OlivierK wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:Properties are NOT made of physical ingredients. Properties are either measurements of physical objects, or truth values of sets of criteria applied to physical objects. Saying that properties are physical is a shorthand sloppiness that - if taken literally - leads to stupidity like trying to find the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself, or consciousness particles.

As properties are abstract descriptors of physical objects, it's possible, and entirely unremarkable, for a truth value to flip on reconfiguration of physical matter without any of the creation ex nihilo that pl0bs gets his panties in a knot about.

What you are describing here are mental constructions. They exist only in the mind.

Correct.

And to be useful and meaningful, these mental constructions of sets of criteria need to correspond to observations or tests performable and independently replicable in the real world. Recognising this correspondence is where the value lies for humans who want to share information or meaning.

If you're not interested in the communication of information or meaning, then you can leave properties out of things entirely, and have a useless, crippled understanding of the universe where a rock and a brain are indistinguishable because you've forsworn the tools required to distinguish them. It's an aggressive anti-intellectualism, but it clearly floats some people's boats.

I have no problem with descriptions and their usefulness. I have a problem when someone thinks that when a description is useful, it implies the existence of a new physical quality. You can see how this is false when you consider that two people speaking different languages describe the same physical object. They will use different words, and this may be extremely useful in their countries, yet the object remains the same.

pl0bs wrote:Ok, see you in 5 years. Ill be waiting here and keeping myself busy in the meantime.

Is your misrepresentation deliberate?

pl0bs wrote:Complex C comes from simple C. That is different from emergence where complex C just popped into existence from the void.

No one here claims that “complex C just popped into existence…”. Your argument against emergence is a straw man.

pl0bs wrote:Take the human out of the equation and you just have a bunch of matter with a particular configuration. All of that is accounted for by quantities of particles, forces, spacetime. All of it.

Correct. There were no humans (or complex C) at the big bang and so nothing to give labels to things. Labelling, humans and their languages are emergent.

pl0bs wrote:Im saying the perspective consists of the experiences. It is not a seperate entity, it is completely equivalent to the experiences. As experiences change, so does the perspective.

Arse about face, again. Change the perspective from writing bullshit on an internet forum to reading same - different perspective, different experiences.

GrahamH wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:Im just sticking to physics. You can claim that emergent properties exist that dont consist of physical ingredients, but where are the examples?

You are the one that claims Human consciousness is something that does not consist of physical ingredients. Only you are making an exception for consciousness.
Everything consists of physical ingredients.

Properties are NOT made of physical ingredients. Properties are either measurements of physical objects, or truth values of sets of criteria applied to physical objects.

How is that different to what I wrote. The key being 'of physical objects'.

OlivierK wrote: Saying that properties are physical is a shorthand sloppiness that - if taken literally - leads to stupidity like trying to find the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself, or consciousness particles.

IMHO saying these properties are not physical is precisely what lead pl0bs to ridicule emergence.

OlivierK wrote:As properties are abstract descriptors of physical objects, it's possible, and entirely unremarkable, for a truth value to flip on reconfiguration of physical matter without any of the creation ex nihilo that pl0bs gets his panties in a knot about.

I think you have a huge problem calling properties descriptions. Here pl0bs replies that descriptions are mental constructs entirely dependent on consciousness. The description only describes or names the property that is the combined action of particular configurations of physical constituents. It is the way the parts interact, not anything non-physical. I think exactly the same applies to minds.

It seems I may have to retract my previous statement. Maybe some here do believe in the sort of emergence pl0bs ridicules.

Your ability to confuse things with their names in this post is profound, and your insinuation at the end it utterly groundless, unless you're referring to what you yourself wrote immediately prior.

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:Properties are NOT made of physical ingredients. Properties are either measurements of physical objects, or truth values of sets of criteria applied to physical objects. Saying that properties are physical is a shorthand sloppiness that - if taken literally - leads to stupidity like trying to find the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself, or consciousness particles.

As properties are abstract descriptors of physical objects, it's possible, and entirely unremarkable, for a truth value to flip on reconfiguration of physical matter without any of the creation ex nihilo that pl0bs gets his panties in a knot about.

What you are describing here are mental constructions. They exist only in the mind.

Correct.

And to be useful and meaningful, these mental constructions of sets of criteria need to correspond to observations or tests performable and independently replicable in the real world. Recognising this correspondence is where the value lies for humans who want to share information or meaning.

