88 replies to this topic

[astromarmot]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

Consciousness? You might be talking about consciousness, but I'm not. Your feelings and emotions are chemical states and tiny electric pulses inside your brain. Period.

Do you need air? Only if you want to survive. Do you need to survive? Or do you want to?

Philosophy...who am "I?"  If "I" are(am) dead and there's nothing but chemistry and physical biology, the for "I" to even exist "I" "NEED" to survive...

You claim love is just electrical impulses generated by chemistry, but others believe that such concepts as love, beauty, art, humor are fundamentally more esoteric interpretations of those events by the consciousness...the body filters all input, but  the essence that makes me "me" can never truly know what the essence that makes you "you" see when you view a sunset or smell when you smell a rose even though there is little difference in the biochemistry involved in how you and I physically process either...

[Heart Collector]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Appearance - in the traditional sense - means nothing. When I say delivery, I mean conducting yourself in a manner congruent to who you are; the "just be yourself" advice is old as dirt, but it's true.
10% line is a gross overestimation. You can get someone interested even if your first line is reality pacing ("nice weather we're having today, isn't it?").

The way I interpret it, you don't need to "look" awesome to "appear" awesome. I think that's what Illein means by appearance, the overall outward impression you give which usually includes your looks as well to varying extents.

Edited by Heart Collector, 13 December 2012 - 03:43 PM.

[raspberry jam]

astromarmot, on 13 December 2012 - 03:36 PM, said:

Philosophy...who am "I?"  If "I" are(am) dead and there's nothing but chemistry and physical biology, the for "I" to even exist "I" "NEED" to survive...

You claim love is just electrical impulses generated by chemistry, but others believe that such concepts as love, beauty, art, humor are fundamentally more esoteric interpretations of those events by the consciousness...the body filters all input, but  the essence that makes me "me" can never truly know what the essence that makes you "you" see when you view a sunset or smell when you smell a rose even though there is little difference in the biochemistry involved in how you and I physically process either...

You just want to exist, bro. You don't need to. Who is holding that gun to your head and telling you to survive? Only you are doing that.

Anyway, right, I see what you mean: love isn't the chemicals, it's how the consciousness interprets these chemicals. Now, totally ignoring everything that neurochemistry tells us (there is no such thing as designer drugs right?), even if that was true, we could still affect that interpretation by manipulating those chemicals - through action. I.e. go get laid.

EDIT: being a hunk of meat controlled by hormones and other chemicals doesn't mean that you are dead.

Heart Collector, on 13 December 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

The way I interpret it, you don't need to "look" awesome to "appear" awesome. I think that's what Illein means by appearance, the overall outward impression you give which usually includes your looks as well to varying extents.

I agree, we were using different words for the same thing.

Edited by raspberry jam, 13 December 2012 - 03:48 PM.

[Illein]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Appearance - in the traditional sense - means nothing. When I say delivery, I mean conducting yourself in a manner congruent to who you are; the "just be yourself" advice is old as dirt, but it's true.
10% line is a gross overestimation. You can get someone interested even if your first line is reality pacing ("nice weather we're having today, isn't it?").

I'll dumb it down a little to make my point stick out more: 99% looks/demeanor 1% line-related.

Edited by Illein, 13 December 2012 - 03:52 PM.

[astromarmot]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

You just want to exist, bro. You don't need to. Who is holding that gun to your head and telling you to survive? Only you are doing that.

You(if there is even a you outside of the mental construct that my consciousness has created to represent this portion of what I accept as reality) may not need me to exist, but I need to exist for there to even be a me, thus "I' need air...by the way, I'm a little partial to solipsism, so in essence the only thing anyplace, anywhere that truly even needs to exist is "me."  Existence(for that which is "me") stops if I'm not here...No me, no universe...

Illein, on 13 December 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

I'll dumb it down a little to make my point stick out more: 99% looks/demeanor 1% line-related.

Dude, I've known a gal, that to payback a romantic slight, literally slept with the very next dude that walked through the door, looks, demeanor, and dialogue never factor in, so you gotta account for timing in your statistics...

