this was amazing please come back on the podcast!!

I just love Bob's conversations ... he is my favorite person on the web ... unfortunately making me feel like a tribal groupie! Keep up the great work ... and please interview Bernardo Kastrup sometime.

@nutronhammernutronhammer

5 жыл бұрын

I want to see Bernardo on here as well

@xxcrysad3000xx

2 жыл бұрын

He recently did an episode with Kastrup! It was very interesting and amusing.

Yes Bernardo Kastrup please sometime. Good conversation 😊

thank you for this

very good conversation

Bob's such a smart guy!! My goodness!

for me the epiphany of materialism has occurred while listening to Yuval Harari's lecture on his course 'Introduction to the world history', i hadn't been a materialist until then the poignant point, which i find very convincing, he brought up, probably not his original idea, but i got it from him, was that the fundamental difference of human specie from other animals lies in its faculty of imagination, ability to conjure up things which don't exist in the world of sensory experience, create collective myths and act upon them this ability is the sole origin of every belief system which isn't based on verifiable empirical data no other specie has religions or ideologies, which by inference means that spiritual or immaterial reality is a product of specifically human imagination, not something which exists in earnest

@arduusardor952

5 жыл бұрын

Perhaps. Alternatively though metaphysical realities exist and are only perceivable at a certain level of developmental sophistication. I don't see how the fact that only humans have a concept of abstract metaphysics (that we know of) necessitates that they created it and excludes that they discovered it.

@ARE_YOU_SICK_OF_YT_CENSORSHIP

5 жыл бұрын

that's the thing, they have only discovered the concept, the idea, but not something which exists out there to me the very fact of ability to dream up things is a testimony to the metaphysics being a product of imagination in itself it's a good enough and the simplest explanation which renders all other possible explanations redundant, and also one which i think agrees with the principle of Occam's razor once such an ability obtains there's no way to distinguish between a seemingly true metaphysical reality (if such existed) and the dreamed up one if we presuppose, as i do, the faculty of imagination to be the core factor which sets humans apart from other species, and then assume that the metaphysics is a result of a discovery and not of ideation, there's no escape from the conclusion that such a discovery was itself a byproduct of faculty of imagination insofar as it occurred on the back thereof the gift of such a discovery would on the one hand be too generous of the nature in respect of humans (faculty of imagination AND discovery = too many boons), but on the other would have no evolutionary advantage whatsoever (unlike the faculty of imagination), that's why i consider it highly improbable it's more than enough for the dreamed up religions and ideologies to function as a means of organisation of large groups of humans or their organisation into larger groups, this way they fulfill their evolutionary purpose to their fullest potential without the necessity of their being representation of some objective metaphysical reality

@arduusardor952

5 жыл бұрын

In every case of technology, whether it be a human interactive technology such as language or writing, or a technology that utilizes components of the natural world, it will be arrived at as a combination of imagination and discovery. In the case of engineering for instance, it is discovered what the limits are for physical interactions that serve our ends through the experimental construction of various imagined combinations. In the case of language, through imagination and experimentation it is discovered what the limits of utility for conveying meaning are, specific to our shared physical composition and associated faculties.

@ARE_YOU_SICK_OF_YT_CENSORSHIP

5 жыл бұрын

these discoveries don't come about out of nothing, they result from interaction with the tangible or perceptible reality and belong to this material reality they differ from discoveries of metaphysical truths, principles or worlds only accessible to their descoverer

@arduusardor952

5 жыл бұрын

So you would not consider the collective framework of a metaphysical tradition to amount to a technology akin to language?

Robert Wright...you checking in here? I'm a huge HUGE fan of your podcast. Have you tried to get Robert Lanza on as a guest? You two would have a fabulous chat in line with this one. As a sidenote, I'm a fan of Unbelievable, and now a show called Still Unbelievable...I'd love to line you up as guest. Please consider it. I'll see if I can find your email info, or are you vastly too popular for me the 'little gal' to touch base with. : (

Bob, you matter. If I were trying to defend materialism I would say, everything that exists can, in theory, be measured in some way. I would bet that one day, if humans survive long enough, we will have machines that can record/share your subjective experience. Physicist Sean Carroll does a talk titled, "the big picture" where he pretty much says, the "purpose" of life is to, help along entropy. And he explains how entropy can create organization.

@paulwillisorg

5 жыл бұрын

But much evidence supports the idea that consciousness is related to quantum mechanics. Not that it causes the wave collapse but that the wave collapse is consciousness.

Consciousness is not a ‘feature’ of the subject thing that is experiencing that one particular episode or train of consciousness under consideration but is rather, a state of being - a very particular and wholly measurable state of being, in which that subject thing exists during that particular episode or period of time. Once ‘information’s’ correct ontological identity is recognised to be what it is .... and no it’s not ‘digits’ no matter how many one has at one’s disposal, nor how cleverly arranged, nor, indeed, how large and/or well connected are the machines operating on them ... no great difficulty attends the task of determining the exact ontological identities of ALL of the directly information-related phenomena such as thought, mind and consciousness (to far less than exhaust the list), and as it so transpires in the final analysis ‘consciousness’ readily shows itself to be the ground state of ALL being... of all material bring. We live in a panpsychic universe. ‘Matter’ turns out to be ‘just’ ‘curled up and encapsulated’ consciousness. ‘Plasma’ is currently referred to as ‘the fourth state’ of matter, but it is actually the first state of matter, and is in point of demonstrable fact, that out of which the entire (physical) universe is composed. Not ‘dark energy’ nor ‘dark matter’. Plasma is not only extremely electromagnetically powerful (many orders more powerful than either kinetic or gravitationally mediated interactions) but is fully SELF-ORGANISING. Among a number of particularly salient properties/features of electromagnetic phenomena is their SENSITIVITY to other electromagnetic phenomena. When any electromagnetic phenomenon ‘feels/senses’ the presence of another electromagnetic phenomenon, each experiences a series of real, measurable changes in their electromagnetic properties and features. All electromagnetic phenomena ... all material objects .... measurably RESIST that which each ‘registers’ (knows) if unresisted will damage or destroy it; and each will also similarly ‘embrace’ (recognise and incorporate/be consciously aware of) that which so embraced will existentially aggrandise it ..... Our universe is not only a pan-psychic one, but is also a pananimate and a pan moral one ..... There is one (surprisingly tiny and) particular bit of matter (actually a little bit of interstitial fluid) in our brain which is the one and only seat of the entire panoply of our very own consciousness....... It is this one little bit of interstitial fluid - along with otherwise perfectly normal range of electromagnetic properties and features - which is that which enters into different states of bring (different states of CONSCIOUSNESS). each and every time our sensory/motor system triggers it........

@francismuir9313

5 жыл бұрын

As humans, we have a tendency (historically and currently) to personify everything. That's a big reason why ancient civilizations recognized pantheons of gods and spirits that dwelt within everything distinguishable to us. Children are very prone to personifying many things and assigning to them values equal and opposing to "self". I hesitate to assign consciousness to plasma, stars, rocks, and even plants. At this point in time, consciousness seems a state of being only animate creatures may take on. Perhaps plants have a version of awareness of their environment, but to call it consciousness blurs the lines between animalia and plantae. Neurology has the specific purpose to investigate the workings of animals' nervous systems. Perhaps we need an alternative area of study for plant awareness. Perhaps we may even need a further alternative for the study of plasma awareness. The confidence with which you state "We live in a panpsychic universe" tells me that your conviction comes from a place of emotion rather than careful consideration. It may be as you say, but it's important to withhold judgement until there is strong evidence for your claims. What is the "one little bit of interstitial fluid"? How is it measured? Are the measurements features of reality or simply bits of information about our interaction with reality? You seem to be drawing parallels between electromagnetic measurements of the brain and electromagnetic measurements of....anything else. Those measurements do not grant consciousness to the brain or to any other thing. Consciousness is observed by other means and only recently do we measure it with tools focused on the electromagnetic spectrum.

I'm new to the whole Robert Wright video podcast here on KZread. Does Robert ever respond to comments? I noticed that when I watched his interview with Donald Hoffman that comments were disabled. Donald Hoffman is a troubling guy.....in my mind. Near the end of his conversation with Donald Hoffman, Robert asked Hoffman how his theories affect his own life and he said that his theories "sadden" him because.....he basically....understands that the world he sees and lives in is not the true world. Anyway...I think that's what he was getting out and that's not good for professor Hoffman. Maybe he should be on suicide watch if his theories bring him down so much. I can see there being a lot to his theories ....which doesn't make ME happy either. He doesn't seem to be as Godless and as absolutely soul-crushing as Sam (Born Without A Soul) Harris....or nearly as depressing as Shawn (There is NO God you wimp so shut up and enjoy the few minutes of heartbeat you have left) Carroll....but to contemplate what he's getting at....that everything we see is a false image developed by our evolutionary minds to protect us from reality long enough to get us into a calm and safe place where we can lay our seed for the propagation of the species....and then die into nothingness? having done our job ? ...is also as depressing as hell. The people Robert Wright interviews wouldn't be at any cocktail party I would throw except for maybe the uplifting folks who practice and study Buddhism (Daniel Ingram) and a few others. I haven't seen enough of Roberts videos to get a feel for his real personality or needs. I like though that he wonders about the same stuff I do.

