Originally Posted by Odin

The kind of "materialistic" thought that Eric despises is the kind that comes most naturally to me, even from a a very early age

Do I "despise" it? What bothers me is when all points of view are not given a platform. It is true I am a spiritualist and not a physicalist/materialist. But in my summer solstice talk, for example, I asked a spiritualist audience to remember that physicalism is part of how we all relate to the world, so let's give the materialists their due. As I do on the philosophy circle and test I designed. And I cringe when my new age and new thought friends refer to our thoughts creating earthquakes, or that we create our reality, etc. I also cringe when folks like Charlie Rose put materialist brain scientists on his show, but give no reference or any platform to the other point of view about the Mind. I want all sides to be heard; I think it is important for our best mental health and success.

I was a materialist too "from my early age," but I switched in my teens. I guess that's the advantage (or curse) or growing up as a prophet in an Awakening.

There's a reference to turnings, Grey!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I was a materialist too "from my early age," but I switched in my teens. I guess that's the advantage (or curse) or growing up as a prophet in an Awakening.

So, what caused you to switch? Anything specific?

I'm an Xer, so I'm supposed to be a materialist.

However, I noticed that model has some problems.

Namely that it only applies to a very specific subset of the cosmos.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It arises out of the fact that the world tends to form or express as individuals, from atoms to Adam, from cells to selves. But at all levels, we can also see and know the unity and interrelationship and connection among these apparent individuals.

We can, but that isn't relevant to what I was saying. It might have been relevant if I were presenting observation from without as the only valid way to look at reality. It should be obvious by now, though, that that isn't true. What I am saying, though, is that the reality we perceive by "seeing and knowing the unity" is a different perspective on the reality perceived by looking at events objectively as an observer, and in no way disputes anything observed in the latter way.

An interesting conclusion, but not one I agree with. Photons are not living Beings.

True. That is to say, a photon does not have the characteristics biologists assign to life. Are you saying that only living beings have free will or make choices? If so, why?

Jon said it well in using the word agency, which living things have and non-living don't.

Why?

I don't accept restricting the meaning of "observe" to what "science has the key" to

It doesn't matter whether you do or not. The behavior I'm describing remains what it is and fulfills the functions that it does regardless of what name we put on it. If you insist no a more restrictive term than "observe," I can rephrase my statement to say: "Science has the key to understand the processes and structures of life, insofar as they can be triggled," where "triggle" means to derive information about a process through exploring it from the outside, objectively. As that is what I meant by "observe," this sentence means exactly the same thing. Information about the processes and structures of life can only be obtained by triggling, and the best way to triggle objectively is to use the scientific method.

If you want to use the word "observe" to describe other means of gaining information to which I would not apply the word, that changes nothing except semantics.

But some methods have more interest in seeing wholes than science does, which concentrates more on the details and achieving precision.

But failing to achieve precision when you are trying to describe the processes and structures of nature is, well, failure. Of course, it's not entirely clear what you mean by "some methods." I suspect that I would put your "some methods" into two varying categories, some employing non-scientific methods to answer non-scientific questions, which I would say is appropriate but which does not dispute anything I've said here; others that involves, frankly, making stuff up about the processes and structures of life and insisting that this is just as valid as facts established by scientific method. There are approaches to life outside of science that are valid. There are also, however, approaches to life outside of science that are garbage. One may distinguish between them easily by examining whether the questions they answer are scientific questions or not.

There are many other ways of understanding life than in the crudest and least-accurate way: as a mechanism. Even using probabilities is better, and I don't think it's the same as mechanist ideas.

This makes it a little unclear what you mean by "mechanist." You may be referring to an aesthetic concept here rather than a cognitive one. That said, like everything else in nature living processes are at root indeterminate.

Yes, I think that's right. Science does not recognize life as it is, and cannot so recognize. What I say is inappropriate, is precisely for science to claim that it can and does.

Science does not claim this. However, I should point out that science shares this limitation with every other means of understanding life, and also that not all means of understanding life are valid. Insofar as we are answering objective questions about living processes and organisms and ecosystems, then science is the best tool we have. Insofar as we are answering other sorts of questions about life, then it is not an appropriate tool to use. I've said this kind of thing repeatedly. Not all questions are scientific questions.

But I don't think anyone knows if it was self-caused or not. Despite claims some may make, I doubt that such a knowledge is possible.

Let's put it this way. We do know that there was no time prior to the Big Bang. As there was no time, there can be no cause in any ordinary sense that word has meaning. There is a logical problem with positing a God separate from the universe who triggered the Big Bang. Any such God must exist outside time. All action occurs inside time. Therefore, such a God could take no action, including the creation of the universe in any way that we understand or can visualize. Of course we may, as many do, regard the universe itself as God; that leads us to no similar logical contradiction, but also does not change the fact that the Big Bang is self-caused.

Of at least equal interest to me is the fact that no event can be shown to be truly "caused" by its causes in the strict sense that it had to result from those causes. Any event in nature could have transpired differently, at least to a trivial degree and often to a non-trivial one. Even something like the swing of a pendulum, in which the indeterminacy at the quantum level is suppressed, still varies to the limits of the uncertainty principle; trivial as that variation is with respect to the size of the event, it is still non-zero. And when you consider chaotic events such as the pattern smoke makes as it rises from a burning cigarette or the turbulence of a flowing river, what "causes" these things to take exactly the patterns they are observed to take? While one may recognize causation in the parameters of the event, the specific and exact outcome is uncaused. And so this is not limited to the Big Bang, but continues on an every-moment basis.

