Should you tell physicalists about your mystical experiences?

[zurew]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

you still cannot explain why evolution is not exploiting any of these mechanisms if they are this significant, if you don't even need sensory apparatuses to perceive the world.

You use this point about evolution as if it would be a necessary dealbreaker.

Whats your argument for why evolution would necessarily exploit these things (not just might, but necessarily)?

Edited January 24 by zurew

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, zurew said:

You use this point about evolution as if it would be a necessary dealbreaker.

Whats your argument for why evolution would necessarily exploit these things (not just might, but necessarily)?

Because evolution exploits everything it can, that is how it works. And we are talking about something that seems to be accessible without much modification of the brain even. I would imagine there would be all types of brains and organs that would evolve that are just astral projecting and acquiring information that way.

[zurew]

4 hours ago, Scholar said:

Because evolution exploits everything it can, that is how it works.

It doesnt exploit everything - it specifically selects for traits that optimizes for reproduction (survive long enough ,so that you can reproduce) in a given environment. 

So again you for your argument to work, you would have to make a case for why evolution necessarily has to select for the ability of OBE (meaning there is no scenario when evolution doesn't select for the ability of OBE). If you cant make such a case, then this evolution argument won't be sufficient to debunk OBE.

...

 and to be clear -  even if you could make such a case - there are still ways to get around it by saying: Even though evolution haven't exploited the ability of OBE, it will in the future (because, just because you can make a case that evolution haven't exploited a trait yet, from that doesn't necessarily follow that in the future it won't).

Edited January 25 by zurew

[Carl-Richard]

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

You implied more brain activity might lead to higher intensity of any given substance of existence (like for example pain). This assumes that a brain with more neurological complexity would experience more pain because there are more neurons within the "pain-structure". But neurological structures might interface with consciousness in a different way, meaning if there is an experience of total pain, it would be achieved with a neurological simplicity of one.

This would mean pain would be an off and on switch, stimulating that neurological structure would just lead to total pain.

Higher neurological structure would be exploited by nature to make more distinction between total pain and non-pain. A neurological complexity of two could mean that you would have 3 states: No stimulation = no pain, stimulating 1 neuron = half of pain, stimulating 2 neurons (all neurons of that structure) = total pain.

As you increase neural complexity, you could have finer and finer steps between total pain and no pain states. You basically divide the pain-substance into different degrees of intensity by having dividing the total neurological structure that is responsible for the given substance.

I think what you're trying to hint at is that neurons have been shown to correlate with experiences in different ways: population coding (e.g. many different neurons contributing to a movement of a limb), frequency coding (e.g. the frequency of firing coding for the experienced intensity of a stimulus), topographic maps (e.g. neurons in the visual cortex mirroring the topography of the visual field), etc. But again (and I will keep saying this), regardless of the myriad of different ways that neurons may correlate with experience, it's still just correlation. If you want to establish causality, you have multiple problems to solve:

For example, you have to eliminate the type of empirical inconsistencies that I've demonstrated earlier, and you need to face the mysterious explanatory gap between neurons and experience (i.e. the Hard problem): how does the movement of ions across cell membranes, i.e. neuronal potentials (which is partially driven by active transport requiring ATP metabolism and thus glucose metabolism), lead to the experience of the color red? Whichever way you want to describe what the brain is doing (and which regardless probably boils down to glucose metabolism anyway), you're still left with at least these two problems. So I would suggest dropping the idea of causality for now and just stick with correlation.

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

We have no evidence that the brain has any access to information that fall outside of information gathered through senses.

There is something called "top-down processing". For example, there is nothing inherent in the light hitting the retina that makes you perceive the dog in the first picture, or why you can switch between seeing faces and objects in the second picture:

 

 

The reason you're seeing what you're seeing is because your perceptual systems are working to construct your experience, which now consists of your current normie state, including the experience of being centered in a body. The changes you see in the picture have fundamentally nothing to do with information from sensory organs. More generally, only some changes in your experience correlate with information from sensory organs.

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

I believe OBE's are likely just a change of those within the brain, similar to when you are dreaming, using already existing information, but presenting it in a new way.

Normally, when people talk about the brain, "experiences are just changes in the brain" usually implies that the brain causes the experiences. If you want to concede that it's only correlation (which I don't know if you want), I wouldn't use that language.

What do you mean by "already existing information"? Do you mean that your dreams are inspired by your past experiences? Well, sure, but these experiences still only correlate with what is happening in the brain (I won't stop repeating this ).

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

I am invoking the brain because experience in general is tied to our brain, and I have seen no evidence that there is any other mechanism that would influence or alter our state of mind.

Again, even if there aren't any current alternative explanations, that does not justify your explanation. But yes, of course, many things influence or alter (or correlate with) our state of mind other than our brain: when I stub my toe, I feel pain; when I see a sad person, I feel sad; when my tummy rumbles, I feel that. This is of course trivial, but it needs to be pointed out, because these things are indeed correlates of experience the same way the brain is. It's just that the brain is a particularly persistent correlate, and again, of some experiences.

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

We already know the brain is related to consciousness, and it is the only thing that we know of that relates to it. OBEs are dream-like experiences, and dreams are caused due to changes in brain states. There is no evidence that we acquire information outside of what the brain processes when dreaming.

You keep repeating the same points (or assertions rather).

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

You are making the extraordinary claim here, not me. I am simply stating something we already know. If I hit you on the head real hard, it will change your state of consciousness. There is not a singular thing in the world we know of that will alter your experience other than a change in brain-activity.

If you're implying causality, I think you are making an extraordinary claim. If you are only implying correlation, then you aren't (but I don't think you are). And again, there are many things other than the brain that correlate with changes in experience.

Again, you keep repeating the same assertions (they're not points because you're not giving an argument for them), like for the third time now 

 

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

Millions of people have been wrong in the past, they can be wrong now. This should be exceptionally easy to prove if it was true. Until you gather actual evidence, I see no reason to believe it is the case.

