GENIUS FORUMS

brokenhead wrote: I find myself disagreeing that consciousness is change itself. Change is something directly perceivable. Indeed, it is difficult to be awake and not be aware of some change occurring. Yet consciousness itself is not directly perceivable because it is itself involved in the perception. It is like you view an object without directly perceiving your eyeballs.

I think the first step in successful meditation is coming to the realization that consciousness and change are distinctly different things.

The preception of change occurs because that change is changing the perciever. All perception occurs because the perciever is somehow affected by the object of perception.

mystex wrote:

David wrote:In a way, that's true. The gaps are part and parcel of being conscious. To be conscious is to be conscious of "things", with gaps automatically inserted in between each thing.

Would you say that because of these gaps there is room for error? (experience may aid in such error)

In empirical theorizing, yes. All empirical theorizing, all scientific modeling, is speculative and uncertain because of it. We can never be entirely sure about what exactly causes what.

mystex wrote:

In truth, we are still living in the Dark Ages.

I don't believe so. I'm sure we've made some progress since then.

Not philosophically. Not spiritually. People these days are as blind as ever.

mystex wrote:

Quite the reverse, wisdom is the omniscience which can see into all.

Yes, but that doesn't mean it's immuned from some sort of petty error.

If it isn't immune from error, then it isn't wisdom.

mystex wrote:

The problem that people have with consciousness is that they try to integrate what they experience as consciousness with unconscious things like neurons, hormones, electrical impulses, feedback loops, and the like. They just can't marry all these things together in their minds. They don't realize that it can't be done in that manner, and that the issue is purely imagined to begin with.

I'm not entirely sure of what you're saying there..."manner"?

The manner of trying to join together consciousness and unconsciousness so that such a joining creates a seamless appearance in their minds. It can't be done as consciousness and consciousness have radically different appearances, just as fire and inert matter (such as wood) have different appearances.

A classic attempt to join the two together is to postulate that unconsciousness doesn't really exist, that the whole Universe is conscious.

mystex wrote:

There is nothing mysterious about [consciousness] in the slightest.

You can't be serious!

I see that you have lost your objectivity.

Remember:

DQ: If a person cannot see that his consciousness is no way unique - that it is no more complex or sophisticated or inexplicable than any other thing in the universe - then he has lost his objectivity. He is not in touch with the underlying principle of things.

mystex: Good.

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Excellent reply David, thanks.


How do people come to realize the universallity of causality?

By thinking about what it means for a thing to exist.

Animus wrote:Excellent reply David, thanks.

How do people come to realize the universallity of causality?

Have you read my ebook on the subject? It's short and to the point.

Wisdom of the Infinite

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A critique of which has just been posted at Kelly's Forum.

David Quinn wrote:

Animus wrote:Excellent reply David, thanks.

How do people come to realize the universallity of causality?

Have you read my ebook on the subject? It's short and to the point.

Wisdom of the Infinite

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Yes, thank you. It helped consolidate my thoughts. I feel like I really did "slip seamlessly into enlightenment" only to realize I was already there.

Dan Rowden wrote:A critique of which has just been posted at Kelly's Forum.

I don't follow what Michelle is saying there. Especially about consciousness arising by necessary dependent origination.

"One way of looking at it might be: Randomness (and/ or Will) interacts with Necessity (and/ or Existence) and another principle (like consciousness), so that the prerequisites for consciousness (like life) manifest and eventually consciousness itself manifests. Certain potential realities may be more pervasive and fundamental (compelling) than others, and consciousness may be one of them. Of course any pragmatic construction cannot capture the metaphysical reality (and ends up sounding silly), but this is the most useful one I can think of so far."

I don't see how this is useful at all...



I have found that causality cannot be refuted without first accepting causality. Using causality as a term broadly to mean any system of dependency or relation/interaction with dependency. For example, to attempt to reason out of causality one might say "Causality may not be universal due to quantum mechanics.". This statement in and of itself asserts that the non-universallity of causality depends on the observations of quantum mechanics.

"The foundation of constructed reality is reasoning (good or bad), not causation." - Michelle

It was my understanding that the two were different faces of the same thing. Since causallity is only ever in correspondance with reason and the two are axiomatic, it is my opinion that stating quantum mechanics causes the non-universallity of causality accepts causality-in-reason in order to refute it.

The same can be said of language, though reason tends to present itself abstractly.

