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The appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that at

The appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that attempts attempts to define consciousness and whether it exists in everything all the time or is localized somewhere in space ("Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered"). Quote: Why do folks present this idea like it's new and radical? It's literally thousands of years old. Aldous Huxley wrote "The Perennial Philosophy" in 1945.

msla 7y ago
What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
- andybak 7y ago
  > That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies If there's any branch of human inquiry where no question is off limits then it's surely philosophy. Debate about the practical application of philosophy has been part of it's fabric for it's entire history. The Greeks certainly regarded it as something that should inform one's life choices and I'm pretty sure that is one of the main areas of focus in Existentialism.
  - skissane 7y ago
    Indeed, metaphilosophy [1] is the branch of philosophy which studies the questions of "what is philosophy?" and "why bother doing philosophy?". So far from being some kind of "forbidden question", this is a question which many philosophers have considered and sought to answer. [1] https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/ https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/
  - msla 7y ago
    However, it seems like this is a discussion we're incapable of having here, which comes to the same thing.
    - andybak 7y ago
      We seem to be having the discussion you state we're incapable of, right now. ;)
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  I'm not an expert, but it seems that the utility comes from using the existence of consciousness as an assumption and presupposition of the continued following studies. Without this theory, science assumes no such thing, and ultimately ends up with a very difficult problem of defining where consciousness begins and where it ends. Existence of consciousness is obvious and intuitive to most people, it is rarely disputed (and such disputes yield no useful conclusions or thoughts when they take place), but if the starting point is that "some humans have consciousness, or a potential of a consciousness, and the rest of the world does not", then the problem of defining it seems very hard. Drawing a hard border between consciousness and dead matter seems hard to do while still being completely intellectually honest. If however, we just assume (as the perennial philosophy does) that consciousness (or at least potential of) is a self-evident property of reality and everything in it, we can view the problem of defining it as more of a question of where in the world is there "more" of this consciousness, where is it more concentrated, where did the potential of it most prominently manifest itself (places like human brains that host it or possibly similarly built computers in the future), and where is it "less" of it (like in a rock formation), then we can use this framework to more easily navigate this landscape.
  - procgen 7y ago
    Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory provides just such a framework for determining where consciousness 'most prominently manifests itself': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
- dunkelheit 7y ago
  Not sure why you are being downvoted, because it is a valid and important question (even if stated in this somewhat adversarial manner). For me the promise of philosophy is in examining the deepest assumptions that we use to interpret our experiences and guide our thinking. This is a hard task because just like sea creatures that are surrounded by water their whole lives and thus don't notice it, we don't notice these assumptions and they remain hidden and non-obvious. Ultimately I feel that current philosophy falls short of this promise. It either descends into technicalities or regresses to a prescriptive "this is how you should think" manual. Probably I am not well-read enough.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    Because philosophy can't itself prove all truths (Godel incompleteness), we must accept that the point of philosophy is better living. Once that is in place, philosophy can become much more valuable.
    - cion 7y ago
      I don't understand the reference to Gödel. Do you mean the theorem that in every formal system capable of representing arithmetic there exist sentences "P" such that neither "P" nor "not P" are derivable in the system? It doesn't seem to me that from this it follows that "the point of philosophy is better living". It might be obvious, but I just don't see it.
      - chrstphrhrt 7y ago
        I like to think of it as all formalisms are tautologies. Therefore we can go along with some common sense and fuzzy logic rather than having to prove every possible axiom, which isn't actually possible or would take unlimited time. It's analogous to the halting problem.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
I like this new "resonance theory of consciousness". That assumes that the nature of consciousness is inherent in the informational integration -- making consciousness a sort of harmony. Of course, that idea isn't new -- it's the same idea that Plato presented in the Phaedo and that the Pythagoreans held in 6th century Italy. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00378/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.0037...

msla 7y ago

What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.

andybak 7y ago
> That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies If there's any branch of human inquiry where no question is off limits then it's surely philosophy. Debate about the practical application of philosophy has been part of it's fabric for it's entire history. The Greeks certainly regarded it as something that should inform one's life choices and I'm pretty sure that is one of the main areas of focus in Existentialism.
- skissane 7y ago
  Indeed, metaphilosophy [1] is the branch of philosophy which studies the questions of "what is philosophy?" and "why bother doing philosophy?". So far from being some kind of "forbidden question", this is a question which many philosophers have considered and sought to answer. [1] https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/ https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/
- msla 7y ago
  However, it seems like this is a discussion we're incapable of having here, which comes to the same thing.
  - andybak 7y ago
    We seem to be having the discussion you state we're incapable of, right now. ;)
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
I'm not an expert, but it seems that the utility comes from using the existence of consciousness as an assumption and presupposition of the continued following studies. Without this theory, science assumes no such thing, and ultimately ends up with a very difficult problem of defining where consciousness begins and where it ends. Existence of consciousness is obvious and intuitive to most people, it is rarely disputed (and such disputes yield no useful conclusions or thoughts when they take place), but if the starting point is that "some humans have consciousness, or a potential of a consciousness, and the rest of the world does not", then the problem of defining it seems very hard. Drawing a hard border between consciousness and dead matter seems hard to do while still being completely intellectually honest. If however, we just assume (as the perennial philosophy does) that consciousness (or at least potential of) is a self-evident property of reality and everything in it, we can view the problem of defining it as more of a question of where in the world is there "more" of this consciousness, where is it more concentrated, where did the potential of it most prominently manifest itself (places like human brains that host it or possibly similarly built computers in the future), and where is it "less" of it (like in a rock formation), then we can use this framework to more easily navigate this landscape.
- procgen 7y ago
  Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory provides just such a framework for determining where consciousness 'most prominently manifests itself': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
dunkelheit 7y ago
Not sure why you are being downvoted, because it is a valid and important question (even if stated in this somewhat adversarial manner). For me the promise of philosophy is in examining the deepest assumptions that we use to interpret our experiences and guide our thinking. This is a hard task because just like sea creatures that are surrounded by water their whole lives and thus don't notice it, we don't notice these assumptions and they remain hidden and non-obvious. Ultimately I feel that current philosophy falls short of this promise. It either descends into technicalities or regresses to a prescriptive "this is how you should think" manual. Probably I am not well-read enough.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Because philosophy can't itself prove all truths (Godel incompleteness), we must accept that the point of philosophy is better living. Once that is in place, philosophy can become much more valuable.
  - cion 7y ago
    I don't understand the reference to Gödel. Do you mean the theorem that in every formal system capable of representing arithmetic there exist sentences "P" such that neither "P" nor "not P" are derivable in the system? It doesn't seem to me that from this it follows that "the point of philosophy is better living". It might be obvious, but I just don't see it.
    - chrstphrhrt 7y ago
      I like to think of it as all formalisms are tautologies. Therefore we can go along with some common sense and fuzzy logic rather than having to prove every possible axiom, which isn't actually possible or would take unlimited time. It's analogous to the halting problem.

dr_dshiv 7y ago

I like this new "resonance theory of consciousness". That assumes that the nature of consciousness is inherent in the informational integration -- making consciousness a sort of harmony. Of course, that idea isn't new -- it's the same idea that Plato presented in the Phaedo and that the Pythagoreans held in 6th century Italy. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00378/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.0037...