If you're not interested in the communication of information or meaning, then you can leave properties out of things entirely, and have a useless, crippled understanding of the universe where a rock and a brain are indistinguishable because you've forsworn the tools required to distinguish them. It's an aggressive anti-intellectualism, but it clearly floats some people's boats.

I have no problem with descriptions and their usefulness. I have a problem when someone thinks that when a description is useful, it implies the existence of a new physical quality. You can see how this is false when you consider that two people speaking different languages describe the same physical object. They will use different words, and this may be extremely useful in their countries, yet the object remains the same.

Nobody thinks that when a description is useful, it implies the existence of a new physical quality. Nobody. That's a position that you keep ascribing to others because it's a absurd, and easy to knock down, but your entire argument seems to be concerned with building, and then fighting, this straw man. People are fascinated with your persistence in doing this in the same way that they enjoy reading Don Quixote, but your argument holds no more interest than that.

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:
Oh look, a rock arch!

We agree that the property of being an arch arises because of the configuration on the rocks.

We dont agree on that. I agree that "arch" is a label that humans use to describe something when an object matches a human-invented definition.

Take the human out of the equation and you just have a bunch of matter with a particular configuration. All of that is accounted for by quantities of particles, forces, spacetime. All of it.

Yes, I agree - it's just a bunch of rocks - matter doing what matter does - and it's a human invention to call that an arch. If I said to you "Imagine a bunch of truncated wedge shaped rocks arranged into a semicircle placed vertically so that they span a void they would otherwise fall into. What's that?" You could say "That's an arch." An arch is a concept - a higher level description for certain configurations of matter and what they do.

pl0bs wrote:

Explanation 1: No shit. Certain configurations of rocks fulfil the criteria to be considered arches, and others don't.

Explanation 2: All rocks contain simple archiness. If you're asking why all collections of rocks aren't arches, which I shall call collections of rocks with complex archiness, I don't know, but it has to be because of the configuration of the rocks. Damned if I know where the complex archiness comes from, though, it's a mystery of physics!

How to choose? How to choose? It's a tough one. I'll get back to you.

The criteria of which you speak exist only in the human mind. In physical reality, there is no set of criteria floating around, waiting to be met. This is also demonstrated by sorites paradox: when you have a heap of sand and take 1 grain away from it, is it still a heap? Two grains? Three? When does it cease being a heap? Answer: its just a quantity of sandgrains, there no "heap" property other than that a human may arbitrarily decide to label the collection as such. Whether he stops calling it a heap at 230, 99, 20, or 3 grains, is entirely up to his individual discretion.

Agreed.

And it's the same with consciousness. That's just a higher-level human description for a bunch of matter arranged in configurations such as a human brain, doing what matter does.

The fact that it requires consciousness to come up with the label "consciousness" is something that you see as a paradox because you seem incapable of differentiating between something and its name, and you'll get a discussion only as long as people like Graham share that confusion.

Your whole gotcha aganst materialism rests on taking issue with consciousness existing before the word "consciousness", an utterly vacuous position no more interesting than claiming that protons couldn't exist before the word "proton", or than noting the self-reference in the definition of the word "word".

OlivierK wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

GrahamH wrote:
You are the one that claims Human consciousness is something that does not consist of physical ingredients. Only you are making an exception for consciousness.
Everything consists of physical ingredients.

Properties are NOT made of physical ingredients. Properties are either measurements of physical objects, or truth values of sets of criteria applied to physical objects.

How is that different to what I wrote. The key being 'of physical objects'.

OlivierK wrote: Saying that properties are physical is a shorthand sloppiness that - if taken literally - leads to stupidity like trying to find the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself, or consciousness particles.

IMHO saying these properties are not physical is precisely what lead pl0bs to ridicule emergence.

OlivierK wrote:As properties are abstract descriptors of physical objects, it's possible, and entirely unremarkable, for a truth value to flip on reconfiguration of physical matter without any of the creation ex nihilo that pl0bs gets his panties in a knot about.

I think you have a huge problem calling properties descriptions. Here pl0bs replies that descriptions are mental constructs entirely dependent on consciousness. The description only describes or names the property that is the combined action of particular configurations of physical constituents. It is the way the parts interact, not anything non-physical. I think exactly the same applies to minds.

