least expect them to exhibit the same properties as material phenomena? In the very least consciousness and ideas should be able to be located somewhere in space time, discretely extended exactly as a table or an apple is. But mental phenomena do not meet this criteria at all. They are not perceivable by the senses, they have no mass, color, shape, density, etc. So in what sense are they material? From the very outset, as phenomenally encountered in our own experience, mind lacks materiality. And this isn't an ontic distinction I just made off the cuff. It's been around for some 2500 years of western and eastern philosophy. If there's one thing that philosophers almost universally agree on it's the ontic distinctiveness between mind and matter. I don't know how to show you it except by saying look for yourself. Pick up an apple. Look at it. Smell it. Taste it. Now go sit in a chair and think about that apple with your eyes closed. The thought of the apple is nothing like the apple in itself. A totally different mode of being. Surely you can see this immateriality of mind yourself. I would almost venture to say it is self-evident. Yes, you repeat that analogy of Thales and the loadstone quite often. If you now have some new definition of physical or material that now includes thought and ideas that's your choice. But imo the distinctiveness of mind from matter forbids such a subsumption. Mind as I experience it does not fall into the class of physical being because it manifests none of those properties by which we classify a phenomena as physical. A law of physics is kind of pattern or mathematical relationship that nature invariably follows. As such it has no material being such that we can point somewhere and say, "Here is the second law of thermodynamics." Even before we boil a pot of water we can predict it to behave according to this law. The law does not exist in space and time as such yet exerts causal influence on natural phenomena. For this reason it is ontically distinct from physical matter. It falls into the same class of abstract entitites as ideas. Ideas don't exist in spacetime and yet have tremendous influence on physical reality. I get that. Physical has become for you the very definition of what's real. Therefore you can automatically exclude nonphysical phenomena as unreal. Look. I myself subsume everything that's real under one category I call "Being." You use the word physical and I use the word Being. So we're both monists in this sense. It's just that I don't presume to reduce nonphysical phenomena to an unreal status just because it isn't physical. Ideas exist. Persons exist. Laws of physics exist. Souls exist, imo. These are forms of being for me that transcend everything we mean by mere physicality. I just don't see the sense in pushing a word to mean things it clearly never meant just so I can invalidate phenomena that doesn't fall under its definition. So physicality doesn't yet include certain phenomena but someday might. That's a pretty flimsy basis for physicalism in my view,, Either physicality IS a universal metaphysical category or it ISN'T. There is no work in progress here. Space is made of a material? I've not heard that. What material is this? Spacetonium? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And where does the material exist at? Presumably there would always be more space (metaspace?) underneath the material ad infinitum.. Einstein certainly thought time was more than our description. I have a hard time believing tomorrow is tomorrow and yesterday is yesterday just due to some abstract description humans habitually use. I think it is real and exists in a nonphysical class of being. It certainly isn't material, that's for sure.
Rotting fruit infested by the buzzing of flies is depicted in multiple modes: The visual, the audible, the olfactory, the tactile (even the gustatory - ugh!). But these varied sensory understandings concern the same target of interest, not different ones. Similarly, the public appearance of one's self as a brain or biological organ and the private appearance as a stream of perceiving / feeling / thinking events would both be representations of the same thing (assuming any generator of them is representing itself at all, as opposed to simply producing conjoined parallel experiences that are not symbols for any further depth of being). That is, it's not like a particular continuum of "mind appearance" has been sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting to be selected from a host of other candidates, anymore than a particular "appearance of brain" has been waiting on a shelf to be chosen. Why / how the latter came about and arose at the time / place it did is explainable in terms of the causal relationships of the rest of the public world which that brain resides in. The subjective appearance accordingly accompanies it like a shadow or the tails side of a coin, and can thus be considered (at least in the context of naturalism) to have the same origin. Which is not to say that the "private side" could lack its own version of explanation in any psychological world counterpart it offered. But there's little way for a community to rigidly research such. Meditator Joe might have discovered answers in his inward wanderings -- but then again it's a lot easier to classify them as hallucinations, especially if other such "first person explorers" should provide different accounts. "Objective classification" requires at least a majority of people to have access to the same reported affairs -- interpersonal phenomena rather than merely personal occurrences; and there should also be regularity or reliable adherence to "lawfulness" of some kind, not just constantly mutable patterns and associations that are little more than a grade above noise. On top of this, even the mental appearances of this "first person research" would be expected to have neural correlates on the "brain appearance" flip-side, which of course scientists would prefer to use for de-mystifying the other. The bottom line is that if any specific extra-natural speculations are to be validated at all, it will have to wait for death, and should one ever return to this extrospective world again, it is obvious that one's former identity will be erased along with anything "learned" during the intervening interval. The preceding -- of course -- being dependent upon death (non-consciousness, etc) being something other than the disappearance of all entities / events / knowledge. Which the extinctivist expects, or should expect when not tumbling off into inconsistencies like "being engulfed by an awareness of nothing" for eternity. Id est: Jesse Bering: ....This finding came as no surprise given that, on a separate scale, most respondents classified themselves as having a belief in some form of an afterlife. What was surprising, however, was that many participants who had identified themselves as having "extinctivist" beliefs (they had ticked off the box that read: "What we think of as the 'soul,' or conscious personality of a person, ceases permanently when the body dies") occasionally gave psychological-continuity responses, too. Thirty-two percent of the extinctivists' answers betrayed their hidden reasoning that emotions and desires survive death; another 36 percent of their responses suggested the extinctivists reasoned this way for mental states related to knowledge (such as remembering, believing or knowing). One particularly vehement extinctivist thought the whole line of questioning silly and seemed to regard me as a numbskull for even asking. But just as well--he proceeded to point out that of course Richard knows he is dead, because there's no afterlife and Richard sees that now. Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death The original source of that article isn't free anymore, so second-hand accounts of it elsewhere, perhaps colored by the users' own purposes, will have to suffice: http://buddhism.about.com/b/2008/10/19/the-persistence-of-me.htm
Causal Deterministic Universe = Why You Are Who You Are We live in finite Universe( occupied space ) that operating principle is cause and effect ergo deterministic. It is this way because it cannot exist in any other scenario. For you to ask why is and has eternally been in the in the deterministic deck of cards. To understand the exact mechanisms of the deterministic, finiteUniverse is one of our challenges. Remember, we access mind, via the physical and quasi-physical( gravity ) deterministic mechanisms, and this leads our illusionary perceptions that our mind is steering us. Physical xperience precedes metaphysical access of mind/intelligence. r6
Could that representation be material? In other words, if the depiction of the rotting fruit is described materialistically in the brain (through the associations of visual, the audible, and so on), could the representation of that description be material (in so much that the actual image of the rotting fruit actually exists materially). In other words; Colour is described pretty much as-is by the brain, the eyes doesn't give any interpretation but signals are simply pushed through the visual nerves. Those signals isn't colour itself, it is a electro-chemical representation of light. Much of the hard problem of consciousness is how this representation can become the vivid colours that we see, even through associations of all kinds there is a kind of discrupency between the description and the actual experience which seem to be without description but as a ready-to-go image. If everything is materialistic then this image should also be materialistic and thus be able to be observed by second and third parties and not only self-observed. Just as other materialistical things can normally be observed. This is true, but the concept of me exists independent of if that concept has been manifested or not. It exists as a potential to be manifested. So in a way that concept has been sitting on a shelf, because if there was no potential for that self to be manifested then there would be no self manifested. I'm not saying though, that the self can be self-observing while sitting on that shelf, but still the self was possible in the world and the possibility became true when the brain/architecture was formed that it inevitably represents. It would be a horrific scenario to exist during a infinite timespan with nothing around you (not even a body but only the concept to exist), which Stephen King actually wrote a novel about, which I don't remember the name of but it was about a scientist that invented a teleporter, the problem was that the mice that he used for the experiment looked frightened when they appeared at the other side and then suddenly died. Except when they were sleeping, then they were normal. It was then discovered that because of some mental property being awake during the teleportation would cause the subject to experience a timeless state that was practically infinite. Because of that the procedure was of course to put people to sleep before teleporting them, I can't retell the whole story here but eventually a child, that was teleported with his family, wanted to experience infinity so he didn't swallow the sleeping pill. I recommend you read it cause I can't retell the story as good as Stephen King himself. Makes you appreciate finiteness Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Yes, but is the neural correlates really de-mystifying the private side? I think not. Because neural correlates aren't the private side itself. The neural correlates to experiences but isn't itself the experience as the experience is. Yes, it would seem absurd that any memories would survive death if he somehow came back, however perhaps there isn't only a private memory, perhaps memory is more persistent in reality than the mere correlates in the brain. Many accounts of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena could be explained by such a memory, not merely private but somehow imprinted in reality (which in turn may hold information about the reality of the subject which might return to him some way if he would be real again). I'm not saying that this is how it is, but accounts from many people suggests that the atmosphere in a house can be felt and such things, which might not be able to be measured materialistically but only measured because you are a reality yourself and engulfed within the general reality of the world in which those memories exists as the reality of those that had the memories. Only speculation of course, but possibilities are basically infinite, what is possible isn't a direct synonym with what is measurable through materialistic means. I don't think that xperience is necessarily materialistic. I also don't think that the universe is necessarily deterministic. In fact, if there are only cause and effect, then how can the laws of how cause and effect should behave themselves be a part of cause and effect?
