Originally Posted by Eric the Green

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.

The experience requires no assumptions, but drawing any conclusions from it does require them.

In the case of IA, only by means of stimulus response mechanisms.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that AI would necessarily be cruder and less versatile in its thinking than a human brain? If so, I think it's pretty easy to show otherwise. Or do you mean that there is a subjective element to "thinking" that can't be encompassed in any objective description?

If the latter is the case, and if, as you have stated, nonliving objects are conscious, why would you not expect the subjective element to be present in AI, and hence for it to "think" in this sense as well?

I already discussed the basis for my conclusions.

I must have missed that. Present it again, please, in capsule form, or at least give the post number where you did so and I'll look it up.

Seeing auras is no big deal; everyone can do it.

LOL no, everyone can't do it. Perhaps everyone can pretend they're doing it, but as for getting real information from the aura, that's a psychic talent that not everyone has.

It is visual in so far as colors are seen; whether they are seen by the eyes or not is irrelevant.

It's entirely relevant. If they are not seen by the eyes, then they are seen by the mind, and if they are seen by the mind but not by the eyes then they are imaginary. Of course, I know very well that real information can come through the imagination, so that's not a put-down. But imaginary it remains just the same.

The only difference is which color he names what.

No, there's also a potential difference in what he is experiencing. Or at least, that's a reasonable expectation given that brains differ, and that we have no direct way to verify anyone's subjective experience from the outside. You have no way of knowing that another person is experiencing something that is even remotely like what you do when you see colors, let alone that they are seeing the same range of colors you are.

You did not respond to my points here, or in the other exchange above.

Yes, I did; you just didn't like my responses. Basically, just about everything you are asserting here as factual is non-fact. Color is NOT a closed system; there are potential colors outside the human visible spectrum that are experienced by other animals. The color red is NOT called the same in other cultures, except those that are very close to our own. As I observed, there are cultures with many different names for colors we call by the same name. (That not everything we call "red" is the same color is obvious. Look at these pictures: http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isc...w=1366&bih=643.) You are basing your belief on "facts" that aren't true.

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.

As I said, reading about it is no substitute for doing it. This is understanding that can't be conveyed in language. Any understanding gained by study will inherently be misleading.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The experience requires no assumptions, but drawing any conclusions from it does require them.

If you are pursuing logic and reason, or empirical induction, yes, but not phenomenology or spiritual practice, which does not draw conclusions but only describes experience.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that AI would necessarily be cruder and less versatile in its thinking than a human brain? If so, I think it's pretty easy to show otherwise. Or do you mean that there is a subjective element to "thinking" that can't be encompassed in any objective description?

If the latter is the case, and if, as you have stated, nonliving objects are conscious, why would you not expect the subjective element to be present in AI, and hence for it to "think" in this sense as well?

The two are vastly different in their level of subjectivity. I think we're getting into ground we've covered before, and we don't agree on.

I must have missed that. Present it again, please, in capsule form, or at least give the post number where you did so and I'll look it up.

I did again in my last post, further down, as well as in several others above that one.

LOL no, everyone can't do it. Perhaps everyone can pretend they're doing it, but as for getting real information from the aura, that's a psychic talent that not everyone has....
It's entirely relevant. If they are not seen by the eyes, then they are seen by the mind, and if they are seen by the mind but not by the eyes then they are imaginary. Of course, I know very well that real information can come through the imagination, so that's not a put-down. But imaginary it remains just the same.

Everyone can see auras, but the level of expertise varies, including interpretation.

No, there's also a potential difference in what he is experiencing. Or at least, that's a reasonable expectation given that brains differ, and that we have no direct way to verify anyone's subjective experience from the outside. You have no way of knowing that another person is experiencing something that is even remotely like what you do when you see colors, let alone that they are seeing the same range of colors you are.

What I can do is show, in so far as I am able, that colors are archetypal and universal. I cannot give you knowledge that is absolute, certain and infallible and I don't claim such. You asked what I believe about first principles and Forms and such, so I'm giving you what I know and how I know it, as far as I know now. I would not expect a committed materialist/empiricist to agree with what I know, since you have a different idea of what knowledge is.

Also, another thing to make clear again, as I also did in my paper years ago; noone ever sees the archetypal "red" or "blue." If someone did, then color would not be a Platonic Form, because they don't exist in time or space, just as numbers or ethical principles or any other principle does not, that might be considered to be a Form. Everyone only sees approximations; I or indeed Plato never said anything other than that. We can't prove a Form to exist by empirical methods, or by seeing it; only by discerning that patterns exist, can we conclude that Forms exist. Plato did call that "pure reason;" or as he put it, "from Ideas, through Ideas, to Ideas." I don't think I agree with him. In that sense this would be what you were calling a "conclusion" above; it is not a direct experience. I only assert that Forms exist based on the best conclusion, based on the best evidence I have now. I can't expect you to agree with it; I have only answered your question about why I think so. If your conclusion is that my explanation is not adequate, be my guest. I scarcely expected anything else from you, and that's OK

btw the first result shown in your google search comes pretty close to the archetype, wouldn't you agree? Don't you think most people would? That's after all why it came up first!

