The materialist argument on consciousness seems convincing

[SaWaSaurus]

By materialist argument, I mean the idea that consciousness is a product of the brain/body. When I refer to consciousness here, I'm talking about the colloquial meaning which is synonymous with awareness, or the ability of perception.

As the argument goes, consciousness arises within you at some point after your conception, and continues to exist until you die or when you temporarily lose consciousness during sleep or some disruption to the brain. The reason I find this argument so convincing is because it seems to be true in my own experience. When in deep sleep, I seem to lose awareness entirely. If I were to get hit hard enough in the head, I'd seem to lose awareness entirely. If I were to be put into a chemically induced coma, or put under anesthesia, I assume I'd lose awareness entirely. Also, my awareness seems to be emanating from my body, particularly around my eyes and face. All of this would suggest that consciousness is obviously a product of the brain, right?

I don't necessarily believe of disbelieve this argument, and I've heard some teachers say things like 'deep sleep is just consciousness without content', but to me it seems more like a total ceasing of awareness, and even if it is technically consciousness without content, I still wouldn't see any difference. On the other hand, consciousness is a fundamental requirement for experience, so without it there would be no difference between things existing and not existing, since there would be no one there to experience. Not sure if that made sense, but I think it suggests that consciousness must be prior to everything, since nothing would exist without consciousness being there to perceive it. Anyway I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on all this.

[Leo Gura]

The truth is more twisted than you can stomach: sleep never happens. Right now you are consciousness imagining that you have ever slept. You never actually sleep, you only imagine so.

The materialist argument is not convincing for even 1 minute if you just realize that all material objects are just appearances within consciousness. The end. No materialist can counter that.

You cannot kill consciousness without killing materialism, because materialism is consciousness. But consciousness is not materialism.

[DocWatts]

To offer another perspective on this, it's not that the Materialist account of consciousness is flat out wrong, so much is that's highly partial and incomplete.

While it is true that the subjective nature of consciousness has physical correlates, such that if the physical brain is damaged or altered it changes the nature of how consciousness is experienced, where the materialist account makes a crucial mistake is by trying to reduce consciousness to a physical or mechanical processes. 

While I recognize that I disagree with Leo (and a number of other people here) on this point, I do think that in rejecting the Materialist paradigm the pendulum can swing towards the other extreme, that of a sort of radical Subjectivism. Which is really just another sort of Reductionism, the main difference being that instead of trying to reduce Consciousness to physical processes, one reduces all physical aspects of reality as a projection of consciousness.

A sort of Middle Way (to appropriate the term from Madhyamaka) between either of these two extremes, where reality has both physical and non-physical dimensions (neither one being reducible to the other), seems far more defensible as an ontological basis for one's metaphysics.

But that's just one person's considered opinion 

Edited August 24, 2021 by DocWatts

[Johnny Galt]

@Leo Gura

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The truth is more twisted than you can stomach: sleep never happens. Right now you are consciousness imagining that you have ever slept. You never actually sleep, you only imagine so.

I assume you still go to bed at night, and if that is true, then why do you continue to imagine the experience of sleep? why would you continue to choose to experience this?

Edited August 24, 2021 by Johnny Galt

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

...one reduces all physical aspects of reality as a projection of consciousness.

Well, that happens to be true.

Your objection is more based in pragmatism.

1 hour ago, Johnny Galt said:

@Leo Gura

I assume you still go to bed at night,

That is what you imagine.

Quote

and if that is true, then why do you continue to imagine the experience of sleep? why would you continue to choose to experience this?

You imagine the experience of my sleep, and your own, in order to convince yourself that life is real.

If you weren't actively doing that you could not be human. All of that is baked into your notion of "being human".

[Johnny Galt]

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That is what you imagine.

Obviously ASMR

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You imagine the experience of my sleep

I repeat, are you claiming you no longer go unconscious during your experience with sleep at night?

Are you like those who sit in a "box", which keeps them upright, so that they can remain awake into and throughout their "dream state"? 

From your "dream state" into your "awake state", are you there as a steady stream of unflinching awareness? 

Are you making this claim?

Edited August 24, 2021 by Johnny Galt

[Johnny Galt]

@Leo Gura "You imagine the experience of my sleep, and your own, in order to convince yourself that life is real."

