Just what are materialists saying, really? That all of this is just matter? Okay, sure...

>So why the fuck should your definition of matter be as sterile, dead, and life-denying as "dude like particles, like dude lmao"?
Probably because it is true. Matter is, dude like, particles, like dude lmao. Whatever subjective values you assign to that are your own business.

What definition of "energy" are you using?

So particles, dude lmao, are ascribing value to themselves, and you don't think maybe you should modify your understanding of matter to include its quantitative and qualitative spectrum instead of just focusing on its building blocks? Autism.

He's saying nothing should presuppose subjectivity in a purely material universe running on the rails of natural law, but here it is anyways. Your post answers nothing. "Consciousness exists because consciousness is useful" what?

>dualism

>"Consciousness exists because consciousness is useful" what?

What's hard to understand about that?

>A broken down car does not run, so where does the energy that keeps it running go? It cannot just disappear into nothing because matter is not created or destroyed

>So particles, dude lmao, are ascribing value to themselves

Yeah. Neat, right?

>, and you don't think maybe you should modify your understanding of matter to include its quantitative and qualitative spectrum instead of just focusing on its building blocks?

"Understanding of matter" includes everything we know about living things.

>are ascribing value to themselves
In an extremely roundabout way, yes, but you're skipping over certain complexities.

>and you don't think maybe you should modify your understanding of matter to include its quantitative and qualitative spectrum instead of just focusing on its building blocks?
No, because matter is the building blocks. You would not ascribe the qualities of a "house" to bits of wood and steel, because those "house" qualities emerge from a very specific organization of the components. Saying matter is concious is like saying a plank of wood is cozy, just at a different scale.

>"Consciousness exists because consciousness is useful" what?
We have opposable thumbs because they are useful in manipulating and creating tools. We have conciousness for similar reasons.

>"Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared." On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass (matter) are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. Under the right conditions, energy can become mass, and vice versa.

Energy and mass are inseparable and also different forms of the same thing. This is just the basic definition and equation, but upon further inspection we realize we still only know very little about the form of mass and how the energy that changes the form of mass is always changing the mass and form without end.

No, m8, once again, matter giving rise to a meaning-making mechanism - consciousness - requires more explanation than "it's useful". Of course it's useful, but there's no reason there should be anything experiencing the "usefulness" of intelligence instead of us just being robots programmed by matter to do useful things. You don't get it, do you?

A car needs a fuel in order to run. If it is not running, there is no fuel or a malfunction of its parts. The fuel would be like its life force and the parts would be like its body, however, the car requires a driver or a computer in order to make it move as well.

The driver is the consciousness of the car, and without the driver you disconnect what makes the car "alive" but unlike humans and all living entities, a car cannot move on its own according like the living entities can.

That energy that gives us life in order to operate on our own, that one

>Of course it's useful, but there's no reason

what

It's really not my fault you can't wrap your head around such a simple argument. like pulling teeth with you niggers, goddamn

>consciousness - requires more explanation than "it's useful"
Unless you're talking about a more detailed neurological or evolutionary explanation, it literally does not. It exists for exactly the same reason some reptiles can lose their tails and why peacocks have bright feathers. It is useful, full stop.

Then if we are using a reasonable definition of the word "energy", yes, all the energy in a human that has died goes feeds into the decomposition process one way or another in natural circumstances. In unnatural circumstances this may not be the case, such as cremation the energy goes into fuel for sustaining a combustion reaction.

>If it is not running, there is no fuel or a malfunction of its parts.

The same thing for a person. Death is simply "a malfunction of parts" that is unrecoverable.

>a car cannot move on its own

Actually, self-driving cars are becoming a reality. But I think you've lost sight of the analogy.

What's useful about these beings having an inner life that, in some cases, can even lead to suicide? isn't that going the completely opposite direction of what your glorious utilitarian materialist universe is aiming for here? You haven't answered my question. Why aren't we p-zombies, beings with all the behaviors of conscious agents but none of the inner experience?

