Submitted by simsquatched t3_104kji6 in philosophy
fixprettyy t1_j37iek7 wrote
Reply to comment by AmirHosseinHmd in The Persistent Problem of Consciousness: an astronaut's epiphany by simsquatched
Your comment is one way to interpret this writing. It is highly pessimistic and reads like you lack comprehension skills... I say this as an English major.
It is not that the writer is invalidating the average human experience, it is actually highlighting just HOW connected the average and rare consciousness are. Each experience you have is "valid" even when you take a shit on the toilet that no one knows about, but it's up to the conscious mind (i.e., the reader) to interpret each of these experiences to give them validity... If you read this article and only took away your above comments/questions. I suggest you reread it or dive deeper into Alan Watts or Carl Sagan, both of which are mentioned in the writing. They each have wonderful outlooks on life and the human experience.
I wondered, how many links to understand we are missing in readings like this. We know that the writers had to have recognized so many connections in their minds in order to have these "new" epiphanies and we just get to read what they were able to put into words... If only we could see into their minds.
AmirHosseinHmd t1_j3aohn3 wrote
>Your comment is one way to interpret this writing. It is highly pessimistic and reads like you lack comprehension skills... I say this as an English major.
Thank you for beginning your response with an unnecessary, meaningless personal attack. I've been on the receiving end of a rather surprising amount of hostility and overly condescending comments after I posted mine; which I find pretty ironic, given that it's coming from people who purport to be enlightened, which in large part is supposed to make one's mind more or less immune to all-too-human emotional attachment to schools of thought and tribalistic thinking. The irony is palpable.
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>I suggest you reread it or dive deeper into Alan Watts or Carl Sagan, both of which are mentioned in the writing. They each have wonderful outlooks on life and the human experience.
I have actually listened to a fair bit of those guys' material; and although they don't really belong in the same category, they did share this poetic view about the cosmos and reality in some ways, but their metaphysical convictions actually differed greatly, as Carl Sagan was an atheist, naturalist, scientist and Alan Watts was effectively a Buddhist; and in a hypothetical debate where the two get to the nitty-gritty of their respective philosophies, I'm sure they would end up disagreeing with one another strenuously on a fair amount of crucial points, but nonetheless, I do appreciate both.
But once again, regardless of the aesthetic qualities of these ideas and these "spiritual" experiences, I happen to believe they are highly dubious and not to be relied upon for discerning the nature of consciousness or whatever.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I've yet to be presented with a clear argument, or anything for that matter that isn't just another way of saying "You just don't understand it you lowly stupid peasant! You lack the capacity to even begin to fathom the sheer profundity in all of this!"; which I would say is indicative of a superiority complex more than anything.
[deleted] t1_j4u954e wrote
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