Consciousness slash reality: Anil Seth and Donald Hoffman

[Secular Sanity]

But those men tend to be readily identifiable, if a woman has some accountability for her, usually repeated, choices of "bad boys." Pretending that all men are ruinous or murderers ignores that plenty of men are murdered by other men as well. And don't try to justify your misandry by assuming I think all women are femme fatales. I don't. Just the ones who have proven to be so by their actions. But we all remember that you think "all men are potential threats."

I didn’t say that all men were bad. I said that they were potential threats. Anything that can physically overpower me is a potential threat.

But do tell, how does a person needing companionship contradict them having integrity?

While you were out showing your ass, CC answered that one for you.

For instance, a human stranded alone on an island for most of their entire life (somehow making it as a child), would only be concerned about surviving. No morals and meanings arising from people interactions. The needs of a tribe and the relationship of the individual to the tribe becomes superfluous when no tribe is available.

[Syne]

But those men tend to be readily identifiable, if a woman has some accountability for her, usually repeated, choices of "bad boys." Pretending that all men are ruinous or murderers ignores that plenty of men are murdered by other men as well. And don't try to justify your misandry by assuming I think all women are femme fatales. I don't. Just the ones who have proven to be so by their actions. But we all remember that you think "all men are potential threats."

I didn’t say that all men were bad. I said that they were potential threats. Anything that can physically overpower me is a potential threat.

So you regard women, who could be carrying a concealed weapon, with just as much suspicion, right? They can overpower you too.
Of course not, because only misandrists make arguments about "we" women versus "you" men, e.g. "We gained the knowledge of good and evil prior to you."

But do tell, how does a person needing companionship contradict them having integrity?

While you were out showing your ass, CC answered that one for you.

For instance, a human stranded alone on an island for most of their entire life (somehow making it as a child), would only be concerned about surviving. No morals and meanings arising from people interactions. The needs of a tribe and the relationship of the individual to the tribe becomes superfluous when no tribe is available.

Again, learn to read. CC is saying that people without any help or human interaction would have no reason to develop morals or integrity. You know, the complete opposite of you claim that needing help could cause a lack of integrity. But I can see why you'd miss that, considering your repeated lack of integrity displayed in constant intellectual dishonesty...like not even having the personal integrity to admit when you blatantly misrepresent the Bible.

[Secular Sanity]

So you regard women, who could be carrying a concealed weapon, with just as much suspicion, right? They can overpower you too.
Of course not, because only misandrists make arguments about "we" women versus "you" men, e.g. "We gained the knowledge of good and evil prior to you."

Here's the thing, Syne. It's not just me. My husband's leariness increases when I'm with him. In fact, we were recently hiking in a remote area when we encountered a group of young males. He asked me which one I thought would be more of a threat. I said hello and they all responded...except for one. He kept eye contact with my husband. That's the one I chose.

Again, learn to read. CC is saying that people without any help or human interaction would have no reason to develop morals or integrity. You know, the complete opposite of you claim that needing help could cause a lack of integrity. But I can see why you'd miss that, considering your repeated lack of integrity displayed in constant intellectual dishonesty...like not even having the personal integrity to admit when you blatantly misrepresent the Bible.

Your perception is so bizarre. First of all, I already told you that I was being factious. Secondly, I didn’t say needing help causes lack of integrity.
He was alone and without integrity, until Eve came along, and offered him some fruit.

[Syne]

So you regard women, who could be carrying a concealed weapon, with just as much suspicion, right? They can overpower you too.
Of course not, because only misandrists make arguments about "we" women versus "you" men, e.g. "We gained the knowledge of good and evil prior to you."

Here's the thing, Syne. It's not just me. My husband's leariness increases when I'm with him. In fact, we were recently hiking in a remote area when we encountered a group of young males. He asked me which one I thought would be more of a threat. I said hello and they all responded...except for one. He kept eye contact with my husband. That's the one I chose.

Well, there's no accounting for your husband having to consult you to estimate danger. 9_9
Either he's a pussy or, hopefully, he was just testing your situational awareness.

Again, learn to read. CC is saying that people without any help or human interaction would have no reason to develop morals or integrity. You know, the complete opposite of you claim that needing help could cause a lack of integrity. But I can see why you'd miss that, considering your repeated lack of integrity displayed in constant intellectual dishonesty...like not even having the personal integrity to admit when you blatantly misrepresent the Bible.

Your perception is so bizarre. First of all, I already told you that I was being factious. Secondly, I didn’t say needing help causes lack of integrity.
He was alone and without integrity, until Eve came along, and offered him some fruit.

