5 ms·

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness." I very much respect Sam Harris for taking the consciousness problem seriously. It poses a real

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness." I very much respect Sam Harris for taking the consciousness problem seriously. It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us. However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? One thing that is little known about Christianity (as an example) of the first millenium is its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences. Contrary to popular beliefs that religious spiritual experiences are quickly taken for granted for their emotional gratification, this was really not the case. Spiritual experiences were not looked after. They were not provoked. On the contrary. Great care was taken as to discern real experiences from illusory or, worse, misleading ones. The same goes with miracles. Discernment, the ability to discern over what's real or not, was the most important virtue. Something that modern Christianity, in many areas, has lost. And with it, its credibility.

mistercow 13y ago
>It poses a real problem to (his) atheism Theism hardly solves the problem of consciousness. It shuffles the question onto a deity without actually answering it.
- cristianpascu 13y ago
  To a substance, the soul, not a deity. And that, actually, is an answer.
  - lfuller 13y ago
    The soul is an immaterial substance - the supernatural, unexplainable. It is, by its very nature, am unknowable question. How can that be an answer by any reasonable definition?
    - cristianpascu 13y ago
      You should make a distinction between what exists, and can be named, and what can be known and explained. These are two distinct categories. There are things the exist and can be explained, but nothing allows us the say that there aren't things that can't be explained. If what we known to exist and understand can't explain all observed data (our thoughts and inner experiences) than we are forced to infer the existence of something outside our understanding.
      - mistercow 13y ago
        >If what we known to exist and understand can't explain all observed data (our thoughts and inner experiences) than we are forced to infer the existence of something outside our understanding. Yes, but there is a difference between "outside our understanding" and "impossible to understand". There is simply no good reason to believe that consciousness is impossible to understand.
  - derefr 13y ago
    http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_questions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_...
    - cristianpascu 13y ago
      Right now "the mind is the brain" theory still uses the magic of brain to explain what we observe. Everytime you hear someone saying "the brain does this or that", they act like it's a known thing and the mind is the brain and the brain has some yet unknown and unexplained properties that give rise to "this or that". So, yeah, magic.
      - derefr 13y ago
        We can create things like brains (Bayes nets) that then react to stimuli like minds do, given all the experimental tests we can devise on "what minds are like." We might not fully understand the human mind, but that is not at all the same thing as having no idea how or why we think or observe or experience.
      - mistercow 13y ago
        But in principle, the properties of the brain can be studied and tested. Maybe there are phenomena in the brain that are impossible to experiment on, but to say that this is the case definitively now is to give our imaginations far too much credit. Science is full of answers to questions that were once thought to be fundamentally unanswerable.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    No, it's not an answer. It's just a name for a the thing we don't understand, and (often) an implication that that thing is unknowable. If I ask "how are we conscious", and you answer "because we have souls", you haven't given me any new information. It sounds like new information, but it doesn't change anything about the predictions I will make for how the world behaves. It doesn't constrain my view of the observable universe, so it's useless. Edit: also, you're describing substance dualism, not theism. You can be a dualist but not a theist.
TausAmmer 13y ago
You make your own meaning, do you? Don't you?
lolcraft 13y ago
Look, if you think rejecting dualism is "not taking the consciousness problem seriously", you should read more. And well, one thing that Christianism seems to be still struggling to learn is that, beyond reproductible and well defined experiments, and falsifiable hypotheses, nothing can really be more than logical inference from some axioms. Maybe some dudes up in the Vatican implicitly defined some axioms about what's "really a mystical experience", probably marginalizing the Orthodox and Gnostics and Cathars while they were at it. I don't personally care.
- simonster 13y ago
  If you Google "taking consciousness seriously," the first link is to an excerpt from David Chalmers' book. That book as a whole is essentially a long argument that understanding consciousness requires a dualist position (although not a substance or interactionist form). I don't agree with it, but it's compelling. If you believe the position that "rejecting dualism is 'not taking the consciousness problem seriously'" is an ignorant one, you should read it.
  - samatman 13y ago
    Ok, but first you should read some Samkya and Kashmir Shaivite non-dualism. Since the texts are about 1500 years older, you go first.
md224 13y ago
> However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? I sort of understand what you mean here, but at the same time I don't. Are you specifically referring to intrinsic meaning, as opposed to socially-constructed meaning? As an agnostic that rejects supernatural explanations, I don't feel a conflict between the ability of human beings to ascribe meaning to things and the possibility that the "soul" (in the sense of a magically indivisible entity of self) does not exist.
- cristianpascu 13y ago
  My point is that there is no intrinsic meaning in the bits that make the computer I am using right now. It's all atoms. The causal connections that transform my typing on a keyboard to pixels on the screen, it's all physics. The same way, the brain is a whole made of parts. They may be causally interconnected, but just that. You have different physical states over time, and in different parts of the brain. But understanding and awareness and phenomenological experiences are not there. Or, better said, it's puzzling to see how they are there when there's no clue of how they occur.
Udo 13y ago
> its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences Only for competitive reasons. To get a stable foothold, Christianity had to either do away with the rampant spiritualism of the largely shamanistic religions it replaced, or in some cases had to embrace and extend them. This is and was a purely strategic consideration. > It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us. One of his personal core issues is to "rescue" spiritual experiences and bring them over into a secular world. It is not necessarily a concern of atheism per se. For him, as for most atheists, there is not really a "consciousness problem" comparable to what a religious person might identify. As an atheist myself, there is nothing inherently problematic about consciousness, or intelligence, or feelings. > However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? I think most atheists, myself included, as well as many religious people would agree with you that the mind gives rise to meaning. However, I have no idea what you mean by ontological support? Are you asserting that without an overriding supernatural meaning-giver the mind cannot form a world view? Or that a mind capable of categorizing the world meaningfully cannot arise without supernatural influence?
- cristianpascu 13y ago
  Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. By the 5th century, Christianity had a stable foothold. By ontological support I mean a substance. The mind is still an undefined substance. Is it the brain or is the soul? If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation.
  - Udo 13y ago
    > Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. I would go even further and assert that delineation efforts continue to this day. But I might be wrong, since I don't really know a lot about Christianity beyond what's in the news. > If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation. I still don't follow what the problem is. I suspect some of these words mean fundamentally different things to each of us, or that there might be a Christian catch phrase in there that I don't know and hence can't respond to. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, I just don't get what the issue is. What problem is not solved?

