The Matrix of Illusion

[Marty Champions]

the people that put out these videos are not sending out a hateful all knowing message

but a message that you can understand and make sense of take it or leave it or be an asshole and not even listen to a single true word said.

scientists havent done shit in years

except come up with new drugs to get people hooked on

[zarathustra]

scientists havent done shit in years

except come up with new drugs to get people hooked on

ok.  my bad.  i didn't get the joke.

[SuperNatural]

Hey zarathustra!  Where do you teach philosophy at?  Where did you go to grad school?

I'm asumming you have a little continenetal philosophy knowledge judging by your name.  Or at least some Neitzsche appreciation? 

I'm looking at applying to grad school soon.  Any recommendations for philosophy of mathematics?  Or logic?

[figgs]

figgs and bebop:
both you guys are hung up on this idea that the authority of those who put the time in studying this stuff is illegitimate, and anyone should be able to contribute whatever they want with equal authority.  but that's just asinine.  if some kid in his trig class in high school decided to tell a real mathematician "move over and let ME show you how to really solve this differential equation!" i'm hoping you would agree that's absurd.  it's the same as if some 150 pound guy bouncing the bar off his chest on bench and keeping his arms bent and using his back to curl came up to a 250 pound bodybuilder and said "i'll show you how this shit is done!"  or if a guy with a textbook on human physiology decided that his opinion was better than an m.d.'s.  i'm assuming you guys are with me in thinking that those people simply would not be qualified to address the issues no matter what they thought of themselves.  moreover, it's no surprise that they might think such things considering they don't even know enough to understand what they don't understand!  it simply takes a certain amount of study to even get the concepts being discussed.
well, why would anyone think that the most difficult questions of all time, namely "what is the nature of the world," would be any different?  why would that kind of question, seemingly much more difficult, be thought to be the kind of thing that anyone could answer?  it isn't.  in the same way that you have to study any subject to some degree just to get to the point where you understand just how much you don't understand you have to study a lot of philosophy to understand the ideas being discussed in philosophy.  you can't just walk in off the street and start throwing around terms because you won't even know what those terms mean.  you simply haven't put in the time to get what the questions even are.

let me ground this for you guys in some real examples.  in figgs' post where he listed a bunch of people whose ideas he said dovetailed with his, he named some guys who thought that psychedelics would "open up your mind" or "expand your consciousness."  well, what does that even mean, and why would anyone think such a thing?  how would it work?  if your mind is just your brain, then it's no surprise that changing the chemical makeup of your brain would change your perception of things.  but then there is no reason to think that you're getting to anything good or "expanding" anything.  that's because, if we're just talking about your brain and nothing beyond it, it looks like your brain is the kind of thing that evolved for a specific purpose, that likely being cashed out as something like allowing us to navigate the world successfully.  but then we wouldn't think we were getting something better when we radically changed the makeup of our brain.  we would be much more likely to think we were screwing it up.  it's just like you can make a car work differently by dumping metal shards in the oil.  certainly the behavior of the car would change, but we have no reason to think that's "better" or "expanded."  in the same way, if our mind is just our brain, and our brain is the result of evolutionary pressures whereby those individuals who navigated the world more successfully were the ones who stuck around to produce fertile offspring, then we probably don't want to screw that up by altering it dramatically as it seems very fine-tuned to its job, and we are clearly making it work differently by taking psychedelic drugs.
however, you might think that your mind is more than just the crap in your head, that it's more than your mere brain.  but then you have to ask yourself how it is that altering your brain alters your mind.  what is it that is being changed if not your brain?  and if the non-physical part of the mind is affected by the psychedelic drugs, how is that working?  do the drugs have magical powers?  what is the causal relationship between the magic powers of the chemical substance and the effects they produce?  more, why would we think that the "trip" one takes is any better, is "expanded" in some positive sense? 
it doesn't look like the guys talking about psychedelics really address those kinds of issues, and those are the most basic in terms of studying mind.  i mean, that's the absolute bottom level.  you can't go anywhere before you get a handle on those kinds of issues, and they don't even address them.  they just say a bunch of words that make up sentences that, while syntactically correct, are meaningless.  what the hell is the energy of your mind or consciousness?  i mean, i know what energy is in physics, but that's not what is being discussed, because energy doesn't have will, direction, or purpose.  energy is just a scalar physical quantity.  but that's not the kind of thing people mean when they talk about the mind's "energy."  there it takes on some spooky properties.  but then there's this constant equivocation in the meanings where people attempt to take "energy" in the spooky sense and use the theoretical language of physics to get out stuff that is empty of any genuine content.  you can't use the law of conservation of energy to talk about spooky stuff.  you're equivocating on the meaning of "energy," and when you do that you aren't say anything at all.

