Define "being"

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prothero
 
Reply Wed 23 Sep, 2009 11:52 pm
@SammDickens,
[QUOTE=Samm;92916] I agree, prothero, that experience cannot occur without process. Experience, it seems to me, IS a process in which that-which-experiences (our consciousnesses for example) responds to the stimulus of that-which-is-experienced (all those sensations and imaginations and desires and emotions we have). All of our experiences may be understood as processes of response to stimulation, and those processes cannot occur unless there EXISTS something-that-experiences and something-that-is-experienced. Therefore, whenever an experience occurs it verifies the existence (or being) of both that-which-experiences AND that-which-is-experienced. [/QUOTE]But what are "you" except a series of continuing experiences which incorporate elements of the past and possibilities from the future. You are ever changing, every engaging in process and new experience. The notion of "you" as an enduring, unchanging substance is an illusion. "You" perceive the present, incorporate the past, and choose from the possibilities of the future. All is flux, change, process. Substance is nothing but a series of experiences which incorporate elements from the past. External "somethings" merely are more stable series of events. They are not fundamentally metaphysically different form "you" just less change, less freedom and fewer possibilities for change from one moment of experience to another.
Process is primary the concept of "substance" is secondary and derived.


[QUOTE=Samm;92916] Because I am a conscious being, then, I am unable to deny that I exist without disproving my denial in the process. I experience, therefore I exist. The only problem there is that I can't know that you exist and you can't know that I exist. But we are so alike, us humans at least, that it's a lot easier to accept the existence of each other on faith (and good faith, I think), than to go about dancing the solipsist samba. [/QUOTE]
I am not a sceptic and definitely not a solipsist. I think we "know" at the deepest core of our being that there is an external reality independent of our perceptions of it. I do not accept the pan sensationist (sense dependent) doctrine of knowledge. There are several "hard core common sense, commonsensism" ideas which may be denied in theory (especially sense perception or empiricism theories of knowledge) but which are invariably presupposed in the practice of living. I do not deny in theory that which I assume in practice.


[QUOTE=Samm;92916] I think we also seem to agree that time is nothing but a measure of change (process, events, actions, etc.). We have developed the concept of time to enable us to measure and order the innumerable processes of change in our experience. But time is only an idea. Action and change are the reality of our being. Don't you think so too?Samm [/QUOTE]Process is reality. Time is a human perception of process. I am a process philosophy person A.N.Whitehead.
 
SammDickens
 
Reply Thu 24 Sep, 2009 03:00 am
@prothero,
prothero;93237 wrote:
But what are "you" except a series of continuing experiences which incorporate elements of the past and possibilities from the future. You are ever changing, every engaging in process and new experience. The notion of "you" as an enduring, unchanging substance is an illusion. "You" perceive the present, incorporate the past, and choose from the possibilities of the future. All is flux, change, process. Substance is nothing but a series of experiences which incorporate elements from the past. External "somethings" merely are more stable series of events. They are not fundamentally metaphysically different form "you" just less change, less freedom and fewer possibilities for change from one moment of experience to another.
Process is primary the concept of "substance" is secondary and derived.

I am not a sceptic and definitely not a solipsist. I think we "know" at the deepest core of our being that there is an external reality independent of our perceptions of it. I do not accept the pan sensationist (sense dependent) doctrine of knowledge. There are several "hard core common sense, commonsensism" ideas which may be denied in theory (especially sense perception or empiricism theories of knowledge) but which are invariably presupposed in the practice of living. I do not deny in theory that which I assume in practice.

Process is reality. Time is a human perception of process. I am a process philosophy person A.N.Whitehead.


I make no claim as to the substance of my being or the reality of the world of my sensory experiences. I only say that something must exist which has all these experiences and that something is me. Am I a substantial body? Science says that I am, but I'm not examining what "substantial" might mean just yet. I'm only saying that I clearly exist as a conscious being upon whose consciousness a great number of distinct kinds of experience all interplay. Consciousness is an existing entity. Are we at odds thus far? If so please describe your view better or refer me to a previous post by number (40 plus pages, Wow!).

I know we seem to be in better agreement regarding process. I would reduce everything ultimately to the process of experience. But that, I think, is just a reflection of the different avenues by which we have come to common ground. I truly believe our worldviews are very similar. I haven't explained it out yet but I will eventually argue that "to be is to be conscious" and that everything we consider to be real and substantial in this universe is a conscious being...all animals and plants, all rocks and rivers, all planets and stars, every cell and molecule and atom, every quark and lepton. They all respond to stimulation, they all experience, only the level of sophistication varies between the quark and the human being. I think it essential that we get beyond our anthrocentric notion of consciousness and begin to understand how universal a process it really is. But I haven't established the basis of that argument yet, although we may agree.

