The Hierarchy of Scientific Knowledge

[Divine Insight]

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I've created the image above to help everyone understand the hierarchical structure of scientific knowledge.

The sciences of Biology and Genetics reside at the top level of scientific knowledge. An understanding of the principles of biology rests upon the knowledge and understanding of Chemistry since all of biology operates on principles of chemical reactions, and complex macro molecules.

Beneath the science of Biology we have Chemistry. Chemistry is the science of how atoms themselves behave and form bonds between themselves to form the various types of molecules that ultimately give rise to biology as well as other inorganic macro materials.

Chemistry then rests upon physics. Physics is the study of the fundamental laws, forces, and particles which ultimately make up the atoms. At one time in history atoms were believed to be the smallest possible constituents of nature, but in modern physics this has been shown to be false. The atoms themselves are made up of smaller constituents often referred as 'particles'. However it is now understood in physics that these particles can also be describe mathematically as waves. In fact, the current scientific interpretation is they are actually just waves of probabilities, or waves of potentiality that do not become manifest until they are observed in an act of observation.

Physics is then held up by what is often called "The Queen of the Sciences" which is mathematics. Mathematics is pure abstract thought that has no tangible basis. In fact, the very concept of number itself is defined within mathematics as being a property of an empty set. An empty set is a collection of things which does not contain a single thing. So mathematics disappears altogether at the level of number and becomes only abstract thought.

What holds up mathematics?

Well according to many mathematicians, philosophers, and scientists, mathematics resides in the Mind of God.

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"If we do discover a theory of everything...
it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason
for then we would truly know the mind of God."

- Stephen Hawking





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[Divine Insight]

Also you may be the one who is anthropomorphizing consciousness. You may be pushing an anthropomorphic human consciousness onto the universe, whereas I may be attributing to it a totally different concept of awareness.

Yes I am. Consciousness can only exist in a living being. Unless you can show how consciousness can exist in inanimate objects, that is the case. What I am not doing, and what you are implying, is that the universe is a conscious being. By doing so you are anthropomorphizing the universe. What am I missing here?

But there's a slight problem with your conclusions.

First off, if the secular atheists are right that consciousness has entirely arisen within a biological brain via evolution. Then there is absolutely no reason to believe that it can't also be re-created using non-biological computers, or analog circuitry.

But then what? Then all of a sudden, consciousness has nothing to do with "living biological creatures".

In some sense this will be seen as a "victory" for the secular atheists because they will be able to create consciousness artificially perhaps out of silicon rocks. But at the very same time they will have simultaneously demonstrated that consciousness does not require biological life to exist.

And that will indeed bring up the question that if they can recreate conscious awareness in a rock, then perhaps the universe can also be conscious in a similar way.

No biology required.

So your demand that consciousness must be anthropomorphic only via live biological organisms may ultimately prove to be false via secular science itself.

[SailingCyclops]

A biological quality? How can you be sure that biology is required for consciousness?

From all current observations this happens to be the case. We only observe consciousness in living organisms. By definition, consciousness is a biological trait.

consciousness |ˈkänCHəsnəs|
noun
the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings: she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later.
• the awareness or perception of something by a person: her acute consciousness of Mike's presence.
• the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world: consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain.

If some day, we can engineer a machine to be self-aware, we would have to call it something other than conscious.

So you have 1 example of conscious life out of 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities and you're happy to conclude that all life must be biological?

Well, it's the only example we have to judge by. I am not saying it's impossible for some form of consciousness to exist which is not biological, I am simply saying there is currently no evidence for it, nor do we have any idea what such a mechanism would require. In the same vain, I am not stating that god does not exist, I simply don't believe in a god because there is no evidence to support the god theory.

I then have valid reasons to believe that a vast quantum supercomputer may very well exist beyond what we even consider to be "physical". ....

All this means is that information may travel faster than the speed of light. To extrapolate beyond that is not supported by the evidence. We must take things one step at a time.

The only place I see it leading to is you jumping to the conclusion that your very limited knowledge of reality is all there is.

Not at all. I am very aware of my ignorance. What I am unwilling to do is to fill that ignorance with unsupported science fiction.

We have barely scratched the surface of discovering the true nature of reality. We don't even know for sure how many dimensions we exist in. We thought it was 3 dimensions of space and 1 separate dimension of time, all quite rigid and absolute. Then, not very long ago, we discover that it's actually a single fabric of 4-dimensional spacetime that is extremely malleable in very strange ways. And now we are being told by the Scientific Community to hold onto our seat belts because the universe might actually have 11-dimensions!

Yes isn't that wonderfully fantastic? We are beginning to scratch the surface of reality. It's an exciting time to be alive, and I am sure even more fantastic discoveries will be made in the years ahead. This does not mean however that we have the basis to postulate a cosmic conscious supercomputer god in the cosmos. Not yet anyway!

