Saturday 14 June 2014



pawn against ten queens ! :o)(

57 comments:

  1. What do you think of Thomas Ligotti's poetry?

    "Memories"

    Countless memories
    are stored in your brain.
    Sometimes they rise up
    again and again.
    Sometimes they just stay
    deep in the fleshy darkness.

    Eventually you yourself
    become only a memory
    that either rises up
    again and again
    or remains deep
    in the brains of another.

    Only after everyone
    who ever remembered you
    is gone for good and all
    does the terrible insanity
    that once bore your name
    achieve a true oblivion.

    Good-bye."

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    2. thomas

      ligotti

      has

      no

      spark

      !

      :

      o

      (




      basically the ideas are not his own ! :o()

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  2. Andrew, what is your opinion on hard problem of consciousness or mind/body question?

    Are you a neutral monism, double-aspect theorist, reductionist, physicalist, eliminativist, idealist, etc.?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

    How does qualia relate to the brain exactly?

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    1. an3drew, please elaborate.

      Do you view consciousness as ontologically distinct from its neurophysiological underpinnings? Do you think it's causally reducible? For example, read this quote:

      "I am a neuroscientist and so 99% of the time I behave like a materialist, acknowledging that the mind is real but fully dependent on the brain. But we don't actually know this. We really don't. We assume our sense of will is a causal result of the neurochemical processes in our brain, but this is a leap of faith. Perhaps the brain is something like a complex radio receiver that integrates consciousness signals that float around in some form. Perhaps one part of visual cortex is important for decoding the bandwidth that contains motion consciousness and another part of the brain is critical to decoding the bandwith that contains our will. So damage to brain regions may alter our ability to express certain kinds of conscious experience rather than being the causal source of consciousness itself. " "I don't actually believe the radio metaphor of the brain, but I think something like it could account for all of our findings. Its unfalsifiable which is a big no-no in science. But so is the materialist view- it's also unfalsifiable" (Lieberman, 2012).

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    2. Heraclitus had a completely invalid view of astrophysics and neurology by today's standards yet the validity of what he says wasn't affected and he remains imo the greatest philosopher of all time !

      recursion evaluates consciousness as a meaningless concept.............!

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    3. You're not taking the time to critically think, Andrew. The Mind-Body Problem is real and lots of Zen/Chan teachers have given various responses to it.1

      Also, Heraclitus' philosophy seems to argue our neural systems are some kind of antennae for tuning in the Logos as some kind of broadcast consciousness.

      I don't know... There are lots of plausible answers to it such as Schopenhauer's Double Aspect Theory, Searle's Biological Naturalism, Eliminative Materialism, Property Dualism, Panpsychism, or w/e.

      I don't know how to verify which is true because I've had contradictory experiences in life and such a question cannot be falsified in a scientific manner.

      I think human beings will always be stuck not knowing anything and its related to the fundamental problem of how mind relates to the body.

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    4. it's like zakaj, you don't do the contemplative work and have no idea of what a "contemplative tableau" is.............

      over real on the real and unreal about the unreal ! :o()

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    5. Zakaj and I are the only people that read your blog. I don't think he reads it anymore.

      You don't consider "reading your blog real work"?

      You might as well have no readers anymore.

      I gave consideration to your views, got solitude in nature, and etc., but...

      It was not sufficient...

      I do not want an induce fake religious-fast food experience. I want an answer and certainty to a simple question: how does the mind relate to the physical word? How do neurons relate to experience?

      A lot of people are generally epiphenomenalists without knowing it. They say neurons "give rise" to experience, but that view has issues too. I've spent pages upon pages writing about this issue.

