Causality and Consciousness

[Jason]

guest,

Jason does mind. He doesn't like it. Sheesh, speaking for another person.

(I trust you don't mind me reinforcing what you said, Jason.)

Don't worry Carl, sometime, somewhere, when you least expect it, I'll waste yet another 65000 milliseconds of your life. You won't even see it coming! Muwahahahahahahah!

[guest_of_logic]

Reading your post, I imagined that perhaps we were in a street gang(a philosophical street gang!), and you were the gangleader(I didn't say this was a believable tale), and our gang had approached David(who was a member of a rival gang, the "Fatalists"), and you had begun verbally threatening him

Haha. What was our street gang called? The "Skeptics"?

Anyway, you've captured the spirit of that part of my post quite nicely.

I and the other gangmembers were expected to follow up every point you made with a forceful "Yeah!" But I muttered in a lone weak high pitched unsure voice "No...??" and everyone looked at me like "Whaaaa?"

Yeah, I mean what's with that, man? After all that we've done for you... and you can't even show us a bit of loyalty. You wanna go it alone, huh? Fine, just don't come crying to us when the Mad Turks beat up on you next, and there's nobody there to give you a hug.

Perhaps the most offensive misrepresentation was that I would never have mispelt "poncey" so horribly.

How embarrassing.

PS And where's my PM apology?!

Haha, that wasn't (isn't?) going to be an apology: my apology to Rebecca was entirely public and I have nothing to add to it. It was (is?) going to be more like a perspective.

It's because I don't have a vagina, isn't it!??[Jason rushes off weeping with girly flailing arms]

Right - it's because your BALLS are so damn BIG that you already see the perspective.

[Jason]

Because, logically, consciousness cannot be seperated from existence. So when one reasons about existence as a whole, one immediately has to take consciousness into account.

Mustn't you also take into account appearances and the hidden void also, given this line of reasoning?

Yes. The hidden void is a logical consequence of affirming the existence of consciousness and its role in generating existence. So to the degree that one makes that affirmation, the hidden void becomes a logical reality that has to be dealt with. At the same time, existence becomes a matter of appearance.

So consciousness is composed of appearances?

[David Quinn]

Appearances are what consciousness perceives in each moment.

-

[Jason]

Does that mean that consciousness and appearances are dependent upon one another? That is, appearances only exist when there is consciousness, and consciousness only exists when there are appearances?

[David Quinn]

Yes.

-

[Jason]

I think we've got to the stage now where I can attempt to explain my initial point again. Here's a good place to start:

The hidden void is a logical consequence of affirming the existence of consciousness and its role in generating existence. So to the degree that one makes that affirmation, the hidden void becomes a logical reality that has to be dealt with. At the same time, existence becomes a matter of appearance.

I think you've made a serious error in your logic, because I don't believe that the hidden void is in fact a necessary logical consequence, here's why:

You hold that any finite thing, such as a particular appearance, is caused to exist by that which is not it. So a finite thing, such as an appearance that you label "chair" is caused to exist by "non-chair" - that which is not the chair.

Now imagine that you are inside a smallish room, say a study. There is a floor, roof, four walls, a chair, a table and other normal furniture for such a room. There are no windows in this room and the door to the room is closed. Thus, wherever you turn or move to look, all you can see is the room and its contents.

Now, for the sake of this argument, imagine that this room constitutes all of the Totality. There are no appearances or things or realms beyond the appearances that you can see in this small room. But how is this possible you ask? According to you there must logically be a hidden void that is responsible for causing the existence of all the appearances that you see in the room. This however, is not in fact a logical necessity.

Why is this not a logical necessity? The answer is very simple - the parts of the room are wholly capable on their own of contrasting against and causing each other's existence. The table, for example, is caused by everything in the room that is not the table, like the chair, the floor, walls etc. The walls are caused by everything that is not the walls, like the chair, floor, table. Any particular thing in the room is thus fully accounted for in this way, every thing in the room will find contrast and cause from another thing that is also within the room.

So we see that there is no need for recourse to any cause beyond the finite appearances/things in the room. Thus there is no logical necessity for your hidden void, it is no more than an unnecessary kludge for a non-existent problem.

