OldWorldRevival t1_j526pmz wrote
Reply to comment by raishak in Instead of escaping to virtual realities, what if we just made our reality as good as any virtual reality could be? by [deleted]
The source of meaning, in my view, is also the source of the concept of quantification itself. Heh.
Quantification has limited scope and purview. It gives a subjective sense of objectivity without being innately objective in itself.
Being a data guy.... people ask for numbers and think they mean something because they vaguely make sense..... I've seen PhDs with quantitatively heavy degrees make this error in business..................... "this number looks sort of like what I'm looking for therefore it makes sense."
People misjudge how deeply they are biased, and the bias is very very deep, for everyone, and if you want to be in as rational as possible, you MUST assume this is the case with yourself.
I think seeing the deep irrationality in so-called rationalists started also shifting my perspective a lot kn these topics.
Meaning in general is only possible through human connection. But, meaningful things aren't always intensely pleasurable - they're just painful when absent. I.e. death of a loved one.
There is just a lot we do not know and may be totally unknowable about identity and consciousness. I.e. we might just end up killing people with mind uploading, and we'd have no way of knowing.
There may be something real and important to our reality, and existing in it as it is. Take a look at the Wigner-von Neumann interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Also, just the hard problem of consciousness in general. Lots of people make a loooot of assumptions about a lot of topics.
As for meaning, it is something that can only be experienced. I.e. I could tell you I've seen a new color (hypothetically), and there would be no way to logically describe or quantify it.
Meaning works in that way. I'd also add... I have in this process of seeking meaning also experienced things that were something like seeing a new color.... i.e. seeing dark purple as a very bright color in a flash in my mind for a moment while listening to JS Bach.
raishak t1_j53efsm wrote
Do you acknowledge the legitimacy of subjective experiences of other humans as much as your own? Do you acknowledge the same for other species of intelligent animals? Of a plant? What of the individual cells within your body? Do they have subjective experiences? I don't know how anyone can acknowledge that and then consider themselves an atomic consciousness. If you do, where reasonably do you draw the line? I believe you are raising human subjective experience above all others by claiming any human experience is essential. An objective reality can co-exist with a subjective experience of it.
We both agree the red light is red, and that it exists. We can agree because the relation its properties have with our entire experience of the physical world is consistent. I can find some light and measure the wavelength using a photosensor, without ever laying eyes on it, and tell you it will be red. You will observe it with your own eyes and agree it is red. Our experience of what red actually looks like is entirely our own and in no way can be compared. It cannot even be considered that they might be different because the operation of comparison is simply undefined for subjective experience. If you claim objective reality doesn't exist, you are entertaining solipsism. I will maintain that all of our subjective experience is rooted in an objective reality. If you claim you've seen a new color, we can recreate this and explain what causes this. If it's not something simple like a wavelength of light only you can see, it might be something more nuanced, like an internal experience unique to the micro-structure of your physical brain.
Many people entertain the idea that quantum mechanics hints at a link between the subjective experience and the physical universe through various interpretations. I don't think lay-people (me included) should be adopting any of these interpretations as philosophical evidence. We simply don't know enough yet. There are many experiments that have been and will continue to be done that further clarify the root of them that is the measurement problem. Decoherence theories for example are helping to explain what appears to be "wavefunction collapse" as the absorption of the quantum properties by a larger quantum system.
A question to end this long reply, since you mentioned it in your original post: do you consider panpsychism to be a valid idea?
OldWorldRevival t1_j53l00i wrote
> Our experience of what red actually looks like is entirely our own and in no way can be compared.
I'm very well aware of qualia and a lot of the literature on it. Heh.
> Many people entertain the idea that quantum mechanics hints at a link between the subjective experience and the physical universe through various interpretations. I don't think lay-people (me included) should be adopting any of these interpretations as philosophical evidence.
Roger Penrose and the Wigner-von Neumann interpretation lol.
> do you consider panpsychism to be a valid idea?
It's not my favorite idea, hence why I mentioned a sort of inverse of panpsychism. Rather than consciousness "being everywhere," it is totally philosophically reasonable that consciousness exists nowhere at all, (even Descartes mentioned this, though that seems to be sorely neglected in the discussion of consciousness) since existence in space is not a requirement for consciousness. I.e. take the substance out of dualism in that case.
That said, an idea I dislike even more is emergentism - unless that emergentism references panpsychism. Why? Because emergentism ascribes more to emergence than emergence is capable of, a sort of logical jump to think that emergence means "fundamentally new phenomenon," which is just not the case. It ascribes magical qualities to emergence and is a way of completely avoiding the problem, and adds nothing to it.
> Do you acknowledge the legitimacy of subjective experiences of other humans as much as your own?
Yes. I am actually a former vegan, starting to maybe be winding back to vegetarianism, and this topic is fundamental to those choices.
Overall, I like the fact that you seem to have a solid grasp on this topic. :)
tiny_smile_bot t1_j53l12n wrote
>:)
:)
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments