RE: Does it make sense to speak of "Universal Consciousness" or "Univer...
June 1, 2014 at 2:19 am
(This post was last modified: June 1, 2014 at 2:40 am by bennyboy.)
(May 31, 2014 at 8:08 am)Chas Wrote: Bear, M. F.; B. W. Connors, and M. A. Paradiso (2006). Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott. ISBN 0-7817-6003-8.That's a lot of reading. Maybe you can cut to the part where you show what the scientific criteria are for establishing whether a physical structure experiences qualia or not. OR maybe you can show me the current scientific explanation of how electrochemical interactions manifest as subjective experience.
Binder, Hirokawa, Windhorst, ed. (2009). Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-23735-8.
Kandel, ER; Schwartz JH, Jessell TM (2000). Principles of Neural Science (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-8385-7701-6.
Squire, L. et al. (2003). Fundamental Neuroscience, 2nd edition. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-660303-0
Byrne and Roberts (2004). From Molecules to Networks. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-148660-5
Sanes, Reh, Harris (2005). Development of the Nervous System, 2nd edition. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-618621-9
Siegel et al. (2005). Basic Neurochemistry, 7th edition. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-088397-X
Rieke, F. et al. (1999). Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code. The MIT Press; Reprint edition ISBN 0-262-68108-0
etc.
I've accused you (and in this capacity I think you represent all physical monists) several times of vaguely waving to the brain and claiming qualia are "in there somewhere," and that's still the case. However, in order to know whether consciousness can generalize to the universe as a whole, we need to know what SPECIFICALLY it is about the brain that allows otherwise unconscious matter to become conscious. We need to know that the universe, or at least massive parts of the universe, do not meet those SPECIFIC requirements for the existence of qualia.
As for the lack of evidence-- I'd say this can be categorized as a logical fallacy. An appeal to a lack of evidence, where it is our own limitations which prevent us from collecting evidence, is a poor indicator of truth of a proposition. If I point to the fact that we only know there's life on Earth, because there's no evidence of life anywhere else, would this be good support for the idea that there is only life on Earth? Nope.
(May 31, 2014 at 2:48 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: but idealism seems to place far too much emphasis on the importance of mind, which is to say, contrary to my understanding of idealism, the objects we perceive would continue existing apart from our apprehension of them, even if their properties are only known to us through a particular conscious experience i.e. synaptic pattern or what have you.I don't think it's possible to place "far too much emphasis on the importance of the mind."
I've had many ideas and experiences which aren't dependent on interaction with my environment. I have not, however, had any interaction with my environment which wasn't dependent on the existence of my mind. Neither has anyone else. This is non-trivial. It must be understood that all world views, including the idea that the world consists of an objective physical reality, are just that-- the experience of ideas. And there is, unfortunately, no other level as human beings on which we can interact with reality.
The problem in this thread is that while the physicalist world view is itself AN IDEA, people hold that idea so strongly in their minds that they take it as more representative of reality than the minds which hold the idea.