Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

The wavelengths of light exist regardless of anyone's ability to perceive them. But as pure experience, the colors exist in the minds of those who can see them. Unless, of course, you're postulating Platonic Forms, which I'd say would *be* the wavelengths of light.

Accounting for what lightwaves do, and who perceives them, does not answer the question about whether colors are archetypes or forms.

Why does a wavelength correspond to a particular color? Why is this length red, and another orange? Why do colors move in a circle in relation to each other? And isn't "wavelength" also a purely mathematical concept; and so a form, though it does not contain the rich experience of the form which color is?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Either phenomenologists are making claims about reality or they are just experiencing it. In the former case, they have assumptions on which, along with experience, their claims are based. If they are just experiencing it, they are saying essentially nothing, so I doubt that is the case.

It is the latter, but what they are doing in addition to experiencing, is describing their experience.

Or, how about the method that Jesus and Buddha taught: be still and know.

We have the capacity to imagine possible experiences that haven't happened yet. To do so is not a violation of empiricism. To treat the imagined reality as if it were known to be real is.

It is if you postulate your imaginings as a basis for determining what is real, which you were doing.

That's a cop-out, Eric. If we "perceive" (that is, experience subjectively) and don't just "react to stimuli," nevertheless all descriptions of how we perceive the world describe reaction to stimuli, and as that would be shared by an AI, whether it actually subjectively experiences what it perceives is irrelevant. After all, I have no way to verify for certain that YOU actually experience things subjectively. I take your word for it, and I would be inclined to do the same with an AI. I could be wrong in either case, but it doesn't matter.

We are not in agreement here at all. I think you know the routine. I know what a machine is, and I know what a human is. They are not the same. That's a certainty, based on experience. I'm sorry you don't share that experience, but that does not change the truth that I know.

It seems to me that you are taking elements of our own perceptual apparatus ("blue," "white") and assigning them to what is seen.

That is unavoidable; we perceive what we see. That's a tautology. And these "elements" seem to have archetypal qualities, and are universal.

Also, I might refer you to the distinction between phenomena and noumena; "what is seen" in the sense you are describing here is unknowable. It's true that we cannot perceive all possible elements of what we are observing. Not only in the ways we've been talking about, but it's also possible that there are ways of perceiving reality, other senses, of which we literally know nothing. "How do you know but every bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight, closed to your senses five?"

What we see is what we see; there's lots we don't see. An empirical method starts with the former.

"What is seen" is not the same as "what is," and therefore the answer to your question, [I]f I don't have the same equipment to see things in the same way, does that change what is seen?" is yes. It doesn't change what is, but it does change what is seen.

No, the answer is no. All we have to go on is our own perceptions, validated by others. There's no reason to suppose they are invalid. What is seen, is entirely based on what is. Our knowledge is a compendium of what many observers have seen. In philosophy, the truth lies within yourself. If you know yourself, you know everything. And you know you are connected to everything, and are everything too. And I don't make materialist assumptions that perception is electric impulses going on in each individual's brain, senses and nerves. It is not. It is a direct connection between subject and object.

We all see the same color red. If someone has defective equipment, and can't see the color, then he just needs new equipment. If my TV is out of order, I can't see the Nightly News. You can't make anything more out of it, than that I need a better TV, or a repairman.

Agreed, but then again, he would not hear it with the same ears or the same brain, and to the extent his are different from yours, he would not hear the same sound.

Eyes and ears are not very different, from one human being to another. We all have the same equipment. And they are all part of one world. We hear sounds only because of that connection. There is no separation of knower and known. That's why there can be none between epistemology and metaphysics.

And there's no reason to suppose that we could ever agree, or convince one or the other, on the basis of this dialogue. You know that; all I can do is answer the question you raised (or satisfy your curiosity about) what I think or believe, which I have done.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Why does a wavelength correspond to a particular color? Why is this length red, and another orange? Why do colors move in a circle in relation to each other?

And as I mentioned earlier, colorblind people percieve those very differently than us "normal" trichromatic folks do, in fact, folks with red-green color-blindness can easily see through camouflage that utterly fools most other people. IMO knowing the "whys" of qualia is impossible, but the fact that people with atypical sense organs and/or brains (with myself being somebody with an "atypical" brain) have different qualia than "typical" people do indicates that such things have to do with the brain and brain only.

I have had a strong "nominalist" streak in my thinking long before I was old enough to know what "Nominalism" and "Platonism" even were, something I attribute to my Asperger's. and my current views are similar to Kant's. IMO "forms" are mere conceptual labels, some imposed by culture, others imposed by the workings of our own brains, which is why it often takes an eccentric person with an eccentric brain to see through some concepts.

There is a pathway to resolve the culture wars, at least some of them anyway. The two warring, very-primitive worldviews are called "creationism" and "evolutionism." But let's look at that a little.

The creation story is the primary myth of our culture. Exoteric religious believers take it literally. But those who have studied the story on an esoteric level know what it is really saying. They are the Jewish mystics of the kaballah. For them, the creation story is not really a story of creation at all. It is a map of life and consciousness. It is connected to (and probably in part based on) Plato's "unwritten" theory of emanation, which was first written down only by Plotinus. This theory says the world consists of interacting levels of being, from the spiritual to the material, and with receptive and active currents. It has been connected to depth psychology, as well as to other maps of consciousness such as the chakras, astrology and (in my view in an incorrect way) to the tarot deck. The primary symbol used for this map is the Tree of Life symbol, based on the image in Genesis, and based directly on the creation story. The Tree of Life shows the process of life, and from it the scientists took the word "evolution." It consists of both evolution and involution. This knowledge is not a narrative of how God created the world 6000 years ago at all. It is a map of the ongoing process of life. And from it the scientists took the concept of "evolution." But the kaballah is only a map of consciousness. It does not tell us the details of what creatures exist (except in general terms), or how they behave, or which diseases they get, or their actual history according to the fossil record, etc. That is beyond its capabilities. You need to do science to know those things.

The evolution theory is part of the other great myth of our culture, the fully automatic model. Some scientists take this model literally too. It is assumed to be mechanical, and deterministic. But it need not be assumed to be such. What evolutionary biology is, is a set of observations of what living beings exist in the world, their history, and a coherent account of how they connect together through time. It tells us various processes that happen in our bodies and how they connect to processes in the world. It is useful for many purposes, such as finding cures for diseases, and (whether this is a good purpose or not) genetic modification. It gives us info on the behavior of animals and plants, and thus how to adapt to them and use them. But it is not an account of what life is, how it evolved at a deeper level, where it came from, whether it has a purpose or not, the nature of sentience, and whether beings are sentient, etc. That is beyond the capability of empirical science.

Does science need to "disprove" the Wizard of Oz, or other myths? Then religion does not need to be disproved. It just needs to be taken for what it is. Does religion need to attack science, as if it could really provide an alternative myth that explains life, or a map of consciousness? Let it provide what it does provide us.

The problem is, religionists want to attack science, as some kind of infidelity, and interfere with the teaching of science. They see science and evolution theory as a threat to the primacy of their belief system, which could threaten morality or perhaps their ambitions for theocracy. Meanwhile, scientists want to use science to disprove religion, or overturn superstition, which they have seen as oppressive, since at times it is, and to substitute science for religion wherever possible, as the "true" knowledge. But I think spiritualists and scientists can be left to pursue their own paths in peace. Let the scientists observe the world carefully with empirical methods, get the facts, and relate them in a coherent account. Let spirituality and religion help us on our path to enlightenment and an understanding of life by providing us with symbolic maps and stories and spiritual practices. Once each one leaves the other alone to pursue the knowledge that is within its competence, and does not try to discredit the other, this aspect of the culture war will cease.

The two methods can be combined, in philosophical science. That does not diminish the need and value of each in its separate realm. We need all three of these approaches, and more besides.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

There is a pathway to resolve the culture wars, at least some of them anyway. The two warring, very-primitive worldviews are called "creationism" and "evolutionism." But let's look at that a little.

