Christianity is heading for a full allegorization

[polymath257]

[emjay]

[polymath257]

[The Grand Nudger]

It seems to me that first person experience is a stand in issue.

Just aim directly and squarely at your dissatisfaction with materialism. It’s likely that you don’t need to refer to consciousness to make that case and that consciousness isn’t even a good example of that case.

[polymath257]

And if the circuitry is detecting and processing the 'feeling of love', then it *is* the feeling of love in the first person.

In the first person ... how does that switch to first person work? And one in which love is felt? How does the "non-feely" electrochemical process translate to the first-person "feely" experience which appears to be as if it did not arise from the firings of neurons? Why does the experience seem qualitatively different from physical stuff including the underlying neurons or their processes?

Who said that the electrochemical processes of the brain are not 'feely'? That they are happening *in that brain* is what it *means* to be 'feely' *for that brain*.

You seem to be taking the switch to first-person for granted, but the hard problem is partly asking about that

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I was pointing out that it is *logically possible* for air not to be a mixture. You seem to be focused on logical possibility as the standard.

Unless I'm misunderstanding this quote here, I'm not focusing on the logical possibility. It doesn't matter if air is hawayawaya and temperature is tabbalaabilou, and it doesn't matter if we didn't know in the past that air is hawayawaya and temperature is tabbalaabilou. Whatever you're equating air to now, the point is that in this air is just a label you're applying to hawayawaya. It is not something more than that.

No, it is not. Air is that stuff that I breath in every day. It *happens* that it is also a mixture of various gases. But there is no logical necessity that it be that way.

The better analogy is that of temperature. There is no logical requirement that what we measure as temperature is the result of molecular motion. But, in fact, it is the *product* of molecular motion. Talking about temperature and talking about molecular motion are the *same thing* in our universe, just from different perspectives.

Ok, but you also said temperature IS the average kinetic energy of the molecules (per your statement in a prior post). You observe the motion of the molecules, measure the average kinetic energy, and that there is temperature.

But that is *after* we make the connection. Previous to that (and, frankly, after that as well), we measured temperature with a thermometer. That those two measuring processes give the same thing isn't logically necessary. But it is still a fact. And, initially, they *look* like very different things. That they *are* the same comes from a *correspondence* between calculated average kinetic energy and temperature as measured with a thermometer.

The correspondence *is the explanation*.

Analogously, the activity of neurons and consciousness is simply the same thing in this universe, but from different perspectives (that from the outside and that internally).

It's not the same. In the temperature analogy, there is no internal perspective. Otherwise, you're including your/my internal perspective which is what we're trying to explain in the first place.

I guess I see that as irrelevant to whether there is an explanation. The internal perspective arises because things are happening *internal* to one head and not another. I don't see why that alone isn't sufficient to 'explain' the existence of the first person view.

What, precisely, do you mean by 'internal view'? Be specific, but don't use words like 'qualia' or 'consciousness', or anything  that doesn't have a clear description. How is it NOT the same as 'whatever I detect and process'?

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A lot of the discussion of consciousness reminds me of the God of the gaps. hat, anything that *has* been figured out by science isn't *really God* and anything that hasn't been figured out is 'God acting to do that'. As we get more and more scientific explanations, the 'God gap' gets smaller and smaller.

This seems to be happening with the mind-body problem as well. Initially, the mind was whatever thinks, feels, senses, etc. When it was figured out that the brain does all of those things, the mind became consciousness and qualia, and phenomenology. But whenever we get an explanation of some sensory experience in terms of neural activity, suddenly that isn't what was meant and the gap shifts to something else.

At no point is it possible to nail down the actually nail down the problem. It is all 'mystery' and 'impossible to explain'. Until, of course, it is explained.

Very simple explanations are rejected (since visual and language information is processed in different places, it takes time to move from one to the other and the translation isn't easy). It is said that the explanation doesn't deal with the 'feely' aspect when, in fact, the 'feely' is another sense processed in the brain and we can sometimes, even now, point to where in the brain that is done.

The first person is opposed to the third person and never the two shall meet, but when a direct correspondence between the two is pointed out, that is seen as irrelevant to having an 'explanation'.

That leads me to ask what, precisely, is expected of an explanation. What MORE is desired from the explanation? A cause? OK, then what, precisely, do you mean by 'cause' in this context? Because it seems to me that the correspondence *is* the description of the cause.

[The Grand Nudger]

The machine theory would say that the internal view is not what you detect or process. It’s not seeing, but attending to the fact that you see.

[Disagreeable]

If all Christianity is is an allegory then all Christianity is is a manipulative narrative that evades truth itself.

[polymath257]

If all Christianity is is an allegory then all Christianity is is a manipulative narrative that evades truth itself.

And?

[Belacqua]

If all Christianity is is an allegory then all Christianity is is a manipulative narrative that evades truth itself.

I suppose that depends on the use one makes of allegory.

Do you think that allegory is always an attempt to evade truth?

[Disagreeable]

If all Christianity is is an allegory then all Christianity is is a manipulative narrative that evades truth itself.

And?

No 'And' entailed.

I suppose that depends on the use one makes of allegory.

Does it?

Do you think that allegory is always an attempt to evade truth?

No.