And you're going to tell me that we have no reason to believe that conscious could exist without biology?

Currently we do not have any evidence that consciousness can exist apart from a biological system.

I think computer scientists would argue with you on that one as they are hoping to create conscious brains using silicon chips some day. What happens to biological consciousness as being special when they succeed?

When and if CS develops a machine and claims it to be conscious, we will have to re-examine our definition of consciousness. Our current definition is specific to human brains.

And if they can make a rocks think, then who's to say the universe hasn't already made thinking rocks somewhere out there in the universe?

Great science fiction, but there is no basis to make such a supposition. Again, I see no mechanism which would allow a rock to think.

Moreover, if you're a hardcore secular atheist, then surely you're aware that we are nothing more than an advance form of primate. We are barely monkeys living on a planet, and we are still in our infancy. We are "The Planet of the Baby Apes".

Why should we conclude that our current understanding of reality is so incredibly complete that we can start ruling things out that don't seem to match up with our extremely limited knowledge of reality.

We don't rule things out exactly, we build on what we know and learn a bit more with each new discovery. We don't fill our ignorance with gods or cosmic supercomputers.

I think you're perfectly correct when you suggest that we will need to agree to disagree. Because you're acting like we already know it all. Whereas I'm taking a completely different perspective on that. As far as I'm concerned human discovery of reality is in it's extreme infancy.

No. I am content with admitting my ignorance about the vast majority of cosmic reality. It's ignorance which drives discovery. However, if we postulate that god-did-it, or that some supercomputer is at the heart of all reality, we will remain forever ignorant.

What if humans happen to live as long as the dinosaurs? What if we continue on for another 195 million years. Do you think that those people are going to still be sitting around believing the limited knowledge we have today?

If our species survives as long as the dinosaurs did, I am certain that the knowledge of that day will make us look like cockroaches in comparison. But that does not give us license to propose fantastic theories without any evidence.

[SailingCyclops]

But there's a slight problem with your conclusions.

First off, if the secular atheists are right that consciousness has entirely arisen within a biological brain via evolution. Then there is absolutely no reason to believe that it can't also be re-created using non-biological computers, or analog circuitry.

But then what? Then all of a sudden, consciousness has nothing to do with "living biological creatures".

Consciousness, by definition, is reserved to living things. Now, is it possible that some day we will be able to create a living thing? A new life form? One which is sentient? Sure, it's not only possible, but we have a rudimentary understanding of how such an organism functions. It would be more than conscious however, it would be life.

[Divine Insight]

By definition, consciousness is a biological trait.

If some day, we can engineer a machine to be self-aware, we would have to call it something other than conscious.

Now you're just appealing to semantic arguments. Very specific semantic arguments I might add.

I confess that I'm using the term "consciousness" very loosely and abstractly when considering whether the universe might be a dream in some "Mind of God".

The actual hypothesis is more along the lines of the following"

1. The universe appears to be based on some underlying and apparently preexisting information. (I feel there are sound reasons to argue for this)

2. So the next obvious question to ask is whether this underlying preexisting information is dynamic. (In other words, is it active? Does it somehow process? If it is information, and it is being processed, this implies the possibility of some potential awareness or intent.)

Obviously it doesn't even imply that absolutely. A computer can process information without awareness. Any 'intent' it may have may simply be found in the algorithm of it's processing program.

None the less, if some information processing entity gives rise to the universe, the question of whether or not it might have some sort of awareness or intent is certainly a reasonable question to ask.

So this is the rationale behind this thinking.

I'll be the first to agree that "The Mind of God" (if it exists) probably is quite different from what we perceive to be the "Mind of a Human". So in that sense perhaps we will need new words to describe it.

But for now we tend to work with the words we have.

Well, it's the only example we have to judge by. I am not saying it's impossible for some form of consciousness to exist which is not biological, I am simply saying there is currently no evidence for it, nor do we have any idea what such a mechanism would require. In the same vain, I am not stating that god does not exist, I simply don't believe in a god because there is no evidence to support the god theory.

Perhaps it's merely the term "God" that you object to?

I'll be the first to agree that the term "God" has been totally destroyed by various religions that have basically made "God" out to be an unreasonable egotistical bully who truly is anthropomorphically modeled after an immature adolescent who throws temper tantrums over every little thing.

It's no wonder people have such an extreme phobia to the use of the term "God" in light of such ignorant religions.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we are nothing more than a nightmare in the mind of an immature adolescent highly egotistical and human-like mind. Although, I suppose anything's possible.

I'm coming from a totally different mindset of "God". Where God is seen as the underlying mind that basically dreams up reality. And in this sense, we are actually a part of this mind. Not separate individual entities to be judged and cast into eternal damnation by a spoiled brat anthropomorphic childlike God.