mistercow 13y ago

>It poses a real problem to (his) atheism Theism hardly solves the problem of consciousness. It shuffles the question onto a deity without actually answering it.

cristianpascu 13y ago
To a substance, the soul, not a deity. And that, actually, is an answer.
- lfuller 13y ago
  The soul is an immaterial substance - the supernatural, unexplainable. It is, by its very nature, am unknowable question. How can that be an answer by any reasonable definition?
  - cristianpascu 13y ago
    You should make a distinction between what exists, and can be named, and what can be known and explained. These are two distinct categories. There are things the exist and can be explained, but nothing allows us the say that there aren't things that can't be explained. If what we known to exist and understand can't explain all observed data (our thoughts and inner experiences) than we are forced to infer the existence of something outside our understanding.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      >If what we known to exist and understand can't explain all observed data (our thoughts and inner experiences) than we are forced to infer the existence of something outside our understanding. Yes, but there is a difference between "outside our understanding" and "impossible to understand". There is simply no good reason to believe that consciousness is impossible to understand.
- derefr 13y ago
  http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_questions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/iu/mysterious_answers_to_mysterious_...
  - cristianpascu 13y ago
    Right now "the mind is the brain" theory still uses the magic of brain to explain what we observe. Everytime you hear someone saying "the brain does this or that", they act like it's a known thing and the mind is the brain and the brain has some yet unknown and unexplained properties that give rise to "this or that". So, yeah, magic.
    - derefr 13y ago
      We can create things like brains (Bayes nets) that then react to stimuli like minds do, given all the experimental tests we can devise on "what minds are like." We might not fully understand the human mind, but that is not at all the same thing as having no idea how or why we think or observe or experience.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      But in principle, the properties of the brain can be studied and tested. Maybe there are phenomena in the brain that are impossible to experiment on, but to say that this is the case definitively now is to give our imaginations far too much credit. Science is full of answers to questions that were once thought to be fundamentally unanswerable.
- mistercow 13y ago
  No, it's not an answer. It's just a name for a the thing we don't understand, and (often) an implication that that thing is unknowable. If I ask "how are we conscious", and you answer "because we have souls", you haven't given me any new information. It sounds like new information, but it doesn't change anything about the predictions I will make for how the world behaves. It doesn't constrain my view of the observable universe, so it's useless. Edit: also, you're describing substance dualism, not theism. You can be a dualist but not a theist.