[raspberry jam]

Illein, on 13 December 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

I'll dumb it down a little to make my point stick out more: 99% looks/demeanor 1% line-related.

Yes. I know a guy whose favorite opening line is "Eh? Eh. Heh..." while making a face like (in my opinion) like a total weirdo. For some reason 50% of girls thinks that this is hilarious (not me though).

astromarmot, on 13 December 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

You(if there is even a you outside of the mental construct that my consciousness has created to represent this portion of what I accept as reality) may not need me to exist, but I need to exist for there to even be a me, thus "I' need air...by the way, I'm a little partial to solipsism, so in essence the only thing anyplace, anywhere that truly even needs to exist is "me."  Existence(for that which is "me") stops if I'm not here...No me, no universe...

Are you using the word "need" in "need to exist" as in that you logically need to exist? That is not how that word was used previously in this discussion. Clearly you exist, and thus need to exist in that respect. The word "need" was used  as people use it about active verbs, not passive ones.

Edited by raspberry jam, 13 December 2012 - 04:11 PM.

[DarkGhostGizmoXx]

...Ok, erm, getting back on topic


I fell in love at a cake shop...there was this guy behind the counter, and he smiled at me and we got talking for a while.
Then I saw a chocolate cake. It was love at first sight

[astromarmot]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

Yes. I know a guy whose favorite opening line is "Eh? Eh. Heh..." while making a face like (in my opinion) like a total weirdo. For some reason 50% of girls thinks that this is hilarious.

Are you using the word "need" in "need to exist" as in that you logically need to exist? That is not how that word was used previously in this discussion. Clearly you exist, and thus need to exist in that respect. The word "need" was used  as people use it about active verbs, not passive ones.

It does get a little confusing, you indicated there were no needs...I said Maslow might disagree...you then said I don't need air, but want air...but philosophically you cannot separate wanting to exist from needing to exist unless you permit a severance of consciousness from the ugly bag of mostly water that we call our physical self...which you kinda inferred that's all that existed when you boil emotion and feeling down to the simple chemistry of hormones and neural electricity, so forgive me if I was too presumptuous...a later post kinda indicated that you recognize that separation, which might go to make further discourse on this tangent moot ;-)

Edited by astromarmot, 13 December 2012 - 04:18 PM.

[Rhododendron]

Nice mix of getting laid and the philosophy behind it. I think i'm in lesbians with this thread.
#followthisthread

[The Trouble With Me]

I haven't been in love since I was about 13-14, and that only happened once. I'm now 20.

wait I lie, I was in love with someone when I was 17-18 but I we never really spoke. The other time was a kind of childhood romance.

Edited by The Trouble With Me, 13 December 2012 - 05:23 PM.

[Beta Sprite]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:17 PM, said:

All that reading and then he skips the important part...

It wasn't the point of the story.  I can recount that story, if you'd like, but my point was that no matter how strong the feeling is, you might need to get your heart smashed a time or two before you are able to think clearly enough to know what you actually want.  If I had not had the hard breakup in the middle, I may have started dating my original crush at the end of high school without thinking about it, and I believe that it would have been the wrong decision (not that I necessarily would have ever realized it).

Let me know if you actually want me to recount how I met my wife.

[I'm Squirrel]

The word "love" has been messed up since the beginning of time. Present day, to tell a girl, " I love you," apparently means you want to be her boyfriend and eventually marry her. That type of thinking really pisses me off. When you love someone it's.. just that. You love them, like how a brother loves a sister, or how a guy has bromance with another guy-- but in this case a girl. But, most girls--or guys, don't think of it that way. That's why telling someone you love them is the most risky thing you could do, it's like what would happen if "f*** you" meant "thank you so much!", in your own world, and in her world it's like "f*** you, be my girlfriend"-- that sort of thing.

That's exactly how I lost the girl I loved unconditionally. I told her I loved her and she took kept thinking of it the wrong way, and our relationship rapidly went to an end. To me, she was like... a mother figure, per se, or the most caring best friend you could ever have. I would've definitely wanted to be her boyfriend, but that doesn't matter when you truly love someone.

Anyways, my 2 cents. I still love people, romantically and non-romantic wise. It's just that, I'll never say it ever again, unless the girl we both want to be romantically engaged.

