As always, a clear and accurate statement of current affairs in our no-progress quest to understand consciousness.
Now - can I ask you your strategy? For example, though I fully agree intelligence in plants which have no nervous system is a radical challenge to materialism, many don't see this.
Arthur Reber (the infamous psychologist who announced, "I don't need to look at ANY research on parapsychology to know it's in error - psi violates the laws of nature so it must be wrong) was adamantly against speaking of plant cognition for decades. he just published a book on stunning findings of cognition/intelligence in plants yet he does not think it even remotely challenges the physicalist view.
I'm not sure what to do with that - maybe you can just dismiss him but so many think the same way.
I'm just arriving here from what I think is the most bizarre conversation i've ever had in Bernardo Kastrup's facebook forum. A "tantric yogini" who considers herself a philosopher and practitioner tried to argue that the idea of "Divine Intelligence" (that is, intelligence beyond the human, like the supramental, for example) is a mere concept with no usefulness. She suggested Stephen Wolfram's writings (Wolfram is an avowed physicalist) to help me understand how order to NOT arise in a mindless universe (!!!??), she asserted that Bernardo's philosophy is in harmony with her own "tantric" philosophy and experience and any attempt to suggest his Mind At Large, with an intelligence like that of a beetle, may not be sufficient to account for the universe, was met with the assertion that I was being "intellectual' and her experience told her his philosophy made sense.
Now this is someone who calls herself an idealist and philosopher in general, yet her philosophic capacity seems even less than that of Richard Dawkins.
I am not sure where I'm going with this, except maybe to say we need some kind of syllabus of philosophy and science accessible to a 10 year old??
Yes, physicalists always say that we shouldn’t anthropomorphize other forms of life, and that the so-called ‘basal cognition’ in plants and cell is only an ‘adaptive interaction with the environment,’ an ‘emergent evolutionary dialectic’, a ‘metabolic and ecological co-constructive dynamics’, a ‘hierarchical self-regulating and self-referential far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic autopoiesis, anticipation, and adaptation,’ and that was created by eons of natural selection and random mutations due to the evolutionary advantage and adaptive benefit, and… blablabla… But why and how all these marvels are supposed to lead to some form of consciousness, feeling, or mentality remains utterly mysterious to me.
It is the physical mind that (subconsciously) needs to frame a plethora of seemingly rational and plausible theories but that deep down is only motivated by an ideological worldview. We can even see this in nondual teachers as well, who tell us that there is no reason or purpose in things, life and the universe. Everything “just is”. They are always telling us that we should go beyond mind but I have the impression that they aren’t able to evaluate their own experience other from the standpoint of what the mind tells them.
And a purely instinctive Mind at large makes no sense from the scientific and technical standpoint either. I really don’t see how an imbecilic deity could create all this complexity we observe. People will resort to the magic wand of natural selection, random mutations, etc. that supposedly explain away everything. But these are only fantastic extrapolations that have no shred of evidence and that they need to resort to only to save their worldview.
At any rate, my take in basal cognition is that it suggests how the mind is inherent in matter from the outset, before the creation of brains. I always wonder why panpsychists never mention it as something in their favor. I guess it is because they know that they would have to deal with the above objections and since most of them are philosophers who don’t know much about biology, they prefer to sweep it under the carpet.
He defends the idea that an atheist can believe in objective moral values.
He mentions the torture of an infant as an example of something we don't need a "God" to justify. He justifies this by saying we have moral intuition we can rely on.
Sure. And why do we have this intuition? Because we are infinite unbounded spiritual beings, in essence.
If he believe this, I imagine this is even harder to discuss than the idea that there can't possibly be order of any kind in a mindless universe.
Well, we have our work cut out for us (do they say that in Germany? "Work cut out"?
I’m waiting for the day where I can ask a “physicalist mother” (new term to copyright….) if she really believes that she loves her children only because of an “evolutionary advantage” or biochemical cocktail in her brain, and without which she would kill them on the spot and eat them for breakfast because, ultimately, we are only driven by selfish genes.
As to the strategy, the only strategy I know is not to convince but rather to instill doubts. It is not about proving something to be true but that their ‘prove’ that something is impossible is flawed.
I think the latest generation, Generation Alpha would love this means of avoiding responsibility for anything. "Physicalist Mothers and the Abdication of all Responsibility" - there; we've got the title for our video series.
HI Marco:
As always, a clear and accurate statement of current affairs in our no-progress quest to understand consciousness.
Now - can I ask you your strategy? For example, though I fully agree intelligence in plants which have no nervous system is a radical challenge to materialism, many don't see this.