So it's true that I'm considering this whole thing from a very mature view of a "Mind of God" that is more in harmony with some of the wiser Eastern Mystical views of what "God" might be like. And even then I confess that there are actually quite a few truly stupid version of the Eastern Mystical view, so I'm basically ignoring those as well.

So I guess I can't really blame people for bulking at the use of the term "Mind of God".

I'm sure that people like Stephan Hawking, Albert Einstein, and other scientist who speak of "The Mind of God" are imagining a truly intelligent version of God and not imagining this mind to be the mind of immature spoiled anthropomorphic and highly egotistical brat invented by people in the Middle East. Both Einstein and Hawking have made it pretty clear that they aren't considering that type of egotistical godhead.

In fact, Albert Einstein referred specifically to Buddhism as being a far better picture of spirituality.

"If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism"

I personally feel that Taoism would be a better choice in terms of being less contaminated with anthropomorphism. Taoism might be a better spiritual philosophy in terms of trying to imagine what God Herself is actually like.

However, in terms of a religion specifically for humans the anthropomorphic aspects of Buddhism probably have value for humans in terms of helping them to become more in harmony with the mind of God.

And this "Mind of God" may not even be "personal" beyond the mere fact that it gives rise to our very own personified consciousness. I personally find that to be ironic in a way, because in a very real sense this would make "God" far more personal than a self-egotistical type of personified God who has his own personality.

So I think much of your concern here may actually have to do with the semantics of using the term "God" at all, simply because of the way this term has been grossly abused by people like the Greeks, Hebrews, and others who have created mythological egotistical very anthropomorphic images of Gods.

I can't blame you for having a distaste of those mythological paradigms. If you've read very many of my posts you probably know that I renounce those pictures of "God" with no mercy whatsoever.

I then have valid reasons to believe that a vast quantum supercomputer may very well exist beyond what we even consider to be "physical". ....

All this means is that information may travel faster than the speed of light. To extrapolate beyond that is not supported by the evidence. We must take things one step at a time.

I hesitate to agree with you on this point, in part, because of Richard Feynman's Sum-Over-Histories approach to solving Quantum Equations. This approach works, and I personally have a very deep intuitive understanding of precisely why and how it works (given non-locality as a premise).

So, from my perspective I can actually see the universe as a whole acting as a quantum non-local analog computer. And so for this reason, it not only makes sense to think of the universe as being a holistic quantum non-local analog computer, but it basically appears to me that this is indeed what it must be for Feynman's sum-over-histories to even work. And they do work. They work amazingly well. So well, it's hard to deny their truth.

The only place I see it leading to is you jumping to the conclusion that your very limited knowledge of reality is all there is.

Not at all. I am very aware of my ignorance. What I am unwilling to do is to fill that ignorance with unsupported science fiction.

Well, this is again where we may need to part ways. I have reasons for suspecting that reality is indeed being produced by some sort of underlying non-local quantum supercomputing "brain" of some type.

So I actually feel that we do have evidence that such a brain does indeed exist, even if it's nothing more than a property of the universe as a whole.

The universe itself may actually be this brain. In fact, that is the mystical philosophy. The universe is this brain (we call "God", for lack of a better word) simply dreaming.

This actually makes a lot of sense to me, and as I've said, I think there is evidence that points in this direction, with Feynman's Sum-over-histories approach to quantum calculations being perhaps the greatest evidence we have to date.

We have barely scratched the surface of discovering the true nature of reality. We don't even know for sure how many dimensions we exist in. We thought it was 3 dimensions of space and 1 separate dimension of time, all quite rigid and absolute. Then, not very long ago, we discover that it's actually a single fabric of 4-dimensional spacetime that is extremely malleable in very strange ways. And now we are being told by the Scientific Community to hold onto our seat belts because the universe might actually have 11-dimensions!

Yes isn't that wonderfully fantastic? We are beginning to scratch the surface of reality. It's an exciting time to be alive, and I am sure even more fantastic discoveries will be made in the years ahead. This does not mean however that we have the basis to postulate a cosmic conscious supercomputer god in the cosmos. Not yet anyway!

Well, this is clearly where we disagree. I feel that we do have reasons to make such postulates. We certainly aren't in a position to confirm or deny them at this point. But we are in a position to at least postulate them, and that's really all I'm doing.

I don't see anything wrong with considering this as being a possibility.

And more passionately, I don't see any reason to make out like as if it's "Scientific Blaspheme".

Why should scientists be considered to be fruitcakes or fairy preachers, for simply hypothesizing postulates that are indeed based upon current scientific observations?