[Milennin]

I've been in love once, but broke up after 3 years or so and since then not been interested in having a relationship again.

[raspberry jam]

I'm rather aghast over how people ITT seems to take all this love stuff so seriously. I mean, in one way, yes. It is important, perhaps one of the most important things... On the other hand, having a bad ending of a relationship or never beginning one despite wanting to (like OP) means nothing bad. Take the heartache, then move on.

astromarmot, on 13 December 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

It does get a little confusing, you indicated there were no needs...I said Maslow might disagree...you then said I don't need air, but want air...but philosophically you cannot separate wanting to exist from needing to exist unless you permit a severance of consciousness from the ugly bag of mostly water that we call our physical self...which you kinda inferred that's all that existed when you boil emotion and feeling down to the simple chemistry of hormones and neural electricity, so forgive me if I was too presumptuous...a later post kinda indicated that you recognize that separation, which might go to make further discourse on this tangent moot ;-)

Hmm. Semantics first. You can need(1) something, in the form of a requirement to do or obtain something. And you can need(2) something, for something else to be logically true. These are different usages of "need"... Important: Maslow meant need(1), of course, since you need(1) air for self-realization, for example. He was not talking about the need(2) part: the hierarchy of needs is relating to the first form of the word...

Now philosophy. You don't need(1) to exist. Need it for what exactly? Need it to get something else, sure, but in that case it's still about wanting. You do need(2) to exist in order to to exist, but that is, see above, beside the point. Both arguments run the same regardless of whether or not our physical existence is all of our existence. Even an immortal, nonphysical being would not need(1) to exist, he'd want to exist, and need(2) to exist only if he exists. I could be wrong, if so, point out where.

Personally, I think that these rather beautiful bags of mostly water that we call our physical selves is where our consciousness is rooted, and that extinguishing the body would mean extinguishing all things related to it, including the mind, soul, feelings. I also don't think that this is a bad thing; rather the opposite. It would be horrible if all what we (and by that I mean all life, not just humanity) do on earth is for nothing at all, nothing whatsoever...! If existence is external to our physical body, then what is the use of that body? We might as well just sit it down to rot.

Beta Sprite, on 13 December 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

It wasn't the point of the story.  I can recount that story, if you'd like, but my point was that no matter how strong the feeling is, you might need to get your heart smashed a time or two before you are able to think clearly enough to know what you actually want.  If I had not had the hard breakup in the middle, I may have started dating my original crush at the end of high school without thinking about it, and I believe that it would have been the wrong decision (not that I necessarily would have ever realized it).

Let me know if you actually want me to recount how I met my wife.

I definitely agree on the needing to have your heart smashed. Experience is how to learn things.
But I don't know why dating your original crush would have meant not meeting your wife. Or why you would be unable to switch over once you did. But I have no doubt that that will be all cleared up...
Yes, I do want to hear it! that was OPs question from the start anyway, hehe.

Edited by raspberry jam, 13 December 2012 - 06:49 PM.

[Beta Sprite]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 06:48 PM, said:

Yes, I do want to hear it! that was OPs question from the start anyway, hehe.

Well, I guess I'll write it out, then.  =)

Back in high school, while I was dating the girl who I had the worst breakup with, my best friend brought me to a hockey night for a local youth group.  There, I met my future wife.  At the time, I realized that I could see myself with her, but I wasn't about to leave my current girlfriend.  We were friends for a while, and I eventually stopped going to the hockey night due to other things going on in my life.  At the time, I wondered if my future wife resented me for just not showing up anymore (it wasn't planned).

A few months later, I saw my future wife in the movie theaters, while I was still dating the same girl.  We tried to get her attention, but she looked at us, looked away, and took her seat elsewhere.  I was convinced that she was holding a grudge against me and was still angry.

Years later, at college, after the bad breakup, I ran into my future wife again.  She was visiting a mutual friend in the commuter's lounge, and I recognized her.  I brought up the hockey night, and asked her about it, but she seemed disinterested and didn't want to talk to me.  I had to get to class, so I left.