Where did you say you were being factious? Either you're imagining things or you're doing your usual cop-out of "I was just joking," instead of just having the integrity to admit you were wrong. You're so predictable.

The Bible certainly doesn't say Adam was without integrity, and I don't agree with CC, that morals and meaning can only be derived from human interaction. That would presume that a lone human couldn't form ethics about animal, and by extension human, suffering without other humans, which is nonsense. So now you're saying Adam didn't have integrity until Eve convinced him to disobey god? Disobedience is a lack of integrity, deary. Apparently you need that pointed out to you. 9_9

Reinforcing why it's men who need strong integrity.

[Secular Sanity]

Alright, enough is enough.

Syne doesn't pass the Turing test. 

Epic fail! Off with his head!

[Syne]

Alright, enough is enough.

Syne doesn't pass the Turing test. 

Epic fail! Off with his head!

And that's SS pulling the rip cord to completely bail on the discussion she obviously couldn't manage to honestly engage with.
Probably struck a nerve she couldn't think of a snarky comeback for.

Predictable. Claim she's joking, can't back up where she supposedly claimed she said she was being factious, paints herself into a corner, and bails.

Ta ta, deary.

[C C]

Interesting, but he underestimated Heisenberg in this regard.

In Huxley’s book, "Literature and Science", he quotes Heisenberg as saying, "for the first time in history, man, on this planet, is discovering that he is alone with himself, without a partner and without an adversary." He says, "For the writer, atomic physics is interesting, above all, for the in which it illustrates the workings of the scientific mind as it moves from a set of sense perceptions to a set of unobservable, hypothetical entities and back again to another set of sense perception, in relation to which the concept of the atomic hypothesis are operationally validated."

He goes on and he writes…

Surely, it’s obvious.
Doesn’t every schoolboy know it?
Ends are ape-chosen; only the means are man’s.
Papio’s procurer, bursar to baboons,
Reason comes running, eager to ratify…
Comes with Calculus to aim your rockets
Accurately at the orphanage across the ocean;
Comes, having aimed, with incense to impetrate
Our Lady devoutly for a direct hit.

[...] For Heisenberg, reality is "the continuous fluctuation of the experience as gathered by the conscience. In this respect, it is never wholly identifiable to an isolated system."

"It is possible to ask whether there is still concealed behind the statical universe of perception a ‘true’ universe in which the law of causality would be valid. But such a speculation seems to us to be without value and meaningless, for physics must confine itself to the relationship between perceptions." —Heisenberg

"It is clear that the ordering of the regions must substitute the gross division of world into a subjective reality and an objective one and to stretch itself between these poles of subject and object in such a manner that at its inferior limits are the regions where we can completely objectify."—Heisenberg

Memorable times... Back in those days, many German physicists (and European ones in general) had a firm foot in philosophy -- variously descended torturously from Kant, positivism (Mach's influences at the tail end of the latter), etc.

[...] The reality we talk about is never the reality, in and of itself. We’ve given it form with the information that we’ve accumulated. [...]

I'll grant that people can project whatever they want upon Kant's noumenal world, or The Matrix, or whatever metaphor. As long as it applies after they're dead -- so that it doesn't interfere with how things work in this world survival-wise.

Of course, there might be exceptions if this conditioned realm truly undermined freedom, immortality and God (actually human rights, morality, etc -- see footnote at bottom).

Otherwise, scientific realism about spacetime offers immortality (eternalism); potential re-conceptions of "free will" can rescue FW; and if social activists can argue for the validity of leftist agendas without appealing to the supernatural, then surely similar applies to "rights and morality" in general. Not saying, however, that beliefs of some sort rubbing shoulders with imagination are not vaguely recruited in any way at all to facilitate the three _X_s in the context of naturalism.

With regard to that "projecting" on the metaphysical unknown or blankness, in the context of beliefs argued as "necessary" by one group or another, to hold civilization together or add meaning to life, or whatever they're working up a sweat about...

Kant (CPR, NKS translation): [P 026] . . . To know an object I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its actuality as attested by experience, or a priori by means of reason. But I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself, that is, provided my concept is a possible thought. This suffices for the possibility of the concept, even though I may not be able to answer for there being, in the sum of all possibilities, an object corresponding to it. But something more is required before I can ascribe to such a concept objective validity, that is, real possibility; the former possibility is merely logical. This something more need not, however, be sought in the theoretical sources of knowledge; it may lie in those that are practical.

