Serendipper wrote: ↑Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:40 amOne day I hope to feel that way about Alan Watts ;) But then who will be the next giant whose shoulders I stand upon to make everyone look small?
Hah! Everyone including ourselves. Hard gained wisdom which is your own process where at some point "shoulders" will fall away as the caricatures they are. Not saying the shoulders involved did not have their own journey. It's simply not yours any more!
Hmm... well if it is true that consciousness needs an underpinning and an object to be conscious of, then all this is eternal. But that contradicts the assumption (or was it a deduction?) that consciousness cannot be manufactured, so what underpinning could it have?
Causality at its most bare bone (and abstract I suppose) would make it abundantly clear that the very least one can say about anything in particular is that it's caused by what
it is not. It's not a big deal to see "underpinnings" as causes and "experiencing objects" as effects of consciousness. But that in itself does not make consciousness into some eternal thing. There's simply no reason to assume that even while we can easily imagine larger instances of consciousness in super-organisms consisting of many connections invisible to our current understanding. But
logically that does not change anything. In other words, the philosopher moves even beyond the gods!
Causality assumes there are separate things and events, but there aren't.
Causality assumes only causes, each of which must be also caused and that means nothing is by definition really separated!
You say we get energy from fuel, but the energy was put there by the sun. How do we get energy from the exhausted? How do we get energy from nothing? How does consciousness come from that which is exhausted/void of consciousness?
Are you asking how do we get from a sun exhausted/void of petrol or automobiles to having batteries and spark plugs?
Perhaps it would be easier if you could tell me how there are less assumptions with the "consciousness genesis model" vs the "eternal consciousness model". ;)
If you really don't see yet how your suggested "eternal conscious entity" is creating immense complexities then you simply need to learn more about essentials of logic, deduction and reason. You mention Occams' razor, which is all about the "fewest assumptions" and then you continue almost oblivious to this with an
immense assumption, purely faith based, in the context of navigating speculation and theoretical models with reason.
In other words, you are abandoning a reason based model. Or just leaving the conversation and turn it into pushing your beliefs and feelings. Which you can do but don't expect others to go along or participate much. It's going nowhere good usually. This in case you might wonder why at some point people might stop engaging.
Is one atom not conscious of the fact that another atom is in the vicinity?
If you define action-reaction as being equal to consciousness then for sure, that statement could be made. But I think you are not doing your own ideas any favor by simplifying consciousness to simple causal processes, feedback loops or physical interactions. As that would make it finite and certainly a property like anything else. Or a catch all word for anything moving or existing. But why not then just use "existence". Or god. Or Tao. Or the ineffable.
Therefore the process would have to be dumb and dead in order to create life and intelligence, but that's just as absurd.
Stupid and smart are simply your own personal categories here projected on various processes. Hardly anyone would call the multitude of life on this planet as intrinsically intelligent and neither does hardly anyone call for example the shadow of a rock "dumb" just for being there.
As for life coming from non-life, you are confusing the various definitions of life used in biology with philosophical questions. Molecules consist of atoms but it's absurd to say you have therefore problems with atoms not also being called molecules.
From a more philosophical angle we could very well question the arbitrarily demarcation of life and death. We could even see both as non-existing in terms of states, as things or areas. These boundaries are only relevant to
being, to any particular self-state. In other words "self-preservation" in an environment where everything changes, everything connects, nothing remains what it was only through some abstract process of memory, which is also fleeting.
because you cannot get an intelligent organism, such as a human being, out of an unintelligent universe."
The universe is simply the universe. It's you, and many believers who are projecting arbitrary qualities on it first and then employ it inside some "reasoning". But that's simply not yet philosophy. Perhaps because philosophy would destroy that particular self-deceit which keeps such belief going, a faith which
has to subvert all reasoning to its own end, towards its own survival. So it's understandable as well and not "evil" as such.
In any case, we've come to the roots of the discussion: you are arguing mostly from faith and end up defending some quasi-certain articles of faith. It's not the discussion I'm interested in as I don't think either of us will get much out of it. So unless you are willing to enter a more philosophical area, I can only bid you good luck in all your future endeavors!