Upon returning to the lounge after class to see if she was still around, I found a drawing on the chalkboard:  A bratty teen sticking her tongue out with a bleeding heart on her shirt.  I assumed the drawing was meant for me, and felt a great need to reconcile.  I talked to our mutual friend, got her e-mail address, and proceeded to write the entire story that I've written above, from meeting at hockey night, to where I stopped showing up, to the movie theater, to now.  Then I got her response:

She didn't remember me.  She vaguely remembered my friend who brought me to hockey night.  She remembers the night at the movie theater, but she didn't see anyone she recognized, so she assumed we were calling someone else.  The drawing on the chalkboard was coincidence;  she was just drawing.

She started showing up at the commuter lounge more often, and we hung out with friends.  We had a lot in common, liking the same things and generally just getting along.  Eventually, she pulled me to the side and said (word for word): "So, I like you, and you like me.  What are we going to do about it?"

We've been dating ever since.

[astromarmot]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

Consciousness? You might be talking about consciousness, but I'm not. Your feelings and emotions are chemical states and tiny electric pulses inside your brain. Period.

Semantics, eh?  "Period" implies absolute truth, end of discussion...
Which leads right back to

Quote

You know, it's not a philosophical debate at all, it's hard cold truth. Love is a set of chemicals and we can affect those chemicals in all kinds of ways through action.

Way too binary of a positon on the analog nature of existence as we currently understand it...thus the philosophical debate ;-)...btw, I don't disagree that there are many things that go into what we call "love" including that *tail of hormones and other chemicals in the brain, but you'd be hard pressed to get any number of people to agree on even an exacting definition of "love" much less say that it's just a set of chemicals...it's kinda like saying a person is just a set of molecules...true in one sense, but a person really is much more than that...

Quote

Do you need air? Only if you want to survive. Do you need to survive? Or do you want to?

I (1) need air to survive, but I (2)need to survive to even exist(again depending on the view of dependency of what makes me "me" has on the flesh)  thus they're not mutually exclusive once you start introducing the nature of consciousness...

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 06:48 PM, said:

Hmm. Semantics first. You can need(1) something, in the form of a requirement to do or obtain something. And you can need(2) something, for something else to be logically true. These are different usages of "need"... Important: Maslow meant need(1), of course, since you need(1) air for self-realization, for example. He was not talking about the need(2) part: the hierarchy of needs is relating to the first form of the word...

Now philosophy. You don't need(1) to exist. Need it for what exactly? Need it to get something else, sure, but in that case it's still about wanting. You do need(2) to exist in order to to exist, but that is, see above, beside the point. Both arguments run the same regardless of whether or not our physical existence is all of our existence. Even an immortal, nonphysical being would not need(1) to exist, he'd want to exist, and need(2) to exist only if he exists. I could be wrong, if so, point out where.

Personally, I think that these rather beautiful bags of mostly water that we call our physical selves is where our consciousness is rooted, and that extinguishing the body would mean extinguishing all things related to it, including the mind, soul, feelings. I also don't think that this is a bad thing; rather the opposite. It would be horrible if all what we (and by that I mean all life, not just humanity) do on earth is for nothing at all, nothing whatsoever...! If existence is external to our physical body, then what is the use of that body? We might as well just sit it down to rot.

Your position seems to imply that the universe doesn't require me to exist...and if there is an objective universe that continues on once my spark of consciousness ends, then that is true...my position more in line with biocentrism, that consciousness creates the universe or at least the only version of the universe that matters to me and my consciousness thus I need to exist, else...from this vantage point there is no universe if there is no "me" to observe and interact with...so it really is more philsophy than simple semantics...

Discussing whether this is the only "life" we live, or where it might fall in a grander consciousness, or afterlife, or pre-life, or any of that is well beyond what I'm willing to get into in text, but would be better reserved for a time spent with mind expanding chemicals in liquid or vapor form...:-)

[Azure Skye]

Can i be in love with myself? Pretty please?

[ayoblame]

What is love?

[Br0barian]

Sparky, on 13 December 2012 - 05:52 AM, said:

I was just curious if anyone is in love with somebody and would like to share their story.