Ok, so you're saying that I didn't experience seeing myself from 5-10 inches above my head? Then what actually happened do you think? And how do you "prove" or gather "actual evidence" for a subjective experience I had?

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

It is causative. Machine Neural networks cause dream-like information-processing.

Do you want to elaborate on that?

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

Your entire sense of reality is hallucinated. The world doesnt look the the way your brain hallucinates it. If I hit you on the head real hard, your sense of reality will permanently change completely. Colors might become sound, sounds might become vision. The world is not dimensional, you only hallucinate it to be that way.

The way I would put it is that the world looks the way it does because of your perceptual systems, and some of that correlates with brain activity. As for colors becoming sound (and vice versa), I would be interested in seeing the "proof" and "evidence" for that 

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

We have no evidence whatsoever for what you are positing. You can make up fables all day long, you still cannot explain why evolution is not exploiting any of these mechanisms if they are this significant, if you don't even need sensory apparatuses to perceive the world.

Again, it certainly seems like we need sensory organs to perceive some aspects of the world, and again, and you could make the case that they already have been exploited evolutionarily (but I haven't looked much into that; you'd have to consult Sheldrake for that).

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

Why do all animals in the history of evolution evolve sensory organs if the world could be perceived without them? Even plants have them, and their information is clearly limited to the information their sensory organs transmit to them.

Again, some of our perceptions seem to correlate with sensory organs. As for your question, I'll answer with a question: why do animals evolve different sense organs and not just one? Why only fives senses and not a "sixth sense"?

As for plants, what do you know about the experiences of plants? 

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

I don't believe this to be the case. If such astral-perception was possible, most animals would have evolved this.

Again, how do you know they haven't?

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

I don't take such claims seriously anymore. People are fundamentally delusional, including scientists and researchers.

Even evolutionary biologists?

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

Physicalism is just a framework to understand the world, people who take it as metaphysical grounding are lost.

I think you can choose something as a metaphysical grounding and still recognize that it's just a framework to understand the world, but other than that, sure: many (probably most) physicalists tend to be lost imo.

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

I highly doubt these experiences are what you think they are.

What are they?

 

On 24.1.2024 at 5:17 PM, Scholar said:

The question is not whether or not you can engage in OBE, but whether or not OBE actually are what you claim they are, an actual stepping outside of your body and acquiring information that you didn't gain through sensory input. And I in general don't take individuals seriously in regards to this.

I think that's exactly the question we've been grappling with, and yes, I think that's possible. Like I've reiterated ad nauseum throughout this exchange, I think you can gain information about reality independent of pure sensory information (you're doing it right now), if we define sensory information as the parts of experience that correlate tightly with the modulation of your current "normie" sensory organs (e.g. light hitting the retina). This is mainstream knowledge. The trouble I think you have is to take this knowledge outside the realm of ordinary experiences and use it to explain extraordinary experiences. For that, all I can say is: keep having them
 

On a meta-communicative note: you commented on how tedious it is to go quote by quote (I half-assedly limited it here). Now, I think this would've been less of a problem if you didn't make so many assertions (points without arguments) and didn't repeat them sometimes 2-3 times. This is a strength with my approach, because we ended up identifying patterns like these. But it's up to you if you want to do something about it.

Edited January 28 by Carl-Richard

[Espaim]

Even though I'm a psychology undergrad and know many people who meditate and have done psychedelics (pretty open-minded people in general, liberal/hippie leaning), they're still incredibly close-minded regarding some of my experiences. So I just shut up now. I've decided it's not worth the hassle of explaining.

Edited January 27 by Espaim

[Yimpa]

10 minutes ago, Espaim said:

Even though I'm a psychology undergrad and know many people who meditate and have done psychedelics, they're still incredibly close-minded regarding some of my experiences. So I just shut up now. I've decided it's not worth the hassle of explaining.

The goal of psychology is to understand the human mind, not what going on beyond it. The truth of the matter is that psychedelics are still widely banned across the world, so their legitimacy as a useful tool in the realm of psychology is still stigmatized by most professionals.

Edit: I just heard about transpersonal psychology, so that’s interesting…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

Edited January 27 by Yimpa

[Carl-Richard]

On 27.1.2024 at 3:58 PM, Yimpa said:

The goal of psychology is to understand the human mind, not what going on beyond it. The truth of the matter is that psychedelics are still widely banned across the world, so their legitimacy as a useful tool in the realm of psychology is still stigmatized by most professionals.

Edit: I just heard about transpersonal psychology, so that’s interesting…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

The reality is that most people's idea of mind is quite contracted. Psychology can definitely be made to include psychic phenomena. You just have to drop some materialist blockages. On the other hand, spirituality can be said more so to be about going beyond the mind (and into Mind).

Edited January 29 by Carl-Richard

[Scholar]

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

I think what you're trying to hint at is that neurons have been shown to correlate with experiences in different ways: population coding (e.g. many different neurons contributing to a movement of a limb), frequency coding (e.g. the frequency of firing coding for the experienced intensity of a stimulus), topographic maps (e.g. neurons in the visual cortex mirroring the topography of the visual field), etc. But again (and I will keep saying this), regardless of the myriad of different ways that neurons may correlate with experience, it's still just correlation. If you want to establish causality, you have multiple problems to solve:

For example, you have to eliminate the type of empirical inconsistencies that I've demonstrated earlier, and you need to face the mysterious explanatory gap between neurons and experience (i.e. the Hard problem): how does the movement of ions across cell membranes, i.e. neuronal potentials (which is partially driven by active transport requiring ATP metabolism and thus glucose metabolism), lead to the experience of the color red? Whichever way you want to describe what the brain is doing (and which regardless probably boils down to glucose metabolism anyway), you're still left with at least these two problems. So I would suggest dropping the idea of causality for now and just stick with correlation.