I personally think this phobia actually comes from the horribly evangelistic Abrahamic religions. Those religions can be so utterly disgusting that the very mention of the word "God" can make a sane intelligent person's skin crawl and induce nausea to the point where they physical begin to puke.

I can fully understand that justified phobia concerning the term "God".

And so in this sense I don't truly blame anyone who is standing shotgun-ready to blast any God-like Clay Pigeons out of the air before they start to grow wings.

I can fully understand that reaction. Trust me on that one.

Most intelligent scientists don't want to contribute to those insane ancient rumors of egoistical godheads. I don't blame them for that one iota.

But do we really need to toss the baby out with the bath water?

And you're going to tell me that we have no reason to believe that conscious could exist without biology?

Currently we do not have any evidence that consciousness can exist apart from a biological system.

Well, like I say, that can be argued. We certainly don't have any direct evidence for any sentient consciousness that has precise anthropomorphic qualities. But I don't see where this is being suggested.

Again, this probably has to do with the very term "Mind of God"

If you're thinking of Zeus, Thor, Yahweh, Jesus, Apollo, etc, then yes, the "Mind of God" implies an egotistical being who has the very same types of wants, needs, emotions, and frailties of any mere moral human. Then no, there is no evidence that any such egotistical Gods exist.

But if you're thinking of the term "Mind of God" in a Taoistic sense (assuming you understand this type of pantheistic philosophy), then the evidence for this type of mind is almost overwhelming. You don't even need science to realize that it's true. And in light of science, and especially Quantum Mechanics and Feynman's sum-over-histories the evidence that it must be true is almost overwhelming at that point.

I think computer scientists would argue with you on that one as they are hoping to create conscious brains using silicon chips some day. What happens to biological consciousness as being special when they succeed?

When and if CS develops a machine and claims it to be conscious, we will have to re-examine our definition of consciousness. Our current definition is specific to human brains.

Well, like I say, in this case you're just arguing semantics.

If you reserve the word "consciousness" to only refer to the cerebral experiences of humans, by definition, then of course we couldn't use that same term to apply to any "Mind of God", by definition.

But that's nothing more than an argument of semantic. All you're doing there is insisting that we use a different word to label any "consciousness" a mind of God might actually have.

That's an argument of pure semantics. You're just demanding that we use a new label. That's hardly an argument against the actual essence of the concept.

And if they can make a rocks think, then who's to say the universe hasn't already made thinking rocks somewhere out there in the universe?

Great science fiction, but there is no basis to make such a supposition. Again, I see no mechanism which would allow a rock to think.

Well I'm using "rock" to refer to silicon computers.

Silicon is a rock. Or at least sand.

Moreover, if you're a hardcore secular atheist, then surely you're aware that we are nothing more than an advance form of primate. We are barely monkeys living on a planet, and we are still in our infancy. We are "The Planet of the Baby Apes".

Why should we conclude that our current understanding of reality is so incredibly complete that we can start ruling things out that don't seem to match up with our extremely limited knowledge of reality.

We don't rule things out exactly, we build on what we know and learn a bit more with each new discovery. We don't fill our ignorance with gods or cosmic supercomputers.

No, but we do make postulates and hypothesis based upon what we do know. And I personally feel that we have sufficient evidence to support such hypotheses. I've already given the example of quantum mechanics and the observation of sum-over-histories. This is evidence that non-local analog computing is indeed going on. So that much appears to be well-established to me. To ask if this non-local analog computing could possibly represent some sort of cosmic mind seems to me to be a very natural question in light of this evidence.

I think you're perfectly correct when you suggest that we will need to agree to disagree. Because you're acting like we already know it all. Whereas I'm taking a completely different perspective on that. As far as I'm concerned human discovery of reality is in it's extreme infancy.

No. I am content with admitting my ignorance about the vast majority of cosmic reality. It's ignorance which drives discovery. However, if we postulate that god-did-it, or that some supercomputer is at the heart of all reality, we will remain forever ignorant.

But I'm not suggesting that this is the "answer" to any other problems. I'm not proposing this as a "solution" to anything. I'm merely considering that this might actually be the foundational truth of reality.

Who knows? Maybe it is?

And maybe it's not.

It's just a hypothesis and postulate for a theory worthy of further exploration is all I'm saying.

What if humans happen to live as long as the dinosaurs? What if we continue on for another 195 million years. Do you think that those people are going to still be sitting around believing the limited knowledge we have today?

If our species survives as long as the dinosaurs did, I am certain that the knowledge of that day will make us look like cockroaches in comparison. But that does not give us license to propose fantastic theories without any evidence.[/quote]

Ok, perhaps I need to redraw the scientific hierarchy map them.

Here you go:

The atheistic view of science
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Happy now?

[Divine Insight]

But there's a slight problem with your conclusions.

