To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/10/05 03:50
Subject: Re: [K-list] Consciousness
From: Ville Vainio
On 1999/10/05 03:50, Ville Vainio posted thus to the K-list:
On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Martin Thompson wrote:
> >That's quite restrictive. Give reality a chance, and stop thinking with
> >words.
> >
> I don't see what the ego has to do with it, really. An experience
> doesn't need an ego to be an experience.
Ego likes to call a thing "experience". If there is not enough ego, it's
more of an "occurence".
> >> 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).
>
> I doubt that it is an abstraction, I suppose. For example, it is clear
> that electricity "is" a flow of electrons and depending on which way you
> want to look at it, either the electricity or the electrons or both are
> an abstraction. However, it is not at all clear to me that consciousness
> "is" a flow of electrons and other particles, although what else it
> might be isn't clear to me either. You say it is nothing. I don't buy
> that at the moment.
Take your time... it would be useless to suddenly start thinking it as
nothing unless you find it intuitive and obvious. It would be a false
realization, the finger that points to the moon instead of the moon.
> We're all one with the Cosmos. It just doesn't always seem that way. I
> know. I still what to know just how this illusion works, though.
Nothing wrong with that... I lean a bit towards Zen myself and see such
things as unnecessary, but a hindu might be as eager to ponder the
mechanism of the illusion as you. For me there is no illusion (the one we
are talking about) anymore. This has nothing to do with bragging, it's
just that I have had some quite profound experiences of depersonalization.
> >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.
> Which is to accept that it is just a bunch of molecules moving about? Or
> that it is ubiquitous and therefore unanalysable at present?
Just that it is inseperable from lifeless nature. Even if there was
"spiritual" particles/waves (s1, s2, s3...), a rock or any manifestation
of matter/wave would have quite similar configuration of them. That there
is nothing universally special about living nature. Unanalysable, yes, but
understandable.
> Consciousness is beyond the scope of physics at present as it cannot be
> measured directly. But to say that consciousness doesn't exist to me
> makes no sense: experiences are happening, aren't they? (I tie
Experiences as an abstraction seem to happen. That doesn't suggest they
are anything special, or essentially different from other things. I might
throw the old All is One-cliche here.
> >> >The straightforward solution: nothing is conscious.
>
> A common argument from philosophers such as Dennett, as far as I can
> see. But it fails to explain the phenomenon in question to simply deny
> it. I could equally say that nothing is alive. Clearly, we are all made
Yes, you could. And you would be right.
> from dead matter, yet life is a useful concept nevertheless. An
Useful as an everyday concept - less useful in philosophy.
> explanation for life is equally lacking, by the way: again, we can't
> tell just what it is that causes something to be alive rather than
> inanimate (for want of a better word).
I would go for DNA (for the conventional meaning of life). Dead life is
retired DNA :-).
> >> It is strange, because this is clearly true - yet consciousness doesn't
> >> seem like that.
> >
> >It's the ego again.
>
> I don't think so... Just what has ego to do with it? Are you saying that
> someone without a personal history in their mind cannot experience?
Ego is not personal history. Ego is the motor that makes consciousness
seem special. (respectively, spiritual ego makes higher state of
consciousness seem special). This is a matter of definition of words,
which is unproductive, though.
Ville Vainio - vvainioATnospamtp.spt.fi http://www.tp.spt.fi/~vvainio
We're all puppets
The first step on the path to understanding is seeing the strings
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