Psychedelics are scientific tools, if you like, just as the microscope alters your vision of material reality, psychedelics open your mind to experiencing the world in new ways.

It's clear that you never took any kind of psychedelic drugs because if you have you wouldn't be so skeptical about whether or not they are just perterbing brain chemistry and nothing else. There's a difference in measuring things based on observation and actual experience itself. I would be willing to bet a million dollars that if you smoked a heap of DMT and experienced extra-dimensional realities and came in contact with extra-dimensional beings, you would come back and say "My God! That was more real than what I've always thought was real! Shit! Now I gotta rethink everything I thought I knew was real!"

[Jussup]

but then you have to ask yourself how it is that altering your brain alters your mind.  what is it that is being changed if not your brain?  and if the non-physical part of the mind is affected by the psychedelic drugs, how is that working?  do the drugs have magical powers?  what is the causal relationship between the magic powers of the chemical substance and the effects they produce?

Well, how can the "mind" alter the brain chemistry and structure for instance by behavioral cognitive psychotherapy respectively long term depression? Does the mind have magical powers? How does this exactly work? And as John C. Eccles liked to point out: How can people with most severe brain injuries still show full cognitive functioning?
I agree with the need of the most basic philosophical questions you are asking. And yes, the term "consciousness" is still a huge problem. But given the current status of affairs you need to dismiss all positions as metaphysically biased. And where do you go from there on your own search for answers? The philosophia perennis, which most of those "second rate scientists" refer to, seems to be a good start.

BTW: Bob Chick, what is the IFBB position on this? I am also wondering, if that is covered in the rule book or in the conduct code..

[bebop396]

Im not in politics or head of a christian broadcasting network but being that i am a prick, ive decided on telling Pat Robertson that there is no God....

[zarathustra]

Well, how can the "mind" alter the brain chemistry and structure for instance by behavioral cognitive psychotherapy respectively long term depression?

good question if the mind is more than the brain.  that's definitely a challenge for any dualist out there.  if it is just the brain then there's nothing strange at all as it isn't some spooky mental state that merely correlates to a change in a brain state.  rather, the change in brain state just is the change in the brain state.  the fact that both change at the same time isn't mysterious at all as they are the same thing, they are numerically identical.

And as John C. Eccles liked to point out: How can people with most severe brain injuries still show full cognitive functioning?

that is simply untrue.

[warrior_code]

Johhny, Can you blame them for getting hooked onto drugs that will save their lives?

[zarathustra]

Psychedelics are scientific tools, if you like, just as the microscope alters your vision of material reality, psychedelics open your mind to experiencing the world in new ways.

It's clear that you never took any kind of psychedelic drugs because if you have you wouldn't be so skeptical about whether or not they are just perterbing brain chemistry and nothing else. There's a difference in measuring things based on observation and actual experience itself. I would be willing to bet a million dollars that if you smoked a heap of DMT and experienced extra-dimensional realities and came in contact with extra-dimensional beings, you would come back and say "My God! That was more real than what I've always thought was real! Shit! Now I gotta rethink everything I thought I knew!"

you're quite right that i've never done any psychedelic drug, but that is irrelevant to the point.  why would i think that causing my brain to misfire would open myself up to anything of any value?  again, i can change all sorts of things without that being characterized as anything positive.  i can screw up my tv by putting a magnet next to, changing all the colors, but that doesn't mean that i've done anything positive or gotten anything relevant out of the change.  even if i think the colors are really pretty, what i've done is screw up the device, not make it show me anything better or expand its capability.  i fucked it up. 
more than that, why would the misfires of my brain make me think that those misfires are something more than a change in brain chemistry, especially since i know i am changing the brain chemistry?  why would any skepticism i have about such merely being the case be altered simply because i screwed with my brain and experienced something really weird?  i would have to have some prior commitment to my mind being something other than my brain to buy that, and that would necessitate some explanation as to how it is that my non-physical mind is altered by a change in physical properties.  that's exactly what those guys didn't even think about because they didn't know anything about the subject, and it's something you haven't addressed.  get it?

[zarathustra]

Hey zarathustra!  Where do you teach philosophy at?  Where did you go to grad school?

I'm asumming you have a little continenetal philosophy knowledge judging by your name.  Or at least some Neitzsche appreciation? 

I'm looking at applying to grad school soon.  Any recommendations for philosophy of mathematics?  Or logic?

i'm at tulane.  i'm abd here.
sure, i've done some continental philosophy, and there's quite a bit i like about nietzsche.
i have no idea what a good place for phil of math or logic would be.  good luck, though.