If we take the familiar phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back" and remove all the cause-effect words, that is verbs and adjectives, we end up with nonsense: "The fox the dog's back".

Causality-in-language
Causality-in-reason

I think Michelle has mistaken causality-in-reason for reason itself. Whatever that may be.

Animus wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote:A critique of which has just been posted at Kelly's Forum.

I don't follow what Michelle is saying there. Especially about consciousness arising by necessary dependent origination.

"One way of looking at it might be: Randomness (and/ or Will) interacts with Necessity (and/ or Existence) and another principle (like consciousness), so that the prerequisites for consciousness (like life) manifest and eventually consciousness itself manifests. Certain potential realities may be more pervasive and fundamental (compelling) than others, and consciousness may be one of them. Of course any pragmatic construction cannot capture the metaphysical reality (and ends up sounding silly), but this is the most useful one I can think of so far."

I don't see how this is useful at all...

It looks like that she doesn't understand the principle of causality in its purest form, but has to break it up into parts in order to piece it back together.

I have found that causality cannot be refuted without first accepting causality. Using causality as a term broadly to mean any system of dependency or relation/interaction with dependency. For example, to attempt to reason out of causality one might say "Causality may not be universal due to quantum mechanics.". This statement in and of itself asserts that the non-universallity of causality depends on the observations of quantum mechanics.

They would probably say they are merely passive observers watching non-causal processes at work. At least, when they are not talking about the observer collapsing wave-functions and the like.

The main problem with talking with quantum physicists about this issue is that they have a different conception of causality from the everyday definition of things having causes. Their conception is more narrow, more technical. So when they talk about a quantum event being uncaused, they are not actually asserting that these events arise without cause (that would be too straightforward!). They are referring more to our current inability to use classical causal models to predict their behaviour.

"The foundation of constructed reality is reasoning (good or bad), not causation." - Michelle

It was my understanding that the two were different faces of the same thing. Since causallity is only ever in correspondance with reason and the two are axiomatic, it is my opinion that stating quantum mechanics causes the non-universallity of causality accepts causality-in-reason in order to refute it.

She also says elsewhere that logic is part of the constructed reality. So it's clear that she is still working through the issues and hasn't resolved her confusion yet.

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David Quinn wrote: She also says elsewhere that logic is part of the constructed reality. So it's clear that she is still working through the issues and hasn't resolved her confusion yet.

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True that. Interestingly on a neural level percepts are formed by contiguous firing of nerve cells. "Cells that fire together wire together". So its scientifically impossible to form a concept that denies contiguity. On a fundamental level all thoughts are contiguous with other thoughts.

Dan Rowden wrote:By thinking about what it means for a thing to exist.

Well to be honest,I'm still having trouble completing the ontological circle (so to speak)

• "Thinking " requires consciousness.
  A "thing" requires consciousness--to demarcate it from other things.
  "to exist" is predicated on appearance--again requiring consciousness to give rise to appearances.

Yet consciousness is not "special", according to David.



'Please explain'

Ataraxia, you have identified an issue that I've noticed for a while now myself, but haven't bothered to express publicly yet. On the one hand the guys reckon that existence is dependent on consciousness, and on the other hand they reckon that consciousness is nothing special. Go figure.

Another weird thing is that they claim consciousness can be explained away through causality, yet in Kevin Solway's book PFTH, he claims that causality is an illusion. It's like, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Jason,

You seem to have deleted your post, which I had drafted a response to, and which I will now send you by PM instead.

Loki,

Loki wrote:Another weird thing is that they claim consciousness can be explained away through causality, yet in Kevin Solway's book PFTH, he claims that causality is an illusion. It's like, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Can you provide a direct quote from PFTH where Kevin says that?

Anyway, their take on consciousness is incoherent. I mean majorly incoherent. Here are some quotes from Chapter 6 of WOTI, which I will use to demonstrate the incoherence.

First, David prepares us for his insights:

It has long been known by science that everything we perceive in the world is a construction of the brain.

We have no way of knowing how accurately the construction we experience in each moment portrays what is "out there". It is impossible for us to reach beyond our consciousness and peek at what lies beyond. Granted, the construction needs to be accurate to some degree, otherwise we would notice gaping inconsistencies in our experiences. We would be tripping over things that we could not see and putting our hands through solid-looking objects; things would be winking in and out of existence willy-nilly, and so on.

[O]ur brains are under no obligation to construct anything other than a vastly simplified world which best serves our survival purposes.