Originally Posted by JonLaw

So, what caused you to switch? Anything specific?

Being 16-17 years old as the Awakening burst forth in full flower, it was bound to happen, and it happened to many of us (but also to people of other ages). Personally, I got very curious, and a new perspective dawned on me, and then I studied philosophy. Among other things I also got quite interested in the paranormal. Like you, I noticed some of the same problems as you did with the materialism that was my heritage.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Let's put it this way. We do know that there was no time prior to the Big Bang. As there was no time, there can be no cause in any ordinary sense that word has meaning. There is a logical problem with positing a God separate from the universe who triggered the Big Bang. Any such God must exist outside time. All action occurs inside time.

I think the problem is that we can't see anything before a certain time after the big bang. Before that, it's as though we are trying to look through a brick wall with our eyes. Just can't do it.

Didn't Stephen Hawking talk about negative time, so to speak?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

We can, but that isn't relevant to what I was saying. It might have been relevant if I were presenting observation from without as the only valid way to look at reality. It should be obvious by now, though, that that isn't true. What I am saying, though, is that the reality we perceive by "seeing and knowing the unity" is a different perspective on the reality perceived by looking at events objectively as an observer, and in no way disputes anything observed in the latter way.

If as you say (I think), the spiritual and the material are the same, though from a different perspective, then it would seem to me both perspectives are needed to understand "life." Why should "life" be considered to be "understood" only from "without"? And in any case, "looking at events objectively as an observer" is only one way of looking at things from the perspective of "without." An incomplete perspective can be disputed as inferior to a holistic one.

True. That is to say, a photon does not have the characteristics biologists assign to life. Are you saying that only living beings have free will or make choices? If so, why?

Our language requires more cut and dried answers than reality. Living beings have free will (or "agency") and non-living things don't; or living things are self-caused (the definition of a soul) and non-living things are not. But it's only a difference in degree; non-living things have some level of life; that's why they were in some rudimentary way able to arrange themselves into a form (organic molecules) from which life could spring forth from it. Life seeks to come forth within non-life; that's the game God is playing, to lose Himself (Her, It, Them) in order to find Himself again. You might call the foregoing "making stuff up" (and indeed it is probably not testable in science), but others refer to it as a wider understanding.

If you insist on a more restrictive term than "observe," I can rephrase my statement to say: "Science has the key to understand the processes and structures of life, insofar as they can be triggled," where "triggle" means to derive information about a process through exploring it from the outside, objectively.

Good; and "objectively" generally refers to the scientific method and its goal of objectivity.

But failing to achieve precision when you are trying to describe the processes and structures of nature is, well, failure. Of course, it's not entirely clear what you mean by "some methods." I suspect that I would put your "some methods" into two varying categories, some employing non-scientific methods to answer non-scientific questions, which I would say is appropriate but which does not dispute anything I've said here; others that involves, frankly, making stuff up about the processes and structures of life and insisting that this is just as valid as facts established by scientific method. There are approaches to life outside of science that are valid. There are also, however, approaches to life outside of science that are garbage. One may distinguish between them easily by examining whether the questions they answer are scientific questions or not.

No, science can only answer questions which its strict methods are capable of answering. That does not include an understanding of life, but only some aspects of living things taken out of context from the whole. Methods which seek to understand the whole will be more accurate about "life," though less so about specific questions such as what causes which disease, etc. It is just a question of what your purpose is. I have no problem with science finding the aspects about life that it can find, and is best at finding than other methods; but only with the "scientism" that claims that these findings amount to an "understanding of life."

This makes it a little unclear what you mean by "mechanist." You may be referring to an aesthetic concept here rather than a cognitive one. That said, like everything else in nature living processes are at root indeterminate.

They aren't "mechanist" then, which refers to cause and effect determinism of things contacting other things, the billiard ball model.
Probability models and such are better, but also still inadequate to "understand life."

Science does not claim this. However, I should point out that science shares this limitation with every other means of understanding life, and also that not all means of understanding life are valid. Insofar as we are answering objective questions about living processes and organisms and ecosystems, then science is the best tool we have. Insofar as we are answering other sorts of questions about life, then it is not an appropriate tool to use. I've said this kind of thing repeatedly. Not all questions are scientific questions.

We have had a difference here, in your claim that "Science does not claim this." What I hear from scientists routinely is that they refer to "life" and that their "scientific questions" answer what "life" is. They should be more circumspect in their claims, and pundits and talk show hosts should include other points of view about "life" and "the mind" etc., including other views besides yours or mine.

Let's put it this way. We do know that there was no time prior to the Big Bang. As there was no time, there can be no cause in any ordinary sense that word has meaning. There is a logical problem with positing a God separate from the universe who triggered the Big Bang. Any such God must exist outside time. All action occurs inside time. Therefore, such a God could take no action, including the creation of the universe in any way that we understand or can visualize. Of course we may, as many do, regard the universe itself as God; that leads us to no similar logical contradiction, but also does not change the fact that the Big Bang is self-caused.