[P 617] . . . But as will be shown, reason has, in respect of its practical employment, the right to postulate what in the field of mere speculation it can have no kind of right to assume without sufficient proof. [...] In the practical sphere reason has rights of possession, of which it does not require to offer proof, and of which, in fact, it could not supply proof.

The burden of proof accordingly rests upon the opponent. But since the latter knows just as little of the object under question, in trying to prove its non-existence, as does the former in maintaining its reality, it is evident that the former, who is asserting something as a practically necessary supposition, is at an advantage (melior est conditio possidentis).

For he is at liberty to employ, as it were in self-defence, on behalf of his own good cause, the very same weapons that his opponent employs against that cause, that is, hypotheses. These are not intended to strengthen the proof of his position, but only to show that the opposing party has much too little understanding of the matter in dispute to allow of his flattering himself that he has the advantage in respect of speculative insight.

Hypotheses are therefore, in the domain of pure reason, permissible only as weapons of war, and only for the purpose of defending a right, not in order to establish it. But the opposing party we must always look for in ourselves. For speculative reason in its transcendental employment is in itself dialectical; the objections which we have to fear lie in ourselves. We must seek them out, just as we would do in the case of claims that, while old, have never become superannuated, in order that by annulling them we may establish a permanent peace.

- - - footnote - - -

In Opus Postumum (collected last writings near his death), Kant fully revealed that "God" is a personification of concepts -- moral law, practical reason, etc -- rather than, say, a literal Abrahamic deity.

In other works, he did allow that rank and file believers could still construe that "philosophical god" as their own, as part of a gradual passage over generations from biblical literality to the scholarly understanding or apprehension. After all, with the very advent of the Critique of Pure Reason, he was introducing a series of books of which one of the purposes was to save the traditions of the West from the march of materialism and science (by providing them a refuge).

Kant did go through a period where he had to go into "quiet" mode about a variety of things do to Wöllner's witch-hunt (quote at bottom).

Note that the first sentence/excerpt below can probably be excused as over-zealousness. (I.e., probably not every species in the universe that thinks reifies morality as a god at some stage of development, or personifies other important concepts as deities).

KANT (Opus Postumum): (21:83) Reason inevitably creates objects for itself. Hence everything that thinks has a God.

(22:118) The concept of God is the idea of a moral being, which, as such, is judging [and] universally commanding. The latter is not a hypothetical thing but pure practical reason itself in its personality, with reason's moving forces in respect to world-being and their forces.

(22:123) It is not a substance outside myself, whose existence I postulate as a hypothetical being for the explanation for certain phenomena in the world; but the concept of duty (of a universal practical principle) is contained identically in the concept of a divine being as ideal of human reason for the sake of the latter's law-giving [...breaks off...] There is contained in man, as a subordinate moral being, a concept of duty, namely, that of the relation of right; to stand under the law of the determination his will, which he imposes upon himself, and to which he subordinates himself -- which, however, he also treats imperatively, and *asserts* independent of all empirical grounds of determination (and [which] is determining merely as a formal principle for willing).

(22:129) In moral-practical reason, there is contained the principle of the knowledge of my duties as commands, that is, not according to the rule which makes the subject into an [object], but that which emerges from freedom and which [the subject] prescribes to itself, and yet as if another higher person had made it a rule for him. The subject feels himself necessitated through his own reason (not analytically, according to the principle of identity, but synthetically, as a transition from metaphysics to transcendental philosophy) to obey these duties.

- - -

Paul Cliteur: "Kant was writing under Frederick William II (1744–1797), King of Prussia from 1786 till 1797. As long as Frederick the Great was alive (1712–1786) there was no official interference with Kant’s publications.

This changed when Frederick died in 1786 and was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II. [...] Frederick William was a bigoted opponent of Enlightenment thought and one of the first things he did was to appoint a culture minister by the name of Wöllner. Wöllner issued two important edicts.

The first threatened the dismissal of all civil servants (including university teachers) who deviated from adherence to biblical doctrines. The second had to do with censorship. It required an official imprimatur for all publications dealing with religious topics.

Despite the edicts, Kant managed to have his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone published in 1793, but in October 1794 he received peremptory notice from the king.

[...] This was no encouragement to Kant to further develop his ideas on moral autonomy, as can be easily understood. Kant decided to cave in. He replied that his books had been misunderstood. He tried to convince the king that he had not aimed to undermine Christianity"

[Secular Sanity]

I'll grant that people can project whatever they want upon Kant's noumenal world, or The Matrix, or whatever metaphor. As long as it applies after they're dead -- so that it doesn't interfere with how things work in this world survival-wise.

