[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Everything we see in nature "fits in " with the machine "analogy or metaphor " except ...the nature of life

No. Life is easy because it is just chemistry. Consciousness is the only real difficulty - the rest is just complexity making it hard to set out exact mechanisms, but the mechanisms are already understood in principle for everything except consciousness

.

Life is not just physics and chemistry , otherwise just try to explain consciousness then = you cannot just isolate life from its conscious state , just to reduce life that way to just physics and chemistry , just to fit your purpose = life is a whole package = mind and body = mind + physics and chemistry = mind is obviously not a matter of physics and chemistry .

(Can you explain life just via just physics and chemistry ? describing life via just physics and chemistry is no full explanation of life, no explanation  of life  ,period  )  ,

There is plenty of explanation available to satisfy me that everything about life is an extension of chemistry and physics, except for consciousness.

Well, see above : life is mind and body = a whole package .
Try to explain the most important component of life then = consciousness via just physics and chemistry .

except the nature of human intellect and consciousness,

Human intellect is just mechanistic applied reasoning (though typically done with many errors).

Humans are the only species that do possess reason , the latter that can reflect on and question itself within and without ,reason that can question its own reasoning process , its epistemology , its validity and truth and beyond ; reason that goes beyond the external pragmatic survival necessities or survival pragmatic appearances of reality .

except consciousness in all living beings and things ,

Agreed

How did that consciousness get to exist in physical material biological processes such as life ,and inanimate matter then : consciousness and material processes that are inseparable ...

except the nature of human emotions feelings ,

Agreed - they are part of consciousness.

Mind or soul with a big T contains the mind with a small t , contains emotions feelings , intuition ...

except the nature of human love ,

Agreed - it is part of consciousness.

Love is part of the sub-consciousness as well .

except the nature of human conscience , except the nature of human ethics

Which again relates to consciousness - if there's no such thing as suffering, there is no role for ethics.

In short : mind relates to body = consciousness relates to body = if you wanna understand them fully , if you wanna understand life fully , the inanimate world fully even , you gotta try to understand them as a whole undividable package = the whole is not the sum of its parts .
And you cannot do all that just via physics and chemistry thus .

....the list is still long .

The list is short: consciousness.

The list is long = the nature of  the conscious  life as a whole , and conscious inanimate matter as  whole packages = the whole is not the sum of its parts = cannot be reduced to just physics and chemistry , as materialism wanna make people believe they are .

Living orgranisms are , obviously , no machines : see above .

They are obviously chemical machines, but there is a problem with consciousness as it's the part that doesn't find an explanation yet in our current scientific knowledge, not even in principle.

Science can only tell us about the material empirical side of reality :  the conscious  life and conscious inanimate matter as  whole undividable packages are thus mind and body = not just physics and chemsitry .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

You're too modest comrade. Your proof that "God of the Gaps" is false is a triumphant accomplishment. Don Quichotte will be hailed far and wide for bringing God to par with witches, goblins and easterbunnies. Hell, they might even rename halloween in your honor. Bigtime, Don, bigtime.

Once again ,dear deluded -materialist sis :
Science can neither prove nor disprove beliefs , either the secular or the religious ones = all beliefs are thus outside of both science's realm and jurisdiction, but , not all beliefs are necessarily false , as materialism obviously and undeniably ....is .

P.S: Materialism as just a false conception of nature , as just a secular religion in science has absolutely nothing to do with science .
materialism as a belief that's , per definition, unscientific + false = science must be liberated from materialism and must be set free thus , materialism that has been hijacking and dominating in all sciences for that matter and elsewhere , since the 19th century at least = science today remains confined within those false unscientific and outdated false walls of materialism' prison it gotta be liberated from , sooner or later = inevitable = just a question of time thus = science is confined to a materialist false outdated and unscientific belief that dates back to the 19th century .

Final note :

Human beliefs are unavoidable in science = that false  and outdated  materialism will be just replaced by yet another false conception of nature in science = the human will to believe is inexhaustible ...indeed .

Need a ...cookie ?
Bon appetit ,sis .