[David Quinn]

You make a good point, which I essentially agree with. It doesn't really oppose what I've been talking about, just goes a little deeper.

Joining you on that deeper level, the hidden void is itself an appearance which contrasts with the appearance of consciousness and creates their mutual existence. They are both parts of the room.

-

[guest_of_logic]

David,

This thread's been inactive for a while but I'm finally responding as I wrote some time ago that I would.

I've done some reordering of quotes from your last post in our exchange, and I'll start by answering a question that you put to me, before responding to some other parts of that post:

If an object's properties and attributes can change when the observer's perspective changes, then in what way can they be said to possess them?

One answer is that the conflicting subjectively-perceived properties and attributes can be abstracted and generalised into properties and attributes that are not conflicting. For example, the two conflicting subjectively-perceived properties of the mountain that you wrote about - that to us it appears to be solid and unchanging whereas to a slower-moving mind it would appear to be a fluid process - can be abstracted as the single property of being subject to time. The two conflicting subjectively-perceived properties ascribed to the bucket of water - as either cold or hot depending on who dips their hand into it - could be abstracted as the property of having a temperature.

Another answer to the two examples that you provided is more general, and probably better: that being able to make observations about any thing at all, regardless of perspective, depends upon that thing having at least one property - the property of being observable (from at least one perspective), or in other words the property of being a source of (sensory) perceptions.

Please let me know if you have any other problems with the proposal that the test for existence can be defined as the possession of one or more properties (that's not worded as precisely as I'd like, but I can't find the right wording, so please cut me some slack).

guest_of_logic: [D]oes the hidden void plus consciousness(es) - including the entirety of all appearances within consciousness(es) - constitute all of the Totality, and if not, then what else is there?

David: I've already answered that. It depends on how these things are conceived.

Were you conceiving of them in that way in the final chapter of WOTI?

-----

Elsewhere in your post this quote can be found:

The causes of any particular thing are infinite in number. If we trace them back far enough we will eventually reach the hidden void, beyond which we cannot go.

As well as this exchange:

guest_of_logic: Just as the hidden void has an effect on consciousness (at least by creating it, and, depending on your answer to the first question, by directly causing the appearances within it), does consciousness, and in particular do the appearances within consciousness, have an effect on the hidden void (I'm using "effect" in the sense of temporal causality - i.e. that an event within consciousness causes a subsequent effect on the hidden void)?

David: Undoubtedly.

Taken together, the above two quotes of yours indicate that the hidden void is both a source of causes and a target of effects: we might say that it is "causally active". So, looking at the following exchange...

guest_of_logic: Is the hidden void differentiated?

David: There is no answer to that because the hidden void is beyond our imagination. To employ terms like "differentiated" and "undifferentiated" is an attempt to couch it in terms that the imagination can understand and thus is self-defeating from the outset. In academia, they would call it a category error.

...I want to ask: how can that which is causally active be other than differentiated? Isn't it necessary that something which is subject to effects, and which propagates causes, be differentiated?

I'll respond simultaneously to the following three quoted exchanges:

David: Science never deals with what is beyond conscousness. Like us, it too can only deal with objects within consciousness. Electro-magnetic waves, for example, can only occur within consciousness and nowhere else.

guest_of_logic: If the reality beyond the mind has effects on the mind, then it can be scientifically studied.

David: Unfortunately, it can't in this instance. Science cannot apply theories to a realm in which specific forms are impossible to discern. The hidden void can only ever be known as a logical reality. It is a philosophical entity, not a scientific one.

David: Of course, for practical purposes, we can reduce our concept of consciousness to a subset of our entire field of consciousness and then pretend that the electro-magnetic waves that we observe are occurring beyond consciousness. But that is simply an artifice.

guest_of_logic: How can you be so sure?

David: Everything is an artifice, at bottom.

guest_of_logic: Do you accept the possibility that the "cause of consciousness" could be as is conventionally believed: i.e. that there is an external reality in which consciousness evolved?