Yes, I did; you just didn't like my responses. Basically, just about everything you are asserting here as factual is non-fact. Color is NOT a closed system; there are potential colors outside the human visible spectrum that are experienced by other animals.

You don't know what animals see. My point is that since color is a closed system, whatever color an animal sees would be a color we know. That color is a closed system, is my conclusion, based on the empirical discerning process I described in section 3 of my paper. It is not an empirical "fact." But you can't describe for me a color outside the system. You can't google a site that shows such a color. You can only assume that one might exist, perceived by beings you only imagine or assume can see other colors. That does not make it for me, sorry As Courbet might say, show me such a color and I'll paint it!

As I said, reading about it is no substitute for doing it. This is understanding that can't be conveyed in language. Any understanding gained by study will inherently be misleading.

But study has to do with what is called "divine marriage" in alchemical tradition. What you experienced may have nothing to do with that. What I know and experience does. If your experience has nothing to do with what I stated, then I don't think it does have to do with "divine marriage" or "chemical marriage" as alchemists describe it, even though it may be quite valuable and revelatory for you, as I'm sure it was, and as were other spiritual experiences I have had that also have nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

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.

Maybe I would agree with your "shrug." (or maybe not) That does not stop people from arguing though.

If biology does not claim to study "life" (since there is more to life than physics and chemistry), then such a claim does not intrude on science's description of what exists in the observable world. Also, the only way science could intrude on religion, is if science claims it knows about "life" since it has successfully reduced it to physics and chemistry.

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.

Such a claim would be reductive and interfere with "religion." There is no way it can make such a claim. I agree that an empirical biologist also can't insert claims such as those based on a subjective consciousness from outside what it observes. It can only observe and report its findings about conditions that happened at certain times, and conditions that happened next, etc. IF that's what you mean, then yes I agree biology can provide that. It has no ability to assert that it knows "the origin" of what it knows nothing about, namely "life." Since life includes what is "within," biology as currently practiced cannot claim to know how it arose entirely from what can be observed "without."

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.

I would claim that presuming to explain the origin of life, is intruding on religion. There is no way any science can claim to know the "origins" of anything; only a history and catalogue of observable phenomena and coherent empirically-verifiable explanations of that history.

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 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....

That may be a visceral reaction. But really I see creationist as just being completely reppelled by the depressing nature evolutionary theory (people are accidents with no intrinsic value) and the extreme condescension being directed toward them. (I speak from experience.) Obama got in trouble for some of this condescension and I think respect for creationist will go a long way to ending the culture wars, IMHO. Cheers.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

That may be a visceral reaction. But really I see creationist as just being completely reppelled by the depressing nature evolutionary theory (people are accidents with no intrinsic value) and the extreme condescension being directed toward them. (I speak from experience.) Obama got in trouble for some of this condescension and I think respect for creationist will go a long way to ending the culture wars, IMHO. Cheers.

ON what basis do you propose that we "respect" them? I think we can respect the right of religious people to hold their views. I don't think we can respect their specific claims about creationism as a science, since their "evidence" lacks credibility in science. Also, I agree with them if creationists are repelled with the notion propagated by some that people are accidents with no intrinsic value. As I have suggested, I think science including evolutionary biology can be practiced without making any such claims or asserting any such conclusions as "people are accidents with no intrinsic value." If religious people let science be science, and scientific people let religion be religion, there will be more peace instead of war in the culture.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

ON what basis do you propose that we "respect" them? I think we can respect the right of religious people to hold their views. I don't think we can respect their specific claims about creationism as a science, since their "evidence" lacks credibility in science. Also, I agree with them if creationists are repelled with the notion propagated by some that people are accidents with no intrinsic value. As I have suggested, I think science including evolutionary biology can be practiced without making any such claims or asserting any such conclusions as "people are accidents with no intrinsic value." If religious people let science be science, and scientific people let religion be religion, there will be more peace instead of war in the culture.

Just for starters...

Refrain from making jokes at their expense
Refrain from assuming they are just not smart enough to "get" evolution/science
See the value in their existence
Allow Intelligent Design to be taught in schools
Allow student-directed prayer/meditation
Refrain from rolling eyes every time a public official says we are a God-fearing nation
Don't take everything they say seriously

And sorry. Science is religion too.

Cheers.