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    7. what I am saying is that your lack of solitude/contemplative time on a daily basis is estranging you from the very much more advanced space that these questions are resolvable from, usually by being correctly perceived as voynich !

      this what I mean by you not putting the work in !

      to be fair this space is also traumatic and destabilizing and you may not want to go there , however please accept that the blue pill is your choice and stop blaming me ! :o)

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  3. Schopenhauer was a double-aspect theorist for example:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-aspect_theory

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  4. Andrew, btw, here are my top 20 mesmerizing artwork. This is a list devised by an Ubermensch. I can explain why I chose each one if you want to know:

    1. Emily Dickinson's poetry - notably F204, F690, F276, etc.
    2. Au Hasard Balthazar by Bresson
    3. The Mirror by Tarkovsky
    4. The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman
    5. Color of Paradise by Majid Majidi
    6. Fearless (Director's Cut) with Jet Li
    7. Ikiru by Kurosawa and Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy (TIE)
    8. Wang Wei's "Peach Blossom" poem & more
    9. Bukowski's "Blue Bird" poem & more
    10. True Detective by Nic Pizzolatto
    11. Thomas Ligotti's fiction
    12. Planescape: Torment by Chris Avellone
    13. Earthbound and Mother 3 by Itoi
    14. Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley
    15. Original Deus Ex for PC
    16. Xenogeard and Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne (TIE)
    17. Heidi, girl of the Alps
    18. Chi's Sweet Home and Miss Minoes (TIE) (about a cat's life)
    19. Phoenix (Hi no Tori) by Osamu Tezuka
    20. Bostan by Sa'di

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  5. OMG, I FORGOT THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES. Best artwork ever. Number 1. Yes.

    Watch it if you consider me a friend:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvYh8ar3tc

    Make it tied with #1.

    Also, I need to add Memento. I also liked the documentaries Symphony of the Soil and "You're Looking at me Like I Live Here".

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    1. it doesn't gel with me, its "meta" and not the doing itself, this is a very common problem in mystical/spiritual inquiry and one I think you have, all about and not actually "doing" !

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  6. I don't have enough money to start sustainable farming. I may WWOOF again in the future.

    RIght now, I just feel depressed and stuff. I will have to kill rats soon for research soon. I get little compensation too...

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  7. Researchers are exploited and get little to no pay, unless they go for PhD. However, going for a PhD makes you lose hair and die a little inside.

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    1. i worked for years developing skills in an area that i walked away from !

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  8. I am asking you a simple question you keep eluding, and you keep flinging ad hominems. I do get tons of contemplative time in solitude walking in natural scenery, and mental poems do surface. I fucking wrote one for you which you praised. However, I am not ultimately interested in mankind's parades over non-existent tunes... I simply asked you a simple question: How does mind relate to matter? This is the ultimate question in life.

    What is informational content and how does it relate to brain activity? It can be the case there is a kind of internal mental life of matter, or that it coalesces itself into certain material forms, or any number of other scenarios, and I am asking which scenario is correct? Is Schopenhauer's Double-Aspect Theory (i.e., that the mental and physical are two aspect of the ultimate reality), epiphenomenalism (i.e., that the brain gives rise to qualitative experience), token-identity theory (i.e., that qualitative experience is completely identical to neural activity), panpsychism (i.e., everything is alive in some extent), idealism (i.e., everything is "pure awareness"), or etc.

    Why do you assume I don't get much contemplative time in solitude? I do, and I recently watched Melancholia. I still think Ingmar Bergman does a better job capturing the feeling of aloneness and despair in the universe, unlike Lars von Trier.

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    1. "However, I am not ultimately interested in mankind's parades over non-existent tunes... "

      the non existant tunes interest me very much ! :o)

      --------------

      " I simply asked you a simple question: How does mind relate to matter? This is the ultimate question in life"

      nah it's just voynich bullshit ! :o)

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    2. So Schopenhauer is mostly voynich bullshit?

      When I stand by the carcasses of the rats I do surgery on, I ask, was there ever any spark to life? What gives rise to this subjective experience, this explosion of phenomenal reality? How does it relate to the brain?

      These are pretty important questions, man. It's not voynich bullshit. You even said cognitive science is important now, and this is agreed to be an issue in it alongside stuff like the binding problem.

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    3. I have had experiences like this:

      http://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/27m0c4/did_i_just_meditate_without_even_knowing_or_trying/

      Like I said, I read your fucking blog.

      The Hard Problem of Consciousness /// Mind-body problem needs to be resolved before you can say what that experience 'was'.

      Out of body experiences can be elicited in laboratory settings, for example. Check out of Olaf Blanke's studies.

      My point is, perhaps he just transvered the virtual space generated by his brain? Who knows? This is why I say my question takes priority.

      You act as if I don't have much experience, but I am the ONLY one to read your blog.