In the above quotes, David introduces the notion that we experience not "external" reality itself, but our brain's "construction" of external reality (based on sensory input interpreted by the brain). He goes on to make a reasonable point:

Any conclusion that we care to reach concerning what lies beyond the construction will be nothing more than a tentative inference, one that is created within the construction itself. Even if we received compelling evidence that the construction is really a computer simulation, we would still have no way of ascertaining for sure that this is what is really happening.

In other words, we don't really know what the external reality that our construction is modelling consists of. Fair enough. From this reasonable point, David continues:

The computer, which is thought to be responsible for the existence of the construction, would be in the same boat as the brain. It is something that we would only experience within the construction itself. At bottom, it does not matter what we choose to postulate or imagine lies beyond consciousness, it will always be nothing more than a creation existing within consciousness.

In asserting that what we "postulate or imagine lies beyond consciousness" is "nothing more than a creation existing within consciousness", David is on reasonable ground, but he uses this assertion to come to a bizarre and unjustified conclusion which he repeats a few times in different words:

[T]he reader needs to make a quantum leap in his perspective and abandon altogether the notion that there is a world "out there" beyond the mind.

The objects that we perceive within the construction are not mere replications or simulations of "real objects" that exist beyond the mind. There are no objects beyond the mind.

There is literally no "out there", apart from what we experience in our consciousness.

David has gone from the reasonable observation that we cannot know what lies beyond consciousness, to certainty that nothing lies beyond consciousness, on the basis that our imagination of what lies beyond consciousness, itself lies in consciousness. Yes, it's true that imagination lies in consciousness, but how does that in any way prove the non-external-existence of what is being imagined? Plainly and simply, it doesn't. David's conclusion is wholly unjustified.

Ah, but David has another argument as to the non-existence of external reality. Let's see it in some quotes:

Since existence is equivalent to appearance [within consciousness], it naturally follows that it is impossible for existence to occur outside the mind.

We can summarize these thoughts with the one simple assertion that existence is appearance. To exist is to appear. In the moment that a thing is not presenting an appearance, it does not exist.

In the above quotes, David asserts that to exist is to appear, and that since appearance only occurs to consciousness, nothing exists outside of consciousness. The contention that to exist is to appear is both a bald assertion, and, more concerningly, a redefinition of the word "exist". Sure, it supports David's thesis, but he's using this redefinition of "exist" to draw conclusions about the existence of things by the conventional definition of "exist". Where in any dictionary does "exist" make any reference to "appearance"? Why should the two be associated? One can imagine, for example, a finite universe containing no consciousness and causally unrelated to our universe. Since - being causally unrelated - it cannot appear to us, and since it has no conscious inhabitants to which it can appear, then by David's definition, it would not "exist". By the conventional definition, however, we would most definitely say that it exists. Is this then a reasonable definition of "exist"? Clearly not: it is a redefinition, and to then use this redefinition to say things about existence as it is conventionally used is equivocation.

David's not finished yet though, folks! Let's see his final argument as to the non-existence of external reality:

There is [a] kind of proof [...] which does conclusively demonstrate that nothing can exist beyond the construction, one that shows that things necessarily only exist within it. It is as follows:

A thing can only exist if it possesses a form of some kind. Whether it has the form of a tree, or a cloud, or an ambiguous wave/particle duality, or a flowing stream, each thing finds its existence in its form. If a thing were to lack form altogether, then it would be incapable of existence. An existing thing without form is a contradiction in terms and therefore a logical impossibility.

Form, in turn, can only exist by virtue of a perspective created by an observer. The form of an object and the observer's perspective go hand in hand. There cannot be one without the other.

David's argument semi-formally is:
1. Every thing has a form.
2. Form exists only within consciousness.
3. Form does not exist outside of consciousness (from 2).
4. Things do not exist outside of consciousness (from 1 and 3).

The argument is valid, but is it sound? No, it is not: premise 2 is false. This premise is merely an unjustified assertion. Why should we accept it? How can it be proven that the forms within our "construction" do not correspond to the forms of an external reality? If it can indeed be so proved (and I don't believe that it can), then David has certainly failed to do so.

Let's turn now to the origins of consciousness:

If, as I maintain, existence can only occur within consciousness, then it follows that nothing could have existed before consciousness evolved.