Of at least equal interest to me is the fact that no event can be shown to be truly "caused" by its causes in the strict sense that it had to result from those causes. Any event in nature could have transpired differently, at least to a trivial degree and often to a non-trivial one. Even something like the swing of a pendulum, in which the indeterminacy at the quantum level is suppressed, still varies to the limits of the uncertainty principle; trivial as that variation is with respect to the size of the event, it is still non-zero. And when you consider chaotic events such as the pattern smoke makes as it rises from a burning cigarette or the turbulence of a flowing river, what "causes" these things to take exactly the patterns they are observed to take? While one may recognize causation in the parameters of the event, the specific and exact outcome is uncaused. And so this is not limited to the Big Bang, but continues on an every-moment basis.

I'm not sure we know there was no time prior to the big bang. Just as it is valid to claim that there is no time now. I'm not sure physicists understand things like time, space and mass to begin with, which may arise from human psychology. I'm not claiming that for sure. But the big bang could have arisen from the "big crunch," or there may have been many big bangs, or other big bangs past and future far far away and beyond the range of space we can detect, etc. But those causes in turn have other causes, and in fact an infinity of them all the time, so all such explanations are inadequate anyway. As for God, imposing such conceptual limitations on God makes no sense to me. God is "triggering" things all the time, within and around each of us, wherever there is "free will." I would agree with those who say the universe itself is God in action. If the big bang is self-caused, that is God acting, and does not imply a separation. It is just a description of what's happening, which may be considered more useful than the alternative of claiming that it was caused by something else. Science as usual has to describe God acting "objectively" and that's what it does, in terms of forces and particles etc.. It seems to me those are the two alternatives, free will or determinist. A chaotic pattern, like a "trivial" event, seems insufficient to explain such a powerful event or action as the big bang. You could propose that, but I don't think it would get much of a hearing.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

If as you say (I think), the spiritual and the material are the same, though from a different perspective, then it would seem to me both perspectives are needed to understand "life."

I tend to agree with this, but probably not with where you would go from it. I certainly feel that both my (very limited) understanding of biology and my mystical and aesthetic approach to life give me perspectives I wouldn't want to do without. I would never accept an argument that science made mysticism or art worthless and unimportant!

However, each to its own proper sort of question.

Why should "life" be considered to be "understood" only from "without"? And in any case, "looking at events objectively as an observer" is only one way of looking at things from the perspective of "without." An incomplete perspective can be disputed as inferior to a holistic one.

As noted above, I agree that a person cannot be said to fully understand life (or anything else) if all he understands is the scientific models that describe its observable processes. However, I absolutely disagree with your second sentence, unless you are referring perhaps to an artist's understanding (which is also at least in some respects observation from without).

Let me try again to clarify what I am trying to avoid here. Science is the proper tool for answering scientific questions and making scientific statements. A scientific statement takes the form "A has the properties B, C, D," or "A does B," or "when A does B, C happens." There are other approaches to reality which are good for making other sorts of statements, such as "A has the meaning B, C, D," or "A is good/bad" or "A is metaphorically similar to B."

What I am trying to avoid are statements taking those scientific forms that are not justified by the evidence or reasoning from the evidence. Religion might tell us (for example) "Life is the way that the universe primarily looks upon itself," but when it tries to say, "God created life through a magical act ten thousand years ago" (or whatever), that's wrong. The first is a religious statement without scientific meaning. The second is a scientific statement, improperly made. Does that make any sense to you?

Living beings have free will (or "agency") and non-living things don't; or living things are self-caused (the definition of a soul) and non-living things are not. But it's only a difference in degree; non-living things have some level of life; that's why they were in some rudimentary way able to arrange themselves into a form (organic molecules) from which life could spring forth from it.

Well, if it's only a difference of degree, then your first statement becomes false, because it's presented as an absolute.

I read a science fiction story once in which some people were achieving immortality by having their personality complexes (perfectly mapped, never mind how) copied over into computer circuitry. A counter-movement arose whose advocates stated, "consciousness is an emergent property of carbon." I found that statement absurd (as the author probably intended), because it's clear to me that consciousness is an emergent property of all matter, not just of carbon; that our form of life is carbon-based is an accident of circumstances.

Are you sure you're not saying something like that, and failing to see that, as all life must arise from non-life, the characteristics of life must be inherent in non-life at least in potential?

No, science can only answer questions which its strict methods are capable of answering. That does not include an understanding of life, but only some aspects of living things taken out of context from the whole.

True, but how is that different from any other way of understanding? All have their appropriate places, all are partial. There is no one way to "understand life." But science CAN understand the processes and structures of life, and is the only appropriate tool we have for that purpose.

Methods which seek to understand the whole will be more accurate about "life," though less so about specific questions such as what causes which disease, etc. It is just a question of what your purpose is.

I disagree that a holistic approach will be "more accurate." It will merely answer a different set of questions.

We have had a difference here, in your claim that "Science does not claim this." What I hear from scientists routinely is that they refer to "life" and that their "scientific questions" answer what "life" is.

Your problem here is purely linguistic. Gain an understanding of what they mean when they say "life," and stop assuming that they mean the same thing you mean when you use that word.

I'm not sure we know there was no time prior to the big bang.

See JonLaw's post above. You might ask him to expound. I'm not a physicist myself.

No comment on the lack of strict causality in the hear and now? As I said, that's really the more interesting aspect for me.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Well, if it's only a difference of degree, then your first statement becomes false, because it's presented as an absolute.

I read a science fiction story once in which some people were achieving immortality by having their personality complexes (perfectly mapped, never mind how) copied over into computer circuitry. A counter-movement arose whose advocates stated, "consciousness is an emergent property of carbon." I found that statement absurd (as the author probably intended), because it's clear to me that consciousness is an emergent property of all matter, not just of carbon; that our form of life is carbon-based is an accident of circumstances.

