Or how one of the comments said that loving a significant other is the greatest self deception force of all.Yep, Seth would place that in the "uncontrolled hallucination" category. But a dog may give his unconditional love to his human significant other. If that human deserves this fielty is another question.
Or how one of the comments said that loving a significant other is the greatest self deception force of all.Yep, Seth would place that in the "uncontrolled hallucination" category. But a dog may give his unconditional love to his human significant other. If that human deserves this fielty is another question. So if loving your significant other is a hallucination then it’s meaningless. Something to abandon to have a truer sense of the world
Or how one of the comments said that loving a significant other is the greatest self deception force of all.Yep, Seth would place that in the "uncontrolled hallucination" category. But a dog may give his unconditional love to his human significant other. If that human deserves this fielty is another question. So if loving your significant other is a hallucination then it’s meaningless. Something to abandon to have a truer sense of the world Its meaningless only if you perceive it as meaningless.
I just don’t get how after seeing the entire video you can walk away with anything positive. It’s like saying everything you know is a lie.
I just don’t get how after seeing the entire video you can walk away with anything positive. It’s like saying everything you know is a lie.Sharing the "heureka moment" or "i knew it". Thats how social media works. And religion. You know that "water which is part of ice, part water, part steam" does not explain Holy Trinity, but there will be enough people to get completely baffled about it. Instead of getting rational and dismiss the idea, they will get emotional and like the idea and the feeling it gives. Same principle.
Or how one of the comments said that loving a significant other is the greatest self deception force of all.Yep, Seth would place that in the "uncontrolled hallucination" category. But a dog may give his unconditional love to his human significant other. If that human deserves this fielty is another question. So if loving your significant other is a hallucination then it’s meaningless. Something to abandon to have a truer sense of the world No, it's not meaningless, everything we experience is a "best guess", usually a "controlled hallucination", but this ability is rather fragile and can fall apart quite easily, especially when "emotion" interferes with "clear thinking" (making a best guess).
@ Titanomachina,
Perhaps you looked at the wrong channel. It was not Youtube but Ted Talks.
In case you missed it, I’ll provide an excerpt and the link again.
Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience – and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we’re all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it “reality.”
@ Titanomachina, Perhaps you looked at the wrong channel. It was not Youtube but Ted Talks. In case you missed it, I'll provide an excerpt and the link again.Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience -- and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we're all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it "reality." https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_realityI was referring to the link about that actualized channel, how he lists like 60+ self deceptions. So does that make him right that the mind is some kind of deceiver or as he would like to put it “decartes evil demon". To think that everything I know is a lie is terrifying. Also what about concepts? Does not naming something and qualifying it limit our understanding of what it is? Does it make things worse?
@Titanomachina,
Perhaps you looked at the wrong channel. It was not Youtube but Ted Talks.
In case you missed it, I’ll provide an excerpt and the link again.
Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience – and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we’re all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it “reality.”
I was referring to the link about that actualized channel, how he lists like 60+ self deceptions. So does that make him right that the mind is some kind of deceiver or as he would like to put it “decartes evil demon". To think that everything I know is a lie is terrifying. Also what about concepts? Does not naming something and qualifying it limit our understanding of what it is? Does it make things worse?No, ususually the brain is able to make a best guess to be functionally adequate for the human environment. This is how we can "agree" on what seems to be our reality. But Seth also demonstrated how fragile (malleable) our perceptions are. The chessboard and the fake arm are perfect examples how the brain can be fooled into interpreting things incorrectly. I wonder if a computer would catch the optical illusion on the chessboard. I would think yes, because it would analyze the color of the square without trying to associate it with any kind of shadow effect. It would not try to make a best guess relative to it's neighboring squares.
To think that everything I know is a lie is terrifying.So, don't think that. Is that so hard?