EDIT: BTW, obviously one cannot pretend to respect something they actually don't. Science positions itself to be the standard by which religion must prove its validity. So in that respect, the stage already set for antagonism. My argument is that learning to doing so, learning to respect them will end the war. Something of a food for thought. Best...

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

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.

Actually, IMO men that test as about equal T/F on the Humanmetrics test are more than likely an F type because of how our cultural biases affect how we answer the test questions

No, biology has no competence to answer the question of what life is, where it came from, or even how it evolved.[/QUOTE]Nonsense, complete utter nonsense. Life is an autocatalytic chemical system that maintains internal homeostasis, reproduces, and undergoes Darwinian Evolution. The history of life is very well known, even if there are disagreements on the details.

One should stay silent and be thought a fool, rather than opening one's mouth and remove all doubt.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

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



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



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.



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.



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.



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?



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).



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

Auras are "real" in the same sense that the colored numbers and letters perceived by synesthetes are "real". How we percieve the world is is function of how our brains process the raw sense data from our sense organs.

Another example is the McGurk Effect, which is how visual input affects the speech sounds we percieve. If you look at a video that is edited so that the person says "gah" but the visual image is of that same person is going "bah" you will percieve "dah".

The ability to perceive things as coherent objects rather than an assortment of sense impressions is completely the result of the brain There is no Platonic "form" of an object, which is shown by some autistic individuals who have trouble perceiving whole objects (that trouble of perceiving whole objects is a main cause of why many young autistics can draw much more realistic images than their peers, "normal" people have to sort of re-learn how to see things as a collection of sense impressions again before they can make realistic-looking images.).

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Just for starters...

Refrain from making jokes at their expense
Refrain from assuming they are just not smart enough to "get" evolution/science
See the value in their existence
Allow Intelligent Design to be taught in schools
Allow student-directed prayer/meditation
Refrain from rolling eyes every time a public official says we are a God-fearing nation
Don't take everything they say seriously

And sorry. Science is religion too.

Cheers.

EDIT: BTW, obviously one cannot pretend to respect something they actually don't. Science positions itself to be the standard by which religion must prove its validity. So in that respect, the stage already set for antagonism. My argument is that learning to doing so, learning to respect them will end the war. Something of a food for thought. Best...

This confirms it, you are a troll.

Originally Posted by Odin

This confirms it, you are a troll.

You're just biased.

Originally Posted by Odin

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I've read Dawkins. I'll bet if you asked him to describe the God he so shrilly and defiantly does not believe in, dollars to donuts (an equal trade these days) you'd get the fundamentaliost Sunday school version right down to the long white beard and thunderbolts.

That's because The Big Sky Daddy is what the vast, vast, vast majority of religious people believe in, regardless of the rarefied ideas of theologians.

Best...

Me; No, biology has no competence to answer the question of what life is, where it came from, or even how it evolved.

Odin: Nonsense, complete utter nonsense. Life is an autocatalytic chemical system that maintains internal homeostasis, reproduces, and undergoes Darwinian Evolution. The history of life is very well known, even if there are disagreements on the details.

No silence from me. No surprise we disagree. Viva la difference.

I thought I corrected my post where I said "how it evolved." It depends what you mean. Science shows the history of life; religion does not. But biology can't say what life is; only what its observations about it are. Scientists need to be more humble and stop trying to invalidate religion and what it offers. Religion too, vice versa.

Originally Posted by Odin

Actually, IMO men that test as about equal T/F on the Humanmetrics test are more than likely an F type because of how our cultural biases affect how we answer the test questions

You missed the point Odin. I thought it was obvious. MBTI automatically gives 1 T point to any male who takes the test.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Just for starters...

Refrain from making jokes at their expense
Refrain from assuming they are just not smart enough to "get" evolution/science
See the value in their existence
Allow Intelligent Design to be taught in schools
Allow student-directed prayer/meditation
Refrain from rolling eyes every time a public official says we are a God-fearing nation
Don't take everything they say seriously

And sorry. Science is religion too.

Cheers.

EDIT: BTW, obviously one cannot pretend to respect something they actually don't. Science positions itself to be the standard by which religion must prove its validity. So in that respect, the stage already set for antagonism. My argument is that learning to doing so, learning to respect them will end the war. Something of a food for thought. Best...

Oh come on Summ, you're taking away all the fun!

I can agree with some of your recommendations; not all. But I agree science should not set itself up as a standard by which religion must prove its validity. That's part of my point. And vice versa too of course. It takes two to make a war.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Just for starters...

Refrain from making jokes at their expense
Refrain from assuming they are just not smart enough to "get" evolution/science
See the value in their existence
Allow Intelligent Design to be taught in schools
Allow student-directed prayer/meditation
Refrain from rolling eyes every time a public official says we are a God-fearing nation
Don't take everything they say seriously

And sorry. Science is religion too.

