>To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculiar

>>399724
Both those statement are true

>>399724

>Hamlet isn't made up of letters.

What the fuck OP, that is exactly what Hamlet is.

>>399816
>>400003
>>400309
If Hamlet was "nothing but" a peculiar combination of letters why is it worth more to us than other combinations of letters?

Is that because it has qualities that are above the fact that it is a peculiar combination of letters?

What's with all this anti-scientism I've seen lately. It doesn't even make sense since I haven't even seen anyone defend scientism.

>>400318
something being simply made of components doesn't mean people don't have an opinion about the whole. I really don't understand what you're getting at. Humans valuing some clusters of atoms more than others mean they are more than clusters of atoms? why?

So your point is that different combinations of things can have different values to people?
Enlightening.

You're dumb.

>>400318
A car assembled by a skilled mechanic is worth more than one assembled by a novice, despite being made of the same pieces. The value is based on the overall quality of the product and it's ability to do what it intended to do. Shakespeare is intended to, among other things, entertain audiences, and it does a very good job at it.

>>399724
The value things have are the values people assign to them. Its all subjective that's the dumbest thing I've ever read are you in high school OP?

File: tx131p1.gif (28KB, 458x158px) Image search: [Google]

28KB, 458x158px

>>400318
Good questions that you could answer for yourself with some basic tutorials on information and entropy

>>400318
Because it's a pretty decent combination of letters that makes sense in our language.

Life is as little a random combination of atoms as Hamlet is a random string of letters.

There are clear physical and chemical laws that those basic atoms had to follow.
The final thing which can be called life was constructed in less random of a fashion than if the whole thing had been mashed together from component atoms instantly.

Maybe some small components like RNA nucleotides may have been randomly constructed but those themselves are capable of self reproduction when properly linked up (And in not too complex of a fashion either) and they're just a sugar, a base and one or multiple phosphates.

File: 418999_357441890942043_186213348064899_1353414_81652658_n.jpg (67KB, 720x528px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 720x528px

>>399724
What does this have to do with scientism? You ARE a collection of atoms. What the fuck did you think you were made of?

File: hqdefault.jpg (21KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

21KB, 480x360px

you faggots are embarrassing. it means if life is just an emergent quality of atoms then that doesn't explain the presence of an emergent qualities in the first place. we can't grant that hamlet is JUST a certain combination of letters then there are syntactical rules the letters must be following that grants the play's meaning, and also are not obviously indicated by the letters themselves.

don't get your panties in a twist about muh subjectivity about this or that viewpoint because it's exactly subjective experience that must be explained.

>>400409
The syntax is called language, in the form of words. The words are written using letters. The words are heard by people, who apply meaning to them. The meanings are based on peoples interpretation of the words. This interpretation is based on their knowledge and experience.
I don't see where the mysticism comes in.

>>400409
> it means if life is just an emergent quality of atoms then that doesn't explain the presence of an emergent qualities in the first place.

If that's what it means then the Hamlet analogy doesn't work. We've all been working on the assumption that the second half of the sentence is intended to clarify the meaning of the first half, maybe you can explain how we're wrong.

>we can't grant that hamlet is JUST a certain combination of letters then there are syntactical rules the letters must be following that grants the play's meaning, and also are not obviously indicated by the letters themselves.

You're right; individual letters go into words which go into lines, scenes, acts, and the play. However, saying there there is structure on a variety of scales does not make it anything but structure. Drawing the analogy back to life, saying that life is made of cells, organisms, species, ecosystems does not mean that it isn't also made of atoms.

>Understanding Biology or Psychology without Semiotics
Might as well be studying creationism. Its pretty clear that evolution and the development of conscious thought was precisely due to the transfer of meaningful information. The "its all just atoms" argument completely fails to understand the difference between data and information. Information requires signs, syntax and semantics in order to function, something only possible when the concept of meaning to be employed.

>>400474
>Just because I was completely lacking and incomplete in my explanation doesnt mean Im wrong!
Even this excuse doesnt work, because atoms are even further divisible. Its more accurate to claim "all you are is probability" if we want to be painfully reductionist.

>>399724
>>To say that life is nothing but a property of certain peculiar combinations of atoms is like saying Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters.
But it is. What's interesting is the processes that arrived at those combinations of letters and how those combinations of letters appeal to us.

>>400475
You fail to point out how any of those things aren't made of atoms. All evidence points to those concepts being stored in your brain, which is made of meat, which is made of atoms.

>>400453
>>400474
I don't think either of you get it. language as a property transcends individual letters. life as a property transcends the sum of parts. scientism is the claim only science is equipped to answer the big questions. it has become synonymous with a kind of snooty materialist attitude that anything we cannot describe formally or mathematically is meaningless, which is not far from non-existent in their minds. he's saying to look at life and to keep harping about muh atoms is to look at hamlet and keep smugly reminding everyone it's made up of letters.

>>400496
They are; the point is atoms are only a vessel for more meaningful information. You focus too much on the matter of reality than the form that precedes it. Atomic reductionism ignores properties of information that cannot be explained with mere atomic properties.

>>400490
Matter and energy are the terms I use. It's a more accurate than 'atoms'.

>>400497
So he's giving his irrelevant personal opinion on a subjective matter to random, anonymous neck beards on a Vietnamese Macaroni Art image board. Seems productive.

Hamlet is written using letters, just as we are built using atoms and energy. This doesn't take away from an individuals ability to enjoy these things in the slightest, so what's the big deal?

>>400496
>stored in your brain
Nope. The point of biosemiotics is that "brains" are the result of processing information and meaning, not vice versa.

>>400538
dude I don't think you know what scientism or even what's being argued

>>400538
>Hamlet was written using letters
Theres the point. Hamlet was written "using letters", but the essense of Hamlet supercedes those letters. The letters are merely a vessel for meaning to arrise; we find matter works similarly.

>>400490
You aren't reading m8. I don't think we're "just atoms", I think everything identifiably 'us' is structure, not substance. That still does not imply that anything about structure magically defies science or that structure exists independent of substance.

>>400323
It doesn't need defending. It's like saying gravity doesn't exist while typing on a computer, it's just moronic.