Are you sure you're not saying something like that, and failing to see that, as all life must arise from non-life, the characteristics of life must be inherent in non-life at least in potential?

From your perspective, life is an emergent property of matter.

Consciousness is an emergent property of life.

You have to get from the dead matter to life before you can get from the life to the consciousness.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I also cringe when folks like Charlie Rose put materialist brain scientists on his show, but give no reference or any platform to the other point of view about the Mind. I want all sides to be heard; I think it is important for our best mental health and success.

Eric, you do know that Creationists and Global Warming deniers use the same arguments, right?


To be honest I think we will never really understand each others' views. I have no clue what you mean by statements like "science cannot understand how life REALLY is" and I think I never will. My worldview is based on the Enlightenment; I am, mostly, an old-fashioned Modernist of the kind both the New Agers and the Postmodernists disapprove of.

Originally Posted by Odin

Eric, you do know that Creationists and Global Warming deniers use the same arguments, right?

Sorta, vaguely. All sides deserve a hearing, but that doesn't mean creationism should be taught in science classes, and global warming has nothing to do with the Mind.

To be honest I think we will never really understand each others' views. I have no clue what you mean by statements like "science cannot understand how life REALLY is" and I think I never will. My worldview is based on the Enlightenment; I am, mostly, an old-fashioned Modernist of the kind both the New Agers and the Postmodernists disapprove of.

But you showed some good signs of flexibility and willingness to learn new things before. There's hope for you yet.
If you took the philosophy test now, would you be back to 74 M? (that set a record)
You were up in the 20sM last time. That's quite a bit of movement.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I tend to agree with this, but probably not with where you would go from it. I certainly feel that both my (very limited) understanding of biology and my mystical and aesthetic approach to life give me perspectives I wouldn't want to do without. I would never accept an argument that science made mysticism or art worthless and unimportant!

However, each to its own proper sort of question.

As noted above, I agree that a person cannot be said to fully understand life (or anything else) if all he understands is the scientific models that describe its observable processes. However, I absolutely disagree with your second sentence, unless you are referring perhaps to an artist's understanding (which is also at least in some respects observation from without).

Let me try again to clarify what I am trying to avoid here. Science is the proper tool for answering scientific questions and making scientific statements. A scientific statement takes the form "A has the properties B, C, D," or "A does B," or "when A does B, C happens." There are other approaches to reality which are good for making other sorts of statements, such as "A has the meaning B, C, D," or "A is good/bad" or "A is metaphorically similar to B."

What I am trying to avoid are statements taking those scientific forms that are not justified by the evidence or reasoning from the evidence. Religion might tell us (for example) "Life is the way that the universe primarily looks upon itself," but when it tries to say, "God created life through a magical act ten thousand years ago" (or whatever), that's wrong. The first is a religious statement without scientific meaning. The second is a scientific statement, improperly made. Does that make any sense to you?

Sure, I basically agree with all of the above, though we might differ around the edges.

Well, if it's only a difference of degree, then your first statement becomes false, because it's presented as an absolute.

I read a science fiction story once in which some people were achieving immortality by having their personality complexes (perfectly mapped, never mind how) copied over into computer circuitry. A counter-movement arose whose advocates stated, "consciousness is an emergent property of carbon." I found that statement absurd (as the author probably intended), because it's clear to me that consciousness is an emergent property of all matter, not just of carbon; that our form of life is carbon-based is an accident of circumstances.

Are you sure you're not saying something like that, and failing to see that, as all life must arise from non-life, the characteristics of life must be inherent in non-life at least in potential?

I'm absolutely saying that.
If it's a difference in degree, that qualifies my statement, as all statements need to be. Language is imperfect; that was my point. There is clearly evolution, and what is evolving is greater and greater consciousness and free will. Science has a very hard time with that idea; I understand it's not designed to tell us about that. But it's easy to observe in everyday life, in combination with what science tells us about life and evolution.

True, but how is that different from any other way of understanding? All have their appropriate places, all are partial. There is no one way to "understand life." But science CAN understand the processes and structures of life, and is the only appropriate tool we have for that purpose.

We're back to agreement, but we seem to keep bouncing back and forth.

I would say a holistic approach is likely to give us a more comprehensive view of life; is that a better word than "accurate"?

Your problem here is purely linguistic. Gain an understanding of what they mean when they say "life," and stop assuming that they mean the same thing you mean when you use that word.

No, from long experience with many of these folks, in person or on TV, I know they really think they can explain everything about life from their narrow scientific view.

No comment on the lack of strict causality in the here and now? As I said, that's really the more interesting aspect for me.

No comment other than to agree.

Originally Posted by JonLaw

From your perspective, life is an emergent property of matter.

Consciousness is an emergent property of life.

You have to get from the dead matter to life before you can get from the life to the consciousness.

It's nice to have someone on this board whom I sorta agree with on these things Jon.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Sorta, vaguely. All sides deserve a hearing, but that doesn't mean creationism should be taught in science classes, and global warming has nothing to do with the Mind.

But you showed some good signs of flexibility and willingness to learn new things before. There's hope for you yet.
If you took the philosophy test now, would you be back to 74 M? (that set a record)
You were up in the 20sM last time. That's quite a bit of movement.

I'm still in the 20-30M right now, I think.