So how did consciousness initially spring into being if there was ultimately no Big Bang, no alternative cosmological process and no nothingness? The short answer is, I have no idea. Nor does anyone else have a clue. The question is utterly beyond the capacity of the human mind to solve.

Notice that in the first quote, David asserts that "consciousness evolved", whereas in the second, his answer to the question of how consciousness initially sprang into being is "I have no idea". So which is it? Did consciousness evolve or does David (and everyone else) have no idea of its origin? This is, again, equivocation - something that QRS practice a lot, albeit that they seem to be genuinely unaware of it.

Let's for argument's sake, though, accept David's first contention - that consciousness evolved: what then did it evolve in if not an "external reality"? Here, David equivocates on the existence of external reality.

Now, let's see that quote again with what follows it:

If, as I maintain, existence can only occur within consciousness, then it follows that nothing could have existed before consciousness evolved. How can that be so? What about the Big Bang which supposedly happened 15 billions years ago and presumably did not have the benefit of someone watching it? Am I saying that the Big Bang never occurred?

Again, although these questions are perfectly natural to ask, they are nevertheless fundamentally deluded and unaskable. For they are created out of a false understanding of my views. It is meaningless to speak of what occurred before the evolution of consciousness because, as I pointed out earlier, the very use of the word "what" is inapplicable outside of consciousness. Even the notions "before consciousness" or "outside consciousness" are meaningless.

As with anything else, the Big Bang can never be anything more than an appearance to an observer. If we could somehow build a time machine and travel back 15 billion years, there is little doubt that we would observe a Big Bang in action. However, it would still be a Big Bang exploding within our own consciousness and nowhere else. It would still only be an appearance. The idea of a Big Bang-in-itself, outside of anyone's perception, is groundless.

This explanation is so flawed that I'm surprised that David saw fit to not only publish it, but also to leave it unedited - and a part of his publicly promoted philosophy - for so long. He maintains that if we travelled back to the Big Bang, then it would "appear" to us (and hence, would "exist", by David's definition of "exist"). But what if we didn't travel back? Then it would have had no appearance, and hence wouldn't have existed. Given the seeming impossibility of travel backwards in time (the present doesn't seem to be filled with visitors from the future), the likelihood of anyone travelling back in time to observe the Big Bang is effectively zero. Hence, the answer to David's initial question "Am I saying that the Big Bang never occurred?" is "Effectively, David, yes".

Consider also that when David talks about travelling back in time to observe the Big Bang, he is implicitly acknowledging the existence of the Big Bang as more than just an appearance - he is acknowledging it as an event that occurred in external reality - because "prior" to the travel back in time, there is something to travel back to (the Big Bang) which hasn't yet appeared in anyone's consciousness (but that still exists, by the conventional definition). This is yet more equivocation on the existence of external reality.

Turning to the next point, here are a few definitions of solipsism from dictionary.com:

1. Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.
[...]
1. The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.
2. The theory or view that the self is the only reality.
[...]
1874, coined from L. solus "alone" + ipse "self." The view or theory that self is the only object of real knowledge or the only thing that is real.
[...]
(philosophy) the philosophical theory that the self is all that you know to exist
[...]
The belief that all reality is just one's own imagining of reality, and that one's self is the only thing that exists.

Let's compare those with an earlier quote of David's from WOTI:

Since existence is equivalent to appearance [within consciousness], it naturally follows that it is impossible for existence to occur outside the mind.

Remarkably similar, aren't they? Funny then that Dan becomes so indignant when mikiel accuses QRS of being solipsists. And yet QRS do deny solipsism. How can they do this given their belief that nothing exists outside of the mind? Consider the implication of the above quote: if nothing exists outside of David's mind, then my mind only exists within David's mind. And yet David hypothesises that other people's consciousnesses are ontologically equivalent to his own (in his words, again from WOTI: "I can reason that because other people look and behave like me, and because I already know that I am conscious, I can conclude that they are conscious as well."). So then, using the same reasoning that I just used, if I am as conscious as David (as David hypothesises), then nothing exists outside of my mind either, and David's mind only exists within my mind. Notice the problem with this? My mind only exists within David's mind, yet David's mind only exists within my mind. Putting it kindly, this is a paradox. Let's see in the following two quotes how David resolves this problem:

When I speak of "the construction", then, I am referring to the totality of all constructions and not just my own. Things can certainly exist beyond my own consciousness, but only if there are other consciousnesses to support their existence. When I die and my own construction vanishes, the observable universe will live on in the minds of others. And should the human race and all conscious life on earth become extinct, well then, existence will have to wait until new sentient beings evolve - keeping in mind, of course, that concepts such as "waiting" and "time elapsing" and "existence" and "nothingness" have no meaning outside of consciousness.

