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Read the man's work,if you wanna know
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 19/09/2013 16:29:36Read the man's work,if you wanna knowNo, I want to know how you know, not what someone else told you. This is a science forum, not a poetry club.
Thank you for the poetry, Don Quixote. It's lovely. But I do think you are starting to compare apples to oranges. Here is another story:I enjoy painting. If you lived in my neighborhood, I could sit in your yard, and paint a picture of your house. I could show you my finished painting and ask "Do you know what this is?" and if I was any good, you might say, "Why, yes. That is my house. I can tell by color of the siding, just the way it looks when the sun shines on it at four in the afternoon, the slope of the gables, and the placement of the door. You've captured the rose bushes outside that we planted last spring rather nicely. Oh, and that appears to be me in the upstairs window typing furiously away at the computer."The next day, you are rummaging through a drawer and find a set of blueprints. You show them to your son, and say "Do you know what this is?" He examines it closely and says "Hey, that's our house!" The blueprints show where the kitchen is, in relationship to the living room, and bedrooms, the hallways and closets, etc. and the dimensions of each. Which representation is more accurate? Which is closer to the truth? The artistic rendering, impercise as it is, may be closer to the image recreated in your visual centers in your brain from electrical impulses generated when photons stimulate receptors on the retina of your eye. It may be closer to image of your house stored in your memory. The painting may stimulate the same emotional response you have when you look at your house or recall it. You might like it so well, that you pay me a large sum of money for it, and hang it over your couch. But if you are doing renovations or having any electrical work done, I suggest you provide the blueprints, not the painting.
When the human brain is damaged at the level of some specific areas ,due to some disease , handicap, accident , genetic defect ...disorders like Alzheimer or dementia, ...even the sense of the self is altered radically indeed , and many aspects of consciousness in those cases are also radically altered,to say just that : but that does not mean that the brain is the "home " or is the creator of consciousness as a kindda magical "emergence " trick popping out suddenly from the evolved complexity of the human brain : I see the human brain as just some kindda receiver its own biological way that cannot be compared to any mechanical manufactured-by-man device : when the brain gets damaged in some specific areas , the corresponding elements or aspects of consciousness that get apparently altered as a result , are still there , they are just disconnected from the brain as a receiver , they do not get through, as a result, i dunno :The question now is : do those people who do suffer from Alzheimer dementia ....still have levels of consciousness within we cannot detect ?Or is there a way to find out about that and how ?
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 19/09/2013 17:52:35When the human brain is damaged at the level of some specific areas ,due to some disease , handicap, accident , genetic defect ...disorders like Alzheimer or dementia, ...even the sense of the self is altered radically indeed , and many aspects of consciousness in those cases are also radically altered,to say just that : but that does not mean that the brain is the "home " or is the creator of consciousness as a kindda magical "emergence " trick popping out suddenly from the evolved complexity of the human brain : I see the human brain as just some kindda receiver its own biological way that cannot be compared to any mechanical manufactured-by-man device : when the brain gets damaged in some specific areas , the corresponding elements or aspects of consciousness that get apparently altered as a result , are still there , they are just disconnected from the brain as a receiver , they do not get through, as a result, i dunno :The question now is : do those people who do suffer from Alzheimer dementia ....still have levels of consciousness within we cannot detect ?Or is there a way to find out about that and how ? Thomas Nagel, a philosopher you might like, who is also a critic of reductionism and materialism, says "Science can tell us everything about a bat except what it's like to be a bat."Well, he has a point. My response to that is: I had surgery once and received a general anesthetic. The experience, if I can even call it that, was nothing like sleeping. Nothing happened. I did not even have a sense of time having passed as when one sleeps, from the moment I lost consciousness until I regained it. One might argue, "but you could have experienced something and the anesthetic simply erased your memory of the experience." However, if a bat is the only authority on what it is like to be a bat, I should likewise be the ultimate authority on my own subjective experiences, and I will testify that while under general anesthesia, there was none. For all intents and purposes "I" did not exist at that time, inside my brain or via the magical transmitter in outer space. Your results may vary.
But , you forgot to mention that an artist knows that he / she tries to "reflect reality " in his / her own creative work his / her own subjective way , he / she does not pretend to copy "reality proper " : if an artist would try to copy "reality " as it is ,
The tv set proper , and the images of the tv set created by those tv signals the tv receives are 2 different separate things or processes , while brain and consciousness are 2 different things or processes in 1 , mind and body as being 1 in any given human person : a kindda combination between dualism and monism .
So, when science tries to take a closer look at telepathy, for example , it misses the fact that telepathy cannot be generated on demand ...
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 19/09/2013 17:52:35The tv set proper , and the images of the tv set created by those tv signals the tv receives are 2 different separate things or processes , while brain and consciousness are 2 different things or processes in 1 , mind and body as being 1 in any given human person : a kindda combination between dualism and monism .A combination of dualism and monism? Really? how is claiming mutually exclusive options not special pleading? QuoteSo, when science tries to take a closer look at telepathy, for example , it misses the fact that telepathy cannot be generated on demand ...Except, of course, that the individuals claiming telepathic skills that get tested believe that they can do it on demand. There's no point testing them otherwise. The better run tests have them satisfy themselves that their abilities are working in the test environment before putting controls in place. You may not be able to use your claimed telepathic abilities on demand, but can you legitimately contradict those who say they can?
Only real true mystics can experience the relatively full scale of human consciousness or pure consciousness and beyond
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 19/09/2013 19:33:17But , you forgot to mention that an artist knows that he / she tries to "reflect reality " in his / her own creative work his / her own subjective way , he / she does not pretend to copy "reality proper " : if an artist would try to copy "reality " as it is , I don't think science tries to "duplicate" reality either. There are many pictures of molecules and cells in my textbook, and some of them are quite different, and exclude or include different information. No diagram or model of a molecule will include or represent everything that is known about a molecule or atoms. That said, some representations or models could be completely inaccurate, with no features that correspond to any of it's properties.
Sorry, mate, but accepting someone else's absurd statement without question, isn't science.
QuoteOnly real true mystics can experience the relatively full scale of human consciousness or pure consciousness and beyond If you think that its true, how do you know it is true? What do you think "the relatively full scale of human consciousness" means? How do you know that (a) "true mystics" (whatever they are) experience it, and nobody else does? A categorical statement is open to demonstration and test. Have you seen it demonstrated, or tested it?
I forgive you , my son, even though i am still young ...
Quantum mechanics had shown that man's thought or consciousness do change the course or activity of atoms, neutrons ...when the observer looks at them .
If that can happen at that micro level,i see no reason why it cannot happen on the macro level .
... there is no such a thing such as ...matter ,as we understand it to be at least : quantum physics had already shown to us that matter is not really what we think it is ...
Have you ever done some meditation ,Yoga , or some other spiritual exercises ? Do not reduce yourself to just ..science .
It seems to me that consciousness is no more than data handling. Data arrives through a set of senses; the five "physical" ones plus a "mental" one that allows us to be "aware" of our thoughts - working consciousness (is this the sense responsible for "imagination"?). We handle this data incredibly fast, so fast that the distinction between "conscious" thought - getting the view across - and unconscious thought - the tool will be adding 2 and 2 - becomes blurred, but it is data handling none the less.
To clarify, I see Evolution as a process that has been going on for the entire life of the universe; the "basic law" of Creation, if you like. The first "phase" was a foundation phase (from our perspective) where habitats eventually evolved, the second phase was Life, products that can change their environment to suit their needs, and the third phase is sentience.