Nonsense. Of course there is a lesson to be learned from that. I'll say it again: the true scope of the class of material phenomena hasn't been defined yet, but you want to make definitive statements about what is and isn't part of it, and there is certainly some kind of logical fallacy inherent in that. You've forgotten what is going on here. I am not declaring that physicalism is an objectively correct philosophical position (that why I keep using phrases like "I am suggesting that..." etc), I am simply pointing out that your arguments don't falsify it. What do you mean it doesn't interact with matter? Of course it does! If there wasn't a causal relationship between your mind and your body then your mind wouldn't be able to control your body, nor would the state of your body be able to influence your state of mind. In fact there is such a tight coupling between mental states and brain states that mental images can now be decoded and displayed for others to see simply by reading the corresponding brain state: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...hic-plug-brain-thoughts-screen-developed.html This is just one of the reasons why an ever increasing number of researchers are becoming bold enough to declare that brain states and mental states are the same thing. And seriously, google can direct you to all sorts of similar research. Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind)#Causal_Interaction You can't say that there is only one class of phenomena and then split it into two (because, you know, then you're saying that there are two classes of phenomena). More to the point, why can't it be? You're the one who is saying that it is impossible. First of all, why are you characterizing physical reality as something that necessarily reflects light? Because really, not much of it does. There are plenty of things that don't reflect light. In fact light itself is part of physical reality, as are a lot of other things that wouldn't fit what seems to be the very primitive definition of matter that you are working with. How could something that actually exists be "forbidden" by reality? If it exists, it's real! And if it has a causal relationship with reality, then it can in principle be detected by physical means (even if only indirectly). And if it can be detected by physical means, then there's a chance that it will be, at which point this new phenomenon will be declared part of physical reality. It always was, of course. We just didn't know it. That's how it has always worked. What if it has no causal relationship with physical reality though? Well at that point you're not even talking about the realm of the mind anymore, but something that has been abstracted beyond all relevance to the universe we live in. If the mind is a material phenomenon then the act of imagining an apple is a material phenomenon. You're asking if an imagined apple exists independently of the mind that is imagining it? It's incorrect to treat an imagined apple as if it was an apple you could hold in your hand and eat. They are two different things. This is only because you treat them that way. Once upon a time the phenomenon of electromagnetism was considered fundamentally separate from matter as well, but now it's not. I'm done with this point. In my view you've basically just defeated your own argument but I don't think you're ever gonna see it. Moving on then... This isn't about whether or not your assertions are within the realm of possibility, it's about whether or not your arguments are sufficient to defeat physicalism. It's the architecture, not the building blocks! I've only said this about 16,000 times now. Here, I'll even quote Feynman again too: "So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." None of that sounds like what I have been saying. What I have been saying is: instances of subjectivity and neural architectures are the same thing. You can therefore essentially answer all your own questions about my stance simply by considering what a neural architecture is, and how it comes about. You don't need to believe what I am saying. Surely it is possible for you to entertain a position without accepting it? That's all I am asking you to do. To put it another way, rather than trying to turn you into a physicalist, I am simply trying to show you that physicalism (or at least a version of it), when properly understood, isn't actually compromised by your arguments. The point is that the brain stem is a central regulating hub of both mental and bodily function. It's what ties the whole ballgame together. You can literally lose half your brain (and probably more, although not without consequence of course) and see functional remapping take place, but you can't lose a brain stem. Of course it matters. If "you" are your neural architecture, then the question is essentially "why is this neural architecture this neural architecture and not some other neural architecture". So your assumption is necessarily that you are not just your neural architecture. If this wasn't the case, then you would recognize the absurdity yourself. You think that there is something special about being you instead of someone else, but there isn't, because it was never possible for you to be someone else, because there was no "you" before the neural architecture that constituted you emerged. Only by refusing to accept this can you maintain the legitimacy of your question. And you know what? You don't have to accept it if you don't want to. I certainly can't prove that people aren't at least partly immaterial entities. But by the same token your argument doesn't prove that they are because in spite of your constant denials it is fundamentally circular.