At the moment, there are nearly six billion people on this planet, each of them existing inside their own construction. We can think of these constructions as separate dimensions, all happily coexisting side by side, with no interaction between them. The universe is like a multitude of bubbles, each bubble an isolated construction of consciousness, each somehow making room for the rest.

Something's up here. David's original claim was that "it is impossible for existence to occur outside the mind", but now he's telling us that other minds can exist outside the mind. If other minds can exist, then what's to stop what we conventionally conceive of as "external reality" from existing too? In other words, David here is contradicting his arguments (not that they were sound anyway) that there is no external reality beyond the mind.

Notice also David's language: these constructions coexist "side by side"; they are "bubbles", they make "room" - in other words, these "constructions of consciousness" exist in something at least analogous to a three-dimensional external reality.

Also consider that David asserts that these "constructions of consciousness" are "isolated". How then can people communicate and interact with one other, seemingly experiencing mutually consistent "appearances"? And yet they do...

Now consider the absurdity of David's competing contentions that nothing exists outside of consciousness, and that given the extinction of conscious life, new sentient beings could evolve. How could they evolve when nothing objective exists in which they could evolve? Again, David equivocates on the existence of an external reality.

Also, consider the notion of death. In David's scenario, where nothing exists outside of consciousness except other consciousnesses, which are isolated, what could ever cause the death of consciousness? And yet QRS do not deny the occurrence death...

Now consider the notion of birth. Conventionally, we understand, through observation, that consciousness is created (or at least associated with a body) whilst a foetus gestates. David, on the other hand, believes that the "constructions of consciousness" are created by a "hidden void" (see next quote), and as to how he thinks that an individual consciousness gets going, I have no idea, given that nothing exists outside of consciousness which might create it (although we have seen how he equivocates on the existence of external reality) - presumably individual consciousnesses spring into existence for some reason that David does not know (he stated that the origins of consciousness were unknown). We have two problems here. The first is as already noted - the mother's and the foetus's "constructions of consciousness" are "isolated", so how could they even interact? The second is why the explanation that the creation of a new consciousness (for an unknown reason) corresponds always to the gestation of a new foetus, is superior to the simpler conventional understanding that I described in the second sentence of this paragraph.

The final quote from WOTI that I'll examine is taken out of order, and explains what I just made reference to - the "hidden void":

The actual creative agent of the construction, then, is not a brain or a computer or a God, but a "hidden void" which is necessarily beyond the scope of consciousness to perceive or grasp. There is nothing mystical or religious about my use of the term "hidden void" here. I only use it to highlight the fact that the creative agent of the construction is both beyond consciousness and completely lacking in form. Only things within the construction are capable of possessing form and being experienced. The hidden void is capable of neither.

In the final analysis, there are only two things we can know about the hidden void for sure - namely, (a) that it is not nothingness and (b) that it possesses the capacity to create the construction in which we live.

This introduction of a "hidden void" is truly bizarre for several reasons. The first is the same reason that some atheists object to arguments for the existence of God: if God is posited to explain a complex universe, then God must be even more complex than the universe that He creates, and must in turn have been created by a more complex source, ad infinitum; in the same way, if this hidden void is the source of constructions, then it must be more complex than the constructions that it creates (in which case it could not be a "void", which is so simple as to be effectively non-existent), and furthermore, it requires a creative source for its own existence (here I'm using the conventional definition of existence, not the QRS redefinition), ad infinitum.

The second reason is that it is said to be neither "nothingness" nor possessing of form, whereas there don't seem to be any other options. In this light, David's claim that there is nothing "mystical" about the "hidden void" is disingenuous.

The third reason is that something which "possesses the capacity to create the construction in which we live" cannot be formless. To lack form is to lack any properties, including the property of creativity.

WOTI, as you can see - at least in the case of Chapter 6 - is riddled with incoherence. Admittedly, chapter 6 is the worst, but the incoherence is by no means restricted to that chapter. It's beyond me why anyone regards it as a worthwhile piece of writing (I want to acknowledge for fairness though that there are significant portions of it that I don't find problematic). Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Animus wrote:Last night I plowed through David Quinn's The Wisdom of the Infinite which totally transformed my perception. Well.. not totally, a lot of it I already grasped. It took me 6 hours of reading and another two hours of additional contemplation. Apart from the odd "No one says..." here and there I found little to argue about. And even where Quinn says "No one says..." the points are rather obvious or are supported by better arguments. So... on the whole, I found nothing wrong with the material.

