Proving What We Already "Know"

[The Grand Nudger]

We've had these discussions before.  I'm trying to think if there's new ground to cover-- I suspect not.  But I'm interested in finding out.

re: belief
You can take any postive affirmation and flip it.  "Do you believe in a material monist reality?"  No, to the same degree and for the same reasons-- an inability to demonstrate that sensation represents an adequate vehicle for the formation of positive affirmations about the nature of reality (or the things in it).

Of course.  Binary things can be flipped.  If you, for example, said you didn't know whether or not you believed in material monist reality....it would be equally clear that you do not.  You're not willing to produce an affirmation of belief, QED. You may not know whether gods exist, that's agnosticism pure and simple, but you do seem to know what you do, and do not believe..about material monism and gods.

re: consciousness / brain
I know nothing about the brain that has not involved some experience.  Therefore, if I doubt the validity of sensation in establishing the nature of reality, experiences of listening to professors or reading science textbooks fall into under that same agnostic cloud.  All I CAN say is what seems true in the context of given axioms: "In the context where reality is material, and where the brain is a discrete and identifiable solid object rather than (say) a collection of quantum wave functions in a virtual space projected from an n-dimensional object lacking time, then the brain seems most related to the consciousness of animals and people."

Asking an agnostic to provide a "better explanation" doesn't make much sense, since my position is that no explanation can be known to represent truth, at least absent the context of axioms which beg the question.

Okay, how about any explanation?  As I said, no need to guard anything.  I don't really think that your idea that there can be no truth lends itself well to this notion of jealous guarding.  There's nothing to guard, in that event.  

re: jealous guarding
Well, let me give an example.  I'd say in order to knowingly do science of consciousness, you have to be able to establish that any given material structure experiences what things are like, rather than what they are.  I know what it's LIKE to drink hot chocolate, for example.  It's easy to know that a particular structure has encountered hot chocolate-- it's impossible to know that it has experienced what hot chocolate is LIKE.

A "jealous guarding" would be an insistence that something other than knowing what things are like is consciousness, and then demonstrating a facility in working with that other thing.  Saying, "Consciousness is the ability to take information from the world, process it, and output a behavior," for example, and then claiming that science can study that better than Buddhist meditation can, would be such an insistence.

Science can study anything better than buddhist meditation...even buddhist meditation...but that's only because meditation isn't studying - and it's a complete non starter if the goal is objective measurement.  Buddhists are, of course, also free to try and explain anything any way they want to, and they have...and we can compare the work of buddhism and the work of scientific inquiry and see what washes.  What I see here, in point of fact, is you pushing back against some scientific studies of consciousness, no less.

I think that buddhist meditation is a particularly strange example given your comments about an inability to pierce some veil. Don't you? That's just staring at the back side of that veil without the help of inhuman instruments that lack our human inabilities. My favorite joke..being a big fan of zen myself..is that you can't learn anything from buddhist meditation that you don't already know. Meditate over that the next time you clear your mind and imagine yourself to be a clear vessel filling with pure light. Anywho, I think you hit the nail on the head with Boru. It's not truth you doubt, but absolutes. Not objectivity, but absolutes. Truth in context is just truth same as always. Context being part of any objective assessment of anything. Logical and scientific truths both coming with caveats, and provisional guarantees of certitude. If we wonder how fast a boat can cross the atlantic, there will be no absolute answer. We would need to know the type of boat, weather, currents, etc. To take the product of those deliberations and doubt that they can be true because they aren't absolutes or because absolutes can't be known....less than cogent. If I really had to hammer in..I'd say it's axioms, and not truth, that you're doubting in these conversations. Those are the closest thing to absolutes. I also think it's interesting where reproductive fitness fancies a false assertion - ofc......that's why we've tried to be more and more systematic and rigorous in our investigations - the scientific method just the newest most capable entrant in that space.

So, for example, you doubt the dogmatic axiomization of material monism. Or at least your version of material monism as an axiom. All well and good. As you said, we've been over this so many times. I find it amazing to see you come back and reassert all of those same things in light of that context. Thing is, whether there is or isn't some other stuff is irrelevant to whether or not a thing is or can be explained by one of those kinds of stuff...and every example you offered can be explained.and is explained, by material stuff...even if there is some other stuff....very literally is material stuff. It's not even a prudent way to explain your wholly justified skepticism of axioms or axiomatic thinking. There's another thing I think is interesting. Axioms. Rules. Say we live in a universe where things can, in fact, be themselves and not themselves. That would suggest that there could be married bachelors. That our truth systems need a serious overhaul, lol. That brings me right back round to the real headscratcher.

Why is cabbage? I know, I know, it seems like a snarky retort...but it's not. We know about as much..or less..about cabbage as we do about consciousness and cosmogeny. It's a really interesting family of plants...capable of spontaneous cladogenesis, just as one tidbit..... and, ofc, photosynthesis is as yet unexplained, despite being the basis for all life and all consciousness on earth. It's like that cartoon we see here from time to time "and then a miracle occurs" where the man at the blackboard says more work is needed in step number two. Cracking photosynthesis would be as monumental to us as cracking consciousness..likely more so. Just domesticating cabbage was more consequential than every thought ever given to thought.

Maybe we should get some buddhists to meditate on it? See, now that..was snark. Welcome back man.