The creation story is the primary myth of our culture. Exoteric religious believers take it literally. But those who have studied the story on an esoteric level know what it is really saying. They are the Jewish mystics of the kaballah. For them, the creation story is not really a story of creation at all. It is a map of life and consciousness. It is connected to (and probably in part based on) Plato's "unwritten" theory of emanation, which was first written down only by Plotinus. This theory says the world consists of interacting levels of being, from the spiritual to the material, and with receptive and active currents. It has been connected to depth psychology, as well as to other maps of consciousness such as the chakras, astrology and (in my view in an incorrect way) to the tarot deck. The primary symbol used for this map is the Tree of Life symbol, based on the image in Genesis, and based directly on the creation story. The Tree of Life shows the process of life, and from it the scientists took the word "evolution." It consists of both evolution and involution. This knowledge is not a narrative of how God created the world 6000 years ago at all. It is a map of the ongoing process of life. And from it the scientists took the concept of "evolution." But the kaballah is only a map of consciousness. It does not tell us the details of what creatures exist (except in general terms), or how they behave, or which diseases they get, or their actual history according to the fossil record, etc. That is beyond its capabilities. You need to do science to know those things.

The evolution theory is part of the other great myth of our culture, the fully automatic model. Some scientists take this model literally too. It is assumed to be mechanical, and deterministic. But it need not be assumed to be such. What evolutionary biology is, is a set of observations of what living beings exist in the world, their history, and a coherent account of how they connect together through time. It tells us various processes that happen in our bodies and how they connect to processes in the world. It is useful for many purposes, such as finding cures for diseases, and (whether this is a good purpose or not) genetic modification. It gives us info on the behavior of animals and plants, and thus how to adapt to them and use them. But it is not an account of what life is, how it evolved at a deeper level, where it came from, whether it has a purpose or not, the nature of sentience, and whether beings are sentient, etc. That is beyond the capability of empirical science.

Does science need to "disprove" the Wizard of Oz, or other myths? Then religion does not need to be disproved. It just needs to be taken for what it is. Does religion need to attack science, as if it could really provide an alternative myth that explains life, or a map of consciousness? Let it provide what it does provide us.

The problem is, religionists want to attack science, as some kind of infidelity, and interfere with the teaching of science. They see science and evolution theory as a threat to the primacy of their belief system, which could threaten morality or perhaps their ambitions for theocracy. Meanwhile, scientists want to use science to disprove religion, or overturn superstition, which they have seen as oppressive, since at times it is, and to substitute science for religion wherever possible, as the "true" knowledge. But I think spiritualists and scientists can be left to pursue their own paths in peace. Let the scientists observe the world carefully with empirical methods, get the facts, and relate them in a coherent account. Let spirituality and religion help us on our path to enlightenment and an understanding of life by providing us with symbolic maps and stories and spiritual practices. Once each one leaves the other alone to pursue the knowledge that is within its competence, and does not try to discredit the other, this aspect of the culture war will cease.

The two methods can be combined, in philosophical science. That does not diminish the need and value of each in its separate realm. We need all three of these approaches, and more besides.

When you deal with creationism and evolutionary theory, you are dealing with two totally different cultures, or stages of culture; and when you explain creationism in the way you just did, you are throwing in a third stage that actually lies between them.

The original creation story was the mythology of the Hebrew people, later called Israelites, written down in the Hebrew Bible long after the fact but certainly not as late as the Hellenistic period. That's the original.

The mystical interpretation you gave comes from a later period that came into the Roman/late Greek culture from the near east and was thoroughly mixed in with the intellectual currents of the day, both scholarly and popular. This was the same stew that brought Isis, Mithras, et. al to the fore as well until Christianity essentially out-competed the other faiths (including catching the Emperor at the last minute.) At which point the other faiths either went underground or (or and) some of their mysticism seeped into popular Christianity, but mostly, I think, went underground and reappeared about the time Western Christendom re-established contact (however hostile) with Islam.

The theory of evolution comes out of the modern Western mindset and is totally a creation of it. As such, it went too far for some people, who promptly went back -- not to Crusader-era mystical thought, but the early modern version of the Hebrew Bible and decided they would flatly take it literally, word for word, since all this modern thought was leading them straight down the atheist road. You'll note that during the ages of faith, whether medieval Catholic or Reformation-era Protestant, such a simplistic reading was never on the table for very long.

Also note that back in the days of ancient Athens, you didn't use to see trials for "impiety" unless someone actually desecrated a sacred object or mocked a sacred rite. You only started to get "impiety" trials as the worship of the Olympians and the gods of the City started to fade and become hollow in everyone's mind. (Largely because the real actual was starting to be elsewhere. That's what the Hellenistic Era was all about. And finally, of course, Rome swallowed up the entire thing).

So what we're seeing in the entire Creationist movement is a classic (no pun intended - or maybe one is intended) case of terrified people slamming the barn door shut while after the horses have already started running free on the range and only the old mule is left in the barn.

All popular expositions of scientific theories are a kind of mythical narrative, but unlike pre-scientific myths they have at least some backing by logic and empirical data. That is, the primary difference between scientific theories and other kinds of myths is that the former prompt people to test, and critique them.

This "scientific" form of myth has, at it's root, one man: Thales of Miletus. Thales started a tradition of inventing and critiquing myth as a way of explaining the world. The next step had to wait until the 1500s when people started using systematic empirical data rather than just logic and reasoning.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It is the latter, but what they are doing in addition to experiencing, is describing their experience.

Or, how about the method that Jesus and Buddha taught: be still and know.

This makes the assumption that being still is the way to know.

It is if you postulate your imaginings as a basis for determining what is real, which you were doing.

No, not at all. There are several levels of proof here. By imagining something, we can get some idea of what its characteristics will be if it exists. This can tell us some things about the principles underlying aspects in common with other things that we know exists. One way that helps knowledge is if we reason, "If A, then B," and can then conclude, "Well, B is true, so maybe A," or else "But B is false, so A must be false, too." This is done all the time in both science and philosophy, and it's what I'm doing here: exploring possibilities with a view to shining light on unexamined assumptions.

The next level of proof is to find direct evidence of A. That I don't have either for extraterrestrial intelligence (which I know just the same that you believe in) or for artificial intelligence, which does not exist yet on this planet except in very rudimentary form.

We are not in agreement here at all. I think you know the routine. I know what a machine is, and I know what a human is. They are not the same. That's a certainty, based on experience. I'm sorry you don't share that experience, but that does not change the truth that I know.

That is not where our disagreement lies. And in fact, you have a disagreement not only with me, but with yourself as well here. Have you not said many times that consciousness is everywhere? Have you not claimed that rocks are conscious? If rocks are conscious, I see no reason why machines can't be, too. You can't have it both ways, Eric!

Of course machines aren't "human." Neither are aliens. Neither are any other animal species, but I'm sure you would agree that both aliens and animals are conscious. So why not intelligent machines? Or even unintelligent machines? The reason we don't have fully sapient AI at this point is not because of some cosmic principle (which in other contexts you don't even believe), but simply because we lack the technology to make it happen -- yet. Maybe ever. But intelligence and sapience, unlike consciousness, can be analyzed, understood, and programmed; it's a matter of making a machine capable of self-programming and hence of learning.

Once that is accomplished, you can go on insisting that the result is not a person until you are blue in the face, but in doing so you are going against both common sense and your own beliefs expressed in other contexts.

That is unavoidable; we perceive what we see. That's a tautology. And these "elements" seem to have archetypal qualities, and are universal.

Again, you are contradicting things you have said in other circumstances, indeed things you said in this very post (see below). And no, it's not unavoidable. All you have to do is recognize that others see things differently than you do. One of two things follows from this. Either there is a "reality" that is fluid, and changes with the perceiver, or there is a "reality" that remains constant but is unknowable. Either way, a difference in perception changes what is seen.

What we see is what we see; there's lots we don't see. An empirical method starts with the former.

Yes, but it doesn't have to end there.

All we have to go on is our own perceptions, validated by others. There's no reason to suppose they are invalid.

I didn't say they were "invalid." I said they varied, and that no one sees the same thing exactly as another person. "The fool sees not the same tree as the wise man sees." (I seem to be quoting William Blake to you a lot lately. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a work of prophecy.) Consensus reality is composed of the intersections of individual perceptions.