>>400558
actually I think it implies the exact opposite but okay my friend

>OP actually made the case for scientism better

Fucking idiot. You could have made a case for idealism, something that is actually a legitimate concept. But NOPE instead he actually made an analogy against idealism.

>>400554
Why are these meanings immune to scientific observation and explination?

File: multiscale.png (79KB, 677x675px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 677x675px

>>400497
>I don't think either of you get it. language as a property transcends individual letters. life as a property transcends the sum of parts.

All you're saying is that things are made out of things, but you're saying it as if it implies they are somehow not things.

>he's saying to look at life and to keep harping about muh atoms is to look at hamlet and keep smugly reminding everyone it's made up of letters.
Nobody is saying that Hamlet is only letters, they're saying it's stupid to say that it isn't letters too.

>>400576
Exactly, gravity is what makes heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones (holding as much constant as possible and nor comparing a parachute to a brick), but there are people who will genuinely argue this isn't true.

>>400582
>structure defies science
n e t w o r k
e
t
w
o
r
k

>>400590
science is the manipulation, understanding, and recording of quantities and their relationship. but how do you study consciousness? can a perfect mathematical formulation of a scene give us the same experience as its qualia? what does science possibly know about the thing-in-itself? how do brain scans reveal what consciousness is instead of its physical phenomenon? why are alternative paths to knowledge, such as that of spirituality, ridiculed when the only criteria in the search for knowledge should be truth, and not methodology?

There is nothing mystical about emergent properties. A cell is not a random collection of amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates etc., it is an organization of them. Likewise, each of those terms are not collections of atoms but organizations of them, and a brain is not a collection of neurons and gilial cells so much as an organization of them. The organization of the words that compose Hamlet allows it to be more than a collection of those words, but that doesn't make it magic or metaphysical. "Scientism" is not a useful term.

>>400592
top kek m8, yeah we get it, when we speak of morality or art or god we're actually talking about atoms, no shit sherlock, there wouldn't be a conversation happening in the first place if we weren't made out of something. if you grant that atoms are merely the substrate of an intelligible reality you don't have to keep fucking reminding everyone we're atoms.

ITT: OP doesn't understand what non-linearity is

>>400712
Apparently people have to be reminded pretty often ththat things are made of atoms, or else they start spouting off about conciousness or qualia like they are saying anything meaningful.

File: 1449512696958.jpg (140KB, 1552x1152px) Image search: [Google]

140KB, 1552x1152px

>>400725
>it is meaningless to talk about anything other than the fact we are made of atoms because we are made of atoms

wew lad

>>399724
When have materialists who reject their own humanity not been btfo?

>it's just chemicals bruh
Okay, and?

>>400792
>it is useful to apply layers of abstraction to be able to more conveniently describe phenomena
>therefore there is a magical ghost that sends signals to your brain and that's what being concious is, because the brain being responsible for brain activity just doesn't make any sense
Dumb frogposter.

>>400590
Because the founder of 20th century science himself said that inductive reasoning is limited and our epistemology precedes our science.
Science is a tool useful to collect evidense; it cannot create or in any way be normative.

>>400811
>passive matter inexplicably gives rise to consciousness and qualia
>anything other than this impoverished and incomplete "solution" to the hard problem of consciousness is woo woo

go back to reddit

File: detector.jpg (29KB, 484x357px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 484x357px

>>400712
Nobody is disagreeing that we're patterns, just that this disproves scientism in any way. We can talk about being cells or subatomic particles or elements of society if you'd rather stop talking about atoms, but I don't think we're going to find magic at any scale.

>>400839
actually the fact you and the other goobers itt immediately translate "the scientific method is limited in application outside of its domain of operation" into booga wooga magic shit says more about your insecure worldview than mine

>>400835
>passive matter
>"conciousness" with an implied dualist definition
>qualia
>hard problem of conciousness
>>>/x/

>>400853
Its domain of operation is the natural world. If you are inventing concepts that for wharever reason are beyond the natural world, those are by definition supernatural, otherwise known as booga wooga magic shit.

>>400853
There are scientists who study emergence.

>>400865
are all of our valuations supernatural because the scientific method cannot comment on them? keep tipping brosef

>>400871
>are all of our valuations supernatural because the scientific method cannot comment on them?
Says who?

File: 1444280870094.gif (92KB, 265x310px) Image search: [Google]

92KB, 265x310px

>>399724
CONSCIOUSNESS AND AWARENESS ISN'T A STATE, IT A PROCEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS
YOU CAN'T RIP APART A DIGESTIVE SYSTEM AND POINT TO ANY ONE PIECE TO SAY "THATS DIGESTION"

>>400871
You don't think science can comment on what people think or say? I'd grant that the social sciences are weak, but that's because the phenomena are complex, not because they enter our universe ~from the other side~

>>400835
>passive matter inexplicably gives rise to consciousness and qualia
Every single part of this sentence is wrong.
Nothing about matter is passive. There is an entire field of study dedicated to this called chemistry. Consciousness is a result of the computations and organizations of your brain, as demonstrated by multiple fields, and 'qualia' are a method of data classification employed by that consciousness.

There, you can go home now.

>>400853

>the scientific method is limited in application outside of its domain of operation

That application being 'Developing accurate models of the universe' and that domain being 'the universe'.
You are free to apply your 'theories' to anything that doesn't cover.

>>400875
>whatever the scientific method cannot comment on, since its domain must extend to the whole natural world, is necessarily supernatural
>the scientific method cannot comment on ethics, or law, or notions of progress, or any other abstract valuations
>ergo, ethics etc. must be supernatural

literally the post I quoted lmao.

>>400904
>the scientific method cannot comment on ethics, or law, or notions of progress, or any other abstract valuations
Says who? Does the law descend upon us from outside the universe, or is it developed through observation and testing of the natural world?

>>400889
>"How does the brain process environmental stimulation? How does it integrate information? How do we produce reports on internal states? These are important questions, but to answer them is not to solve the hard problem: Why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?"

>"No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience.