David: Not in the sense you mean. For things to be replicated in two different realms, the causal circumstances supporting them need to be replicated. The absence of consciousness in external reality makes such replication impossible.

guest_of_logic: Ah, but they wouldn't be replicated. The "thing" in external reality would have a different nature (physical) to the corresponding "appearance" within consciousness (mental/qualia) - they would, however, be intimately related of course.

David: In this instance, the qualitative difference between consciousness and the absence of consciousness is too great to make such attempts at correspondence meaningful.

I think - and I wonder whether you'll agree - that the disagreement between us in these three exchanges might be resolved if we can resolve the issue of whether the hidden void is necessarily differentiated.

David: I brought it [the possibility of "external reality" being a computer within which we exist and within which our external reality is simulated] up to illustrate that what you call the conventional view of external reality - i.e. the child's natural view of things - is but one of countless possible explanations of what we consciously experience.

guest_of_logic: But you deny the conventional view of external reality, and for the same reason (that there are no objects beyond the mind, and no world "out there") you should deny the [computer] scenario that you instead posited.

David: I think of it as irrelevant to the fundamentals of the issue, yes.

guest_of_logic: It's not just irrelevant, it's contradictory, but given that it's both irrelevant and contradictory, then why did you posit it as a legitimate alternative to the scenario that I canvassed, which didn't suffer from the problem of contradicting your premise that there are no objects beyond the mind?

David: To show you how flimsy and groundless the conventional view of external reality is.

David[cont]:If the conventional view were to state that "something or other is beyond the mind and creates what we experience, but we don't know what that something is", then that would begin to tally with what I think. But conventional people are rarely satisfied with that. They want an external reality that they are familiar with and can mentally grasp.

I think that most "conventional" people would accept the possibility of the computer scenario if it were put to them, though - don't you? A lot of people have seen the Matrix, or have otherwise been exposed to the developing field of virtual reality. I think that most "conventional" people simply don't consider it during their daily lives just because it's of little relevance to the tasks of those daily lives.

In respect of your attempting to show me how "flimsy and groundless the conventional view of external reality is", I appreciate the effort, but in my original post I intended "external reality" to mean "reality beyond the mind" i.e. what you have now clarified is the "hidden void", and so - according to you - we can't even begin to imagine what it is, which is why I was so surprised to see you doing exactly that by imagining it as the computer scenario.

David: Presumably trees are finite in number as well, but that says nothing one way or the other about the finitude or infinitude of reality.

guest_of_logic: That's still not responsive to my argument, because trees don't comprise all that is, whereas to you, the bubbles of consciousness are all that is (plus the hidden void of course).

David: The "plus the hidden void" bit rather undermines the head of steam you were building up there.

guest_of_logic: I see. I have no choice but to conclude that you maintain that the hidden void is infinite. Is that conclusion correct?

David: The totality of all things is infinite - whether it be the hidden void plus whatever is left over, or a combination of other things.

According to you, the hidden void cannot be imagined in any way, yet here you are seeming to imagine it as infinite.

I also have some comments on your last response to Jason. It seems to me that you didn't think it through very carefully before posting:

You make a good point [that "there is no logical necessity for your hidden void, it is no more than an unnecessary kludge for a non-existent problem"], which I essentially agree with. It doesn't really oppose what I've been talking about, just goes a little deeper.

Joining you on that deeper level, the hidden void is itself an appearance which contrasts with the appearance of consciousness and creates their mutual existence. They are both parts of the room.

I'm not sure how you essentially agree with Jason's demonstration that your invention of a hidden void is a logically unnecessary kludge, whilst at the same time asserting that this "doesn't really oppose what [you, David, have] been talking about" and that "the hidden void is itself an appearance". Given that until now you've maintained that the hidden void can only be perceived through logic, and that it "lies beyond consciousness" (WOTI) and is therefore "not comprehensible to us", then the hidden void can definitely not be an "appearance" (because an appearance by your definition does not "lie beyond consciousness" and instead exists within consciousness).

You've made clear many times the impossibility of the hidden void being an appearance; here's one of many instances from earlier in this thread: "The hidden void is the world out there beyond the mind [and it] lies beyond consciousness [and it is a] potentiality beyond consciousness".