Arthur Reber (the infamous psychologist who announced, "I don't need to look at ANY research on parapsychology to know it's in error - psi violates the laws of nature so it must be wrong) was adamantly against speaking of plant cognition for decades. he just published a book on stunning findings of cognition/intelligence in plants yet he does not think it even remotely challenges the physicalist view.
I'm not sure what to do with that - maybe you can just dismiss him but so many think the same way.
I'm just arriving here from what I think is the most bizarre conversation i've ever had in Bernardo Kastrup's facebook forum. A "tantric yogini" who considers herself a philosopher and practitioner tried to argue that the idea of "Divine Intelligence" (that is, intelligence beyond the human, like the supramental, for example) is a mere concept with no usefulness. She suggested Stephen Wolfram's writings (Wolfram is an avowed physicalist) to help me understand how order to NOT arise in a mindless universe (!!!??), she asserted that Bernardo's philosophy is in harmony with her own "tantric" philosophy and experience and any attempt to suggest his Mind At Large, with an intelligence like that of a beetle, may not be sufficient to account for the universe, was met with the assertion that I was being "intellectual' and her experience told her his philosophy made sense.
Now this is someone who calls herself an idealist and philosopher in general, yet her philosophic capacity seems even less than that of Richard Dawkins.
I am not sure where I'm going with this, except maybe to say we need some kind of syllabus of philosophy and science accessible to a 10 year old??
Yes, physicalists always say that we shouldn’t anthropomorphize other forms of life, and that the so-called ‘basal cognition’ in plants and cell is only an ‘adaptive interaction with the environment,’ an ‘emergent evolutionary dialectic’, a ‘metabolic and ecological co-constructive dynamics’, a ‘hierarchical self-regulating and self-referential far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic autopoiesis, anticipation, and adaptation,’ and that was created by eons of natural selection and random mutations due to the evolutionary advantage and adaptive benefit, and… blablabla… But why and how all these marvels are supposed to lead to some form of consciousness, feeling, or mentality remains utterly mysterious to me.
It is the physical mind that (subconsciously) needs to frame a plethora of seemingly rational and plausible theories but that deep down is only motivated by an ideological worldview. We can even see this in nondual teachers as well, who tell us that there is no reason or purpose in things, life and the universe. Everything “just is”. They are always telling us that we should go beyond mind but I have the impression that they aren’t able to evaluate their own experience other from the standpoint of what the mind tells them.
And a purely instinctive Mind at large makes no sense from the scientific and technical standpoint either. I really don’t see how an imbecilic deity could create all this complexity we observe. People will resort to the magic wand of natural selection, random mutations, etc. that supposedly explain away everything. But these are only fantastic extrapolations that have no shred of evidence and that they need to resort to only to save their worldview.
At any rate, my take in basal cognition is that it suggests how the mind is inherent in matter from the outset, before the creation of brains. I always wonder why panpsychists never mention it as something in their favor. I guess it is because they know that they would have to deal with the above objections and since most of them are philosophers who don’t know much about biology, they prefer to sweep it under the carpet.
Sigh. As always, I agree with 99.9% of what you write (because you're right!).
Just wondering about strategy. Meanwhile, there's this:
https://emersongreenblog.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/the-collapse-of-the-moral-argument/
He defends the idea that an atheist can believe in objective moral values.
He mentions the torture of an infant as an example of something we don't need a "God" to justify. He justifies this by saying we have moral intuition we can rely on.
Sure. And why do we have this intuition? Because we are infinite unbounded spiritual beings, in essence.
If he believe this, I imagine this is even harder to discuss than the idea that there can't possibly be order of any kind in a mindless universe.
Well, we have our work cut out for us (do they say that in Germany? "Work cut out"?
I’m waiting for the day where I can ask a “physicalist mother” (new term to copyright….) if she really believes that she loves her children only because of an “evolutionary advantage” or biochemical cocktail in her brain, and without which she would kill them on the spot and eat them for breakfast because, ultimately, we are only driven by selfish genes.
As to the strategy, the only strategy I know is not to convince but rather to instill doubts. It is not about proving something to be true but that their ‘prove’ that something is impossible is flawed.
Instilling doubts and talking to physicalist mothers - i'm sorry, you may have to sue me, I'm thinking of stealing this whole comment thread!
Of course, I can plead innocent by virtue of the fact that i cannot control my behavior driven by selfish genes.
I give you the permission to steal it. If I will sue nevertheless, don't worry, it's only my selfish genes. ;)
I think the latest generation, Generation Alpha would love this means of avoiding responsibility for anything. "Physicalist Mothers and the Abdication of all Responsibility" - there; we've got the title for our video series.