i be havin some deep ass thoughts bruh

[akuma no uta]

gf asleep next to me. thinking about which places still deliver pizza right now.

not intending to share.

ordered a lot of pizza the other day, roommates drunk girlfriend was eating it for breakfast when i came downstairs the next day. i only had two pieces. i wonder if thats enough reason to chop her up

[bfan]

the point I was trying to get at was that asking the question "how does consciousness interact with its environment" will necessarily involve taking into account the things which you say you are not interested in. I mention modern physics because strange phenomena observed in the early 21st century and subsequent attempts to explain them call into question the very nature of existence, observation, and consciousness itself.

[acerbicb]

Analyzing existence is something, but the existence of existence isn't worth questioning-- that's something that kept philosophy in a ditch up until Nietzsche broke it down. Thousands of years.

The nature of observation is pretty straight forward, isn't it? You observe, you retain.

Consciousness however-- that is, what has spurred you to observe and retain what you did retain-- is relevant in practice. Understanding the manner in which we perceive and how we connect is imperative to understanding what stunts us and what propels us. Furthermore, it's more important to analyze HOW something is being perceived (the literal function) and WHY than to quandary yourself with what it is exactly that you're perceiving. After all, as the old philosophers found, there is no manner in which we can debate existence nor reality actually, only at the furthest end of hypothetical where arguments argue themselves rather than a resolution.

We're probably in agreement over most of these things and I'm just caught up in semantics.

My main point is that I'm interested in finding the human 'soul', or its 'consciousness', by analyzing humanity itself. Maybe enough data about the way we think and have thought can prove or disprove the infinite consciousness-- wouldn't that be beautiful? An everlife. The purest thought, both existent and non-existent, which lingers above time and space.

[Dex_star]

ordered a lot of pizza the other day, roommates drunk girlfriend was eating it for breakfast when i came downstairs the next day. i only had two pieces. i wonder if thats enough reason to chop her up

this would piss me off so much

[fobsquad]

My main point is that I'm interested in finding the human 'soul', or its 'consciousness', by analyzing humanity itself. Maybe enough data about the way we think and have thought can prove or disprove the infinite consciousness-- wouldn't that be beautiful? An everlife. The purest thought, both existent and non-existent, which lingers above time and space.

data can easily be corrupt or lost, figuratively and literally.

but i think you may find many of your answers in hindu/buddhist doctrine, where thoughts are neither existent nor non-existent.

[jesusofchill]

everything that is alive now has been alive since the beginning of life on earth. This has to be the case since to create a living thing you need a living thing, so the chain must go all the way back. as long as things keep fucking, life will be eternal.

Definitely not true.

[jesusofchill]

I've been contemplating how many people really live life as honestly as possible and know themselves. It seems that I come across many people who are just not genuine on a day to day basis yet go through motions as if they were. This is one of the things that bothers me the most.

I think one of the most important things is to have dreams ambitious and things or people you care about / love unconditionally. If you don't have that to guide you you just become old, bitter and lost imo.

I feel like most people feel this way about everyone else.

[ClamSlam]

Suicide is the best possible decision one can make, due to it being the only decision you cannot regret; thoughts?

[ke1]

^ Any sort of significance, positive or negative, applied to the feeling of regret only exists if one is able to... feel it. If regret is what you measure the quality of your life against, then the best possible decision would be one that ends without regret, with the opportunity to recognize that absence of regret.

[spaces]

I've been pondering existence and what it means to actually exist for a while now I feel like. First I think it's important to acknowledge that the mysteries of life, at this point at least, will always be an integral and unsolvable part of our lives. I think that if everyone embraced this then we wouldn't have things like organized religions, and other entities that just serve as distractions and ultimately hinderances to the progress and potential benefits that lie ahead of us if we just stopped for a minute and collectively realized that we are doing far worse that what the human imagination is capable of.

I think I'm at a sort of tipping point in the modern era, the generation y sort of era where I don't feel attached to any sort of traditional or predetermined formats or templates of living (I was born in 1994). I guess what I'm saying is I don't feel limited by anything other than my own self and what I can accomplish.

Once that is accomplished I think we can only do what we are capable of, and besides the biological mechanics of what human life is about and designed to accomplish I definitely think that there's value in trying to live a complete and fulfilled life as possible. Whatever the ingredients might be, I think human connection is vital as well as a feeling of purpose. The illustration of getting up in the morning to do something that you genuinely feel is worthwhile and sleeping only to want to wake up and grow and progress in other things you feel is worthwhile is important.

To be continued.