...It will ultimately be given in terms of the structural and dynamical properties of physical processes, and no matter how sophisticated such an account is, it will yield only more structure and dynamics. While this is enough to handle most natural phenomena, the problem of consciousness goes beyond any problem about the explanation of structure and function, so a new sort of explanation is needed."

you just keep repeating yourselves

>>400917
then please develop for us a system of empirically verifiable ethics. I'll be waiting.

a brainscan of someone feeling "generous" doesn't tell us anything about altruism you goon

>>400923
>the problem of consciousness goes beyond any problem about the explanation of structure and function
Interesting. Any actual explanation for why that is, or is this another "evolution can't explain the eye because I said so!" sort of thing?

>>400904
>the scientific method cannot comment on ethics, or law, or notions of progress, or any other abstract valuations
You don't have to make valuations to talk about people making valuations. There are scientists who study the citation network in supreme court cases, for example.

>>400917
>observation and testing
Kant proved its not this. Law cant be binding if it is induced ala Mill's Utilitarianism.

>>400923
>No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience.

There are scientists working on this right now. Lots of them, in lots of fields.

>>400932
No, but a brain scan of someone feeling generous does tell us a bit about why generosity exists (why and how it developed) and how it actually affects each party involved. A better system of ethics might not come around tomorrow, but if it isn't magic, it can be studied and commented on through scientific inquiry.

>>400936
Do you have any real proof why this might not in fact be the case besides your pavlovian disgust at anything with the slightest whiff of dualism in tyool 2015? Are you really going to sit here and tell me consciousness being ultimately reducible to physical processes that cannot account for themselves is a sufficient explanation?

>>400946
Who said there wasn't? Are you okay breathe nigger

>>400952
what the fuck? how does a brain scan tell you that lmao? that just sounds like the typical evo psych twaddle that's stuck explaining higher-order cognition with the simplistic behavioral schemas of animals (sharp teeth are scary because they remind you of tigers! rawr!) give me a break.

>>400923
>Why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?
Who says it does? Maybe this 'inner life' you are speaking of is just your brain's short-term memory in action?

>"No explanation given wholly in physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience.
This is presumptuous, and seems based on this mans unwillingness to accept physical processes as an explanation at all rather than any type of logic or evidence.

> no matter how sophisticated such an account is, it will yield only more structure and dynamics

First off, he can not possibly know this. Secondly, if these models offer a complete understanding of the brain and how it works, what more is there that you need?

>While this is enough to handle most natural phenomena, the problem of consciousness goes beyond any problem about the explanation of structure and function, so a new sort of explanation is needed

Only if you, unnecessarily, place it on a pedestal.

>>400955
>Are you really going to sit here and tell me consciousness being ultimately reducible to physical processes that cannot account for themselves is a sufficient explanation?
Yeah.

Well, I woukd take issue with the word "reduced" because again emergent properties are the thing people seem to have trouble grasping. But yes, on the whole, I am going to sit here and tell you that. If neural events are simply correlations to dualist events, interfering with the neural events shouldn't alter conciousness, and brain injuries /trans cranial stimulations shouldn't either.

>>400963
The implied distinction between humans and animals is interesting here. What do you think humans are?

saying that something is absurd just sets you up to be squashed. if you want to defend metaphysics, you need better arguments than "this is absurd", because all the main advances in science have stretched the boundaries of what we usually perceive as nonabsurd.

>>400963
>Who said there wasn't?
If the quote wasn't totally ignoring them, then it was implying they'll all fail. What makes this anything but someone's dubious prediction of what will happen in the future?

>>400965
>This is presumptuous, and seems based on this mans unwillingness to accept physical processes as an explanation at all rather than any type of logic or evidence.

Don't be ridiculous. This life is infinitely more real and self-evident than your sterile reductionism. "Logic" does not tell me what I am seeing is a quantum fart, a superfluous expression of an actually dead universe. It's more alive than anything.

>First off, he can not possibly know this. Secondly, if these models offer a complete understanding of the brain and how it works, what more is there that you need?

Except the whole argument even the most exhaustive description of neural events can never explain consciousness. Where you see surface, I see content, the essence or idea of which atoms are only the vehicle.

>Well, I woukd take issue with the word "reduced" because again emergent properties are the thing people seem to have trouble grasping. But yes, on the whole, I am going to sit here and tell you that.

until then the jury's out

>>400993
> Except the whole argument even the most exhaustive description of neural events can never explain consciousness
This is a statement, you need a little more to make it an argument and a lot more to make it convincing.

People don't think in Newtonian terms and they never will.

People will always see the world and look for meaning in everything.

People are characteristically unable to see how evolution has sloped how they take in and process information.

>>400993
>a superfluous expression of an actually dead universe. It's more alive than anything.
What do you think life is made of? What do you think death is?

Why do you think "it's self evident" is a convincing argument for anything?

>>401002
Please describe for me a rose in such a way that, by actually seeing one, I don't learn anything new.

>>400978
>>400978
once again, you confuse the origin for the end. of course we are animals, but we also experience the world qualitatively different from them, and so we are not just animals. self-awareness is a gamechanger

>>401004
hahaha seriously what a sad little worldview you have man

>>401005
congrats bro, you've realized that life and death, matter and spirit, are only two sides of the same coin and one does not dominate other. sounds like you're coming around after all

>>401006
>Please describe for me a rose in such a way that, by actually seeing one, I don't learn anything new.

That would take a long time and a lot of effort, which is different from being impossible.

>>401006
>Please describe for me a rose in such a way that, by actually seeing one, I don't learn anything new
I lack a complete understanding of the knowledge of roses, but I see nothing that would theoretically prevent it beyond your brains capability to model them.

What is the limiting factor here?

>>401018
You're fooling yourself breh

>>401006
Do you think all animals lack self awareness? The mirror test would seem to suggest that some animals are self aware, despite some issues with it.

>>401019
Top fucking kek

>with enough language I can make your brain hallucinate a rose with the same verisimilitude as seeing one in real life

literally new levels of autism evolving in real time

>>401021
Why don't you go look at a rose and come back with a novel discovery for us? That would be quicker.

>>401022
Also the smartest Gorilla ever is actually more intelligent than the dumbest human ever.

Koko is far more intelligent than people with severe brain disorders.

File: H_Jung_LG.jpg (29KB, 516x311px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 516x311px

>>401009

It's a limited worldview, same as you. You're lying to yourself if you don't think that you make knee jerk reactions constantly.