Be you blessed!
Samm
 
prothero
 
Reply Thu 24 Sep, 2009 10:13 pm
@SammDickens,
[QUOTE=Samm;93248] I make no claim as to the substance of my being or the reality of the world of my sensory experiences. I only say that something must exist which has all these experiences and that something is me. Am I a substantial body? Science says that I am, but I'm not examining what "substantial" might mean just yet. I'm only saying that I clearly exist as a conscious being upon whose consciousness a great number of distinct kinds of experience all interplay. Consciousness is an existing entity. Are we at odds thus far? If so please describe your view better or refer me to a previous post by number (40 plus pages, Wow!) [/QUOTE].
Well, the first premise is very much like Descartes "I think therefore I am" as his initial secure premise from which to rationally derive a systemic philosophy. His next move unfortunately was to split reality in two (mental substance and material substance "res extensa") resulting in the dualism which has plagued philosophy ever since. I think you are seeking some form of monism to integrate objective and subjective experience. In the quest for a more unified world view we agree. For me the answer lies in process philosophy where ultimate reality is events or process. Each event has both a mental and a physical pole. The mental and the physical are not separate but different aspects or properties of the same event. The material does not exist without the mental nor the mental without the material. The next step in the thought system is some form of perception from one event to the next. A.N. Whitehead (English mathematician and Harvard philosopher) called that aspect of process "prehension" to avoid confusion with sensory perception concepts. This primitive form of non sensory perception (incorporation of elements of the past) is part of the doctrine of panpsychism which your next paragraph refers to.

[QUOTE=Samm;93248] I know we seem to be in better agreement regarding process. I would reduce everything ultimately to the process of experience. But that, I think, is just a reflection of the different avenues by which we have come to common ground. I truly believe our worldviews are very similar. I haven't explained it out yet but I will eventually argue that "to be is to be conscious" and that everything we consider to be real and substantial in this universe is a conscious being...all animals and plants, all rocks and rivers, all planets and stars, every cell and molecule and atom, every quark and lepton. They all respond to stimulation, they all experience, only the level of sophistication varies between the quark and the human being. I think it essential that we get beyond our anthrocentric notion of consciousness and begin to understand how universal a process it really is. But I haven't established the basis of that argument yet, although we may agree. Be you blessed! Samm [/QUOTE]
This is basically the doctrine of panpsychism (traditional see David Skrbina "Panpsychism in the West" ) or alternatively panexperientialism (David Ray Griffin) and psychialism (Charles Hartshorne). The way you present it is a more extensive than I would conceive or present but basically I would agree that perception, memory and other primitive "mental" properties are a much more pervasive and extensive property in nature than is generally acknowledged or appreciated.
Rocks are not conscious however.
Panpsychism does not entail the notion that there is necessarily some kind of unified cosmic mind or soul of the universe.
Only highly organized or complex societies would exhibit properties of "mind" or consciousness.
So we have a lot of common ground certainly more than one would have with any mechanistic deterministic world view or anyone who thinks mind is merely an emergent property of inert insensate matter.
The notion that consciousness and mind emerges from matter inert and insensate is in some sense irrational and unexplainable.
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 05:25 am
@saiboimushi,
saiboimushi;11753 wrote:
What is "being"? Can one answer this question without a tautology? And if not, why?


Feel free to interrogate the assumptions behind these questions. I don't really mind how you approach the whole matter, as long as you can in some way satisfy my curiosity Smile


Plato's work, Parmenides, like what appears to be all of Plato's work, is a peiece to get the reader to start to ask questions and figure out the principles of predication. The two element metaphyics of some early Greeks was a study, and teaching about what is implied in what anything is. A thing is some material difference in some form. The human bodies acquisition systems are divided the same way. Some abstract form from a thing, and some a things material. The two elements are form and material difference, this one will even find in Aristotle, if one search.
This gives us 3, and only 3 primitive categories of names. Names for a things form, names for a things material difference, and by combination, just like the definition, name of a thing. Since any organisms acquisition system can only abstract either form, or material difference, this is what is meant by one can never know the thing in itself.