 

There is something called "top-down processing". For example, there is nothing inherent in the light hitting the retina that makes you perceive the dog in the first picture, or why you can switch between seeing faces and objects in the second picture:

 

 

The reason you're seeing what you're seeing is because your perceptual systems are working to construct your experience, which now consists of your current normie state, including the experience of being centered in a body. The changes you see in the picture have fundamentally nothing to do with information from sensory organs. More generally, only some changes in your experience correlate with information from sensory organs.

 

Normally, when people talk about the brain, "experiences are just changes in the brain" usually implies that the brain causes the experiences. If you want to concede that it's only correlation (which I don't know if you want), I wouldn't use that language.

What do you mean by "already existing information"? Do you mean that your dreams are inspired by your past experiences? Well, sure, but these experiences still only correlate with what is happening in the brain (I won't stop repeating this ).

 

Again, even if there aren't any current alternative explanations, that does not justify your explanation. But yes, of course, many things influence or alter (or correlate with) our state of mind other than our brain: when I stub my toe, I feel pain; when I see a sad person, I feel sad; when my tummy rumbles, I feel that. This is of course trivial, but it needs to be pointed out, because these things are indeed correlates of experience the same way the brain is. It's just that the brain is a particularly persistent correlate, and again, of some experiences.

 

You keep repeating the same points (or assertions rather).

 

If you're implying causality, I think you are making an extraordinary claim. If you are only implying correlation, then you aren't (but I don't think you are). And again, there are many things other than the brain that correlate with changes in experience.

Again, you keep repeating the same assertions (they're not points because you're not giving an argument for them), like for the third time now 

 

 

Ok, so you're saying that I didn't experience seeing myself from 5-10 inches above my head? Then what actually happened do you think? And how do you "prove" or gather "actual evidence" for a subjective experience I had?

 

Do you want to elaborate on that?

 

The way I would put it is that the world looks the way it does because of your perceptual systems, and some of that correlates with brain activity. As for colors becoming sound (and vice versa), I would be interested in seeing the "proof" and "evidence" for that 

 

Again, it certainly seems like we need sensory organs to perceive some aspects of the world, and again, and you could make the case that they already have been exploited evolutionarily (but I haven't looked much into that; you'd have to consult Sheldrake for that).

 

Again, some of our perceptions seem to correlate with sensory organs. As for your question, I'll answer with a question: why do animals evolve different sense organs and not just one? Why only fives senses and not a "sixth sense"?

As for plants, what do you know about the experiences of plants? 

 

Again, how do you know they haven't?

 

Even evolutionary biologists?

 

I think you can choose something as a metaphysical grounding and still recognize that it's just a framework to understand the world, but other than that, sure: many (probably most) physicalists tend to be lost imo.

 

What are they?

 

I think that's exactly the question we've been grappling with, and yes, I think that's possible. Like I've reiterated ad nauseum throughout this exchange, I think you can gain information about reality independent of pure sensory information (you're doing it right now), if we define sensory information as the parts of experience that correlate tightly with the modulation of your current "normie" sensory organs (e.g. light hitting the retina). This is mainstream knowledge. The trouble I think you have is to take this knowledge outside the realm of ordinary experiences and use it to explain extraordinary experiences. For that, all I can say is: keep having them
 

On a meta-communicative note: you commented on how tedious it is to go quote by quote (I half-assedly limited it here). Now, I think this would've been less of a problem if you didn't make so many assertions (points without arguments) and didn't repeat them sometimes 2-3 times. This is a strength with my approach, because we ended up identifying patterns like these. But it's up to you if you want to do something about it.

I just have no motivation to engage in autistic debates in this moment of time. I will continue to provide my assertions and people can make up their own minds.

 

Maybe I will respond to this at some other point but honestly, we are talking past each other.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

I just have no motivation to engage in autistic debates in this moment of time. I will continue to provide my assertions and people can make up their own minds.

You can just respond to one point and we can take it from there, or you can take your time like I did. It took a while for me to find the time to write a long response like that (who would've thought the day would come where I don't have unlimited time for the forum), and it also helped to think about it for a while without responding immediately.

Edited January 30 by Carl-Richard

[Scholar]

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

I think what you're trying to hint at is that neurons have been shown to correlate with experiences in different ways: population coding (e.g. many different neurons contributing to a movement of a limb), frequency coding (e.g. the frequency of firing coding for the experienced intensity of a stimulus), topographic maps (e.g. neurons in the visual cortex mirroring the topography of the visual field), etc. But again (and I will keep saying this), regardless of the myriad of different ways that neurons may correlate with experience, it's still just correlation. If you want to establish causality, you have multiple problems to solve:

For example, you have to eliminate the type of empirical inconsistencies that I've demonstrated earlier, and you need to face the mysterious explanatory gap between neurons and experience (i.e. the Hard problem): how does the movement of ions across cell membranes, i.e. neuronal potentials (which is partially driven by active transport requiring ATP metabolism and thus glucose metabolism), lead to the experience of the color red? Whichever way you want to describe what the brain is doing (and which regardless probably boils down to glucose metabolism anyway), you're still left with at least these two problems. So I would suggest dropping the idea of causality for now and just stick with correlation.

I am not a dualistc, there is no fundamental distinction between experience and neurons because it is all simply existence, in different forms.

 

The relationship between what we interpret as structures in motion and other types forms of existence, like redness, is fundamentally mysterious. It is one of the infinite ways reality can relate to itself, there is no mechanism beyond the relationship itself.

The correlation is the relation, there is nothing more to it.

 

Using the structures in motion (as described by a mathematical, physical system) as causation is more useful than other frameworks, because we have no physical way of interacting with something like vision. We cannot alter the structure of the brain by altering the experience. But we do have ways to interact with the physical structures of the brain, and we can alter the experience that way.

 

Causality is fundamentally a construct. All is caused by Infinity, all relationships emerge fundamentally mysteriously. In the end, what is rational and scientific is not about what is real, but about what leads to functional understanding.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

The reason you're seeing what you're seeing is because your perceptual systems are working to construct your experience, which now consists of your current normie state, including the experience of being centered in a body. The changes you see in the picture have fundamentally nothing to do with information from sensory organs. More generally, only some changes in your experience correlate with information from sensory organs.