>consciousness exists because of its utility

materialist cucks actually believe this, just lel

Regardless, the energy that causes the life to live is separate from the body after death, as well as the mind. The body and mind have a physical decomposition, but the energy that caused the body and mind to operate is no longer evident. That is when something is legally pronounced dead. The energy that causes the heart to beat is not active in the body anymore. So this energy goes somewhere, and the mass of body and mind have more obvious physical decay

The computer would then be the consciousness of the car. Regardless, the car needs more than just fuel and working parts to operate. It needs a driver or a computer program.

Death is more than a malfunction of parts because the force that operates the body is no longer apparent in the body. The parts of the body are not being operated by the force that causes the heart to beat. The body is obviously dead, but the car can be fixed for it is not a living entity like people and animals.

A car is not a person so you have to use your mind to understand the analogy.

>What's useful about these beings having an inner life that, in some cases, can even lead to suicide?
That the "inner life" allows for complex social organization, problem solving, coordination of different individuals, etc. That this occasionally leads to suicide or other detrimental effects isn't much of a problem evolutionarily speaking, since overall across the entire population the benefits have outweighed the negatives. There are always tradeoffs. For example, bright feathers are good for to allow members of the same species to attract oneanother, but they are bad for camouflage.

>universe is aiming for here
The universe isn't aiming for anything.

>Why aren't we p-zombies, beings with all the behaviors of conscious agents but none of the inner experience?
While such a thing may be possible in theory, it may not have been possible as an extension of existing brain structures.

OP seems to think that his sterile and simple notion of how others view the physical world is the same as the way others actually view the physical world.

>but the energy that caused the body and mind to operate is no longer evident.
No longer evident does not mean no longer there. The actual energy may still be "waiting" in chemical bonds but unable to cycle to the intended destination, for example.

There is no other energy, unless you can prove it.

>The computer would then be the consciousness of the car. Regardless, the car needs more than just fuel and working parts to operate. It needs a driver or a computer program.

What point are your trying to make? That a self driving car is alive?

>Death is more than a malfunction of parts because the force that operates the body is no longer apparent in the body. The parts of the body are not being operated by the force that causes the heart to beat. The body is obviously dead, but the car can be fixed for it is not a living entity like people and animals.

There is no such "force that operates the body." When all the parts are working, it is alive. When a crucial part fails, it dies. We don't have the skill to repair individual cells at a molecular level, but if we could we could get it living again.

>A car is not a person so you have to use your mind to understand the analogy.

Indeed....

Nah m8, you literally said consciousness is "useful", which means it's useful FOR something, which means evolution has utility as a "goal", which means you're implying a telos, here.

Either matter self-organizes towards some aim or horizon, or it doesn't. You can't have it sloshing around forever and still have an intrinsic capacity for complexity and an inner world at the same time.

You literally can't tell me "consciousness is just what happened to have happened after billions of years of trial and error!!!" because, no shit, that's exactly what happened, so how did consciousness emerge from something so chaotic in the first place if subjectivity isn't as tied up with the nature of matter as you think?

Physicalism related to the word physics means that everything can be explined through physics.
materialism means that anything that exists can be empiricly varified.

It can be proven that there is another energy, and you can easily know it is available to you because we all have this same energy.

If one has the brains and right approach to this, then they can begin to check it out, but as for now, it is better not to leave the final answers up to people on the internet, whether they agree with you or not.

Grass can grow on its own, humans can move and grow on their own, ants can huddle up and walk around with food twice their size.

A car cannot pick up a person without some kind of program or person. A dead stick does not light itself on fire, rather a direct force and energy is required to make it happen.

>Nah m8, you literally said consciousness is "useful", which means it's useful FOR something,
Yes, it is useful for the survival of a species, which has nothing at all to do with the hypothetical intentionality of the universe.

>Either matter self-organizes towards some aim or horizon, or it doesn't.
Matter organizes according to characteristic behaviours. The self-organizations referred to as life self-organize to propogation. This, again, has nothing to do with the hypothetical intentionality of the universe.

>how did consciousness emerge from something so chaotic in the first place
Complex behaviour arises out of collections of simple agents and time. For example, the movement of a colony of bats is fairly complex, but each individual is following fairly simple rules. The combination of many allows for new properties to emerge. Conciousness is similar, and it took lots of time and pruning to actually emerge.

>implying morons on Veeky Forums can tackle the problem of qualia.