Since we name our abstractions, giving names to things, forms and materials, it works out to a toutology--as was noted, the name of a thing is equal to the names of that things various forms and material differences. It also means that of the three categories of names, only things can be defined, this is the reason, in the Platonic dialogs, Socrates usually asked if something was a thing before he asked for a definition. The other two categories, forms and material cannot be defined, as they are not things. We can only name them. Description is used to construct or lead one to something from which an abstraction may be made. This also means that predication is the inverse function of abstraction.

When we say Tom (thing) is (being) a (material difference) cat (form). we mean by "being" that there is an equality between the names.

As the Platonic dialogs were written to encourage reflection and examination, long study of them should lead one to these understandings.

Or so I believe. Complete audio versions of the dialogs by various translators I have posted on the internet archive, search johnclark8659 j.c.
 
Fido
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 05:36 am
@NoOne phil,
NoOne;93472 wrote:
Plato's work, Parmenides, like what appears to be all of Plato's work, is a peiece to get the reader to start to ask questions and figure out the principles of predication. The two element metaphyics of some early Greeks was a study, and teaching about what is implied in what anything is. A thing is some material difference in some form. The human bodies acquisition systems are divided the same way. Some abstract form from a thing, and some a things material. The two elements are form and material difference, this one will even find in Aristotle, if one search.
This gives us 3, and only 3 primitive categories of names. Names for a things form, names for a things material difference, and by combination, just like the definition, name of a thing. Since any organisms acquisition system can only abstract either form, or material difference, this is what is meant by one can never know the thing in itself.

Since we name our abstractions, giving names to things, forms and materials, it works out to a toutology--as was noted, the name of a thing is equal to the names of that things various forms and material differences. It also means that of the three categories of names, only things can be defined, this is the reason, in the Platonic dialogs, Socrates usually asked if something was a thing before he asked for a definition. The other two categories, forms and material cannot be defined, as they are not things. We can only name them. Description is used to construct or lead one to something from which an abstraction may be made.

When we say Tom (thing) is (being) a (material difference) cat (form). we mean by "being" that there is an equality between the names.

As the Platonic dialogs were written to encourage reflection and examination, long study of them should lead one to these understandings.

Or so I believe. Complete audio versions of the dialogs by various translators I have posted on the internet archive, search johnclark8659 j.c.

Of the thing, Life, we can know the thing in itself, because we are life, and life is our form of being...The fact that you cannot know much of my life, of I know much of yours is immaterial....We perhaps have human life to thank for the spiritual conception of reality which has long held sway over our phychology and philosophy, and after all, we can never be certain that your life, so provably sprung from the same source as my own is in any way related... What is obvious is beyond proof, and what is proved beyond acceptence.... What shall we do if the animals we eat are the same life as ourselves??? What if the vegitation we eats comes from the same life fourther removed... I agree that we have all our knowledge through forms, but the one thing we know best we can never capture with a form because life is an infinite...
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 05:47 am
@Fido,
I see you did not originally ask the question you intened. First learn the principles of reason, in order that one may, as was written, reason it out, line by line, precept upon precept.

When you come to understand metaphor, like the name of the beast in Revelation, you may come to learn

that your concern is to have life and have it more abundantly, I have a machine to fix,
 
Fido
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 06:16 am
@NoOne phil,
NoOne;93474 wrote:
I see you did not originally ask the question you intened. First learn the principles of reason, in order that one may, as was written, reason it out, line by line, precept upon precept.

When you come to understand metaphor, like the name of the beast in Revelation, you may come to learn

that your concern is to have life and have it more abundantly, I have a machine to fix,

Reason is no better than knowledge, and is usually worse... Consider, that any answer you arrive at must feel right to people... We are at heart, emotional, and unreasonable; and we reason to satisfy our desires only...
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 06:33 am
@Fido,
What should be said in regards to your answer has been said many times by those more capable than I.

I, myself, am too stupid to have ever guessed, and am incapable of believing, that language and reasoning are distinct things. But to go even higher, that ignorance is bliss must be some form of Eastern Philosophy that cannot be contained in anything like a human brain, requiring, as I believe only the most perfect vacuum. Something even more beyond my simple mind.
 
salima
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 08:59 am
@SammDickens,
Samm;93248 wrote:
I make no claim as to the substance of my being or the reality of the world of my sensory experiences. I only say that something must exist which has all these experiences and that something is me. Am I a substantial body? Science says that I am, but I'm not examining what "substantial" might mean just yet. I'm only saying that I clearly exist as a conscious being upon whose consciousness a great number of distinct kinds of experience all interplay. Consciousness is an existing entity. Are we at odds thus far? If so please describe your view better or refer me to a previous post by number (40 plus pages, Wow!).

