Spiritual demographics of PowerSwitch

[Quintus]

Scientist: "What do you think, does God exist?"

Atheist: "Does who exist?"

Scientist: "God - does he exist, what do you think?"

Atheist: "Who exactly do you mean when you say, God?"

Scientist: "Well, you know God, the Creator, the Almighty - you know, does he exist?"

Atheist: "Ah, right! I know who you mean now. No - of course he doesn't exist."

My views on God/s changed somewhat after reading Karen Armstrong's excellent little book: 'A Short History of Myth' and then on to some of her others.
http://www.DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.co.uk/Short-History-M ... 1841957038

Richard Dawkins, scientist & the worlds most famous atheist, puts the of chance of God existing at 6.8/6.9 out of 7:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8049711.stm (Five minutes with: Richard Dawkins)

Here is another atheist, Douglas Adams, talking about an 'Artificial Organic God'. Thought provoking stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtOm7lM ... L&index=16

[Ludwig]

Ah but I see consciousness as an illusion. It is well known that the human hand starts moving before the brain is aware of the decision to pick up that pencil. Consciousness is a post hoc attempt to rationalise the output of the subconscious workings of the brain. Imagine several 'memes' operating in parallel in the brain's soup. One of them wins the 'argument' and takes control of the arm moving interface. Positive feedback cuts in, the competing memes subside, and the 'decision' is transmitted to the narrative forming part of the brain. This reviews the output of the winning meme and logs it away in short and/or long term memory.

Sometimes, the logging process pops up memories or reloads older memes that then raise the panic level and override the original decision. I find this happens to me a lot.

However, the key is that 'consciousness' is simply a narrative function, which rationalises the 'decisions' taken in the unconscious parts of the brain.

I do not hold this view, firstly because it doesn't ring true to me, and secondly because there exists what I consider a neater paradigm in the idea that mind and matter are in constant interaction: or rather, that they are at bottom one and the same thing.

My idea, which is by no means original, is that consciousness is a function of electromagnetic fields. Human consciousness is highly complex because our brains generate extremely complex electromagnetic waveforms; but in principle, consciousness is something that pervades the whole universe. You might say that there are two states: pure potentiality (mind) and pure actuality (matter); but in fact I speculate that these are merely the two ends of a whole spectrum of states of more and more refined possibility: what we call actuality is simply potentiality that has been reduced to such a small spectrum of possibility that it can be regarded as fact. But even at that level, if you break down the actuality into its component particles, you find tiny structures - the subatomic particles - that still only exist as potentialities - wave patterns - until they are analysed, when they behave as particles.

A very interesting book that speculates about consciousness is "The Nature of Consciousness: A Hypothesis" by Susan Pockett - it deals with the idea of consciousness as a function of electromagnetic fields. Even if you don't agree with its proposals, you could not accuse it of being woolly or unscientific; it is very much an academic tract and I admit I got lost at several points.

[UndercoverElephant]

My idea, which is by no means original, is that consciousness is a function of electromagnetic fields.

I don't see how this makes any sense either. What does "is a function of" mean?

[Ludwig]

My idea, which is by no means original, is that consciousness is a function of electromagnetic fields.

I don't see how this makes any sense either. What does "is a function of" mean?

"is caused by", in this sense. Maybe that's a simplistic way of putting it; the idea is that there is a one-to-one correspondence between particular patterns in e-m fields and particular states of consciousness. There is research that suggests this may be the case, which Susan Pockett describes in her book.

The question then is "What is an e-m field anyway?" My idea (well, not mine, but the one I am entertaining) is that everything basically exists as a waveform (well, this is something quantum mechanics says anyway).

I'm not a scientist so I don't have a detailed theory. Broadly speaking you could say I think everything is interconnected, through space and time.

I've also had some slightly weird personal experiences that affected my worldview

[UndercoverElephant]

My idea, which is by no means original, is that consciousness is a function of electromagnetic fields.

I don't see how this makes any sense either. What does "is a function of" mean?

"is caused by", in this sense. Maybe that's a simplistic way of putting it; the idea is that there is a one-to-one correspondence between particular patterns in e-m fields and particular states of consciousness. There is research that suggests this may be the case, which Susan Pockett describes in her book.

