What does it mean: Open Minded

So it seems to be fine and dandy for a materialist to believe in miracles? And then go on to say that we only think we think but we don't think? Wow. Profound!

Now, S_S_P, am I missing something here or is Harris - the arch prosecutor - pleading the case for the defence in that piece? I know he's upset the faithful on a couple of occasions.

Harris has always been a weird one, once upon a time coming to the defense of parapsychology as a legitimate field. Here's the original piece so people can judge for themselves.

I also get the feeling he's confident that hidden variables will reveal themselves over time, and so there's nothing but forward causal clockwork. Syntropy involves backwards causation so I'm curious what he'd think about its possible role in the free will debate.
 
Open-mindedness couldn't necessarily indicate acceptance. A person could look at all angles, consider everything, analyse everything, yet still reject it.
 
Open-mindedness couldn't necessarily indicate acceptance. A person could look at all angles, consider everything, analyse everything, yet still reject it.

True. I find the materialist explanations for consciousness emerging from matter to be nonsensical, as does Sam Harris. But I'm guessing both of us are well read in the matter, him more so than me.
 
I often hear Sam Harris on podcasts/interviews, etc. but don't know what he would say about that point you just mentioned. But I suppose he would agree with me on the point of open-mindedness that I related.
Re materialism/consciousness, some of you guys seem to use these terms in unusual ways. I've asked for explanations/definitions a few times, and all I got was name-calling, and being cut-off the forum.
To me materialism indicates 'matter', like the elements on the periodic table. Do some people really think that matter does not exists? Or do they mean that they accept material in the natural world, but ALSO accept supernatural things, like the guy who recently said he talked to, or met the Holy Ghost?
 
I often hear Sam Harris on podcasts/interviews, etc. but don't know what he would say about that point you just mentioned. But I suppose he would agree with me on the point of open-mindedness that I related.
Re materialism/consciousness, some of you guys seem to use these terms in unusual ways. I've asked for explanations/definitions a few times, and all I got was name-calling, and being cut-off the forum

Here's where he talks about it.

Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle.

I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang. The idea that everything (matter, space-time, their antecedent causes, and the very laws that govern their emergence) simply sprang into being out of nothing seems worse than a paradox.


To me materialism indicates 'matter', like the elements on the periodic table. Do some people really think that matter does not exists? Or do they mean that they accept material in the natural world, but ALSO accept supernatural things, like the guy who recently said he talked to, or met the Holy Ghost?

Steve001 started a thread about this here.
 
Here's where he talks about it.

Thanks, read it, and it seems like Harris could be called open-minded. In that article he's more talking about consciousness, and says that different people mean different things by it. For me, no problem, sometimes I'm conscous, and sometimes unconsious, just like everybody else. Sometimes I like to alter my state of consciousness by getting drunk, sometimes not. I also accept the experiments that have shown that if we cut off certain body parts like a leg, or tongue, or ear, we can still have states of consciousness, but if somebody cuts out our brain, or damages our brain, then we can't anymore.

Haven't had time yet to check out the other thread, will do later.





Steve001 started a thread about this here.
 
Harris's problem is that he doesn't recognize his dismissal of Pauli and Jung is more to his discredit than theirs. Christopher Isham, another physicist impressed by Jung, has talked about why Idealism (consciousness precedes material reality) is plausible.

Here's a thread about Isham.

I also think Harris is trying too hard to distance himself from his previous comments about DMT entities and the validity of parapsychological research. He reminds of the type of person who converts to a religion or faith in atheism and gets fervent about being a missionary or evangelical skeptic to prove how loyal he is to his new side.
 
Harris's problem is that he doesn't recognize his dismissal of Pauli and Jung is more to his discredit than theirs. Christopher Isham, another physicist impressed by Jung, has talked about why Idealism (consciousness precedes material reality) is plausible.

Here's a thread about Isham.

I also think Harris is trying too hard to distance himself from his previous comments about DMT entities and the validity of parapsychological research. He reminds of the type of person who converts to a religion or faith in atheism and gets fervent about being a missionary or evangelical skeptic to prove how loyal he is to his new side.

If Harris dismisses Pauli and Jung, it's not clear why that is a problem, especially when we read about Isham that;
-"He thinks that quantum physics is a partial theory and that in its current state it doesn’t imply a connectedness between people.(just like most scientists)
-"may be a precursor (that sure huh?)
-noticed that Jung ''suggested a connection between quantuum pyhsics and psychology"" (but never showed it/proved it)
-"He claimed that science works very well according to its own terms.(the natural world, but not for anything supernatural)
-science contradicts his preferred world view.
-he's working on something that he ''believes will harmonise more with his idealist world view."" (but has not been successful)

That's a problem? I don't think so.
 
Except Harris offers credence to promissory materialism while dismissing promissory idealism.

