slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  That's not a good analogy. We are not postulating the existence of imaginary entities.

  The fact is that things exist and they either have awareness or they don't. Materialists assume that things don't have awarenss unless it's proved that they do. But why make that assumption? Simply throwing arms in the air shouting "ridiculous" and "teapot" and "Thetans" is not an argument.

  The only "thing" we have experience of being is ourselves. And we know that we are aware. So we know that at least some things are aware. We don't know for certain that there are things that exist that at unaware.

  We have direct proof that a thing can be aware. (Ourselves)

  We have no direct proof that a thing can be unaware.

  Simply making the assertion that most things are unaware, and any other view is ridiculous, is not an argument.
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  It's not my argument. It's an argument made by Galen Stawson, an academic philosopher who's taught at Reading, Rutgers, MIT, Princeton, Oxford and elsewhere.

  Why assume that things are unaware? The "thing" we have direct experience of being is ourselves, and we are aware. So we know that things can be aware, for certain. We don't know for certain if things can be unaware because we have no direct experience of being a thing which is unaware. We can speculate and guess that it is possible to be a thing that is unaware but it's difficult to prove.
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  The distinction seems to be that awareness is simply a lower level of mental state than consciousness. For example while many conceive of monkeys or dogs as conscious, in that they appear to have "thoughts", it's doubtful that ants or slugs are conscious in that sense. But they may have some sort of mental state, or "awareness", that we would stop short of describing as conscious.

  Panpsychists simply make the point that materialists make the assumption that things don't have awareness unless proved otherwise. But why make that assumption? Why not make the opposite assumption: that things have awareness unless it's proved that they don't? You can say that's ridiculous or whatever else. But is there actually any good reason for loading the question in favour of materialism?

  In fact panpsychists go further and point out that we only have experience of being aware. We don't know what it's like to be a thing that isn't aware. In fact, can we even be sure that it's possible to exist and be unaware? We have direct evidence that a thing can exist and be aware (because we exist and we are aware). But obviously we could never have direct evidence that it's possible to exist and be unaware. So why assume that most things in the universe are unaware when in fact we can't prove that anything is unaware. On the other hand we can prove that we are aware, and therefore that at least some things are aware. So maybe our assumptions should be loaded in favour of awareness rather than against it.
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  LoveUni, you think everything is clear cut. It seems to be your starting point. I am the opposite. I agree with Derrida who said the inside is always infected by the outside, in any duality you care to interrogate.

  On the specifics the of the grey areas between life and non-life I found an interesting longish quote on this web page on the topic, including:

  "Evolutionary history suggests that life involves a range of co-evolving hierarchies, and that non-life and life share a huge and biologically significant territory that buffers and makes more complex any account of either."

  https://unrealnature.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/between-living-and-non-living/
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  15

  Leaked - Video tape inside Watchtower HQ of protest Nov 5, 2017

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i saw this on jw reddit and thought, okay that will just be one of the protesters videotaping near their security entrance but it's really from inside the hq's.

  i doubt the org.

  will be happy that this was taped and leaked.https://rutube.ru/video/2dbc8185062524a41ed8c9e2117ca39d/.

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  slimboyfat

  Hold on a minute. Does this mean there are spies on the inside? Working against Kingdom interests? I am shocked.
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  waton you substitute "lifeless" for the word "dead", and thereby make my point. "Lifeless" seems a less problematic description for rocks than "dead". I'm just pointing out there is something a bit odd about calling a rock "dead", just as it would be odd to call a rainbow or a cloud or a flame "dead", although you could call them that if you wish.

  To my mind, to call something "dead", implies that it has "died" at some point. That's why I find it a bit odd to call rocks "dead". When does a rock die? (Apart from rocks arising from organic matter as I said)

  And anyway, panpsychists as I understand it don't argue that nonorganic matter is alive. So it's a red herring. Although I suppose you could argue that awareness on any level implies being "alive". But then the distinction between life and non-life is complicated even outside of the issue of panpsychism. All sorts of categories that are only good so far as they are useful in any case.

  I don't think panpsychists would generally say rocks are conscious. In fact Strawson denies the table is conscious for example. The point is that all matter comprises basic constituents that have "awareness" as a basic property already present at the fundamental level. This is the alternative to the supposition that awareness and consciousness somehow arise suddenly in certain structures at a certain level of complexity - which is in some ways the more mystical or voodoo interpretation of reality when you think about it.
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  I don't think anyone thinks rocks are alive. I don't think "dead" a particularly good description for them either. For something to be dead, doesn't it imply it was once alive? I don't think rocks were ever alive. Having said that, of course there are exceptions, like lumps of coal for example. It might make sense to describe coal as dead matter since it was once living matter. But not so igneous rocks and so on.

  We know that we experiece things and we know that we are made of matter. This is the only instance we have direct experience. So we know that at least some matter is able to experience, because we ourselves do. Which kind of poses the question: are there other kinds of matter that lack the ability to experience? We can't say for sure. Which kinds of turns the common intuition on its head, and suggests we should take the experimental quality of matter for granted, until proved otherwise in any given case. Or at least it shows that it's not necessarily safe to assume the non-experiential quality of matter outside the consciousness of humans and other species.
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

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  slimboyfat

  The same person told me Asimov wrote books about the Bible too. Who was that now?
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  142

  Panpsychism - a philosophy with a future

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  at one time scientists believed that living things and non-living things were made of different material, accounting for the unique properties of living things.

  this idea is called vitalism and is no longer popular.

  what does remain popular (in fact is still the dominant view) is a similar idea that things that experience the world (humans, frogs, mice) are different from things that don't experience the world (potatoes, rocks, snowflakes).

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  I knew someone who knew Asimov. Because I remember talking to them about Asimov, and they said he was really grumpy in person. But now I can't remember who it was I was talking to at the time. So strange to remember a whole conversation but not remember who I had it with. Am I getting old?

  Radio 4 was all about driverless cars tonight. They say it will only be a few years now.

  Will robots have consciousness? If all matter is minimally aware then maybe it adds another dimension (or maybe not) to the whole robot awareness thing, and the Turing test.
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  23

  Pale.Emperor Meets The Mormons

  by pale.emperor in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  when i was a jw i was fascinated with the mormon religion.

  i never believed a word of it of course, but i was interested in their religion like most boys were interested in star wars.

  i’ve read the book of mormon, doctrine & covenants, pearl of great price, book of abraham, watched their videos, read critical books by ex mormons etc etc… (strange at the time that i never did this with my own religion!

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  slimboyfat

  I've always been curious how they explain away the genetic evidence that North American natives are not descended from "the lost 10 tribes of Israel".

  One explanation I've read: Mormons believe that Israelites travelled to America, but they don't believe that the whole population of the Americas came from the Israelites. Only a very small proportion. Most native Americans descend from people from Asia who crossed the Bering Strait thousands of years ago. The relatively small numbers of Israelites who joined the may have (conveniently) left little or no trace in the current gene pool.

  Apologists have got an "answer" for everything. Especially Mormon apologists.