Originally Posted by JonLaw

From your perspective, life is an emergent property of matter.

Consciousness is an emergent property of life.

You have to get from the dead matter to life before you can get from the life to the consciousness.

What constitutes "life"? I suspect that question, along with the related "what defines a person?" is going to be at the heart of the next Awakening, maybe the next several Awakenings. We have technologies in their infancy or adolescence that, with a bit more progress, will force those questions to front and center.

If genuine artificial intelligence is developed, creating a free-willed computer or computer program or robot, would that be a person? Would it qualify for basic "human" rights and civil liberties, such as a right to privacy or free speech?

If genetic engineering allows the "uplifting" of intelligent non-human mammals to full human-norm intelligence per David Brin, would an "uplifted" chimpanzee or dolphin or parrot or raven qualify as a person?

On the other hand, if genetic engineering and/or cybernetics allows alteration of a human being to the point where it becomes a new organism, effectively a new species, would that new species qualify as a person?

Another thing which might or might nor arise, depending on our progress and luck in exploring space, is the discovery of forms of life radically different from our own -- life that is not based on organic chemistry as we know it but has a completely different chemical basis. Of course, alien life has so far not been discovered at all, so it's chancy whether we will in the next few decades.

Eric, I just had a flash of inspiration. Legitimate statement from two separate approaches to reality never disagree. Legitimate disagreement only happens within an approach to reality, such as conflicting scientific hypotheses. When two statements, one from science and one from religion, say, disagree, then one or the other is an inappropriate statement, made outside the approach's legitimate sphere. A perfect example is of course evolution and creationism. Creationist statements are not valid religious statements. They are scientific statements made on a religious basis. A valid religious statement will not conflict with anything in science, indeed it will have no meaning in terms of science. Creationist statements do have meaning in terms of science and are perfectly comprehensible -- and clearly wrong.

One final note for you: real scientists almost never go on television.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Eric, I just had a flash of inspiration. Legitimate statement from two separate approaches to reality never disagree. Legitimate disagreement only happens within an approach to reality, such as conflicting scientific hypotheses. When two statements, one from science and one from religion, say, disagree, then one or the other is an inappropriate statement, made outside the approach's legitimate sphere. A perfect example is of course evolution and creationism. Creationist statements are not valid religious statements. They are scientific statements made on a religious basis. A valid religious statement will not conflict with anything in science, indeed it will have no meaning in terms of science. Creationist statements do have meaning in terms of science and are perfectly comprehensible -- and clearly wrong.

Seems similar to my original statements along these lines earlier in this thread.

One final note for you: real scientists almost never go on television.

It may be the popularizers that cause all the problems I have with them.
I thought this Lisa Randall lady was pretty good though. Certainly a real scientist.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

What constitutes "life"? I suspect that question, along with the related "what defines a person?" is going to be at the heart of the next Awakening, maybe the next several Awakenings. We have technologies in their infancy or adolescence that, with a bit more progress, will force those questions to front and center.

If genuine artificial intelligence is developed, creating a free-willed computer or computer program or robot, would that be a person? Would it qualify for basic "human" rights and civil liberties, such as a right to privacy or free speech?

If genetic engineering allows the "uplifting" of intelligent non-human mammals to full human-norm intelligence per David Brin, would an "uplifted" chimpanzee or dolphin or parrot or raven qualify as a person?

On the other hand, if genetic engineering and/or cybernetics allows alteration of a human being to the point where it becomes a new organism, effectively a new species, would that new species qualify as a person?

Another thing which might or might nor arise, depending on our progress and luck in exploring space, is the discovery of forms of life radically different from our own -- life that is not based on organic chemistry as we know it but has a completely different chemical basis. Of course, alien life has so far not been discovered at all, so it's chancy whether we will in the next few decades.

The "free-willed" AI would not be a person.

The genetic engineering personhood issue forces you to make a prior assumptions about souls and the pre-existence of souls. Good luck with that one.

I suspect that we will eventually find aliens that breathe methane. Also I suspect that you will find that all "human" level intelligences/personalities within this universe will look generally similar. So, in that sense, much of Star Trek will be "right". But that has more to do with the way in which humanness comes about in the universe. You need certain constraints. I suspect that these constraints only manifest themselvles with land based mammals, such as our ancestors. I suspect that humans (meaning man as such, not just our specific genetic embodiments) are the terminus of the evolution of life in this universe. Why did humans rise when they did on Earth? What changed? What makes us human?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

What constitutes "life"?

I suspect that there is some sort of "life field" present in life forms that is not present in dead matter.

Could you design a scientific experiment to determine this?

Some sort of "morphic field" or "qi field"?

I have give exactly zero thought on how to test this (as opposed to my soul experimentation).

Originally Posted by Odin

I have no clue what you mean by statements like "science cannot understand how life REALLY is" .

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) the other protagonist in my Masters paper, the opponent and perfect reflection of the venerable Plato, the greatest philosopher, wrote something that sticks in the mind and summarizes a lot of the problems I have with science trying to understand life. It is not entirely correct, but it's an important point of view in our times, and all times really. He said, "the human intellect is notable for its inability to comprehend life." He wrote that in the context of his study of "creative evolution" (his famous 1907 book, which won him a Nobel Prize for literature). We humans with our intellect try to capture life as if we were trying to capture the ocean with a sieve. Science, for all its empiricism, is primarily an intellectual activity. It tries to catch life in its net of concepts. That "how life really is" that it can't understand, is what can't be caught in those concepts, which are just signs and symbols that represent reality, not reality (and not life) itself. That's why it can't comprehend evolution, which is a movement of change and growth, and is vital and alive and always seeking greater freedom and awareness. Instead of looking all around the surface of an object as intellectual reason does, said Bergson, what he called "intuition" enters into the object and seeks to adopt its very inward life.