I understand exactly what you mean when you characterize it as immaterial. The moment I feel that someone is actually getting the point is the moment I stop irritating everyone with my repetition of that analogy. Thales could have legitimately said (and probably did say something similar at some point): the distinctiveness of irons attraction to a lodestone forbids such a subsumption. Such an attraction does not fall into the class of physical being because it manifests none of those properties by which we [the ancient Greeks] classify a phenomena as physical. The point you seem to be missing is that over the centuries the definition of "physical" has been expanded to include more and more phenomena that were previously characterized as immaterial as we have developed new approaches to probing the nature of reality. I disagree. The "second law" is a human concept. That is not to say that it isn't an accurate description of the way nature behaves, but there's no justification for projecting our classifications back on to nature and stating that it "obeys" them. Nature simply is what it is. The second law is only abstract in the sense that it exists in the human mind. That's totally not how I look at it. I thought I'd made this quite clear in previous discussions, but I don't work with a definition of physicality that is limited by our current understanding of it's scope. I would instead extend the definition to include anything that is causally compatible. For example, I don't believe in ghosts. I've never seen one and I don't feel that the evidence is sufficient to establish their existence apart from that. But I also can't say with any truly significant degree of certainty that there is no such thing. But if I was to entertain the possibility I wouldn't think of them as unphysical or immaterial. I mean if we're assuming that they are real; that they actually exist, and can interact with the same world that we do, then I would class them as physical phenomena. You see in spite of what you may think embracing physicalism has absolutely nothing to do with trying to classify things as either real or unreal. It doesn't "protect" me from having to consider the possibility that there may be more to reality than meets the eye. Quite the opposite in fact. My particular brand of physicalism is open to all possibilities, and in fact would require any and all actually existing phenomena to be elevated to the same ontological status as a bottle I can smash over my own head (although that doesn't obligate me to characterize all phenomena in terms of that sort of interaction). To put it another way, what's to stop a physicalist from believing in ghosts (albeit "material" ghosts)? Similarly, what's to stop a dualist or even a metaphysical idealist from being just as skeptical about paranormal phenomena as James Randi? What does a philosophical position about what nature is fundamentally made out of have to do with what is and isn't manifest by it? Certainly a physicalist can say "I don't believe in immaterial ghosts". But again, what's to stop them from believing in material ones? In fact there are numerous claims of ghosts being detected with one physical apparatus or another and all those things ultimately work due to chains of physical interaction. (again, for the record, I am highly skeptical of such claims -- I'm just making a point) Seriously man. Again. See Thales. Because this is exactly what the history of science teaches us. How can you say that the definition of physicality isn't a work in progress? We've expanded it many times before. Show me what has happened this century, this decade, this year, that has stopped the expansion of our understanding of the phenomenality of nature in its tracks. I told you, read a Brian Greene book: "Although we are heading into speculative territory, string theory does suggest an answer to this question. The graviton, the smallest bundle of gravitational force, is one particular pattern of string vibration. And just as an electromagnetic field such as visible light is composed of an enormous number of photons, a gravitational field is composed of an enormous number of gravitons—that is, an enormous number of strings executing the graviton vibrational pattern. Gravitational fields, in turn, are encoded in the warping of the spacetime fabric, and hence we are led to identify the fabric of spacetime itself with a colossal number of strings all undergoing the same, orderly, graviton pattern of vibration. In the language of the field, such an enormous, organized array of similarly vibrating strings is known as a coherent state of strings. It's a rather poetic image—the strings of string theory as the threads of the spacetime fabric—but we should note that its rigorous meaning has yet to be worked out completely." - The Elegant Universe And ideas like these aren't found exclusively in the realm of the imaginations of leading string theorists either: See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam or a google search (because I cbf compiling more direct links right now). See my comments about the second law, as it's essentially the same topic.
Physical/energy > mind/intelligence > Ponderance of why we exist and the mechanisms Material = substance = physical/energy---- fermions, bosons and any combination thereof --- ergo sensations via our nervous system are experiencies directly related to the previous givens. Uncertainty ex Heisenbergs "Uncertainty principle" or chaos theory etc, is only our inability to observe and account for the ultra-micro and ultra-complex set of phenomena that are functioning there( gravitational spacetime ). Cosmic laws do not steer not direct the physical/energy experiential i.e. the cosmic laws coincide with the physical as complementaries to the physical and vice versa. Again, the physical/energy existence precedes any conceptual thoughts of such i.e. without the physical experience there can exist no accessing of mind/intelligence. r6
And here's the problem, clear as day. In fact this entire exchange can be reduced to a consideration of this one statement. You may avoid saying here that your self was properly preexistent, but in essence you're still suggesting it because you're assigning your identity to a potential. The problem, of course, is that your identity is only a meaningful concept once you exist. Consider all the potential people who might come to exist in the next 15 years or so. How many are there? Given the annual birth rate I just looked up, there could be around 1 billion babies born in that time. So that's 1 billion actuals out of how many potentials? When you consider the dizzing, mind-boggling array of variables in the equation of conception and birth, I wouldn't really feel comfortable putting a regular sort of finite number on it. Perhaps we can't say infinite, but the number would be so absurdly large that it would be effectively infinite especially when, at any given moment, the total pool of potential could be and probably is reshuffled. How do you therefore identify a single potential that is destined to be a particular person? You can't, because potentials themselves aren't fixed. So again, you're still effectively invoking your own preexistence.
