Reality

Terry & co ?

An interesting silence indeed !

Here's another snippet this time from reference 3.

Prigogine type self-organisation in chemical systems and von Foerster type self-organisation in biological and social systems. Indeed, the whole cosmos may be viewed as a self-organising system. Von Foerster's definition emphasises processes of growth and evolution and the limits imposed on an observer who wishes to model those processes. What is not generally recognised is that the existence of these limits also implies that the concept of a "causal mechanism" is itself held in question. McCulloch (1965) refers to "that great fiction, causality". Bateson (1972) stresses that in cybernetics, the question asked of complex systems is not what is causing what but rather, why did that particular event come to be, given the many alternative possibilities?

Making sense yet ?

Gelisgesti

In this context your categories "brain" "mind" "inquisitor" etc could be seen as "levels of order" as in the term "second order cybernetics". If you refer to reference 3 above in my list under the section "epistemology of the observer" this may become a little clearer, although a limited (as opposed to infinite) regress is not ruled out to the level of "the cosmos".

Gels, What are you trying to suggest with our concept of time as it relates to our reality? I don't think one needs to have a brain impairment such as Parkinson's to have a misconception of time.

Twyvel, you ignored my response to you (Feb 7 post 551366) regarding the observation of awareness, consciousness, knowledge, and brains, and simply reiterated the one point on which I suggested that we agree to disagree: subject/object dichotomy and infinite regression.

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I meant that it is absurd to claim that people may be automatons in order to avoid admitting that their behavior reflects awareness.

[sigh] I did not say that we could observe awareness by watching someone walk down the street. But we CAN observe awareness by observing how they respond to questions and novel situations.

No, of course not. In order to experience someone else's consciousness, we would have to have a telepathic connection to their mind.

But we can observe their consciousness by measuring their brain's responses to stimuli and by noting their behavior.

This one issue is whether or not consciousness can be observed. It is not about suppositions of what may produce it.

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What's wrong with figuring out what produces the consciousness that many of us do indeed observe?

Dualism doesn't hold any promises.

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Then of what use is it?

Something you fail to grasp is all knowledge is mental.

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Depends on how you define the words. Computers can acquire, store and act on "knowledge" but have no mental concepts of anything.

Consciousness came from evolution of our brains, which is where it resides and has no reason to go anywhere else (especially after death).

Why should "I" be limited to one state that would encompass wakefulness, various sleep stages, meditation, psychosis, drug-induced hallucinations, coma, and everything else? "I" am not always "myself."

You are wrong, we do not 'know' if consciousness requires brains.

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You may not "know" but my level of knowledge on the subject seems to be a bit more extensive.

You don't necessarily need a brain, but at a minimum consciousness requires organized patterns of matter/energy and a way to manipulate them with self-awareness. There must be a source of input, a data storage system, time sense, imaging system (does not have to be visual), a way to process data and evaluate decisions. Unless you believe in magic.

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twyvel, this is BS, pure and simple. Of course I can observe myself, others can observe me, and I can observe others and apply that knowledge to my own experience. Have you ever heard the expression "know thyself"? "I" exist as surely as love.

I hope everyone else appreciated the irony as much as I did when twyvel complained about the effrontery of Frank and Terry actually agreeing with each other. Really, twyvel, that was too funny!

The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the other members of the non-dualistic amen corner, fresco and JLN, had submitted their obligatory "oooh, twyvel, you're so profound" follow-up posts. That would have been priceless!

Twyvel

I have no animosity toward you -- I merely am pointing out that you are peddling a belief system here on the Internet -- and like most peddlers of belief systems, you often present it as though you KNOW it to be so.

What we live in MAY be an illusion of some kind. It also MAY be exactly what it seems to be to people in the street. It also MAY be something so different from either of these alternatives, that the REALITY of what it is cannot be comprehended -- whether by you or me or the non-dualistic whatever.

You have picked out one of these several possibilities and are peddling it as the truth. You seem unable to comprehend both the fact that you are doing it -- and the implications of the fact that you are.

Continue to do so. It apparently makes you complete (irony intended).

When I see the belief system being peddled -- I will share the observation.

Let's both live with that.

Ahhh, Terry.

SO MANY BELIEF SYSTEMS...so little time to challenge them all.

Have you ever actually experienced the non-dualistic state?

If so, do you have any awareness of particular objects making up the universe or only a "feeling" of being at one with everything? In other words, can you gather any useful information (remote sensing, for instance) from your experiences?

Gelisgesti,

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Alas "thought" itself becomes deconstructed except as a "token of communicative exchange". In other words our communication which uses words like "thought" is part of a "coherent system" of interaction. There is no "thought" except as part of the system. (This social interaction can be internal self1 with self2)

By limiting thought to a nuance I would think one would be more aware of the subtleties involved in a 'thought'. Thoughts are as real as the keyboards we are using to have this conversation. While you cannot see a thought you can witness the reality of it by looking at the light coming from your lamp and the 'mind's' creation of invisible particles called protons. Real is not real because the observer judges it to be so and thoughts are more than social nuance, they are the creator.

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Compare...there is no "function"(coherence) of a bood-cell except as part of a "body". The discussion of a single "blood cell" as just a "cell" would be semantically vacuous because it ignores the import of the adjective "blood". Discussion of "cellness" would serve another purpose at a different level of analysis. (Gestalt - The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - a part necessarily reflects the whole. This point is reflected in twyvels holographic references above).

Infinity stretches in both directions. There is no other function of the body than to harbor blood cells? In the other direction carboxyhemaglobin is the constituent of a blood cell that transports oxygen to the cells. Its major componet is 'iron', a metal found freely on the planet. So in the microcosmic sense the constituents of a blood cell are common and not relegated to the existence of a carbon based life form.

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So in essence "coherence" means an aspect of the "stability" of a system.
And "autopoiesis" implies self regulating i.e. no "external control". This concept is of course rejected by theists who wish to limit a potential infinite regress of "observers" by putting a "God" at the top.

Given the principle of structural determination, interaction among systems is explained as '...a history of recurrent interactions leading to the structural congruence between two (or more) systems' (Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 75). Structural coupling is the label for ongoing engagement between systems, resulting in structural changes in each. Structural coupling describes ongoing mutual co-adaptation without allusion to a transfer of some ephemeral force or information across the boundaries of the engaged systems.