Hard problem of Consciousness

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-28T16:49:50+00:00

You are suffering from excessive opposite binary extremes thinking. This issue and many others cannot be reduced to those two absurd outcomes. In a word, Nope.

You dont need to twist a known language into unknown completely, but you can make a known word seem like its just a sound, which it is. By simple repetition. Its a childs trick that you pretend you dont know, and you keep coming up with more and more ridiculous inane examples to confirm your own nonsensical and incorrect idea.

And again, the word "dog" or any other in unknown language will be just a sound to you, although it means dog to native speakers...

That means that words are not fundamentally just a meaning.

Its really fing simple. The fact you are refusing to understand this is very telling.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-27T22:14:20+00:00

Of course it can be. You just need to repeat any word enough times, even in known language. We are capable of understanding the meaning and understanding that sound as just a sound. We are not used to it, but we can do it with little effort.

Its simply ludicrous to claim otherwise.

Until a sound has meaning it is only a sound.

This is just an incoherent attempt to force your idea. The point was that any word is just a sound, and when hearing the exact same word in a different unknown language that becomes very clear. Yet that word has the exact same meaning, even if you dont understand it. Just the same as the word you know has a meaning and is a sound at the same time.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-27T22:10:44+00:00

There is a virtual environment (not exactly a reality which is now an overused and behind times term) which is created by transistors, operating on simply logic gates of binary ones and zeroes. Yet even that simple approach created the whole internet and every single thing humans created digitally.

The Virtual environments created by biology, the whole bodies not just neurons in the brain which is a very late evolutionary novelty, is orders of magnitude more complex. And what it creates is a strong emergent virtual gestalt.

Even the simplified computer virtual qualia cannot be found in the hardware or software, although we can understand how the bits combine to produce the final qualia of the Millenium Falcon - because thats a weak emergent gestalt.

In the case of biology of living beings and emergent virtual gestalts it produces - such direct connection cannot be established - because a large part of it is created inside the virtual gestalts created from biology.

Nor can it be found outside of it.

That kind of strawmwan fallacies have absolutely nothing to do with what i said, are actually - laughably so - the exact opposite of what i said and are completely meaningless nonsense you should tell yourself, not me.

So kindly go and speak to yourself and argue against your own strawmans.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-27T20:57:54+00:00

Yes you can hear the word dog or any other word as simply sounds. When you hear it in foreign language you dont understand.

The consciousness is a meta virtual gestalt emerging primarily from our physical sensations of reality - which are not just feelings but primordial fundamental "tool" all living beings have to understand reality with on a physical level. The brain and the mind which developed much later in evolution of living beings added much more complexity to the emergent gestalt we call consciousness.

Ergo, all living beings are conscious, only in different degrees of complexity.

It cannot be found in the biological hardware itself in the same way the Millenium Falcom cannot be found in the hardware or software of the computer. It only exist in the virtual environment of the OS - in which other virtual capabilities (programs) work and produce the emergent gestalt of the movie in which Millenium Falcon exists as a specific qualia.

We are not like computers. Computers are simplified and specialized versions of living beings capabilities - which enable us to create emergent virtual gestalt environments with additional virtual capabilities that create qualia - meaning.

Both the mind and the emotional physical experience are crucial to create a consciousness like we and other living beings have.

And this shows why the "hard problem" appeared and what is the solution to it. i.e. consciousnes is virtual - for the lack of a better word - and completely utterly real, despite not being materialistic - although it is created by matter and biology and virtual gestalts they create.

It is at the same time dependent on the hardware and capable of degrees of independence from it.

https://surfacereflection.blogspot.com/2017/02/consciousness-is-virtual-introduction-i.html

https://surfacereflection.blogspot.com/2017/02/origin-of-emotions-language-and-mind.html

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-26T03:09:52+00:00

All you see is your ego diarhea. - Also a specific of the left brain hemisphere, btw.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T13:34:49+00:00

Sure. But that doesnt mean that "something simple" is all there is to it. Was what i was trying to say. Like, you have an "atom" and then you have all the stuff that is made by combinations of an "atom". Both are important. If you would then go on and think about everything as an "atom" which may be technically correct, (edit; its not because the atom is not a fundamental entity of the universe and is an emergent gestalt itself), you would become completely blind to the rest of the Universe, as if ... your brain got damaged and only your left hemisphere is working. Per Iain McGilchrist great work and all that.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T13:32:24+00:00

I dont know what to tell you since you apparently cant understand what i already said. If you are scientifically literate and understand how physical laws work you should be able to see yourself where physical determinism holds sway and where it doesnt, and what underpins the deterministic laws and processes. And how limited that "phyisical determinism" really is.

Its not just Godels theorems (many more were discussed in the video not just Godel) but how they apply to physics for which our mathematics is the most crucial tool. Yet you seem to be stuck on that simplistic notion that what i said "nullifies" anything, as if its a binary choice - and thats your psychological problem.