First off, if the secular atheists are right that consciousness has entirely arisen within a biological brain via evolution. Then there is absolutely no reason to believe that it can't also be re-created using non-biological computers, or analog circuitry.

But then what? Then all of a sudden, consciousness has nothing to do with "living biological creatures".

Consciousness, by definition, is reserved to living things. Now, is it possible that some day we will be able to create a living thing? A new life form? One which is sentient? Sure, it's not only possible, but we have a rudimentary understanding of how such an organism functions. It would be more than conscious however, it would be life.

Well, I confess the idea that the universe itself may be some sort of "living being" is something that I'm prepared to actually consider. This is the mystical view.

The idea is that the physical world is a 'dream' being dreamed by some sort of living mind.

I confess that this is indeed a "Fairytale Philosophy", but it has merit in many ways.

Life may indeed be a fairytale.

In some ways this makes at least as much sense as it having evolved out of random stuff.

Where would this random stuff have come from in the first place? That itself is a mystical event.

No matter how we imagine a universe to come into being, any such event defies anything that we would consider to be logical. So even the most secular universe is still "Fairy Dust". There's no getting around it.

The fact that anything exists at all is already a mystical event.

[SailingCyclops]

Thanks for the detailed reply. This is getting interesting. A welcome change from the usual discussions on this site. I will attempt to address each section of your reply in a separate post as it becomes relevant just to keep things a bit more organized. We must needs get through this first part though, because I believe it is the basis for some of what may follow. This is fun!

Now you're just appealing to semantic arguments. Very specific semantic arguments I might add.

I confess that I'm using the term "consciousness" very loosely and abstractly when considering whether the universe might be a dream in some "Mind of God".

Well, akin to your intuitive understanding of Feynman's Sum-Over-Paths, My intuitive concept of consciousness goes well beyond the dictionary definition. Consciousness, to my understanding, includes much of our brain's conscious and subconscious activity. Consciousness is the product of millions of years of biological evolution, it involves all our thought processes, our dreaming, our ability to conceive abstract ideas...... it's what makes us human. This is why I resist the idea that such can be implemented by a machine, or by a disparate web of connected strings. I am not actually appealing to semantics, I am seeing consciousness as a profoundly complex biological process. One which we are still struggling to comprehend and define.

The actual hypothesis is more along the lines of the following"

1. The universe appears to be based on some underlying and apparently preexisting information. (I feel there are sound reasons to argue for this)

If we were to define that "information" as the physical constants which makes our universe flat, I agree. If we further agree that those constants were not "fine tuned", but rather randomly selected during the universe's inflation, then yes. Point one agreed. However, I don't think that is what you have in mind. You may have to explain exactly what your "sound reasons" are.

2. So the next obvious question to ask is whether this underlying preexisting information is dynamic. (In other words, is it active? Does it somehow process? If it is information, and it is being processed, this implies the possibility of some potential awareness or intent.)

Here is where I run into a roadblock. I don't understand what you mean when you ask "does it process". That concept immediately implies that an algorithm is at work, a plan, an awareness, an intent, in short an intelligence.... This I can't wrap my head around. What is the mechanism? How did it evolve? What's it's origin? Intelligent Design?

Obviously it doesn't even imply that absolutely. A computer can process information without awareness. Any 'intent' it may have may simply be found in the algorithm of it's processing program.

Yes, however we can trace the provenance of that computer along with it's algorithms back to the human mind of it's designer. We can further trace that mind all the way back to the first cell on earth.

None the less, if some information processing entity gives rise to the universe, the question of whether or not it might have some sort of awareness or intent is certainly a reasonable question to ask.

That is a very big IF. An if for which I see no evidence. You seem to be replacing the oft-used term "creator god", with "Information processing entity". Semantics?

So this is the rationale behind this thinking.

I'll be the first to agree that "The Mind of God" (if it exists) probably is quite different from what we perceive to be the "Mind of a Human". So in that sense perhaps we will need new words to describe it.

But for now we tend to work with the words we have.

We already have the word god, why not use that? The god concept seems to be what you are proposing, only using different words to describe it. How is your proposition any different? I am confused here.

[Divine Insight]

Thanks for the detailed reply. This is getting interesting. A welcome change from the usual discussions on this site. I will attempt to address each section of your reply in a separate post as it becomes relevant just to keep things a bit more organized. We must needs get through this first part though, because I believe it is the basis for some of what may follow. This is fun!

I'm glad to hear that. I was starting to fear that was rambling too much.

Now you're just appealing to semantic arguments. Very specific semantic arguments I might add.

I confess that I'm using the term "consciousness" very loosely and abstractly when considering whether the universe might be a dream in some "Mind of God".