Because the picture is not information, the picture is what is hallucinated by the brain to turn the information into functional understanding. The picture you see is informed fundamentally by the information from sensory organs, transformed into a different type of informational landscape using a different substance of existance (visuality). This informational landscaped then is processed via interpretation and pattern recognition.

You assume I am a naive realistic or a physicalist. My framework is beyond idealism, materialism and physicalism. When I use terms that remind you of these frameworks, it is so that I can have a conversation with you.

 

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Normally, when people talk about the brain, "experiences are just changes in the brain" usually implies that the brain causes the experiences. If you want to concede that it's only correlation (which I don't know if you want), I wouldn't use that language.

What do you mean by "already existing information"? Do you mean that your dreams are inspired by your past experiences? Well, sure, but these experiences still only correlate with what is happening in the brain (I won't stop repeating this ).

There is no causing anything, there simply is a relation. It's not a correlation.

What I mean by already existing information is information already present in the brain. I could have an out of body hyperreal dream-experience that my brain can fabricate based on information that only exist within it.

In fact, I have had hyperreal dreams that looked more real than reality. If I wasn't lucidly dreaming, I would have believed it was an out of body experience. My brain was capable of reconstructing the entire town I live in, in full detail. OOBE most likely are just such dreams, similar to experiences one can have during psychedelic tripping.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Again, even if there aren't any current alternative explanations, that does not justify your explanation. But yes, of course, many things influence or alter (or correlate with) our state of mind other than our brain: when I stub my toe, I feel pain; when I see a sad person, I feel sad; when my tummy rumbles, I feel that. This is of course trivial, but it needs to be pointed out, because these things are indeed correlates of experience the same way the brain is. It's just that the brain is a particularly persistent correlate, and again, of some experiences.

It's not a correlation, it's a relation. If I hit you on the head, there will be a difference in your experience. That is not merely a correlation, we know there is a direct relationship. A correlation is when there is an apparent relation, but no evidence for an actual relation. But with the brain and experience, we know there is actually a direct relation.

It's not a persistent correlate, it is a persistent relation. You have given no evidence for experience that fall outside of this relationship, or cannot be plausibly explained by this relationship.

Therefore, positing new relationships is simply unnecessary and would require evidence to support.

 

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Ok, so you're saying that I didn't experience seeing myself from 5-10 inches above my head? Then what actually happened do you think? And how do you "prove" or gather "actual evidence" for a subjective experience I had?

I had a hyperreal dream where I saw myself in the mirror of my bathroom. There is no reason to think your experience is not merely a dream.

I don't have to provide evidence because I am not making claims about new relationships between experience and the world. So far all evidence suggests that the only relationship experience has to the world is the structure of the brain, and this understanding is in unity with our understanding of the physical nature of the universe, biology and so forth.

We have not observed phenomena that necessarily fall outside of this understanding.

You can of course make any claims about reality you want, but there is no reason to accept them given basic principles of rationality.

 

Eventually we will develop technology that will be capable of visualizing brain activity, converting your dreams into visual information processed by a computer. When that happens, a lot of the spiritual mumbo jumbo will be put to an end, because we will see the out of body experiences. Everyone will have a gadget at home that will be able to record their visual processing, be it stimulated visual processing, imagination, hallcuination or dreams.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Do you want to elaborate on that?

Neural networks are capable of processing information and dynamically recreating such information using mathematically stochastic dynamics. Meaning we have an expanation for how imagination is possible (how you can see an apple in your mind, and how your mind can create a new apple that it has not see in that exact form before), as well as hyperreal dreams.

You also get similar artifacts in dreams as you get in generative AI, something you can observe if you dream lucidly and pay attention to the visual experience.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

The way I would put it is that the world looks the way it does because of your perceptual systems, and some of that correlates with brain activity. As for colors becoming sound (and vice versa), I would be interested in seeing the "proof" and "evidence" for that 

If you want evidence of this you can take a high dose of LSD.

Other than that, there is no metaphysical or physical law that prohibits a brain from being structured in such a way that it would translate stimuli received from the eyes into sounds or other types of substances or information landscapes.

Google Synesthesia.

 

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Again, some of our perceptions seem to correlate with sensory organs. As for your question, I'll answer with a question: why do animals evolve different sense organs and not just one? Why only fives senses and not a "sixth sense"?

As for plants, what do you know about the experiences of plants? 

Animals have far more senses than five senses, so do humans. In the end, the amount of senses we will develop is determined by how many different types of information can be gathered from the environment.

Light is prevalent in the environment, and it provides information that is useful for evolution. So do molecules for smell, energy states for temperature and so forth. If there was some sort of aspect to reality that would provide useful information for an evolutionary organism given the presence of sensory organ, it would most likely have evolved.

I doubt plants have individuated consciousness, real time information processing does not provide any benefit to them.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Again, how do you know they haven't?

Because we have no evidence of animals behaving in ways that would suggest they have gathered information outside of the senses we know they have. Even for bird navigation we have found that they have an organ that can perceive the axis of the magnetic field of the earth.

So, we did have behavior that was difficult to explain before we had found those organs, but now we no longer observe such phenomena. It is unlikely that we would miss entire spectrums of behaviors in animals that escape the current notions of sensory information processing, given that we have detected behaviors that have eluded us before we have found by what means animals could have gathered such information.

Given the potential usefulness of astral projection, we should see behaviors that indicate such information processing far more frequently in nature.

 

Even if this is not definitive evidence, it is one of the dozens of things we understand about nature that makes your hypothesis more and more unlikely. This is why you have to provide extraordinary evidence to actually show us that these phenomena are real, if you want anyone to take you seriously.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Even evolutionary biologists?

Yes, what I rely on are the basic tenants of the scientific method and it's institutions.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

What are they?

Basically hyperreal dreams.

