Is the hard problem just ignored by Analytic idealism? Too many questions...
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 11:57 pm
Please, be patient. I'm still new to this.
The assumption "material arrangements are primary and somehow give rise to consciousness/mind/experience" is just wrong, according to BK.
"There is nothing about material configurations (mass, charge, momentum, spin, geometrical relationships, frequency, amplitude, whatever), nothing about physical parameters, in terms of which you could deduce the qualities of experience".
"Matter doesn't create consciousness. Matter is a content of consciousness". And "We can't create consciousness out of matter, because matter itself is something that appears in consciousness".
Let me try to reframe the problem (MY problems, maybe, and not necessarily the hard one):
We know we are conscious, and that rock over there is not. Or do we? How do we know a star is NOT conscious? How do we know it is nothing to be like a galaxy? Or do we really know?
Is the universe in consciousness and not conscious, or is the cosmic mind the universe itself, or what can we say about the cosmos as a whole and it's relationship to consciousness? I know BK has compared, with some proof, the universe structure to neural connections, but how is that even relevant in his own view, without assuming a materialistic framework?
If we can't create consciousness because consciousness is all there is, "creating a new conscious being" becomes "inducing a dissociation of the cosmic mind" or something like that, but how is that not just word choice? BK believes abiogenesis is possible, so... Before there was life in the universe, mind (undissociated mind, that is) was all there was? So is life then the ONLY way something can be said to be conscious or not?
If we can't infer inner experience just by looking at the properties or physical parameters or how it looks like from the second person perspective... Why does BK claim the cosmic mind is not meta-conscious just because it didn't evolve to be so, it didn't undergo the preasure by natural selection that we did, and so on? And, again, why is the fact that its appearance resembles something like a brain (a HUMAN brain??? Or a really primitive brain? WHY? Please, can somebody explain this to me?) even relevant, if its appearance shouldn't tell us anything about how its experience is from the first person perspective?
Why does BK talk about the brain so much, and not about the nervous system?
AND MORE CHILDISH QUESTIONS:
What can Analytic idealism say about reincarnation, or the resurrection of a body, or physical immortality?
And, if any of that is possible, why close the door to something as seemingly simple as "uploading consciousness to a machine"? Even if it is not a machine, let's say we are talking about "inducing a dissociation in the cosmic mind by creating a metabolising entity". How is that NOT possible, if he believes abiogenesis is possible? Won't we be able, even if in 10 000 000 000 years, for example, to create an adult human being (no development whatsoever, but DIRECTLY, just as if we were making a robot), capable of experiencing anything we experience?
I mean, if space-time is not fundamental, how does he reject the idea that we can create a mechanical conscious being, for example? The fact that everything is in mind... to me that opens up the possibility of exploring much more amazing things such as playing with space and TIME themselves, let alone "creating a conscious being from unconscious matter" (that's what a materialist would say, but you know what I mean even if we disregard the context).
How does BK reconcile abiogenesis with analytic idealism? Inorganic matter is a content of experience, and it can become organic matter, and organic matter can become "something that is alive", and that can become "something that is conscious". The hard problem, perhaps, would be... "How does the Mind-at-larg dissociate into alters?". Like, why can't we skip the "become alive" part and go straight from "dead matter" (yah, yah, something in mind) to something that is conscious? Anyway, again: word choice, in my estimation.
And thinking that something must be a metabolising entity in order to experience the world sounds like "something must have feathers, hollow bones and wings in order to fly" to me, if I'm honest with you.
The assumption "material arrangements are primary and somehow give rise to consciousness/mind/experience" is just wrong, according to BK.
"There is nothing about material configurations (mass, charge, momentum, spin, geometrical relationships, frequency, amplitude, whatever), nothing about physical parameters, in terms of which you could deduce the qualities of experience".
"Matter doesn't create consciousness. Matter is a content of consciousness". And "We can't create consciousness out of matter, because matter itself is something that appears in consciousness".
Let me try to reframe the problem (MY problems, maybe, and not necessarily the hard one):
We know we are conscious, and that rock over there is not. Or do we? How do we know a star is NOT conscious? How do we know it is nothing to be like a galaxy? Or do we really know?
Is the universe in consciousness and not conscious, or is the cosmic mind the universe itself, or what can we say about the cosmos as a whole and it's relationship to consciousness? I know BK has compared, with some proof, the universe structure to neural connections, but how is that even relevant in his own view, without assuming a materialistic framework?
If we can't create consciousness because consciousness is all there is, "creating a new conscious being" becomes "inducing a dissociation of the cosmic mind" or something like that, but how is that not just word choice? BK believes abiogenesis is possible, so... Before there was life in the universe, mind (undissociated mind, that is) was all there was? So is life then the ONLY way something can be said to be conscious or not?
If we can't infer inner experience just by looking at the properties or physical parameters or how it looks like from the second person perspective... Why does BK claim the cosmic mind is not meta-conscious just because it didn't evolve to be so, it didn't undergo the preasure by natural selection that we did, and so on? And, again, why is the fact that its appearance resembles something like a brain (a HUMAN brain??? Or a really primitive brain? WHY? Please, can somebody explain this to me?) even relevant, if its appearance shouldn't tell us anything about how its experience is from the first person perspective?
Why does BK talk about the brain so much, and not about the nervous system?
AND MORE CHILDISH QUESTIONS:
What can Analytic idealism say about reincarnation, or the resurrection of a body, or physical immortality?
And, if any of that is possible, why close the door to something as seemingly simple as "uploading consciousness to a machine"? Even if it is not a machine, let's say we are talking about "inducing a dissociation in the cosmic mind by creating a metabolising entity". How is that NOT possible, if he believes abiogenesis is possible? Won't we be able, even if in 10 000 000 000 years, for example, to create an adult human being (no development whatsoever, but DIRECTLY, just as if we were making a robot), capable of experiencing anything we experience?
I mean, if space-time is not fundamental, how does he reject the idea that we can create a mechanical conscious being, for example? The fact that everything is in mind... to me that opens up the possibility of exploring much more amazing things such as playing with space and TIME themselves, let alone "creating a conscious being from unconscious matter" (that's what a materialist would say, but you know what I mean even if we disregard the context).
How does BK reconcile abiogenesis with analytic idealism? Inorganic matter is a content of experience, and it can become organic matter, and organic matter can become "something that is alive", and that can become "something that is conscious". The hard problem, perhaps, would be... "How does the Mind-at-larg dissociate into alters?". Like, why can't we skip the "become alive" part and go straight from "dead matter" (yah, yah, something in mind) to something that is conscious? Anyway, again: word choice, in my estimation.
And thinking that something must be a metabolising entity in order to experience the world sounds like "something must have feathers, hollow bones and wings in order to fly" to me, if I'm honest with you.