Well, akin to your intuitive understanding of Feynman's Sum-Over-Paths, My intuitive concept of consciousness goes well beyond the dictionary definition. Consciousness, to my understanding, includes much of our brain's conscious and subconscious activity. Consciousness is the product of millions of years of biological evolution, it involves all our thought processes, our dreaming, our ability to conceive abstract ideas...... it's what makes us human. This is why I resist the idea that such can be implemented by a machine, or by a disparate web of connected strings. I am not actually appealing to semantics, I am seeing consciousness as a profoundly complex biological process. One which we are still struggling to comprehend and define.

Ok, this is a very good explanation. I thank you for taking the time to clarify.

And yes, I can even see your perspective on this. I confess that my view of consciousness is quite different. And this is no doubt due to the influence of these Eastern Mystical philosophies that I've been studying.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with these types of philosophies, but they stress the importance of asking "Who are you?", and they focus on meditating on this very concept. They also write tons of books explaining you aren't.

And part of what they claim we are not, is much of what you are suggesting we are. They claim that we are not our memories, or our thoughts, etc.

They have us mediate in silence and try to recognize that we are this presence that actually experiences all this other stuff. And this is why they see as being the core truth of our being.

I confess that I fall for this hook, line, and sinker. But for good reason. When I think about what they are saying I realize that much of it is is indeed true. I'm not my memories. I'm necessarily a product of my past. At least I'm not confined to being that. I can be that only to whatever degree I permit myself to be that. But my freedom to not be that is also clear to me. In fact, the level to which I can free myself from my past is actually explained via karma. And this is explained in very rational ways I think.

Also, consider this. If you woke up tomorrow with total amnesia would you still be the same person? Well, clearly you would have forgotten your past, perhaps even your name. You might think of yourself as being a "Braid new Person". But what about the entity that is having this experience of having been struck with amnesia. Would that person still be you?

If so, then clearly your past memories have nothing to do with who you truly are.

In fact, you might even become religious and when find out that you used to be a strict atheist, you might even think to yourself, "How could I have thought that way?"

So which is the "real you"? The person before amnesia or the person after amnesia? According to the Buddha they are both equally you. Because you are that which is having the experience. You are not that which you are experiencing.

I'll grant you it's a bit abstract and possibly esoteric. But it also has some obvious pragmatic merit. Of course, this doesn't in any way suggest that the thing that is having this experience necessarily resides beyond your physical brain. But it does suggest that it is independent of your thoughts, memories, and experience, at least to some degree.

Obviously if you can still remember how to talk you haven't lost all memory. But even the mystics recognize that you have karma (i.e. your past experiences do count for something). The question is though, do they account for you?

Even if you lost your memory of how to talk, you'd still be having that experience, and that would still be "you".

I don't claim that this philosophy is free from problems. Far from it. But it might help to shed some light on how we view the essence of consciousness differently.

In a sense you're attaching more "baggage" to the concept that I'm willing to attach to it. But I confess, there may actually be more baggage to it that I'm currently willing to concede. After all, I confess that all I have is a hypothesis, and I'm certainly not claiming to have a finished polished theory.

The actual hypothesis is more along the lines of the following"

1. The universe appears to be based on some underlying and apparently preexisting information. (I feel there are sound reasons to argue for this)

If we were to define that "information" as the physical constants which makes our universe flat, I agree. If we further agree that those constants were not "fine tuned", but rather randomly selected during the universe's inflation, then yes. Point one agreed. However, I don't think that is what you have in mind. You may have to explain exactly what your "sound reasons" are.

How about the observation that consistent kinds of particles continually pop into and out of existence from seemingly nothingness?

That seems like a fairly sound reason to me. What do you think?

I confess, that it's not profoundly convincing. But keep in mind, that I'm only suggesting that it's sound reasoning to form a hypothesis to be tested. I'm not suggesting that it's sound reasoning to come to any logical conclusion of proof.

Gotta keep things within the context of how they are being proposed.

2. So the next obvious question to ask is whether this underlying preexisting information is dynamic. (In other words, is it active? Does it somehow process? If it is information, and it is being processed, this implies the possibility of some potential awareness or intent.)

Here is where I run into a roadblock. I don't understand what you mean when you ask "does it process". That concept immediately implies that an algorithm is at work, a plan, an awareness, an intent, in short an intelligence.... This I can't wrap my head around. What is the mechanism? How did it evolve? What's it's origin? Intelligent Design?

Whoa, slow down. All I'm suggesting is a hypothesis. You're now asking me questions that would require a completed polished theory. I wish I had answers for all those questions I'd write a paper on it.

As far as the mechanism is concerned, based on what we know, I would suggest that the mechanism is similar to our electronic op-amps, only operating non-locally. Of course they wouldn't be made out of silicon chips. What it's actually made of is beyond me. I would imagine that it's made of something that is totally outside our notion of physical.