 

On 27.1.2024 at 2:39 AM, Carl-Richard said:

I think that's exactly the question we've been grappling with, and yes, I think that's possible. Like I've reiterated ad nauseum throughout this exchange, I think you can gain information about reality independent of pure sensory information (you're doing it right now), if we define sensory information as the parts of experience that correlate tightly with the modulation of your current "normie" sensory organs (e.g. light hitting the retina). This is mainstream knowledge. The trouble I think you have is to take this knowledge outside the realm of ordinary experiences and use it to explain extraordinary experiences. For that, all I can say is: keep having them

When I speak of information in this context, we are talking about sensory information. The brain can generate new information given already present information in the brain.

When you astral projection, your claim is you have astral sensory organs that gather astral sensory information (you claim you see yourself outside of your own body).

No, I am not gathering novel sensory information about the world as we speak, outside of my physical sensory organs.

 

 

[Carl-Richard]

Stumbled across this one. Pretty remarkable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08 (YouTube doesn't allow embedding).

 

(@Scholar I will answer you when I have time, don't worry ).

Edited February 5 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

I am not a dualistc, there is no fundamental distinction between experience and neurons because it is all simply existence, in different forms.

Me neither.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

The relationship between what we interpret as structures in motion and other types forms of existence, like redness, is fundamentally mysterious. It is one of the infinite ways reality can relate to itself, there is no mechanism beyond the relationship itself.

The correlation is the relation, there is nothing more to it.

So in other words, experiences correlate with brain activity? Yes...

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Using the structures in motion (as described by a mathematical, physical system) as causation is more useful than other frameworks, because we have no physical way of interacting with something like vision.

The first part of the sentence: I don't understand why you're saying that. The second part: I don't understand what that means. And I don't see how it relates to the next sentence, which is why I've chopped it up.

On a meta note, you honestly should try to simply the way you write. I think you write in a kind of abstract and cryptic way. I've read some papers on brain function, so if you're talking about basic principles of how the brain works, I should be able to understand that if communicated well.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

We cannot alter the structure of the brain by altering the experience. But we do have ways to interact with the physical structures of the brain, and we can alter the experience that way.

Uhm, yes, both are true. When I'm next to a sad person, or an angry person, or a scared person, that correlates both with a change in my experience and a change in my brain, and both can be predicted quite accurately. For example, my experience will probably mirror the emotional state of the person, and my brain will probably show a change in activation of the amygdala and other limbic systems. But what compels you to say that one "alters" the other? Why not just say "there is a correlation"?

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Causality is fundamentally a construct. All is caused by Infinity, all relationships emerge fundamentally mysteriously. In the end, what is rational and scientific is not about what is real, but about what leads to functional understanding.

Yes. I think "correlation" is the functional understanding here.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Because the picture is not information, the picture is what is hallucinated by the brain to turn the information into functional understanding. The picture you see is informed fundamentally by the information from sensory organs, transformed into a different type of informational landscape using a different substance of existance (visuality). This informational landscaped then is processed via interpretation and pattern recognition.

So in other words, the Gestalt shift you see is not informed by sensory information, which means that only some of our experience correlates with sensory information. Are you simply repeating what I'm saying in other terms?

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

You assume I am a naive realistic or a physicalist. My framework is beyond idealism, materialism and physicalism. When I use terms that remind you of these frameworks, it is so that I can have a conversation with you.

Certainly. Sometimes you speak like one, sometimes I don't understand what you're saying. 

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

There is no causing anything, there simply is a relation. It's not a correlation.

Why is it not? "Correlation" is fundamentally synonymous with "relation". It's just that in science, "correlation" is generally used to describe relations of behavior (how things act or change together), because that is what science is concerned with investigating (as opposed to e.g. ontology which is concerned about investigating relations of being, which is more general). So if when my experience changes, my brain also changes in a certain predictable way, we tend to say that they're correlated.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

What I mean by already existing information is information already present in the brain. I could have an out of body hyperreal dream-experience that my brain can fabricate based on information that only exist within it.

In fact, I have had hyperreal dreams that looked more real than reality. If I wasn't lucidly dreaming, I would have believed it was an out of body experience. My brain was capable of reconstructing the entire town I live in, in full detail. OOBE most likely are just such dreams, similar to experiences one can have during psychedelic tripping.

Ok, but as you've now eased off calling it a causal relationship, why not just say "information in the brain correlates with experience" rather than "the experience is just already existing information in the brain"? Those words "is just" and "already existing" mean something, and they seem to imply an order of how things arise; in this case, the brain before the experience; i.e. causation.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

It's not a correlation, it's a relation. If I hit you on the head, there will be a difference in your experience. That is not merely a correlation, we know there is a direct relationship.

Ok, so now "relation" suddenly means "direct relationship" in your idea of the word, which again seems to point to causality, as again, you seem to be implying an order of how things arise. That is causality: "cause" and then "effect".

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

A correlation is when there is an apparent relation, but no evidence for an actual relation. But with the brain and experience, we know there is actually a direct relation.

If we go back to the scientific use of the term, a correlation is when the behavior of two or more things are interconnected. For example, when leaves fall in autumn, people seem to put on jackets. They're correlated. Now, it's probably not that leaves falling causes people to put on jackets. That would probably be a spurious relationship (a non-causal correlation). The actual causal factor here would probably be the cold winter temperatures, which causes both the leaves to fall and the jackets to be put on. 

Still, the correlation between leaves falling and people putting on jackets is actual in the sense that there is such a correlation. But it's different from a causal relationship. A correlation can be hinting towards a causal relationship, but if you falsify that possibility, then there is no causal relationship, which is what psychedelics, OBEs and NDEs do with the hypothesis that experience is caused by brain activity; they falsify it.

So what you're calling "actual vs. apparent correlation" is actually "actual causality vs. actual correlation". So if we're assuming your use of the terms is consistent with the general scientific understanding of them, then it actually seems like you do believe the brain causes experience.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

It's not a persistent correlate, it is a persistent relation.

We've gone over this language stuff.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

You have given no evidence for experience that fall outside of this relationship, or cannot be plausibly explained by this relationship.

Therefore, positing new relationships is simply unnecessary and would require evidence to support.