That seems to go beyond reifying the material phenomena / spatial affairs of outer perception by just [minimally] making them intersubjective (public) and behaving independently of any individual's personal will / wishes. Which is to say, instead making the "matter" category into something metaphysical, metempirical, meta-phenomenal, transcendent, noumenal, etc (take your pick). One could regard it as a game or pretense, though: "For yata-yata purpose, let us treat the material character of the extrospective world as if it has nothing to do with consciousness, or our manner of it [i.e., sometimes we will conveniently reject that even the brain which materialism uses as explanation is not involved in generating such experiences and supportive reasoning, despite whatever puzzlement this causes]. As if there is a "world-mind" which we psychologically dissolve back into after death that is still indulging in that kind of representing or presenting of itself, but which we will at the same time conflictingly deny that there is such a "world-mind" and not worry about the contradiction and craziness of that, just to see where the game goes." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! To elaborate further, I don't know what "existing materially" would be other than the character of things and events as felt / exhibited in extrospection, as well the conversion of such into formal descriptions of various commonsense, philosophical, and scientific literature [the latter two involving more technical and abstract re-interpretations of that commonsense view of "existing materially"]. It would be wilder than sacrificing to Zeus for humans to claim that they originally derived / conceived "matter" from properties of and experimentations with nothingness. Which seems to be what existence minus consciousness either "is like" or the extent of the "knowledge" which one returns with from such "absence of everything" after fading away to dreamless non-consciousness. Perhaps the following might help. While Lenin, below, certainly isn't lending his support to that particular empiricist movement of his era when he describes their rejection of the rationalist's version of materialism, he nevertheless does an able job of summing-up that the "material world" for the metaphysical skeptic is the one of perception, and whatever can be brought evidence-wise into connection with such observational evidence. And not an invisible realm (minus representational manifestations) which derives its confirming evidence from our philosophical reasoning. (Side note: He was quite on target, elsewhere than this quote, in dismissing their erroneous claim that Kant engendered / revived belief in a transcendent version of matter). Vladimir Lenin: . . . they are refuting materialism from the standpoint of "recent" and "modern" positivism, natural science, and so forth. . . . I shall refer to those arguments by which materialism is being combated by . . . . Machians. I shall use this latter term throughout as a synonym for "empirio-criticist" because it is shorter and simpler and has already acquired rights of citizenship in Russian literature. That Ernst Mach is the most popular representative of empirio-criticism today is universally acknowledged in philosophical literature . . . . The materialists, we are told, recognise something unthinkable and unknowable -- "things-in-themselves" -- matter "outside of experience" and outside of our knowledge. They lapse into genuine mysticism by admitting the existence of something beyond, something transcending the bounds of "experience" and knowledge. When they say that matter, by acting upon our sense-organs, produces sensations, the materialists take as their basis the "unknown," nothingness; for do they not themselves declare our sensations to be the only source of knowledge? The materialists lapse into "Kantianism" (Plekhanov, by recognising the existence of "things-in-themselves," i.e., things outside of our consciousness); they "double" the world and preach "dualism," for the materialists hold that beyond the appearance there is the thing-in-itself; beyond the immediate sense data there is something else, some fetish, an "idol," an absolute, a source of "metaphysics," a double of religion ("holy matter," as Bazarov says). Such are the arguments levelled by the Machians against materialism, as repeated and retold in varying keys by the afore-mentioned writers. --Materialism and Empirio-Criticism That can be part of the naturalist account of color, or knowledge about the "internal ontology" of the interpersonal, experienced world -- the underlying "stories" which the empirical world seems to adhere to (at least for this era) which undercuts our supposed naive realism. If we were trapped in a computer game, we'd want to go with that reality's "story", too, if we desired to stay alive and technologically progress in the context of what being "alive" and technologically progressing was there. But obviously "color" isn't something private or subjective; extrospective objects have it, all of the fully functional people among us see the green of springtime leaves; it's "out there" in the immediate objective world. But not in the objective world yielded by extended, reflective thought (which includes inferences about experiemental data). In earlier times this would be called the "metaphysics of natural science", but that is deemed an unkind expression today (theories, models, frameworks, constructs, etc replace that philosophical term). I also referred to it as "internal ontology" because this kind of metaphysics doesn't concern anything transcendent or beyond experience / the phenomenal, but stratums within it, not available to observation unaided by instruments and reasoning. Kant: No doubt I, as represented by the internal sense in time [introspective affairs], and objects in space outside me [extrospective affairs], are two specifically different [classes of] phenomena, but they are not therefore conceived as different things [dual substances]. The transcendental object [existence as unrepresented; transcendent metaphysics], which forms the foundation of external phenomena, and the other, which forms the foundation of our internal intuition [personal thoughts / imaginations], is therefore neither matter, nor a thinking being by itself [mental stuff], but simply an unknown cause of phenomena which supply to us the empirical concept of both. Just a remaining section here to help clarify the initial paragraphs above: Corporeal entities are exhibited in perceptions, which (as far as an attempt at explaining them naturally goes) are conclusions derived / inferred from somatic events: Stimulations of receptive, sensitive body tissues (by "inferred" I don't mean a literal propositional process being observed in the skull, but the neural correlates / substitutes for such). Descriptions and further understandings about material entities are likewise artificial (produced by intelligence / social activity-discourse / setting-up experiments). To avoid metempirical beliefs, the philosophical concept of "matter" can be regarded as a category for grouping the interpersonal phenomena located in the outer or extrospective half of experience ("I can perceive-feel this chair; s/he can perceive-feel this chair, they can perceive-feel this chair."). It and the "material" adjective also having to do with a generalized "stuff" as distinguished / abstracted from any particular form or configuration it is found arranged as; and concerning supposed global characteristics which said generic stuff conforms to (spatial extension, mechanistic relations, ability to be measured / quantified, solidity / resistance to penetration, etc). Whereas a brand of today's "physicalism", contrasted to traditional materialisms, may model itself on the physics concept of matter and recruit a variety of entities, schemes and technical descriptions from it and other physical sciences (including items which older materialism might have once deemed non-physical). The thing to remember is that "material" and "physical" refer to classifications for subsuming qualifying members under, some of the latter of which may likewise be intelligible constructs themselves instead of concrete objects (i.e.: "Where is entropy at? I don't see it under this rock -- is it over there? Did you find evolution in the briar patch yet? How big is it? Does it have feet?"). Materialism, however, may more often require that something be constituted of its tangible "generic stuff", having a nominalism stance about concepts, the abstract, etc. Some contemporary thinkers will not even distinguish between materialism / physicalism, perhaps suiting the purpose of creating an ambiguous situation where the person on the street will believe that older views of "matter" have survived Anglophone philosophy's orbit around natural science, permitting an impression that those have an unbroken / undiverged / unmutated continuity to this day.