What is seen, is entirely based on what is. Our knowledge is a compendium of what many observers have seen.

Again, either "what is" objectively exists or it does not. If it does, then we have no way to determine that "what is seen is based on what is." If not, then the question becomes meaningless, and all we are dealing with are variations in perception. Our knowledge, as noted above, is the intersection -- not the "compendium" -- of what many observers have seen. I look at something and I see A, B, C, X, Y, and Z. You look at the same thing and you see B, C, D, V, W, and X. The "compendium" would be A, B, C, D, V, W, X, Y, and Z, but in fact what we take from this dual viewpoint is what we see in common, which is B, C, and X. A, D, V, W, Y, and Z disappear as "subjective fluff," perceptions by one person which can't be verified. That's oversimplified, but in a nutshell it's how consensus reality comes to be.

In philosophy, the truth lies within yourself. If you know yourself, you know everything.

The same limitations lie on that, as on perceiving things externally. This is only a difference of viewpoint, not of fact. (Also, to nitpick again, saying this is true "in philosophy" is incorrect. There are philosophical positions that run directly counter to this idea.)

And I don't make materialist assumptions that perception is electric impulses going on in each individual's brain, senses and nerves. It is not. It is a direct connection between subject and object.

For the present purpose, there's no need to make that assumption, although for many purposes it's a very useful tool. The things I've said about perception remain true regardless of the model we use for it.

We all see the same color red.

A bold statement, claiming more knowledge than either you or anyone else can have. It's also extremely unlikely.

If someone has defective equipment, and can't see the color, then he just needs new equipment.

We're not talking about "defective" equipment. Neither of us is color blind. I look at, say, the stripes on the American flag, and I see a color that I have learned to call "red." You look at the flag and see a color that you have also learned to call "red." Do we see the same exact color? There is no way to know. Physicists would say that we are seeing the exact same wavelength of light reflected from the stripes, which is at the long end of the visible spectrum, but there's no way to say that our brains are interpreting this in exactly the same way. All we know for certain is that both my brain and yours interpret it as sufficiently different from the color of the other stripes or the stars or the field in the upper left corner that we can make the distinction and call it by a common name.

If you don't want to use the optic model above, it doesn't matter; any model we use must recognize the same facts, which include the fact that we do not know whether we are in fact seeing exactly the same colors. And common sense suggests that we probably aren't.

Eyes and ears are not very different, from one human being to another.

"Not very different" is still different. In order for us to be perceiving exactly the same color, our equipment would have to be exactly the same. It's not.

And they are all part of one world.

You can see it that way. But this directly contradicts things that you said above.

And there's no reason to suppose that we could ever agree, or convince one or the other, on the basis of this dialogue. You know that; all I can do is answer the question you raised (or satisfy your curiosity about) what I think or believe, which I have done.

This will remain true as long as you cling stubbornly to what you want to believe in the fact of reason and evidence, being willing even to contradict yourself in the process. But it's still worth pointing out. It costs me nothing except some time, it helps sharpen my own reasoning faculties, and who knows -- maybe the horse will learn to sing hymns.

Here is a section from Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Thought it might be worth cutting and pasting.

A Memorable Fancy.

As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of their Proverbs: thinking that as the sayings used in a nation, mark its character, so the Proverbs of Hell, shew the nature of Infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments.

When I came home; on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world. I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now percieved by the minds of men, & read by them on earth.

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

Proverbs of Hell.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.
All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
One thought fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

The fox provides for himself. but God provides for the lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others bad not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox. he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.
Enough! or Too much.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

When you deal with creationism and evolutionary theory, you are dealing with two totally different cultures, or stages of culture; and when you explain creationism in the way you just did, you are throwing in a third stage that actually lies between them.

The original creation story was the mythology of the Hebrew people, later called Israelites, written down in the Hebrew Bible long after the fact but certainly not as late as the Hellenistic period. That's the original.

The mystical interpretation you gave comes from a later period that came into the Roman/late Greek culture from the near east and was thoroughly mixed in with the intellectual currents of the day, both scholarly and popular. This was the same stew that brought Isis, Mithras, et. al to the fore as well until Christianity essentially out-competed the other faiths (including catching the Emperor at the last minute.) At which point the other faiths either went underground or (or and) some of their mysticism seeped into popular Christianity, but mostly, I think, went underground and reappeared about the time Western Christendom re-established contact (however hostile) with Islam.

Yes Grey, there are other influences (probably not the religions you mentioned, but hermetic traditions of Egypt and Greek philosophy), but the kaballah authors I read make it clear that the main source of kaballah, was The Bible. Or as they say, The Bible (or The Torah) is the principle book of kaballah.

It's the same original story. The Tree of Life is a symbol of "the creation story." That's a fact, which you know if you read books on the kaballah; just understood and interpreted by those whose gift it was to understand, and not just stay on the surface.

The theory of evolution comes out of the modern Western mindset and is totally a creation of it. As such, it went too far for some people, who promptly went back -- not to Crusader-era mystical thought, but the early modern version of the Hebrew Bible and decided they would flatly take it literally, word for word, since all this modern thought was leading them straight down the atheist road. You'll note that during the ages of faith, whether medieval Catholic or Reformation-era Protestant, such a simplistic reading was never on the table for very long.

That's true. Remember though I pointed out that the idea of "evolution" was originally part of the kaballah and of the unwritten doctrine of Plato, and the scientists simplified it and changed it from its original meaning, depriving it of its counterpart "involution" which is the movement back to source, the path to enlightenment, which was not of interest to the scientists. Nor could it be a part of the empirical science of biology, it's true, but can be a part of peoples knowledge of life.

So what we're seeing in the entire Creationist movement is a classic (no pun intended - or maybe one is intended) case of terrified people slamming the barn door shut while after the horses have already started running free on the range and only the old mule is left in the barn.

An interesting image; something like that is undoubtedly the case, though I'm not sure exactly what.

Originally Posted by Odin

All popular expositions of scientific theories are a kind of mythical narrative, but unlike pre-scientific myths they have at least some backing by logic and empirical data. That is, the primary difference between scientific theories and other kinds of myths is that the former prompt people to test, and critique them.

This "scientific" form of myth has, at it's root, one man: Thales of Miletus. Thales started a tradition of inventing and critiquing myth as a way of explaining the world. The next step had to wait until the 1500s when people started using systematic empirical data rather than just logic and reasoning.

Yes Odin that's right; although his contemporary Pythagoras provided more of the substance of the foundations of this scientific "myth" (or as I called it above, the coherent account to put the observed facts together). And as you might expect from me, both were among the great progenitors of world wisdom that appeared all about the same time in the 6th century BC, in many cases living or born during, the only alignment in history of the 3 outer invisible planets (including Pluto). The same time also, that kaballah began with the visions and work of Ezekiel the prophet.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

This makes the assumption that being still is the way to know.

What Jesus and Buddha and many others have taught, because they were still, and knew.
The way of imagining, which you suddenly advocated here, is not the empirical method you were earlier advocating.
And now you are citing classic romantic poetry, that we all know and love, as support for empiricism. If I did these things, you'd have my head.
I guess it's OK for me to cite J.S. Bach as evidence of eternal archetypes, then?

That is not where our disagreement lies. And in fact, you have a disagreement not only with me, but with yourself as well here. Have you not said many times that consciousness is everywhere? Have you not claimed that rocks are conscious? If rocks are conscious, I see no reason why machines can't be, too. You can't have it both ways, Eric!

But, I can also tell the difference between a rock and a human! Can't you?

Of course machines aren't "human." Neither are aliens. Neither are any other animal species, but I'm sure you would agree that both aliens and animals are conscious. So why not intelligent machines? Or even unintelligent machines? The reason we don't have fully sapient AI at this point is not because of some cosmic principle (which in other contexts you don't even believe), but simply because we lack the technology to make it happen -- yet. Maybe ever. But intelligence and sapience, unlike consciousness, can be analyzed, understood, and programmed; it's a matter of making a machine capable of self-programming and hence of learning.