I fell in love with a girl that I have known for years on a recent trip we went on together...and when I confessed it, she basically said she's not looking for a relationship right now.  And also that I don't get to use the "L" word because that's sacred and is reserved for 2-way streets only...and apparently it isn't mutual.  We are not romantically involved, and she says she doesn't have a boyfriend.

It's not the "can't stop thinking about you" kind of love, it's the "can't sleep, can't focus at work, physically ill, thinking irrationally" kind of love.  I've tried dating other people but It doesn't seem to distract me of her and it's tearing me up.  It's the most stressful thing I've ever had to deal with in my life so far, and I hope it's not turning into an obsession.

But yeah, if a couple people would like to share their story, I could probably write mine here.  Maybe it could help me figure things out.

First of all that is bullshit. You can say you love her even she doesn't. Your feelings don't have to be mutual for you to express yours. I think what you should do is date other people and maybe she will realize the love should could have or could have had b/c you just might find someone you love more. Love is weird thing, however, I don't think you can actually love someone until you become romantically involved. For all you know, you could be duping yourself, and then if a night of passion happens, it might be horrible. If you really do love her all you can do is respect her decisions and hope she is happy. There are so many fish in the sea. I went through a similar situation, however we were romantically involved, she stopped seeing me and I met Lilly. Lilly is the best thing has happened to me and the other girl, won't leave me alone. I would never leave Lilly for anyone but it is funny how people react when they see what they could have had. Don't beat yourself up over it, go out and make yourself happy.

[Sparky]

had to delete this

Edited by Sparky, 02 February 2013 - 05:26 PM.

[Heart Collector]

ayoblame, on 13 December 2012 - 09:44 PM, said:

What is love?

On topic: In regards to Sparky's last post: NEVER believe that someone's too good for you. Not only is it not true, but it tends to "rub off" on people nad make them think that they indeed could do better.

Also, if someone thinks they're too good for someone else and look at them with scorn, they deserve to be tarred, feathered and dropped in a lake full of zombie piranhas with anvils strapped to their feet

[raspberry jam]

Beta Sprite, on 13 December 2012 - 08:43 PM, said:

Well, I guess I'll write it out, then.  =)

This is a beautiful story! Hey, consider this... sometimes when a person draws something, just doodling... S/he might draw what they really feel, even though they don't mean to.

astromarmot, on 13 December 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

Semantics, eh?  "Period" implies absolute truth, end of discussion...
Which leads right back to


Way too binary of a positon on the analog nature of existence as we currently understand it...thus the philosophical debate ;-)...btw, I don't disagree that there are many things that go into what we call "love" including that *tail of hormones and other chemicals in the brain, but you'd be hard pressed to get any number of people to agree on even an exacting definition of "love" much less say that it's just a set of chemicals...it's kinda like saying a person is just a set of molecules...true in one sense, but a person really is much more than that...



I (1) need air to survive, but I (2)need to survive to even exist(again depending on the view of dependency of what makes me "me" has on the flesh)  thus they're not mutually exclusive once you start introducing the nature of consciousness...



Your position seems to imply that the universe doesn't require me to exist...and if there is an objective universe that continues on once my spark of consciousness ends, then that is true...my position more in line with biocentrism, that consciousness creates the universe or at least the only version of the universe that matters to me and my consciousness thus I need to exist, else...from this vantage point there is no universe if there is no "me" to observe and interact with...so it really is more philsophy than simple semantics...

Discussing whether this is the only "life" we live, or where it might fall in a grander consciousness, or afterlife, or pre-life, or any of that is well beyond what I'm willing to get into in text, but would be better reserved for a time spent with mind expanding chemicals in liquid or vapor form...:-)

But love is an emotion and therefore a set of chemicals. And now when you mention it, a person is, physically, really just a set of molecules. Molecules arranged in a very specific way. There might be some sort of esoteric other component, such as a soul or whatever, but the physical part is just molecules... and the chemical components of emotions are of course also strictly physical. Whatever the consciousness is, it feels whatever these chemicals tells it to feel.