The outlines have been defined to be something that we can "probe into" to use your own words. To display images that we see on a computer screen is not the same as displaying the visual experience. A experience has to be first-person. I know that physicalism as you view it will probably expand, but that doesn't show that it will expand to include subjectivity. That's all I'm saying, the example doesn't show more than a potential for science to grow to include concepts previously thought immaterial. First of all, what is a brain state? And how can that be the same as the experience? It's a rhetorical question, cause as you see brain states is a description of activity within the brain, while the experience is different in character than that of the activity. Brain states can describe the colour red but isn't themselves the colour red. The description isn't the same as what it describes. The description is the brain state, while what is described is the mental state. Which means that even though they correlate they are different in character and thus not the same thing. You didn't even remark on my example of a word as the description and what the word actually means as the experience. They correlate too, but are completely different in character. They are sub-classes depending on if they are able to be measured or not (directly or indirectly), but essentially there is only one class and that is reality whether or not it can be measured as a reality. Reality could hold many things that aren't materialistic, thus needing a distinction when described. The only reason we would know that there are immaterial things are because we actually are one ourselves, and it is also possible that we can come to know of other immaterial things as a consequence of that. And I have shown in various ways why it is impossible for subjectivity to be material. I meant in a general sense, not that it necessarily does and extended it to say that it doesn't have to reflect anything at all making it immeasurable. What if reality caused it? Why does everything need to be caused by something already caused? Is there nothing that is something in itself? If not, then how can anything exist? How can existence itself be caused by something else? And subjectivity is just that, existence in itself. Is being something necessarily a causual relationship? If so then being something (like reality is something) must be infinite and thus uncaused and if not, then it still has to be uncaused. The act of imagining? What about the image of the apple that is imagined? Is that too material? What is the substance of the imaginary apple? Shouldn't it be the same substance as the material by which it is represented in the brain? I don't know in what view you can see it as substantiated by the same material by which it is described. The scientists basically does the same thing (interprets what is described), but the imaginary apple would be a set of pixels on a computer screen not the experience itself. On the same basis shouldn't we assume a mental "screen" in which the imaginary apple is displayed? The mental screen would consist of the colours that we experience, as it is the experience itself that is in question. It is not that the part of the materialistic brain would represent colours, that is not a one-to-one materialistic correlation, it would be the colours. It would also be as tightly packed as the image that we experience as it would be the image. Although the image might materialistically be represented in a different way in a earlier stage, the result still has to be materialistically accounted for if there can be only be material things. Do we experience sound as material? No, so thus it can't be, as it is the experience that is in question. I guess you didn't understand my point as that is not what I'm saying. The brain through material means (which I take to be signals in the brain) describes something, but doesn't itself have to be what it describes. As such there is a dependency as it is described by the brain, but there is also a seperation in nature from what it describes and the actual experience of the description. I'm referring to the material of the brain, where I wanted to illustrate that the material itself can be a description, while not at the same time be the experience of that description. You could say that the description itself has two parts to it, the material part which is only the description, and the mental part which is what the description means. As time moves on the rope tightens as to what matter is and can be, integrity of science suggests that we've come a long way along that path. I can see why you would think that, but a different particle (with a different history) being at the same place in the field would have no difference to it than the particle that was previously there. Hence the particle itself isn't unique but only the portion of the field. Excuse me but they wouldn't be sufficient if they weren't in the realm of possibility. But what you quoted wasn't at all about that, it was about my attempt to try to understand your view. I asked for what accounted for the instance, if the matter that the architecture is composed of is irrelevant and it is only the structure of the minute part of the brainstem that can't be damaged without loosing the self, then that greatly increases the chance to be able to be copied. That the matter is irrelevant also makes your point about QM blunt, as well as histories of particles and all that. There can very well be two structures that are the same structure. Structure isn't unique. What you could hope for is then chaos theory, that minute changes makes the dance which this structure generates basically random. However there is no law that two dances couldn't exist at the same time dancing the same dance. In your view there really should be a problem with the possibility of copying structure or dance. No I can't, since I would have thought that the matter counts as well in order to be a instance. An architecture isn't a unique instance without the matter it is composed of. Of course I can, but I always try to believe it, if you have enough reasons