It is logically impossible for the two to be the same.
Our discussion here is about perception, specifically perception of colors and tones. My point is that colors and tones are archetypal, regardless of what perceptual instrument picks them up. There is no way any perceptual instrument, whether human, machine, alien, color-blind, animal, or whatever, can pick up any colors except the ones we know. All colors are part of the same color wheel and various combinations of same. There are no other colors, and they are always the same, now and forever. And furthermore, each color has definite meanings which have been studied. And colors are not only seen by the senses, but much of what we know about colors comes from those who see and read auras. I don't know if a blind person can see auras, but at least some of this capacity is extra-sensory.

Again, you are contradicting things you have said in other circumstances, indeed things you said in this very post (see below). And no, it's not unavoidable. All you have to do is recognize that others see things differently than you do. One of two things follows from this. Either there is a "reality" that is fluid, and changes with the perceiver, or there is a "reality" that remains constant but is unknowable. Either way, a difference in perception changes what is seen.

Different people see different things, but we all see the same thing. It sounds contradictory, but that's the fault of the language which is as good as I know. It's like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Together we see it all, and it is all there, even if one of us doesn't see it all.
I don't agree about what follows from this. Reality is fluid, and constant, and both are knowable, one in a changing way, and other eternally.

I didn't say they were "invalid." I said they varied, and that no one sees the same thing exactly as another person. "The fool sees not the same tree as the wise man sees."

The fool, or the color-blind's, perception, is not as good as the wise man's. What is archetypal, goes beyond perception. It is not the same as Berkeley's tree in the forest. In so far as I am a Platonist (and I am so only in part), then I am a "realist" in that respect. I know enough about forms to know they exist, although I won't be around as me 1000 years from now to see red and hear C. This is the intuitive rational knowledge of first principles. It is in fashion in our society to knock this idea, but it is one aspect of our knowledge, and one part of our 4 functions (the N function). Without it there's no mathematics, without which there is no science. As you say, empirical knowledge does not stop at observation. It can point the way to knowledge of the eternal that can't be observed forever by one observer in a human body. Eternal truths.

Again, either "what is" objectively exists or it does not. If it does, then we have no way to determine that "what is seen is based on what is."

as far as perception is concerned, if you cannot trust that what you see is what is, there is no basis for empiricism.

Our knowledge, as noted above, is the intersection -- not the "compendium" -- of what many observers have seen.

Seems reasonable; I stand corrected. And of course the idea that the truth is found within yourself is only held by philosophers with a spiritual approach. That's why it's on my test. But I hold it is true. If you know yourself well enough, you know everything, for the simple reason that you ARE everything. But the limitation is that our skill in acquiring this knowledge is limited. But the possibility is there.

For the present purpose, there's no need to make that assumption, although for many purposes it's a very useful tool. The things I've said about perception remain true regardless of the model we use for it.

What accounts for differences in perception, in your view, if physical conditions don't account for it?

A bold statement, claiming more knowledge than either you or anyone else can have. It's also extremely unlikely.

Noone has yet given me any fact or argument that refutes it. Differences in perception are the least likely to refute it; this is the most common and naive level of argument against it.

If you don't want to use the optic model above, it doesn't matter; any model we use must recognize the same facts, which include the fact that we do not know whether we are in fact seeing exactly the same colors. And common sense suggests that we probably aren't.

"uncommon" sense makes it clear we see exactly the same color red. There is no other color we could see. As I pointed out, the possibilities of colors to see is a closed, formal system. There ARE no other colors. The only possible difference is that someone may see the same color red as you, but call it red-orange, or green, or something else. It is the same color regardless of the name put on it. I know this because I know that colors are archetypal. With formal knowledge, and the formal cause, no empirical verification between observers is necessary. But I also have a more superficial verification, because everywhere at all times I in fact DO see the same color called "red," across cultures and languages. That is always an empirical clue that helps us discover the formal truth.

"Not very different" is still different. In order for us to be perceiving exactly the same color, our equipment would have to be exactly the same. It's not.

The character of color, its formal nature, means they do not change in each perceiver. And only the pure color red will combine with yellow to produce orange, or whatever colors are combined. ON that basis too, there is a formal structure, within the color wheel, that dictates that certain shades are primary, and others fall away from those. The pure shade of red, is the one that can combine with other colors to produce secondary shades. In painting, red is what combines with the other primary color yellow to produce orange, regardless of what pigments are used.

This will remain true as long as you cling stubbornly to what you want to believe in the fact of reason and evidence, being willing even to contradict yourself in the process. But it's still worth pointing out. It costs me nothing except some time, it helps sharpen my own reasoning faculties, and who knows -- maybe the horse will learn to sing hymns.

What if I'M the one with the reason and evidence? Are you as stubborn as me? Duh.... Personally, I think the chances are that younger people are more willing to change their opinions than we are. I know I made sweeping changes in my views in my younger years, but very few more-recently. Nowadays, I just find a deeper level of the truths I already know. The perils of being older, and a boomer. And I have never seen you change your mind on basic views either in any substantial way, in the 12-plus years I have known you here. But I'm sure you did, in your younger days anyway.

btw I don't know what "contradiction of myself" you refer to, sorry

The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.

Musical equivalent: chakra section 2 of the Toccata in F
Nice. The eternal aspect of the living soul; the sensuous thirst for the divine within us, expressing as us. It's always there. So......

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes Grey, there are other influences (probably not the religions you mentioned, but hermetic traditions of Egypt and Greek philosophy), but the kaballah authors I read make it clear that the main source of kaballah, was The Bible. Or as they say, The Bible (or The Torah) is the principle book of kaballah.

It's the same original story. The Tree of Life is a symbol of "the creation story." That's a fact, which you know if you read books on the kaballah; just understood and interpreted by those whose gift it was to understand, and not just stay on the surface.

That's true. Remember though I pointed out that the idea of "evolution" was originally part of the kaballah and of the unwritten doctrine of Plato, and the scientists simplified it and changed it from its original meaning, depriving it of its counterpart "involution" which is the movement back to source, the path to enlightenment, which was not of interest to the scientists. Nor could it be a part of the empirical science of biology, it's true, but can be a part of peoples knowledge of life.

An interesting image; something like that is undoubtedly the case, though I'm not sure exactly what.

The thing is, today's Creationists are completely ignorant of that entire body of esoteric knowledge you're referring to! It's not on their mental horizon at all. Rather, they think they are going back to the primitive Hebrew mythology which precedes all that by quite a few centuries, even millenia. That (or their concept of primitive Hebrew mythology) and modern science, which they reject, is all they know.

The joke's on them -- their version of said mythology is totally filtered through the modern viewpoint. How can it be otherwise? But the esoteric, Kabbalistic, etc culture never got into the modern on the level they're operating on, not even as an underground current they're not aware of. I'm aware of it - you don't have to convince me. The point is, they're not. Not on any level. Not even on the unconscious level.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

The thing is, today's Creationists are completely ignorant of that entire body of esoteric knowledge you're referring to!

Precisely. Maybe they need to learn what their holy book really says! Donya think it's about time, eh???!!!

The joke's on them -- their version of said mythology is totally filtered through the modern viewpoint. How can it be otherwise? But the esoteric, Kabbalistic, etc culture never got into the modern on the level they're operating on, not even as an underground current they're not aware of. I'm aware of it - you don't have to convince me. The point is, they're not. Not on any level. Not even on the unconscious level.

I dunno; Madonna has made it popular. It's gettin' out there.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

The thing is, today's Creationists are completely ignorant of that entire body of esoteric knowledge you're referring to! It's not on their mental horizon at all. Rather, they think they are going back to the primitive Hebrew mythology which precedes all that by quite a few centuries, even millenia. That (or their concept of primitive Hebrew mythology) and modern science, which they reject, is all they know.

The joke's on them -- their version of said mythology is totally filtered through the modern viewpoint. How can it be otherwise? But the esoteric, Kabbalistic, etc culture never got into the modern on the level they're operating on, not even as an underground current they're not aware of. I'm aware of it - you don't have to convince me. The point is, they're not. Not on any level. Not even on the unconscious level.

IMO that kind of Fundamentalism has it's roots in the Reformation and the rejection of the historical context embedded in the traditions of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Eastern churches in favor of Sola Scripta, biblical literalism, which is the result of ignorance of the historical roots behind the Bible itself.