One reason why I am still slightly on the E existential side of the philosophy wheel, is that I am so painfully aware of how my intellect has robbed me of life for so many years. Bergson said our intellect seeks to make us masters of matter. It takes off from "matter's" apparent stability and goes the whole way, reducing moving, changing, flowing life to rigid and unchanging concepts. Our intellect is our drive for self-preservation, enhanced by our ability to use concepts and words to capture, control, manipulate, and predict life and thus keep us safe, secure, controlled, well-planned. That's what we do in our "Western enlightenment" way of living, and that's why there have been such movements as "neo-primitivism" and jazz and counter-cultures and beatnicks and flower children and human potential movements (or going all the way back to romanticism), trying to escape from this prison and recapture our ability to live and flow. Our intellectual, science and 18th century Enlightenment-based life is not how life "really" is. It is trying to capture life in a conceptual net in order to predict and control and master matter and avoid uncertainty. It is a way of clinging to life, instead of letting it flow. So as we get older, we forget more and more what life is. We become rigid, serious, ponderous, well-controlled, or perhaps caught up in conflicts of ideology and culture wars. The intellect robs us of life, makes us focused on thinking about how to survive. As John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)"." Some of us like me want to go off in the other direction sometimes. I want to be like Benjamin Button. I was too controlled and serious and a geeky intellectual in my youth, but I want to learn to be more alive. Bob Dylan expressed the same motive when he sang "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." And why else did Blake, whom Brian quoted, write such things as "a robin red breast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage"? or "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction"?

Of course, the fact is that clinging to life is also emotional, not just intellectual. A more balanced view about intellect is also needed. Clinging is addictive behavior, and thus a kind of distorted emotion (what Buddha called attachment, craving); it's not just intellectual. It is possible to reason (and to do science), but still not get caught up in the addictive, emotional craving to cling to concepts, win arguments, justify ourselves to others in words, overly control and destroy nature, etc. So we don't have to throw away science and the knowledge and benefits that it DOES give us. Platonism is at the root of our Western intellect, as Bergson and Heidegger pointed out. Concepts come from the idea of eternal forms. But Plato's Ideas are also intellect on a higher level, a more spiritual level for one thing, and a more poetic level, which can also be understood in a way that blends and is interdependent with the changing, flowing awareness of life. Plato after all was a poet who said he never wrote down his philosophy, but transmitted it orally-- which itself became the kernel of neoplatonism and a foundation of hermeticism, in which intellect and feeling join in the alchemical marriage.

There's lots more to say about this and related topics, but that at least gives one idea of why some people like me say science cannot comprehend life.

Originally Posted by JonLaw

The "free-willed" AI would not be a person.

Why not?

The genetic engineering personhood issue forces you to make a prior assumptions about souls and the pre-existence of souls.

Well, my own assumption is of course that there is no such thing as a soul, but how is an uplifted chimpanzee any more of a problem for this than a human population many times larger today than in the distant past?

I suspect that we will eventually find aliens that breathe methane. Also I suspect that you will find that all "human" level intelligences/personalities within this universe will look generally similar. So, in that sense, much of Star Trek will be "right". But that has more to do with the way in which humanness comes about in the universe. You need certain constraints. I suspect that these constraints only manifest themselvles with land based mammals, such as our ancestors. I suspect that humans (meaning man as such, not just our specific genetic embodiments) are the terminus of the evolution of life in this universe. Why did humans rise when they did on Earth? What changed? What makes us human?

Well, the answer to the last question is simple enough in terms of evolution. The planetary biosphere produced several species exhibiting what I call "candidate" intelligence (by which I mean animals whose survival strategy involved intelligent manipulation of the environment together with social organization). These were not all mammals. Some of them were birds, and I rather suspect that a long time ago some of them were dinosaurs, but all of the latter died in the K-T extinction. The earlier species on the hominid line were really no more intelligent than crows or parrots. Or chimps or gorillas, of course. Or bears or raccoons. Eventually, this survival strategy was refined to become a "finalist" species, so to speak. That happened to be our immediate hominid-line forbears, H. erectus or possibly even H. habilis. However, there's no particular reason it couldn't have been something completely off the primate lineage. It just turned to be hominids; there's no reason it had to be. Once habilis or erectus had evolved and spread to dominate the planet, the niche was filled and it was more difficult for other candidate species to achieve this status. The species is believed to have gone extinct about 100,000 years ago, which suggest to me that it was competition with modern humans that did them in.

Modern humans are only a slight but crucial step more sophisticated. We inherited stone tools, clothing, and the use of fire; we did not invent these things. But being slightly more intelligent than our forbears and having a better command of language, we were ultimately able to build civilization.

I completely disagree that our own level of intelligence and civilization is "the terminus of the evolution of life in this universe." We have continued to evolve throughout the millennial of civilization and are not genetically identical to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Also, at some point a species with sufficient intelligence and technical skill becomes able to practice genetic engineering and takes over its own evolution, making it a deliberate process (at which point "intelligent design" finally becomes true). For this reason, I'm quite certain that species exist out there that are far more intelligent than we are because they are far older.