The question then is "What is an e-m field anyway?" My idea (well, not mine, but the one I am entertaining) is that everything basically exists as a waveform (well, this is something quantum mechanics says anyway).

I'm not a scientist so I don't have a detailed theory. Broadly speaking you could say I think everything is interconnected, through space and time.

I've also had some slightly weird personal experiences that affected my worldview

Well, there's a whole bunch of different claims in there.

The weird personal experiences can't have told you anything about what consciousness is - at least not in the sort of specific terms that you're suggesting. They just tell you something about causality - that there is something weird going on.

The claim that "everything is interconnected" is one of the claims made by nearly all mystics, although do they really all have to be connected via spacetime? One of the implications of QM is that everything is interconnected, but not necessarily via spacetime - quantum entanglement appears to be an example of non-local connections i.e. the connections exist at a more fundamental level than that of spacetime. Two entangled particles can be intimately connected, even if they are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

That there may be a correspondence between conscious states and E-M activity in the brain may turn out to be correct (although I know of no actual evidence to suggest that it is), but this in itself doesn't do much to reduce the mysteriousness of consciousness - we still have to explain why an E-M field should "cause" or "create" this consciousness, and we still have to answer the question "what IS consciousness?" Saying X causes Y doesn't tell you what Y actually is, especially if X can be physically defined and Y can't. The position looks like a sort of dualistic epiphenomenalism, and I'm not sure it makes any more sense than materialism does.

Basically, the theory you're proposing still starts with the material universe and then tries to add something to it in order to provide an explanation for consciousness. I think we have to go in the other direction and not start with the material universe at all.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/

Instead of trying to explain how consciousness arises from matter, or, like the idealists, trying to explain material reality in terms of consciousness, neutral monism claims that reality is made of neither matter nor consciousness but something else entirely.

[UndercoverElephant]

I just looked up Susan Pockett:

The mind-body problem boils down to the question of whether consciousness (mind) is a physical phenomenon or a non-physical one. The position that consciousness is a physical phenomenon is known as materialism and the position that it isn't is called dualism. Almost all modern-day scientists are, at least on the surface, fierce materialists. Indeed, in scientific circles these days the word "dualist" is so unacceptable that it tends to be reserved as a last-ditch imprecation, to be hurled only when all else has failed to dispose of an opponent's argument.

She starts out with exactly the same false dichotomy that the materialists do - that we are being forced to choose between materialism and dualism. We aren't. There's numerous other alternatives including idealism, neutral monism and the claim that all metaphysical positions are incorrect and that "the answer" cannot be put into words (which is the position of the post-modernists and Wittgensteinians). Dualism is as wrong as materialism is. Neither of them make sense. The trouble is that it is very hard for a physicist like Pockett to shake off the idea that she MUST start with physical reality and then try to build an explanation of consciousness on top of it. That is why she thinks she has to choose between materialism and dualism. She's not taking into account the possibility that physical reality is itself a manifestation of a deeper reality which is non-physical.

[emordnilap]

...and a planetary duty to protect nature's integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.

I hope that helps you to join up the dots.

Phew, it looks like it took some doing for them to join 'em up. Good to know they get there in the end, isn't it A? A tad unbalanced, but it does eventually dawn on them: "Oh yes, mustn't forget the rest of the biota, of which we constitute [looks up UE's figure] 0.005%."

[UndercoverElephant]

...and a planetary duty to protect nature's integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.

I hope that helps you to join up the dots.

Phew, it looks like it took some doing for them to join 'em up. Good to know they get there in the end, isn't it A? A tad unbalanced, but it does eventually dawn on them: "Oh yes, mustn't forget the rest of the biota, of which we constitute [looks up UE's figure] 0.005%."

According to this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_

...your figure was correct if taken to mean proportion of animal biomass, although I'm not sure I'm convinced. If you include everything else then it will obviously be much smaller.

[UndercoverElephant]

It is possible that 50% of the Earth's biomass consists of subterranian bacteria.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarc ... cteria.htm

At one thousand meters, the scientists discovered most of the deposits were fractured basalt glass - or hyaloclastites - which are formed when lava flowed down the volcano and spilled into the ocean.