An example of this is when some homophobe brings up the line in 2nd Corinthians that they like to use when condemning homosexuality. But they are ignoring the context of Paul's condemnation. Paul was referring to the exploitative traditions of pederasty native to pre-Christian Greek culture.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

What Jesus and Buddha and many others have taught, because they were still, and knew.

Nevertheless, it is an assumption, and an unprovable one. Someone who adheres to a different way of knowing, for example the scientific method, might see the things "known" by Jesus and the Buddha as purely subjective experiences without cognitive meaning -- delusions, in effect.

My own belief is that there are different ways of knowing appropriate for different questions, but that, too, is an assumption.

The way of imagining, which you suddenly advocated here, is not the empirical method you were earlier advocating.

Yes it is. You're just not understanding what I'm saying, which isn't surprising; you've never shown much grasp of empiricism. What empiricism means is that in the end everything comes back to perception/experience as a touchstone. That doesn't mean that we can't imagine and reason from the imagining. It only means that all of our conclusions drawn in that way remain tentative until (in this case) we actually have a functioning AI or a breathing alien to study.

And now you are citing classic romantic poetry, that we all know and love, as support for empiricism. If I did these things, you'd have my head.

Depends on how you did it. Incidentally, I don't know that I'd agree with classifying Blake as romantic poetry. He seems to be in a class by himself.

I guess it's OK for me to cite J.S. Bach as evidence of eternal archetypes, then?

Again, it depends on how you do it.

But, I can also tell the difference between a rock and a human! Can't you?

Sure, but we're not discussing whether rocks (or machines) are human. We are discussing whether things that are NOT human, like machines or aliens, can be conscious, thinking beings.

Our discussion here is about perception, specifically perception of colors and tones. My point is that colors and tones are archetypal, regardless of what perceptual instrument picks them up. There is no way any perceptual instrument, whether human, machine, alien, color-blind, animal, or whatever, can pick up any colors except the ones we know.

That is simply untrue. There are birds that can see in the ultraviolet ranges, which we cannot. What color would that be? There are machines that can see in the infrared and ultraviolet both. What colors would those be? The colors that we see are a product of our own abilities and limitations. Seeing beings with different abilities and limitations would see different colors.

And colors are not only seen by the senses, but much of what we know about colors comes from those who see and read auras. I don't know if a blind person can see auras, but at least some of this capacity is extra-sensory.

Well, now you're getting into an area where I am an expert and you, by your own admission, are not, so let me tell you what seeing auras involves. Yes, it is extrasensory; what it is not, is literally visual. (In fact, by definition anything extrasensory cannot be visual, but those categories may be somewhat misleading.) A person who can see auras can gain information about a person by looking at him/her. Another person, who may not be so visually oriented, can gain the same information by connecting with a person but it manifests as feelings, flashes of thought, intuitive impressions -- not as a visible aura. There is no advantage whatever, in terms of information gained, to seeing auras as such, compared to other vehicles of ESP. So it's obvious to me that what is happening when auras are seen is that information which is gained through telepathy or other ESP forms is processed by the brain visually and presented to consciousness in that form. And when that happens, naturally the brain uses the colors that the person already knows as a template. If the person were an alien and saw different colors, he would see those colors in the aura.

I'm a mage myself and I have known many other mages. Some of those could see auras; most could not. Those who could, were inevitably visually-oriented people. Often they were artists. Always they had a good eye for decoration and perspective. Those who could not, generally were not so visually-oriented. Seeing auras wasn't an ability they lacked, it was simply a way of organizing their psychic perceptions that they didn't use, preferring another way.

Auras, in short, are not real. They are a psychic illusion, you might say. The information gained by them is real, and the psychic talent that feeds them is real, but the auras themselves are not. And don't bother replying that your opinion is different; in this area, your opinion is frankly not as good as mine.

Different people see different things, but we all see the same thing. It sounds contradictory, but that's the fault of the language which is as good as I know. It's like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Together we see it all, and it is all there, even if one of us doesn't see it all.

In the story of the blind men and the elephant, it was possible for someone else who could see to observe a range of reality to the beast that was invisible to the blind men. In the case of reality being observed, we have no such available larger perspective. We are dependent on our own perceptions, limited though those are.

Whether we all see the same thing depends on whether the thing-in-itself actually exists. It may or it may not. If it does, then all of our perceptions are of something which is the same in itself -- but which we can never know. If it does not, then there is no "same thing" for us to see, only a partial similarity in perceptions. In either case, we do not all have the same perceptions of what we are seeing.

I don't agree about what follows from this. Reality is fluid, and constant, and both are knowable, one in a changing way, and other eternally.

And that is a meaningless statement.

I won't be around as me 1000 years from now to see red and hear C. This is the intuitive rational knowledge of first principles.

But as noted above, neither red nor C are universal enough to be "first principles." So if your intuition says they are first principles, then it is flawed.

It is in fashion in our society to knock this idea, but it is one aspect of our knowledge, and one part of our 4 functions (the N function). Without it there's no mathematics, without which there is no science.

Ah, now perhaps we're getting closer. Instead of red, perhaps the first principle is some idea of color. Instead of the mathematics we know, perhaps the first principle is some concept of number. Instead of the musical scales we know, perhaps the first principle is some idea of music. This allows for differences in culture and biology. And if we find ourselves dealing with sentient being that have no sight, and thus no idea of color, perhaps we can broaden it further still and say that the first principle is some way of categorizing and ordering and measuring the world.

Would you agree with this sentence: All sentient, conscious beings have a limited and partial perspective on reality, and therefore, in order to understand it, must do so piecemeal, and so must divide all modes of perception into categories or sequences which, taken together, allow for a fuller understanding.

I think I would, and that might be a place where our concepts would come together.

As you say, empirical knowledge does not stop at observation. It can point the way to knowledge of the eternal that can't be observed forever by one observer in a human body. Eternal truths.

LOL well, no. That's a different set of questions requiring a different way of knowing. To discuss that I'd have to take off my empiricist hat and put on my mystic hat.

as far as perception is concerned, if you cannot trust that what you see is what is, there is no basis for empiricism.

Untrue. You're confusing empiricism with naive realism. Empiricism requires that we can trust what we see to enable predictions of what we will see down the road, nothing more.

If you know yourself well enough, you know everything, for the simple reason that you ARE everything. But the limitation is that our skill in acquiring this knowledge is limited. But the possibility is there.

Here we run into another difficulty in language. What does "know" mean? Mysticism provides a different kind of knowing than observation does. The two really are not interchangeable. You can no more develop a working theory of gravity (say) from mystical self-awareness/cosmic consciousness, than you can know God/the Cosmos by using scientific method. These are the same reality, but a different set of questions about that reality requiring a different approach.

There is more than one way of knowing, and so more than one meaning to the word "know."

What accounts for differences in perception, in your view, if physical conditions don't account for it?

What accounts for it is not the same question as whether it exists, and we don't need to answer the one in order to answer the other. We know that differences in perception exist. I, personally, think that the light/retina/optic nerve/visual cortex model of sight is a good one and am prepared to accept it. But my claim that perception of color is not a universal isn't dependent on that. I suppose it's dependent on the idea that we see with our eyes and every eye is slightly different, though. Are you challenging that?

Noone has yet given me any fact or argument that refutes it. Differences in perception are the least likely to refute it; this is the most common and naive level of argument against it.

I have given you arguments that refute it. You depend, for your assertion, on claiming that everyone's apparatus of seeing is absolutely identical, which is not true.

As I pointed out, the possibilities of colors to see is a closed, formal system. There ARE no other colors. The only possible difference is that someone may see the same color red as you, but call it red-orange, or green, or something else.

No, none of that is true. Let's clarify language for a moment. When you say "the same color red as you," you do not mean any objective characteristics of the thing being observed, right? You mean the subjective experience of seeing that color, am I correct? Anyway that's what I mean. So let's go with that. And yet the objective characteristic of the object, the wavelength of its reflected light (to use the scientific model), is a constant among all observers.