It seems I may have to retract my previous statement. Maybe some here do believe in the sort of emergence pl0bs ridicules.

Your ability to confuse things with their names in this post is profound, and your insinuation at the end it utterly groundless, unless you're referring to what you yourself wrote immediately prior.

I think that if you read my posts properly you would realise it was not justified to suggest I have confused things with their names. I did the opposite

I'm saying the same thing you say in this later post:

OlivierK wrote:Yes, I agree - it's just a bunch of rocks - matter doing what matter does - and it's a human invention to call that an arch. If I said to you "Imagine a bunch of truncated wedge shaped rocks arranged into a semicircle placed vertically so that they span a void they would otherwise fall into. What's that?" You could say "That's an arch." An arch is a concept - a higher level description for certain configurations of matter and what they do.

There is nothing abstract about matter doing what it does. We describe that in terms of properties, but what is described is physical and subsists entirely in the configuration / interaction of the physics.

It seems to me our disagreement is as to which way of expressing the phsyicality of things opens the door to pl0bsian absurdity.

You mention 'the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself'. As if there is 'the wood itself' somehow discrete from it's atoms. The length is the extent of the distribution of the atoms that are the wood. There is no woodness property in atoms. Wood, length or arch structures are all configurations of physical elements.

You write 'An arch is a concept', but a concept is not an arch. An arch is a structure - a configuration of rocks, of atoms, and what they do. 'An arch is a concept' plays into pl0bs' narrative that consciousness is dominant and fundamental, that concepts require C so there are no arches without C. Clearly that is not the position you intend to present, but it is the position pl0bs will read into it. Here is pl0bs doing exactly that:

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:
Oh look, a rock arch!

We agree that the property of being an arch arises because of the configuration on the rocks.

We dont agree on that. I agree that "arch" is a label that humans use to describe something when an object matches a human-invented definition.

Take the human out of the equation and you just have a bunch of matter with a particular configuration. All of that is accounted for by quantities of particles, forces, spacetime. All of it.

And you then agree that arches are configurations of matter doing what they do. An arch IS 'a bunch of matter with a particular configuration'.

pl0bs' error is to insist that consciousness is something entirely different. So different to any (other) interactions between physical configurations, doing what they do, that it must be fundamental. That leads to pl0bs arguing for emergence of 'complex C from simple C'.

So, I maintain that you are arguing against pl0bs on something you and I basically agree with and confusing properties of physical systems with concepts (at least it will seem so to pl0bs).

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:My Experiences are my experiences from my human perspective. Are you suggesting that experiences are separable from the subject? Perhaps you are thinking of free-floating qualia that are experienced this way by our selves but that way by our parts. Is that it?

Im saying the perspective consists of the experiences. It is not a seperate entity, it is completely equivalent to the experiences. As experiences change, so does the perspective.

But what is an experience without a perspective? The perspective is an integral part of the experience. A PAIN IN MY ARM is an experience distinct from a PAIN IN YOUR FOOT. If we suppose simple C experience in the cells of your body they surely have the perspective of the cell. There are no free-floating experiences free from some perspective or other. So how do do you make experiences that are from a human perspective out of experiences that are from a cell's perspective? It seems impossible.

GrahamH wrote:But what is an experience without a perspective? The perspective is an integral part of the experience. A PAIN IN MY ARM is an experience distinct from a PAIN IN YOUR FOOT. If we suppose simple C experience in the cells of your body they surely have the perspective of the cell. There are no free-floating experiences free from some perspective or other. So how do do you make experiences that are from a human perspective out of experiences that are from a cell's perspective? It seems impossible.

No i dont think freefloating experiences exist. I think experiences and the perspective are the same thing. Having different experiences equals having a different perspective.

Perspectives/experiences are very flexible, much more so than a normal functioning brain make us believe. Some interesting things can be experienced with drugs:

• Merging with or becoming objects
• Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_div ... te_effects

These things are hard or impossible to imagine, but they happen. Our everyday human state of mind is not the default that represents what all minds are like. We have our different senses, which result in the perspective of us occupying a point in space, looking outwards, hearing outwards, etc. These are all constructions that can be dismantled. Go blind. Go deaf. Remove the other senses. What remains of the perspective that looks outwards?