"When we looked at some of these hyaloclastite units, we could see they had been altered and the changes were consistent with rock that has been 'eaten' by microorganisms," Fisk said.

[snip]

Microorganisms in subsurface environments on our own planet comprise a significant fraction of the Earth's biomass, with estimates ranging from 5 percent to 50 percent, the researchers point out.

Might as well just pull numbers out of your arse.

[Ludwig]

That there may be a correspondence between conscious states and E-M activity in the brain may turn out to be correct (although I know of no actual evidence to suggest that it is), but this in itself doesn't do much to reduce the mysteriousness of consciousness - we still have to explain why an E-M field should "cause" or "create" this consciousness, and we still have to answer the question "what IS consciousness?" Saying X causes Y doesn't tell you what Y actually is, especially if X can be physically defined and Y can't. The position looks like a sort of dualistic epiphenomenalism, and I'm not sure it makes any more sense than materialism does.

Basically, the theory you're proposing still starts with the material universe and then tries to add something to it in order to provide an explanation for consciousness. I think we have to go in the other direction and not start with the material universe at all.

My understanding of Pockett's hypothesis is not that electromagnetic fields cause consciousness but that there is a one-to-one correlation between them and consciousness states. She doesn't go so far as to offer explanations for such a correlation.

What many materialists (and dualists) fail to acknowledge is that what they call the material world is based on information received about that (putative) world via the senses. To use the example of our most highly developed sense, vision: what we see is, in no sense, "what is really there". Just because we see more colours than a dog does not mean that our vision is "complete". It is interpretative. There are many layers to vision. Take away the layer, for example, that deals with motion, and you will see things jerk around. (Oliver Sacks talks about seizures he's had when he loses his perception of motion.)

A book I read about our sense of vision described it as "controlled hallucination".

There is no proof of the existence of matter as something distinct from what we perceive through our senses. If our equations deal with such "matter", they still do not offer a definition of what matter is, or prove that it is something in some way more "solid" or "definite" than consciousness.

Maybe it didn't sound like it, but I am also of the opinion that by starting with materialism, we are starting at the wrong end of the spectrum.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/

Instead of trying to explain how consciousness arises from matter, or, like the idealists, trying to explain material reality in terms of consciousness, neutral monism claims that reality is made of neither matter nor consciousness but something else entirely.

That does not make sense to me. How can matter or consciousness arise from something that is "entirely" different from either of them?

As far as matter is concerned, it is true that we can never prove that it exists at all. Ultimately, all our evidence for matter exists in the form of perceptions, which are subjective.

But you can't dismiss consciousness in the same way. Consciousness - or at least my consciousness - exists, full stop. Yours might not - everything I'm experiencing, including this dialogue with you, may be just a figment of my imagination. But I know that this figment is being perceived, and the thing perceiving it is my consciousness.

So if reality is "made of neither matter nor consciousness", you are invoking at the very least a new dualism: you are claiming that there are at least two kinds of "stuff": whatever makes up "reality", and the consciousness with which I contemplate this very idea. If you are allowing the existence of matter in addition, then your model is not just dualistic but [triplistic?].

My opinion is that whatever is at the root of reality must be related to what we call consciousness. Consciousness must be at least derivable from it, because without the existence of consciousness I wouldn't even be having these thoughts.

[Ludwig]

The weird personal experiences can't have told you anything about what consciousness is - at least not in the sort of specific terms that you're suggesting. They just tell you something about causality - that there is something weird going on.

I don't actually speculate on what consciousness is. I think that to do that is to fall into the Western trap of assuming that everything can be understood by analysis. Another way of understanding things is intuition: accepting qualia (specific mental states) as inherently meaningful on their own terms.

The claim that "everything is interconnected" is one of the claims made by nearly all mystics, although do they really all have to be connected via spacetime? One of the implications of QM is that everything is interconnected, but not necessarily via spacetime - quantum entanglement appears to be an example of non-local connections i.e. the connections exist at a more fundamental level than that of spacetime. Two entangled particles can be intimately connected, even if they are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

I know about entanglement, and I undersand that "spacetime" was not really the right word. But I wanted to get the notion of time in there, because I think all moments in time are related to each other in ways other than mere sequence.