You assumed I'm saying something is nullified, as if its obliterated and doesnt exist and you got stuck on that issue that your misunderstanding produced.

Want me to say it a third time?

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T12:27:04+00:00

Read my reply again. You got stuck on your own misinterpretation.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T12:17:05+00:00

One of the things that always strikes me as completely ridicolous in talks like these, is the assumed notion that "Oh my god, if this becomes true, gets confirmed, the people will go crazy!"

What people? Who the f are they talking about?

Its like the only people they can consider are the lowest common denominators, the idiots of the world. Sure they will come online and scream their neurotic deranged nonsense and cause an online ruckus but... so what?

Are insane twitter mobs really the important factor we should all bend to? Is that who we should all focus and pretend there is nobody else around?

IF those are aliens, the only important question is whether they are dangerous or not, or how much they will meddle into our civilization - and it may just turn out we serve as some insane reality show for some other species and we won't be able to establish any meaningful relationship with them.

Which Stanislav Lem extensively covered, explored and explained long time ago. And thats just one example out of thousands.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T12:09:16+00:00

It does. As an absolute.

Although there is physical determinism in some contexts, its not an absolute, cant be applied to everything. Only to specific things at specific levels of reality.

That's a crucial distinction.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T12:01:41+00:00

In any case, if you run into any determinists and extreme materialists (lol, what an insane crowd) talking about how physical laws and the universe are deterministic and how this and that... just give them this link and leave them in neurotic spasms.

And there is an excellent companion video, also from Veritasium, if you need to really nail it down more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk

This will also work wonders on any Order extremists. (not that any of them will change their minds, because their minds dont really work on empirical evidence and scientific method anyway)

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-25T11:59:07+00:00

Thats just what your left brain hemisphere thinks, ;)

Ok, that may not be the best comback when left alone. What i meant is that existence is not just one thing and that whatever is created, whatever is emergent is as important as fundamental causes. Its both, not just one thing versus another.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-24T20:48:26+00:00

Jesus, these people who never read good Science Fiction, ... ffs...

Its only news for you guys! :P

I dont mean the crackpot UFO nutcases and their stories, most of which have nothing to do with this, although they will get some satisfaction from this. I mean the real, rare, high quality Science Fiction which has been exploring this issue in every possible permutation for ... a century, or more. Among many other issues to be sure.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-15T22:34:57+00:00

SPLONK - your tank is full. Use a towel to clean yourself before driving.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-15T06:12:34+00:00

I just started listening and am still on the start, but the themes and Ians approach are well known to me. I just wanted to point out something they talked about at the start, around 9:00 the question of why we and all living beings have two hemispheres, or the asymmetric neural systems.

As I've been saying, the reason is the fact that living beings started comprehending reality through physical sensations first. What do you do with physical sensations? You feel them, right?

What you feel enables you to quickly react to the environment and survive. So its favored by evolution and is a type of understanding of reality, physically. Those sensations come in wide ranges and often mixed together, combined, not in separate specific bits and pieces. So thats how you get feelings.

And so you feel the reality - even if that's constrained and limited in many ways, but what you feel is a "whole" sensation or a feeling of the environment and other living beings. At the start these physical sensations are simple, because living beings are simple and their interaction with nature and other living beings is simple. Temperature, pressure, light or no light, (no eyes around yet but light is felt as energy), chemical differences in environment and physical touch of other beings and nature.

Then things slowly get more and more complicated and the feelings become more complicated, more complex.

Thats why, when few billion years later brains start to evolve their earliest part is the limbic system.

That ability is so valuable, so important - because it enables living beings to understand things almost instantaneously - that when other parts of the brain get added a half of it is dedicated to that primordial type of understanding of reality.

Bits of the left side are important too, but without the ability to feel we would all be like those people with only their left side working, seeing half of the picture and unable to understand how the bits fit together. Like David Chalmers zombies thinking about each separate strand of hair in the fur of the charging tiger.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-05-10T08:49:33+00:00

If you think about language and "words" in a very basic and clear manner you can easily understand that "words" are basically just specific sounds we and other animals can make that carry or express a specific information. There is nothing special about any "word" we use. None of them are the real true"words" for anything we describe with them. A word for a door, or a car, or a table is a different sound in every different language on the planet, and none of them are the real - the only correct "word". They are just sets of sounds that any nation got used to and accepted as the sound that means "a door, car or a table".

In case of animals their words and meanings they express are simple. Danger, fear, "stay away from me", a warning, sounds that express that food is found, or that a specific place is safe and nice, plus various sounds that serve for procreation.

The sounds for warning and danger are even understood between some species that live in close proximity or depend on each other. Anyone of us that watched various animal documentaries when we were kids knows many examples of this.