Also, given your agreement with Jason that the hidden void is a logically unnecessary kludge, then in the absence of some other evidence for it, it should be discarded according to Occam's razor, yet you continue to try to justify it on false grounds (as an appearance).

As you might have guessed, though, I actually disagree that the hidden void is logically unnecessary in your philosophy of existence and consciousness: I can't see how to make sense of your philosophy without positing something beyond the mind through and by which both consciousness itself (the "bubbles" of consciousness) exists and through and by which conscious experiences are synchronised inter-personally, so I don't think that you should give up on the hidden void.

I'll drop you a PM to let you know that I've reactivated this thread given how long it's been and since you haven't posted to GF in a while.

[Sapius]

Laird: According to you (David), the hidden void cannot be imagined in any way, yet here you are seeming to imagine it as infinite.

So what? Haven’t you heard about the same idea otherwise known as the Tao? And logically defended as… the Tao that can be named is NOT the Tao? Similarly, all that can be said about the ‘hidden void’ is not about the ‘hidden void’, but are pointers to the “hidden void”, which is hidden nonetheless and cannot actually be imagined, but at the same time, not really hidden either, for it is always all around. You just have to have eyes to see it… Is that so difficult to understand??? I can’t imagine why.

This always reminds me of the muslim koran, in which God (Allah) tells us humans... "all that you can think or imagine, I'm not that". Brilliant!

[guest_of_logic]

So what?

So David's earlier statement was definitive - he didn't say 'for the most part, with a few exceptions, the hidden void is unimaginable', he said 'the hidden void is beyond our imagination. To employ terms like "differentiated" and "undifferentiated" is an attempt to couch it in terms that the imagination can understand and thus is self-defeating from the outset.' And 'infinite' is - in my opinion - 'couching' the hidden void 'in terms that the imagination can understand'. You are - of course - free to believe otherwise.

Haven’t you heard about the same idea otherwise known as the Tao?

I've heard something similar, and to the extent that it matches this scenario, I would mount the same argument.

Similarly, all that can be said about the ‘hidden void’ is not about the ‘hidden void’, but are pointers to the “hidden void”, which is hidden nonetheless and cannot actually be imagined, but at the same time, not really hidden either, for it is always all around.

You're just playing with words - which are always pointers, not just in the case of the hidden void: there's no way to get around the fact that on the one hand the hidden void is said to be unimaginable, and on the other hand it seems like (and he can clarify whether this is actually the case) David is saying that the hidden void is infinite, which is 'couching it in terms that the imagination can understand'.

[Robert]

You're just playing with words - which are always pointers, not just in the case of the hidden void: there's no way to get around the fact that on the one hand the hidden void is said to be unimaginable, and on the other hand it seems like (and he can clarify whether this is actually the case) David is saying that the hidden void is infinite, which is 'couching it in terms that the imagination can understand'.

But isn't that the logical point? If you give any attributes to it other than infinite, by definition you'll be saying something about it that you have no possible way of knowing. The only thing that makes any sense is to either not evoke it as a concept at all (which won't get you very far), but once evoked you're logically bound to give it the quality of infinite.

I don't see what's so difficult to grasp here. Am I missing something?

[guest_of_logic]

If you give any attributes to it other than infinite, by definition you'll be saying something about it that you have no possible way of knowing.

So you're giving "infinite" a free pass, but all other attributes are off the table. I don't think that that's feasible though. Consider that infinity is a property that we apply to something which has some sort of extent, because infinity essentially means "limitlessness in extent". Now, that which has an extent is divisible. So once we apply the label "infinite", it automatically brings along with it the baggage of "divisible".

Consider also that David already has given the hidden void attributes other than infinite and divisible: he has answered my questions to affirm that the hidden void is both a cause and is subject to effects - a situation for which I coined the term "causally active".

So now we can describe the hidden void in three ways: infinite, divisible and causally active.

It's not so far beyond the imagination after all, is it?

but once evoked you're logically bound to give it the quality of infinite.

Why?

[Robert]

So now we can describe the hidden void in three ways: infinite, divisible and causally active.

It's not so far beyond the imagination after all, is it?

It's obviously not beyond the imagination since we can reason about it.

