John Page

Thanks, I shall look up Barfield. On the general point, I don't subscribe to any particular methodology or dialiectical process. I think there are a number of different tools available to the mind ranging from speculation through to skepticism to mathematics through logic.

With a better understanding of how we perceive, think etc. we can perhaps chart the tools of human reasoning and overcome its limitation. Until then we have few clues as to why we think what with think, which is why my <a href="http://www.reconciliationism.org/methodology.htm" target="_blank">Methodology</a> is so scant. Just because we can preface conclusions with grand words like "rational", "critical thinking", "logical" etc. doesn't make them right. Maybe I'm just a cynical skeptic.

Cheers, John

John Page

What kind of force to you mean? I don't consider that because an idea is considered important or influential that it has any actual "force".
Too mystical for me. This is like saying eating is not a function of a particular organ! "Eating" is a process involving many organs. "Consciousness" seems to be a phenomenon occuring within the brain (experiment by chopping off other parts of the body) that gives rise to awareness. It may be that we find a number of different levels of/within consciousness as I speculate <a href="http://www.reconciliationism.org/consciousness.htm" target="_blank">in this link</a>.

Barfield's statements seem reasonable at face value but their synthesis, IMO, makes some leaps of faith without support for the underlying assertions.

Cheers, John

[ June 28, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Ierrellus

John,

Here's my two-penny opera--

A thought experiment: I stick my thermostadt with a pin. It does not recoil from the pin! It shows no physical indication of its awareness of the pin. I can also swear that my thermostadt was not unconscious nor was it under any kind of sedation!

PAX

Ierrellus

John Page

Ierr:

What about a pin at a significantly different temperature than the thermostat?

Cheers, John

excreationist

About thermostats and pain...
I think something has to be "aware" to be capable of feeling pain. I think Chalmers thinks that thermostats are aware but I don't.
In the third post from the bottom on page 8, I wrote about my ideas about what pain is and also what awareness is.
This is part of what I wrote:
I'd say that a thermostat is probably level 1... or lower. It acts in a pretty intelligent way, by keeping the temperature even, but it doesn't learn new behaviours or have beliefs about the world or future events, etc - so according to my framework, a thermostat isn't aware and therefore isn't capable of feeling pain.

John Page

excre:

I totally agree, I guess my point is one should be careful of context - functionally, a human can act as a thermostat.

Cheers, John

fwh

John

you said:
First an analogy. If you take two computers with identical hardware and software configurations they will provide you the same result (so long as they are allowed to operate as designed).

me:
But that isn't what happens with human beings.
Let's follow the analogy to its conclusion. Companies making computer hardware follow strict quality control guidelines. Each piece of hardware must be exactly alike. In addition, the quality of the materials used must be able to withstand any reasonable environmental-variable. A quality hardware company then can guarantee that when identical software configurations are used in any of their hardware products exact outcomes can be predicted.

Empirical science has studied the the human body as machines and so has given us incredibly valuable info. Assuming the human body as hardware(machine) what do we see? Through genetic research we see there are no two machines exactly alike. In consructing these machine, randomness with a controlling factor natural selection eliminate any possibility of quality control of the product-who knows what's going to come off the assembly line? When the machine has been finally produced the environment plays a key role in how these machines will operate. So now we put in identical software configurations into our mass-produced hardware and what do we see. Chaos with each machine coming up with its own configurations relating to the software. The human body company goes out of business.

This is exactly the scenario predicted by my view. The same Mind operating in widely divergent bodies(brains) with the resultant unsettling consequences. No two people configuring the Mind(software) in an exact way.

John Page

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I can't see how your statements make a "single mind" more plausible than "one mind per body".

The reason I made the analogy I did was to give an example of similar processes having similar results. So, I don't find the need to resort to a "single mind" concept to explain why, for example, the invention of calculus occurred contemporaneously in two different bodies. Same goes for the concept of the "collective unconscious" where the people of a nation can arrive at a consensus view through a common culture embracing a common issue with similar results across multiple communities.

I would like to ask you how you consider the "single mind" concept tenable when a) divergent results occur across the human race and, while I am not an anthropologist, b) they correlate pretty well to other factors such as religion, custom, available education/teaching etc.

Cheers, John

[ June 29, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

fwh

John

me:
You are right. I'm not making my case very well.

Here are my basic assumptions.
1) That philosophical realism-the idea that "rock bottom reality is a result of the universe being revealed by the senses-is illogical. I don't think that logical, moral, and esthetic truth can be attained by following certain rules of thought. Following realism to its final conclusion leads to a behaviorist theory which is untenable to me.

2) That there is an antecedent unity underlying the apparent or actual fragmentation in western society. That this fragmentation of "knowledge" has not been brought about by the increase in the quantity of things known that would be characteristic of an age of specialization. Rather,this fragmentation is a result of the fact that human "knowledge" was formerly different in character from what it is today.

3) That there has been an "evolution of conciousness" (EOC) which explains on various grounds assumption 2. I urge you to read Barfield's classic "Saving the Appearances-A Study in Idolatry" for the details of that explanation. Briefly, EOC is the progressive metamorphosis of a universal or generalised consciousness which embraced both man AND nature, into the individualized and alienated self-consciousness we have today. Barfield would argue that human beings are still, in their subconscious depths, transpersonal. It would be argued that an expansion back to this universal consciousness from today's individualised consciousness is absolutely necessary.

4) That mind is no late-come epiphenomenon; that the whole universe is, in the last resort, mental; and that our logic is a result of participation in a cosmic "Logos". That matter is a product of mind and not the other way around.

I simply cannot present proofs of these assumptions on this forum. So, I again urge you to read the above-mentioned book by Barfield to grasp the entirety of this thinking. From my experience isolated quotes will not do justice to his thought. John, I believe a working knowledge of this "objective idealism" is a necessity
in further development of your thought and web site.

Thanks
fwh

John Page

fhw:

Thanks. I'm still skeptical , but then I would be anyway. I will try and read the reference. If you haven't doen so already I recommend Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind". While I certainly don't agree with everything in this book it provides a pragmatic view of EoC in the context of developing human society.

Cheers, John