As he himself has said, emergence would nothing less than miraculous. As such, perhaps the assumed priors of materialism are wrong.

This is why I'm agnostic between the varied -isms offering a solution.

As Robert Anton Wilson would say:

"The agnostic principle refuses total belief or total denial and regards models as tools to be used only and always where appropriate and replaced (by other models) only and always where not appropriate. It does not regard any models, or any class of models, as more "profound" than any other models, but asks only how a model serves, or fails to serve, those who use it. The agnostic principle is intended here in a broad "humanistic" or "existential" sense, and is not intended to be narrowly technical or philosophical only."

-R.A.Wilson, The New Inquisition
 
Except Harris offers credence to promissory materialism while dismissing promissory idealism.

As he himself has said, emergence would nothing less than miraculous. As such, perhaps the assumed priors of materialism are wrong.

This is why I'm agnostic between the varied -isms offering a solution.

As Robert Anton Wilson would say:

"The agnostic principle refuses total belief or total denial and regards models as tools to be used only and always where appropriate and replaced (by other models) only and always where not appropriate. It does not regard any models, or any class of models, as more "profound" than any other models, but asks only how a model serves, or fails to serve, those who use it. The agnostic principle is intended here in a broad "humanistic" or "existential" sense, and is not intended to be narrowly technical or philosophical only."

-R.A.Wilson, The New Inquisition

Give examples/definitions of those two then since there was nothing in the article about that; promissory materialism/idealism. Sure, the guy was idealistic it said, it's not clear what the problem is with that either.
 
I see now that when you say 'emergence' you must be talking about the whole list showing that.....nothing like that has emerged, but just might, and he's idealistic that it might.
Even if anything like that is ever shown, it still does not mean that ''assumed priors of materialism are wrong''. So if it's discovered that there is some sort of ''connectedness'', maybe all other matter is still the same.
Sure, an old married couple might develop a connectedness whereby it seems like they can tell what the other is thinking, or going to do, etc. but that getting used to each other, does not change any of the matter in their bodies, or their arthiritis, or broken hip, etc.
 
By emergence I mean consciousness arising from the non-conscious matter.

By promissory materialism I mean the idea that one day materialism will figure things out. If Harris is willing to accept the possibility that materialism can explain what he calls the "miracle" of emergence (promissory materialism) despite no current evidence that any such explanation of consciousness is forthcoming, he should also accept that maybe Pauli's understanding of Jung and Quantum Mechanics might also bear fruit (promissory idealism).
 
By promissory materialism I mean the idea that one day materialism will figure things out. If Harris is willing to accept the possibility that materialism can explain what he calls the "miracle" of emergence (promissory materialism) despite no current evidence that any such explanation of consciousness is forthcoming, he should also accept that maybe Pauli's understanding of Jung and Quantum Mechanics might also bear fruit (promissory idealism).
I agree that we should keep an open mind about all possible explanations of consciousness.

I'm not sure why the physicalist explanation is promissory and the idealist explanation is not, but apparently you have a more balanced view of the situation.

~~ Paul
 
By emergence I mean consciousness arising from the non-conscious matter.

By promissory materialism I mean the idea that one day materialism will figure things out. If Harris is willing to accept the possibility that materialism can explain what he calls the "miracle" of emergence (promissory materialism) despite no current evidence that any such explanation of consciousness is forthcoming, he should also accept that maybe Pauli's understanding of Jung and Quantum Mechanics might also bear fruit (promissory idealism).

So it just sounds then like you think Harris should hold to the same wishful thinking as those other guys do. He's a different guy, some are more idealistic than others. I will also go for it if it is ever forthcoming that consciousness arises from any non-conscious matter like perhaps a computer, but so far it hasn't.

I'm not sure about your turn of phrase, ''materialism will figure things out'', it's people who figure things out, and they have learned a whole lot about all sorts of matter. For example, when I was a kid the periodic table of elements was really small, now they've discovered a whole lot more. Recently too we found out that they've discovered a bunch of earth-like planets that we hadn't know existed, now we do. Nobody would say that 'materialism' discovered them, but a bunch of astronomers did.
 
My point is he dismisses Pauli's notions regarding Jung and Quantum Mechanics, but then also says the statement [asserting] emergence is nonsensical and would be consider equivalent to saying "something arose from nothing".

But if the Hard Problem is as hard as he seems to think we should entertain other ideas without dismissing them offhand as ridiculous simply because they contradict the expectation that materialism is the right answer. The alternatives - idealism/neutral monism/panpsychism are philosophically tenable, and given some recent results with respect to quantum mechanics we might consider them as intellectually viable as materialism.

Throw in the varied evidence pointing to something interesting happening in the field of parapsychology and the alternatives may be more viable than materialism. In fact, even without that evidence Chalmers thought materialism was the least satisfactory explanation for consciousness.
 
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