I think I have, as per the images showing the Gestalt shifts and various other top-down perceptual phenomena that I can show you. And technically, millions of people self-reporting psychic phenomena that falsifies brain-experience causality is a form of evidence, just not hard evidence.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

I had a hyperreal dream where I saw myself in the mirror of my bathroom. There is no reason to think your experience is not merely a dream.

I would be happy to call it a dream, but not caused by a brain.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

I don't have to provide evidence because I am not making claims about new relationships between experience and the world. So far all evidence suggests that the only relationship experience has to the world is the structure of the brain, and this understanding is in unity with our understanding of the physical nature of the universe, biology and so forth.

We have not observed phenomena that necessarily fall outside of this understanding.

You can of course make any claims about reality you want, but there is no reason to accept them given basic principles of rationality.

Well, you're certainly making claims about the experience and the world, which requires evidence just like any other claim. Your claims aren't exempt from that just because it's the mainstream ideology. And it's laughable to call claims about psychic phenomena "new" claims when these experiences have existed for all of human history and when it's the hypothesis of brain-experience causality which has probably barely existed for 300 years (if we grant that honor to the "Enlightenment philosophers").

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Eventually we will develop technology that will be capable of visualizing brain activity, converting your dreams into visual information processed by a computer. When that happens, a lot of the spiritual mumbo jumbo will be put to an end, because we will see the out of body experiences. Everyone will have a gadget at home that will be able to record their visual processing, be it stimulated visual processing, imagination, hallcuination or dreams.

That's a nice prediction. Let's see how it will reproduce cardiac arrest NDEs 

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Neural networks are capable of processing information and dynamically recreating such information using mathematically stochastic dynamics. Meaning we have an expanation for how imagination is possible (how you can see an apple in your mind, and how your mind can create a new apple that it has not see in that exact form before), as well as hyperreal dreams.

No idea how that explains anything.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

You also get similar artifacts in dreams as you get in generative AI, something you can observe if you dream lucidly and pay attention to the visual experience.

Like?

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

If you want evidence of this you can take a high dose of LSD.

Other than that, there is no metaphysical or physical law that prohibits a brain from being structured in such a way that it would translate stimuli received from the eyes into sounds or other types of substances or information landscapes.

Google Synesthesia.

You know, I wouldn't say synaesthesia is when color "becomes" sound, etc. I would say it's when color and sound correlate  But that's more a joke than a sincere point (which is also what you responded to in the first place).

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Animals have far more senses than five senses, so do humans. In the end, the amount of senses we will develop is determined by how many different types of information can be gathered from the environment.

Light is prevalent in the environment, and it provides information that is useful for evolution. So do molecules for smell, energy states for temperature and so forth. If there was some sort of aspect to reality that would provide useful information for an evolutionary organism given the presence of sensory organ, it would most likely have evolved.

Which they probably have (psychic senses). Why wouldn't they? Feeling when somebody is looking at your back is evolutionarily advantageous. Having precognitions is evolutionarily advantageous. Telepathy, etc. Also, I actually think I could give a satisfying "material" explanation for some psychic phenomena if you're interested (which doesn't "disprove" the reality of the phenomena, but only provides coherence between different ways of viewing the phenomena).

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

I doubt plants have individuated consciousness, real time information processing does not provide any benefit to them.

Whatever that means. Are amoeba individuated? Sea sponges? Jellyfish? Coral reefs?

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Because we have no evidence of animals behaving in ways that would suggest they have gathered information outside of the senses we know they have.

There are parapsychology studies on animals that speak against that claim. I would refer to Rupert Sheldrake for that.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Given the potential usefulness of astral projection, we should see behaviors that indicate such information processing far more frequently in nature.

Even if this is not definitive evidence, it is one of the dozens of things we understand about nature that makes your hypothesis more and more unlikely. This is why you have to provide extraordinary evidence to actually show us that these phenomena are real, if you want anyone to take you seriously.

Maybe people should get research grants and PhD programs at mainstream universities for that (like other sciences) and not just some obscure universities funded by hippie decamillionaires.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Yes, what I rely on are the basic tenants of the scientific method and it's institutions.

You mean "downloading metaphysical assumptions from the larger culture".

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

Basically hyperreal dreams.

True, just like reality, and no brain-experience causality involved.

 

On 30.1.2024 at 10:49 PM, Scholar said:

When I speak of information in this context, we are talking about sensory information. The brain can generate new information given already present information in the brain.

When you astral projection, your claim is you have astral sensory organs that gather astral sensory information (you claim you see yourself outside of your own body).

No, I am not gathering novel sensory information about the world as we speak, outside of my physical sensory organs.

Then I would like to see how you would explain the OBE of the patient in the above video who was declared dead for 20 minutes after a failed heart surgery, came back with detailed information about the room he was laying in that wasn't there before he was put under anesthesia.

Edited February 10 by Carl-Richard

[Scholar]

32 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

So what you're calling "actual vs. apparent correlation" is actually "actual causality vs. actual correlation". So if we're assuming your use of the terms is consistent with the general scientific understanding of them, then it actually seems like you do believe the brain causes experience.

If we have two atoms, and I move one atom, and the other follows suit, there is a relationship between these atoms, not merely a correlation. It doesn't just appear that they are related, they actually are related.

In the example of people wearing jackets in winter, there is no relation. Meaning, winter can exist without people wearing jackets. However, in the case of atoms, we always have this relationship, because there is actually a relationship between these two things, not merely a dynamic that makes it appear as if there was a link between these things.

 

There can be a relationship between things, one influencing the other, without it "causing" the other thing.

In relationship to the two atoms, it wouldn't make sense to say one atom causes the other atom to move. What causes the other atom to move is the relationship between the atoms.

 

The way you engage with me is either lazy or lacks the ability to actually engage, so I will cease communicating on these points with you now, because I don't see any point to continue this like that. I have observed this with you in past conversations we had, so it is not like it's the first time we are having this communication failure.