then why shouldn't I? However, I'm not you and I might find things that you haven't entertained as I have different beliefs from the start. Vice versa is of course applicable to you. If physicalism somehow entails also that which isn't measurable then it might not be compromised. But things able to be measured are things able to be copied. That's just the way it is. That's true, you can also have various dysfunctions to the brain stem without loosing your subjective sense of self so it has to be a small part of the brain stem. Which means that the area needed to be copied for my copying argument to work isn't at all that big as it could seem before even though it is still a slim chance. But the theoretical possibility remains and such a thing happening gives impossible results which means that it can't even exist a theoretical possibility for whatever defines a particular subjective to be duplicated. If I am equivalent to a neural architecture but not equivalent to the matter it is composed of (in other words; the neural architecture can be constituted by a completely new set of atoms but I would remain the same me as I am the architecture) then that certainly enables copying, at least theoretically. I don't really care how infinitesmall the chance are for such a happening, but it is theoretically possible, while the consequence of two me's is theoretically impossible. That we are neural architecture alone is theoretically impossible for that reason. You would have to invoke that matter is unique to get anywhere, cause when it comes to structure even QM can't help. Not really, the uncertainty principle is a fundamental property as can be seen with the EPR thought experiment. If there are no laws or principles that govern cause and effect then why would a cause change to a effect? Why wouldn't it simply be what it is forever static? If everything was predetermined then how can time flow? Something must be transcending. What? Potentials aren't fixed? What do you even mean? Either there is a possibility for my existence or there isn't, as I exist there definetly was a possibility for me to exist. As there was a possibility for me to exist there also is a possibility for me to exist in the future. Possibilities doesn't change. Either something is possible, or it isn't.
physical/energy exists eternally ergo the metaphysical, cosmic laws/principles complemeting the physical/energy exist eternally. The question of why they exist or why the function with cause and effect seem moot to, i.e. it just IS, that way. I certainly do not believe that our finite, phyiscal/enerngy Universe of occupied space, was caused by something else. The cause and effect functions of the parts of our finite Universe is differrent then the finite Universe as a whole i.e. the whole Universe does not cause and affect because there exists no other entity for our finite Universe to interact with, The imaginary fruit, triangle or whatever has no weight/mass, color/frequency, taste, no charge, etc.... Sound is physical/energy motion ergo momentum of mass/weight and ability to do work. I think it is error because existence of underlying interrelationships we do not observer and specifically gravitational. Who said there are no cosmic laws/principles? Certainly not me so your not making rational sense to me. Your asking why is our finite Universe the only perpetutal motions machine-- i.e. why is phyiscal/enegy cannot be created nor destroyed ---and I have a few differrent ideas in those regards; 1) opposite charges can never cancel each other out, so they eternally chase each others tail, 2) the possible 2-1 ratio of a triangle where two lines-of-relationship and /or two of angles have a differrence that so that that there exists an eternal unbalance of 2-1 ratio, that is eternally chasing its own tail seeking equilibrium as three similar aspects. Deterministic may be slightly differrent than your predetermined i..e your predetermined infers/implys that there is a knower of all interrelationships that can predetermine--- know and predict specific futures of specific parts of Universe to any future date ----. Since we can not observe the ultra-micro we can never map/account for all of Universes finite set of interrelationships ergo we cannot predetermine/prediect the future of any or all parts to any future date. So again, I think your use of the word predetemine( predict ) confuses the idea of a deterministic cause and effect Universe, since that is not a possible. I agree. Anything is possible that does not violate any of the cosmic laws/principles. I think that your looping on thought train that is irrelevant/moot with some of your questions and would be better if focus on discovering the operational functionalities of our finite Universe( occupied space ). imho. As that approach leads to the next thing a reductive approach to grasping the whole finite Universe. imho r6
"Same as it ever was"--Talking Heads Regarding ghosts/paranormal phenomena, I don't know it they are physical or non-physical. If they are physical then we are definitely going to have to update some the laws we believe underlie physical reality. For instance how a non-material nonmass entity can exert a force on or manipulate energy thru physical objects. Really though this is just part of the larger issue of how persons as conscious minds can exert influence on physical reality. Just calling these entities physical doesn't explain how it happens. Persons, and ghosts as a subset of that group, are imo subjective beings who cannot be detected or even experienced directly in themselves. We only see the effects of subjective existents on physical reality and INFER the subject behind those effects. Much as we infer a singularity from the observed effects IT exerts on reality. But I don't think physicality will mean much if we eventually generalize it to include subjective entities. At that point we applying a physical label to phenomena that don't instantiate physical properties like mass, color, shape, volume, density, charge, etc. What becomes of the term "physical" if it no longer distinguishes a phenomena as having such empirically accessible properties?
