Things I just don't understand and questions I cannot get answered

reply to post by Quadrivium


Hey if people making s**t up is a good enough explanation for you, then have at it hoss...

reply to post by BlueMoonJoe

I wonder about the origins of our intelligence or consciousness as well. While for me I don't hold to the notion that it comes from supernatural origins I do respect and understand the stance. I have no true explanation that I can give, but I am reminded of something I have shared before. In a talk by Neil Degrasse Tyson he quoted some of whom he considers to be the greatest minds in human history. When they seem to reach the limits of understanding they considered a deity as the answer. That should show some(I would think) that this isn't just something coming from a lack of education or anything of the sort, but simply being in awe of the universe before us. (hope that made sense)

Ptolemy: “I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral. But when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch the earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus myself and drink my fill of ambrosia.”

Sir Isaac Newton

“The six primary planets are revolved about the sun in circles concentric with the sun, and with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane. Ten moons are revolved about the earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, in circles concentric with them, with the same direction of motion, and nearly in the planes of the orbits of those planets; but it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions, since the comets range over all parts of the heavens in very eccentric orbits; for by that kind of motion they pass easily through the orbs of the planets, and with great rapidity; and in their aphelions, where they move the slowest, and are detained the longest, they recede to the greatest distances from each other, and hence suffer the least disturbance from their mutual attractions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other, he hath placed those systems at immense distances from one another.”

Scholium at the end of Sir Isaac Newton’s MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY; Translated by Andrew Motte, Revised by Florian Cajore; Published in GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD #34; Robert Maynard Hutchins, Editor in chief, William Benton, Chicago, 1952:273-74.

Really doesn't matter how intelligent you think you are it simply comes to a choice of whether you insert faith were knowledge is limited. Sorry if I caused the thread to drift.

Prezbo369
reply to post by Quadrivium

 

Hey if people making s**t up is a good enough explanation for you, then have at it hoss...

Think....
From the op

How did mindless, purposeless forces/matter up and produce mindful purposeful assertions of mindless purposeless forces/matter as the genesis of being? When, exactly, did intelligence jump into the picture and how? When did purpose and intention enter the stage and by what mechanism? At what point did unconscious, unintelligent matter somehow become conscious and intelligent? By what alchemical processes was this made possible?How did unconscious matter become self-conscious enough to question its own genesis? How did this consciousness conclude that it was really unreal and merely a product of unconscious matter? How did this consciousness then come to unquestioningly believe in the truth of this conclusion even though this consciousness had no clue as to how or why it arose at all? And how did this illogical and unsupported conclusion come to be regarded as reasonable and scientific?

 
Think.

Quadrivium

Think....
From the op

How did mindless, purposeless forces/matter up and produce mindful purposeful assertions of mindless purposeless forces/matter as the genesis of being? When, exactly, did intelligence jump into the picture and how? When did purpose and intention enter the stage and by what mechanism? At what point did unconscious, unintelligent matter somehow become conscious and intelligent? By what alchemical processes was this made possible?How did unconscious matter become self-conscious enough to question its own genesis? How did this consciousness conclude that it was really unreal and merely a product of unconscious matter? How did this consciousness then come to unquestioningly believe in the truth of this conclusion even though this consciousness had no clue as to how or why it arose at all? And how did this illogical and unsupported conclusion come to be regarded as reasonable and scientific?

 
Think.

Bluemoonjoe posited a supernatural explanation for these things, merely because they're mysterious....i.e an argument from ignorance and it requires the very least amount of thinking...

reply to post by Quadrivium


Heh. Seems like that should be the first step in the order of operations, doesn't it? But all your encouragement for him to do so are for naught.

As you can see, this instant dismissal and leaning on slogan level logic is a dressed up dodge to avoid thinking. Ironic about the making up sh*t bit, as prez is the one doing that. But from previous experience, I have learned that he doesn't follow along, just follows a long way from what is actually being said and slowly at at that.