I suspect that there is some sort of "life field" present in life forms that is not present in dead matter.

There is no evidence of any such thing, and I am quite certain that it doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) the other protagonist in my Masters paper, the opponent and perfect reflection of the venerable Plato, the greatest philosopher, wrote something that sticks in the mind and summarizes a lot of the problems I have with science trying to understand life. It is not entirely correct, but it's an important point of view in our times, and all times really. He said, "the human intellect is notable for its inability to comprehend life." He wrote that in the context of his study of "creative evolution" (his famous 1907 book, which won him a Nobel Prize for literature). We humans with our intellect try to capture life as if we were trying to capture the ocean with a sieve. Science, for all its empiricism, is primarily an intellectual activity. It tries to catch life in its net of concepts. That "how life really is" that it can't understand, is what can't be caught in those concepts, which are just signs and symbols that represent reality, not reality (and not life) itself. That's why it can't comprehend evolution, which is a movement of change and growth, and is vital and alive and always seeking greater freedom and awareness. Instead of looking all around the surface of an object as intellectual reason does, said Bergson, what he called "intuition" enters into the object and seeks to adopt its very inward life.

One reason why I am still slightly on the E existential side of the philosophy wheel, is that I am so painfully aware of how my intellect has robbed me of life for so many years. Bergson said our intellect seeks to make us masters of matter. It takes off from "matter's" apparent stability and goes the whole way, reducing moving, changing, flowing life to rigid and unchanging concepts. Our intellect is our drive for self-preservation, enhanced by our ability to use concepts and words to capture, control, manipulate, and predict life and thus keep us safe, secure, controlled, well-planned. That's what we do in our "Western enlightenment" way of living, and that's why there have been such movements as "neo-primitivism" and jazz and counter-cultures and beatnicks and flower children and human potential movements (or going all the way back to romanticism), trying to escape from this prison and recapture our ability to live and flow. Our intellectual, science and 18th century Enlightenment-based life is not how life "really" is. It is trying to capture life in a conceptual net in order to predict and control and master matter and avoid uncertainty. It is a way of clinging to life, instead of letting it flow. So as we get older, we forget more and more what life is. We become rigid, serious, ponderous, well-controlled, or perhaps caught up in conflicts of ideology and culture wars. The intellect robs us of life, makes us focused on thinking about how to survive. As John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)"." Some of us like me want to go off in the other direction sometimes. I want to be like Benjamin Button. I was too controlled and serious and a geeky intellectual in my youth, but I want to learn to be more alive. Bob Dylan expressed the same motive when he sang "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." And why else did Blake, whom Brian quoted, write such things as "a robin red breast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage"? or "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction"?

Of course, the fact is that clinging to life is also emotional, not just intellectual. A more balanced view about intellect is also needed. Clinging is addictive behavior, and thus a kind of distorted emotion (what Buddha called attachment, craving); it's not just intellectual. It is possible to reason (and to do science), but still not get caught up in the addictive, emotional craving to cling to concepts, win arguments, justify ourselves to others in words, overly control and destroy nature, etc. So we don't have to throw away science and the knowledge and benefits that it DOES give us. Platonism is at the root of our Western intellect, as Bergson and Heidegger pointed out. Concepts come from the idea of eternal forms. But Plato's Ideas are also intellect on a higher level, a more spiritual level for one thing, and a more poetic level, which can also be understood in a way that blends and is interdependent with the changing, flowing awareness of life. Plato after all was a poet who said he never wrote down his philosophy, but transmitted it orally-- which itself became the kernel of neoplatonism and a foundation of hermeticism, in which intellect and feeling join in the alchemical marriage.

There's lots more to say about this and related topics, but that at least gives one idea of why some people like me say science cannot comprehend life.

Now I see the source of our mutual confusion. I have been using "life" in the purely biological sense. In the context you are using it I would rather use the term "existence in the subjective sense".

I completely agree with the bolded part. IMO an "Enlightened" person is someone who can balance Reason and Experience by not reifying the conceptual creations of reason.

One reason why I am still slightly on the E existential side of the philosophy wheel, is that I am so painfully aware of how my intellect has robbed me of life for so many years. Bergson said our intellect seeks to make us masters of matter. It takes off from "matter's" apparent stability and goes the whole way, reducing moving, changing, flowing life to rigid and unchanging concepts. Our intellect is our drive for self-preservation, enhanced by our ability to use concepts and words to capture, control, manipulate, and predict life and thus keep us safe, secure, controlled, well-planned. That's what we do in our "Western enlightenment" way of living, and that's why there have been such movements as "neo-primitivism" and jazz and counter-cultures and beatnicks and flower children and human potential movements (or going all the way back to romanticism), trying to escape from this prison and recapture our ability to live and flow. Our intellectual, science and 18th century Enlightenment-based life is not how life "really" is. It is trying to capture life in a conceptual net in order to predict and control and master matter and avoid uncertainty. It is a way of clinging to life, instead of letting it flow. So as we get older, we forget more and more what life is. We become rigid, serious, ponderous, well-controlled, or perhaps caught up in conflicts of ideology and culture wars. The intellect robs us of life, makes us focused on thinking about how to survive. As John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)"." Some of us like me want to go off in the other direction sometimes. I want to be like Benjamin Button. I was too controlled and serious and a geeky intellectual in my youth, but I want to learn to be more alive. Bob Dylan expressed the same motive when he sang "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." And why else did Blake, whom Brian quoted, write such things as "a robin red breast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage"? or "The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction"?