David can speak for himself, but this is how I understand hidden void, and these are purely logical arguments; as a concept, it's a necessity to any thinking mind that asks "what's beyond my consciousness?" to reach the conclusion that (1) the only thing I can say about it is that it must be infinite in nature since any finite attribute implies knowledge of something I cannot empirically (or logically) demonstrate, (2) it's infinite nature is necessarily divisible, and (3) it neither exists nor doesn't exist. Add to that (4) it is the source of all appearances, since also within this definition of hidden void is the source of the conscious mind asking the question in the first place.

I don't think I'm saying anything new here.

[guest_of_logic]

(1) the only thing I can say about it is that it must be infinite in nature since any finite attribute implies knowledge of something I cannot empirically (or logically) demonstrate,

It seems to me that infinitude has all sorts of implications for knowledge that you can't demonstrate either. In my last post I explained how I think infinitude implies divisibility, but that's not the only thing that it implies - it also implies substance and quantifiability too: there must be some type of substance or essence that quantifies (measures) as infinite. I ask you to cut me a little slack with interpreting what I mean by "quantifiable" - obviously something that is infinite is in a sense beyond quantification since the measuring process will never end: my point is that the measuring process can at least run, even if it never completes.

In (3) you write that the hidden void neither exists nor doesn't exist - so why do you not also say it is neither infinite or finite, and avoid all of the implications that both labels carry? Personally, I don't find it legitimate to evade all of these categories, but at least it would be consistent of you.

Also, you might have missed one, at least according to David's last response to me: (5) is affected by consciousness.

[Robert]

In my last post I explained how I think infinitude implies divisibility, but that's not the only thing that it implies - it also implies substance and quantifiability too: there must be some type of substance or essence that quantifies (measures) as infinite. I ask you to cut me a little slack with interpreting what I mean by "quantifiable" - obviously something that is infinite is in a sense beyond quantification since the measuring process will never end: my point is that the measuring process can at least run, even if it never completes.

Do you mean like time? In an infinite time, you can have an infinite amount of finite measurable periods. Or do you mean something else?

In (3) you write that the hidden void neither exists nor doesn't exist - so why do you not also say it is neither infinite or finite, and avoid all of the implications that both labels carry? Personally, I don't find it legitimate to evade all of these categories, but at least it would be consistent of you.

I don't mean to evade, I agree with you that labeling is sometimes a problem. Saying it neither exists nor doesn't exist is referring to the nature of something non-relative and infinite.

Also, you might have missed one, at least according to David's last response to me: (5) is affected by consciousness.

This is a bit vague, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you develop it a little?

[guest_of_logic]

guest_of_logic: In my last post I explained how I think infinitude implies divisibility, but that's not the only thing that it implies - it also implies substance and quantifiability too: there must be some type of substance or essence that quantifies (measures) as infinite. I ask you to cut me a little slack with interpreting what I mean by "quantifiable" - obviously something that is infinite is in a sense beyond quantification since the measuring process will never end: my point is that the measuring process can at least run, even if it never completes.

Robert: Do you mean like time? In an infinite time, you can have an infinite amount of finite measurable periods.

Yes, I mean like time, or like space and distance. You'll again have to cut me a little slack when I describe space as a "substance" or "essence" - perhaps I haven't got quite the right word there. Perhaps I should have used a word like "dimensionality" rather than either of those. Hopefully you understand me though.

Saying it neither exists nor doesn't exist is referring to the nature of something non-relative and infinite.

I'm willing to refer to something non-relative and infinite as "existent", but let's not bother to debate that old chestnut - I'm willing to say that we're simply using different definitions of the word "exists".

guest_of_logic: Also, you might have missed one, at least according to David's last response to me: (5) is affected by consciousness.

Robert: This is a bit vague, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you develop it a little?

I'll quote the exchange that David and I had, and add a few words to it in case it's not enough:

guest_of_logic: Just as the hidden void has an effect on consciousness (at least by creating it, and, depending on your answer to the first question, by directly causing the appearances within it), does consciousness, and in particular do the appearances within consciousness, have an effect on the hidden void (I'm using "effect" in the sense of temporal causality - i.e. that an event within consciousness causes a subsequent effect on the hidden void)?

