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Post by topology on Jul 5, 2013 8:54:05 GMT -5
I'm still tripping over what you mean with this sentence. What does materiality have to do with anything? It's all qualia/phenomena. If you are calling it meaningless because you perceive it as intrinsically inert, I'm going to question that view. That is treating the image as isolated from the context of evolving images experienced and independent of the space of possible functions which may operate on the image. The meaning experienced when looking at a "picture of your favorite pet" is all the associations that arise when looking at the image, all the responses you can have to those associations, and the ability to manipulate the picture, hang it on a wall, burn it, put it in a drawer, or place it where you will frequently encounter the picture to evoke the associated memories and emotions. The meaning experienced when looking at your couch is a conglomeration of all your past experiences on the couch, attached emotion to those memories, how you feel about the couch now, the ability to sit in it, lay out on it, do things while sitting in it, sell it, burn it, reupholster it, move it around your flat, etc. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about the naive materialism, or qualiaism or whatever, these are all just the expressions of the totalitarian dream. The totality is never really dynamic, because whatever sequence there is can still be reduced to one unmoving image, then all particularities are erased in favour of one primitive totality, and then the totality is neutral and meaningless, nothing is happening, it doesn't become, instead it's just there. Function can only be apprehended from within an already engaged position which presupposes particular and interactive entities. Same goes for thinking, you can't encode "if totality --> then totality". You have to encode function in the form of "if X --> then Y". If you shift your intellectual position to that of the totality then you're denying the effectivity of any function because you think that actually it can be reduced to "just totality, period" and that this totality is the only effective entity. The point is that when we think, we think function. To think function is to think particular and interactive entities. And even though there may only exist the totality, when encoded functions are to be effective then precisely because their interpretation of what reality is is effective, regardless of how ontologically accurate their presupposed model. In other words, function thusly encoded, ignores whatever is materially given, but remains effective nonetheless, so in order to be effective it must insist on a level other than the totality. Or, when we fully integrate/reduce the function into the totality then precisely because to grant it sufficient insistence is not justified, precisely because we think that the function not is effective. But if we don't then precisely because the function is effective, i.e. real enough. And in all this I haven't even begun to reflect on the fact that the notion of the totality is itself merely a thought construct. This reflection is the less complicated one and would be the final nail into the coffin of the totalitarian dream and would require us to shift attention to how function manifests and it what it effects. I have already written down this reflection in sdp's Jed thread. I see what you are getting at with function. You'll have to help me understand the problem you are presenting better. Right now the it sounds like an abhorrence to the idea that everything is static/inert (predictable) ((determined)) I can certainly agree with the impossibility of the totality being properly conceived. No thought can accurately render the totality. It's like a computer trying to execute a simulation of itself. The simulation will never be as capable as the simulator as the simulation itself consumes resources and slows the simulator down, making it less responsive. The simulator's best performance is when it is simply being itself in the context it is wanting to simulate. The thought of the totality bogs the mind down, making it less responsive. And that seems to be what you are pointing at with function, a responsiveness that is impossible to codify and simulate. But I wonder if the problem is that function cannot be modeled, or if the problem is really that it is impossible to reverse-engineer due to the emergent complexity. Anything a computer can do (in terms of computation), a Turing machine can do with enough space and time. Anything a Turing machine can do, Conway's game of life can do. with enough space and time. Conway's game of life is a 2-D grid of bits with 4 simple rules on how bits impact their neighbors. With enough space and time and the right initial configuration (input image), Conway's game of life could simulate IBM's Watson or the neural firing of a human brain. If one were to stand outside of the simulation of the human brain and try to reverse engineer the rules and arrangement of connections, it would be impossible (for all intents and purposes). It would present a dynamism that could not be properly codified from external observation. Can something discrete, like the input image to Conway's game of life, that when animated by repeatedly applying the 4 simple transforms over and over again, create an arbitrary degree of complexity? The answer is yes. Every function a computer can encode is animatable (can be brought to life) with 4 simple static rules. The set of Real numbers (a continuous space) is uncountable. However given a single real number, there are rational numbers which can get as arbitrarily close as we would like. The rational numbers can model the real numbers for all intents and purposes. Discrete can model Analog with enough time and space. That doesn't mean that completely reverse engineering a sufficiently complex system is doable. My whole point with this argument is that there need not be anything special to function. Complexity and dynamism can emerge from what is static once it is animated, even if the rules for animation are brain-dead simple. The real issue I see is that the simulator will never be able to know itself through simulation due to two factors: (1) the consumption of resources in constructing a model of the simulator and (2) accurately reverse engineering the simulator is very very problematic. The simulator can only get to know itself fully by being the simulator in context. This says pretty much every self-concept and theory about how the system works is flawed, incomplete, or in error. Every self-identity is necessarily less than the whole. True understanding comes from immersion into the experience, to be the simulator having it's most natural response. The more fixed content in the mind about "the way the world is", or "the way I am", and then relating to the world through that content is to relate through simulation as opposed to responding directly. But I see nothing special to function apart from the animating force behind function. We will never fully know what all the functioning is. Freedom lies in performing the function effortlessly and directly without mitigation through simulation (fixed thoughts ((beliefs)))
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Jul 5, 2013 14:17:50 GMT -5
I'll make it real simple.
