Comment by mjburgess
6 days ago
> Consciousness the the fundamental reality; it is the only thing we know for sure.
These statements conflate, as idealists do, epistemology and ontology.
What we know "for sure" has no bearing on what's real. These are entirely separate questions.
What an ape might, or might not, feel certain (or any which way about) says nothing about where an ape finds itself. Of course, this is a great injury to our ego, and sense of power to determine the nature of the world by our mind alone -- but such is life.
The world is not human, not at all like a human, and nothing about it follows from us at all. The world is not made in our image. Consciousness is a derivative, secondary phenomenon which is a measurement process occurring in the body of an ape, and whatever it manages to measure with any clarity, has no impact on the nature of that world.
>Consciousness is a derivative, secondary phenomenon which is a measurement process occurring in the body of an ape
Can you define existence without depending on or referring to consciousness?
Yes. Though i think you're committing the gentic fallacy here, which is the core fallacy at the heart of idealism and much 19th C. german philosophy.
The properties of the origin of somethign imply nothing about the properties of the product. That a bread factory is made of metal, does not mean bread is.
That in my statement of things in language I am conscious of what I state, says nothing about the truth (or other such properties) of what I say.
A photographic plate is made of metal, the mountain it photographs, of mud.
I am conscious, but when I say, "reality is all that which is extended in space and time" -- the truth of that proposition has nothing to do with my being consiouss -- it is a loaf of bread, a photograph, a product of a process invovling consiousness but in none of its properties, depends upon it.
Every relevant thing we do requires consciousness -- just as everythign a thermometer does requires, say, its own mercury -- but in measuring coffee's temperature, coffee is in no way mercury. And when we measre the world, by photographing it with consciousness, it is in no way conscious.
>reality is all that which is extended in space and time
You are missing the fact that "space" and "time" are also illusions painted on consciousness.
37 replies →
You are attributing to me something I never said.
I said nothing about the nature of reality. All that I said is: all my knowledge of the reality (whether it exists independently or me or not) comes from my perception.
There could be an objective reality, or reality could be something created by our consciousness. I don't know. The one thing I do know, however, is what my consciousness perceives. It is in that sense that is is fundamental
Largely I find your points reductionist and insulting to the very sacred experience that is unfolding for you and me. Consciousness is a primary or even a priori phenomenon from which all of your surmisals stem. You have got it backwards. The fact someone once saw an ape, or saw a nebula, or made a measurement of brain waves, these all had to happen within human-experience. The experiencing itself is irreducible. Consciousness as a byproduct or secondary phenomenon as you claim, is to be expected for someone brought up in the modern era where religion and spirituality were so vehemently eschewed that men leaned too far into the other extreme and became physicalist-materialists claiming the lived experience is but a mere symphony of neurological interactions without consequence. This is a disastrous view. This is basically a swift ticket to a hell-realm. The basic posture is all wrong - you must return to the fundamental facts, namely those of your lived experience. What you claim as primary evidence are in fact secondary observations. And then you use the secondary observations to make claims about a primary nature "out there" and "distinct from" human-experiencing. This is simply not the case. This view is logically untenable. One does not study consciousness by looking at pictures and drawings and photos, just like how one does not study what music sounds like by inspecting the buttons of a saxaphone unblown. The fluid nature of the energetic capacity of mind is very difficult to discern - it's not an everyday occurence, sages spend their whole lives pursuing prayer and meditation in order to catch a mere glimpse at the primal nature of experience. Everything else flows from this. Your mind is the root of all things, it is the common denominator in all moments of your experience.
You can read my other comment. You're also committing the genetic fallacy.
Yes, a hand can measure itself. Yes, consciousness as a measurement process of reality can expose to the conscious agent that its own consciousness is a merely a process in the world.
Just as a camera, in photographing a mirror, discovers that it is only a camera located at some point in space and time.
The "back to basics" pov you're talkign about is one which actually abandons everything consciousness tells you about the world, because you're afraid of what you've found.
An ape without a mirror thinks, of course, it is god. What an insult to find the face of this god is only that of an ape.
No, the genetic fallacy is not germane here. You are conflating the derivation of knowledge and direct knowing, which are distinct. You conflate the ingredients on the back of the label for the taste of the sweets in the pouch. The taste of sweetness is what I am indicating, not the list of ingredients. Also, you are suggesting that there is an impersonal objective spacetime irrespective of observer which is false. There is a generalized case that works for the figures projected for measuring the distances to solar bodies from other solar bodies. But you are basing your analysis on the hidden assumption that the material reality is first. This is an unchallenged assumption in modern science which leads you astray.
>discovers that it is only a camera located at some point in space and time.
It discovers no such thing. It can only measure the signals coming from the sensors. That is its ground truth. If a sensor can produce a signal without having an image fall on it, then that would be what the camera sees.
So in this case, it would perceive the image of a camera in a mirror, but that would not be the reality.
5 replies →
If there's no nature out there, then what is hell?
The distinction is what appears: appearances, versus what actually abides: reality.