KindaGamey
Member
Didn't the Russians already swap some heads? Honestly, some of this seems fake.
Pls reach out to him on my behalf... if he's interested I will follow up.
I agree, and unless he has some sort of medical problem, that way of presenting a video is an affectation, and I gave up on him rather quickly.Gosh, I hope you can wrangle him in sober, b/c 2 minutes in and I can hardly stand to continue to listen to slurred speech anymore. At least it sounds like his 'consciousness' is oozing all over the walls and floors!
That's too bad. I noticed the same thing and he also seems to have some gastro-related problems. That said, I powered through and am presently about half way through the video. Glad I did. A lot of what he talks about is right up this forum's alley. Indeed, some wild ass shit.I agree, and unless he has some sort of medical problem, that way of presenting a video is an affectation, and I gave up on him rather quickly.
David
Gosh, I hope you can wrangle him in sober, b/c 2 minutes in and I can hardly stand to continue to listen to slurred speech anymore. At least it sounds like his 'consciousness' is oozing all over the walls and floors!
I
Try this one:
I mean I don't really believe in Panpsychism for two reasons:
2) I don't see that you can attach consciousness on to bosons or fermions because within each type (electrons say) they are all quantum-mechanically identical - so do they all have the same consciousness?
Maybe the guy has a speech defect, or has had a slight stroke, so I may have been too hard on him regarding his way of speaking!
Back when I was a materialist, I was rather keen on Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach". He wanted to explain consciousness in terms of recursion and strange attractors (from Chaos Theory) but never seemed to manage to do so!If one defining aspect of consciousness is self-reflection, and if all electrons can be considered the same electron, then an electron encountering another electron and experiencing a force could be thought of as the most rudimentary form of conscious experience: self-reflection -> similarity/difference -> experience, repeat ad infinitum.
Circularity is part of consciousness. Or as Goertzel said in that other video, consciousness can be modeled as a "non-foundational recursion".
Where does the Hard Problem come into that explanation? The modern world is full of loops and transformations - there is a box on my desk for that!So think of consciousness as a loop. The loop can be very large and involve many transformations before returning to unity. Or the loop can be very small and involve basically no transformations.
I tend to take quantum identity seriously because it plays a huge part in the world we encounter. Without it, all the electrons in every atom would drop into the lowest orbit - goodbye chemistry. If every electron in the universe is identical, they attributing some degree of consciousness to them is more like attributing consciousness to the universe - which is back to square one!When someone meditates they are shrinking the size of the loop: I am aware that I am aware that I am aware that I am aware.... Normal waking consciousness is a very big loop so a lot of complexity is added before making the return, but observing the observable universe is still an act of self-reflection which is why an observer can "decide" quantum indeterminate outcomes.
When an electron encounters another electron (or a clone of itself bouncing back in forth in time), there is a similarity and a difference. The comparison is an experience which results in a transformation (new velocity / momentum / position). Nobody knows what qualia might arise from this rudimentary form of consciousness, but then nobody knows how anyone experiences qualia. It could be that qualia is always present whenever there is a self-reflection and transformation of any kind at any scale and that the resolution and complexity of the qualia can increase on a spectrum along with the complexity of the pattern or self-referential looping transformation.
I wonder if anyone has started reading Antti Savinainen's free book about these mystic visions of the afterlife. I am part way through, but I must say, they seem rather confusingly detailed - I started to feel that maybe some of this was made up afterwards.
David
David,
could you clarify what you mean by "made up afterwards"? For what it is worth, I can assure you that all the Ervast's accounts in the eBook are indeed original dating from 1904 to 1934 (Ervast died in 1934). These sources are online in Finnish (http://www.pekkaervast.net), and most of them have been in print form starting from Ervast's days. We referred in our eBook to editions which are currently available as the book is also available in Finnish.
At any rate, I'm delighted that someone reads the book! Criticism as such is fine...I don't expect anyone to take the book as face value (I know I wouldn't :)).
Antti Savinainen, PhD
Finland
...That was why I started to wonder if some of the details had been filled in later - I mean, would a revelation contain so much detail?
...What happens when everyone has had their consciousness refined by multiple lives on earth- what exactly are they going to do with it?
Maybe I felt that the account seemed too much like the Christian story...
David
What is the aim of all this? In Ervast's view as well in other theosophical views the aim is to become a helper in the spiritual evolution of humankind, fuelled by compassion and love. The Buddhists have a similar ideal in the Bodhisattva stream: Bodhisattva vows that he will reincarnate until every sentient being has reached the state of enlightenment.
Hi,Antti,
Thanks for that clarification!
I guess this still leaves the ultimate aim unclear - what will happen 'after' everyone becomes spiritually fully evolved. I put the word 'after' in quotes, because some studies of the afterlife report a timeless realm - which is a very difficult concept to handle!
The emphasis on purgatory, and the suggestion that the pleasant portion of the afterlife revealed by NDE's is short-lived and is followed by purgatory for most humans doesn't sound pleasant (though once again that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't true). Michael Newton's "Journey of Souls" presents a rather different picture, where people study their past lives in preparation for their next reincarnation, with far less emphasis on punishment.
David
The interesting part begins at 2:45, so I'm sorry that you didn't quite make it there.
Back when I was a materialist, I was rather keen on Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach". He wanted to explain consciousness in terms of recursion and strange attractors (from Chaos Theory) but never seemed to manage to do so!
Where does the Hard Problem come into that explanation? The modern world is full of loops and transformations - there is a box on my desk for that!
I tend to take quantum identity seriously because it plays a huge part in the world we encounter. Without it, all the electrons in every atom would drop into the lowest orbit - goodbye chemistry. If every electron in the universe is identical, they attributing some degree of consciousness to them is more like attributing consciousness to the universe - which is back to square one!
I don't think it makes sense to 'explain' qualia in terms of some arbitrary other things - such as transformations. Self reflection is a deeply slippery concept because reflection as in a mirror is no more than a metaphor for the process that may go on in someone's mind when they contemplate themselves.
David
However, this leaves the Hard Problem unsolved because changing momentum is a purely physical event, and there is no way to translate that into any sort of awareness.Perhaps this is analogous to an elementary particle's level of qualia. When an electron encounters another electron and changes momentum, this transformation could be like the switching of 0 to 1. From the electron's perspective time doesn't pass in a regular manner except that it interacts with itself off and on again endlessly.
Well, he/you does go on at some length about the intensity of the pain experienced while in purgatory!you raise an interesting point regarding what happens after the nde. Yes, Ervast and many other sources claim that there is such thing as purgatory. However, purgatory is not about punishment. Rather, it is a state of purification, healing and learning. It is in a way easy to see why some purification is necessary: all our thoughts, emotions, acts and habits leave their marks on our psyche or soul. Some of them are good and some not so good. We will enter the other side with all this which prevents our true nature from shining, and hence from living in the heavenly realm. Does this make any sense to you?