Cheers.

EDIT: BTW, obviously one cannot pretend to respect something they actually don't. Science positions itself to be the standard by which religion must prove its validity. So in that respect, the stage already set for antagonism. My argument is that learning to doing so, learning to respect them will end the war. Something of a food for thought. Best...

Oh come on Summ, you're taking away all the fun!

I can agree with some of your recommendations; not all. But I agree science should not set itself up as a standard by which religion must prove its validity. That's part of my point. And vice versa too of course. It takes two to make a war.

For some reason, I find it hard to agree with you. This does not seem symmetrical. I've never had my intelligence insulted by a creationist. So to me this is evidence of the scientific, evolutionist, primarily left culture that is intrinsically hostile toward religion because it sees its biases as objective and rational. There's no Christian version of George Carlin. Christians don't wholesale discard the advances of medical science. And Christians at least have some pretense of respect and tolerance for the non-believers, praying for them. If they forget that, you can call them out on it and say "Cast first stone" or "What would Jesus do?" or some such mess. No such self-restraint or introspection exist for the other side. This is why exorcising the internal demons of science seems to be the issue. Teaching them to have some respect will end the war. Whatever. I grow weary of thinking about it. Let 'em all hate each other. Best...

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No silence from me. No surprise we disagree. Viva la difference.

I thought I corrected my post where I said "how it evolved." It depends what you mean. Science shows the history of life; religion does not. But biology can't say what life is; only what its observations about it are. Scientists need to be more humble and stop trying to invalidate religion and what it offers. Religion too, vice versa.

Scientists are not trying to "invalidate" religion, many scientists ARE religious, it's just irrelevant.

And this:

But biology can't say what life is; only what its observations about it are.

Is just sophistry. "Life" is a man-made label for a particular kind of natural process. it is a common human failing to reify the labels we put onto the world as if they were real attributes of the labeled thing, but they are not.

The best recent example is the furor caused by the re-defining of the term "Planet" and the resultant demotion of Pluto. People were outraged because they treated the labels they learned as if there were real things inherent in the objects, to them the label "Planet" is inherent in the celestial object "Pluto".

This reification of labels is also the source of a lot of pain and suffering people inflict on each other. It is the source of stereotyping, bigotry, dehumanization of "The Other", etc.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

For some reason, I find it hard to agree with you. This does not seem symmetrical. I've never had my intelligence insulted by a creationist. So to me this is evidence of the scientific, evolutionist, primarily left culture that is intrinsically hostile toward religion because it sees its biases as objective and rational. There's no Christian version of George Carlin. Christians don't wholesale discard the advances of medical science. And Christians at least have some pretense of respect and tolerance for the non-believers, praying for them. If they forget that, you can call them out on it and say "Cast first stone" or "What would Jesus do?" or some such mess. No such self-restraint or introspection exist for the other side. This is why exorcising the internal demons of science seems to be the issue. Teaching them to have some respect will end the war. Whatever. I grow weary of thinking about it. Let 'em all hate each other. Best...

I'm sure you know there's hostility on both sides.

Originally Posted by Odin

Scientists are not trying to "invalidate" religion, many scientists ARE religious, it's just irrelevant.

And this:



Is just sophistry. "Life" is a man-made label for a particular kind of natural process....

No it's more than a label. We know, see, experience life, being alive,relating to other living beings. The word is just a label yes, for a real experience that biology can't come close to describing. Science tries to invalidate religion when it claims to do it, setting itself up as a substitute for spirituality. Whether many scientists are religious or not is beside the point, although those that are, probably are less likely to really believe or think that science can understand life.

"Natural" yes in the sense that life is part of the same world as all being; supernatural, if "natural" is restricted to "mechanical laws of nature" (i.e. laws of technology).

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

If you are pursuing logic and reason, or empirical induction, yes, but not phenomenology or spiritual practice, which does not draw conclusions but only describes experience.

If they are not drawing any conclusions then they are not saying any thing. If that's the case, then this is not philosophy, it's more like grooving at a concert.

The two are vastly different in their level of subjectivity. I think we're getting into ground we've covered before, and we don't agree on.

Why do you say they are different in the level of subjectivity? What do you base this on?

My point is that you don't agree with yourself, either.

Here's what I believe. I believe that individual consciousness is an illusion. I believe that the only parts of our minds that are truly individual are those encompassed by the functioning of the brain, the most important of which is memory. I believe that all of the religious myths of immortality -- spirit-world survival, transmigration of souls, etc. -- are flashes of intuition coming from the fact that, on the deepest (non-individual) level, consciousness is immortal, or as immortal as the universe itself, which is the entity that is truly conscious. I believe that this reality becomes confused with personal, individual immortality as a part of the Great Illusion that divides the unity of the cosmos into a multiplicity; we are confused about who we are; who we really are is immortal; therefore many religions teach that who we THINK (erroneously) that we are is also immortal. It's not. All of which follows logically and inevitably from mystical perceptions which we both understand, but which you seem unwilling to draw the inevitable conclusions from.