They are completely exclusive. They just happen to be the same word, but are not the same concept. We could replace "need(2)" with "gdsajh" to illustrate it more carefully, but that looks so ugly.
Anyway, to say that you "need(2) to survive to exist" would imply that both "need(2)" and "survive" are first order direct to you. They are not... "need(2)" is not saying anything about you, but about your survival. To put that more clearly, you could say "you need(2) to be surviving in order to exist"... Which means that that's false, as there will be an instant where you are dying (physically, at least), and while you are existing at that moment (else you could not cease to do so), you are not surviving it.

Biocentrism seems to stipulate that there was no universe before life came about. I find that to be an extraordinarily confused and unreasonable standpoint (no offense), simply because life is a rather complex thing, and I find it likely that the universe was distinctly non-complex in its early stages. While I fully accept that each of us is carrying an observed universe inside our heads, and while I fully accept that a universe is formed by the set of our common observations, even contradictory ones... I strongly feel that the mechanics of such a universe would be too complex to be the fundamental version of the universe, and that it thus would be contained in something else, that which you call "objective universe".

Of course, the existence of such a thing matters little once our personal universe expires with us.

I agree on your final statement. Now where did I put the acid.

[raspberry jam]

Sparky, on 14 December 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

Wow, thanks for all the ideas and perspectives.  Was 10 times more than I had hoped for.

I have decided to try and forget about her, go get laid, and try to avoid her long enough for the feelings to pass (if they ever do).  Forgetting about her will be so hard...I guess I could start by deleting photos, throwing out stuff, and just find lots of distractions.

(...)

  I start trying to impress her and try to make her laugh, but I can't act on anything physical because it's not "appropriate" I decide.

Sparky that was a great story and I'm impressed that you want to put it out in public like this... It shows strength.

I support your decision. I don't think you should forget her though. Keep everything, or at least some things. But get new stuff (from whomever you find and like). That will help you putting her in the right perspective. She might be a great girl, from your description she is... but she is also just one of many. That is the crucial experience you need to make.
Because making that experience will make you able to never feel bad in this way anymore!

Also, it's always appropriate. Always. Just do it.

[turbo234]

I was in a relationship with a girl for a few years. It was definitely love, and we basically lived together since I had my own place, but looking back I shouldn't have stayed with her for as long as I did. She brought me down and made me feel like I couldn't do anything right. When I finally did leave her for good, things only went uphill. New job, promotion to supervisor, new car, ahead with my bills again etc. This was about a year ago since we broke up, but she still texts me wanting me to "hang out" and cuddle. No thanks. After telling her multiple times it isn't ever going to happen I just ignore those messages now.

The thing that sucks worse to me, and let me try to explain this right; my ex's best friend was also best friends with the next girl I dated, and she ended up being the kind of relationship I wanted all along. It just became too much of a hassle dealing with my ex and her friend constantly mouthing off so we decided to just stay friends. Long story short I'm still doing good, but I'm more of a douchebag now because of everything that happened.

[Daisyspit]

My father used to tell me, "Never love anyone better than yourself."  I didn't listen to him.  He was right and I was wrong.  I'm not going into sob stories here, tho I have plenty of them.

Never love anyone better than yourself.  Believe that.

[astromarmot]

raspberry jam, on 14 December 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:

Whatever the consciousness is, it feels whatever these chemicals tells it to feel.

My position is that it's quite probably way more complex than that, that the consciousness "feels" whatever those chemicals tells it through a filter of memory, experience, hope, and all sorts of other intangible, and as-to-yet objectively immeasurable "magic" that happens in that electric field between neurons...the Ptolemaic model was the best they could do on celestial mechanics at the time given their understanding and ability to measure...why should we think our current understanding of this frontier(consciousness and the workings of the brain) is any more concrete today, than their understanding of celestial mechanics was to them then...

Quote

They are completely exclusive. They just happen to be the same word, but are not the same concept. We could replace "need(2)" with "gdsajh" to illustrate it more carefully, but that looks so ugly.
Anyway, to say that you "need(2) to survive to exist" would imply that both "need(2)" and "survive" are first order direct to you. They are not... "need(2)" is not saying anything about you, but about your survival. To put that more clearly, you could say "you need(2) to be surviving in order to exist"... Which means that that's false, as there will be an instant where you are dying (physically, at least), and while you are existing at that moment (else you could not cease to do so), you are not surviving it.