TausAmmer 13y ago

You make your own meaning, do you? Don't you?

lolcraft 13y ago

Look, if you think rejecting dualism is "not taking the consciousness problem seriously", you should read more. And well, one thing that Christianism seems to be still struggling to learn is that, beyond reproductible and well defined experiments, and falsifiable hypotheses, nothing can really be more than logical inference from some axioms. Maybe some dudes up in the Vatican implicitly defined some axioms about what's "really a mystical experience", probably marginalizing the Orthodox and Gnostics and Cathars while they were at it. I don't personally care.

simonster 13y ago
If you Google "taking consciousness seriously," the first link is to an excerpt from David Chalmers' book. That book as a whole is essentially a long argument that understanding consciousness requires a dualist position (although not a substance or interactionist form). I don't agree with it, but it's compelling. If you believe the position that "rejecting dualism is 'not taking the consciousness problem seriously'" is an ignorant one, you should read it.
- samatman 13y ago
  Ok, but first you should read some Samkya and Kashmir Shaivite non-dualism. Since the texts are about 1500 years older, you go first.

md224 13y ago

> However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? I sort of understand what you mean here, but at the same time I don't. Are you specifically referring to intrinsic meaning, as opposed to socially-constructed meaning? As an agnostic that rejects supernatural explanations, I don't feel a conflict between the ability of human beings to ascribe meaning to things and the possibility that the "soul" (in the sense of a magically indivisible entity of self) does not exist.

cristianpascu 13y ago
My point is that there is no intrinsic meaning in the bits that make the computer I am using right now. It's all atoms. The causal connections that transform my typing on a keyboard to pixels on the screen, it's all physics. The same way, the brain is a whole made of parts. They may be causally interconnected, but just that. You have different physical states over time, and in different parts of the brain. But understanding and awareness and phenomenological experiences are not there. Or, better said, it's puzzling to see how they are there when there's no clue of how they occur.

Udo 13y ago

> its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences Only for competitive reasons. To get a stable foothold, Christianity had to either do away with the rampant spiritualism of the largely shamanistic religions it replaced, or in some cases had to embrace and extend them. This is and was a purely strategic consideration. > It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us. One of his personal core issues is to "rescue" spiritual experiences and bring them over into a secular world. It is not necessarily a concern of atheism per se. For him, as for most atheists, there is not really a "consciousness problem" comparable to what a religious person might identify. As an atheist myself, there is nothing inherently problematic about consciousness, or intelligence, or feelings. > However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? I think most atheists, myself included, as well as many religious people would agree with you that the mind gives rise to meaning. However, I have no idea what you mean by ontological support? Are you asserting that without an overriding supernatural meaning-giver the mind cannot form a world view? Or that a mind capable of categorizing the world meaningfully cannot arise without supernatural influence?

cristianpascu 13y ago
Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. By the 5th century, Christianity had a stable foothold. By ontological support I mean a substance. The mind is still an undefined substance. Is it the brain or is the soul? If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation.
- Udo 13y ago
  > Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. I would go even further and assert that delineation efforts continue to this day. But I might be wrong, since I don't really know a lot about Christianity beyond what's in the news. > If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation. I still don't follow what the problem is. I suspect some of these words mean fundamentally different things to each of us, or that there might be a Christian catch phrase in there that I don't know and hence can't respond to. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, I just don't get what the issue is. What problem is not solved?