[David Cooper]

Are you sure about that David, that emotions are not another kind of thought or reasoning process?

100% sure. Emotions are just feelings: qualia. If these qualia are actually real, they are used in the process of driving behaviours. Love is a feeling that drives behaviour. Pain is a feeling that drives behaviour. Nasty tastes are feelings that drive behaviour. Boredom is a feeling/emotion which drives behaviour. They're all the same kind of thing.

[David Cooper]

Life is not just physics and chemistry , otherwise just try to explain consciousness then = you cannot just isolate life from its conscious state , just to reduce life that way to just physics and chemistry , just to fit your purpose = life is a whole package = mind and body = mind + physics and chemistry = mind is obviously not a matter of physics and chemistry .

Consciousness is an addition to life and not an essential part of it. Plants lack it (or at least, it has no functional role in them - they could be feeling all sorts of qualia, but then so could a rock for all we know).

Well, see above : life is mind and body = a whole package .
Try to explain the most important component of life then = consciousness via just physics and chemistry .

Stop ignoring plants. Many living things have no mind/brain. Such things are chemical machines. You could also add a brain to a living thing (thereby making what is essentially an animal) without adding consciousness if that brain works like a conventional computer. It only takes a step beyond that if you can find some way to add actual consciousness to it, and that would apply equally to a robot: without consciousness it is a machine which may or may not be part of "life", and with consciousness you have something extra attached which would be no less a thing for being added to a robot or a living machine.

Humans are the only species that do possess reason , the latter that can reflect on and question itself within and without ,reason that can question its own reasoning process , its epistemology , its validity and truth and beyond ; reason that goes beyond the external pragmatic survival necessities or survival pragmatic appearances of reality .

The first bit isn't true, but it is true that we can reason better than other species, just as an AGI system can reason better than a calculator. It's just a matter of how many different kinds of processing it can handle.

How did that consciousness get to exist in physical material biological processes such as life ,and inanimate matter then : consciousness and material processes that are inseparable ...

We won't know the answer to that until we understand how consciousness works.

Love is part of the sub-consciousness as well .

How does that work given that it's below (= outside of) consciousness?

In short : mind relates to body = consciousness relates to body = if you wanna understand them fully , if you wanna understand life fully , the inanimate world fully even , you gotta try to understand them as a whole undividable package = the whole is not the sum of its parts .
And you cannot do all that just via physics and chemistry thus .

No, you have to break down the package into parts and remove all the ones that can be accounted for mechanistically until you're left with the interesting parts of the package that can't. There's no point in mixing the explainable parts back in with the mess of the unexplained parts and then presenting the resulting mess as something you don't understand because you're overcomplicating the mess which is quite bad enough already without the added unnecessary obfuscation.

....the list is still long .

The list is short: consciousness.

The list is long = the nature of  the conscious  life as a whole , and conscious inanimate matter as  whole packages = the whole is not the sum of its parts = cannot be reduced to just physics and chemistry , as materialism wanna make people believe they are .

Be very careful with that. As soon as you say "the whole is not the sum of its parts", you are pushing magical emergence. The whole is never greater than the sum of its parts.

Science can only tell us about the material empirical side of reality :  the conscious  life and conscious inanimate matter as  whole undividable packages are thus mind and body = not just physics and chemsitry .

If consciousness is real, there must be a means by which it interacts with materials, and that is something that science should be able to access and observe. If there is such an interaction, it cannot be beyond reach of science, so if science can show that there is no such interaction it will show that consciousness is a fake phenomenon in that the data our brains produce which makes claims that consciousness is real will be shown to be a mere fiction generated by rules designed to generate false claims.

[cheryl j]

Whitehead or somoneelse stated so logically that emotions and feelings are just thought-projects in the making

I've heard intuition described in that way, but not emotion. There are experiments in which people have to make predictions (such as what card will come up next, or what light will flash.) There is a pattern to the cards or flashes, but it is too complicated for most people to identify before the end of the experiment. Never the less, their guesses become more accurate as time goes on, despite the fact that participants say "there is no pattern" or "if there is, I don't know what it is, I was was just guessing." The subconscious can be logical.