David: Undoubtedly.

What I meant, and hopefully David understood that I meant this when he answered affirmatively, is that an "appearance" - say some thought in consciousness - can initiate a causal chain that extends out into the hidden void and has an effect on it. At the basic level this could be visualised as a thought being concomitant with electromagnetic patterns in the brain, which extend beyond the brain into the area around the thinker's head, so that this "thing" (the extending electromagnetic patterns) - i.e. having form - that we're visualising actually has an effect on "external reality" i.e. the hidden void. At more complex levels we could add physical actions initiated by thought - bearing in mind that there's no crisp distinction between the mental and the physical - which likewise have an effect on the hidden void. The effect that these thoughts and actions have on the hidden void could be part of a causal chain such that - through the hidden void - they cause effects within other "bubbles of consciousness".

What this means essentially is that consciousnesses can affect one another through the mediation of the hidden void (i.e. causal chains/webs propagate through the hidden void).

[Sapius]

3. it (the ‘hidden void’) neither exists nor doesn't exist.

I can’t understand why this is not vague, Robert?
How do you actually understand or are able to accept it as logically coherent?

[Robert]

What this means essentially is that consciousnesses can affect one another through the mediation of the hidden void (i.e. causal chains/webs propagate through the hidden void).

Hmm. Could you conceive of any way to empirically measure anything like this?

3. it (the ‘hidden void’) neither exists nor doesn't exist.

I can’t understand why this is not vague, Robert?
How do you actually understand or are able to accept it as logically coherent?

In the same sense as the Tao that you referred to yourself a few posts back, it's a question of perpsective and language (and "that old chesnut" that GOL was talking about).

Ultimately, for me, I understand the term 'hidden void' to be just another catch-all for the infinite. All these names, the Hidden Void, Tao, The Absolute, God, point back to this illusory nature of things (including consciousness) and their infinite causes, the illusory nature of causality itself and it's emptiness, it's lack of inherency. If we could trace all causes, then nothing would be hidden, would it?

[guest_of_logic]

guest_of_logic: What this means essentially is that consciousnesses can affect one another through the mediation of the hidden void (i.e. causal chains/webs propagate through the hidden void).

Robert: Hmm. Could you conceive of any way to empirically measure anything like this?

Not the segment of the causal chain/web that passes through the hidden void, so we have to resort to logic: unless we adopt strong solipsism, then we see that this must be occurring since we have an affect on other people's consciousness as evidenced by the fact that we can interact with them, and since beyond all of our consciousnesses lies the hidden void.

Ultimately, for me, I understand the term 'hidden void' to be just another catch-all for the infinite.

Oh, that's interesting, because as far as I understand it, the way that the hidden void is defined in WOTI, it's not the Infinite, because it lies beyond consciousness, and therefore consciousness is not a part of it, and therefore it is not synonymous with the Infinite because the Infinite includes consciousness. But as you wrote, "it's a question of perspective and language".

[Robert]

Not the segment of the causal chain/web that passes through the hidden void, so we have to resort to logic: unless we adopt strong solipsism, then we see that this must be occurring since we have an affect on other people's consciousness as evidenced by the fact that we can interact with them, and since beyond all of our consciousnesses lies the hidden void.

Do you think all consciousness functions like this, all interactions? Could you imagine some interactions of consciousness between individuals that don't pass through the hidden void? What about when I'm just thinking to myself about something, is there part of it going through the hidden void?

[guest_of_logic]

You know, Robert, it's hard for me to answer your questions for two reasons. Firstly, because I'm working within someone else's (QRS's) paradigm, and with their terminology, which I don't fully accept (hopefully one of them will pop up in due course and let us know how much of what we've canvassed matches their own thoughts). Secondly, because I'm not sure how to conceptualise the relationship between consciousness and the hidden void, and I'm forced, due to not knowing of any other option, into a three-dimensional conceptualisation, where consciousnesses are like bubbles, and the hidden void is an infinite space within which those bubbles exist. This, though, flies in the face of the unimaginability of the hidden void, because an infinite three dimensional space is very much a figment of the imagination. Nevertheless, as I said, I don't know of any other option, so I'll answer your questions using that conceptualisation, whilst pointing out its inadequacy.