Do you really think that the cosmos is this simplistic? creation and the infinity? - "I imagine sleep simply to convince myself that life is real"? 

 

[ZzzleepingBear]

6 hours ago, SaWaSaurus said:

Also, my awareness seems to be emanating from my body, particularly around my eyes and face. All of this would suggest that consciousness is obviously a product of the brain, right?

We first and foremost rely on our memory inorder to branch out further from the singularity that conciousness entails. Not to mention how convincing a apparent causality becomes as it get's ingrained daily from any activity you do.

Here is a little thought experiment. Imagine if you where to drink until you barely could stand up straight. And that you had someone following you that documented your drunken journey that day by filming you.

The result would be blackouts in your memory, as if what you did that particular day didn't even happen. And even when you can remember something, it's quite the illusory process in terms of evidence of something. As memory always are a residue from the past experienced in this eternal moment. Your memory is always relative in it's quality, but usually taken for absoulte truth as it arises.

[SriSriJustinBieber]

6 minutes ago, Johnny Galt said:

@Leo Gura "You imagine the experience of my sleep, and your own, in order to convince yourself that life is real."

Do you really think that the cosmos is this simplistic? creation and the infinity? - "I imagine sleep simply to convince myself that life is real"? 

 

I would suggest that if the cosmos was not simple, it would have collapsed a long timelessness ago

[Johnny Galt]

@SriSriJustinBieber in regards to the use of the word "simplistic", I'm referring to being one dimensional, like the story of santa clause in relations to the lion and the witch and the wardrobe. Which one offers a fuller story of the cosmos?

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Johnny Galt

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Johnny Galt said:

I repeat, are you claiming you no longer go unconscious during your experience with sleep at night?

Are you like those who sit in a "box", which keeps them upright, so that they can remain awake into and throughout their "dream state"? 

From your "dream state" into your "awake state", are you there as a steady stream of unflinching awareness? 

Are you making this claim?

I am making the claim that I am however you imagine me to be.

2 hours ago, Johnny Galt said:

@Leo Gura "You imagine the experience of my sleep, and your own, in order to convince yourself that life is real."

Do you really think that the cosmos is this simplistic? creation and the infinity? - "I imagine sleep simply to convince myself that life is real"?

It's infinitely complex in order to fool you into thinking you are not God.

[DocWatts]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Well, that happens to be true.

Your objection is more based in pragmatism.

Perhaps you could clarify a point for me then, just to make sure that in disagreeing with you I'm not distorting your views on metaphysics.

When you claim that physical reality is a projection of consciousness, that is intended as an ontological claim about reality, correct?

Rather than as a more limited claim about the world of appearances (in the Kantian sense) that we inhabit in our everyday lived reality, that is.

While I have no disagreements with the latter more limited claim, I do have trouble seeing how swapping out one type of Reductionism for another is much of an improvement over Materialism.

Edited August 24, 2021 by DocWatts

[Gesundheit2]

If it's really convincing, then why are you discussing it?

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Perhaps you could clarify a point for me then, just to make sure that in disagreeing with you I'm not distorting your views on metaphysics.

When you claim that physical reality is a projection of consciousness, that is intended as an ontological claim about reality, correct?

Correct

Quote

Rather than as a more limited claim about the world of appearances (in the Kantian sense) that we inhabit in our everyday lived reality, that is.

Stop listening to Kant. He had no idea what he was talking about.

Appearance IS reality. Apperance is Absolute. There is nothing behind appearance. Exactly like a dream.

Quote

While I have no disagreements with the latter more limited claim, I do have trouble seeing how swapping out one type of Reductionism for another is much of an improvement over Materialism.

It's not a reductionism. Reality can only have one substance, and that substance is consciousness. Matter is consciousness. Consciousness is not matter. Materialism and reductionism are consciousness.

[undeather]

18 hours ago, SaWaSaurus said:

By materialist argument, I mean the idea that consciousness is a product of the brain/body. When I refer to consciousness here, I'm talking about the colloquial meaning which is synonymous with awareness, or the ability of perception.