I am pineapple, you are pineapple, all this is pineapple, and pineapple is all there is.

@francismuir9313

5 жыл бұрын

I am what I eat. I eat what I am.

I don't understand how mathematical concepts would somehow exist independently. Mathematics just seems to me to be the language of relations. Of course I know nothing about the philosophy of mathematics, but the claim that mathematics is a body of knowledge, and knowledge has to have a subject just seems a very weak argument. I mean, homeopathy is a body of knowledge, so is homeopathy "real"? I guess the good dr. has a more elaborate conception of knowledge than I have.

Sadly, Rosen seems to miss out the problem the host poses at 33:52-34:13, which (if I have understood him) is this: how can it be explained in evolutionary terms that retreat or avoidance behaviors are accompanied in a systematical way by pain, if pain is not part of the physical causal system and all causes are physical? Physicalists can't avoid the response that it is sheer coincidence that retreat behaviors are accompanied by pain and search or appetition systematically involves pleasure, which is very unsatisfactory as an explanation.

Matter is the name given for an ontologically real substance existing outside Consciousness. 1. Materialism/physicalism is the hypothesis that only "matter" exists. 2. We and science do not observe and experience "matter". 3. We and science observe and experience Consciousness and qualia. 4. Hence "matter" is rationally and empirically non-existent.

@MidiwaveProductions

5 жыл бұрын

@@torinmccabe You confuse science with scientific materialism. Science is ontologically and ideologically neutral. Facts: 1. "Matter" is as-real-as Santa. 2. Science observe and experience Consciousness and qualia ---- not "matter". 3. Of course there is an "external world" --- its just not made of "matter" or external to Consciousness.

@MidiwaveProductions

5 жыл бұрын

@James Nicholl You say: I think you've really just expanded the definition of consciousness to a point where it's no longer analytically useful. Response: I am merely pointing out the fact that "matter" is experientially and empirically non-existent. Whether this fact is analytically useful or not is another conversation.

@MidiwaveProductions

5 жыл бұрын

@James Nicholl You say: Also, I disagree that materialism/physicalism is the hypothesis that only "matter" exists. That definition became obsolete soon after Newton proposed his principle of conservation of energy. Energy is a different animal entirely, and not completely understood. Response: 1. The point: "Something outside Consciousness produces Consciousness = a matter based worldview". 2. Energy, information, matter, laws, patterns etc, are qualia in Consciousness.

@MidiwaveProductions

5 жыл бұрын

@James Nicholl You say: If it's not analytically useful, it's not really a fact, is it? LOL! Response: The fact that Consciousness exists and "matter" does not exist is a fact even though this fact may or may not be "analytically useful". Right..?

@MidiwaveProductions

5 жыл бұрын

@James Nicholl You say: Not analytically useful implies not a fact. May or may not be analytically useful implies may or may not be a fact. You misused the concept of logical implication. Response: The empirical (definition, derived from or guided by experience or experiment) existence of Consciousness is a fact and the empirical existence of "matter" is not a fact. If you choose to deny this fact --- no problem. It's a free country. And that's a fact ;)

34:00 "..the machinery should work without me feeling the pain .." The mistake there is to separate feeling the pain from the machinery. Those nerve impulse and their effects on the your brain is you feeling the pain. They aren't just equivalent they are the one and the same. Feeling the pain can't be separated out from the machinery any more than you can seperate pressure for the workings of a hydraulic system. That's the same mistake "the hard problem of consciousness" makes is it separates experience from the person and then finds it hard to put them back together again. If you don't separate them in the first place, it's not a problem. The real hard problem of consciousness is to talking about it without lapsing into dualism. Philosophical zombies don't exist. They are merely philosophical inventions. The fact that the don't exist tells you all you need to know about them. A philosophy based on a fiction is a fiction, a philosophy that produces fiction can't be trusted.

it is really disappointing to see gideon rosen so misinformed on neutral monism and not realizing it