Of course, there might be exceptions if this conditioned realm truly undermined freedom, immortality and God (actually human rights, morality, etc -- see footnote at bottom).

Yeah, he mentions Kant’s noumenon (thing in itself)—Ding an sich—a mind independent reality. Something that we don’t, nor will we ever have access to. That was always my solution to nihilism.

And of course, my favorite author. Man does not now and will not ever—live by the bread of scientific method alone.

It might be below your paid grade, but you might enjoy his book. He uses the same examples of the self that you’ve presented before.

"IT MAY SEEM AS THOUGH the self—yourself—is the ‘thing’ that does the perceiving. But this is not how things are. The self is another perception, another controlled hallucination, though of a very special kind."

"From the point of view from a traveler, let’s call her Eva." 

Eva is scanned and replicated in exquisite detail, down the arrangement of each individual molecule.

Once the new Eva is created, Eva 1 is destroyed, in order to prevent an explosion of identical people. However, Eva 1 escapes destruction, while Eva 2 is transported to Mars. It’s tempting to say that Eva 2 is the same person as Eva 1, same feelings, awareness, etc. But since Eva 1 is still alive, which is the real Eva?

He says, "I think the correct—but admittingly strange—answer is that both are the real Eva."

"WE INTUITIVELY TREAT EXPEREINCES of self differently from experiences of the world. When is comes to the experiences of being you it seems harder to resist the intuition that it reveals a genuine property of the way things are—in this case an actual self—rather than a collection of perceptions. One intuitive consequence of assuming the existence of an actual self is that there can be only one such self, not two, or two-thirds, or many.

The idea that the self is somehow indivisible, immutable, transcendental, sui generis, is baked into the Cartesian ideal of the immaterial soul and still carries a deep psychological resonance, especially in Western societies. But it has also been repeatedly held up to skeptical scrutiny by philosophers and religious practitioners, as well as more recently by psychedelic psychonauts, medical folk, and neuroscientists.

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, argued that the concept of the self as a ‘simple substance’ is wrong, and Hume talked about the self as a ‘bundle’ of perceptions."

"He goes on to describe the Buddhist's concepts of self and reaching selfless states. He mentions Oliver Sacks and the many ways in which the self falls apart due to damage, split brain, or whatnot. "Most curious of all are the craniopagus twins. Who are not only physically conjoined but also share some of their brain structures. What could it mean to an individual self, when it turns out that one twin can feel the other drinking orange juice?"

"Being you is not as simple as it sounds."

Eva 1 and Eva 2 were objectively and subjectively identical at the point of replication, but their identities have already started to diverge. Accumulating different memories, experiences, etc., becoming different people.

Side note:

What if that could explain Bell’s Theorem. If photons could experience something, the photon would experience absolutely no passage of time or distance. Light is everywhere and everywhere at once. Hmm…just a thought.

Anyhow, he writes that when it comes to who you are, or who I am—the me that is subjectively and objectively 'Anil Seth'—things aren’t as simple as they first seem.

Hmm...two men in a field—one taken, one left. Two women grinding—one taken, one left. Creepy! Don’t even think about trying to upload me, CC.

[C C]

I'll grant that people can project whatever they want upon Kant's noumenal world, or The Matrix, or whatever metaphor. As long as it applies after they're dead -- so that it doesn't interfere with how things work in this world survival-wise.

Of course, there might be exceptions if this conditioned realm truly undermined freedom, immortality and God (actually human rights, morality, etc -- see footnote at bottom).

Yeah, he mentions Kant’s noumenon (thing in itself)—Ding an sich—a mind independent reality. Something that we don’t, nor will we ever have access to. That was always my solution to nihilism.

And of course, my favorite author. Man does not now and will not ever—live by the bread of scientific method alone.

It might be below your paid grade, but you might enjoy his book. He uses the same examples of the self that you’ve presented before.

"IT MAY SEEM AS THOUGH the self—yourself—is the ‘thing’ that does the perceiving. But this is not how things are. The self is another perception, another controlled hallucination, though of a very special kind."

Technically, though, it's little different from most complex, functioning entities at the macroscopic level (organism or machine) being constituted of coordinated processes mediated by reciprocally interacting parts. (Or single, general concepts actually subsuming many specific details, if we shift to descriptive mapping of the world.) Ultimately, everything boiling down to discrete, particle excitations in 24 quantum fields (if one goes for that selection in scientific realism).