As the argument goes, consciousness arises within you at some point after your conception, and continues to exist until you die or when you temporarily lose consciousness during sleep or some disruption to the brain. The reason I find this argument so convincing is because it seems to be true in my own experience. When in deep sleep, I seem to lose awareness entirely. If I were to get hit hard enough in the head, I'd seem to lose awareness entirely. If I were to be put into a chemically induced coma, or put under anesthesia, I assume I'd lose awareness entirely. Also, my awareness seems to be emanating from my body, particularly around my eyes and face. All of this would suggest that consciousness is obviously a product of the brain, right?

I don't necessarily believe of disbelieve this argument, and I've heard some teachers say things like 'deep sleep is just consciousness without content', but to me it seems more like a total ceasing of awareness, and even if it is technically consciousness without content, I still wouldn't see any difference. On the other hand, consciousness is a fundamental requirement for experience, so without it there would be no difference between things existing and not existing, since there would be no one there to experience. Not sure if that made sense, but I think it suggests that consciousness must be prior to everything, since nothing would exist without consciousness being there to perceive it. Anyway I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on all this.

Leo's jabbering wont make a lot of sense to you unless there is an enormous amount of direct experience supporting your sensemaking. There is better material for a novice. 

If you want a logical, easy to understand argument on why the materialist paradigm is wrong, there is noone better than Bernardo Kastrup in my opinion. All you just asked is explained by his model - he also goes into detail on why materialistm doesnt make sense at all.

Watch this 

 

[Johnny Galt]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's infinitely complex in order to fool you into thinking you are not God

@Leo Gura And so tell me god, why would you do that? why would you create complexity to simply be fooled? 

[DocWatts]

56 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Stop listening to Kant. He had no idea what he was talking about.

Appearance IS reality. Apperance is Absolute. There is nothing behind appearance. Exactly like a dream.

I expect you'll disagree, but my initial impression is that this does sound a bit like an Idealist mirror of naive realism (either that reality is exactly how it appears, or our experience of reality is done via unproblematic representation of an external pre-given world).

Also, how does the notion of Interiors and Exteriors (in the Wilberian Four Quadrants sense) work in that sort of ontology? 

[AtheisticNonduality]

9 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Also, how does the notion of Interiors and Exteriors (in the Wilberian Four Quadrants sense) work in that sort of ontology? 

Wilber believes in a Great Nest of Being holarchy where matter is inside body, body is inside the physical world, the physical world is inside the mind, and the mind is inside ever-present spirit. So the matter and body would be the physical quadrants, and the mind and soul would be the subjective quadrants.

[DocWatts]

20 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

Wilber believes in a Great Nest of Being holarchy where matter is inside body, body is inside the physical world, the physical world is inside the mind, and the mind is inside ever-present spirit. So the matter and body would be the physical quadrants, and the mind and soul would be the subjective quadrants.

I'm quite familiar with Wilber's take on the Great Nest of Being (of Matter to Mind to Soul to Spirit).

My question was more along the lines of how Leo's ontology does (or does not) match up with with Wilber's metaphysics.

Placing physical reality inside of a holarchy (as its most fundamental but least significant component) does not deny it ontological existence, so much as it disputes its claims to exclusivity; something that I broadly agree with, for what it's worth.

An ontology where physical reality is a projection of consciousness (as Leo is asserting) is a different and more radical claim, at least if I'm understanding him correctly.

Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken about either Wilber or Leo's views.

Edited August 24, 2021 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Johnny Galt said:

@Leo Gura And so tell me god, why would you do that? why would you create complexity to simply be fooled? 

Because otherwise nothing could exist except formlessness.

58 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

I expect you'll disagree, but my initial impression is that this does sound a bit like an Idealist mirror of naive realism

It only seems that way. Be ware the danger of centrism. Truth is the the mid-point between any two positions.

Materialism is false.

Idealism is true (but also gets transcended).

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Also, how does the notion of Interiors and Exteriors (in the Wilberian Four Quadrants sense) work in that sort of ontology? 

Wilber's 4 Quadrant model is just a relative dualistic model. Of course it is ultimately wrong since all dualities must collapse into Unity.

You cannot take the dualities that comprise the 4 quadrants as having absolute existence. They are imaginary.

There is no such thing as interiors and exteriors. There is only ONENESS at the highest level. Interior vs exterior is a duality. I vs We is another duality.