I disagree, in that case, if life is required for existence, then you're either alive and exist, or dead and do not...there's no "surviving" transitional state...so long as you're "dying" you're surviving, thus existing until that moment you do not survive...my calculus is 25 years rusty, but kinda like a limit I think...there is a threshold...but now we're wading in the marsh of semantics, so I'll defer to agree to disagree...

Quote

Biocentrism seems to stipulate that there was no universe before life came about. I find that to be an extraordinarily confused and unreasonable standpoint (no offense), simply because life is a rather complex thing, and I find it likely that the universe was distinctly non-complex in its early stages. While I fully accept that each of us is carrying an observed universe inside our heads, and while I fully accept that a universe is formed by the set of our common observations, even contradictory ones... I strongly feel that the mechanics of such a universe would be too complex to be the fundamental version of the universe, and that it thus would be contained in something else, that which you call "objective universe".

Of course, the existence of such a thing matters little once our personal universe expires with us.

I submit that's only if you limit that "life" to consist wholly and distinctly of Earth-based, material life as we currently understand it...if we know all the answers, why bother asking any more questions?

[raspberry jam]

astromarmot, on 14 December 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

My position is that it's quite probably way more complex than that, that the consciousness "feels" whatever those chemicals tells it through a filter of memory, experience, hope, and all sorts of other intangible, and as-to-yet objectively immeasurable "magic" that happens in that electric field between neurons...the Ptolemaic model was the best they could do on celestial mechanics at the time given their understanding and ability to measure...why should we think our current understanding of this frontier(consciousness and the workings of the brain) is any more concrete today, than their understanding of celestial mechanics was to them then...




I disagree, in that case, if life is required for existence, then you're either alive and exist, or dead and do not...there's no "surviving" transitional state...so long as you're "dying" you're surviving, thus existing until that moment you do not survive...my calculus is 25 years rusty, but kinda like a limit I think...there is a threshold...but now we're wading in the marsh of semantics, so I'll defer to agree to disagree...



I submit that's only if you limit that "life" to consist wholly and distinctly of Earth-based, material life as we currently understand it...if we know all the answers, why bother asking any more questions?

This is interesting.

To me, there is no magic in the lower levels. The magic all happens in the upper ones... Just like how differential equations can almost seem alive even though arithmetics is very straightforward. Memory (which is just stored experience) is the pattern in which the neurons and synapses etc. are connected, and hope is just another feeling, more chemicals. Our understanding of the brain is no doubt more thorough than the Ptolemaic understanding of celestial mechanics (they did not even know about Newtonian gravity, let alone Einstein's formulation of it...). But that is immaterial: that we don't understand something is far from reason enough to assume that some scientifically credible explanation isn't the correct one.

I hate agreeing to disagree on formal matters. Formality is there to get rid of disagreements, after all... Sure, you're required to be alive to exist. But that is, again, not the sort of requirement that we originally spoke of. We can agree to disagree on that, though, since internet thread topics, especially when they are off the original topic, are not formal in nature...

I don't agree on the limitation to the apparent physical world though. For example, let's assume that this - everything we see around us - is actually a very advanced game, played by godlike creatures (that'd be us) that for reasons of the game itself have temporarily erased their own memory of anything outside this world (there is actually a religion based on this idea, 5000 cookies to the person who can guess which one). Even if that was true, that cluster of consciousness-individuals (or whatever to call them) is a rather complex thing, and it seems unlikely that said complexity would spring from nothing (and I don't even mean in the temporal sense as originating from nothing, because who's to say that time exists in that outside world? But just that the complexity would exist without anything else to be based on).

Nor do I agree on that the physical world being the entirety of existence as being the same thing as us knowing the answer to all the questions. There are loads of questions, and answering them can bring about a better life for all of us (except the ones that already died). That's why we should be asking them... On the other hand, if our true existence is external, if the physical one is meaningless, why bother asking anything? Why not just wait until it all becomes apparent on its own?