To expand a bit, here, My attitude is pretty much that of the oft-quoted Christian prayer "God, help me to change the things I can change, accept the things I can't change, and to know the difference between them". To think one can and should change and control everything is arrogance and hubris, to think that one can and should change and control nothing is pathological fatalism, often mixed with misanthropy.

An example of the later is the "controlling nature is evil" meme. Not only is it simplistic, it also just another expression of the old notion that Man is separate from Nature, but Man is a part of nature, our civilization is literally a force of nature. It is impossible for us not to modify and change the Nature we are a part of because we are such a powerful force. That is why we must use that power responsibly, we must be good stewards of Nature.

I completely disagree that our own level of intelligence and civilization is "the terminus of the evolution of life in this universe." We have continued to evolve throughout the millennial of civilization and are not genetically identical to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Also, at some point a species with sufficient intelligence and technical skill becomes able to practice genetic engineering and takes over its own evolution, making it a deliberate process (at which point "intelligent design" finally becomes true). For this reason, I'm quite certain that species exist out there that are far more intelligent than we are because they are far older.

I suspect that there is some sort of "life field" present in life forms that is not present in dead matter.

There is no evidence of any such thing, and I am quite certain that it doesn't exist.

I agree that evolution is not over, and we don't know what's next. There may be higher levels of humans, at least. The evidence seems overwhelming that we are already being visited by aliens, and probably have been throughout human history. Most of these aliens still share a human form, but are more advanced in technology and in ethics/social abilities. We are still rather primitive (especially Americans, among developed countries; we still have the death penalty for example), but we have made strides. I think we are more civilized than we were 1000 years ago. Evolution is obviously not only genetic; I don't think it ever was only genetic. There is certainly learning going on in humans, which is passed on in society and culture, and the 100th monkey phenomenon suggests it goes on in animals too. Rupert Sheldrake talked about morphogenetic fields. That is similar to what Jon suggests. Far from being certain that it doesn't exist, I am interested in the possibility; as I am in the possibilities of life after death, life elsewhere, ETs here, different laws of physics beyond the speed of light, spirits and souls, angels, etc. There is no reason to close off such possibilities or pretend we know they don't exist. Our knowledge does not give us any ground or basis for closing them off.

Originally Posted by Odin

Now I see the source of our mutual confusion. I have been using "life" in the purely biological sense. In the context you are using it I would rather use the term "existence in the subjective sense".

I completely agree with the bolded part. IMO an "Enlightened" person is someone who can balance Reason and Experience by not reifying the conceptual creations of reason.

Sounds good to me.

In the case of what I was saying, "the term "existence in the subjective sense" " would apply also to the subjective sense of animals and all of life.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Rupert Sheldrake talked about morphogenetic fields. That is similar to what Jon suggests. Far from being certain that it doesn't exist, I am interested in the possibility; as I am in the possibilities of life after death, life elsewhere, ETs here, different laws of physics beyond the speed of light, spirits and souls, angels, etc. There is no reason to close off such possibilities or pretend we know they don't exist. Our knowledge does not give us any ground or basis for closing them off.

Let me clarify something. I have seen nothing, ever, claimed to be a "life force" or "life field" that I could not reliably identify as one of two things: either the unfounded imagination of the person claiming it, or magic/psi. Magic/psi is not a "life force." It is associated not only with life but with non-life as well.

What I'm saying is not that there aren't forces in nature that physics hasn't yet modeled (how absurd that would be!) but rather that life is not as special as some would have it. It's an emergent form of non-life. There is nothing basic and rudimentary, nothing on the level studied by physicists, that is unique to life.

That perception on my part, or attitude, or whatever, lies behind some of our other disagreements, such as your and JonLaw's insistence that a free-willed AI could not be a person.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Let me clarify something. I have seen nothing, ever, claimed to be a "life force" or "life field" that I could not reliably identify as one of two things: either the unfounded imagination of the person claiming it, or magic/psi. Magic/psi is not a "life force." It is associated not only with life but with non-life as well.

What I'm saying is not that there aren't forces in nature that physics hasn't yet modeled (how absurd that would be!) but rather that life is not as special as some would have it. It's an emergent form of non-life. There is nothing basic and rudimentary, nothing on the level studied by physicists, that is unique to life.

True, but again, I would switch that around. Non-life is something from which life can emerge. Or more-accurately, non-life can become more alive, relatively speaking; enough so that we call it alive instead of dead, under certain rare conditions. I see life everyday, and a theory making it into non-life is not something I buy. But in order for physicists to study it, physics might have become different than what we now know, since life can't be objectified. But if anything, as a form of spirit, life is what is basic and rudimentary. Life is rudimentary and basic, not "non-life." That's taking a spiritualist rather than a materialist approach to non-dualism, which I do.

I should add, if you are interested in what is "basic and rudimentary," the subject to study is metaphysics, not physics.

That perception on my part, or attitude, or whatever, lies behind some of our other disagreements, such as your and JonLaw's insistence that a free-willed AI could not be a person.

Maybe Jon would disagree; I'm not so sure that a free-willed AI could not be a person, although it would certainly still be vastly different than a human person. That's why I agreed with you before. Although the prospect of HAL taking over, Dave, is an idea I don't like too much. A "new ager" friend of mind calls it technos vs. psyche.