Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Felix]

I said: "Starting with a preconceived model and attempting to make the evidence conform to it is not science."

BigBango: Tell that to Einstein who had a preconceived model, General Relativity, that predicted the bending of light around massive stars. That is what scientists do.

Einstein did not start with a model, he started with a theory, based on the known properties of light and gravity discovered by Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, et. al. Then he formulated mathematical models to extend and elaborate on that knowledge. He did not simply engage in armchair speculation.

[Sculptor1]

I said: "Starting with a preconceived model and attempting to make the evidence conform to it is not science."

BigBango: Tell that to Einstein who had a preconceived model, General Relativity, that predicted the bending of light around massive stars. That is what scientists do.

Einstein did not start with a model, he started with a theory, based on the known properties of light and gravity discovered by Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, et. al. Then he formulated mathematical models to extend and elaborate on that knowledge. He did not simply engage in armchair speculation.

I have to agree here. The Eddington observation without Einstein would have been dismissed as an aberration. The fact is , it verified the careful work of a life time.
Science, at its best, is capable of applying a cosmology contingent upon it "saving the appearances", when those appearances do not fit, science has shown itself willing and able to change its view rather than use the barrier of faith to defend a bankrupt system.

[AmosTheSpinozaGuy]

This is an interesting topic. I think (hope) one day man will solve the mortality problem by uploading brains to computers (singularity) but until then the issue of mortality remains. Generic Subjective Continuity is a way to address this perhaps. But it needs a full blown theory of mind to be complete which (absent a theory of quantum gravity) eludes us right now. Some of the stuff here on this thread I need to address - first of all I never liked "b theory" (tenseless theory of time). It is a linguistic mistake - a category mistake. Temporality is the most basic thing there is, and it cannot be "waved away" as being (for example) a negatively curved dimension of anti-DeSitter spacetime. Those are just models, not reality as such. So, given "a theory" tensed time being the case, we need to ask "what is it" that is supposed to survive permanent brain death and "re-awake" in another nervous system in GSC? For me very roughly I think a conscious entity (as I have argued on my blog) is basically a mechanism that increases its internal entropy. So to be simple the "thing" that is conscious from moment to moment (or that awakens in the morning) is not "I" (the notion of "I" is a meme machine and that is another topic) , that pure "awareness" is not - in fact - a "thing" at all - it is a Process, a Process of entropy getting produced at an accelerating rate. (Tenseless time just muddles everything - with Wittgenstein I try to keep things simple where I can.) So the "thing" in GSC that "wakes up" after brain-death would be a Process that carries forth, in a new form. Consciousness is not "something that is" (a b theory red herring) but is a process that "is happening" - when I wake up, "consciousness is happening" or (in my view) "entropy is getting made". To channel quantum theory this thing we call consciousness is more a wave not a particle, it is an energy pattern (and / or informational pattern, if you will). Just as in quantum theory, electrons can be waves (which interact with one another and even recursively with themselves) - being simplistic here for clarity so I know i am oversimplyfing - so the process of entropy production we call consciousness is like a wave of information - it is not "I am concsious now" it is more like "a pattern of energy is conscious-ing" (verb). But to address another specious claim here - this notion of "we are all the same consciousness" (which would be horrifying if say I had to be re-incarnated as a victim of the Holocaust) is prima facia absurd - that would be like saying there is only one electron in the universe (again only possible due to b-theory b.s.). In good old fashion tensed , a-theory of time, the patterns of information that "conscious" (verb) can interact / overlap, sure, but are still also unique - we should think of "the soul" as a pattern of information / energy that generates entropy and it can have different contents (memories, etc) but is always unique , not reversable, not repeatable, etc. I think the quantum multiverse can explain GSC somewhat - if I die in one timeline, because "I" (the instance of awareness "I" associates with itself) is a wave (of sorts) it still "exists" in parallel timelines, ad eternam (or least ways until the heat death of the universe which perhaps is the Hindu Nirvana). Mind you, I still hope for / support the idea of technological immortality - I would personally rather live billions of years as a computer than die and get reborn and so forth but that is because the "I" is a meme-machine created by memes in order to produce memes and thus is naturally interested in its survival so it / "I" cannot here be objective. Cool topic. (My own model of conscious entities as entropy-producing processes is here: theauguriesofamos[dot]blogspot[dot]com/2019/06/the-net-system-proposed-model-of[dot]html ).

[AmosTheSpinozaGuy]