What we call time is, in fact, just a function of our perception. Get rid of the function of memory, for example, and your perception of time would surely be almost unimaginably different.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/

Instead of trying to explain how consciousness arises from matter, or, like the idealists, trying to explain material reality in terms of consciousness, neutral monism claims that reality is made of neither matter nor consciousness but something else entirely.

That does not make sense to me. How can matter or consciousness arise from something that is "entirely" different from either of them?

According to neutral monism (at least some forms of), it doesn't. What we call "matter" and "consciousness" are names we give to ways of interpeting what does exist, from our perspective. If you could conceptually "stand outside" the whole system, then you'd "see" a single, unified reality which was neither mental nor physical. Perhaps it helps to think of it as self-existing information. You'd also be able to "see" how consciousness and matter "map onto" this neutral reality.

Sorry about all those quotation marks.

As far as matter is concerned, it is true that we can never prove that it exists at all. Ultimately, all our evidence for matter exists in the form of perceptions, which are subjective.

But you can't dismiss consciousness in the same way. Consciousness - or at least my consciousness - exists, full stop. Yours might not - everything I'm experiencing, including this dialogue with you, may be just a figment of my imagination. But I know that this figment is being perceived, and the thing perceiving it is my consciousness.

This is sort of true, but misleading. I accept what you are saying in the sense that the one thing we are definately sure of is that we are aware of something. We aren't zombies. The problem is calling that awareness "consciousness" because "consciousness" is a contrast term. It only makes sense as a contrast to matter. Our concepts of consciousness and matter, at least as they are usually understood in the western world, were created by Descartes.

This also created translation problems. Traditionally, Hinduism has been described as idealistic, but "idealism" is not a Hindu concept. It's loaded with cartesian baggage in a way that Hinduism never was. If neutral monism had not been such an obscure position at the time westerners were first trying to understand Hinduism (and it's still pretty obscure today...) then Hinduism would probably have been better described as neutral monistic rather than idealistic.

My opinion is that whatever is at the root of reality must be related to what we call consciousness. Consciousness must be at least derivable from it, because without the existence of consciousness I wouldn't even be having these thoughts.

Everything which exists must be derivable from the root of reality, so provided you accept that consciousness exists then it logically follows that it must be related to that root. Some people do deny that consciousness exists, but not many. The important question is "what is the nature of the relationship between our experiences of reality and the root of reality?"

[UndercoverElephant]

I know about entanglement, and I undersand that "spacetime" was not really the right word. But I wanted to get the notion of time in there, because I think all moments in time are related to each other in ways other than mere sequence.

What we call time is, in fact, just a function of our perception. Get rid of the function of memory, for example, and your perception of time would surely be almost unimaginably different.

Do you think the past is fixed? Or can it change?

[Yves75]

Talking matter/consciousness appears a bit like middle ages theology somehow, why not talking being alive or dead ?
Consciousness being just a side effect of being alive (and for sure animals have of course a form of consciousness), that is being alive, processing some information amongst other things and having to tidying it up (so looking at it) in order not to die (or become just plain crazy). Also these discussions about what is this, what is that, do not address the miracle of a language for instance, getting builded and slowly modified just by being used (at a much higher rate, ventilated) by a multiplicity of individuals.
Russell writes : "If you mention that a spoken sentence is a physical occurence consisting of certain movements of matter and that a written sentence consists of marks of one colour on a background of another colour, you will be thought vulgar".

[jonny2mad]

well sometimes Im a atheist then sometimes Im a shiva kali bear worshiper, which is my own understanding of hindism where the spirits of shiva and kali take the forms of teddybears who in the form of shiva are constructive and make porridge and cakes, and in the form of kali bear drive tanks over peaceful villages while listening to songs like the end by the doors .

Ive talked to hindu gurus and they think that its ok to see shiva and kali as teddybears if thats how you see them.

The bear in my sig picture is in fact a hindu god called henry the bear sometimes hes good and kind and sometimes hes something else entirely .

I have a facebookgroup for people interested in becoming shiva kali bear worshipers or for people who like to eat porridge