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I think the non-dualists in the parent comment here would agree, saying something vaguely Alan Watts-y along the lines of "consciousness and matter are merely t
by 09bjb 8y ago
I think the non-dualists in the parent comment here would agree, saying something vaguely Alan Watts-y along the lines of "consciousness and matter are merely two sides of the same coin and imply each other mutually."
Come to think of it, "does consciousness arise from matter, or does matter arise from consciousness" is a modern Koan par excellence. FWIW, the last time I grooved on that for a while while on a psychedelic, the answer I came up was...decidedly spiritual. Caveat lector ;)
- davebryand 8y agoSame :)
- joe_the_user 8y agoOP:"Non-dualism doesn't make any sense to the rational mind" Well, someone seeing consciousness arising from matter (materialist monism/non-dual) isn't impelled to say anything like that. I mean, I'd view the forms of consciousness the OP describes (acid, meditation, hypnosis) as a being experiences where immediate language-generating mediation is suspended, "direct experience" but one shouldn't confuse those sort of sensations with an experience being beyond relation analysis. There are lots experiences where you can't think about what you're doing at the point you are doing it but you can certainly think before and after.
- 09bjb 8y agoAgreed. I'd have to dive in more on what "relation analysis" is (you probably mean "relational analysis"?). I guess what I'm saying is that you're unlikely to get push-back from the monist crowd on the materialist front, and we're also unlikely to get "experience" (direct or otherwise) into our scientific crosshairs anytime soon. But we should certainly keep trying!
- joe_the_user 8y agoI meant "rational analysis" - looking at a situation with the tools of logic, science and related approaches. It's past edit time on my original post, unfortunately.