Why do you have subjective experiences fags? If you are biological computer than the questrion is, how does a Personal computer experience its own functioning from within?

Why do we have an internal mental world and what the hell is it...How do neurons as seen in an MRI machine translate to subjective experience.

The car is only "alive" with the driver driving it. A self driving car is only driving the car because a person programmed the machine itself.

There is a force that operates the body. You breathe don't you? Your heart is beating, yes? You can type on a keyboard with your fingers, these are facts. So, it is obvious that we ourselves are the force that controls our self. It is what makes us a living entity, and the car just a machine.

And our cells repair themselves by themselves because they are a part of us. Cells divide themselves on their own, that means this tiny little form of life is doing something on its own accord.

That isn't an argument. If you don't have proof, just say so.

m8...

you still can't tell me why there is an inner experience of all these supposedly advantageous behaviors in the first place

"but m-muh brain structure" literally supports my point, you can't have a brain without a consciousness

if your reductionistic, sterile, fedora worldview is correct, you have utterly failed to account for the richness and depth of the qualitative spectrum of the material short of claiming everything but the survival advantage consciousness confers onto organisms is vestigial or extraneous, which would be a fedora so big it'd have its own gravity

It is not an argument, it is just an expression. The living proof you search for is your self, but because you trust someone else and their documentation, you do not trust yourself.

You are alive, and you are the energy that is you. You do not need proof when you are the proof yourself.

It is true, that living entities move on their own accord. It is true that inanimate objects needs some form of energy whether by human or nature in order to operate in some way.

Even at an atomic level, our lives in this body can be broken down into singular atoms grouped together, as well as trees and formations of wind patterns etc. If everything is of an atomic structure, everything is a vibration, therefore moving on its own accord.

>mfw autists are going to shart themselves reading this post and still shriek "PROOF? EVIDENCE?"

>How does your model account for my subjective judgments?

It does not nor does it have to.

>fedora

pic related

>this fucking bull fly in the ointment doesn't need to be addressed because it's 2016 and I'm automatically right and black science man said

Fuck off, the adults are talking

>you still can't tell me why there is an inner experience of all these supposedly advantageous behaviors in the first place
>complex social organization, problem solving, coordination of different individuals,
>>Why aren't we p-zombies, beings with all the behaviors of conscious agents but none of the inner experience?
>While such a thing may be possible in theory, it may not have been possible as an extension of existing brain structures.

>short of claiming everything but the survival advantage consciousness confers onto organisms is vestigial or extraneous, which would be a fedora so big it'd have its own gravity
Humans have been anatomically identical to their modern forms for a long time, where our brain and conciousness both evolved. It was designed to deal with, again, problem solving, tool use, and complex social organization. The things we continue to do today are largely extensions of this, but with the added advantage of cultural memories. It's not extraneous or vestigial, just a different application of the same fundamental machinery.

Well again, you are the energy that is your life. That isn't really all that ridiculous of a statement because it is obviously true that you operate your own life.

>fuck off the adults are talking

>ad hominem insults

How did my pic predict the future? explain that atheists!

Did you mean to green text a different post

>subjectivism exists ergo magic exists
Tell me more.

>It is true, that living entities move on their own accord. It is true that inanimate objects needs some form of energy whether by human or nature in order to operate in some way.
If you use "natural energy" to account for the movement of inanimate objects, it accounts for the movement of life also. All life requires a fairly constant input of external energy, be it directly from the sun or the breakdown of chemical bonds. In fact, without the output of external energy, the vast majority of life breaks down fairly quickly.

Atoms also do not vibrate of their own accord in this view, they are vibrating due to some history of being exposed to a source of energy. Of course, this is ultimately irrelevant to organic life, which "moves" due to we'll understood sources of mundane energy.

you know what? I'm tired of wasting my time with people like you who keep pasting ebin passages from dawkins, like I don't fucking know what evolution is or how it works yet.

You're not as smart or wise as you think you are. When you can wrap your head around the argument, which is how a universe that apparently is only supposed to be a soup of dead shit nonetheless inexplicably has it in itself to become the complete antithesis to a pool of dead shit exactly works, you keep pasting me this bullshit.

You don't get it. Come back when you do. Christ alfuckingmighty

Yes, that should refer to . Sorry about that.