#deepthoughtsbruh

Edited February 13, 2013 by spaces

[sawyer]

Modern physics is basically subsumimg these types of discussions IMO, the influence of a conscious observer in changing probabalistic outcomes seems to be part and parcel of perceived realities, leading to chicken and egg type scenarios. Does the universe exist without consciousness? Or is it that the perceptible universe only exists within/due to consciousness?

do you mean heisenberg's uncertainty principle? or the "observer effect"?

i encourage being cautious about exporting meaning from one field of study to another. ie: phenomena in physics is not necessarily homologous to phenomena of the mind. example: you don't use thermodynamics equations to explain market behavior. in another more disappointing example, the fact of quantumn entanglement has been taken up by many a new age hippie to conclude that the astral plane exists.

also, there are many, many different kinds of arguments about what consciousness is. here is some "light" reading to get you started. and here, a supplemental reading to show how even tertiary sources differ. unless you clarify, you're mistaken to think that physics, chemistry, biology, or neurology make philosophical discussions about consciousness obsolete. second, until you've done this reading, you might not be aware that you're rehashing debates that occurred centuries ago.

happy hunting

[bfan]

in my mind, so called 'pure philosophical' discussions get bogged down in semantics and you end up arguing about definitions and abstractions which are not that meaningful to me. unless you are dealing with pure symbolic logic, words are just concepts which are inherently inexact. I also think it's perfectly reasonable to cross apply ideas from one area to another, there is no logical reason why this should not be allowed. in fact, if you yourself had read the stanford wiki, you would find the mention of hamerhoff and penrose, who postulate a quantum theory of consciousness which incorporates modern physics in their explanation. nobody knew about things like bosons and fermions centuries ago, but today there have actually been advances made which cast a very new and interesting light on this issue.

[sawyer]

in my mind, so called 'pure philosophical' discussions get bogged down in semantics and you end up arguing about definitions and abstractions which are not that meaningful to me. unless you are dealing with pure symbolic logic, words are just concepts which are inherently inexact. I also think it's perfectly reasonable to cross apply ideas from one area to another, there is no logical reason why this should not be allowed. in fact, if you yourself had read the stanford wiki, you would find the mention of hamerhoff and penrose, who postulate a quantum theory of consciousness which incorporates modern physics in their explanation. nobody knew about things like bosons and fermions centuries ago, but today there have actually been advances made which cast a very new and interesting light on this issue.

a) words are just concepts which are inherently inexact-- this also applies to physics and all the other hard sciences. niels bohr said it better than i could:

"There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature..."

-- no logical reason why this should not be allowed -- i didn't say it wasn't allowed, i said one should be cautious. as for a general reason why i am cautious, it is because these theories are particular to their object of study. for example, we have some equations that tell us about the nature of gravity. i am not going to extrapolate, export, this theory of gravity into sociology, where the object of study is completely different.

the leap from boson to seratonin is huge, and should not be taken for granted. just because we have some sound theories about the way subatomic particles behave does not mean we have a new basis for understanding how the brain behaves (and this is taking a monist view of consciousness). you can try to build an account of consciousness from "the ground up" via quantumn mechanics but its really quite unnecessary. the law of supply and demand, for example, did not change when CERN verified the higg's boson.

c) their theory is one among many. they have come under heavy criticism, and other theories should be considered. not only for the foregoing reasons, but because it is foolish to be so exclusive in one's investigation rather than inclusive. if we should err in this question, i think it better to err on the side of considering too many theories, than too few.

d) if i understand correctly your belief was that the discoveries in physics, chemistry, etc. are "subsuming these kinds of discussions." my response wasn't that these scientific theories aren't true, only that they do not make obsolete other discussions. this relates to the above point insofar as one theory does not come at the expense of another. example: the standard model of physics does not explain gravitation via general relativity. the standard model also does not account for dark energy, dark matter, and other weakly interacting massive particles. our awareness of "dark energy" doesn't imply that the standard model is false, it just means it's incomplete, or inadequate. again, to tie this back to the bohr quote, ultimately physics and its theories are still written, understood, spoken, etc., in human language

Edited February 14, 2013 by sawyer

[bfan]

of course I don't think that other theories of consciousness are invalidated, but to me they are significantly devalued since they basically boil down to people wondering aloud, whereas at least the quantum theory of consciousness offers a working predictive model. I don't really know what you take so much issue with, if you want all theories to be evaluated wouldn't you want to give better theories more weight? I cannot think of a way you could explain consciousness without delving into the details and actually going into the subatomic level. what have previous centuries of thought given us that is so useful on this subject? I don't really believe you can ever make meaningful discoveries by just using a bunch of big words which relate to other big words, which have in and of themselves been created out of consciousness, the thing they were trying to describe.

[sawyer]

of course I don't think that other theories of consciousness are invalidated, but to me they are significantly devalued since they basically boil down to people wondering aloud, whereas at least the quantum theory of consciousness offers a working predictive model. I don't really know what you take so much issue with, if you want all theories to be evaluated wouldn't you want to give better theories more weight? I cannot think of a way you could explain consciousness without delving into the details and actually going into the subatomic level. what have previous centuries of thought given us that is so useful on this subject? I don't really believe you can ever make meaningful discoveries by just using a bunch of big words which relate to other big words, which have in and of themselves been created out of consciousness, the thing they were trying to describe.

you're still not understanding the point niels bohr was making; quantumn theory is just another kind of "wondering aloud". quantumn theory is also "using a bunch of big words which relate to other big words". science is a human invention and practice. science is also "created out of consciousness".

the relevance of subatomic physics to consciouseness is not given. you must make some kind of decision, or assumption, about what consciousness is before quantumn mechanics becomes relevant. you yourself seem to take the material monist view.

even taking the materialist view, i still find it unnecessary, or potentially deeply problematic, to use rules governing the behavior of quantumn mechanics to explain the brain. let's take the materialist premise: "consciousness can be reduced to chemical reactions in the brain." it isnt necessary to know how the different flavors of quark to understand chemical reactions involving potassium and sodium. we can write a chemical equation, and it is still accurate whether or not we are aware of quantumn rules.