GrahamH wrote:And you then agree that arches are configurations of matter doing what they do. An arch IS 'a bunch of matter with a particular configuration'.

pl0bs' error is to insist that consciousness is something entirely different. So different to any (other) interactions between physical configurations, doing what they do, that it must be fundamental. That leads to pl0bs arguing for emergence of 'complex C from simple C'.

So, I maintain that you are arguing against pl0bs on something you and I basically agree with and confusing properties of physical systems with concepts (at least it will seem so to pl0bs).

Its physics that tells us those particles, forces, and spacetime are fundamental. Thats what you get when you equate consciousness with anything physical.

OlivierK wrote:And it's the same with consciousness. That's just a higher-level human description for a bunch of matter arranged in configurations such as a human brain, doing what matter does.

The fact that it requires consciousness to come up with the label "consciousness" is something that you see as a paradox because you seem incapable of differentiating between something and its name, and you'll get a discussion only as long as people like Graham share that confusion.

Ok, so consciousness is actually particles, forces, spacetime. A quantity of that has been around since the big bang.

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:But what is an experience without a perspective? The perspective is an integral part of the experience. A PAIN IN MY ARM is an experience distinct from a PAIN IN YOUR FOOT. If we suppose simple C experience in the cells of your body they surely have the perspective of the cell. There are no free-floating experiences free from some perspective or other. So how do do you make experiences that are from a human perspective out of experiences that are from a cell's perspective? It seems impossible.

No i dont think freefloating experiences exist. I think experiences and the perspective are the same thing. Having different experiences equals having a different perspective.

Perspectives/experiences are very flexible, much more so than a normal functioning brain make us believe. Some interesting things can be experienced with drugs:

• Merging with or becoming objects
• Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_div ... te_effects

These things are hard or impossible to imagine, but they happen. Our everyday human state of mind is not the default that represents what all minds are like. We have our different senses, which result in the perspective of us occupying a point in space, looking outwards, hearing outwards, etc. These are all constructions that can be dismantled. Go blind. Go deaf. Remove the other senses. What remains of the perspective that looks outwards?

You have entirely failed to address the issue. Lets suppose that your consciousness might experience different perspectives. We can get very fanciful and suppose that you could experience being a ventricle in your heart, or a red blood cell rushing through your veins. This does you no good at all, since your proposition is that your complex human consciousness can be assembled from multiple simple consciousnesses. What you would have to explain is how experiences of being each of your bodily cells can amount to your experience as a human and not experience of your many cells.

This is analogous to forming a subjective consciousness of being a mass audience at a concert that is not any experience of any member of that audience. How could that work?

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:But what is an experience without a perspective? The perspective is an integral part of the experience. A PAIN IN MY ARM is an experience distinct from a PAIN IN YOUR FOOT. If we suppose simple C experience in the cells of your body they surely have the perspective of the cell. There are no free-floating experiences free from some perspective or other. So how do do you make experiences that are from a human perspective out of experiences that are from a cell's perspective? It seems impossible.

No i dont think freefloating experiences exist. I think experiences and the perspective are the same thing. Having different experiences equals having a different perspective.

Perspectives/experiences are very flexible, much more so than a normal functioning brain make us believe. Some interesting things can be experienced with drugs:

• Merging with or becoming objects
• Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_div ... te_effects

These things are hard or impossible to imagine, but they happen. Our everyday human state of mind is not the default that represents what all minds are like. We have our different senses, which result in the perspective of us occupying a point in space, looking outwards, hearing outwards, etc. These are all constructions that can be dismantled. Go blind. Go deaf. Remove the other senses. What remains of the perspective that looks outwards?

You hsve entirely failed to address the issue. Lets suppose that your consciousness might experience different perspectives. We can get very fanciful and suppose that you could experience being a ventricle in your heart, or a red blood cell rushing through your veins. This does you no good at all, since your proposition is that your complex human consciousness can be assembled from multiple simple consciousnesses. What you would have to explain is how experiences of being each of your bodily cells can ammount to your experience as a human and not experience of your many cells.

This is analogous to forming a subjective consciousness of being a mass audience at a concert that is not any experience of any member of that audience. How could that work?

If neuroscience manages to link up brains, something like that might be possible? So far it can't be done, but as far as I can see that's a matter of inadequate technology rather than inherent impossibility?