>Either they're denying consciousness exists, or they're accepting the material has a mental, subjective aspect as well

Consciousness is nothing more than just experiencing the reality, and you're experiences are memories.

The only thing you're conscious of is what has happen to you and what's happening to you right now.

And memories are just neurotransmitters connecting

>which is how a universe that apparently is only supposed to be a soup of dead shit nonetheless inexplicably has it in itself to become the complete antithesis to a pool of dead shit exactly works
The universe isn't a pool of dead shit, as much of it was never a love in the first place. It is simply neutral, not the antithesis of life. Life itself, after all, is only possible because of certain properties of the universe. Magic is not one of those properties.

>Not an argument.

No one said the universe is dead, rather you supplied a spiritual interpretation of what being alive means and attack those who do not accept it as self evident.

>they are vibrating due to some history of being exposed to a source of energy.

Exactly. A SOURCE OF ENERGY. That original source would be the SOURCE OF ENERGY.

> Of course, this is ultimately irrelevant to organic life, which "moves" due to we'll understood sources of mundane energy.

All life cultivates off of all energies. There is no difference between mundane energy and a source of energy, because energy is organic, and all energy is literally always going to be classified as energy, no adjective need.

There is internal and external sources all forms of energy cultivate off of.

The distinction is between energy as it is understood and whichever spooky source of energy you are referring to when you talk about non-chemical sources of energy in a dying human or with statements like "energy is organic. "

No, since the OP, I said we don't have to posit a soul but we definitely have to posit the material as the substrate for consciousness, and that you arbitrarily privilege the material end of the spectrum over the qualitative because it's 2016 and it's cool to think nothing matters, without basing this on any, uh, material evidence.

While I won't deny evolution obviously benefits from consciousness, and consciousness is rooted (but not exactly equivalent to) the brain, when you're starting to make the assumption the universe is just some maximize utility machine you really have to explain why the fuck we're even aware of anything in the first place, then, which you all have failed to do so in a satisfactory manner besides just giving me the ebin 101 on evolution, havent ya heard XDDDD

>Consciousness is nothing more than just experiencing the reality,

The level of discourse on Veeky Forums, folks

>requires more explanation than "it's useful"
>requires more explanation than "it's useful"
>requires more explanation than "it's useful"

Why.

>soup of dead shit
>claims to understand evolutionary mechanics
>describes the universe as a fucking soup of "dead shit"

The only one not 'getting it' here is you.

>spiritual interpretation

Having a movie playing in our heads when literally nothing in our models says that should be the case besides "neurons light up, people report subjective changes in experience" is a "spiritual interpretation"? Family...

there are plenty of scientists and philosophers who accept the idea that consciousness is part of the material.

what evidence do you supply to counter this theory, either in terms of modern science or philosophy since you believe it is clearly wrong?

All things are energy and come from a source of energy. When the living entities body dies, the energy goes elsewhere. The body decays, but the energy that is in the body that causes it to be alive is no longer in the body. The mind also dies with the body. Both of these things eventually decay.

In no way is it ridiculous to say there is an energy that causes the living being to be alive, and in no way is it ridiculous to say that is leaves the body after death and goes some place else. You are talking about energy, something that is not apparently physical. It is the transformation of matter.

>when you're starting to make the assumption the universe is just some maximize utility machine
Nowhere has this claim been made. In fact I very specifically said "the universe" is not trying to maximize anything, and that there are always tradeoffs. I also said why we are aware of things.

It would be helpful if you would actually read and argue with posts rather than just react to some idea.

>nothing in our models says that should be the case

again, what are your sources on this?

You're literally strawmanning their arguments as 'the universe is a maximize utility machine' when in actuality their argument is that consciousness exists because, as you admitted, it is useful for the continued existence and propogation of the human race. This is because it arose from evolutionary processes. That's literally been their argument from the first post yet you insist on attacking this fictional person in your head.

As to why we're not preprogrammed zombies, that's because it is ALSO advantageous to be able to think and adapt to every unique situation.

Ahahah, ahahah, ahahahah, Oh my god I literally said like fucking 5 times an internal experience of these supposedly advantageous behaviors is completely extraneous to your position, and that all you're explaining is the empirical effects of intelligent behavior in the empirical world and not why we should even be aware of these behaviors in the first place, and you STILL don't get it.