Do you think all consciousness functions like this, all interactions? Could you imagine some interactions of consciousness between individuals that don't pass through the hidden void?

Additional caveat: QRS talk about causation in different ways, and the way I'm going to talk about it here is the more conventional, temporal way, but it's nevertheless one that QRS themselves sometimes use. Also, they'd probably point out that the start and end points that I refer to below are arbitrary.

For there to be an interaction between the consciousnesses of individuals there must be an unbroken causal chain that links the start and end points of the interaction within the consciousnesses. Your question therefore translates into: can an unbroken causal chain between multiple bubbles of consciousnesses not pass through the hidden void? Given the (inadequate) physical conceptualisation, the only way that this could occur is if the bubbles are all "touching" one another, so that the chain need not pass through the hidden void.

The alternative is some sort of "magic" whereby thoughts "jump" from one bubble of consciousness to another, which might in fact be possible in some way given the correct (if there even is such a thing) conceptualisation of how consciousness relates to the hidden void.

What about when I'm just thinking to myself about something, is there part of it going through the hidden void?

I'm going to be a little pedantic to start with: your thought is one thing, and its effects are another thing, so hopefully you don't mind me rewording your question from "is there a part of it going through the hidden void?" to "do those thoughts affect the hidden void in a way that reasonably allows them to be identified?" Please let me know if you're unhappy with that rewording.

In any case, assuming that science is correct when it describes electromagnetic correlates of thought, then it would seem that the answer is "Yes". What do you think?

[Robert]

I'm not really up on my "electromagnetic correlates of thought", so I'm not sure I can respond with anything that'll mean much. Do you have any source material or links you could post?

But assuming that what you say about the science is the case, then isn't that squarely within consciousness and so no suggestion of hidden void is necessary? If we can detect through measurement mental activity in the way you describe, then that would suggest that all mental activity could potentially be located, tracked and mapped with as much certainty that the empirical method offers.

Of course, you still wouldn't have certainty that something else isn't going on outside of your awareness, outside of any means of detection, no matter how sophisticated the equipment is - hence, the hidden void is forever beyond any contact, any interaction.

[guest_of_logic]

I'm not really up on my "electromagnetic correlates of thought", so I'm not sure I can respond with anything that'll mean much. Do you have any source material or links you could post?

I'm not really up on it either - I basically just know that brainwaves are said to be electromagnetic. Here are a couple of links from googling:
* http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/07/scien ... plane.html
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography.

But assuming that what you say about the science is the case, then isn't that squarely within consciousness and so no suggestion of hidden void is necessary?

What I mean is that the electromagnetic waves would have to have some effect on the hidden void since other consciousnesses can be affected by them (e.g. by observing the EEG readouts) - this assumes that the "thoughts can magically jump from one mind to another" theory is non-viable. There is another possibility, though: that some common ancestor cause propagated to both minds, causing the "originating" thought in one mind and the "watching-the-EEG-readout" thought in the other, although this seems like a far-fetched and messy possibility, so I'll discard it for now.

If we can detect through measurement mental activity in the way you describe, then that would suggest that all mental activity could potentially be located, tracked and mapped with as much certainty that the empirical method offers.

As far as I can tell, that seems to be a possibility, but I'm not an expert in the field.

Of course, you still wouldn't have certainty that something else isn't going on outside of your awareness, outside of any means of detection, no matter how sophisticated the equipment is - hence, the hidden void is forever beyond any contact, any interaction.

I'm not sure what you mean here. I thought that we had established that causal chains propagate through the hidden void, so I don't see how you can say that it's "forever beyond any contact, any interaction".

[Robert]

I'm not sure what you mean here. I thought that we had established that causal chains propagate through the hidden void, so I don't see how you can say that it's "forever beyond any contact, any interaction".

If we stick to the definition of the hidden void that means 'whatever is beyond consciousness', then I mean that no matter what the method is for detecting this mental activity, any activity through the hidden void will be imperceptible, by definition. You couldn't prove, but only argue through logic, that anything is propagating through the hidden void.