Edited February 14, 2013 by sawyer

[jesusofchill]

I'm a philosophy graduate student at one of the best universities for ethical theory and moral psychology (however, my academic interests lie elsewhere). Ask me anything.

[acerbicb]

What do you consider to be the best definition of justice?

[haploid]

I don't really believe you can ever make meaningful discoveries by just using a bunch of big words which relate to other big words, which have in and of themselves been created out of consciousness, the thing they were trying to describe.

while this is a good point, i think you misunderstand the point of this type of philosophical inquiry. to use language to explain language's inability to properly do what we are asking of it (communicate ideas in order to streamline and optimise our subjective understanding) might seem contradictory, there are no real alternatives aside from strict solipsistic mysticism. an idea that can not be expressed in language is as good as non-existant to everyone other than yourself.

also, many of the theories of consciousness proposed by philosophers of the past who used reason alone to reach conclusions are now becoming increasingly more relevant. take spinoza's monism and the theory of quantum entanglement, for example. it's not apples vs oranges, language/philosophy vs science, psychology vs neuroscience.

anyways, it is very dangerous to infer that because we do not know about the subatomic nature of the universe, all of our discoveries in neuroscience are unfounded. the scales are vastly different and conclusions reached in one field do not necessary share a correlation to what we observe in another. especially since the entirety of neuroscience is dependent on genetic and epigenetic configurations of information, and how that information is expressed and affected by environmental cues. only analogous comparisons can be made between the fields of neuroscience and quantum mechanics at this time. it's easy to get into hack-pseudoscience territory if you don't acknowledge that.

Edited February 20, 2013 by haploid

[acerbicb]

precisely.

to say that because we do not know things in of themselves is a lie-- we just do not know them completely. We continually observe in an effort to improve our 'definition' of the things around us; Nietzsche brought up a point similar to this where science has only brought us a more detailed view of the world-- science/philosophy have evolved our thinking like television screens have: where the image on the screen has become continually sharper, better 'defined', we look at things in of themselves clearer as we analyze them more.

Also, 'meaningful' is a relative term, inextricable from 'pragmatic.' It implies that information, and discovery has an intrinsic value-- this is inaccurate. We build the value in. So if you want to debate whether or not something is a 'meaningful' discovery, you must first define what you consider to be valuable and why.

Personally, I'm just curious.

"I don't really believe you can ever make meaningful discoveries by just using a bunch of big words which relate to other big words, which have in and of themselves been created out of consciousness, the thing they were trying to describe."

Consciousness is not an object in the sense an apple or pear is-- it is not a factory which shits out big words. It is the frequency of human thought, quite literally 'the human experience'. Are you telling me we can't analyze something that we're experiencing?

[sawyer]

i'm in agreement with you guys, i think we're all pretty much on the same page. i thought of an analogy to put this "science vs 'big words'" debate into perspective

there is a rembrant painting. i give you a scientific report on the rembrandt painting. i made the report by taking a digital photo of the painting, and using photoshop was able to atomize it into hexidecimal colors. with some other software, i was able to generate graphs, tables, and charts showing the overall occurrence of certain ranges of color, their frequency relative to one another, the distribution of certain colors, the equations from these distributions, regression lines, etc. These equations have predictive power; that is, with them you can generate another painting that will have all the same properties as the original rembrandt (only, the image will be completely randomized and look nothing like the rembrandt). the photo is not included, nor any description of the painting except its dimensions and the type of paint used. this report is far more "scientific" than any art-history essay. but don't think it is better, renders obsolete, useless, etc., than an art-history essay. further, i think that the art-history essay would be able to tell me quite a bit that the equations can't.

[fobsquad]

by using digital optics to capture the painting as a compressed block of binary bits, you've already altered the emotion that the artist may have intended. further distribution into hexidecimal or other data sets are simply differing perspectives to analyze from.

an art-history essay would inform better because...it should contain some historical background. while a statistical analysis would do no such thing.

[jesusofchill]

What do you consider to be the best definition of justice?

I'm not a political philosopher, so I haven't read/thought much about notions of justice, but I am a consequentialist, which means that the consequences of an action are what's morally relevant. With that in mind, any sentence or conviction would be just if and only if the consequences of that sentence/conviction would result in a better state of affairs than otherwise.

[jesusofchill]

What best university is in Phoenix?

I'm not saying it's the best, but Arizona State has a stellar philosophy program, especially for graduate studies.