I know we seem to be in better agreement regarding process. I would reduce everything ultimately to the process of experience. But that, I think, is just a reflection of the different avenues by which we have come to common ground. I truly believe our worldviews are very similar. I haven't explained it out yet but I will eventually argue that "to be is to be conscious" and that everything we consider to be real and substantial in this universe is a conscious being...all animals and plants, all rocks and rivers, all planets and stars, every cell and molecule and atom, every quark and lepton. They all respond to stimulation, they all experience, only the level of sophistication varies between the quark and the human being. I think it essential that we get beyond our anthrocentric notion of consciousness and begin to understand how universal a process it really is. But I haven't established the basis of that argument yet, although we may agree.

Be you blessed!
Samm


i you ever find a name for this worldview, let me know...because i also share it. exactly and to the letter.

i do also see the mental as being part of the physical but on a different level, while consciousness is the ground or field from which they manifest.

and prothero-
consciousness does not emerge from matter and mind-it is the opposite. that is how there is consciousness in a rock, it is the essence of the rock which emerged or manifested from consciousness...may be it is still irrational, but that is my current level of understanding. i am willing to be shown why it isnt possible though...
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 09:11 am
@salima,
"consciousness in a rock"? I see the truth of it! Eliminate all distinctions, and one achieves the ultimate in . . . . . well, let us not follow the reasoning out, but sit and listen to the rocks.

whoa!
 
richrf
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 09:16 am
@NoOne phil,
NoOne;93528 wrote:
"consciousness in a rock"? I see the truth of it! Eliminate all distinctions, and one achieves the ultimate in . . . . . well, let us not follow the reasoning out, but sit and listen to the rocks.

whoa!


At this point, as deep as we can see, everything is the same. They are all elementary wave/particles - quanta, electrons, etc. It is all the same. And then poof! they become something. But, as deep as we can see now, they are all the same, and they are all entangled with each other. Other than this, it is but a guess or a belief that we might intuit. No field of exploration whether it be metaphysical or scientific can do more than interpret what is being observed.

Now the question is, whether that which I observe, my own consciousness. Did it create the words that I have just posted or did the keypad that I touch create my consciousness? I choose the former. And the post that I have just created is now entangled with everyone that has read it - including the little elementary wave/particles keypad that I typed on. There is no line or Schnitt as Heisenberg called it, between the object and the subject.

Rich
 
SammDickens
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 09:53 am
@salima,
salima;93524 wrote:
i you ever find a name for this worldview, let me know...because i also share it. exactly and to the letter.

i do also see the mental as being part of the physical but on a different level, while consciousness is the ground or field from which they manifest.

and prothero-
consciousness does not emerge from matter and mind-it is the opposite. that is how there is consciousness in a rock, it is the essence of the rock which emerged or manifested from consciousness...may be it is still irrational, but that is my current level of understanding. i am willing to be shown why it isnt possible though...


My idea of it is that what-experiences (and that's all I mean by consciousness) responds to the stimulus of what-is-experienced. What is the manner of this response? Part of the response for the quantum particles like quarks and leptons is the creation and maintenance of the fields of energy that create what we would call their "bodies". These are not sentient beings so their experiences are quite primitive and uncalculated. They form an energy field with qualities of location, momentum, spin, charge, and mass. That's about all I imagine these most elementary of particles to be able to do. It is their consciousness, responding to its field of experience, that generates the qualities associated with the particles. Thus, matter (or what we call matter, E=mc^2 so m=E/c^2) is a product of primitive quantum consciousness, the conscious beings we call quarks and leptons--and here I'm only going with the standard model, which is no more than the most popular theory of physical reality and incomplete insofar as it does not yet address dark matter/energy.

All material reality is either (1) fundamental indivisible particles (FIPs for short, like those quarks & leptons for example(?)) or (2) aggregations of such FIPs. Thus three quarks combine to make a proton, three more to make a neutron, add a lepton (an electron in this case) and you have an atom. All atoms have the same three basic elements in increasing numbers, e.g. greater aggregation. Combine atoms together and you get molecules, a further aggregation of FIPs. Molecules can become very large and complex. The next level of aggregation builds living cells from molecules, and finally complex creatures with specialized organs made of cells made of molecules made of atoms made of FIPs. You and I are aggregate beings made of many levels of less complex, more primitive beings, all conscious and responsive to their experiential environment, all contributing to what we are and what we experience. We, as a complex aggregate being are a conscious being made of less complex conscious beings.