That being the case, the universal consciousness is latent in everything, and emerges into manifestation to the extent that any particular system has the information-processing, learning, and feedback capacity necessary to allow it to do so. AI as it presently exists is not lacking in consciousness per se (because that is one, everywhere, universal) but only in sophistication; it cannot manifest the same degree of consciousness as a human being, because it lacks some of the necessary information processing, learning, and feedback capacity. Should AI be developed that does not lack these things, it would be as conscious as a human being.

But even if, for whatever irrational cause, you choose to reject the idea of cosmic and unitary consciousness, you still have no basis for concluding that no AI could have a level of consciousness comparable to our own. I know that you reject the idea of the brain as the source of consciousness, so why do you have a problem with consciousness that exists without a brain?

As best I can tell, this is purely a symptom of mechanophobia. I can't see any other basis for it, and certainly you have not articulated one.

I did again in my last post, further down, as well as in several others above that one.

Everything in your last post has been answered. Was there anything else that wasn't contained in it?

Everyone can see auras, but the level of expertise varies, including interpretation.

What I mean by "seeing auras" is deriving actual true information from the process. If you can't do that, all you can do is fool yourself into thinking you see auras.

What I can do is show, in so far as I am able, that colors are archetypal and universal.

It's apparent that you are not able to show that at all. You are able to proclaim it, but showing it seems beyond your ability, which is not surprising, as I am sure it would be beyond anyone's.

I would not expect a committed materialist/empiricist to agree with what I know, since you have a different idea of what knowledge is.

Yeah, well, it's true that my idea of knowledge doesn't include "something I made up because it sounds cool." Honestly, that's what the whole concept of "archetypes" sounds like to me. Now, in a specific context, such as Jung's psychology, it might have some value; we can speak of archetypes of human thinking, ways that pattern our thoughts. Is that what you're talking about?

Also, another thing to make clear again, as I also did in my paper years ago; noone ever sees the archetypal "red" or "blue." If someone did, then color would not be a Platonic Form, because they don't exist in time or space, just as numbers or ethical principles or any other principle does not, that might be considered to be a Form.

I understand all that. I think you misunderstand the thrust of my argument here. I am not saying that archetypal forms don't exist. That they exist or don't exist are both meaningless statements. Archetypes are an abstract conception meant to organize and explain something about our world; it is as meaningless to ask whether they exist as it is to ask whether the number 2 exists. What I am saying is that many of the specific things you are identifying as archetypal forms are too narrow in compass to be universal: too limited to human perception or even the perception-patterns of a particular human culture.

btw the first result shown in your google search comes pretty close to the archetype, wouldn't you agree?

Now this suggests something interesting. We have a certain range of the optical spectrum that we can see. (It is also the range of light that the sun puts out most generously, so that it's most useful for us to see in those wavelengths. The one follows from the other through natural selection.) There is a part of that spectrum-segment that we label as "red," near the long end. What you're suggesting is that we have an idea of "red" that is a specific, much tighter wavelength-range, and that we see as "red" any colors that are within a certain range of this optimally "red" color.

As a statement about how our minds work, this is entirely plausible. It may well be true. I still think, though, that if one extrapolates a universal principle from this then you are anthropomorphizing without basis. As I've said above, conscious entities that have a different perceptual or cognitive setup might perceive things very differently.

You don't know what animals see.

I know that there are birds that can see every wavelength of light we do and can also see wavelengths that we can't. What this necessarily means is that they see colors that we can't see. Which means that color is NOT a closed system.

I could not, it's true, describe these colors to you. In the first place, I can't see them myself, and in the second, this runs into the classic problem of describing color to a blind man. But nonetheless, claiming that color is a closed system based on our own limitations of perception makes no sense. And that is essentially what you are doing.

But study has to do with what is called "divine marriage" in alchemical tradition.

No, actually it has to do with an allegory of that. It is not possible to study the thing itself, except from the inside. This is an inherent limitation of occult scholarship.

If your experience has nothing to do with what I stated, then I don't think it does have to do with "divine marriage" or "chemical marriage" as alchemists describe it, even though it may be quite valuable and revelatory for you, as I'm sure it was, and as were other spiritual experiences I have had that also have nothing to do with it.