On the whole, you found nothing wrong with the material!? Dude, you've made some pretty decent and thoughtful posts, and you seem to have a pretty good knowledge of neuroscience, so I was starting to develop a respect for your intellect, but then you come up with that! Please, read WOTI again, thinking critically. There is plenty wrong with the material.

QRS as you call them make a distinction between "exist" and "is". Although "is" isn't fully described.

As such I didn't see their use of "exist" as an equivocation.

"is" isn't fully described because as something that doesn't "exist" , that is appear, it has no distinguishable properties to describe. Exist, comes from the Latin word existere meaning to appear.

What QRS are describing is a universe without boundaries. That universe consisting of essentially one dimension; causality. Behind the comprehensible facade of this universe there is a non-existent reality which necessitates the existent reality. This non-existent reality is beyond the capabilities of the human mind. It's a bit like when Hawkins explains the "time" before the big bang, or rather the illogical nature of such inquiry. There is something nonsensical about looking to a time before time yet we are left with little choice when confronted with such philosophical questions.

I really think they mean to say that this "hidden void" is this incomprehensibility. Infinite in its nature. It is infinite because it is formless, without boundries and thus not finite. Then they mean to say that this infinite backdrop is not merely a backdrop but the totality itself. We are simply part of this totality which is able to perceive and are necessarily distinguishable, and thus existent by virtue of perceiving. Also by virtue of perceiving other things necessarily must exist for us to perceive. And this all comes about by necessity of the infinite nature. So here consciousness is not outside of reality and nothing in reality is outside of consciousness because they are both interdependent on each other's existence and are therefor different elements of the same thing, which has no elements outside of perception.

Let's take the simple word "Why". This word is defined as: the cause or intention underlying an action or situation (wordnet.princeton.edu)

In other words; to ask why is to assume an underlying cause or intention for an event. Cause in this usage refers to an antecedent cause, something which necessitates the effect or intention of the event. Intention then is the determined result or effect of the cause.

So by mere virtue of inquiry, of asking why, we have assumed causality. Causality meaning a series of antecedent causes and determined effects. This also implies a temporal element surrounding the event. Event itself implies a temporal reference.

Simply reiterating this question ad infinitum we assume infinity. This is one of three known "solutions" to the question why ad infinitum. Alternately we might presuppose a discontiguous, that is non-causal answer to the question which would simply result in not asking the question. For asking the question assumes a causal antecedent or determined effect. Thirdly the first cause may be a last cause, creating a causal loop.

These "solutions" are summarized:
A) Infinity
B) Ignorance
C) Loop

Let us suppose that A is true. Can we then not ask the question again? Why is A true? What caused A and for what purpose? Is A not totally incomprehensible?

Let us suppose that B is true. Can we then not ask the question again? Why is B true? What caused B to be true? Have we really not simply chosen to remain ignorant of the causes? Is B not totally illogical?

Let us suppose that C is true. Can we then not ask the question again? Why is C true? What caused C to be true? Is C not unreasonable?

In any manner we have not answered the question in full. Suppose we were able to show that C was self-sufficient as a result of a fundamental law. Could we then not ask why such a law were itself true?

Perhaps I am wrong, but I interpret QRS a lot differently. They are straddling the line between the sensical and nonsensical and is perhaps a bit confusing as a result.

guest_of_logic wrote:

Loki wrote:Another weird thing is that they claim consciousness can be explained away through causality, yet in Kevin Solway's book PFTH, he claims that causality is an illusion. It's like, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Can you provide a direct quote from PFTH where Kevin says that?

Yes:

Man/Woman

To the women in my audience: cause and effect is most definitely real.

To the men in my audience: cause and effect is most definitely not real.

Animus wrote:QRS as you call them make a distinction between "exist" and "is". Although "is" isn't fully described.

This distinction is bogus. Neither common usage nor the dictionary make it.

Animus wrote:As such I didn't see their use of "exist" as an equivocation.

Oh but it is. They have redefined a word that they continue to use in places where the originally defined word would be used.

Animus wrote:"is" isn't fully described because as something that doesn't "exist" , that is appear, it has no distinguishable properties to describe.