      Answer my question or just end our collaboration now. How does the mind relate to the body?

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    4. "So Schopenhauer is mostly voynich bullshit?"

      so which is the Schopenhauer?

      mind like body is just an image, interestingly both are quantum and can only be ever known in insufficient images ! :o)(

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  9. What is it you're trying to say?

    “We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.”
    ― Andrei Tarkovsky

    While this is cool, it's not addressing how subjective experience relates to the brain. It's a simple question.

    Schopenhauer argues in Will in World and Representation that first- and third-person knowledge are correlated because both are different types of knowledge of the same thing. He however does not view either as being reducible to the other. I can give you my notes on it which I have to scan.

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    1. that's a good Andrei tarkovsky quote

      you are not picking up what I am saying about recursion defeating attempts to make coherent meaning of symbolism !

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    2. My question is scientific in nature but has "spiritual" implications.

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    3. "scientific" is definable, "spiritual" is not !

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    4. If you do not use the definable, you will be led to delusion. A schizophrenic man can use the definable to understand his delusions are aberrations of his perceptual mechanisms. There have been crazy people with dementia, or other brain-related disorders, who have killed others, as you will known. They must use the definable to understand their fallacious mental representations do not reference reality in any meaningful way. Your emphasis of nutrition is definable, and without defining things, we could never experience the unfathomable. Defining proper nutrition and health practices is essential for every human who wishes to be healthy.

      There must be a way to theoretically frame the unfathomable in order not to give rise to false views. It is fundamentally tied to the mind-body problem // hard problem of consciousness. Even to begin discussing the "infinite", you have already implied an ontology. Without addressing how the mind relates to the world, you cannot distinguish whether your transcendental and/or immanent experiences are grounded in reality.

      Nature of causality, mind-body relation, epistemology, and etc. must all be addressed when discussing your metaphysical views. I asked: "how does my qualitative experience of a mental state relate to the metal cation movements on an axon? How does neural activity relate to subjective experience? A hallucination, a mirage, and so forth are not real, but the experience involved in determining what is good nutrition versus bad nutrition most certainly is - as your actions and experiences* indicate.

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    5. "If you do not use the definable, you will be led to delusion"

      If you use the definable, you will be led to delusion

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    6. If you could not define what is healthy versus non-healthy food, you would get sick, perhaps even have hallucinations from food poisoning.

      Distinctions are necessary in life.

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    7. it's more distinctions are a flux rather than some fixed entity !

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    8. There is an objectively existing world and we experience it, and our experience depends on its proper activity of the objectively existing world.

      Regardless of whether it changes, there are recurrent informational patterns our lives depend on. These have similarities with one occurrence to the next, in some sense. For example, without proper activity in your medulla oblongata, you could not breathe, There is some fixed pattern of activation there. It is FIXED because if specific nuclei were to be destroyed, you would not be able to continue breathing. Having activity there is fixed to let you breathe. Hume's induction argument and even Zen's Shunyata don't work here.

      Maybe I'm misinterpreting you or not making much sense, but you need to elaborate more!

      The question I posed is the most fundamental for all religions. Answering it can show a lot. It is not a worthless question. Why else would Schopenhauer and other Western Philosophers of the past painstakingly spend time on it? Doubt is the most important thing in life.

      I would be lying if I said the question doesn't make me existential.

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    9. yes it is a worthless question !

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    10. Explain why!

      Given an example of a question that's not worthless.

      Are all questions worthless?

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    11. there is some sort of creative font where this sort of thing is not an issue, you are stuck in an anti creative crucible that is murdering you..................

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    12. I watch good film and read good poetry. I also get solitude in natural scenery.

      This question is still pretty important to me.

      Do you agree with this? I don't:

      "But to the un-enlightened, things don’t seem that way. Rather, it seems as if we’re human beings walking around on planet earth; as if we exist as physical entities in a universe of time and space. It seems as if we experience an objectively existing world – as opposed to, let’s say, a field of subjectivity that’s perpetually transforming, morphing and modulating itself – which is how the awakened experiences life: as a mere flow of ever-changing phenomenality."

      http://www.uncoveringlife.com/enlightenment-what-it-is/

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    13. that website is göran backlund and he's a pretentious nut !