If you believe that, this proves that you don't understand the divine marriage or chemical marriage. Either that, or your understanding of spiritual experience is imperfect. There are no genuine spiritual experiences that have nothing to do with the chemical marriage.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

If biology does not claim to study "life" (since there is more to life than physics and chemistry)

Let me clarify the extent to which I agree with this statement in parentheses, because I think that it helps explain our entire disagreement about this whole subject.

There is nothing -- literally, no thing -- to life beyond physics and chemistry. There is more to life than physics or chemistry because scientific, objective observation of any process does not touch upon the subjective, experienced-from-within aspects. But this is not an added thing, an added function, or an added process. It is a different perspective on the same process. When I agree that there is "more to life than physics and chemistry," this is what I mean, and it is ALL I mean.

What there is not, or anyway what there is absolutely no evidence in favor of, is an added thing -- a soul, a magical zap, a life force -- outside what can be observed impacting physical reality and turning it into life. Now, there is a force, or quasi-force, that I know to exist which science does not as yet recognize, which I call "mana" or "psi" (depending on the context) and which is the operating power behind magic and psychic phenomena, but it is not specifically associated with life (there are powerful sources of mana which are non-living, such as the planets and stars and the earth itself) and so calling it a "life force" is inaccurate. It is also not a form of energy, but rather a probability-shifting principle, so it's likely that science has identified all of the forms of energy that are involved with life, although without perfect understanding.

The aspects of life that science cannot touch on, and that are outside its scope and compass, are the aesthetic properties of living, its spiritual dimension, its meaning, its place in the universe -- all of the subjective aspects. Some of these are properly the domain of religion. Others are the domain of other non-scientific approaches to understanding, such as art. Any question that takes the form of "How does this process which we observe work?" -- and that includes "how did it start?" -- are properly in the domain of science.

To posit a religious-type explanation for the origin of life is not to properly insist that the subjective aspects of life are outside science's purview, because that is an objective question. The only sort of religious explanation for the origin of life is a supernatural one: an intrusion into a natural process by something magical and impossible to understand that goes ZAP! and turns the nonliving into the living.

That kind of thing is not properly in the domain of religion. It is properly in the domain of science. And so it is religion, not science, that is here stepping outside its proper sphere and interfering where it should not.

There is no way any science can claim to know the "origins" of anything

Of course it can. If you go back far enough, you come to a question outside scientific competence, such as "Why does anything exist in the first place?" But that doesn't mean that science can't claim to know the origins of anything. It means science can't claim to know the origins of everything. And that's true. But the origin of life on Earth is not the origin of everything, and that is a question science can answer.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

For some reason, I find it hard to agree with you. This does not seem symmetrical. I've never had my intelligence insulted by a creationist. So to me this is evidence of the scientific, evolutionist, primarily left culture that is intrinsically hostile toward religion because it sees its biases as objective and rational. There's no Christian version of George Carlin. Christians don't wholesale discard the advances of medical science. And Christians at least have some pretense of respect and tolerance for the non-believers, praying for them. If they forget that, you can call them out on it and say "Cast first stone" or "What would Jesus do?" or some such mess. No such self-restraint or introspection exist for the other side. This is why exorcising the internal demons of science seems to be the issue. Teaching them to have some respect will end the war. Whatever. I grow weary of thinking about it. Let 'em all hate each other. Best...

I'm sure you know there's hostility on both sides.

That misses the point. What you are basically saying is that because the indigenous population of the United States fought back the settlers, there was hostility on both sides. But again, like I said...whatever...

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Let me clarify the extent to which I agree with this statement in parentheses, because I think that it helps explain our entire disagreement about this whole subject.

There is nothing -- literally, no thing -- to life beyond physics and chemistry. There is more to life than physics or chemistry because scientific, objective observation of any process does not touch upon the subjective, experienced-from-within aspects. But this is not an added thing, an added function, or an added process. It is a different perspective on the same process. When I agree that there is "more to life than physics and chemistry," this is what I mean, and it is ALL I mean.

What there is not, or anyway what there is absolutely no evidence in favor of, is an added thing -- a soul, a magical zap, a life force -- outside what can be observed impacting physical reality and turning it into life. Now, there is a force, or quasi-force, that I know to exist which science does not as yet recognize, which I call "mana" or "psi" (depending on the context) and which is the operating power behind magic and psychic phenomena, but it is not specifically associated with life (there are powerful sources of mana which are non-living, such as the planets and stars and the earth itself) and so calling it a "life force" is inaccurate. It is also not a form of energy, but rather a probability-shifting principle, so it's likely that science has identified all of the forms of energy that are involved with life, although without perfect understanding.

The aspects of life that science cannot touch on, and that are outside its scope and compass, are the aesthetic properties of living, its spiritual dimension, its meaning, its place in the universe -- all of the subjective aspects. Some of these are properly the domain of religion. Others are the domain of other non-scientific approaches to understanding, such as art. Any question that takes the form of "How does this process which we observe work?" -- and that includes "how did it start?" -- are properly in the domain of science.