People have by nature priori structure in how they take in information. You wouldn't survive a week on earth if you didn't.

You can't take in all information at all time, its impossible. Some of the things you think or do are rooted in old parts of your brain that you're scarcely in control of.

You can't control your heart, or your ability to feel hunger. Some thoughts and actions are the same way, they literally come "out of nowhere" and that's sometimes from an old part of the brain that wants to keep you alive.

>>401022
it is a spectrum. animals are conscious, but they are not self-aware, except for like dolphins and octopus and shit. humans are conscious, but they can also be conscious of their own consciousness = self-awareness. conversely, plants are only alive, and lack both consciousness and self-awareness

>>401030
If you know all of the qualities of a rose, explain to us what will seeing it teach you then?
Use your words, you can do it.

>>401036
congratulations, you've described the human dilemma. the whole point is asserting your higher faculties over the ruts and snags of your lower-order, reptile consciousness. what a sad little world view that regards an opportunity to transcend these drives as just a fluke

>>401037
If it's a spectrum, why do humans have to be special in any way? It's just something we're particularly good at, not all that different than now a dog is particularly good at using its nose or an owl using its eyes. We use our brains, and in many fundamentally silly ways too.

Of course, that is strictly mechanically speaking. On a practical level, obviously the human brain is pretty special considering what we've been able to acomplish with it.

File: glass flower.jpg (310KB, 800x544px) Image search: [Google]

310KB, 800x544px

>>401030
This flower is made of glass. This is how botanists were taught before refrigeration. You can everything about the anatomy of real flowers from these models.

>>401058
(the external, at least, but you weren't talking about dissecting a rose)

>>401054
>what a sad little world view
The happiness or sadness of a statement has nothing to do with how true it is. Yes, it was a fluke, aided by necessity and environment to develop further and further. But being a fluke doesn't make it any less important.

>>401054
Even if it is a fluke, why does that make it any less special to you?
How does that change anything in fact?

>>401046
I really can't believe I'm arguing with a guy on a nepalese hopscotch board that experience will always supercedes description if we are talking of something's essence and not its surface qualities.

>>401058
pretty much proves that there is still a need for an experiential reference even when you can't use the real thing. descriptions of properties and color and form don't do shit.

thanks

File: 1.gif (101KB, 425x425px) Image search: [Google]

101KB, 425x425px

>>401054

>the whole point is asserting your higher faculties over the ruts and snags of your lower-order, reptile consciousness

Your higher facilitates don't have split second reaction time, your higher facilities are reliant on the information provided by your lower. I'm not trying to say humans are unable to change themselves, but they do have inherent limitations that need to be understood and accounted for.

>what a sad little world view that regards an opportunity to transcend these drives as just a fluke

Good luck, trying to tame your lower brain functions. Try to not eat and tell your brain you're not hungry. Given enough time without food, your lower brain will take over guaranteed.

>>401058
> This flower is made of glass.
I'm not sure if you're daft or just pretending to be retarded.

File: Habakkuk_and_the_Angel_by_Bernini.jpg (72KB, 384x600px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 384x600px

>>401073
>shapes can't be descriptions
>descriptions can't be shapes
I guess illusionism in art is just ectoplasm leaking in from the spirit realm

>>401073
>something's essence
What the fuck is this? Tell me what somethings essence is without describing its qualities.

>descriptions of properties and color and form don't do shit
Humans have much higher visual bandwidth than we do auditory. This proves nothing in regards to your claims.

>>401092
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Flowers
b u b
u
b

>>401094
Of course they can, but do you think even that sculpture, as pretty as it is, would be able to compare (for the sake of argument) to the real no-shit thing?

>>401095
>What the fuck is this? Tell me what somethings essence is without describing its qualities.

Can any physical description of me (and even my personality traits) ever describe exactly what it feels like to be me, the actual texture of my consciousness? Of course not, don't be daft.

>>401078
that's part of the whole deal, you're a mix of the higher and the lower. I'm not literally advocating for not eating for bogus mystical reasons, but if you have a temper problem or whatever, you can assert yourself over the physical excitations of this or that emotional state

>>401115
>Of course they can, but do you think even that sculpture, as pretty as it is, would be able to compare (for the sake of argument) to the real no-shit thing?
Not that one, but the flowers absolutely do look like fresh samples seen in person, and there are more and better hyperrealist artists today than ever.

>>400361

Oh so you're saying that the presence of order is somehow significant.

What is this order then if it's form is somehow independent of the objects or symbols through which it finds expression?

>>401129
glass doesn't feel the same as actual rose petals, a picture will never compare to actually being there. This shit is obvious

>>401058

hot damn that's some fucking work right there m8

>>401170
Okay, we can add tactile illusionism, too. A blacksmith today makes a replica of a medieval sword, with period techniques and materials. Is there still a magical essence separating the map from the territory?

>>401167
Another good question you could answer with said tutorials

>>401096
You don't understand the though experiment; if you've been shown what a flower looks like than obviously will you be able to see what a flower looks like.
The question is to question if someone who have read about and understand how the colour green works like while being colour blind, would have learned anything if he could suddenly see the colour green or if he would go "nah that isn't something new to me, that's exactly how I imagined the colour green would look like, haven't learned anything new".

>>401170

You're quibbling with the details and missing his point.

Reality or real objects can be simulated to such an advanced degree that it is impossible for human senses to tell the difference between the real and the reproduction.

>>401167
>Oh so you're saying that the presence of order is somehow significant.
Everyone has been saying that the entire time. What do you think an emergent property is? And the order comes from the arrangement of elements (could be atoms, could be elements or objects) in a configuration that is not their most stable but does show regularities.

>>401194
The question was pretty specifically about whether one could describe a rose such that anon would not learn more by looking at a real one than looking at the description.

>>401190
>tutorials

or you could tldr me

Since it's a word that has more meanings than does "entropy", what do you mean by "information"?

>>399724
Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters.

Hamlet is fucking awful anyway. Easily Shakespeare's worst play, only people who pretend to like Shakespeare will think my post is bait.

>>401190
>a magical essence separating the map from the territory

sure is getting Baudrillard in here.

Simulacra as Simulation of Simulacra when?

>>401201
>order comes from arrangement

No, arrangement comes from order.