[grizelda]

I can understand how some people could be upset that you've upset their "God of the Gaps" applecart, Don, so here's what you do. Concoct a theory that science doesn't explain everything, that there's something missing, a gap in their knowledge. Don't know what you'd call it, something opposite to materialism. They're simple, god-fleeing people, they'll forgive you, and let you eat your cookie in peace.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Whitehead or somoneelse stated so logically that emotions and feelings are just thought-projects in the making

Maybe .
Man is a whole package though : mind and body : man cannot be divided into separate categories : body , consciousness, emotions , feelings , reason, intuition = they are all a whole package working together = the whole is not the sum of its parts .


I've heard intuition described in that way, but not emotion. There are experiments in which people have to make predictions (such as what card will come up next, or what light will flash.) There is a pattern to the cards or flashes, but it is too complicated for most people to identify before the end of the experiment. Never the less, their guesses become more accurate as time goes on, despite the fact that participants say "there is no pattern" or "if there is, I don't know what it is, I was was just guessing." The subconscious can be logical.
[/quote]

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Whitehead or somoneelse stated so logically that emotions and feelings are just thought-projects in the making

I've heard intuition described in that way, but not emotion. There are experiments in which people have to make predictions (such as what card will come up next, or what light will flash.) There is a pattern to the cards or flashes, but it is too complicated for most people to identify before the end of the experiment. Never the less, their guesses become more accurate as time goes on, despite the fact that participants say "there is no pattern" or "if there is, I don't know what it is, I was was just guessing." The subconscious can be logical.

[/quote]

Maybe .
Man is a whole package though : mind and body : man cannot be divided into separate categories : body , consciousness, emotions , feelings , reason, intuition = they are all a whole package working together = the whole is not the sum of its parts .

P.S.: Trained developed experienced informed ....intuition might turn out to be the highest form of intellect .

[grizelda]

Here's a name for your new theory, Don; "Goblins of the Gapes". Catchy, huh. You could pitch it as a Hollywood spooktacular, starring Tom C. as Don Q. He'd be right up your alley. With modern special effects you could work miracles. That brass ring is so close you can smell it.

[alancalverd]

And yet another lump of irrelevant Sheldrake. Are you paying him a royalty? He'll be very upset if I tell him you aren't.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

And yet another lump of irrelevant Sheldrake. Are you paying him a royalty? He'll be very upset if I tell him you aren't.

[/quote]

Try to prove him wrong ,just in relation to that introduction of his though , silly .

[alancalverd]

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted.

To demonstrate the truth of any subsequent statement, you have to interview at least 50% of all scientists. Rupert hasn't been alive long enough to do so.

Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather
than living organisms with goals of their own.

Obvious nonsense. Has he never seen a dog? What on earth is his definition of "living"?

The essence of mechanism is mindless repetition. Like the sort of thing (it can hardly be a sentient being) that copies and pastes the same passage of nonsense regardless of the question. Vide Einstein on insanity.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted.

To demonstrate the truth of any subsequent statement, you have to interview at least 50% of all scientists. Rupert hasn't been alive long enough to do so.

It is a fact that those and other materialist dogmatic belief  assumptions are taken for granted by most scientists , by the majority of them= the majority of scientists today are ...materialists .
Worse : the materialist dogmatic belief system has been dominating in all sciences and elsewhere , since the 19 th century at least .
Worst : the mainstream "scientific" dominating   world view in science is ...materialist .

Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather
than living organisms with goals of their own.

Obvious nonsense. Has he never seen a dog? What on earth is his definition of "living"?

haha
Obvious non-sense indeed : that happens to be the metarialist mechanistic world view in science , Sheldrake was talking about , a materialist mechanistic world view, he obviously ...rejects .

The essence of mechanism is mindless repetition. Like the sort of thing (it can hardly be a sentient being) that copies and pastes the same passage of nonsense regardless of the question. Vide Einstein on insanity.

Since that mechanistic materialist world view has been dominating in science (since the 19th century up to the present day ) , and gets sold to the people as science and as the "scientific " world view  , it's pretty logical to post these true words of Sheldrake in relation to every scientific issue for that matter ...= reality, life , the universe as a whole , nature thus ... are  not just physical material, as materialism wanna make the people believe they are .