Supernatural means unable to be explained by natural laws or derived therefrom. Somehow, to him that means an automatic step to ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the brain pan.

Still, all this deflection aside, nobody has yet even addressed the core point. According to the definition, consciousness IS supernatural. It cannot be explained or derived by the laws of nature.

reply to post by Prezbo369

Hey if people making s**t up is a good enough explanation for you, then have at it hoss...

Arguments from ignorance, indeed.

Sorry, prez, the only one making things up is you. So it goes and given that you have left ample evidence as to not being up to speed on the basics of the discussion and have to resort to slogan level silliness, you have naturally been selected out of the discussion pool. Throw feces from the sideline if you wish.

drivers1492
reply to post by BlueMoonJoe

 

I wonder about the origins of our intelligence or consciousness as well. While for me I don't hold to the notion that it comes from supernatural origins I do respect and understand the stance. I have no true explanation that I can give, but I am reminded of something I have shared before. In a talk by Neil Degrasse Tyson he quoted some of whom he considers to be the greatest minds in human history. When they seem to reach the limits of understanding they considered a deity as the answer. That should show some(I would think) that this isn't just something coming from a lack of education or anything of the sort, but simply being in awe of the universe before us. (hope that made sense)

Again, all that is meant by supernatural is beyond the scope of physical laws. Here's a take by David Chalmers, the esteemed philosopher of mind that is the one that coined the term, "the hard problem" of consciousness to grapple with this issue. The "easy" problems may be fiendishly complex, but they are still within the realm of neuroscience, mapping brain correlates and all the stunning progress that is going on there. But for all that, the hard problem is as mysterious today as ever.

It is widely believed that physics provides a complete catalogue of the universe's fundamental features and laws. As physicist Steven Weinberg puts it in his 1992 book Dreams of a Final Theory, the goal of physics is a "theory of everything" from which all there is to know about the universe can be derived. But Weinberg concedes that there is a problem with consciousness. Despite the power of physical theory, the existence of consciousness does not seem to be derivable from physical laws. He defends physics by arguing that it might eventually explain what he calls the objective correlates of consciousness (that is, the neural correlates), but of course to do this is not to explain consciousness itself. If the existence of consciousness cannot be derived from physical laws, a theory of physics is not a true theory of everything. So a final theory must contain an additional fundamental component.

Toward this end, I propose that conscious experience be considered a fundamental feature, irreducible to anything more basic. The idea may seem strange at first, but consistency seems to demand it. In the 19th century it turned out that electromagnetic phenomena could not be explained in terms of previously known principles. As a consequence, scientists introduced electromagnetic charge as a new fundamental entity and studied the associated fundamental laws. Similar reasoning should apply to consciousness. If existing fundamental theories cannot encompass it, then something new is required.

BlueMoonJoe
reply to [url= by Quadrivium[/url]

 

Heh. Seems like that should be the first step in the order of operations, doesn't it? But all your encouragement for him to do so are for naught.

I encourage you to finish your sentences the first time around...

As you can see, this instant dismissal and leaning on slogan level logic is a dressed up dodge to avoid thinking. Ironic about the making up sh*t bit, as prez is the one doing that. But from previous experience, I have learned that he doesn't follow along, just follows a long way from what is actually being said and slowly at at that.

Lol you claim the figments of your imagination should be considered for no other reason than they also support your other superstitions. Do not confuse using your imagination with critical thinking, they're about as diametrically opposed as is possible.

If you can show me an example where I have I had pulled something out of my a** and then claimed it to be true, I'll concede this point. I'll be waiting...

Supernatural means unable to be explained by natural laws or derived therefrom. Somehow, to him that means an automatic step to ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the brain pan.