You think science has solved the explanatory gap? You think an MRI of brain states tells me literally anything about the subjectivity it represents other than "shit's happening, idk lmao"?

>In no way is it ridiculous to say there is an energy that causes the living being to be alive, and in no way is it ridiculous to say that is leaves the body after death and goes some place else.
Of course. The energy that causes life is in chemical bonds (either ultimately sourced from the sun except in rare cases of chemoautotrophs) and, in death, becomes either heat or goes into different types of chemical bonds. At no point is there any mystery.

Fedoras have a fundamental issue with "getting it" because it immidiately creates a hole in their perfect physicalist idea of the world.
The problem of consiousness has been with us right from the beginning of the scinetiifc method. Leibnitz mentioned it, lock did, etc...

It is very possible that the scientific methodoloy by definition, as an "objective" methodology cannot solve the hard problem of consiousnes.

Nobody has a clue how to solve it, nobody even knows how to approach it and when solutions are suggested we cant even asses if they are indeed addressing the problem.

>why we should even be aware of these behaviors in the first place
Because, wait for it, it is useful.

As to why we're not preprogrammed zombies, that's because it is ALSO advantageous to be able to think and adapt to every unique situation.

fantastic, it's almost like what I said in the OP: that "everything is atoms lmao" doesn't say anything beyond "we're made of stuff lmao" because matter is both quantitative and dead on one end of the scale, and qualitative and alive on the other.

The sun helps sustain life but isn't the cause of the life. All parts are needed, oxygen, trees, the sun, water, we cultivate off of all forms of energy because we are of the same energy, since all energy comes from the same source.

There is no mystery, and the transformation of energy is not exclusive to a persons body decaying or their mind decaying with the body. Our soul is an energy that leaves the body and "goes someplace else" and where? We are the only individual perceiver of our own individual lives, so when I say we are the living proof, we literally see it, even now.

consciousness has propagated because it is useful, but that does not explain the phenomenon of consciousness itself you git unless you resort to some kind of version of panpsychism or naturalistic dualism

your reductionism is toothless. "what is consciousness, what's it doing here, what is it" "because it's useful for survival lmao" "Okay, that's how it got here, but what is IT, how do we account for it in our picture of matter, what does it say about matter" "because it's useful"

fucking christ

>Our soul is an energy
When I say "mystery" and "spooky energy" thus is exactly what I am referring to. Let me allow an earlier to make my post for me: .

oh god he's saying the energy that goes into you through chemical reactions is the very same energy that makes up your consciousness, because without food and shit you'd fucking die and your energy would go away, ergo you are the energy and sustaining force of your body you fucking autist how hard is this to fucking get jesus christ what's in the water? what's in the fucking water? you're all fucking insufferable

>explain the phenomenon of consciousness itself y
An emergent property of neocortical growth designed to deal with specific functions, mostly social relationships and problem solving.

It doesn't say anything "about" matter, in the same way that ant pheromones say anything "about" matter.

What i dont get about panpsychicsm is that when the use anasthesia to numb a partt of my body, i dont feel it in any way.
i.e if a stone has some sort of esperience shouldnt my numb hand at least somehow experience the world just do to the facy my hand exists?

So you guys can ask for scientific evidence about the existence of a soul but use your own insulting posts on Veeky Forums for your own credited citation?

If that is all he is saying, that the "us" is the non-spooky energy within the brain, there is no mystery about where it goes after death. It goes into heat and the decay process.

Actually, "matter" is always dead on its own, at the molecular level. The line between "alive" and "dead" on a cellular level is simply one of "functioning" and "not functioning". I see no reason not to apply this on a larger level to a human being. "Alive" is merely the state at which chemical reactions and synaptic exchanges are correctly functioning. When taken all together this results in our consciousness. There is no "alive" matter, just correctly functioning and malfunctioning in terms of an animal.

As to why? I'm not going to claim to know. Evolutionary processes would be my general guess but I'm not an expert.