.What do you think an emergent property is?

a buzzword used by materialists to deny the immediacy of the forms.

A spook if you will.

>>401226

I like Richard III myself.

>>401224

A peculiar combination of letters is nothing but a property of Hamlet itself.

File: plato.png (114KB, 590x619px) Image search: [Google]

114KB, 590x619px

>>400318
Because you choose to give it value ya dummy

>>401190

... No? Because for all intents and purposes it is a sword from the middle ages? You're getting confused here. Only a rose - ie a particular arrangement of atoms we call a rose - can constitute the sensation of a rose. You're literally trying to tell me something that isn't x can be more x than the thing itself.

>>401200
We are obviously not capable of that now, and we will only be after the problems I've been outlining in this thread have been solved and thoroughly understood

>>401206
it's a widely known thought experiment dude.

> Mary, so the story goes (Jackson 1982), is imprisoned in a black and white room. Never having been permitted to leave it, she acquires information about the world outside from the black and white books her captors have made available to her, from the black and white television sets attached to external cameras, and from the black and white monitor screens hooked up to banks of computers. As time passes, Mary acquires more and more information about the physical aspects of color and color vision. (For a real life case of a visual scientist. Eventually, Mary becomes the world's leading authority on these matters. Indeed she comes to know all the physical facts pertinent to everyday colors and color vision.

>Still, she wonders to herself: What do people in the outside world experience when they see the various colors? What is it like for them to see red or green? One day her captors release her. She is free at last to see things with their real colors (and free too to scrub off the awful black and white paint that covers her body). She steps outside her room into a garden full of flowers. “So, that is what it is like to experience red,” she exclaims, as she sees a red rose. “And that,” she adds, looking down at the grass, “is what it is like to experience green.”

>>401263
>We are obviously not capable of that now

You've never seen a counterfeit dollar bill? Or an optical illusion designed to create the perception of depth on a flat surface?

>Only a rose - ie a particular arrangement of atoms we call a rose - can constitute the sensation of a rose.

What about a dream who's subject is a rose?

I ask you which came first. Hamlet or the letters in which it find's expression?

It's almost as if the anons here think that Hamlet did not exist prior to Shakespeare writing it down, as if he was just smashing syllables together and Hamlet happened by accident.

The idea must always come before it's expression.

>>401263
You could artificially stimulate those neurons and Mary would experience those same sensations despite having never 'truly' seen color. Give her a tab of LSD and she could see all of those colors, even in a purely black and white room.

>>401294
>>401281

... and she'd still learn something about color/dollar bills she hadn't known before. we're not concerned with how she acquires these sensations, but that there are sensations, and that experiential data supersedes descriptive or mathematical data.

>>401294
>Give her a tab of LSD and she could see all of those colors

you've never really dosed, have you? Also you're missing the point.

You're still talking about experiencing something firsthand, rather than somehow crossing the gap from physical knowledge to experience. IE, there's more to the color than the description of light wavelengths, biological optics, and sensory neurons.

You can know literally everything about how color is perceived and still not know what it's like to perceive color.

>>401194
>he question is to question if someone who have read about and understand how the colour green works like while being colour blind, would have learned anything if he could suddenly see the colour green or if he would go "nah that isn't something new to me, that's exactly how I imagined the colour green would look like, haven't learned anything new".
Does 'read and understand the color green' include some kind of exact replicated stimulation of every brain state that a person who 'actually sees' the color green?
If so, I see no reason for there to be a distinction - they would be equivalent, if they aren't equivalent then the person reading about the color green didn't have complete information about the subject.
I guess the question then becomes: "Is the complete information about the color green physically unavailable to a blind or color blind person?"
And that seems like an empirical question to me.

>>401263
> We are obviously not capable of that now
We can produce fully realistic copies of lots of things. Copies of Hamlet and other mass-produced goods are easy examples. It would be astonishing if we encountered new special laws protecting the authenticity of roses as nanotechnology rolls forward.

>>401217
Information is used to mean any of a number of techniques which measure the fact that some things are easier to describe than others. There is significant overlap with what entropy describes, and some information measures are entropies.

>>399724
fapping furiously to Kathryn Beaumont's voice while shitposting in a hegel/kant thread

>>401487
You're not getting the thought experiment. A copy of Hamlet is just Hamlet. A "copy" of a rose, atomically, is also just a rose. The problem hinges not on the difficulty of being able to create convincing simulacra but precisely the fact that only a damn good imitation of the real thing can ever get close to the experience of the real thing.

>>401314
>You can know literally everything about how color is perceived and still not know what it's like to perceive color.
While this statement is true, because those are two entirely different data sets. I don't know what possible conclusions you could draw from this when it is demonstrable that your perception of something can be vastly different to what is really happening.

File: super mario.jpg (40KB, 500x370px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 500x370px

Please describe for me super mario in such a way that, by actually seeing one, I don't learn anything new.

>>400966
It's simple. The soul, during the moment of incarnation, is slave to the body and relies on its organs as long as it is hooked up to it; at death it separates and uses its own astral organs for sense perception

>>401314
>You can know literally everything about how color is perceived and still not know what it's like to perceive color.
Can you really?

>>401527
I'm not following how this ties back to the original claims, though. What about
>the fact that only a damn good imitation of the real thing can ever get close to the experience of the real thing
implies that the experience is outside the material?

>>401593
our perception doesnt take in the total object but only a set of contingent details. plato used this as argument that all mimesis is a "lie". eliminate all defects perception and you eliminate the experience itself.

File: Autism_Awareness_Ribbon.png (385KB, 1000x1620px) Image search: [Google]

385KB, 1000x1620px

>>399816
>>400003
>>400309

>>401058
It can't teach you what it smells like.

>>401593
It doesn't necessarily, but it definitely highlights the limits of the scientific method, ie a description is not equivalent to the thing itself. Of course we use our neural hardware to process sensation, but no purely physical description can adequately explain the presence of an "I" that does perceives these physical stimuli. Either matter is the rule, the end-all be-all of explanations, or it isn't.