You've claimed that anything we do not know or understand is 'supernatural', a blanket statement of ignorance. You attribute physical and natural processes to ghouls and ghosts, mentioning such things as miracles. I notice your unwilling to describe your particular worldview in full, I wonder is it because it's just as ludicrous and indefensible as your other claims and would cause your whole house of cards to come crashing down?

Still, all this deflection aside, nobody has yet even addressed the core point. According to the definition, consciousness IS supernatural. It cannot be explained or derived by the laws of nature.

Only in your personal and ever changing definition of 'supernatural'

What your attempting to do is the very definition of an argument from ignorance. Such thinking would see us back living in caves, attributing lightning and the wind to forest spirits and other such nonsense.

reply to post by BlueMoonJoe


Perhaps you misunderstood or I didn't relay it properly. I wasn't arguing against anything you had posted because I don't know. I was just sharing how the greatest minds in history have turned to the god explanation when they reach a point they can't explain any further. It's just as possible in my mind that there may be something supernatural about our consciousness. But it's just as possible as well there isn't. Just like your quote of chalmers states that when posed with something that didn't fit they had to find an alternative that did and the laws associated with it. It may be supernatural or it may simply be a misunderstood natural law.

BlueMoonJoe
When did purpose and intention enter the stage and by what mechanism?

Let's keep it with that question for now...

The first thing here to know (as I see it)..that "purpose and intention" is often misinterpreted. Do "things" really need a purpose? What is the purpose of a being being born..live...die. What is the purpose of existence PER SE?

Is there even a "purpose"? What is a rock's purpose? A planet's purpose? Etc.

Recently I read about some really "far-out" and at times actually scary theories about the birth of our universe, the role of the Higgs-Boson and how it actually "created matter", merely as a freak-accident.

Somehow...matter "became"...and the universe (as we know it) came into existence.

Here we can start right at the beginning asking about the purpose of the "existence of things" in the first place, say, let's give the example of planets, solar systems, galaxies.

Why was the universe not created in a way that all matter, say, a second after a hypothetical BB just disappeared again? Why do planets "exist" and did form in such a way that they orbit Suns for billions of years (ultimately making it possible that life will start developing on them).

In an "alternate" universe there could've been circumstances which could have never lead to that planets can exist and bound by gravity orbit suns...why not just all matter in the universe crash into each other, entirely chaotic...without any formation of galaxies, solar systems etc.

What I am saying is that there is indeed a "purpose of existence of things" with nature laws and forces which not only created "things" but also "keep them in existence". (For example gravity which holds planets around a sun...etc..)

And..OBVIOUSLY it's valid to speculate whether there is an "intention" (aka...an "intelligence"/god responsible for this)...or whether it's all just a "freak-accident" so things came to be how they be.

The point is...this is a tricky mental exercise because in a speculated alternate universe where such forces would not exist (or never developed in the first plane)....WE would also not exist and then ask those questions.

Or/Also: Obviously, only WHO who exists can actually ask why he exists and wonder whether there's a purpose.

Ok, here some other little exercise:

It's of course legit if someone who exists at some point might ask whether there is a purpose and reason for his/her existence. Entirely normal and understandable.

But what about infinite numbers of "hypothetical" persons who never were born and never WILL be born? Is it justified to wonder why a hypothetical (ie. never born) person does not exist? Is there a purpose for his/her non-existence? Mind you that all future-to-be-born persons NOW are also only "hypothetical" since they do not exist yet. Is their existence and thus purpose (maybe in many years ahead) already planned? Why is one future person born while another may never come "into existence".

(Ok, example what I want to say here: Many, many years back...you and me..we both were "future persons" but we were not more real than some made-up "Johnny M. Smith, Chicken Coop Way 12, Jackson/TN". However, you and me were born..while Johnny never came into existence. Of course I cannot answer why this is so )

BlueMoonJoe
reply to post by Quadrivium


Heh. Seems like that should be the first step in the order of operations, doesn't it? But all your encouragement for him to do so are for naught.

