On naturalism and consciousness

[Surgenator]

In physical monism, a mind is not necessary. So it is not required to prove how a mind arises. I only need to show how a mind can arise and still have physical monism be valid. And I did so with the ANN example.

No, I don't think you did. You are conflating complex data processing with the subjective experience of mind-- something which makes sense if you're trying to support the idea of physical monism,

That is exactly what I'm trying to support.

but which does not if you're actually talking about a mind.

I didn't know you were an expert on the mind. Can you tell me exactly how you know this to be true?

The problem with statistics is that even if you start making a statistical model of mind, you won't actually be able to trace the supervenience of mind down to the fundamental events or processes which make it possible. It will get hidden in the numbers, much as in an ANN.

Why would I be forced to do statistics to look at ANN or the human brain? The neurons and their interactions are micro-level, i.e. they behave classically. And you can open the "black box" of an ANN and look at what the hidden variables are. I did that plenty of times.

[quote]
Here is my point, not everything can be reduced to concepts. Case in point, actions are not concepts. Actions have to change something; concepts describe something. You can conceptualize an action, but that is still not an action. For example, you can conceptualize that your dancing, but it doesn't mean your dancing.

Interactions are not things, but you include events in a physical monist view. Idealism is no different in this regard: you have concepts, and then their interactions.

It's nice that your making your explanations by referencing physical monism. However, I prefer if you just explain to me in idealism monism terms instead, because I have a sneaking suspession that it will sound ridiculous.

I think contradictions, ambiguity and paradox work better in an idealistic relaity.

No, contradictions show that something is wrong. Red-flags, load-sirens wrong. A model (in this case of reality) has to be internally consistent to be a good model. If it has contradictions, it is not internally consistent.

It does not make sense to say that a photon is both a wave and a particle in physical terms, because a photon is categorized as a "thing," and things are not expected to be ambiguous. Things like the timeless creation of the universe also work better as ideas. In fact, I'd say that any system which includes ambiguity must necessarily be idealistic, and necessarily not physical monistic.

Thats nice that you think that, but where is your reasoning for this belief?

For example, the concept of a universe where God exist does exist. The concept of a universe where God doesn't exist also exist. If the reality is a collection of concepts, then the universe is where God does exist and where he doesn't exist. Right?

It depends what you mean by "real." All concepts and ideas are real as concepts and ideas. Only some are part of the shared framework that we call the universe.

There is some framework? Made out of what, concepts? The interactions of the concepts? How does it prevent any other concept from existing in it? How does it prevent the all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent God concept from existing in it?

As a side, do you find the ontological argument for God compelling?

So your looking at the similiarity of the brain, which is a collection of physical objects, to support the claim of a third party. I find this very strange since physical things don't exist in concept reality.

You seem to think that all idealism is a kind of Buddhist "not-being" or that things are all dreamed illusions. I don't take this position, so if you want to argue against it, it will have to be with someone else. My position is that whether we live in an objective physical universe, or the Matrix, or the Mind of God, a brain is a brain.

Yes, I do think all idealism is a kind of Buddhist "not-being," because I can't picture how a concept(s) can produce a physical(-like) universe.

In the matrix, the humans still exist in a physical world.
The mind of God makes no sense to me. So please explain it to, details would be appretiated.

The difference is that in an idealistic universe, mind is omnipresent (or, more accurately, all is mind), and all "things" reduce down only to concepts: if you try to examine particles and sub-particles, you'll never find that atomic pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

What? What "atomic pot of gold"?