Are we still close in our understandings, Salima?

Samm
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 09:56 am
@richrf,
richrf;93530 wrote:
At this point, as deep as we can see, everything is the same.
Rich


Even though Aristotle was not the sharpest tool in the shed, he did note that a pile of wood and a house are not the same.

A thing is some material difference in some form. Again, as Aristotle pointed out, neither form nor material difference can exist on its own, things exist, and every thing is composed of material difference and form, this is the foundation of the Two-Element metaphysics. Neither form, nor material difference are things, thus, they do not exist.

So, when you reduce all things to simple material, you simple have no understranding of what a thing is at all. Or so, it would follow.
 
SammDickens
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 10:09 am
@NoOne phil,
Are not the same elementary particles, the same atoms, the same molecules found in the rock not also found in your own body? And in your own body, do they not sing? The only difference is that, in your body, those particles and atoms and molecules have combined into living cells that have built a living and sentient being. The evolution of matter in the universe is dictated by the evolution of consciousness.

Rocks don't sing (although some songs do rock!), but they have a body that responds to gravity, a body that has location and mass and form. The qualities of aggregate beings are always founded upon the qualities of the beings that comprise them.

Does that make any sense to you?
 
richrf
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 10:14 am
@NoOne phil,
NoOne;93542 wrote:
Even though Aristotle was not the sharpest tool in the shed, he did note that a pile of wood and a house are not the same.

A thing is some material difference in some form. Again, as Aristotle pointed out, neither form nor material difference can exist on its own, things exist, and every thing is composed of material difference and form, this is the foundation of the Two-Element metaphysics. Neither form, nor material difference are things, thus, they do not exist.

So, when you reduce all things to simple material, you simple have no understranding of what a thing is at all. Or so, it would follow.


Take a pencil made of carbon and start making spirals. The spirals are different but it is all made of carbon. It is all made of the same, but what conscious might create with the carbon is different.

And what makes up the carbon? - Quanta. And what makes that quanta move and create? My consciousness. How does consciousness turn into quanta? - by collapsing the wave into something more dense - called the particle.

Rich
 
SammDickens
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 10:16 am
@NoOne phil,
NoOne;93542 wrote:
Even though Aristotle was not the sharpest tool in the shed, he did note that a pile of wood and a house are not the same.

A thing is some material difference in some form. Again, as Aristotle pointed out, neither form nor material difference can exist on its own, things exist, and every thing is composed of material difference and form, this is the foundation of the Two-Element metaphysics. Neither form, nor material difference are things, thus, they do not exist.

So, when you reduce all things to simple material, you simple have no understranding of what a thing is at all. Or so, it would follow.


Hi, NoOne! I agree perhaps that form and material difference are not things in themselves, but are they not qualities of things? Do not all physical objects have form and material difference? Thus, I must consider them to exist, since if they did not exist, the objects of which they are necessary qualities should find themselves most put out by their absence. Smile

Samm
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 10:18 am
@saiboimushi,
Re: Define "being"

One of the main goals Plato had in mind with the dialog called today, Parmenides, was to urge the reader to start thinking about the principles of predication.

Predication is the inverse function of abstraction--or simply stated, the name of a thing is equal to the names of that things various forms and material differences.

Plato, however, went beyond that in demonstrating any attemp to predicate of the predicator "is" "being" etc. to demonstate that as one cannot predicate of either form or material difference, as they are not things, neither can one predicate of the predicator.

When one understands that predication is the inverse function of abstraction, one can then build a table of permissible predications. Form can not be predicated of form, nor material of material, nor thing of thing, etc. This is some of the mental exercises one should do in order to learn to start to think correctly.
 
richrf
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 10:45 am
@NoOne phil,
NoOne;93551 wrote:
Re: Define "being"

One of the main goals Plato had in mind with the dialog called today, Parmenides, was to urge the reader to start thinking about the principles of predication.


My own preference is Heraclitus and Daoism. All starts with the Logos/Dao (I would call it Consciousness), and from it we get waves (Yin/Yang or Quanta, or Strings), and from that we get motion (Intention) that moves the waves - and from these three, we get everything else.

Very elegant. Very simple. Waves that are moving. Or as Heraclitus might say, All is flux.