Someone who looks at an object as a baby, learning to speak, will be told by his parents "that's red," "that's green," etc. and so will learn to associate those words with an object reflecting light in that particular range of the spectrum. But there's no way of knowing whether his subjective experience of seeing that color is the same as his parents'. All we know is that whatever that subjective experience may be, it's reliably constant for that range of the visible light spectrum. It's not just that he may apply the name "red" to an experience that, for you, is red-orange; it's that the experiences may be altogether radically different. He may be seeing a color -- that is, having a subjective visual experience -- that nobody else has, but since it is associated with the long end of the visible light spectrum, it still gets the same name, "red."

But I also have a more superficial verification, because everywhere at all times I in fact DO see the same color called "red," across cultures and languages.

YOU see the same color red. With the same eyes, located in the same head on the same body. YOU do not see the same (or another) color red, with the eyes of those who grew up in those cultures and languages.

But in any case you are incorrect. There are cultures in which the colors are named differently, with for example many different words for "green" (that is, for colors that we would recognize all as being "green"). Color perception is a constant among humans, but the exact way in which we divide up the colors is not.

What if I'M the one with the reason and evidence?

Then the sun will rise tomorrow in the west.

Seriously, Eric, your tendency to hold onto beliefs that your feeling function identifies as desirable is not altogether rational, and that of course is normal for a feeling type. (Which is the M-B difference between you and me, or the main one applicable here. We're both intuitives, I have the sense we're both introverts, but I'm a thinking type and you're a feeling type.)

btw I don't know what "contradiction of myself" you refer to, sorry

Sure you do, you're just too stubborn to admit it. P)

Regarding creationism and evolution, one must again be careful to identify what question is being asked and answered. Eric, your reference to Qaballah and to a mystical/figurative interpretation of Genesis describes people using the same text to answer different questions, which have no relevance to the origin of the human species. Biologists would shrug their shoulders at it, and most creationists would reject it outright.

The objection to creationism has nothing to do with the text being used, but rather to the use of non-scientific methods to answer scientific questions. The origin of the human species is a very specific scientific question that is properly answered using observation and reason in the interaction that is called scientific method. That creationists take their answers from the Book of Genesis isn't the problem, but rather that they take their answers dogmatically from ANY source. Someone using the same source to answer a different question, especially one that isn't properly a scientific question, will provoke no ire, but also provide no bridge.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Regarding creationism and evolution, one must again be careful to identify what question is being asked and answered. Eric, your reference to Qaballah and to a mystical/figurative interpretation of Genesis describes people using the same text to answer different questions, which have no relevance to the origin of the human species. Biologists would shrug their shoulders at it, and most creationists would reject it outright.

The objection to creationism has nothing to do with the text being used, but rather to the use of non-scientific methods to answer scientific questions. The origin of the human species is a very specific scientific question that is properly answered using observation and reason in the interaction that is called scientific method. That creationists take their answers from the Book of Genesis isn't the problem, but rather that they take their answers dogmatically from ANY source. Someone using the same source to answer a different question, especially one that isn't properly a scientific question, will provoke no ire, but also provide no bridge.

No, biology has no competence to answer the question of what life is, where it came from, or even how it evolved. Kaballah IS a proper source for that, although it can't answer the specific questions about what can be observed, which species developed when and how, etc. Biology can only describe what happened in terms that can be observed and verified empirically, which is not a method that can answer such questions as origins and what life is. But you're right that taking answers dogmatically is even less productive. I think that's a lot of what I mean when I say I have no beliefs; I mean no dogmas.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No, biology has no competence to answer the question of what life is, where it came from, or even how it evolved. Kaballah IS a proper source for that, although it can't answer the specific questions about what can be observed, which species developed when and how, etc. Biology can only describe what happened in terms that can be observed and verified empirically, which is not a method that can answer such questions as origins and what life is.

Implicit in this is an assumption that "life" is something that cannot be objectively observed, which implies that you are talking about something other than what is meant by "life" in biological circles. Words are just words, things they apply to are things, and if you and biologists are using the word "life" to mean two different things then you are talking past each other.

Avoiding that word, I can say that biology does have competence to answer how the descendants of one species of animal or plant take on over generations the characteristics of another, different species, and how we have the particular species mix that we do at this time when the fossil record shows a different species mix in the past. In specific, it has competence to answer questions about how the species Homo sapiens came to exist, over generations, evolving from the species Homo erectus which included our distant ancestors. It also has competence, I believe, to answer the question of how matter came to be organized in the way that terrestrial organisms demonstrate to observation, although that question has not in fact been completely answered to date. If you wish to assert that neither of these questions involves a study of "life," then again your disagreement is purely semantic and not one of substance.

Qaballah is useless for answering questions of this nature or indeed any objective questions about the observable world. It is a mystical discipline of great power and elegance, put these are scientific questions, not mystical ones.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Nevertheless, it is an assumption, and an unprovable one. Someone who adheres to a different way of knowing, for example the scientific method, might see the things "known" by Jesus and the Buddha as purely subjective experiences without cognitive meaning -- delusions, in effect.

My own belief is that there are different ways of knowing appropriate for different questions, but that, too, is an assumption.

These are knowledge, though any knowledge can be imperfect and in need of more knowledge.

Yes it is. You're just not understanding what I'm saying, which isn't surprising; you've never shown much grasp of empiricism. What empiricism means is that in the end everything comes back to perception/experience as a touchstone. That doesn't mean that we can't imagine and reason from the imagining. It only means that all of our conclusions drawn in that way remain tentative until (in this case) we actually have a functioning AI or a breathing alien to study.

But you don't, so I don't have to buy your imaginings as having any relevance to empiricism. Show me an AI or an alien and I'll paint one, as Courbet would have said.

Again, it depends on how you do it.

Have you checked out the link to see?
And you haven't used your imaginings or your poetry in an empirical way; show me how.

Sure, but we're not discussing whether rocks (or machines) are human. We are discussing whether things that are NOT human, like machines or aliens, can be conscious, thinking beings.

If you don't know that rocks and machines can't think like humans, then you don't know the difference between a rock or a machine and a human. I do.

There are birds that can see in the ultraviolet ranges, which we cannot. What color would that be? There are machines that can see in the infrared and ultraviolet both. What colors would those be? The colors that we see are a product of our own abilities and limitations. Seeing beings with different abilities and limitations would see different colors.

They would see them as the same colors, because that's all the colors there can be. Colors do not depend on wavelengths for their existence; they are archetypal Forms.

Well, now you're getting into an area where I am an expert and you, by your own admission, are not, so let me tell you what seeing auras involves. Yes, it is extrasensory; what it is not, is literally visual. (In fact, by definition anything extrasensory cannot be visual, but those categories may be somewhat misleading.) A person who can see auras can gain information about a person by looking at him/her. Another person, who may not be so visually oriented, can gain the same information by connecting with a person but it manifests as feelings, flashes of thought, intuitive impressions -- not as a visible aura. There is no advantage whatever, in terms of information gained, to seeing auras as such, compared to other vehicles of ESP. So it's obvious to me that what is happening when auras are seen is that information which is gained through telepathy or other ESP forms is processed by the brain visually and presented to consciousness in that form. And when that happens, naturally the brain uses the colors that the person already knows as a template. If the person were an alien and saw different colors, he would see those colors in the aura.

I'm a mage myself and I have known many other mages. Some of those could see auras; most could not. Those who could, were inevitably visually-oriented people. Often they were artists. Always they had a good eye for decoration and perspective. Those who could not, generally were not so visually-oriented. Seeing auras wasn't an ability they lacked, it was simply a way of organizing their psychic perceptions that they didn't use, preferring another way.

Auras, in short, are not real. They are a psychic illusion, you might say. The information gained by them is real, and the psychic talent that feeds them is real, but the auras themselves are not. And don't bother replying that your opinion is different; in this area, your opinion is frankly not as good as mine.

I doubt that. I know a thing or two, and if you think auras are illusion, then I must claim that I know more than you do. Though I'm not an expert on seeing and reading auras, I have seen them, and I know lots of people who do and how they do it and what they see (including my aunt who co-wrote a book on color theory based on auras). No, seeing auras is not visual processing by the brain of a physical psi process. Again, I disagree with your physical model of psi, but you knew that already; so in that sense, no, there's no use for further reply.