>>401613
> our perception doesnt take in the total object but only a set of contingent details
Granted but

>eliminate all defects perception and you eliminate the experience itself.
Needs a little more justification, and seems tangent to earlier points

When I read Hamlet, I usually attend to the words and ignore the subatomic configurations. This ensures that I have near the same experience reading it from any one edition as from any other. If I eliminated all the defects in my perception and saw everything at every scale about a copy of Hamlet, I'd have less experience? No experience?

>>401632
>It doesn't necessarily, but it definitely highlights the limits of the scientific method, ie a description is not equivalent to the thing itself.

But we already allowed that with close observation, physical descriptions - copies - can be made which cannot be distinguished from the original. At that point, the only feature identifying the original is its age, which is not something we perceive except when it creates deformations of shape - which can be copied.

>>401671
Of only inanimate objects. It's a trifle to copy or "simulate" matter. It only is surface quality, after all. But we're talking about surface quality + the added experiential dimension of consciousness. So although the taxidermists' stuffed animals look and feel like the real thing, the thing-in-itself of the animal is not imitable, at least at this juncture.

Is your point is that there is data that can't be transmitted through language, and therefore science can't describe it?

>>401712
Look, the whole point of that quote that reductive statements cannot adequately explain a difference in kind instead of degree. The difference between frozen water and liquid water can be adequately explained physically, because it is a difference in the degree of molecular motion. The difference between a rock and a plant is a difference in kind. The notion that life is different from inert matter isn't a product of subjective value systems like Hamlet's meaning is, it's a stone-cold fucking fact.

>>401737
ding ding ding. fucking thank you. i'd also add that science should stop pretending like it can, since I concede even the most beautiful and elegant esoteric cosmology cannot describe the physical dimension of the world as exhaustively as science can. but that's not its job. science just needs to stay in its fucking lane

>>401751
>The difference between a rock and a plant is a difference in kind. The notion that life is different from inert matter isn't a product of subjective value systems like Hamlet's meaning is, it's a stone-cold fucking fact.
But you need some more steps to assert that an identical copy of the plant would not also be alive, and if you can't show that, then life is a property of specific configurations of matter.

>>401755
That seems like a limitation of language rather than science.

>>401758
Of course an identical, atom-for-atom copy of a plant would be alive. It seems like you think I'm arguing matter is somehow superfluous and there is ONLY consciousness. I'm arguing matter is the substrate for something much greater than itself, and so, there isn't ONLY dead matter, but matter and the emergent qualities inherent in itself - namely, life, consciousness, and self-awareness. Again, these are qualities that produce an experiential dimension that is rooted in, but cannot be described by, its physical constituents.

You're all too hung up on the seed, I'm looking at the oak tree.

>>401763
science must operate in language - mathematical or otherwise - to operate at all, and so any limitations to how we quantify experience must necessarily extend to science.

File: that slice when.png (19KB, 613x459px) Image search: [Google]

19KB, 613x459px

Quite simple. All existence resides on only 2 planes.

Plane 1 is information, plane 2 is interpretation.

Variable and function. y = f(x)

Shakespeare is encoded in a certain way, Anglophone human-readable. But that is not so important. It could have been encoded any other way, this is layer 1 btw, and as long as layer 2 matched it would not matter.

You could write/encode Shakespeare in strange hieroglyphs no one has ever seen before, as long as the second layer, the interpretation layer matches, Shakespeare will still identically be Shakespeare.

We, as conscious people, are not encoded as signs on paper, but it does not matter. We are encoded as hydrocarbons, and the interpretative system, which is the reality we find ourselves in, interprets us as the conscious life we lead.

Thus, we are we. You are you. And so on.

>>401777
No, I get what you're arguing, I just don't see you levying actual support for it.

>take Hamlet
>scramble letters
>it's not Hamlet

>take houseplant
>scramble houseplant
>it's not alive

Where is the justification for saying the property 'alive' is different from the property 'Hamlet'?

>>401784
There are other tools to communicate besides language. Why are your senses not a valid tool for data transmission in the case of science?

>>401804
art exists on simultaneous levels of meaning. to a rock, the mona lisa is nothing to it - because it is basically nothing to itself. to an animal, it is a vaguely defined blur of shapes and colors. to a human being, it is meaning and beauty. only to the extent we carry a likeness of the object in ourselves can we appreciate that object, which is why the ignorant and the dull see no value in art, but the sensitive soul sees a universe rich with meaning and import.

>>401807
Of course they are. On this ground I have no objection to the claim that that which cannot be rendered into language is empirically meaningless. But empirically meaningless =/= non-existent, which is why I'm fed up of scifags telling me anything but the most sterile and reductive of worldviews is just a shadow puppet play of chemicals in our heads. Yeah, nah.

>>401806
Huh? Both the meaning of Hamlet and the life of the houseplant are the emergent properties of their physical constituents. Just because we grant Hamlet is not objectively meaningful outside of the human perception does not mean life is not objectively meaningful outside of the human frame of reference, since life presupposes the categories of meaning in the first place. This is a conundrum that demands a bit more tact than "we're just meat and neutrinos lmfao"

>>401816
>art exists on simultaneous levels of meaning. to a rock, the mona lisa is nothing to it - because it is basically nothing to itself. to an animal, it is a vaguely defined blur of shapes and colors. to a human being, it is meaning and beauty.
Nope, art does not exist on simultaneous levels of meaning. It exists within sets of meaning, as everything exists in sets. Sets of single specks of colors. sets of subsections of the painting emerging, sets of meaning within the whole etc.

So, there is no one single "meaning" attached to the 2nd layer needed. There can be a plethora of 2nd layer interpretations, found within the sets of meaning.

>only to the extent we carry a likeness of the object in ourselves can we appreciate that object, which is why the ignorant and the dull see no value in art, but the sensitive soul sees a universe rich with meaning and import.
Naw nigga naw. This shit retarded. You need to define "appreciate" further, because humans usually evolve by bounds and leaps as a result of completely unforseen consequences.

The last sentence is just a remark on how there may be many 2nd planes, many interpretations.

I mean yeah, that's right. You are right.

>>401846
>To any vision must be brought an eye adapted to what is to be seen, and having some likeness to it. Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.

>Therefore, first let each become godlike and each beautiful who cares to see God and Beauty.

to the extent we perceive the intelligibility of reality, we must resonate with that intelligibility ourselves. a dull soul sees a dull world.

