To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/10/04 04:40
Subject: Re: !Consciousness (was Re: [K-list] Nature
From: Ville Vainio
On 1999/10/04 04:40, Ville Vainio posted thus to the K-list:
On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, Martin Thompson wrote:
> >It's the ego that prevents you from seeing "how". It's quite simple,
> >really. It just can't be explained with words in any satisfactory way.
> That's no good to me, then.
That's quite restrictive. Give reality a chance, and stop thinking with
words.
> >I believe experience is not a fundamental property of universe in any way.
> >It's just stuff that happens. Matter doing the thing matter does.
> To me, that means that it is a fundamental property (much like
> electromagnetism, or space-time). Or perhaps you mean that it is just an
> effect, a by-product, like light from the Sun is a by-product of fusion.
No, I mean that it's an abstraction: we lump a group of phenomena
(electrical/cellular) together and label it "experience", and start
treating it as a unit itself - we forget with time that it's just an
abstraction (or more often, we realize the abstraction long before we
realize the things it is abstracting). In fact (almost) all things we
currently know are abstractions, but the abstractions that get problematic
are the ones we start to accept as "real things", and treating them as
axioms.
Thinking through abstractions is sort of useful since we have to simplify
the reality enough to cope with the everyday life, but when it comes to
philosophy its harmful baggage. I don't like dissecting the reality into
effects, actors and products - all in all, the whole thing is just an
ongoing, all-encompassing "effect". Reality at time T+1 is a direct result
of reality at T.
> >Forget the consciousness and experience, and focus your attention on the
> >matter alone. See if you would get the "Aha!" matter-movement from that.
> >Hard-core materialism is the closest western approximation of the wisdom
> I fully accept Western materialism. Its results are easily demonstrable
> in any suitably equipped laboratory, so hearsay is minimised (but not
> eliminated, of course). But I want to extend it to areas it fails to
> explain as well, such as consciousness - or find alternative
> explanations.
I don't think materialism fails to explain consciousness. It gives us all
the tools we need to make the explanation ourselves. We just have to take
the last step.
> >Of course you have experiences - the mistake you make is (IMHO)
> >labeling them "experiences", and giving them a special place in your
> database. The special place is that they don't have an adequate
> explanation in physics, as yet.
I assume you mean biology. Physics has no problem with consciousness, as
from the physic's viewpoint it's clear (as for now, at least) that
consciousness doesn't exist. Of course many of the physicist's disagree,
since they are as much slaves of their own ego as any man on the street.
> >> To have solved the problem of consciousness, it must be necessary to
> >> be able to show unambiguously whether any given entity is conscious or
> >> not.
> >
> >The straightforward solution: nothing is conscious. Consciousness doesn't
> >mean anything. If you can get an intuitive grasp of this idea, it's
> >extremely liberating and blissful. In the Samadhi experience one sees that
> >Everything is conscious, which is the same thing as Nothing is conscious
> >(ie. the attribute "conscious" is useless... kinda like saying everything
> >is everything).
> It is strange, because this is clearly true - yet consciousness doesn't
> seem like that.
It's the ego again.
Ville Vainio - vvainioATnospamtp.spt.fi http://www.tp.spt.fi/~vvainio
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The first step on the path to understanding is seeing the strings
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