But as noted above, neither red nor C are universal enough to be "first principles." So if your intuition says they are first principles, then it is flawed.

I haven't convinced YOU, but you have not refuted my claim.

Ah, now perhaps we're getting closer. Instead of red, perhaps the first principle is some idea of color. Instead of the mathematics we know, perhaps the first principle is some concept of number. Instead of the musical scales we know, perhaps the first principle is some idea of music. This allows for differences in culture and biology. And if we find ourselves dealing with sentient being that have no sight, and thus no idea of color, perhaps we can broaden it further still and say that the first principle is some way of categorizing and ordering and measuring the world.

Would you agree with this sentence: All sentient, conscious beings have a limited and partial perspective on reality, and therefore, in order to understand it, must do so piecemeal, and so must divide all modes of perception into categories or sequences which, taken together, allow for a fuller understanding.

I think I would, and that might be a place where our concepts would come together.

Maybe. At least it seems that's what I mean by the blind men and the elephant.

You're confusing empiricism with naive realism. Empiricism requires that we can trust what we see to enable predictions of what we will see down the road, nothing more.

You still need to trust what you SEE enough to do that. If you don't trust what you see, you can't verify that anything is there, now or in the future.

Here we run into another difficulty in language. What does "know" mean? Mysticism provides a different kind of knowing than observation does. The two really are not interchangeable. You can no more develop a working theory of gravity (say) from mystical self-awareness/cosmic consciousness, than you can know God/the Cosmos by using scientific method. These are the same reality, but a different set of questions about that reality requiring a different approach.

There is more than one way of knowing, and so more than one meaning to the word "know."

I don't disagree with you there, generally speaking at least.

I suppose it's dependent on the idea that we see with our eyes and every eye is slightly different, though. Are you challenging that?

Sure, and you haven't told me how your account of different perception isn't "physical." So far it is.

I have given you arguments that refute it. You depend, for your assertion, on claiming that everyone's apparatus of seeing is absolutely identical, which is not true.

Your arguments do not refute it. Forms do not depend for their existence on how they are perceived by different observers and equipment. Colors are archetypes because their characteristics are what I have stated.

Let's clarify language for a moment. When you say "the same color red as you," you do not mean any objective characteristics of the thing being observed, right? You mean the subjective experience of seeing that color, am I correct? Anyway that's what I mean. So let's go with that. And yet the objective characteristic of the object, the wavelength of its reflected light (to use the scientific model), is a constant among all observers.

Someone who looks at an object as a baby, learning to speak, will be told by his parents "that's red," "that's green," etc. and so will learn to associate those words with an object reflecting light in that particular range of the spectrum. But there's no way of knowing whether his subjective experience of seeing that color is the same as his parents'. All we know is that whatever that subjective experience may be, it's reliably constant for that range of the visible light spectrum. It's not just that he may apply the name "red" to an experience that, for you, is red-orange; it's that the experiences may be altogether radically different. He may be seeing a color -- that is, having a subjective visual experience -- that nobody else has, but since it is associated with the long end of the visible light spectrum, it still gets the same name, "red."

You are not responding to my points here. Whatever he has learned to call "red" is just the name he has learned.

Color perception is a constant among humans, but the exact way in which we divide up the colors is not.

I don't think we disagree there! "Divide up" means how we name what we see.

Seriously, Eric, your tendency to hold onto beliefs that your feeling function identifies as desirable is not altogether rational, and that of course is normal for a feeling type. (Which is the M-B difference between you and me, or the main one applicable here. We're both intuitives, I have the sense we're both introverts, but I'm a thinking type and you're a feeling type.)

Once we get into your analysis of my feelings, the discussion is over. And btw no, I can't claim to be a feeling type. My T/F scale is virtually tied, but when I take the actual MBTI test, my score usually ends up as 1 point "T" so I am INTP (or INxP). In other words, I am a T because I am a male.

Sure you do, you're just too stubborn to admit it. P)

Maybe you haven't had the experience of the divine marriage. That marriage beings together the experiential and the rational as one. So does my Masters paper, a kind of alchemical philosophy. Perfect for an INxP!

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Implicit in this is an assumption that "life" is something that cannot be objectively observed, which implies that you are talking about something other than what is meant by "life" in biological circles. Words are just words, things they apply to are things, and if you and biologists are using the word "life" to mean two different things then you are talking past each other.

Yes, because biologists can only define life within their range of competence.

Avoiding that word, I can say that biology does have competence to answer how the descendants of one species of animal or plant take on over generations the characteristics of another, different species, and how we have the particular species mix that we do at this time when the fossil record shows a different species mix in the past. In specific, it has competence to answer questions about how the species Homo sapiens came to exist, over generations, evolving from the species Homo erectus which included our distant ancestors. It also has competence, I believe, to answer the question of how matter came to be organized in the way that terrestrial organisms demonstrate to observation, although that question has not in fact been completely answered to date. If you wish to assert that neither of these questions involves a study of "life," then again your disagreement is purely semantic and not one of substance.

Qaballah is useless for answering questions of this nature or indeed any objective questions about the observable world. It is a mystical discipline of great power and elegance, but these are scientific questions, not mystical ones.

I'm not sure we disagree; I might state it a bit differently, as I did above in previous posts like the one in which I started this discussion. Biology can certainly provide a map about the history of life and which species evolved from which and when. When you introduce the idea of "matter" though you are out of the range of biology and into metaphysics.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

These are knowledge, though any knowledge can be imperfect and in need of more knowledge.

Not the point. The point is that one has to assume the basis for knowledge before even starting.

But you don't, so I don't have to buy your imaginings as having any relevance to empiricism. Show me an AI or an alien and I'll paint one, as Courbet would have said.

You don't have to do anything, unless you have a desire to be logical and reasonable, which may not be the case.

If you don't know that rocks and machines can't think like humans, then you don't know the difference between a rock or a machine and a human. I do.

Again, we are not discussing whether rocks and machines are human. We are discussing whether things that are NOT human, such as rocks and machines, can be sentient and conscious. That a conscious machine or an alien would not think "like humans" is actually my point. They would think, but think differently.

They would see them as the same colors, because that's all the colors there can be. Colors do not depend on wavelengths for their existence; they are archetypal Forms.

So you keep saying, but as yet you have presented no supporting evidence beyond your own put-the-foot-down, stick-out-chin stubborn assertion.

I doubt that. I know a thing or two, and if you think auras are illusion, then I must claim that I know more than you do

What is your evidence that auras "really exist"? What does "really exist" even mean in this context? Auras provide real information, but no more so than other means of doing the same thing psychically. In any case, the experience of seeing an aura cannot be visual as is normally understood, or everyone would be able to do it.

You are not responding to my points here. Whatever he has learned to call "red" is just the name he has learned.

Of course I'm responding to your points. All I'm saying is that because he and his parents call the same color (or wavelength range) "red" doesn't mean he's seeing it in the same way that they are. Can you dispute this?

I don't think we disagree there! "Divide up" means what we name what we see.

But it doesn't necessitate any particular way of dividing up or naming. That's the point I'm making. We have a necessity of dividing up reality in order to understand it, because we are too limited mentally and physically to perceive the whole, but there is no lower-level necessity of dividing it up in a certain specific way, which is what would be necessary for you to propose the particular colors or musical scales that we use as archetypes, and even then it would only apply to humans (at which point the possibility of non-human intelligence becomes important).

Maybe you haven't had the experience of the divine marriage.

I have. I don't interpret it the way you do. Having it and merely reading about it are not equivalent, incidentally.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes, because biologists can only define life within their range of competence.

Another way of saying that they define what it is they study and must use language to do so.

I'm not sure we disagree; I might state it a bit differently, as I did above in previous posts like the one in which I started this discussion. Biology can certainly provide a map about the history of life and which species evolved from which and when. When you introduce the idea of "matter" though you are out of the range of biology and into metaphysics.

Only if you define what matter is in essence, as opposed to how it behaves. You are out of the range of biology, certainly, but may only be in the realm of physics instead of metaphysics. Physics leaves the term "matter" undefined -- actually, it doesn't even use the term -- but does say many things about how it behaves under certain conditions.