[SuperNatural]

i'm at tulane.  i'm abd here.
sure, i've done some continental philosophy, and there's quite a bit i like about nietzsche.
i have no idea what a good place for phil of math or logic would be.  good luck, though.

Thanks, man.  What are you doing your dissertation on?

[zarathustra]

Thanks, man.  What are you doing your dissertation on?

an analysis of the distinction between perception and sensation in a dretskean fashion, an explanation of the content of sensation in terms of its non-conceptual nature, and what the distinction means for any hope for hard-core realism.  in a nutshell.

[SuperNatural]

Sounds pretty cool.  Good luck!  I don't know CRAP about about phil of mind, though.  I've read a little of Daniel Dinnett's book "Consciousness Explained."  That's about it.  My school has really weak options in phil of mind.

though it's cool to have you on the boards, man.  As you can see, there is a lacking of philosophical arguments.

[Jussup]

Quote
And as John C. Eccles liked to point out: How can people with most severe brain injuries still show full cognitive functioning?
that is simply untrue.

  I did not say that every person with severe brain injury shows full cognitive functioning, but there are cases. You can get started with reading Pribram or Eccles, for instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Facing-reality-philosophical-adventures-Heidelberg/dp/0582445175/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203583518&sr=8-29

i would have to have some prior commitment to my mind being something other than my brain to buy that, and that would necessitate some explanation as to how it is that my non-physical mind is altered by a change in physical properties.

And you still didn't get my point. You keep saying brain = mind, which is a metaphysical bias.
I could argue the same way by saying I don't accept the reality of my ordinary state of consciousness, as it also just a case of neurons misfiring, which I was culturally conditioned to. Your point of view would necessitate some explanation as to how my non-physical mind can significantly alter my physical brain and moreover random generators as in the experiments of Dean Radin.
In other words you are requiring a commitment - which I completely support - that neither modern neuroscience nor philosophy satisfactorilly fulfilled.

[Hugo Chavez]

He's talking to a audience of golf balls, so what's the point?

[zarathustra]

I did not say that every person with severe brain injury shows full cognitive functioning, but there are cases. You can get started with reading Pribram or Eccles, for instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Facing-reality-philosophical-adventures-Heidelberg/dp/0582445175/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203583518&sr=8-29

i'm quite aware of who eccles is.  that does not change that we have no reason to think that full cognitive functioning is preserved in the face of dramatic alteration to the brain.  sure, there's some degree of neural plasticity, and such decreases rapidly as one matures, but none of that suggests that the mind is anything other than the brain. 
eccles data has been combed over by tons of people, and yet virtually no one comes up with the conclusion that eccles did, that the mind has some dualistic aspect in terms of substance.  moreover, it is clear to anyone who has read his work on the mind-body issue that his views are the result of his religious beliefs.  he already thought he knew the "answer" before he ever looked at what was going on, and that's a terrible way of getting things right.  that's bias.  of course, none of that changes his incredible work in neurophysiology.

And you still didn't get my point. You keep saying brain = mind, which is a metaphysical bias.
I could argue the same way by saying I don't accept the reality of my ordinary state of consciousness, as it also just a case of neurons ,misfiring, which I was culturally conditioned to. Your point of view would necessitate some explanation as to how my non-physical mind can significantly alter my physical brain and moreover random generators as in the experiments of Dean Radin.
In other words you are requiring a commitment - which I completely support - that neither modern neuroscience nor philosophy satisfactorilly fulfilled.

i wasn't endorsing any particular view.  i was saying that the stuff in the beginning of this thread was silliness, and the people putting it out there weren't even trained enough in the study of mind to recognize the kinds of issues that need to be addressed.  in the same way that you don't even know what to look for when someone turns up ill if you have no medical training, you just don't even know what issues are pertinent, what must be addressed in order to get the rest of your argument off the ground, if you don't know jack about the subject.
that said, we have good reason to think that the mind is just the brain.  such a theory has deep explanatory power and amazing predictive force.  could that be wrong?  sure.  but we have no reason to think so at all.  the fact that some experiments give strange results doesn't change that.  in fact, you would have to have some very, very strong bias that the mind is something other than the brain in order to get that out of the experiments you're addressing.  the fact is that we don't understand all the workings of the brain.  that's why there is so much work being done on it right now, and the field is early in its infancy.  but history has taught us that constantly looking for gaps in which to find Mystery (the capitalization is purposeful) fails us over and over.  what we repeatedly find is that the Mysteries were, in fact, mere mysteries, and the explanation turns out to be physical in nature and not something spooky.  since this has always been the case in the past it would seem sensible that, at some point, that would just become the default position.  and yet... 
we are so desperate to be special.