Obviously it doesn't even imply that absolutely. A computer can process information without awareness. Any 'intent' it may have may simply be found in the algorithm of it's processing program.

Yes, however we can trace the provenance of that computer along with it's algorithms back to the human mind of it's designer. We can further trace that mind all the way back to the first cell on earth.

That's true. So if we discover that the universe can process information what do we trace that back to? The Big Bang?

None the less, if some information processing entity gives rise to the universe, the question of whether or not it might have some sort of awareness or intent is certainly a reasonable question to ask.

That is a very big IF. An if for which I see no evidence. You seem to be replacing the oft-used term "creator god", with "Information processing entity". Semantics?

Could be just a matter of semantics. This is true.

I confess that the whole hypothesis has indeed been inspired by the idea that life may very well be a dream taking place inside of some kind of mind or computer.

This is not exactly a renegade idea. There are scientists who suggest that the universe may very well be a computer simulation. Of course these particular scientists are often computer scientists. So I'm sure they are biased.

One scientists has actually proclaimed that we are living in a computer simulation that has actually been constructed by humans far in our future. Why he makes that assumption I'm not sure. It seems to me that in his model we'd still needed to have evolved naturally the first time around in order to have become advanced enough to then create a simulation to reproduce that very act.

And this guy is a well-funded scientist at a major university. I'll try to find a name for you, I can't think of who he is at the moment, but I have a video documentary where he appears. I'll see if I can find out who he is.

If you think I'm crazy just imagine the scientists your tax money is actually funding! I don't get a single cent for my ideas.

By at least my idea doesn't require that we evolved to become God first and then come back and dream us up later.

So this is the rationale behind this thinking.

I'll be the first to agree that "The Mind of God" (if it exists) probably is quite different from what we perceive to be the "Mind of a Human". So in that sense perhaps we will need new words to describe it.

But for now we tend to work with the words we have.

We already have the word god, why not use that?

You had to go and make me puke didn't you.

I think you're just trying to be a meany.

The god concept seems to be what you are proposing, only using different words to describe it. How is your proposition any different? I am confused here.

I think the only comparison with a "God" would be the idea that there might be an actual mind behind the universe.

I'm actually proposing that if this mind exists, we are it. We are entirely a manifestation of it, and therefore we are not in any way separate from it. We are this mind having this dream that we perceive to be biological life.

I realize it's a difficult concept to wrap our remote individual perspectives around. And I confess it makes far more sense if you read a lot of mystical junk first.

But if you do that, it really does begin to make some sense.

But maybe the Fairy Fart hypotheses works too. I dunno.

[SailingCyclops]

I confess that I'm using the term "consciousness" very loosely and abstractly when considering whether the universe might be a dream in some "Mind of God".

I agree, very very loosely. While I totally reject the concept due to the lack of evidence to support it's fundamental premise, I now, finally, understand what you are saying.

And yes, I can even see your perspective on this. I confess that my view of consciousness is quite different. And this is no doubt due to the influence of these Eastern Mystical philosophies that I've been studying.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with these types of philosophies, but they stress the importance of asking "Who are you?", and they focus on meditating on this very concept. They also write tons of books explaining you aren't.

And part of what they claim we are not, is much of what you are suggesting we are. They claim that we are not our memories, or our thoughts, etc.

The answer is no. I have read little in the realm of eastern philosophies and mysticism; with one exception, that would be the IChing. Perhaps my experience with the IChing will give you a glimpse into my viewpoint on the subject and to my understanding about what value we can glean from such.

When faced with a weighty life decision or problem, I meditate on the issue while holding 3 ancient Chinese coins in my hands. My meditation is what I was taught when I studied the martial arts --standard 'stomach breathing', and the emptying of the mind-- except in this case, I mentally focus on the issue at hand and toss the coins. Each coin has an inscribed side and an un-inscribed side. I toss the coins 6 times, each time recording the the number of heads and tails as it were. There are 4 possibilities which translate to Yin, Yang, Yin-Changing, and Yang-Changing. The tosses create a trigram, sometimes 2 trigrams. I then look up and read the relevant trigrams in the book of changes, and apply the reading to my issue. I use the Richard Wilhelm Translation with a forward by Carl Jung. The word uncanny comes immediately to mind. The readings immediately strike to the heart of the issue, and also open up trains of thought which I was not considering during my meditation. One would outwardly think that it was a truly mystical, supernatural, or magical experience. I have found this exercise very mind expanding and useful over the years.