To think that everything I know is a lie is terrifying.So, don't think that. Is that so hard? Moreover, we know that not everything is a lie. Science is full of proven truths, just from observation that some things always behave in a certain way at macro scale. The problem with our brains is that it is not a single processing machine. It multitasks (both electrically and bio-chemically) which produces sentience but we don't know yet how it does it. We've only recently been able to test the various functions of the brain, but we have only just begun to explore the mind and how it forms "best guesses". But the concept of the "mirror neuron system and function" fascinates me by it's potential utilitarian properties.
To think that everything I know is a lie is terrifying.So, don't think that. Is that so hard? Moreover, we know that not everything is a lie. Science is full of proven truths, just from observation that some things always behave in a certain way at macro scale. The problem with our brains is that it is not a single processing machine. It multitasks (both electrically and bio-chemically) which produces sentience but we don't know yet how it does it. We've only recently been able to test the various functions of the brain, but we have only just begun to explore the mind and how it forms "best guesses". But the concept of the "mirror neuron system and function" fascinates me by it's potential utilitarian properties. But according to the TRilema isn't all proof founded on something unsatisfactory though?
Titanomacina said, But according to the TRilema isn’t all proof founded on something unsatisfactory though?IMO, all proof is "relative" to the desired result. In one of the links I quoted, one of the scientists working on the Mars Rover, observed that for practical purposes things do not need to be perfectly good theoretically, they just need to be good enough for their purpose. When it is good enough it is satisfactory.
He is simply taking advantage of the current gap in the understanding of how consciousness arises in the brain to promote a kind of ontologically Idealistic or Solipsistic world view. Honestly this sorta thinking is on par with the current state of religious view points in grasping to “god of the gaps” arguments with areas of science that have unanswered questions that can be hijacked to slip in their own ontological and metaphysical ideas. This stuff is really getting boring to me. With the amount progress made in physics/chemistry/biology/neuroscience and psychology that maps our functioning and experience onto the materialistic world it seems absurd to suggest that everything is but a manifestation of our first person experience (consciousness). I would never rule out any reasonable ideas but many people who have put in a great deal more work than this guy and certainly have a deeper understanding of the concepts involved do not let themselves fall into almost mystical conclusions at the behest of his apparent “spiritual” inclinations. Apparently he is one of the enlightened ones who has seen the same information as everyone else and has the laser pointed insight to see what we are all missing. I’m not sure if this is just someone not having enough information, limitations in reasoning skills or a cultist narcissism that is pushing him to steer into ambiguous areas that need a great deal more study and information before even reasonable conjecture can occur and then jumping to unfounded mystical rants that are propagated by completely discarding the universe of current scientific knowledge in the world and cherry picking what is necessary to do a few simple syllogistic and rhetorical maneuvers to inform everyone that they just aren’t seeing what he sees, the truth.
He is simply taking advantage of the current gap in the understanding of how consciousness arises in the brain to promote a kind of ontologically Idealistic or Solipsistic world view. Honestly this sorta thinking is on par with the current state of religious view points in grasping to "god of the gaps" arguments with areas of science that have unanswered questions that can be hijacked to slip in their own ontological and metaphysical ideas. This stuff is really getting boring to me. With the amount progress made in physics/chemistry/biology/neuroscience and psychology that maps our functioning and experience onto the materialistic world it seems absurd to suggest that everything is but a manifestation of our first person experience (consciousness). I would never rule out any reasonable ideas but many people who have put in a great deal more work than this guy and certainly have a deeper understanding of the concepts involved do not let themselves fall into almost mystical conclusions at the behest of his apparent "spiritual" inclinations. Apparently he is one of the enlightened ones who has seen the same information as everyone else and has the laser pointed insight to see what we are all missing. I'm not sure if this is just someone not having enough information, limitations in reasoning skills or a cultist narcissism that is pushing him to steer into ambiguous areas that need a great deal more study and information before even reasonable conjecture can occur and then jumping to unfounded mystical rants that are propagated by completely discarding the universe of current scientific knowledge in the world and cherry picking what is necessary to do a few simple syllogistic and rhetorical maneuvers to inform everyone that they just aren't seeing what he sees, the truth.This may be of interest: https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality
I’ve seen that video and it is interesting. The ideas in that video are categorically distinct from the ideas in the video about brains not existing. The idea of us hallucinating our “reality” is probably a necessary leap we need to make with the realization that our “brains” are constructing the world from sensory information. The video under discussion is a simplistic rendition of the ideas of philosophical Idealism that seems to put consciousness as primary, although they will describe it often as co-constructed with material aspects of our reality. When someone is trying to promote such a profound shift from the current state of understanding you can’t simply rely on logical reasoning and phenomenological accounts to do so. We only gain knowledge of the world when we plug empirical information into those logical arguments and get some verification consistently. His ideas are stalled at the level of conjecture. Anil Seth from the “hallucinating” video was also on the podcast Waking Up with Sam Harris and they had a pretty interesting discussion on their ideas about consciousness. Sorry but I just have to comment of your signature. I agree that art does encompass the provocation of emotions to stimulate thought but it does not necessarily map onto that statement perfectly. The term “art" itself is probably used for that purpose as much as the objects it is used to represent making the term itself a somewhat ubiquitous emotional provocateur attached to the idea of art. I believe with that logic politics, law, observing other humans suffering and many other things not typically described as art qualify as such if you use a simple platitude like that one, as we humans are active in the creation of those things as well. I think a phrase like that encompasses something necessary but not sufficient to define what art is. Art significantly overlaps with aesthetics and maybe our general lack of understanding about what that is all about leaves all of the nodes within this space of ideas somewhat ambiguous and open to interpretation in the same manner that the stars, planets, human existence and so many other things were in our past. Perhaps art is a human endeavor that is partially predicated on a circularity that encompasses the interaction of different aspects of human functioning and higher level emergent psychological and social attributes that in practice maintains its integrity in its segregation from the lens of empiricism. This a long discussion but its interesting to explore these kinds of ideas. Honestly i think that the distinction between art and non-art is kinda like that old adage of at what point does somebody transition from middle aged to old, you know its coming and you know after it happened but the transition itself is quite elusive and this suggests that its existence is also predicated on limitations of certain aspects of our intuitions as they themselves evolved within the constraints of necessity and utility. Anyway, this would probably be an interesting discussion to continue. The interesting thing is that the statement in your signature itself qualifies as art under your definition. Maybe defining a term like “art” is a strenuous endeavor because it is too broad to have a reliable utility and therefore cannot have enough specificity for agreement and this itself is revealing a recursive nature to the ambiguity that lies in the broad spectrum of its content and this itself is then active in the creation and maintenance of idea of art itself. Definitely sounds circular and self-referential with some voids in our intuitions to maintain its integrity.
Without consciousness, none of it would matter, would it?
Don’t make a simple fundamental sentient ability more complicated than it is. After all it is processing of external and/or internal information as functionally observed by the senses and processed by the brain.
Let’s just start there, and step by step analyze why observations are “best guesses” by sentient living organisms as it relates to their environment.
emergent; There’s a key on your keyboard just to the left of the letters. It will say “Enter” or “Return” and maybe have an arrow that goes down and then to the left. On a typepad keyboard, it might just have the arrow icon.
USE IT
emergent; There's a key on your keyboard just to the left of the letters. It will say "Enter" or "Return" and maybe have an arrow that goes down and then to the left. On a typepad keyboard, it might just have the arrow icon. USE ITThis being posted directly after my post, I am confused who this was addressed to. If it was addressed to me, please explain why I should use that key in context of "Brains don't exist" p.s. I use a regular qwerty keyboard and my "enter" key has also a left pointing arrow. I USE IT often when posting.
emergent; There's a key on your keyboard just to the left of the letters. It will say "Enter" or "Return" and maybe have an arrow that goes down and then to the left. On a typepad keyboard, it might just have the arrow icon. USE ITThis being posted directly after my post, I am confused who this was addressed to. If it was addressed to me, please explain why I should use that key in context of "Brains don't exist" p.s. I use a regular qwerty keyboard and my "enter" key has also a left pointing arrow. I USE IT often when posting. I put his name as a salutation and I'm talking about his large block of text.