To posit a religious-type explanation for the origin of life is not to properly insist that the subjective aspects of life are outside science's purview, because that is an objective question. The only sort of religious explanation for the origin of life is a supernatural one: an intrusion into a natural process by something magical and impossible to understand that goes ZAP! and turns the nonliving into the living.

That kind of thing is not properly in the domain of religion. It is properly in the domain of science. And so it is religion, not science, that is here stepping outside its proper sphere and interfering where it should not.



Of course it can. If you go back far enough, you come to a question outside scientific competence, such as "Why does anything exist in the first place?" But that doesn't mean that science can't claim to know the origins of anything. It means science can't claim to know the origins of everything. And that's true. But the origin of life on Earth is not the origin of everything, and that is a question science can answer.

Thanks, Brain, I mostly agree with you here.

I wish a didn't suck at putting ideas into words, because I am horrible at expounding on the ideas floating around in my head, LOL.

I thought this was relevant and interesting:

Scientists take first step towards creating 'inorganic life'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the University of Glasgow say they have taken their first tentative steps towards creating 'life' from inorganic chemicals potentially defining the new area of 'inorganic biology'.

Professor Lee Cronin, Gardiner Chair of Chemistry in the College of Science and Engineering, and his team have demonstrated a new way of making inorganic-chemical-cells or iCHELLS.

Prof Cronin said: “All life on earth is based on organic biology (i.e. carbon in the form of amino acids, nucleotides, and sugars etc) but the inorganic world is considered to be inanimate.

“What we are trying do is create self-replicating, evolving inorganic cells that would essentially be alive. You could call it inorganic biology.”

The cells can be compartmentalised by creating internal membranes that control the passage of materials and energy through them, meaning several chemical processes can be isolated within the same cell – just like biological cells.

The researchers say the cells, which can also store electricity, could potentially be used in all sorts of applications in medicine, as sensors or to confine chemical reactions.

The research is part of a project by Prof Cronin to demonstrate that inorganic chemical compounds are capable of self-replicating and evolving – just as organic, biological carbon-based cells do.

The research into creating ‘inorganic life’ is in its earliest stages, but Prof Cronin believes it is entirely feasible.

Prof Cronin said: “The grand aim is to construct complex chemical cells with life-like properties that could help us understand how life emerged and also to use this approach to define a new technology based upon evolution in the material world – a kind of inorganic living technology.

“Bacteria are essentially single-cell micro-organisms made from organic chemicals, so why can’t we make micro-organisms from inorganic chemicals and allow them to evolve?

“If successful this would give us some incredible insights into evolution and show that it’s not just a biological process. It would also mean that we would have proven that non carbon-based life could exist and totally redefine our ideas of design.”

The paper ‘Modular Redox-Active Inorganic Chemical Cells: iCHELLs’ is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Wow, Odin, that is way cool. I've always felt that our understanding of what can constitute "life" was too narrow. We look for planets out there that can support our own kind of life, meaning they have liquid water and an organic chemical base, but there might be other chemical structures that fit all the functional definitions of life.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If they are not drawing any conclusions then they are not saying any thing. If that's the case, then this is not philosophy, it's more like grooving at a concert.

They are describing experience; that is saying something indeed.

Here's what I believe. I believe that individual consciousness is an illusion. I believe that the only parts of our minds that are truly individual are those encompassed by the functioning of the brain, the most important of which is memory. I believe that all of the religious myths of immortality -- spirit-world survival, transmigration of souls, etc. -- are flashes of intuition coming from the fact that, on the deepest (non-individual) level, consciousness is immortal, or as immortal as the universe itself, which is the entity that is truly conscious. I believe that this reality becomes confused with personal, individual immortality as a part of the Great Illusion that divides the unity of the cosmos into a multiplicity; we are confused about who we are; who we really are is immortal; therefore many religions teach that who we THINK (erroneously) that we are is also immortal. It's not. All of which follows logically and inevitably from mystical perceptions which we both understand, but which you seem unwilling to draw the inevitable conclusions from.

That being the case, the universal consciousness is latent in everything, and emerges into manifestation to the extent that any particular system has the information-processing, learning, and feedback capacity necessary to allow it to do so. AI as it presently exists is not lacking in consciousness per se (because that is one, everywhere, universal) but only in sophistication; it cannot manifest the same degree of consciousness as a human being, because it lacks some of the necessary information processing, learning, and feedback capacity. Should AI be developed that does not lack these things, it would be as conscious as a human being.

