Originally posted by Lifegazer
LWS... Why are you so-interested (all of a sudden), in talking about this? Are you going-down the same road as I tried to go-down? To what ends?
Once more, you have confused me. Given your responses to our previous discussions, I fail to see what you, personally, are trying to prove. Do you not realize that a discussion upon these lines (by you) is an enforcement of my own personal philosophy? And if you do realize that, then has your philosophy changed?
I thought I would wait for your debate with Janus and others to die down before answered you. I want to try to explain where I think we agree and disagree, and hopefully get this thread back on track.
Where I sense we agree is that neither of us believe consciousness is entirely the result of material processes. In fact, I can say for myself personally that I
know that it isn’t. You may remember some of the debate I’ve had with DT Strain and others where I’ve argued against the concept that all knowing can be empirically demonstrated. It is the philosophy of empirically-oriented materialism that wants to reduce and take everything apart, and sometimes claim if it doesn’t show up in laboratory experiments then it can’t exist. I joined this site specifically to challenge that philosophy, mainly because I’m getting a book ready for a publisher and needed feedback for my concepts. So far the people here have been immensely helpful, even the most crabby and uncompromising materialist types.
What my focus has mostly been at PF are materialist claims I feel are premature given the evidence we have (like spontaneous chemogenisis), and to challenge physical theories of, or involving, consciousness. The latter is the theme of this thread. I don’t think materialist theories can automatically be extended to consciousness, particularly the basic materialist concept that the brain (more or less) generates consciousness. I do believe the CN and brain draw in “something” (potentiality?) and then organizes its undifferentiated nature for thinking, memory, etc., but the “something” beneath all that organization retains its original nature.
As you know, I think when materialist concepts are extended into the realm of consciousness, it seems every time the undifferentiated, unified, holistic aspect is overlooked. Point that out and you might be told such ideas about consciousness have been “dismissed” (by materialist advocates of course), along with notions of the “observer” in consciousness, Descartes, the phenomenon of enlightenment, God and anything else which can’t be explained by, or interferes with, materialist philosophy. I believe it is wrong to ignore or dismiss what can’t be explained by one’s philosophy, and so I want to challenge that.
But just as I think it’s incorrect to
automaticallyextend physical concepts to consciousness, so too do I worry about interpreting physical things in a consciousness or spiritual context. I think if there is the sort of consciousness I’ve suggested, or something spiritual, it operates by non-physical principles (though not supernaturally). I am not suggesting duality really, because I see them both as offspring of “potentiality”: but the realms are so differentiated that what defines “physical” functions by its own strict rules, as does the non-physical (even if at the level of “potentiality” they are identical).
So, here seems to be where our philosophies collide because you want to mix
principles of physical and non-physical together, and I don’t think it can be done. What happens, whether materialists do it or non-materialists do it, is that neither set of principles is understood. I think you prove physical things through physical principles, and you prove non-material things through . . . well, you know. Further, even the methods of “proof” are different. Empiricism requires sense experience to verify; and then results can be demonstrated to others objectively. But sense experience doesn’t work with immateriality, and one cannot “objectify” one’s personal experience. So “proof” ends up being what each person experiences and proves to themselves alone. This is the second area where we disagree, because I believe you’ve said that you think the realities of immateriality can be proven through reason.
So let’s get back to the theme of this thread for a minute. My point was to isolate conscious experience in the relativity experiment. If you read the posts by those explaining relativity, you can tell they’ve assumed the conscious experience of the traveling twin will find everything “normal” because all physical measurements indicate that. However, the traveling twin had been raised on Earth, say for thirty years, and that rate of time he’d experienced for thirty years was his norm. But while traveling his rate of time was different than how he’d been raised, 1/8th the rate (in my example). This is proven by the fact that upon returning the Earth twin had aged 35 more years. It wasn’t just the clocks that were different, an actual real difference in aging had taken place.
My point is that if consciousness is only a product of physical processes, and because relativity is purely a physical phenomenon, then consciousness should adjust accordingly as rates of time or physical contraction fluctuate. We should indeed be unable to tell fluctuations are occurring because consciousness will “follow” the changes since everything, even consciousness, changes proportionally. However, if consciousness is
not fundamentally physical, then it might not be fully subject to relativity effects. I tried to analogize what sort of physical independence consciousness might have with the following:
Say a computer is able to generate awareness intelligent as humans are right now. The computer lives in an entirely electronic world where every device it interacts with is powered by the same source; the computer shares the same power source too. On hot days when air conditioners around the county are straining generators, the power level of computer's shared power supply drops. Now it and everything connected to the power supply slows proportionately; plus, the computer's awareness slows too, and so notices absolutely nothing is different.
A neighboring intelligently-aware computer also lives entirely in an electronic world with lots of other electronic devices. All the devices share a common power source. However, this computer runs on its own generator, and so when air conditioners around the county slow down all the appliances around it, it notices differences in the performance of the appliances, even though its electronic measuring devices (running off the county’s power) indicate all is “normal.”
There is no way to prove any of this since such space travel is impossible now, and probably always will be. My point, however, was to challenge the
automatic assumptions of the materialist view that the traveling twin, who takes off used to Earth’s rate of time (obviously if the traveling twin had not lived 30 years on Earth before traveling, then he wouldn’t have any comparison rate of time), will find everything “normal” just because physical measurements tell his senses it is so. I think it is very possible that behind his sense experience the twin’s
feeling/intuitive experience will feel the indicated five years of space travel was the longest five years of his life.