However, there is nothing mystical or magical involved here. It is not divination as some believe. The forward by C. Jung is very useful in understanding how exactly this works, and it does work, at least it does for me. The fundamental idea is that the book itself is a collection of ancient human wisdom. The ritual of the random coin tosses (some use a random stick drop instead of coin tosses) helps the conscious and subconscious minds concentrate on your issue, blocking out all other stimuli. When one reads the judgement in the oracle your mind makes connections with archetypes, racial memories, and your subconscious in such a way as to clarify and amplify what you are truly feeling deep within. This can appear spooky, and very mystical at times, but it's psychology at it's most basic.

Anyway, that is the full extent of my dabbling in Eastern philosophies. Supernatural, and mystical as it appears though, it is based on well understood Jungian Psychology. If you can get a copy read the Forward, and then give it a try, you, of all people, would enjoy it immensely. It's a real hoot!!

EDIT:

P.S. I also consult Sun Tzu's The Art of War for wisdom concerning conflict resolution.

[Divine Insight]

I have read little in the realm of eastern philosophies and mysticism; with one exception, that would be the IChing.

Perhaps my experience with the IChing will give you a glimpse into my viewpoint on the subject and to my understanding about what value we can glean from such.

However, there is nothing mystical or magical involved here. It is not divination as some believe. The forward by C. Jung is very useful in understanding how exactly this works, and it does work, at least it does for me. The fundamental idea is that the book itself is a collection of ancient human wisdom. The ritual of the random coin tosses (some use a random stick drop instead of coin tosses) helps the conscious and subconscious minds concentrate on your issue, blocking out all other stimuli. When one reads the judgement in the oracle your mind makes connections with archetypes, racial memories, and your subconscious in such a way as to clarify and amplify what you are truly feeling deep within. This can appear spooky, and very mystical at times, but it's psychology at it's most basic.

I couldn't be in more agreement with you on this point.

I absolutely agree with this. And for this reason I highly recommend many of these mystical traditions for even the most hardcore atheists. Precisely because they do have very pragmatic psychological value.

In fact, if you've every heard me reference that fact that I employ rituals and shamanic journeys associated they psychological archetypes of Wicca. This is precisely how I am viewing them. I see them as being extremely pragmatic and useful psychic techniques. Where the term 'psychic' here is simply being used to refer to matters of the psyche (i.e. the mind)

Where we may potentially differ is in the following areas:

1. I believe that our psyche actually has more influence over our extended physical environment that perhaps you might be willing to embrace.

2. I also believe that our psyche can potentially be in contact with the psyche of other people in strange non-local ways (obviously from a scientific point of view I point to QM as a possible mechanism for this non-local connection).

Again, you may not be willing to consider either of these two possibilities at all.

I consider them to have some scientific plausibility at least in subtle ways. And again I point to QM as a scientific theory that loans at least some plausibility to this potential influence.

The precise extent to which this kind of psychic energy can be used I can't say. I actually bought a large quartz crystal and made a magic wand with it using a branch taken from a tree in what I intuitively felt was a magical forest.

This magic wand is supposed to help enhance psychic powers.

I performed a very complex ritual waving this wand over my cat whilst reciting passionate incantations that I wrote myself from the deepest part of my own passion and emotions.

The goal of this "magic spell" was to transform the cat into a beautiful sexy woman who would be wildly in love with me and anxious to make wild and passionate love with me.

Unfortunately the cat just laid there and yawned through the whole ritual. And I even burnt myself on a candle.

So obviously there are limits to just how magical our psychic power can be.

But still, there may be something to it on a far more subtle level.

I've been working on far less ambitious acts of magical transformations now.

Perhaps I just started out on too high a level? A little too over-ambitious for my current psychic skills.

[SailingCyclops]

Where we may potentially differ is in the following areas:

1. I believe that our psyche actually has more influence over our extended physical environment that perhaps you might be willing to embrace.

2. I also believe that our psyche can potentially be in contact with the psyche of other people in strange non-local ways (obviously from a scientific point of view I point to QM as a possible mechanism for this non-local connection).

Again, you may not be willing to consider either of these two possibilities at all.

As to number 2:

We have already designed an apparatus which detects brain waves and translates them into commands to move prosthetic limbs. A thought of moving an arm for instance, can indeed be detected electromagnetically, and be used to move an artificial arm. The detectors are embedded in a skull cap, and act as antennas.

As we both are aware, electromagnetic radiation does not stop millimeters from the source, but rather radiates into space at the speed of light. Therefor I can conceive of a possible mechanism for the concept of psychic communication. Anecdotal evidence of people being aware of a loved ones death or travail miles apart, can possibly be explained this way. I am willing to consider the possibility only because I can see a possible scientific mechanism for it to happen. As improbable as it is, given the power levels involved, the ambient electromagnetic noise, and the as yet un-demonstrated ability of the brain to detect and understand such information. I won't consider it impossible.

As to number 1:
I currently can see no mechanism where our brain functions can effect our physical environment. Until I see such, I can not embrace such.