As you can see, this instant dismissal and leaning on slogan level logic is a dressed up dodge to avoid thinking. Ironic about the making up sh*t bit, as prez is the one doing that. But from previous experience, I have learned that he doesn't follow along, just follows a long way from what is actually being said and slowly at at that.

Supernatural means unable to be explained by natural laws or derived therefrom. Somehow, to him that means an automatic step to ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the brain pan.

Still, all this deflection aside, nobody has yet even addressed the core point. According to the definition, consciousness IS supernatural. It cannot be explained or derived by the laws of nature.




Care to list these natural laws that state consciousness is supernatural or do you mean the scientific laws which include biological laws?

How can you honestly argue (with a straight face) that consciousness is supernatural (being above, outside of or better than natural) when it is impossible for you to compare it to anything?

Do you consider yourself supernatural?

dingo.sbs.arizona.edu...(final).pdf

BlueMoonJoe

Arguments from ignorance, indeed.

You claimed that dark matter was supernatural, for no other reason than the fact that we do not completely understand it. Can I also assume you consider gravity or evolution to be supernatural? Can you list anything we do absolutely understand?

Sorry, prez, the only one making things up is you. So it goes and given that you have left ample evidence as to not being up to speed on the basics of the discussion and have to resort to slogan level silliness, you have naturally been selected out of the discussion pool. Throw feces from the sideline if you wish.

You began this thread with a preconceived notion that consciousness is 'supernatural', and hoped people would be happy with that explanation. Your constant lofty and haughty intellectual disdain shows you have no interest in discussion or the truth, just validation from others with similar superstitions...

And your regular ad hominems speak for themselves

BlueMoonJoe
I have to say, being new here, I don't really know what the over all crowd is like, but I have to say I'm surprised that they didn't swarm this thread and happy that they haven't.

This crowd here is closed-minded, harsh, arrogant, and like a herd of sheep. There are barely any free thinkers here, and most people are only interested in pushing a certain view, rather than explorer all possibilities. The only reason they haven't flooded this thread is because they don't have answers to your questions. If you try to give any alternate perspective, rather than formulating a question, they will swarm you and use any tactic to pretend that you're stupid, ignorant or whatnot.

BlueMoonJoe
That's a big reason I phrased everything in questions; I'd like to hear how people deal with these issues, not to be told they don't exist and I just don't understand basic yadda yadda and where's my evidence?. To this day, and I do not exaggerate in the least, in all the discussions boards I have ever visited, I have seen an is not/prove it bot accept a piece of evidence exactly 0 times. A perfect 0-fer. Nothing is ever good enough because it is not about the evidence, it's about dismissing the evidence as a default.

Completely true. It's all they do. Dismiss evidence. It's come to the degree that I don't bother posting anymore. Of course, they see it like they have won the 'argument'.

As for your questions.... I'm gonna try and answer some,and you'll see what happens.

How did mindless, purposeless forces/matter up and produce mindful purposeful assertions of mindless purposeless forces/matter as the genesis of being?
It can't. Either our universe (or something in it) has a mind, or, we as biological creatures transcend the material world. Those are the only two options. First, modern day science has no idea what a mind actually is. They've looked everywhere and they can't find it. So they simply assumed that the mind and the brain is the same thing since they have no other answer. The fact that we are not philosophical zombies is something science can not answer.

When, exactly, did intelligence jump into the picture and how? When did purpose and intention enter the stage and by what mechanism?
Basically, purpose and/or intention should've been there before everything. When science figured out about the cosmological constant, in order to dismiss the apparent purpose of the universe, they came up with the multiverse theory, so that the order in our universe doesn't seem to have a purpose but was randomly generated. All these so-called 'laws' that scientists 'found' in the 'real world', are so intriguing, because our minds can understand them. Our minds are not wired to understand randomness, but order and purpose. As for mechanism, we know nothing about any (materialistic) mechanism that generates our current intelligence, let alone how it came about.

At what point did unconscious, unintelligent matter somehow become conscious and intelligent? By what alchemical processes was this made possible?
No one has any idea. This is the same thing again. Either matter is conscious and intelligent, or, we as living beings transcend the laws of the universe. There is no other option.

How did unconscious matter become self-conscious enough to question its own genesis?
The question assumes we are just matter, and that matter is not conscious in any way. Just like modern science assumes the same thing, despite there being evidence to the contrary. Assuming all this to be true, no one knows, and we'll probably never know. That means we have to start considering whether this is even a likely scenario, which I obviously think it's not.

How did this consciousness conclude that it was really unreal and merely a product of unconscious matter?
By faulty logic and bias lol.

How did this consciousness then come to unquestioningly believe in the truth of this conclusion even though this consciousness had no clue as to how or why it arose at all?
That's the whole irony if this thing. To believe something, you have to have some form of awareness. By believing consciousness is unreal you're simply living in a contradiction. People who assert contradictions to be true will never have a rational response to logic.

And how did this illogical and unsupported conclusion come to be regarded as reasonable and scientific?
Simply by the will to control the people through science. By saying that everyone is basically worthless, the ones in power can more easily stay in power.

To hold the view that the universe is inherently intelligent is seen as inherently unintelligent

Considering that 99.99999999% of the universe is nothingness and totally deadly to life, it's strange that people see the universe as created just to contain us.

reply to post by CB328


It's kind of a bold statement when we can't even define what life actually is, or where it is contained.

For all we know, stars and some planets could also be alive. We wouldn't be aware of it, just like a bacteria in our gut isn't aware that they are in a living system. And before you say that stars & planets are just natural processes with reactions x y z, so are our bodies.

Besides, that number doesn't matter. A refinery consists of 99.999999% of stuff that is not gasoline. Doesn't mean gasoline will appear just by chance, or that the refinery was not made to create it.

vasaga
reply to post by CB328

 

It's kind of a bold statement when we can't even define what life actually is, or where it is contained.

For all we know, stars and some planets could also be alive. We wouldn't be aware of it, just like a bacteria in our gut isn't aware that they are in a living system. And before you say that stars & planets are just natural processes with reactions x y z, so are our bodies.

Besides, that number doesn't matter. A refinery consists of 99.999999% of stuff that is not gasoline. Doesn't mean gasoline will appear just by chance, or that the refinery was not made to create it.

It's not so much bold, more like a cautious and appropriate approach. On the contrary, to define what life actually is would be a bold statement!

Speaking of statements.....

Your statement about stars and planets being alive, in the conventional sense, is wildely fanciful. Avatar fan much?

Your statement about the refinery doesnt make sense.

The one plausible theory is that consciousness and matter are two primal forces in this Universe. Which means, the Universe is a container that holds consciousness everywhere. One cannot exist without the other. Both could have evolved simultaneously. Matter could contain consiousness just like our body contains blood. It is necessary to run the engine.

If one stops giving human-kind so much credit for whatever it is it has supposedly accomplished (not), it's pretty easy to see we have no clue at all.

Ask the animals, those we imitate, abuse and exploit only slightly less than we abuse and exploit one another.

We aren't all that great, if there was a God, it would be pointed out very clearly to us how wrong we are.

I suppose that one must first scrutinize what one believes, scrutinize those who led you to believe whatever it is you believe, scrutinize the reason they taught you to believe whatever, and chuck it all in the dustbin because those are not your beliefs or thoughts, but those of others.

Then maybe one can get closer to figuring out the un-knowable.

I'm a dawg.

reply to post by BlueMoonJoe


I guess you will have to research, but it seems that not all of your questions have an available answer at this stage. I doubt there are many "reasonable and scientific" conclusions in the way you imply, regarding consciousness. As much as ignorance and therefore care being taken not to leap unsupportable exotic explanations, or flights of fancy. Genuine scientific studies that try to understand exactly what consciousness is, seem rare. It might be the last frontier, in some ways, perhaps more knowledge will not only help us further in our understanding of evolution, possibly abiogenesis also.