Let's suppose that there is some kind of totality underlying everything, and it's made of atoms, or qualia, or whatever. Now let's see how a random animal, say, a cat, relates to this totality. It's doesn't relate to it at all! The cat is profoundly alienated from this absolute totality, it doesn't know the first thing about it. The cat has its own subjective construct of what reality is. And seen from the standpoint of the totality, the cat's subjective construct is just one giant illusion and is false in every aspect. And yet, even though the cat's construct is without any relation to the totality, it is nonetheless effective, the cat acts only according to its own construct.
That's one example of how a construct of reality can be unconnected to the totality but still fully effective. And if you want to understand what it's like to be a cat, it would be completely useless to think in terms of atoms or qualia, instead you have to think about mice and dogs and whatnot.
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Post by topology on Jul 5, 2013 20:02:16 GMT -5
I'll make it real simple. Let's suppose that there is some kind of totality underlying everything, and it's made of atoms, or qualia, or whatever. Now let's see how a random animal, say, a cat, relates to this totality. It's doesn't relate to it at all! The cat is profoundly alienated from this absolute totality, it doesn't know the first thing about it. The cat has its own subjective construct of what reality is. And seen from the standpoint of the totality, the cat's subjective construct is just one giant illusion and is false in every aspect. And yet, even though the cat's construct is without any relation to the totality, it is nonetheless effective, the cat acts only according to its own construct. That's one example of how a construct of reality can be unconnected to the totality but still fully effective. And if you want to understand what it's like to be a cat, it would be completely useless to think in terms of atoms or qualia, instead you have to think about mice and dogs and whatnot. Your supposition is a reduction. Qualia is identical with the subjective experience, i.e. the perception of cats, dogs, mice, humans, etc. and relating to them as they are perceived. Honestly I can't conceive of a totality separate from the experience that is occurring right now. I can entertain reduction as a premise for a short while but it quickly becomes divorced from the primary experiences and it becomes easy to get lost in imagination.
www.iep.utm.edu/phen-red/#H3The link is to a peace on Husserl's phenomenological reduction. I don't see it as a reduction as it is more of embracing the way things are. The point the paragraphs make is that in order to truly know anything, we have to truly understand the nature of consciousness, our means of knowing. Reduction of consciousness and perception to anything else is to make a reduction to concepts which do not have corrolates in direct experience. I.e. they are epistemically circumspect. www.iep.utm.edu/phen-red/This second link is to the first paragraph which talks about the mode of knowing during astonishment. The built up concepts are absent and a person is engaged in direct perception, seeing things new for the first time. They are in the truest form of knowing. Knowing absent any prior conception.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Jul 6, 2013 5:31:58 GMT -5
Your supposition is a reduction. No, it's your supposition. No, it's not, and no, they're not. Nobody can relate to qualia, because qualia are neutral and meaningless. Cats relate to mice and dogs, not qualia.
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Post by topology on Jul 6, 2013 7:00:10 GMT -5
Your supposition is a reduction. No, it's your supposition. No, it's not, and no, they're not. Nobody can relate to qualia, because qualia are neutral and meaningless. Cats relate to mice and dogs, not qualia. That there is a cat present and not just a visual field of random color is it's own quale. Any response to Husserl's proposal that we are in our truer state of knowing our experience during astonishment, when we are experiencing without the mitigation of concepts? Her you have a rational, highly intelligent philosopher saying the same thing as a sage.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Jul 6, 2013 10:11:06 GMT -5
That there is a cat present and not just a visual field of random color is it's own quale. It doesn't matter! A quale qua quale can't be integrated into your model of reality because the quale doesn't do nothing, it's just there and it doesn't mean anything. The point is that this so-called illusion ("there's a cat") is effective, i.e. we act upon it. We can't act upon an illusion in its material reality (the illusion being a quale). We have to believe that the illusion is real, otherwise we can't act upon it. No. And?