Pl0bs could have a point in that our concept or model of the external world involves the concept of consciousness and the possibility of multiple viewpoints? This almost certainly says more about the structure of our evolved social brains than the structure of the universe, but for the time being it's the model we have, and there's a sense in which consciousness is built in from the beginning? We see the universe as having the potential for a viewpoint, a centre of consciousness, at every point?

zoon wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:But what is an experience without a perspective? The perspective is an integral part of the experience. A PAIN IN MY ARM is an experience distinct from a PAIN IN YOUR FOOT. If we suppose simple C experience in the cells of your body they surely have the perspective of the cell. There are no free-floating experiences free from some perspective or other. So how do do you make experiences that are from a human perspective out of experiences that are from a cell's perspective? It seems impossible.

No i dont think freefloating experiences exist. I think experiences and the perspective are the same thing. Having different experiences equals having a different perspective.

Perspectives/experiences are very flexible, much more so than a normal functioning brain make us believe. Some interesting things can be experienced with drugs:

• Merging with or becoming objects
• Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_div ... te_effects

These things are hard or impossible to imagine, but they happen. Our everyday human state of mind is not the default that represents what all minds are like. We have our different senses, which result in the perspective of us occupying a point in space, looking outwards, hearing outwards, etc. These are all constructions that can be dismantled. Go blind. Go deaf. Remove the other senses. What remains of the perspective that looks outwards?

You hsve entirely failed to address the issue. Lets suppose that your consciousness might experience different perspectives. We can get very fanciful and suppose that you could experience being a ventricle in your heart, or a red blood cell rushing through your veins. This does you no good at all, since your proposition is that your complex human consciousness can be assembled from multiple simple consciousnesses. What you would have to explain is how experiences of being each of your bodily cells can ammount to your experience as a human and not experience of your many cells.

This is analogous to forming a subjective consciousness of being a mass audience at a concert that is not any experience of any member of that audience. How could that work?

If neuroscience manages to link up brains, something like that might be possible? So far it can't be done, but as far as I can see that's a matter of inadequate technology rather than inherent impossibility?

For a physicalist who sees consciousness as a physical process, experience as somehow 'computed', there is no problem with this sort of thing. We could liken C to a dance, and add elements to dance to make it more complex or start and stop the dance. If consciousness (subject - experiencing) is certain types of activity of some physical systems it is something that evolved / emerged and until it evolved there was no stuff having subjective experiences.

pl0bs is an essentialist. The proposition is that some essential 'simple C' (subjective experiencing) necessarily has existed since the beginning of the universe. A widely accepted feature of conscious experience is that it is private to the subject. It is 'what it's like to be a bat', or whatever. This in stark contrast with our view that experience is what brains work it out to be.

The boundary of an individual brain is no more than a limit to the integration of information about self. If additional connectivity can be added to interlink many brains it might lead to the integration of information about a super-self, because the information is not really private inside a subject at all. The subject-object nature of experience is just in the semantics of the model a brain attributes to it's own function.

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:Properties are NOT made of physical ingredients. Properties are either measurements of physical objects, or truth values of sets of criteria applied to physical objects. Saying that properties are physical is a shorthand sloppiness that - if taken literally - leads to stupidity like trying to find the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself, or consciousness particles.

As properties are abstract descriptors of physical objects, it's possible, and entirely unremarkable, for a truth value to flip on reconfiguration of physical matter without any of the creation ex nihilo that pl0bs gets his panties in a knot about.

What you are describing here are mental constructions. They exist only in the mind.

Correct.

And to be useful and meaningful, these mental constructions of sets of criteria need to correspond to observations or tests performable and independently replicable in the real world. Recognising this correspondence is where the value lies for humans who want to share information or meaning.

If you're not interested in the communication of information or meaning, then you can leave properties out of things entirely, and have a useless, crippled understanding of the universe where a rock and a brain are indistinguishable because you've forsworn the tools required to distinguish them. It's an aggressive anti-intellectualism, but it clearly floats some people's boats.

I have no problem with descriptions and their usefulness. I have a problem when someone thinks that when a description is useful, it implies the existence of a new physical quality. You can see how this is false when you consider that two people speaking different languages describe the same physical object. They will use different words, and this may be extremely useful in their countries, yet the object remains the same.