[cheryl j]

Are you sure about that David, that emotions are not another kind of thought or reasoning process?

100% sure. Emotions are just feelings: qualia. If these qualia are actually real, they are used in the process of driving behaviours. Love is a feeling that drives behaviour. Pain is a feeling that drives behaviour. Nasty tastes are feelings that drive behaviour. Boredom is a feeling/emotion which drives behaviour. They're all the same kind of thing.

So if these drivers serve a purpose, and have a function, and effects that are often very predictable, how are they not machine like?

[cheryl j]

But getting back to the origin of language, since I think that was what this thread was about, something I always wondered about with other animals and whatever sounds they make - what do they think when they hear their own calls, and do they ever mix it up with sounds another animal is making?
If an animal like a bird or lizard is operating only on automated instinct,  would it ever think the call that it just made, and heard, is the call of a rival male, the same way birds sometimes attack their own reflection in glass?
When did humans start "talking to themselves" instead of simply using vocalizations to signal others?

[grizelda]

So Tom turned you down, Don. What were you thinking? You turned a classic like "Goblins of the Gapes" into a porn flick. Is this what you get from reading Sheldrake? Glad I never looked at that crap. Is that what you smell? Oh, no, smell isn't made of odors, language isn't made of words, the universe isn't made of material, consciousness isn't made out of... Oh, wait, you're not clear. Better get tested. You need a certain amount of cred to understand this stuff, and of course, like they say, you're not even wrong.

[alancalverd]

DQ:

It is a fact that those and other materialist dogmatic belief  assumptions are taken for granted by most scientists

Please provide a credible peer-reviewed source for this assertion, or confine your contributions to "new theories".

[alancalverd]

Meanwhile, back in the realms of sanity, it is interesting to listen to common bird songs slowed down to the point where the human ear can distinguish the inner content. It seems that the working vocabulary of a robin is similar in extent and complexity to that of an air traffic controller, which rather reinforces my original point that animals communicate to the extent required for survival.

Given the choice between "On a purely materialist basis my consciousness, with qualia expanded by a mechanistic radar device,  suggests there to be an existential threat to your presumed passage having the apparent form of an aircraft...." and "alfa charlie turn right twenty degrees to avoid converging traffic", I'd go for the latter every time. Apparently the birds agree with me.     

[David Cooper]

So if these drivers serve a purpose, and have a function, and effects that are often very predictable, how are they not machine like?

By being feelings/qualia. There's no problem creating a model which shows a drive process whereby the response is greater in proportion to the size of an input signal, but there are no feelings involved in that. You can try to add feelings to the model, but they are superfluous to the actual functionality and the feeling aspect of them should also be impossible for the system to detect (unless there's something exotic going on which science currently has no handle on). The most obvious problem for science is to identify something that actually suffers when pain is experienced, though the same problem actually applies to any other kind of feeling. Pain cannot be experienced without an experiencer/sufferer, and that sufferer can't be something so lacking in substance as a geometrical arrangement (with all the things of substance which are arranged by it being ruled out as sufferers). Even if you can identify a sufferer though, you still have to find a way to extract its direct knowledge of suffering from it (where that knowledge of suffering isn't knowledge in the form of data but as direct experience).

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

So Tom turned you down, Don. What were you thinking? You turned a classic like "Goblins of the Gapes" into a porn flick. Is this what you get from reading Sheldrake? Glad I never looked at that crap. Is that what you smell? Oh, no, smell isn't made of odors, language isn't made of words, the universe isn't made of material, consciousness isn't made out of... Oh, wait, you're not clear. Better get tested. You need a certain amount of cred to understand this stuff, and of course, like they say, you're not even wrong.

Try to prove Sheldrake wrong then, just regarding what he said in relation to materialism then .
Please try to be ontopic also , while you are at it .
Deal ?


P.S.: What do you think about the materialist version of the origin of human language   by the way ?  How come you all mix up those materialist beliefs in science with the latter ?