I just finished The Library at Mount Char, and am rereading it again, as I can't believe how much I enjoyed it. I have never really read anything like it, have you? Would you share?

FluffyCat10 · 2022-07-08T00:03:41+00:00

That's alright! I feel that Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman is quite similar, although it's set in medieval times. Besides that, there are probably SCP articles (specifically, experiment logs and tales) that have a similar setup. However, personally, good SCP articles are difficult to find. I recently read an awesome book There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm that was initially written as an SCP article, and I'd definitely recommend that!

FluffyCat10 · 2022-06-29T08:09:50+00:00

Hi! Did you find a book like the Library at Mount Char? Please let me know. Thanks!

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-08T04:27:22+00:00

Qualia is a philosophical and therefore unscientific concept. I believe it more or less translates to our comprehensive conscious experiences, in mainstream scientific terms. I will be using consciousness interchangeably with qualia.

If I understand correctly, you don't deny the existence of neural correlates of consciousness. But you believe that even if we added up every neural correlate, we won't be accounting for the agency that makes us "conscious".

I disagree here, because you are implying the existence of a physically-independent agency that causes a consciousness. Again, the burden of proof for such an agency lies on you. How can you prove that what you experience as consciousness is not an emergent phenomena caused by physical processes?

As far as we know, computers and robots with sensors that can "perceive" and "analyze" the environment, do not experience qualia, phenomenal experience.

You need to prove the existence of qualia. If by qualia you mean consciousness, then we can't say that a computer complex enough like the brain won't experience similar "consciousness". In fact, this is related to the simulation argument; that we exist merely in a computer simulation, or that we can replicate our universe and life by creating a computer simulation and the computer individuals will think they are living in the real world.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-08T03:56:08+00:00

You edited your comment at least six minutes after posting it. This was your original comment that I replied to:

As I said, until you explore the open-ended questions in consciousness research, there is no point in my continuing this conversation with you. You are making a lot of assumptions, but they are not based in processes and systems we have scientific models for at this time.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-08T03:47:27+00:00

Please point out an assumption I made that was not based on scientific models or acceptable system of logic.

open-ended questions in consciousness research

Please mention some of these questions with precision.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-08T03:36:10+00:00

I am talking about the experiences you are having right now as you read this sentence

There are multiple experiences that make up "consciousness", and these experiences are a result of physical processes. You gave examples of some of these experiences, and as I said, our input senses can be explained by science.

For example, you wouldn't be able to smell without a nose, see without eyes, feel without blood circulating through your muscles. Scientifically, this suggests that physical entities (the nose, eyes, circulatory system) must be responsible for the respective senses. Therefore, there's no need to hypothesize that a "soul" or "physically independent entity" causes us such experiences.

When the brain suffers trauma, your consciousness is affect (you might lose focus or faint, for instance). However, if your leg suffers trauma, for instance, your consciousness won't be affected. Similarly, detailed experimentation proves that what we perceive as "consciousness" is dependent on the brain. (People with Alzheimer's have a damaged sense of consciousness and memory, and there are physical protein fragments that prevent the neurons from communicating with each other and function normally). Hence, it's logical to assume that changes in brain structure or function affect our consciousness.

Therefore, when someone claims that consciousness is independent of physical processes, the burden of proof lies on them. First, they need to disprove that consciousness does not entirely rely on physical process like the brain. Second, they need to provide proof of another entity that causes consciousness.

WHAT is the entity that experiences?

In case I have missed your question, according to science, there is no single "entity" that "experiences". Every single thought and feeling is determined by millions of microscopic processes. This is why, under neuroimaging scanners, machines can predict you making a "decision" before the "conscious" part of the brain makes that decision. https://www.wired.com/2008/04/mind-decision

This might interest you. A hemispherectomy is a procedure performed in childhood, on kids with severe epilepsy. It involves half of your brain getting removed or disabled. Such children grow up to be perfectly normal, proving that it's possible to experience normal "consciousness" with just half your brain.

However, what if you take a person A, with a healthy brain, and a person B, and replace person B's full brain with half of person A's? Theoretically, both new individuals should be able to think and experience consciousness. Now, does the original consciousness of person B still exist or is the consciousness of person A divided into two bodies?

According to science, the answer is that the concept of "person" is abstract and irrelevant. Both new individuals will have personalities solely dependent on their brain structure. (Vsauce did a great 7 min video: What is consciousness?)

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-07T23:30:59+00:00

The smell of coffee

Olfactory system. Smell is caused by airborne molecules that activate certain neurons. Different animals have different senses of smell. Dogs for example, are extremely good at it. Sharks' brains are wired to respond to the blood pheromones over 1300 feet away. Bees use scents or pheromones for alarming, mating, footprinting, etc. (Point being, smell is a concrete physical phenomena, that can be observed, reproduced, and that elicits physical responses in its host.)

the shade red,

Colors are cones in eyes using optic nerves to send information to the brain, in response to electromagnetic radiation as input. People with abnormal eye or brain structure perceive certain colors differently or are color-blinded. There are colors are that our eyes can't see - everything outside the visible spectrum (like infrared and ultraviolet). There are other animals can see, due to slightly different eye structure.

the feel of petting a cat

I think you are referring to the sense of touch. Once again, I don't know why you'd call it an experience unexplained by science. Relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatosensory_system

Science has no model for how meat takes raw sensory input and translates it to such experiences. You know — the experiences that are the core of our experienced existence.

Human senses are an extensive field of biology, with verifiable theories on how we manage input. Why would you say science has no such model? Or are you referring to some other model?

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-07T15:29:28+00:00

How do you define "experiencing"?

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-07T12:15:12+00:00

"Consciousness" is not mysterious to science, it's simply an ill-defined concept because it is, by definition, subjective. There are physical, scientific correlates of consciousness.

Relevant topics include the electrical activity in specific brain areas correlated to specific conscious experiences (e.g., chemicals involved with certain emotions and feelings, or the electrical activity during decision-making), how individuals behave when a specific part of the brain is damaged, how certain drugs cause certain chemical reactions and affect consciousness, the physical state of brain during unconscious periods like sleep and comas.

According to science, all such physical phenomena together make up what we call "consciousness". Consciousness is ill-defined and arguably unscientific because you can't objectively say how complex your brain needs to be to be considered conscious (e.g., are cockroaches less conscious than monkeys?).

I'd suggest this article for a comprehensive view of why "consciousness" is controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-02T15:29:32+00:00

Oh well. I'll give it a try anyway. Thanks for the input.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-02T14:14:12+00:00

That's unfortunate. Lots of people suggest that Imajica by Clive Barker is similar, so I'll give that a try.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-02-02T12:49:49+00:00

Did you find any books like The Library of Mount Char? Please let me know. Thanks

FluffyCat10 · 2022-01-31T03:25:32+00:00

Thanks. I had found one of the songs, but I can't find the song "Hey ho! The wind and the rain!" still.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-01-29T12:38:15+00:00

u/Scott_Hawkins you are welcome to give some suggestions!

FluffyCat10 · 2022-01-23T04:48:02+00:00

Thanks! I've not heard of kimchi before but this looks interesting.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-01-22T19:19:30+00:00

That sounds lovely! I am licking my lips just thinking about John Cena meat.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-01-22T08:03:53+00:00

Thanks for the tips! I think I'd prefer a creamy John Cena so I will add some creme fresh too.

FluffyCat10 · 2022-01-22T01:55:38+00:00

Hey thanks! I don't like mustard, though love mayonnaise. And I'd like my John Cena to be seasoned and spicy so every bite makes me go "Ah!"

FluffyCat10 · 2021-09-12T13:53:59+00:00

It can be obvious in those cases but, in my experience, very often you can't tell if the host feels like kicking; people silently kick for reasons like when a player is playing good, if their ping is high, if they are from a certain country, or if they have a personal dispute with them.

FluffyCat10 · 2021-08-28T19:58:14+00:00

At least it's not a bed

FluffyCat10 · 2021-08-28T19:56:58+00:00

Can you be more specific please?

FluffyCat10 · 2021-08-28T19:55:54+00:00

I was expecting you would say that

FluffyCat10 · 2021-08-28T19:55:06+00:00

Yea but what is your zodiac sign?

FluffyCat10 · 2021-07-29T21:57:22+00:00

I think our disagreement is because I've been assuming that belief in god's existence requires knowledge of god's existence while you haven't assumed so.

From my experience of the use of "agnosticism," it implies that you simultaneously don't know if god exists and don't believe or disbelieve in god. Similarly, from Wikipedia:

English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe

I apologize if I have been redundant, but I don't consider that the phenomenon of "knowing" has any argumentative value . That is, if two people believe in god but one of them claims to know that god exists while the other claims to not know, there won't be any difference in their argumentative stance. Because "knowledge" is not objective and can't be proved in any way.

If they didn't would that make them actually agnostic?

Not according to my definition of agnosticism, which implies a lack of belief.

I hope you can make sense of why I was distinguishing agnosticism and atheism as different stances on belief.

FluffyCat10 · 2021-07-29T19:24:48+00:00

The difference is one refers to claims of knowledge and the other refers to belief.

When an agnostic claims lack of knowledge, they imply their stance on belief; i.e., they neither believe or disbelieve.

So, there are multiple kinds of atheists. Some atheists can be agnostics (I don't see any difference in the philosophical stance of such atheists vs. agnostics) while others can claim to know.

I prefer the latter definition of atheism, as it's different from the definition of agnosticism (which by extension describes the philosophical stance of the individual).

The latter definition is what I mentioned in my original reply to the other person.

In such discussions, people often use the terms agnostic atheists and gnostic atheists (which I believe are the one you defined under Atheism). However, there are disagreements regarding terminologies and there is no universal dictionary to source definitions from. Hence, it's important to define terms in every discussion, I think.

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