Edited February 10 by Scholar

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

If we have two atoms, and I move one atom, and the other follows suit, there is a relationship between these atoms, not merely a correlation. It doesn't just appear that they are related, they actually are related.

In the example of people wearing jackets in winter, there is no relation. Meaning, winter can exist without people wearing jackets. However, in the case of atoms, we always have this relationship, because there is actually a relationship between these two things, not merely a dynamic that makes it appear as if there was a link between these things.

 

There can be a relationship between things, one influencing the other, without it "causing" the other thing.

In relationship to the two atoms, it wouldn't make sense to say one atom causes the other atom to move. What causes the other atom to move is the relationship between the atoms.

If there is no relation between jacket and winter because winter can exist without jacket, why is there a relation between atom and atom? Can't an atom exist without another atom? That doesn't make sense to me. Are you simply talking about an identical semantic relation, i.e. atom = atom?

Other than that, it seems like you're maybe doing a Fritjof Capra "there is no such thing as causality in reality; all things are relational", meaning every part in an interaction is a part of a greater whole. If so, I do very much resonate with that. But even so, it can still be useful to talk about causal relationships. Also, it still bothers me the way you've been talking about the brain-experience relationship. To me, it makes little sense to on the one hand say that you're merely talking about relationships, while on the other you're using words like "x is just y" and "x is due to pre-existing y". Again, that type of language, if you're familiar with most philosophical and scientific discussions, quite explicitly refers to classic linear causal relationships. If that is not what you had in mind while using that language, then sure, we might be miscommunicating, but I would like you to explain why you used that language.

 

Anyways, until then, I can try to make more clear what a causal relationship entails and why it doesn't work for the brain-experience causal hypothesis:

If you want to propose a causal relationship ("one thing leads to the next"), at some point you have to justify it through a causal mechanism, or else there is no way to account for the relationship between the cause and the effect.

For example, with the atoms, you can invoke Newtonian physics; concepts like mass, energy and Newton's three laws of motion; which would give you a mechanism for how one atom causes the movement of another: when one atom hits the other, it transfers its kinetic energy because of Newton's law of ... etc. With the leaves falling from the trees in autumn, you can invoke biochemical changes in the stem of the leaf that responds to seasonal changes. With people putting on jackets in autumn, you can use some bio-behavioral model.

Now, in all of these examples, there seems to be a satisfactory level of continuity between the cause, the mechanism and the effect. On the other hand, in the case of the brain-experience causal hypothesis, there is an obvious lack of satisfactory continuity, hence the Hard problem: how does ions moving across lipid membranes lead to the experience of Red? More generally, how does quantitative descriptions of the brain lead to the qualitative experiences of the mind? There is an obvious mechanistic gap there, and it interferes with justifying a causal relationship. Some people, idealists, say it's a malformed question and that it's actually impossible to get qualities from quantities, while physicalists say we will probably get to a satisfactory mechanism at some point.

Anyways, the point is that while you can propose a causal relationship, it's not a well-justified causal relationship unless you can find a satisfactory causal mechanism, and that is what I'm saying is lacking with the brain-experience causal hypothesis which again you seem to be touching on routinely throughout your responses.

 

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

The way you engage with me is either lazy or lacks the ability to actually engage, so I will cease communicating on these points with you now, because I don't see any point to continue this like that. I have observed this with you in past conversations we had, so it is not like it's the first time we are having this communication failure.

I personally don't see how you could call any part of this interaction lazy, but as I've figured, you seem to like to invoke classic linear causal relationships, so I guess it's all my fault 😝

Edited February 10 by Carl-Richard

[Scholar]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

If there is no relation between jacket and winter because winter can exist without jacket, why is there a relation between atom and atom? Can't an atom exist without another atom? That doesn't make sense to me. Are you simply talking about an identical semantic relation, i.e. atom = atom?

I don't understand why I have to explain everything to you as if you were a newborn alien visiting this reality for this first time.

If winters occurs, it doesn't magically make jackets appear. The jackets appear because people don't like to be cold. There is no actual relationship between these two things.

With something like an atom, when we move the atom, it will always cause the other atom to move in that circumstance, because there actually is a metaphysical relationship between these two parts of reality.

Without such relationships, reality couldn't exist.

 

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

To me, it makes little sense to on the one hand say that you're merely talking about relationships, while on the other you're using words like "x is just y" and "x is due to pre-existing y". Again, that type of language, if you're familiar with most philosophical and scientific discussions, quite explicitly refers to classic linear causal relationships. If that is not what you had in mind while using that language, then sure, we might be miscommunicating, but I would like you to explain why you used that language.

I think it is more useful to frame it as a causal relationship for the reasons I already described. Manipulation of reality is inherently understood through motion, and the brain is nothing but looking at that part of reality through the lense of motion.

Because the "true" relationships between things are necessarily hidden to us, it makes more sense to view the relationships themselves as the things that exist, as viewed from a certain perspective.

Then, it just becomes a game of which perspective is most functional.

 

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you want to propose a causal relationship ("one thing leads to the next"), at some point you have to justify it through a causal mechanism, or else there is no way to account for the relationship between the cause and the effect.

As I stated, reality is inherently mysterious. This means, any causal mechanism, if inspected closely enough, will not have any cause at all, it simply will be. All that exists is the relationship itself, it is instantiated directly through the Causeless Cause/Free Will/Divinity.

 

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I personally don't see how you could call any part of this interaction lazy, but as I've figured, you seem to like to invoke classic linear causal relationships, so I guess it's all my fault 😝

I said it is either lazy or lacks the ability to engage. I don't see you making a genuine attempt at trying to understand what I am saying, it seems more like you attempt to frame everything I say through frameworks that are already familiar to you.

Edited February 10 by Scholar

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

I don't understand why I have to explain everything to you as if you were a newborn alien visiting this reality for this first time.

If winters occurs, it doesn't magically make jackets appear. The jackets appear because people don't like to be cold. There is no actual relationship between these two things.