Fascinating questions though some of them are, the way they are put forward here presupposes certain things and gives the impression of a mind that is already made up in certain ways. Why can't matter become conscious, why can't it arise naturally? It certainly appears that it evolves and is an emergent property of living organisms/ biology. There could be far more to it than that though, but who really knows what that might be?

What is also amazing in a cultural Anthropology sense, is not only how this (so called) intelligence (in one species at least) has the ability to fabricate and imagine all kind of fairy tale, feel good answers in effort to alleviate such ignorance, even arriving at various notions and concepts such as the "idiot gods" of popular religious delusion... that have no real chance of being true...but the way it can cling fervently to them in large groups, despite being overwhelming contradicted by what knowledge we do have, to the point of mass psychosis.

There might well be "something", one day we might gain genuine understanding. Once we can begin to truly understand consciousness, which is a fascinating topic.

helldiver

vasaga
reply to post by CB328

 

It's kind of a bold statement when we can't even define what life actually is, or where it is contained.

For all we know, stars and some planets could also be alive. We wouldn't be aware of it, just like a bacteria in our gut isn't aware that they are in a living system. And before you say that stars & planets are just natural processes with reactions x y z, so are our bodies.

Besides, that number doesn't matter. A refinery consists of 99.999999% of stuff that is not gasoline. Doesn't mean gasoline will appear just by chance, or that the refinery was not made to create it.

It's not so much bold, more like a cautious and appropriate approach. On the contrary, to define what life actually is would be a bold statement!

Speaking of statements.....

Your statement about stars and planets being alive, in the conventional sense, is wildely fanciful. Avatar fan much?

Your statement about the refinery doesnt make sense.

edit on 11-1-2014 by helldiver because: (no reason given)

I never said I was defining life. I said we should define life before we say that the universe is deadly to life. If a star is alive, it's definitely not deadly to life. But since we don't know what life is, we can't know to what extent it's deadly to life. Just because it's deadly to us, doesn't mean it's deadly to all life. Your statement has to make the assumption that all life is just like us, to hold any merit. We are not all that exists. (or are we...? but that's another discussion).

My statement regarding alive stars/planets has nothing to do with Avatar. It's based on the simple concept that only life breeds life. This is something that's regarded as true among pretty much everyone. Spontaneous generation was disproven by science a long time ago. But we make an exception for theories like abiogenesis and evolution, which are basically spontaneous generation over long periods of time. I honestly don't understand why we make that exception, but whatever, I digress. If the planet is alive, it makes sense that it breeds other smaller creatures like trees and us. I am aware that this shifts the problem of life rather than answering, but that was not the point. The point was that it's bold to say that the universe is deadly to life when we don't know what life is.

As for the statement of the refinery, it makes perfect sense. Maybe you lack knowledge of refining. Not that your lack of knowledge to make the connection is my concern, but let me explain it anyway, since we're all here to expand our knowledge. Uh, well, maybe not all of us, but I'd like to think that's the case. Anyway...
It's an allegory for us and the universe, regarding the percentage you gave, and how it's irrelevant. We are made out of the same stuff as the universe, just like the gasoline is made from the same stuff of the crude oil. Gasoline passes through a process to get here, just like we did. Gasoline has a specification that it has to adhere to. If it comes in any contact with the majority of the prior products in the crude, it goes off-spec and you can't sell it. You basically 'killed' it. We're talking about ppm here, so tiny amounts of unwanted products are enough to 'kill' it. Basically, if we're exposed to the majority of the universe, you will die. Just because the majority of chemicals will 'kill' your gasoline, doesn't mean the process going on was not made to create the gasoline. Just because most of the universe is deadly to us, doesn't mean the process going on was not made to create life/us.

Do you see the connection now?