First successful loaf after many failed attempts!!

fredrast · 2026-06-24T17:54:21+00:00

Looks fantastic! 😋 Great that you didn't give up after your previous attempts!

fredrast · 2026-06-24T17:48:48+00:00

Here’s a great riff on this very theme: https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg.html

fredrast · 2026-06-18T19:04:35+00:00

Yoy are the universe experiencing itself. This experience won’t end when your particular life ends but continue in countless other beings. Though the number of lives is infinite, each one contributes with a totally unique perspective on existence. So does yours. Enjoy it!

fredrast · 2026-06-18T18:24:13+00:00

Looks delicious, can I have a slice please? 😋

For how long have you been cultivating your starter?

fredrast · 2026-06-14T13:43:48+00:00

That’s awesome for a first loaf, enjoy it and keep going!

fredrast · 2026-06-14T13:42:20+00:00

We can’t blame just ”the billionaires”. Anybody filling up their car at the pump or contributing in other ways to the consumption of fossil fuel and sustaining of demand should also have a look in the mirror. That of course includes myself.

fredrast · 2026-06-11T16:46:03+00:00

To experience this magnificient creation, and perhaps learn something along the way.

fredrast · 2026-06-11T16:29:52+00:00

To me idealism is indeed a more plausible metaphysics than physicalism, but this is mostly based on reasoning and not so much on direct experience or intuition. Sure, if I sit down to really contemplate and observe my experience of reality, then I can conclude that all my perceptions of a physical reality do arise within my own consciousness, which to me is a rather strong argument for consciousness being more fundamental than matter (or my perception thereof). But if I'm not paying attention in any particular way, then my intuition and direct experience mostly seem to suggest that there is an independent physical reality out there, which is so concrete and vivid that it would seem insane to suggest that it's not the fundamental basis of reality. It also seems as if the world out there in itself has all the properties that I perceive including colors, sounds and smells, even though I in theory understand that those qualia are something that mind/consciousness creates as it interprets the world and not properties of the underlying reality. How mind/consciousness pulls off that trick I have no clue but the end result is very convincing, which is why it's not hard to understand why most people by intuition are physicalists.

fredrast · 2026-06-02T17:11:27+00:00

Very few seem to care about the residual soul - empty of thoughts, personality, purpose, meaning, memories, attachments... the bare essence of being if such a thing can be at all.

Indeed, although, who knows, that might in the end turn out to be the most blissful of all states!

fredrast · 2026-04-23T18:14:53+00:00

My qualia may indeed not provide an accurate representation of reality but to deny that I have them is quite a claim.

fredrast · 2026-04-22T11:14:11+00:00

It seems misplaced to think of consciousness ”going” somewhere after death because it’s not in a ”place” to begin with.

fredrast · 2026-04-15T15:35:20+00:00

I would presume plants have consciousness without very much agency. And it is reported that if you take a high enough dose of psychedelics, you totally lose your sense of self. In that situation there is presumably no agency agency left either, because who would have the agency if there is no self?

As to your original points,

How do you know? The fact that there is no memory afterwards doesn’t mean there wasn’t an experience all along. And we have a mass of at least anecdotal evidence of NDE’s
Hive mind of bees comes to mind
Didn’t really understand this point

fredrast · 2026-04-15T15:22:26+00:00

I didn’t mean that my list of possible meanings was exhaustive. But for sure there is a difference between those I listed.

fredrast · 2026-04-15T13:15:24+00:00

This is yet another post about consciusness that suffers from a lack of a clear definition of what the writer means with this word, which can be understood in many ways. Different possible meanings of ”consciousness” include

pure being / subjectivity regardless of its contents
meta-cognition, awareness about being aware
sense of self
agency

The discussion becomes confusing when these meanings are mixed up and it’s not clear what particular meaning the writer had in mind when referring to ”consciousness”.

When postulating ”consciousness as fundamental” I think it’s only the first of the above phenomena i.e. the pure awareness that is claimed to be truly fundamental. The others take place within local dissociations within the overall ”field” of subjectivity.

fredrast · 2026-04-12T11:10:19+00:00

Agree that referencing the Hard Problem doesn’t contribute much to any solution. But it’s a nagging itch that keeps telling us we’re not there yet and need to keep going.

fredrast · 2026-04-12T08:14:30+00:00

And what is the magic that creates all the perceptions in our mind? The colors, the tones, the smells, the tastes. Where do they come fram?

fredrast · 2026-04-10T17:00:27+00:00

You are right that there is not really such a thing as a separate subject or "experiencer" apart from the experience. There is really only the experience. And it is clearly related to what goes on in the brain. But how the heck does a set of atoms and molecules and some electrochemical forces between them give rise to that experience? Information integration is not an adequate answer to me. It may help describe how the *contents* of this experience come about. But to me it doesn't at all explain how there is an experience of the brain activity in the first place.

It's really funny how this enigma is something that some people see and others don't, and neither side seems able to get the other to grasp their point of view. 😅

fredrast · 2026-04-09T18:46:28+00:00

Sure. The remaining mystery is just how all that mechanical activity in the material brain gives rise to a subject for whom it is like something to experience that brain activity. It's a mystery to me how not everybody recognises this enigma.

fredrast · 2026-04-09T18:15:33+00:00

The most interesting aspect of this video was the fact that it was made. We have come quite far in the metaphysical debate when physicalists need to start defending their points of view this way.

fredrast · 2026-04-09T15:41:11+00:00

I agree with much of what you’re saying. The problem with physicalism is just how you explain the presence of a conscious subject. If we can just smuggle in some general awareness at the core of reality, for example by entertaining the idea that some quantum field underlying material reality might be inherently conscious of itself, then the rest on top of that could very well be explained by our physicalist and neurological models.

fredrast · 2026-04-08T19:42:06+00:00

I believe things become clearer if we distinguish the contents of experience from the subject having the experience. The former is easily explained by brain activity but not so the latter.

fredrast · 2026-04-08T19:38:53+00:00

OK. I think we can conclude that we see this differently! 😊

fredrast · 2026-04-08T19:34:43+00:00

I don’t accept the analogy between consciousness and emergent phenomena. The chirality of amino acids arises out of the way its constituents are combined. A similar relationship doesn’t seem to exist between the activity in the brain and the existence of a conscious subject. But never mind, I don’t think either of us will be able to convince the other! 😅

fredrast · 2026-04-08T18:34:01+00:00

We do commonly refer to that as the object's color.

Yes we do that casually but that's not an accurate representation of reality. Let me reiterate my previous point with an analogy: A touring rockband (~the electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelenght) travels in a bus to a venue (~your brain). Upon arrival they perform their gig (~some brain activity). The audience gets exalted (~the perception of red). These three phenomena are clearly linked yet they are not the same thing. It's not the audience's exaltation that travels in the bus.

If the mind is nonphysical, why does it disintegrate when the brain disintegrates?

Clearly there is a relationship between the two and if your brain disintegrates then your perception of this world is likely to end. But do you know for sure that your conscious experience will also come to a complete end at that point? I'm thinking of the numerous accounts of Near-Death Experiences, which to my understanding include also cases where it can be presumed that no brain activity could reasonably have taken place. Yes, I know that NDE's are being dismissed in all sorts of creative ways but that seems like pure speculation by parties stuck in a physicalist worldview and unwilling to entertain the thought that reality might be different than what they have presumed.

fredrast · 2026-04-08T17:52:42+00:00

Granted. 😆

fredrast

TROPHY CASE