>>401862
So familiarity, looking up in memory and fuzzy pattern matching?

>>401835
>Just because we grant Hamlet is not objectively meaningful outside of the human perception does not mean life is not objectively meaningful outside of the human frame of reference, since life presupposes the categories of meaning in the first place.

I don't usually ask my houseplants if they presuppose meaning, but I guess I could try it before I chuck them in the blender.

I mean, unless your meaning is just that which matches stimulus to response, in which case, we can point to it in simple physical systems and have no reason to assume it is any different in those systems which are presently unfathomably complex.

Still, what makes life particularly defensible in this way? Why not argue that metamorphic rock is objectively meaningful outside of human perception?

>>401835
The color green can't be rendered into language, but the color green, the actual sensation itself, isn't empirically meaningless. It directly corresponds to frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.

>>401871
I don't know how many times I can repeat that science only tells us about the world of appearance and nothing about the thing-in-itself. I'm getting tired of repeating of myself to be honest. Physical systems or not, consciousness is qualitatively different than the rote processes of blind, dumb matter. If you don't see it that way, oh well.

>>401877
Read the thread. No description of the exact frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum that comprises what we call "green" can give us the actual sensation of "green", much like a brain scan cannot tell us what consciousness IS, only where and how it is happening. Christ almighty

>>401892
> Physical systems or not, consciousness is qualitatively different than the rote processes of blind, dumb matter

Lots of things are qualitatively different from lots of things, this is not, in itself, any argument that they are beyond understanding. Solids are qualitatively different from liquids, and we understand pretty well how and why.

>>401898
No because again, they are differences in degree and not in kind. If an empirical description fundamentally differs from qualia then we must contend empirical descriptions cannot describe reality in its totality, both its material and experiential dimensions.

>>401895
My point is it doesn't fucking have to. You can just show a motherfucker the color green, because his brain has all of the tools it needs to perceive it. That tool is called his brain and his eyes, and that brain is made of matter and energy.

>>401928
Exactly, thanks for proving my point that living beings have an inner space where they perceive and experience external stimuli that is not accounted for in a purely physical understanding of the brain. "consciousness is action potentials/emergent complexity" is no better than saying "rain is what happens when you have a confluence of factors, such as temperature, the presence of storm clouds, etc." great, that's how it happens, ... so what the fuck is rain?

File: ice crystal.jpg (12KB, 275x183px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 275x183px

>>401918
Differences of degree at the microscopic scale lead to differences of kind at the macroscopic scale, in the emergent features. There are no sharp edges in a water vapor. As the vapor is cooled, there are still no sharp edges in the liquid. Sharp edges develop when the water is frozen. They weren't there the whole time and steadily increasing, they were not present at all in the liquid and gas forms.

>>401988
Then you agree it would be more proper to speak of matter + its potentiality for consciousness than just matter. Reductive materialism is a blight on the soul

>>402014
>Then you agree it would be more proper to speak of matter + its potentiality for consciousness than just matter.

No, I don't think there is no reason to privilege consciousness over other emergent properties in this way. Why not talk of matter + its potentiality for sharp edges? Matter and its potential for Honda Civics?

>>402030
[point being not that seeing the universe as matter + various potential shapes is a terrible way to do things, but that we don't say matter is one thing and sharp edges are outside the realm of science. We know that the difference in kind when sharp edges appear in water at large scale can be understood in its behavior at small scale.]

File: 1449110497579.jpg (52KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

52KB, 500x500px

>>402030
Actually, I have every reason to privilege the faculty that presupposes my very existence as a being in the first. Fucking top kek, post-modern nihilism folks.

>>402079
>It's me so the rules don't apply
It would be lovely if identity alone was a good argument for anything, we could all escape death by feeling different from everyone else.

>>402079
That is an entirely subjective opinion.

>>402102
And so is your feeling of the complete opposite sentiment, thanks for playing.

>>401964
Consciousness is the universe, given all its physical laws and such, perceiving and interpreting the structure of an individual brain, much like your interpretation of the color green is a result of your perceiving the color green.

>>399724
>Hamlet is nothing but a property of a peculiar combination of letters
it is though, it's an impressive one, but it's still just that, the only reason it has meaning is because we see meaning in it, same works for life

>>402106
Explain to me where the change from physical to metaphysical takes place.
If you make every competent of a car out of steel, the car itself is made of entirely of steel. If you make every component that causes you to experience a sensation entirely out of matter and energy, the sensation itself is made entirely of matter and energy.
What makes the two any different?

>>402158
Explain to me where the inert always stays inert, and how a readout of action potentials is fundamentally no different than the experienced mental event. It's like you keep pointing to diagrams of H2O and trying to convince me that's all you need to know about water.

>>402193
Are we seriously putting water outside of science now or is it still just an analogy?

>>402193
>>402193
>the inert always stays inert
Define 'inert' because I expect you aren't using the scientific definition.
>how a readout of action potentials is fundamentally no different than the experienced mental event
Because if you replicated those action potentials, the person would experience the same sensations.

That shit doesn't matter reguardless. Everything I've ever observed is made of matter and energy, why should I assume that my sensations are any different? Because I can't describe them with language? That's not a reason at all.

>>402224
Jesus fucking christ how thick are you dude? Water is "two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule" tells me nothing about water other than its chemical constituents. "Consciousness is emergent complexity" tells me nothing about what it is other than it being a property of complex systems. God fucking damn

>>402238
>Everything I've ever observed is made of matter and energy
I should add space-time to that list also.

>>402238
If you can't describe them with language, then systems that are predicated on the logical consistency of language such as positivism and the scientific method can't describe them. It was never about proving consciousness is not physically-based, but that past a certain point science is null and void.

Check and mate. Thanks for proving the point I've been arguing this whole thread lmao

>>402251
The scientific method is based on predictions and experiment, not language.

>>402244
>Water is "two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule" tells me nothing about water other than its chemical constituents.

>"Consciousness is emergent complexity" tells me nothing about what it is other than it being a property of complex systems.

Good thing that neither of these represent the full extent of scientific knowledge.