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    14. I told you, I do not agree with him. It is too much of an idealist position for me. I do not like consciousness-only schools of thought. The existence of disorders like blindsight seem to refute the idea that pure consciousness is the source of existence. For example, I can react to things (like catching a ball being thrown) without conscious awareness if I had blindsight.

      Lately, I have been straying away from Zen/Chan to Carvakan and Yang Zhu's philosophies:

      "Jayarasi represented extreme skepticism of the Cārvāka school, claiming no school of philosophy can claim its view of reality as knowledge, including the Cārvāka itself; however, because Cārvāka philosophy represents common sense, it could be used as a guide." - Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayar%C4%81%C5%9Bi_Bha%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADa

      " In other words, everyone should mind their own business, neither giving nor taking from others, and be content with what he has, and in that way one will be happy and also contribute to the welfare of the world (Liu: 1967: 358)." - Yang Zhu
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Zhu

      I am asking you a simple view. How does qualitative experience relate to the external world? I am pretty much moving towards irreligious attitude, especially after thinking more about Kristof Koch's (eminent neuroscientist) Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist.

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    15. there is some sort of creative font where this sort of thing is not an issue, you are stuck in an anti creative crucible that is murdering you..................

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    16. Even in the creative font, this this is an issue! This is what I'm trying to tell you!

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    17. Do not confuse a fugue state for a reverie!

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    18. tautologically since you are having this problem you are not in the creative font !

      you have sleeping problems ?

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    19. Nope, I genuinely thing this is a problem.

      Also, having sleeping problems in definable. You are indeed going back to using the definable.

      You're not making any sense. It's just a bunch of riddles you hint at having answers, but you never provide the answers.

      The Hard Problem of Consciousness is important.

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    20. not doing anything about sleeping problems is also definable !

      lack of sleep physically damages the brain !

      http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/links/compendium/sleep.html

      try some folapro/L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate which is a metabolically superior form of folic acid !

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    21. I've been listening to a TV series about Western Philosophers like Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Leibniz, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Heideigger, Wittgenstein, Locke, Descartes, and Berkeley... with Bryan Magee as the host.

      Do not insult my intelligence, asshole. I have a degree in Neuroscience and I know what I'm talking.

      The mind-body problem is real.

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    22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvAwoUvXNzU

      some intensive work of derrida would really help you I think, but if you don't look at working out your sleep problems, its all a waste of time ! :o()

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    23. Rick Roderick says our questions in philosophy are not fixed due the interpretive nature involved in a text. However, my question is dealing more with "what is the capacity that gives rise to producing interpretations, in giving both the intensity of 'meaning'"? A Kantian refutation of Derrida's philosophy would involve emphasizing on the a priori elements of the mind that make interpretations possible ... We organize our experiences into knowledge based off some a priori principles of organization (i.e., think of our cognitive structures), and then we derive meaning from it in a probabilistic manner.

      Derrida cannot deconstruct basic reality: such as the need for sleep, proper nutrition, the importance of curing diseases, etc. There could be a right interpretation in grounded questions like these because, obviously, we have saved lives with stuff like vaccinations. Some interpretations do have a common foundation in life, and all of this points to how our mind/brain knows how to organize our experiences before we have them. That is, we are not a blank slate and biological evolution is a reality...

      Schopenhauer asked better questions than Derrida. Unlike Schopenhauer, I do not think qualitative experience is necessarily a separate ontological category from physical reality, but I think his beginning with Kant was correct.

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    24. the great thing about a circle is you can go around it forever ! :o)

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    25. It is a helicoid, not a circle.

      That's your problem...

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    26. thalamocortical loops
      samsaric spiral

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    27. Now that I think about it, I think Henri Bergson makes the most sense, his spirituality too.

      Tough reading though, but I'll get into it. Creativity was very important to him. So was memory.

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    28. "There is a movement, a process of life, without end, which may be called infinity. Through authority, limitation born of fear, mind creates for itself many false reactions and thereby limits itself. Identifying itself with this limitation, it is incapable of following the swift movement of life." - J. Krishnamurti.

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    29. interestingly marcel proust was best man at henry bergson's wedding !

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Bergson

      "Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science"

      http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/henri_bergson_2.html

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