With something like an atom, when we move the atom, it will always cause the other atom to move in that circumstance, because there actually is a metaphysical relationship between these two parts of reality.

Without such relationships, reality couldn't exist.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm serious. What the heck is a "metaphysical relationship" that exists between movement of individual atoms but not movements of jackets (which is actually atoms) and movements of seasons (which is also actually atoms)?

 

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

With something like an atom, when we move the atom, it will always cause the other atom to move in that circumstance

Not really. That's only a probabilistic prediction. Hume showed that with the problem of induction. You can't know for 100% certainty whether something will behave a certain way in the future based on a previous observation. Also, according to quantum mechanics, the atom itself is a probabilistic entity which only exists in relation to a measurement, unless you're a physicalist who believes physical entities have standalone existence. And suddenly, you also seem to be talking about causality again (this time explictly), so again, physicalist assumptions somehow seem to seep through every time you speak.

 

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

I think it is more useful to frame it as a causal relationship for the reasons I already described. Manipulation of reality is inherently understood through motion, and the brain is nothing but looking at that part of reality through the lense of motion.

Because the "true" relationships between things are necessarily hidden to us, it makes more sense to view the relationships themselves as the things that exist, as viewed from a certain perspective.

Then, it just becomes a game of which perspective is most functional.

So we're indeed back to the brain-experience causal hypothesis. Glad we could make that clear.

 

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

As I stated, reality is inherently mysterious. This means, any causal mechanism, if inspected closely enough, will not have any cause at all, it simply will be. All that exists is the relationship itself, it is instantiated directly through the Causeless Cause/Free Will/Divinity.

It is mysterious indeed, and causality is ultimately just a way of analyzing reality, not ultimate reality. But once you start analyzing reality and pretend to do so in a logically consistent way, logical consistency should not be a mystery to you (unless you want to say debate Aristotelean logic vs intuitionist logic), because now you're dividing reality into parts and looking at it logically. If somebody points out a mistake in that process for you, you shouldn't revert to "ah, but reality is so mysterious". No, it's most likely your logical process which is mysterious, or flawed.

 

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

I said it is either lazy or lacks the ability to engage. I don't see you making a genuine attempt at trying to understand what I am saying,

Or I'm simply tediously pointing out inconsistencies in your thinking which frustrates you because it is inconsistent with your view of yourself. I actually think we both are sincerely trying to understand each other. Again, you seem to attribute a one-sided causal relationship there

 

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

it seems more like you attempt to frame everything I say through frameworks that are already familiar to you.

That's what understanding is. We might just be living in completely different realities.

Edited February 10 by Carl-Richard

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm serious. What the heck is a "metaphysical relationship" that exists between movement of individual atoms but not movements of jackets (which is actually atoms) and movements of seasons (which is also actually atoms)?

 

Not really. That's only a probabilistic prediction. Hume showed that with the problem of induction. You can't know for 100% certainty whether something will behave a certain way in the future based on a previous observation. Also, according to quantum mechanics, the atom itself is a probabilistic entity which only exists in relation to a measurement, unless you're a physicalist who believes physical entities have standalone existence. And suddenly, you also seem to be talking about causality again (this time explictly), so again, physicalist assumptions somehow seem to seep through every time you speak.

 

So we're indeed back to the brain-experience causal hypothesis. Glad we could make that clear.

 

It is mysterious indeed, and causality is ultimately just a set of logical inferences, not ultimate reality. But once you start making logical inferences, logical consistency should not be a mystery to you (unless you want to say debate Aristotelean logic vs intuitionist logic), because now you're dividing reality into parts and analyzing it logically. If somebody points out a mistake in that process for you, you shouldn't revert to "ah, but reality is so mysterious". No, it's your logical process which is apparently mysterious, or flawed.

 

Or I'm simply tediously pointing out inconsistencies in your thinking which frustrates you because it is inconsistent with your view of yourself. I actually think we both are sincerely trying to understand each other. Again, you seem to attribute a one-sided causal relationship there

 

That's what understanding is. We might just be living in completely different realities.

Honestly, you are so far off the mark and so focused on smart-assery that it's impossible to have this conversation with you, I am sorry.

[Carl-Richard]

34 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Honestly, you are so far off the mark and so focused on smart-assery that it's impossible to have this conversation with you, I am sorry.

I can see that. Remember to put on a jacket, it's cold outside. Gotta keep those non-metaphysical relationships in order 🤔

[zurew]

You guys should continue, it is entertaining.

[Carl-Richard]

On 10.2.2024 at 1:45 PM, Scholar said:

As I stated, reality is inherently mysterious. This means, any causal mechanism, if inspected closely enough, will not have any cause at all, it simply will be. All that exists is the relationship itself, it is instantiated directly through the Causeless Cause/Free Will/Divinity.

Let me add that when you propose a causal relationship and somebody calls you out on a lack of satisfactory causal mechanism (one that provides a good sense of continuity between the cause and the effect), and then you say "it's simply mysterious, it's God, Infinity, Divinity"; that's called "God of the gaps", or an appeal to an unknown, or an "ad hoc hypothesis". An ad hoc hypothesis is when you conjure up a new hypothesis to protect the main hypothesis and when it doesn't make any new predictions and is often unfalsifiable (which it is in this case).

It's a sneaky way to protect a paradigm from critique. It's what the creationists did when dinosaur fossils were carbon dated and falsfied their 6000 year old universe ("God put them there to test our faith"), and it's what the physicalists are doing with the the brain-experience causal hypothesis ("it's mysterious now, but we'll find out some day"). It's unscientific behavior. You wouldn't accept it for anything else that you would call scientific. For example, if I had said "I caused the Jenga tower to fall", and then you ask "how?", instead of providing the obvious causal mechanism ("I pulled out the bottom Jenga brick"), I instead say "reality is mysterious", you would tell me "that's bullshit!". That is what is happening here.

So what I'm saying is instead of proposing a causal relationship with a bullshit mechanical explanation, pull back and choose a less bullshit position: correlation.

Edited February 12 by Carl-Richard