File: 1442182674829.jpg (48KB, 400x462px) Image search: [Google]

48KB, 400x462px

>>399816

Yo nigger. What is truth composed of? Is truth merely a pecuilar combination of what? Where does that meaning reside in your reductionism nigger? Cus' I can tell you now bruh, your fucking linguistic usage of the word truth presupposes a fundamentally irreducible sense of meaning behind the word "truth."

File: pilateandchrist.jpg (148KB, 685x900px) Image search: [Google]

148KB, 685x900px

>>402278

>What is truth?

>>402260
The results of which must be expressed in language. And science can only measure objective quantities and conditions. It has to wave the white flag when we enter the realm of subjectivity or metaphysics. But please tell me more about how a description of a physical state such as my body is identical to the inner being of the state itself.

File: 15226341080050604400.jpeg___1_500_1_500_cb94de6a_.jpg (12KB, 254x321px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 254x321px

>>402266
Round and round we fucking go. I'm not gonna retread old ground here. A billion pages of description about water and its viscosity and this or that will never replace the subjective sensation of water itself, which proves qualia comprise an irreducible source of knowledge of the external world. Scifags on suicide watch.

>>402260
language including math determines what will be measured.

>>402284
Nobody says the word chair is a chair, but I could definitely dictate instructions to blind laborers to assemble one.

>>400658
>>400833
Great job guys. Those were some pretty solid arguments against materialism. As a response to
>Why are these meanings immune to scientific observation and explination?
Check out a novel called "Solaris" if you haven't already. The whole point of the novel is "How can we understand the external world if we can't understand ourselves?"

>>402304
There is no inner being of a chair to imitate, so of course it's easy to produce a chair from a physical description of it - because it pretty much is just physicality. But a million scientists couldn't simulate a consciousness no matter how many neuroscience textbooks you make them read, or even if they did, it would only a result of blind groping in the dark, ie neural networks produce consciousness, so if we simulate artificial neural networks it can do the same, but don't ask us how lmao

>>402323
>But a million scientists couldn't simulate a flight no matter how many aerodynamics textbooks you make them read, or even if they did, it would only a result of blind groping in the dark, ie birds produce flight, so if we simulate artificial birds it can do the same, but don't ask us how lmao

>>402357
>the mechanisms of flight are as immediately obvious as that of the subjective experience of neural states

Nigger please

>>402370
>it's not obvious so it must be permanently unknowable

>>402357
We CAN explain how flight works. The analogy is to farming. A farmer can know how to grow crops without knowing anything about how they work on a biological level. We could in theory "grow" a brain without knowing how it works.

File: dog_barking_at_me_as_usual.jpg (144KB, 900x675px) Image search: [Google]

144KB, 900x675px

>>402357

>I have no idea what I'm talking about so I'll just reword his argument to make it look like he's wrong lmao

>>402378
>We could in theory "grow" a brain without knowing how it works
Humans do this all the time. It's called pregnancy.

>>402373
You dumb faggot you don't even know what the argument is. The argument is that science cannot tell us anything beyond a physical description of consciousness because it's out of its depth otherwise, not that consciousness is inherently unknowable.

>>402378
which proves even with enough knowledge of how to physically grow a working brain in the lab we wouldn't know the first thing about how it does what it does

>>400595
8/10 bait pretty good

>>402394
Yeah, exactly. It wouldn't be that much different that what we do know, which is "grow" them in wombs.
I'm agreeing with you.

>>402430
Oh ite then my fault my nigga

Hey guys cool thread,

If we say x is 1 and y is 2 and x is y, is the meaning of x and y conserved?

If matter is fundamental particles and life is a property of fundamental particles, is life matter?

What are composite phenomenon composed of?

File: The Way.jpg (194KB, 585x913px) Image search: [Google]

194KB, 585x913px

>>402281
Jesus Christ.

File: smug dog.jpg (31KB, 387x505px) Image search: [Google]

31KB, 387x505px

>>402381
>projecting

>>402465

>x is 1
>y is 2
>x is y

We are forced either to accept that either 1 = 2 or that one of the above premises is false.

Assuming then that 1 = 2, 1.5

File: 1427786859098.jpg (415KB, 1944x2592px) Image search: [Google]

415KB, 1944x2592px

>>402501

are we posting doge now?

>>402511
nice dubs

File: Bliss dog.jpg (181KB, 899x592px) Image search: [Google]

181KB, 899x592px

>>402513
no

>>402511
Yeah that's what I'm saying

>>402511
Life is matter, matter is life. Spirit is matter, matter is spirit.

>>402531
so 1 = 2 then?

>>402542
Just 1, all by itself. Much like how matter is condensed energy.

File: 1441140599403.jpg (34KB, 500x357px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 500x357px

>>402521

of course not

File: Matrix Pepe.gif (607KB, 800x792px) Image search: [Google]

607KB, 800x792px

>>402557
what about 0?

File: 1447699836773.gif (39KB, 420x461px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 420x461px

>>402565
even better t b h

File: 1446065814267.jpg (41KB, 480x640px) Image search: [Google]

41KB, 480x640px

>>402562
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlxTYAbCDQU&list=PLXozQUzMPLL3kzHoEKJw4A27w4CZFKawY

File: ftfy.gif (44KB, 420x461px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 420x461px

>>402570

>>402557
>all by itself

how can you tell?

lol

>>402594
smug, ignorant christfags are as bad as any scifags. your understanding of the divine is literally sunday school-tier

>>402603
taken together, reality is one grand vibration, constantly unfolding, beautiful and terrible beyond imagining

File: Last Judgment.jpg (375KB, 744x774px) Image search: [Google]

375KB, 744x774px

>>402620
I'm just a messenger.

>>400389
no one is born gay though

File: 1448774719602.png (253KB, 336x300px) Image search: [Google]

253KB, 336x300px

>>402620
Jesus speaks the vibration.

>>402637
as have many others. respect the divine wherever it is found, do not be a hoarder of heaven

File: 1448953743504.jpg (87KB, 544x700px) Image search: [Google]

87KB, 544x700px

>>402641
The Father spoke it first.

>>402646
and the unmanifest spoke the manifest father

File: Buckley.gif (854KB, 352x240px) Image search: [Google]

854KB, 352x240px

>>402652
>unmanifest
>acting

>>402281
lmao Pontius looks like such a dork