This is an interesting topic. I think (hope) one day man will solve the mortality problem by uploading brains to computers (singularity) but until then the issue of mortality remains. Generic Subjective Continuity is a way to address this perhaps. But it needs a full blown theory of mind to be complete which (absent a theory of quantum gravity) eludes us right now. Some of the stuff here on this thread I need to address - first of all I never liked "b theory" (tenseless theory of time). It is a linguistic mistake - a category mistake. Temporality is the most basic thing there is, and it cannot be "waved away" as being (for example) a negatively curved dimension of anti-DeSitter spacetime. Those are just models, not reality as such. So, given "a theory" tensed time being the case, we need to ask "what is it" that is supposed to survive permanent brain death and "re-awake" in another nervous system in GSC? For me very roughly I think a conscious entity (as I have argued on my blog) is basically a mechanism that increases its internal entropy. So to be simple the "thing" that is conscious from moment to moment (or that awakens in the morning) is not "I" (the notion of "I" is a meme machine and that is another topic) , that pure "awareness" is not - in fact - a "thing" at all - it is a Process, a Process of entropy getting produced at an accelerating rate. (Tenseless time just muddles everything - with Wittgenstein I try to keep things simple where I can.) So the "thing" in GSC that "wakes up" after brain-death would be a Process that carries forth, in a new form. Consciousness is not "something that is" (a b theory red herring) but is a process that "is happening" - when I wake up, "consciousness is happening" or (in my view) "entropy is getting made". To channel quantum theory this thing we call consciousness is more a wave not a particle, it is an energy pattern (and / or informational pattern, if you will). Just as in quantum theory, electrons can be waves (which interact with one another and even recursively with themselves) - being simplistic here for clarity so I know i am oversimplyfing - so the process of entropy production we call consciousness is like a wave of information - it is not "I am concsious now" it is more like "a pattern of energy is conscious-ing" (verb). But to address another specious claim here - this notion of "we are all the same consciousness" (which would be horrifying if say I had to be re-incarnated as a victim of the Holocaust) is prima facia absurd - that would be like saying there is only one electron in the universe (again only possible due to b-theory b.s.). In good old fashion tensed , a-theory of time, the patterns of information that "conscious" (verb) can interact / overlap, sure, but are still also unique - we should think of "the soul" as a pattern of information / energy that generates entropy and it can have different contents (memories, etc) but is always unique , not reversable, not repeatable, etc. I think the quantum multiverse can explain GSC somewhat - if I die in one timeline, because "I" (the instance of awareness "I" associates with itself) is a wave (of sorts) it still "exists" in parallel timelines, ad eternam (or least ways until the heat death of the universe which perhaps is the Hindu Nirvana). Mind you, I still hope for / support the idea of technological immortality - I would personally rather live billions of years as a computer than die and get reborn and so forth but that is because the "I" is a meme-machine created by memes in order to produce memes and thus is naturally interested in its survival so it / "I" cannot here be objective. Cool topic. .

[Cycswan2]

1. I am unsure if gsc, open or empty individualism (not that they are all equivalent) can be empirically verified. Potentially there could be empirical evidence that suggest it, in part or whole, like how relativity suggested a block universe, but I am unsure whether that necessarily proved the sort of “Parmenides non-philosophical becoming” universe, which seems to make sense logically, even if counter intuitive. I think someone that accepts aforementioned, has to put logical principles in themselves above empiricism, and understand that without these logical principles, it would be impossible to validate any said empirical findings. So our types would see this logic as a manifestation of something profoundly foundational to reality itself. More real than what is testable. And it’s possible that the empiricism goes against logic, but our types would reject these findings, seeing these finds as contaminated, incomplete, unknowable, etc. Where the truth is not manifested in the empirical, as it could be the case we can never see the inner workings of any given phenomenon. This is the best way I could describe.

2. In regards to the recent comment, I don’t see how presentism and the actual flow of time - which would imply change in and of itself - to be true. I personally see philosophical becoming as a logical impossibility that violates foundational laws of logic, identity, etc. i see this experience of change and continuity to be an illusion due to self referential memory, and also other kinds of self same patterns that reinforce a subject’s and multiple subjects’ sense of continuity, giving the impression of continuity and a logical narrative that is shared via the way our universe is constituted (its physics). I see no logical violation for all subjective states to be frozen across their given spatiotemporal coordinates. And if there were a magical being outside spacetime, they could observe these slices. If they could embody this arbitrary slice, they would feel the constant sensory qualities of this slice - the: smell, sight, taste, touch, sound, etc. These qualities would be an aspect of the slice, with the subject embedded into this slice. I see no reason why this can not be the case, as I don’t believe that subjective states have to have actual continuity for their being. Like a program on a computer that needs to be executed, I don’t think consciousness is like that. There is nothing that has to “happen” for subjective states to exist within spacetime, static, with their qualitative content.

Sorry if the language is non academic and contradictory sounding, as I am not too knowledgeable in philosophy and the terminology, I am explaining it the best I can. I also will say that I would like gsc, oi/ei or anthing akin to this to be false on a personal level. I personally believe the implications are quite terrible. Our world gives the subject the illusion of choice, the illusion that we can control life and its experiences with enough time and energy, and that there will be finality to experience itself. A sort of false hope and sense of agency. I’ve even thought it would maybe be better just 24/7, indefinitely being on fire, with the anticipation that this is all you’ll every experience, with no false hope that the world is any otherthan this vs our world that has mostly mundane experiences, with some blissful and pretty painful experiences.. but even worse, scattered throughout these incarnations, truly unimaginable forms of suffering (the stuff you would see on gore sites or the dark web, eg). I would wager most people would rather experience nothing (if it were an option), than even one truly torturous experience. But we are talking about countless of these experiences sprinkled within the incarnations that “ahead” and “behind” us, with no: memory, essence, woo that makes us remember or avoid fate. It merely is what it is. It’s existential claustrophobia. We are sitting ducks.

[DerOesi]

Sorry for necroing this post. What do you think about what „being“ „you“ will be after death. Is it random?

[Sy Borg]

Sorry for necroing this post. What do you think about what „being“ „you“ will be after death. Is it random?

I'm glad you did revive it, I'd missed it, and the ideas of the OP are fascinating.

In the end, as the OP said, being depends on self referential memory. A rock melting in a volcano is not suffering, as far as we can tell. When worlds collide, I doubt they tremble in fear as the impact looms. It just happens, like the many dynamics within and around us that we don't consciously notice.

It seems to me that our personalities are like readily disposable cells as part of a much larger, emergent personality - the personality of the Earth as a whole. At present the planet's overall personality is primitive and fragmented, barely able to protect itself from asteroids. However, with the advent of AI, a grand integration seems possible in the far future. I doubt that these dynamics will suit those who prefer freedom to security, but natural systems are famously unconcerned about the happiness of individuals.