I don't think that it's true that, according to QRS, what "is" necessarily does not "exist". I think that it's more the case that their definition of "is" encompasses and extends that of "exists".

Animus wrote:Exist, comes from the Latin word existere meaning to appear.

Etymology, whilst interesting, does not dictate meaning. The current, consensus definition of "exist" is not made with respect to appearance.

Animus wrote:What QRS are describing is a universe without boundaries. That universe consisting of essentially one dimension; causality. Behind the comprehensible facade of this universe there is a non-existent reality which necessitates the existent reality.

Only under the QRS redefinition of "exist" is it possible for any reality to be non-existent. The conventional definition of "exist" does not support that possibility: reality necessarily exists. When you posit a "non-existent reality", we have to go back to the redefinition to understand what you are actually saying: namely, "a reality that does not appear to consciousness". This is where the equivocation comes in, because you're blithely talking about existence as though nothing were different, when really you mean something other than what is conventionally meant. In truth, your concept of a "non-existent reality" is unhelpful. It's a semantic game that you're playing to attempt to say something profoundly explanatory about the universe, which actually is no explanation at all. When we look at what you're really saying - that there "is" (but does not "exist") "a reality that does not appear to consciousness" - we see that it has no particular power to explain the "necessity" of the rest of ("existent") reality. Something that does not appear to consciousness necessitates things that do appear to consciousness? <shrug> Whatever. "Purple toadstools necessitate jumping castles." That's about as meaningful and explanatory.

Animus wrote:I really think they mean to say that this "hidden void" is this incomprehensibility. Infinite in its nature.

Well you're free to interpret, but David writes explicitly that the only two things that we can know about the "hidden void" are "(a) that it is not nothingness and (b) that it possesses the capacity to create the construction in which we live". In other words, he explicitly does not say that it is infinite.

Animus wrote:It is infinite because it is formless, without boundries and thus not finite.

That's actually a fair point, because despite David's assertion of the only two things that we can know about the "hidden void", he does previously describe it as being without form, as you have picked up on, and in other threads both he and Dan have argued that formlessness is equivalent to infinity. In any case, David isn't writing clearly.

Animus wrote:Then they mean to say that this infinite backdrop is not merely a backdrop but the totality itself.

I don't think that they do. They don't contend that the Totality is synonymous with the "hidden void", and indeed I'm not even sure whether QRS consider the "hidden void" to be a part of the Totality, given that it does not exist, and that the Totality consists of everything that does exist. I'd be interested to know their actual position on that though, as I'm merely speculating.

Animus wrote:We are simply part of this totality which is able to perceive and are necessarily distinguishable, and thus existent by virtue of perceiving.

Hmm? You seem to be defining existence as "perceiving" now, whereas the QRS definition is "appearing".

Animus wrote:Also by virtue of perceiving other things necessarily must exist for us to perceive.

But of course.

Animus wrote:And this all comes about by necessity of the infinite nature.

That would all be possible in a finite universe too.

Animus wrote:So here consciousness is not outside of reality and nothing in reality is outside of consciousness because they are both interdependent on each other's existence and are therefor different elements of the same thing, which has no elements outside of perception.

How do you justify that "nothing in reality is outside of consciousness"? David failed to justify it in WOTI as I pointed out in my post (read it again if you have to - I debunked all three of his arguments). Can you do better?

Animus wrote:These "solutions" are summarized:
A) Infinity
B) Ignorance
C) Loop

Let us suppose that A is true. Can we then not ask the question again?

According to QRS, no we can't. Their reasoning is that all causes are contained by the Totality, and therefore the question of further causes is meaningless.

Animus wrote:Why is A true? What caused A and for what purpose? Is A not totally incomprehensible?

Well I think so, but try arguing that to QRS.

Animus wrote:[reordered] Let us suppose that C is true. Can we then not ask the question again? Why is C true? What caused C to be true? Is C not unreasonable?

It's unreasonable given our instinct that everything must have a cause, that "why?" can always be asked. Perhaps that instinct is unrepresentative of reality at higher levels though.

Animus wrote:Let us suppose that B is true. Can we then not ask the question again? Why is B true? What caused B to be true? Have we really not simply chosen to remain ignorant of the causes? Is B not totally illogical?

Your question implies that you do view B as totally illogical, yet this is essentially the position that QRS are advocating with their "hidden void" - the buck stops with the "hidden void", we cannot ask "why?" beyond it: it is the "discontiguous, non-causal answer".