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Post by tzujanli on Jul 6, 2013 10:46:48 GMT -5
Greetings.. No, it's your supposition. No, it's not, and no, they're not. Nobody can relate to qualia, because qualia are neutral and meaningless. Cats relate to mice and dogs, not qualia. That there is a cat present and not just a visual field of random color is it's own quale. Any response to Husserl's proposal that we are in our truer state of knowing our experience during astonishment, when we are experiencing without the mitigation of concepts? Her you have a rational, highly intelligent philosopher saying the same thing as a sage. Drop the attachment to 'thinking', the attachment to the influences of philosophers and sages.. try to see with a still mind, what do you see? do you see the common experience that people of the same language refer to as a 'cat'? when the still mind activates and recalls the experience of seeing the feline, it almost always associates that image with some for of the 'cat' reference.. if, upon activating a still mind it launches into stories about qualia and quale, there is little hope that clarity will be understood.. Be well..
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Post by laughter on Jul 7, 2013 9:55:30 GMT -5
AND this might lead one to read a sort of Kaufmanesque overtone into some of the content about ZD/ATA.
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Post by laughter on Jul 7, 2013 9:57:36 GMT -5
Greetings.. That there is a cat present and not just a visual field of random color is it's own quale. Any response to Husserl's proposal that we are in our truer state of knowing our experience during astonishment, when we are experiencing without the mitigation of concepts? Her you have a rational, highly intelligent philosopher saying the same thing as a sage. Drop the attachment to 'thinking', the attachment to the influences of philosophers and sages.. try to see with a still mind, what do you see? do you see the common experience that people of the same language refer to as a 'cat'? when the still mind activates and recalls the experience of seeing the feline, it almost always associates that image with some for of the 'cat' reference.. if, upon activating a still mind it launches into stories about qualia and quale, there is little hope that clarity will be understood.. Be well.. If you would take the time to go back and read some of Q's stuff from before his ban laying out his qualia-based model of reality you'd encounter a very deep irony in what you've said here ... assuming you were able to understand it that is ...
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Post by topology on Jul 7, 2013 10:14:45 GMT -5
That there is a cat present and not just a visual field of random color is it's own quale. It doesn't matter! A quale qua quale can't be integrated into your model of reality because the quale doesn't do nothing, it's just there and it doesn't mean anything. The point is that this so-called illusion ("there's a cat") is effective, i.e. we act upon it. We can't act upon an illusion in its material reality (the illusion being a quale). We have to believe that the illusion is real, otherwise we can't act upon it. No. And? And you complained that peeps in non-duality are anti-intellectual, and here is an intellectually saying essentially the same thing. If knowledge, understanding and insight come through experiencing and thoughts distract the attention from the experience, then the advice to return attention to experiencing is appropriate.
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Post by tzujanli on Jul 7, 2013 10:26:17 GMT -5
Greetings.. Greetings.. Drop the attachment to 'thinking', the attachment to the influences of philosophers and sages.. try to see with a still mind, what do you see? do you see the common experience that people of the same language refer to as a 'cat'? when the still mind activates and recalls the experience of seeing the feline, it almost always associates that image with some for of the 'cat' reference.. if, upon activating a still mind it launches into stories about qualia and quale, there is little hope that clarity will be understood.. Be well.. If you would take the time to go back and read some of Q's stuff from before his ban laying out his qualia-based model of reality you'd encounter a very deep irony in what you've said here ... assuming you were able to understand it that is ... Oh Laffy.. you're being coy, now aren't you.. it's not the ability that constrains my understanding, it's the inclination.. and, where insincerity toward clarity is detected, there is no inclination.. Be well..
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Post by laughter on Jul 7, 2013 10:27:56 GMT -5
Greetings.. If you would take the time to go back and read some of Q's stuff from before his ban laying out his qualia-based model of reality you'd encounter a very deep irony in what you've said here ... assuming you were able to understand it that is ... Oh Laffy.. you're being coy, now aren't you.. it's not the ability that constrains my understanding, it's the inclination.. and, where insincerity toward clarity is detected, there is no inclination.. Be well.. oh right, bluntness and simplicity ... His model is the exact same as yours.
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