Again, it's important to distinguish what questions are being asked. I'm going to use the term "biological life" here, meaning organized matter that is capable of purposeful behavior and of self-replication, which on Earth also includes having a certain chemical composition. It's my belief that purely chemical and physical processes can explain the origin of biological life, although I acknowledge that we have not developed a satisfactory such explanation, with supporting evidence, as of this time. If you want to say there is "more to life" than biological life, that's an arguable position to take but it can hold three forms, viz:

1) Life has dimensions beyond its description in scientific terms.

2) Biological life requires some other factor beyond the physical and chemical to exist.

3) Life can take other forms than biological life.

The first is approaching a non-scientific question and therefore science has nothing to say on the subject. (And I agree with it, incidentally.) The second is making a scientific assertion, assuming that this "other factor" can conceivably not be present, and one without foundation. The third is speculative and, insofar as it rejects the limitation of terrestrial biochemistry (carbon base, DNA, RNA, proteins, etc.) may be true -- I like to play with it anyway, and argue that AI constitutes life, as well.

Anyway the creation-evolution dispute isn't about any of those things but about a clearly and unequivocally scientific question: how did the species of life on this planet as they are now, including our own species, come to exist?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

2) Biological life requires some other factor beyond the physical and chemical to exist.
The second is making a scientific assertion, assuming that this "other factor" can conceivably not be present, and one without foundation.

I agree with everything until here; the "physical and the chemical" is a metaphysical assertion. Biology (as an empirical science as we understand it today) cannot deal with the "other factors" beyond what is within its range of competence to observe. That is, it cannot study "life." This is a matter of interpretation and what conclusions you draw. It doesn't affect the actual work of the scientist. That doesn't mean that some scientists may not be motivated by the hope that their work can replace religion. But it never does.

Anyway the creation-evolution dispute isn't about any of those things but about a clearly and unequivocally scientific question: how did the species of life on this planet as they are now, including our own species, come to exist?

Biology can answer that question only as observations about the history of life. That does not answer the question of origins, so no, the dispute is about more than scientific questions. The way to end the dispute is for each discipline not to be used to try and replace or oppress the other.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Not the point. The point is that one has to assume the basis for knowledge before even starting.

You have a starting point, but I don't call that "assumption" because once you get going all assumptions are up for question. For example, you may have a spiritual experience out of nowhere, with no assumptions. Or you may begin a spiritual practice or a phenomenological method, but once begun, the original foundation gets thrown away.

You don't have to do anything, unless you have a desire to be logical and reasonable, which may not be the case.

It would not be reasonable for me to buy your imaginings and poetry, and to think you have proven anything empirically with them. You haven't.

Again, we are not discussing whether rocks and machines are human. We are discussing whether things that are NOT human, such as rocks and machines, can be sentient and conscious. That a conscious machine or an alien would not think "like humans" is actually my point. They would think, but think differently.

In the case of IA, only by means of stimulus response mechanisms. Mechanism is not sentience. It is being used by the human which is where the sentience is, not in the tool.

So you keep saying, but as yet you have presented no supporting evidence beyond your own put-the-foot-down, stick-out-chin stubborn assertion.

I already discussed the basis for my conclusions. You didn't respond except to try to use the argument of perception.

What is your evidence that auras "really exist"? What does "really exist" even mean in this context? Auras provide real information, but no more so than other means of doing the same thing psychically. In any case, the experience of seeing an aura cannot be visual as is normally understood, or everyone would be able to do it.

Seeing auras is no big deal; everyone can do it. It is visual in so far as colors are seen; whether they are seen by the eyes or not is irrelevant.

Of course I'm responding to your points. All I'm saying is that because he and his parents call the same color (or wavelength range) "red" doesn't mean he's seeing it in the same way that they are. Can you dispute this?

The only difference is which color he names what.
You did not respond to my points here, or in the other exchange above. Color is a closed system, that features the circular form, primary colors, the sequence of colors on the circle, and all colors whatever consisting of the color wheel and black/white and combos thereof. You did respond to my point about seeing the same color called red in different cultures and languages, but I don't know those cases where red is called green. There may be a few exceptions, but that only means the empirical evidence of the same color red being seen everywhere is not total, but merely overwhelming. That is enough, since this empirical experience is only support anyway, not proof. Empiricism can never provide proof, only evidence.

But it doesn't necessitate any particular way of dividing up or naming. That's the point I'm making. We have a necessity of dividing up reality in order to understand it, because we are too limited mentally and physically to perceive the whole, but there is no lower-level necessity of dividing it up in a certain specific way, which is what would be necessary for you to propose the particular colors or musical scales that we use as archetypes, and even then it would only apply to humans (at which point the possibility of non-human intelligence becomes important).

A rose by any other name, smells as sweet. A person might call red "orange" or something else, but that does not change what (s)he sees. Colors are already divided up archetypally, by the primary and secondary colors, the necessary sequence in which they occur in the wheel, etc.

By the way, from my reading of alchemy there's no other way to interpret the Divine Marriage but in the way that unites the experiential and the rational. That means red is an archetypal form and a feeling/experience at the same time, which is why it's fascinating to study in this context.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I agree with everything until here; the "physical and the chemical" is a metaphysical assertion. Biology (as an empirical science as we understand it today) cannot deal with the "other factors" beyond what is within its range of competence to observe. That is, it cannot study "life."

You seem to be missing the sense of those three possible MEANINGS of this statement that I presented. Saying that the things biology studies are not "life" implies one of those three things. The first one is a mystical or subjective-experiential or aesthetic statement and is true on that basis. The third is an interesting speculation. It's the second that is a scientific claim, and a bad one, but may or may not be what you intend to say.

If all you mean is the first of those, that there is more to life than physics and chemistry, all I can do is agree but shrug. It has no bearing on the evolution-creation debate.

I suspect, from our previous discussion, that I'm more likely to agree with the third than you are, so set that one aside as well.

If however you are claiming that something else is necessary besides the factors studied in physics and chemistry and biology in order for life to exist, and if further you make the claim that this "something else" is not a universal like consciousness or being, but something specific that may or may not be present, and without which "life" cannot exist, then that is a claim that errs in the same way that creationism errs (although it is not creationism of course): it intrudes with non-science on a scientific question.

This is a matter of interpretation and what conclusions you draw. It doesn't affect the actual work of the scientist. That doesn't mean that some scientists may not be motivated by the hope that their work can replace religion. But it never does.

Ah, now this suggests to me that that second interpretation wasn't what you meant. But please clarify.

Biology can answer that question only as observations about the history of life. That does not answer the question of origins, so no, the dispute is about more than scientific questions. The way to end the dispute is for each discipline not to be used to try and replace or oppress the other.

Here you're getting confusing. What do YOU mean by "origin of life"?

Let me simplify it. There is a broad claim in biology that all of the observable properties of life (and note that "observable" implies "from without," and so does not include experiences from within) can arise from the right circumstances of chemistry and energy, the living emerging from the non-living, and that this occurred on this planet billions of years ago at least once. Now that's a simple idea. It does not include in any way any cosmic or mystical implications about life, and all such considerations are irrelevant to it and vice-versa. It is simply an explanation (not yet fully developed into a theory) for how life on this planet began.

One may make claims about life that are parallel to this claim -- not touching it. Such would be one interpretation of "that's not life." You might, for example, claim that life has to include consciousness or subjective experience. But that claim, although logically defensible, has no relevance to the proto-model of biogenesis. It does not touch upon it anywhere. Biologists would for the most part assume that consciousness or subjective experience is present in life, recognizing that this is certainly what they personally experience, nod their heads and move on. But if you claim, on that basis, that life could not arise according to the proto-model of biogenesis, if for example you claim that consciousness or subjective experience has to be added to the primordial soup from outside, then you would be making a claim that touches upon the proto-model and for which there is no support.

I would certainly agree that science and religion should not be used to try to replace the other. However, I also say that the origin of life is a scientific question and outside the proper purview of religion. The subjective or moral or cosmic-meaning nature of life is a religious question, but how it started is not.