It's indeed hard to conceive of a purely objective existence that is devoid of anyone subjective. I even have a hard time differing that objective existence from nothingness. I mean, it isn't distinctive if there is no distinction made. So how can it differ from nothing by its own? As it seems the universe has existed long before humans did, even though perhaps there are other beings in the universe there could be a time in the universe where no such beings existed that could differ the universe from nothing. It is indeed very hard to understand the concept of a thing-in-itself which is what existence itself must ultimately be as there can be no further description to the property of existence itself other than that it exists (as the foundation for something else to be manifest). The colour out there is the texture by which light looses some frequency of red/green/blue, the remaining frequencies make up the colour we see. Which is thus the complete opposite of the frequencies of the texture which the colour represents. It of course depends on if light has been reflected upon something or is transmitted, transmitted light retains the nature of it's source. Such that if a atom emits light we see the true nature of that atom in respect of colour, but if instead the atom reflects light then we see the opposite of the true nature of that atom as the atoms frequency matches up to the light and the light is absorbed to it (thus reflecting the remaining frequencies). So that the colour we see is the colour that is "out there" isn't always correct, though the brain might compensate for it although not knowing of it, by representing colours that seem natural to the world around us, it would be a surprising fact (at least to me) if it turns out that the brain represents the true nature of the world when it comes to colours. So we can agree that there are colours in the world, in which the colours are ultimately represented as either the way light is reflected or emitted by atoms or texture, but if the colours are the same phenomena "out there" as it is experienced, that is something that we just don't know. May very well be that neurons are tuned into frequencies just as atoms are, and thus respond equally to the electrochemical stimuli from the nerves of the eye, if so there might be a one to one correspondence to the true nature of colour. Nevertheless it is important in the context of this thread to point out that I don't perceive frequencies of neurons as equivalent to experience, but rather a correspondence to experience in which experience itself is of a different nature. Could that third class be meaning? I couldn't describe, for instance, the sensation of sound, or the sensation of sight to someone who is deaf or blind, but the meaning of both seem obvious to me nevertheless. Often I find that physics are described materialistically, forces is one such concept that could be thought to be immaterial, but instead is materialistically represented by virtual particles and particles. Not every physical concept can be represented this way of course, but more often than not does the concepts that can't be represented that way by todays science instead be represented with the way matter interacts with matter, thus having no middle-man as a immaterial concept. Evolution is always in contact with matter for example, and as such is a description of the way matter interacts with matter. The same goes with entropy as molecules collide and thus tend to seperate from eachother (heated matter taking more space by vibrating). Subjectivity may also be matter that interacts with matter but I find it conceptually harder to link subjectivity with matter in a way that subjectivity is matter. Rather subjectivity seems more to be like entropy while being just a word for how matter behaves it isn't something "in itself" which subjectivity clearly is. Yes, some things must just be that way, in other words to be something in and of itself instead of something composed or something constructed. That doesn't stop us from asking why anyway, cause the question itself might reveal something that we previously "ignored" or simply didn't think of. Which simply means that there are "modes of being" which doesn't have to be made up of things. So what does it then consist of? We do see it as a coherent image. By sound I was referring to the experience of sound, it is easy to see that the sound which is out there in the world is simply waves of air pressure, which works similarly to water waves in the ocean. It is non-local, not sure if gravity can explain it, but if gravity is due to gravitons then it too should be limited by the speed of light, which non-locality isn't limited by. It rather seems as if there is a underlying reality in which everything is directly accessible (perhaps exists in a single point if seen in that way). I'm just saying that there are concepts extrapolated upon cause and effect, hence I find it hard for everything to be explained simply by cause and effect. Which should be a given in a deterministic universe. Even though that too is a important question that wasn't what I was asking, I was simply asking that if everything is determinable, how can any moment be more important than any other? I think that there has to be indeterminacy. We might not yet fully understand time, but I'm pretty sure that it would show that the world isn't determinable (or it would have been and no time would flow, so to speak). Perhaps it is confusing the idea, but I do think that both predetermined and determinable are much the same thing in principle. As if the universe is deterministic (every effect in the future could potentially be determined by previous causes) then the universe is also predetermined from the beginning. I'm not necessarily saying that we can determine it (since that is impossible because of the uncertainty principle). Either way we couldn't determine our own future if we know about it (we can't determine the determination before it is determined and the future of the determination is always in a point after the determination has been made and thus can't represent itself nor the consequences it has on the future). Yes some ideas that I represent isn't directly relevant to the question of the thread, but relevant to underlying assumptions related to it (not only mine but others assumptions as well).