Rich
 
NoOne phil
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 10:49 am
@SammDickens,
Samm;93549 wrote:
Hi, NoOne! I agree perhaps that form and material difference are not things in themselves, but are they not qualities of things? Do not all physical objects have form and material difference? Thus, I must consider them to exist, since if they did not exist, the objects of which they are necessary qualities should find themselves most put out by their absence. Smile

Samm


If you take that view, you have to say "Not things are etc." You would have to predicate of the non-predicable. Take the time to read and reread Plato, for if you look at the two-element metaphysics, and what it implies, you find that historically man finds it impossible to grasp. They say such things as "A line is composed of an infinite number of points." Not realizing that they make the bounded the boundary, and it would make as much sence to say I can make a salad by waving a knife in the air an infinite number of times.

As Plato point out, all you can do is name these first elements. You cannot predicate of them. The idea is not part of man's understanding yet. But, when you begin to master it, you can see how foolish are the men called genius today. They are no more than popular mystics.

Words do not define words--not all words. We have two primary naming systems, names of things directly, and the names of things composed by the names of a things forms and material differences.

Some day your eyes may open and see the mountains of rubbish being passed off for wisdom, and learn that it is true, when man's eyes start to open, the wisdom of what he thought were wise shall perish. It is just a fact of what will happen when the linguistic ability of man evolves.
 
prothero
 
Reply Fri 25 Sep, 2009 08:48 pm
@saiboimushi,
[QUOTE=Samm;93544] Are not the same elementary particles, the same atoms, the same molecules found in the rock not also found in your own body? And in your own body, do they not sing? The only difference is that, in your body, those particles and atoms and molecules have combined into living cells that have built a living and sentient being. [/QUOTE] The primitive mental properties (perception, memory, response) which combine (as opposed to emerge) to create "consciousness" and "mind" in highly organized complex societies are present even in fundamental particles. That view is the view called "panpsychism".

[QUOTE=Samm;93544] The evolution of matter in the universe is dictated by the evolution of consciousness. [/QUOTE] This statement is quite something else. More on the order of "cosmic mind" or "universal consciousness" or "collective consciousness" or what do you mean?

[QUOTE=Samm;93544]Rocks don't sing (although some songs do rock!), but they have a body that responds to gravity, a body that has location and mass and form. The qualities of aggregate beings are always founded upon the qualities of the beings that comprise them. [/QUOTE] If one wants to object to the notion that "mind" and "consciousness" somehow magically "emerge" from a universe which is composed of fundamental particles which lack perception or any other mental property this is a valid objection. The theory of evolution would imply that "mind" and "consciousness" should gradually emerge in stages over many species and over large spans of time. The potential for "mind" and "consciousness" and the primitive forms of them must be widely present and deeply embedded in nature.

[QUOTE=Samm;93544]Does that make any sense to you?[/QUOTE] To me yes; but to a materialist with a mechanistic deterministic view of nature and reality; and a physical identism or emergent view of mind and consciousness, no.


[QUOTE=salima;93524] i you ever find a name for this worldview, let me know...because i also share it. exactly and to the letter. [/QUOTE] This is an ancient worldview. In fact it was probably the dominant worldview for centuries. The materialist worldview really did not come into being until after Newtonian physics. It is only in the last two or three hundred years that nature was not viewed as enchanted, ensouled or alive to its very core. This is a form of "panpsychism" .

[QUOTE=salima;93524] i do also see the mental as being part of the physical but on a different level, while consciousness is the ground or field from which they manifest. [/QUOTE] Are you envisioning a 'cosmic mind"? a "universal soul"? or what form does this consciousness take?

[QUOTE=salima;93524] and prothero-[/QUOTE]
salima;93524 wrote:

consciousness does not emerge from matter and mind-it is the opposite. that is how there is consciousness in a rock, it is the essence of the rock which emerged or manifested from consciousness...may be it is still irrational, but that is my current level of understanding. i am willing to be shown why it isnt possible though...
I respectfully disagree. I think we both view the universe as enchanted and imbued with spirit. I do in some sense view everything as an "emanation of spirit" or a "manifestation of the divine" but I would avoid using the term "mind" or "consciousness" because of the concept laden nature of the terms. To begin to talk of "rocks as conscious" or of "rocks as created by consciousness" leads to serious confusion about terms and concepts. No serious writer in this area; and there are several (scientists and philosophers alike) talks about the consciousness of rocks.
See "Radical Nature" by Christian de Quincy or even better
"Panpsychism in the West" by David Skrbina
Skrbina's book especially gives a historical review of panpsychism as a historical and more modern philosophical and scientific concept.

The observations of quantum behavior do not give direct support to any of these concepts. Quantum behavior does call into question the mechanistic deterministic view of Newtonian physics.
 
 

 
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