No, I'm pretty sure matter coming the fuck alive and questioning what it is and what it's doing here says plenty about matter you mongoloid diaper-wearing autist

No, I use posts that insult me because they make my point better than I could. If you are going to posit something like a soul, at least give me something to google. Proof and evidence abounds.

It can be organized into systems of various complexity. Accounts for conciousness and ant pheromones just fine.

I am talking about the energy that leaves the living body when it dies, not the decay of the body or the mind. The energy that is you. The very fact in front of you is that you are a living entity yourself, capable of understanding that energy leaves your physical body when you die, and isn't some invisible soul, but rather the soul is energy itself, an ever transforming matter

Are we doing the whole "le consciousness don't real thing"? Yes, no shit consciousness has its basis in neurological activity, no it doesn't mean it's an "illusion" or whatever life-denying cuck shit you're trying to pull here by trying to frame the argument in such reductionistic terms. It's as real as anything.

Poor atheists cant even allow themsleves to understand what the hard problem of consousness is because if they do it will introduce the possibility that subjective experience might include something real that is nonethelss strictly personal and thus things like spiritual experience and a soul might find a way in.

Matter self-organizes into organisms with an inner life, wow, that's fucking amazing, why are you trying to devalue this? Do you think I don't know consciousness arises in complex, physical systems? Oh man.

>the energy that leaves the living body when it dies,
>the energy that goes into molecules characteristic of the decay of the body or the brain, plus heat
These are identical.

The fuck is your deal with strawmanning? Regardless, I don't have a life denying philosophy about consciousness not being """real""", whatever the fuck that means. You say consciousness has a basis in neurological activity, I say it IS the neurological activity. What suggests otherwise?

>Matter self-organizes into organisms with an inner life, wow, that's fucking amazing, why are you trying to devalue this?
I'm not, I am describing it accurately. It is you who are saying that without magic it must be worthless.

You are the proof and evidence. The soul is energy, not some invisible non-existence, but it is described this way because it is energy. Energy is transformations of matter, and energy is not always visible to human senses, like the oxygen is in front of us. We see it, but we can't see it.

The energy that causes the living entity life leaves the body, that is when the body dies because the energy that is required to keep the body alive is no longer apparent in the body, because it went somewhere else.

It is not separate from science. You could calculate the "soul" and the "energy" that causes life. The body and the mind will decay, but the force that is within you, the force that is you, that is what is causing your life right now. It is not separate from scientific discovery

Saying something does not make it true, I can just as simply say your wrong.

The energy that leaves the body and the brain, not the decay of the body and brain

Humans function in a non causal way.

>The energy that causes the living entity life leaves the body, that is when the body dies because the energy that is required to keep the body alive is no longer apparent in the body, because it went somewhere else.
People generally die because the function of an essential organ is disrupted, not because "energy leaves the body. " Unless you are defining the soul as anything that successfully keeps the supply of oxygen and glucose flowing to the brain.

How do you think decay happens?

Where is this energy? how do you know its there? and why should I believe you when you tell me its there?

What are the properties of this energy and how do you know them?

Your explanation doesn't answer anything, other than "if matter is complex enough POOF you get consciousness".

Your posts have no explanatory power.

There's no reason to assume playing with electrochemical gradients in the brain should produce consciousness BASED on only information of those gradients alone, but here we are anyways.

Your posts have no explanatory power.

You do not get this. At all.

It's like if I asked what makes a symphony beautiful and you started talking about subharmonics and fucking music theory 101. No shit, it's a product of these things but not these THINGS themselves, or else I should hear a Mozart aria just by flipping through my fucking music theory textbook.

Your posts have no explanatory power.

You do not get this. You will never get it.

You're not telling me what consciousness is or how exactly the qualitative is determined beyond neurological data, you keep pointing to me where it's located. That doesn't help me. It doesn't answer anything. At all.

>I believe in magic

gah, you christfags...

No one can understand or describe - in detail - the fucking process behind consciousness, is that what you're looking for? Guessing that it's some magic "life force" shit doesn't help anything, it's intellectually dishonest to posit something with nothing to suggest it's the truth based on "well it answers the question ;)"

A possible answer to "why is the sky blue?" is "pixie dust is blue, fairies fly high in the sky and get their pixie dust all over the place." That has """explanatory power""" but is fucking wrong and idiotic.