[ExI] What is "Elemental Redness"?

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, May 3, 2023, 7:53 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Hi Jason,
> You always have such great things to say, but I'm having a hard time
> keeping up with this one.
>
> On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 9:50 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 2, 2023, 10:19 AM Gadersd via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> > Chapter One
>>> >
>>> > There is no 'hard problem'.
>>> >
>>> > The end.
>>>
>>> I agree that most philosophers are hallucinating a problem into
>>> existence, but there is some interesting structure to the way the patterns
>>> are organized in the brain that is worth elaborating on. It is beautiful,
>>> sort of like a mosaic.
>>>
>>
>> The hard problem of consciousness comes about by assuming a particular
>> answer to the mind-body problem.
>>
>> The mind-body problem asks: what is the nature of the connection between
>> mind and matter.
>>
>> If you assume matter is fundamental (materialism) then you end up with
>> "the hard problem of consciousness" -- how to explain the appearance of
>> consciousness given only matter.
>>
>> On the other hand:
>>
>> If you assume consciousness is fundamental (materialism) then you end up
>> with "the hard problem of matter" -- how to explain the appearance of
>> matter given only consciousness.
>>
>
> Did you mean to use the same term (materialism) in both different cases
> here?  Or was that a typo?  Did you mean to say something different like
> (spiritualism or subjectivism) in the second case?
>


Hi Brent, it was a most unfortunate typo. I meant to say "immaterialism"
here. This is the idea that consciousness, thought, ideas, etc. are more
fundamental than the apparent physical reality. It is common in Buddhism
and some parts of Hinduism, and appeared in the west more recently with
George Berkeley.


>
>> There is, I believe, a solution to the mind-body problem which explains
>> the appearance of matter as well as the existence of consciousness. But the
>> answer ventures beyond philosophy of mind and into ontology. I think
>> without this complete picture, no attempt at answering either the hard
>> problem of consciousness or the hard problem of matter would have led to a
>> satisfactory explanation.
>>
>
> Can you give some examples of what you mean by ontology, or go into more
> details about what you are saying here?
>

Ontology is the field devoted to questions like:
"What is real?"
"What exists?"
"What is the extent of reality?"
"Why does anything exist?"
"What is necessary for something to exist?"

The full details of what I am saying here are found in my "Why does
anything exist?' article:
https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/

The cliff notes version is that consciousness is tied inextricably with
physical reality, much like Wheeler supposes, then observer and the
observed forming a pair. This has been explored and fleshed out more
recently by Bruno Marchal, Russel Standish, Max Tegmark, Markus Muller, and
most recently by Steve Wolfram. The end result being that physical law
emerges out of properties of observers and of observation. In a sense,
consciousness is more fundamental than physics, but there is a mathematical
consistency that explains the connection.

Jason



>
>> Many on this list have written off philosophy as an outmoded and
>> pointless endeavor, but I disagree. Good philosophers use thought, logic
>> and rationality to frame the possibility space of answers and their
>> implications. In this way, philosophers scout out and chart paths which
>> theoretical scientists will later traverse and which empirical scientists
>> will eventually test.
>>
>
> Yes, yes, brilliant.
>
>
>
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