If one affair is an "illusion" because it explanatorily breaks down from the "one" into the "many" (many parts, many functions, activities or procedures, etc), then they all are. The whole conditioned world that is dependent upon relationships or connections gets itself demoted if "real" ontological status is only granted to what cannot be decomposed or analyzed any further.

It borders on the circularity of explaining an illusion with its own features or particulars that belong to the illusion, and wholly falls into that pit if even the supposed fundamental or axiomatic level is eventually doubted.

However, akin to the motivation behind adhering to something like paraconsistent logic. Interesting results or discoveries may result from still continuing to explore or pursue something that is considered to be flawed/unsound or riddled with loose ends. Which is pretty much the history of human development (which includes its progress).

Another analogy would be a simulated world. You know that none of the "causes" and principles that the characters on the screen exploit to manipulate their world is the actual provenance doing the work (i.e., the computer). But their recruitment and employment of those regularities (of appearances) still suffices.

"From the point of view from a traveler, let’s call her Eva." 

Eva is scanned and replicated in exquisite detail, down the arrangement of each individual molecule.

Once the new Eva is created, Eva 1 is destroyed, in order to prevent an explosion of identical people. However, Eva 1 escapes destruction, while Eva 2 is transported to Mars. It’s tempting to say that Eva 2 is the same person as Eva 1, same feelings, awareness, etc. But since Eva 1 is still alive, which is the real Eva?

He says, "I think the correct—but admittingly strange—answer is that both are the real Eva."

"WE INTUITIVELY TREAT EXPEREINCES of self differently from experiences of the world. When is comes to the experiences of being you it seems harder to resist the intuition that it reveals a genuine property of the way things are—in this case an actual self—rather than a collection of perceptions. One intuitive consequence of assuming the existence of an actual self is that there can be only one such self, not two, or two-thirds, or many.

The idea that the self is somehow indivisible, immutable, transcendental, sui generis, is baked into the Cartesian ideal of the immaterial soul and still carries a deep psychological resonance, especially in Western societies. But it has also been repeatedly held up to skeptical scrutiny by philosophers and religious practitioners, as well as more recently by psychedelic psychonauts, medical folk, and neuroscientists.

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, argued that the concept of the self as a ‘simple substance’ is wrong, and Hume talked about the self as a ‘bundle’ of perceptions."

"He goes on to describe the Buddhist's concepts of self and reaching selfless states. He mentions Oliver Sacks and the many ways in which the self falls apart due to damage, split brain, or whatnot. "Most curious of all are the craniopagus twins. Who are not only physically conjoined but also share some of their brain structures. What could it mean to an individual self, when it turns out that one twin can feel the other drinking orange juice?"

"Being you is not as simple as it sounds."

Eva 1 and Eva 2 were objectively and subjectively identical at the point of replication, but their identities have already started to diverge. Accumulating different memories, experiences, etc., becoming different people.

Side note:

What if that could explain Bell’s Theorem. If photons could experience something, the photon would experience absolutely no passage of time or distance. Light is everywhere and everywhere at once. Hmm…just a thought.

Anyhow, he writes that when it comes to who you are, or who I am—the me that is subjectively and objectively 'Anil Seth'—things aren’t as simple as they first seem.

Yah, due to Eva 2 sharing the same memories at the start, she internally deems herself to be a continuance of the original. Though their divergence after that retrospectively negates such, revealing them to be more like identical twins.

Since every human consciousness at some fetal stage gradually arises from the universal background of "not-even-nothingness" -- a lack of experiences and a lack of specific memory-based identity... Then we could all similarly be construed as starting out being the same individual psychologically (though not bodily). (Thomas W. Clark)

In four-dimensionalism context, Eva 1 and Eva 2 would "physically" be two distinct worms with different origins and life-trajectories, regardless of memory content. They're of course made distinct by not sharing the same spatial location in three-dimensionalism, too. Four-dimensionalism just emphasizes that all the more via extended beings constituted of temporal parts.

Hmm...two men in a field—one taken, one left. Two women grinding—one taken, one left. Creepy! Don’t even think about trying to upload me, CC.

No danger, you'll remain unique, SS.

Though I'll grant some crude resemblance of psychological replication might be possible. It will just never capture all the specific details that constituted a person's identity at a specific date.

Immortality via data transfer no problem for technological creatures in the future that never had a biological brain to begin with, though.

[Syne]

It's always odd when people do such mental gymnastics to propose a currently, if not indefinitely, unattainable hypothetical (teleportation) to support a complete supposition.