Glad I tuned in my little buddy. Right here you have a perfect example of your confusion. Now go get a professional to look at this and explain it to you in terms even you could understand.

zoon wrote:Pl0bs could have a point in that our concept or model of the external world involves the concept of consciousness and the possibility of multiple viewpoints? This almost certainly says more about the structure of our evolved social brains than the structure of the universe, but for the time being it's the model we have, and there's a sense in which consciousness is built in from the beginning?

That last sentence does not make sense. It's almost as if you think that brains existed from the beginning of the universe!

We see the universe as having the potential for a viewpoint, a centre of consciousness, at every point?

Only if we're very confused about what consciousness is. Whatever the details, it is NOT a property of the universe, but a function of the brain and sensory system.

Zoon, I hope you haven't been led up the garden path by pl0bs.

OlivierK wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

GrahamH wrote:
You are the one that claims Human consciousness is something that does not consist of physical ingredients. Only you are making an exception for consciousness.
Everything consists of physical ingredients.

Properties are NOT made of physical ingredients. Properties are either measurements of physical objects, or truth values of sets of criteria applied to physical objects.

How is that different to what I wrote. The key being 'of physical objects'.

OlivierK wrote: Saying that properties are physical is a shorthand sloppiness that - if taken literally - leads to stupidity like trying to find the atoms in the length of a piece of wood, as opposed to in the wood itself, or consciousness particles.

IMHO saying these properties are not physical is precisely what lead pl0bs to ridicule emergence.

OlivierK wrote:As properties are abstract descriptors of physical objects, it's possible, and entirely unremarkable, for a truth value to flip on reconfiguration of physical matter without any of the creation ex nihilo that pl0bs gets his panties in a knot about.

I think you have a huge problem calling properties descriptions. Here pl0bs replies that descriptions are mental constructs entirely dependent on consciousness. The description only describes or names the property that is the combined action of particular configurations of physical constituents. It is the way the parts interact, not anything non-physical. I think exactly the same applies to minds.

It seems I may have to retract my previous statement. Maybe some here do believe in the sort of emergence pl0bs ridicules.

Your ability to confuse things with their names in this post is profound, and your insinuation at the end it utterly groundless, unless you're referring to what you yourself wrote immediately prior.

Properties are interesting. I am playing with a model in another thread and it seems that they are consistent relationships on a model. Not just one model but many possible models. Though I'll be damned if I can think of any other models besides space/time/object.

In my view Graham is often very confused about this and pl0bs is just funny.

The difficulties here arise with what I call the god's eye view and failure to comply with the rules of the frame in which we work. People always want to talk ABOUT the GEV at the same time as they dip down into some supposed subjective view of the thing they are discussing. I like to think I have straightened that out a bit but I'm never sure.

pl0bs wrote:

GrahamH wrote:But what is an experience without a perspective? The perspective is an integral part of the experience. A PAIN IN MY ARM is an experience distinct from a PAIN IN YOUR FOOT. If we suppose simple C experience in the cells of your body they surely have the perspective of the cell. There are no free-floating experiences free from some perspective or other. So how do do you make experiences that are from a human perspective out of experiences that are from a cell's perspective? It seems impossible.

No i dont think freefloating experiences exist. I think experiences and the perspective are the same thing. Having different experiences equals having a different perspective.

Perspectives/experiences are very flexible, much more so than a normal functioning brain make us believe. Some interesting things can be experienced with drugs:

• Merging with or becoming objects
• Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_div ... te_effects

These things are hard or impossible to imagine, but they happen. Our everyday human state of mind is not the default that represents what all minds are like. We have our different senses, which result in the perspective of us occupying a point in space, looking outwards, hearing outwards, etc. These are all constructions that can be dismantled. Go blind. Go deaf. Remove the other senses. What remains of the perspective that looks outwards?

I don't have to imagine these things I simply have to remember the sixties.

pl0bs wrote:

OlivierK wrote:And it's the same with consciousness. That's just a higher-level human description for a bunch of matter arranged in configurations such as a human brain, doing what matter does.

The fact that it requires consciousness to come up with the label "consciousness" is something that you see as a paradox because you seem incapable of differentiating between something and its name, and you'll get a discussion only as long as people like Graham share that confusion.

Ok, so consciousness is actually particles, forces, spacetime. A quantity of that has been around since the big bang.

Mike is actually particles, forces, spacetime. So I have been around since the Big Bang. Or at least 'a quantity of me' has been around since the big bang. Shit. My memory fails me on confirming that.