[King Tomodo]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

Sparky, stop thinking that you need to love someone to sleep with them. There is a connection there, but not the one you'd think.

True, you also should marry her first, that way you will not risk her being just a girl you slept with ones But that's just imo, as a Christian, either way, sleeping with someone bonds you tight together so be sure you love the gal, otherwise the your heartbreak will be worse if you leave her after sharing something so passionate and intimate with another person.

[raspberry jam]

King Tomodo, on 14 December 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

True, you also should marry her first, that way you will not risk her being just a girl you slept with ones But that's just imo, as a Christian, either way, sleeping with someone bonds you tight together so be sure you love the gal, otherwise the your heartbreak will be worse if you leave her after sharing something so passionate and intimate with another person.

The Council of Virgins have spoken.

[astromarmot]

raspberry jam, on 14 December 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

This is interesting.

To me, there is no magic in the lower levels. The magic all happens in the upper ones... Just like how differential equations can almost seem alive even though arithmetics is very straightforward. Memory (which is just stored experience) is the pattern in which the neurons and synapses etc. are connected, and hope is just another feeling, more chemicals. Our understanding of the brain is no doubt more thorough than the Ptolemaic understanding of celestial mechanics (they did not even know about Newtonian gravity, let alone Einstein's formulation of it...). But that is immaterial: that we don't understand something is far from reason enough to assume that some scientifically credible explanation isn't the correct one.

In a greater temporal context, of course today, hindsight supports that our understanding is likely more thorough than theirs was, but in  a more local context, it may or may not be...they simply did not know what they did not know...and we may very well be proven to be just as underinformed upon future reflection...

Quote

I hate agreeing to disagree on formal matters. Formality is there to get rid of disagreements, after all... Sure, you're required to be alive to exist. But that is, again, not the sort of requirement that we originally spoke of. We can agree to disagree on that, though, since internet thread topics, especially when they are off the original topic, are not formal in nature...

I concur, but we're obviously at a point where we're talking in a circle simply due to our inability to adequately communicate our positions to reach any manner of mutually acceptable consensus...

Quote

I don't agree on the limitation to the apparent physical world though. For example, let's assume that this - everything we see around us - is actually a very advanced game, played by godlike creatures (that'd be us) that for reasons of the game itself have temporarily erased their own memory of anything outside this world (there is actually a religion based on this idea, 5000 cookies to the person who can guess which one). Even if that was true, that cluster of consciousness-individuals (or whatever to call them) is a rather complex thing, and it seems unlikely that said complexity would spring from nothing (and I don't even mean in the temporal sense as originating from nothing, because who's to say that time exists in that outside world? But just that the complexity would exist without anything else to be based on).

Nor do I agree on that the physical world being the entirety of existence as being the same thing as us knowing the answer to all the questions. There are loads of questions, and answering them can bring about a better life for all of us (except the ones that already died). That's why we should be asking them... On the other hand, if our true existence is external, if the physical one is meaningless, why bother asking anything? Why not just wait until it all becomes apparent on its own?

But then again, that sort of thing implies there needs be some sort of genesis, and not just a temporal one, but some manner of emergence of something from some undefined absence of everything...some sort of nothing predating(oops temporal faux pas) preexisting e,r pre-not-existing) something...and again, given our rather limited frame of reference it of course seems to be necessary...while I find it hard to imagine something that always was, and always will be, I liken it asking into what is the universe expanding implying the necessity of a greater dimension of containment...

hell, for reasons well beyond my own understanding I once read a Scientific American article that implied the expansion of of the universe to the point of homogeneous entropy, the cessation of all motion, all heat, all organized energy, and it friggin depressed me...

I never indicated that the physical was meaningless, nor do I think that the possibility of a greater existence implies the lack of importance of the here and now, because honestly, the moment is the only reality that we can place any measure of confidence in...everything else is basically a leap of faith...that we actually remember what we experienced, and that the universal physical rules of today and yesterday will still rein tomorrow...and that's why we must never rest on our laurels, and stop asking the questions...every new discovery is because someone lacked the faith of the giant's eyesight and climbed upon his/her shoulders for a better view...

Edited by astromarmot, 14 December 2012 - 02:06 PM.