But even if, for whatever irrational cause, you choose to reject the idea of cosmic and unitary consciousness, you still have no basis for concluding that no AI could have a level of consciousness comparable to our own. I know that you reject the idea of the brain as the source of consciousness, so why do you have a problem with consciousness that exists without a brain?

As best I can tell, this is purely a symptom of mechanophobia. I can't see any other basis for it, and certainly you have not articulated one.

I thought this was about what I "believe"?

I think it's obvious that a human is not a machine. Unitary consciousness has nothing to do with it, nor any kind of phobia. A machine is a tool. The locus of intention and sentience is in the human using the tool. All that follows from the nature of the two kinds of being we are discussing.

You don't "draw conclusions" from mystical experience. This goes back to our first never-ending debate above.

What I mean by "seeing auras" is deriving actual true information from the process. If you can't do that, all you can do is fool yourself into thinking you see auras.

No, seeing an aura is literally seeing an aura around a person, the energy field is there. You don't know that? Interpreting is an additional skill.

It's apparent that you are not able to show that at all. You are able to proclaim it, but showing it seems beyond your ability, which is not surprising, as I am sure it would be beyond anyone's.

I gave the reasons, having to do with the circular structure in colors, the fact that only certain exact shades are primary, that they come in a fixed sequence, and that all possible combinations of color are included. There, I said it again for you! But these it is true are not me getting into the head of another conscious being and seeing as (s)he sees. I don't doubt that's possible, if as you agree "unitary consciousness" is the fact, but it is certainly rare.

Now, in a specific context, such as Jung's psychology, it might have some value; we can speak of archetypes of human thinking, ways that pattern our thoughts. Is that what you're talking about?

Yes, but the fact that these patterns exist is not an empirical fact, but implies that the idea of archetypes is a valid aspect of how we describe reality. How else can you account for the existence of these patterns, assuming they are to have any validity at all? That's what I am saying; not going all the way with Plato and saying everything is a reflection of these Forms, and they can be known by pure reason alone.

I understand all that. I think you misunderstand the thrust of my argument here. I am not saying that archetypal forms don't exist. That they exist or don't exist are both meaningless statements. Archetypes are an abstract conception meant to organize and explain something about our world; it is as meaningless to ask whether they exist as it is to ask whether the number 2 exists. What I am saying is that many of the specific things you are identifying as archetypal forms are too narrow in compass to be universal: too limited to human perception or even the perception-patterns of a particular human culture.

That's better. But you haven't shown to be the case that my examples are limited to a particular human culture; you just assume that's true.

Now this suggests something interesting. We have a certain range of the optical spectrum that we can see. (It is also the range of light that the sun puts out most generously, so that it's most useful for us to see in those wavelengths. The one follows from the other through natural selection.) There is a part of that spectrum-segment that we label as "red," near the long end. What you're suggesting is that we have an idea of "red" that is a specific, much tighter wavelength-range, and that we see as "red" any colors that are within a certain range of this optimally "red" color.

As a statement about how our minds work, this is entirely plausible. It may well be true. I still think, though, that if one extrapolates a universal principle from this then you are anthropomorphizing without basis. As I've said above, conscious entities that have a different perceptual or cognitive setup might perceive things very differently.

Might, but I think the facts indicate otherwise. We don't know that any differences are not due to mere inadequacy of the other perceiver's equipment. We may see more or fewer colors than an animal; that doesn't say anything about the colors. There is no color that can be seen by any conscious being that is not part of the color system we know, because that's the nature of color as I mention above.

I know that there are birds that can see every wavelength of light we do and can also see wavelengths that we can't. What this necessarily means is that they see colors that we can't see. Which means that color is NOT a closed system.

No, it only means they see wavelengths we don't see. Color is not equal to wavelength; that's just a materialist assumption. I'm talking about the Form; the actual color. I think color is an archetype, based on what I know. If there's truly more that I don't know, and I discover this, I would change my mind. My proposal is not that my knowledge is infallible. But I don't assume there's more, just because I am a human being and not an AI, animal, angel or what have you. The colors we see are the only ones we can verify, so that's the only basis for our knowledge about colors, not an assumption that some other being might see something else.

If you believe that, this proves that you don't understand the divine marriage or chemical marriage. Either that, or your understanding of spiritual experience is imperfect. There are no genuine spiritual experiences that have nothing to do with the chemical marriage.

We have a different view of it then (and it proves you don't understand ). What I'm talking about, again, is an idea that arises from the experience, that the experiential and the rational are fused. The former is also related to the feminine aspects and the latter to the male. Those are symbols and ideas that alchemists use in their description. Other spiritual experiences don't use those symbols. If you are saying that all spiritual experiences are the same, because it's only about unitary consciousness, I don't go along with that; there are some differences in different traditions in what is experienced and described, although that aspect is always there too.