Animus wrote:Perhaps I am wrong, but I interpret QRS a lot differently.

Several of your interpretations in this post have been wrong anyway.

Animus wrote:They are straddling the line between the sensical and nonsensical and is perhaps a bit confusing as a result.

Nah dude, they long ago strayed over the line and far into the region of the nonsensical.

Loki wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:

Loki wrote:Another weird thing is that they claim consciousness can be explained away through causality, yet in Kevin Solway's book PFTH, he claims that causality is an illusion. It's like, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Can you provide a direct quote from PFTH where Kevin says that?

Yes:

Man/Woman

To the women in my audience: cause and effect is most definitely real.

To the men in my audience: cause and effect is most definitely not real.

Thanks, Loki. Bizarre, isn't it? Is Kevin using some redefinition of "real"? It wouldn't surprise me.

GUEST-OF-LOGIC:This introduction of a "hidden void" is truly bizarre for several reasons. The first is the same reason that some atheists object to arguments for the existence of God: if God is posited to explain a complex universe, then God must be even more complex than the universe that He creates, and must in turn have been created by a more complex source, ad infinitum; in the same way, if this hidden void is the source of constructions, then it must be more complex than the constructions that it creates (in which case it could not be a "void", which is so simple as to be effectively non-existent), and furthermore, it requires a creative source for its own existence (here I'm using the conventional definition of existence, not the QRS redefinition), ad infinitum.

Yes,I raised these exact same doubts to David a day or 2 after first reading WOTI about a year ago,and then again a few weeks after--it's "turtles all the way down".Sadly no response.


Hopefully you have more luck.Fantastic deconstructing post dude,you raised many of the questioins I have with QSR philosophy's(and for that matter Buddhism's) 'completeness'

guest_of_logic wrote:In the above quotes, David asserts that to exist is to appear, and that since appearance only occurs to consciousness, nothing exists outside of consciousness. The contention that to exist is to appear is both a bald assertion, and, more concerningly, a redefinition of the word "exist". Sure, it supports David's thesis, but he's using this redefinition of "exist" to draw conclusions about the existence of things by the conventional definition of "exist". Where in any dictionary does "exist" make any reference to "appearance"?

Before I reply to the greater part of this smug schlock, can you please show me where any dictionary gives a philosophically meaningful and useful definition of "exist". Good luck.

Ataraxia wrote:Fantastic deconstructing post dude,you raised many of the questioins I have with QSR philosophy's(and for that matter Buddhism's) 'completeness'

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad that it made sense to you, and even gladder that you have already recognised the same issues. QRS claims to the contrary, consensus opinion is valuable, assuming that the intellects of those involved in the consensus are respectable.

guest_of_logic wrote:

Man/Woman

To the women in my audience: cause and effect is most definitely real.

To the men in my audience: cause and effect is most definitely not real.

Thanks, Loki. Bizarre, isn't it? Is Kevin using some redefinition of "real"? It wouldn't surprise me.

Bizarre? Do you always call things you don't comprehend "bizarre"?

Dan Rowden wrote:this smug schlock

Project much? Let's see what TimeWarp66 has to say in the comments section on your YouTube channel:

TimeWarp66 wrote:Wow. Just look at this channel....... and you call Pat "smug." Psh. Fail.

Guess so.

My post was rational, and made sense to at least one other person. I backed up everything that I wrote, every opinion that I stated, and I didn't go overboard in my personal criticism. It didn't deserve that emotive response from you.

Dan Rowden wrote:can you please show me where any dictionary gives a philosophically meaningful and useful definition of "exist".

Maybe, but we'll never know, because I'm not even going to try to. A more "technical" (in the philosophical sense, which is essentially what I understand you to be looking for) definition of "exist" might prove to be interesting and helpful, but:
a) it wouldn't redefine the word, it would merely clarify it and offer deeper insight into it
b) it wouldn't change the fact that you guys have redefined the word.

I therefore see no point to your challenge in this context.

Dan Rowden wrote:Bizarre? Do you always call things you don't comprehend "bizarre"?

Not always - sometimes I call them "weird", or "strange", or "mysterious", etc.

I tend to use bizarre when I suspect that there's really no chance of comprehending the thing at face value because it actually doesn't make sense, and when what I really find intriguing is the ability/tendency of the source to say such nonsensical things.