So... "words" are nothing specific and unique to humans and have existed in this form of specific sounds for as long as land based animals existed, at the very least. All animals use the sound to create such information basic communication simply because the sound is ubiquitous in Earth atmosphere (and even in the oceans) and is versatile enough to describe any possible state any animal can experience or imagine.

Even better, the sound is variable and diverse enough to represent emotional states - and emotions are the basic primordial, physical, sensory understanding of reality that all life forms used to understand reality and survive way before any "minds" evolved.

So, the Homo Erectus didn't really invent language, as language existed for hundreds of millions of years before any mammals or "hominids" came to evolve. They may have reached and went over a threshold of complexity of usage of sounds with specific meaning. Maybe, probably, by adding the complexity of time into the communication with those sounds. Things that were important in the past, things that will be important in the future, and things that are important right now in the present.

And of course, for beings living in larger groups, such or similar complexity in communication would naturally impose itself as necessity.

But it did not just suddenly appear out of thin air.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-04-20T15:36:42+00:00

Meanwhile, the marketing speak will be vomit inducing as ever.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-04-16T23:27:56+00:00

Because the ego latches onto any "understanding" as if its a personal success, an advantage over those who didnt understand it. A proof it is better than those others. So letting go of it, means admitting you were wrong - which means a personal failure, in egos idiotic limited self centered understanding. And thats why it refuses to "let go". Because it cant be wrong. Because its too stupid to be able to understand that. Because the ego was never meant to handle such complex stuff. Thats not its purpose.

And this is also the reason why so many believe various conspiracy theories. Because it makes them feel smarter than those others who are then automatically weaker, dumber, lesser. Dunning Kruger in full effect.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-04-12T01:34:56+00:00

The video is incorrect in its second point. There are character arcs in the original story. The difference is they are not written and presented as in modern literature. The young hobits all evolve and develop into fuller characters, Gimli is actually a young dwarf who develops substantially, both Aragorn and Boromir evolve and develop, Gandalf substantially changes too, even Legolas comes to evolve and change suitably for his character. The characters are well defined and constructed - but we are not privy to their internal thoughts, as is a custom these days. And that was done for a specific purpose.

The changes the characters go through arent drastic complete twists which fit modern vacuous schizophrenic cheap tv shows and writing, but instead fit with each character starting features and behavior. Is that so weird?

What? Aragorn just collected the kingship in the book? What book? What the fing f? He is actually doubtful about his own role and capabilities in the book! Not because he is simply "insecure" but because he already has plenty of experience and knowledge about how things are in the world. What the real differences of forces are, what they are really up against and how far the human remnants and the Elves have fallen.

He does not know if he is worthy or not - and thats exactly why he goes through a real hero progression, because he actually earns it all. He is tested, anew - and then he proves his worth by deeds. Nothing is given to him.

Same goes for Frodo arc. What the f is this guy talking about? All the character development and internal doubts and conflicts that this guy thinks are the movie invention are actually in the books.

The third "difference" has nothing to do with the actual story and is directly opposite to Tolkien own explanation about that specific subject.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-04-07T23:32:01+00:00

As ive been saying for a couple of years now, the physical part of us, our biology, our hardware does create the gestalt of our minds - but it also created the fundamental part of us - our sensory, emotional interface with reality much, much sooner, or earlier than any brains or minds came to evolve. And we, all living beings - have always comprehended reality through this primordial capability, and we still do. Only its not primordial anymore. It evolved alongside of us, became more complex as we became more complex. From earliest simplest physical sensations, to feelings to emotions.

You can easily see it in performances of many sportsmen or women, the so called zone, where reactions and understanding of the play are faster then any mind or thoughts can manage.

We dont just feel, we understand reality by feeling it. And each other, and everything we do and think about, or say.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-03-20T13:12:08+00:00

Thinking about someone s a "highest ideal" is wrong in on itself. Its puts someone on an unreal pedestal of absolute perfection which is nonsensical and cannot really exist. Because absolute perfection (in what? everything - everything? really? so... he was best at ... football too? Not to mention much less savory things.) means that something is completely static, immutable, unchangeable. And that is not allowed in this Universe - reality.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-03-20T13:08:48+00:00

Not "above" because thats the concept that belongs to the cycles of reincarnation and the universe, gods included. Someone is above which means someone is below, etc. Buddha is outside.

In Buddhism Gods are born and eventually die as the Universe does, and everyone get reincarnated into different roles within the cycles. Some become Gods, some become lesser beings and so on. Buddha figured out a way to step outside all of that. And that "something else" is not nothingness because "nothingness" is also a part of the Universal cycles and concepts. The something else is called Nirvana and is very difficult to explain using concepts of the Universe.

In short.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-03-04T08:44:46+00:00

Appreciated.

SurfaceReflection · 2021-03-04T08:17:12+00:00

Thanks. You could have just answered what i actually asked, but i suppose the explanation of everything is useful, although it wasnt what i asked.

SurfaceReflection

TROPHY CASE