I want to know more about dualism. Science based arguments for and against it, and Veeky Forums's thoughts on it

I want to know more about dualism. Science based arguments for and against it, and Veeky Forums's thoughts on it.

Is the mind a product of biochemical processes of the material world or can it exist outside of perceived reality?

Here, especially for you OP, is the only true answer. Ready? Wait for it....

nobody knows.

Mm-kay?

>Nobody knows so we can't discuss it
>that condescension

As lazy as your post was, thanks for bumping my thread

Can't you believe in dualism and still accept there is no soul or spiritual world and that conscienceness is merely the result of chemical reactions?

If fact you could use dualism to say there is only this and nothing.

>I want to know more about dualism.
Is that the same as bipolar (split personality)?
Cause if it is, there's a lot of dualists and some duelists.

That's how I think of it. To me, i believe that consciousness is an elaborate illusion created from tons of layers of abstraction. This is a lot like computers. It starts with electricity and circuits being abstracted to create logic gates which are abstracted to create a basic turing machine which is abstracted to create a simple command line interface like MS-DOS when combines with a screen. Then these command line interfaces were abstracted to create operating systems which has been further abstracted to create the world wide web. When we surf the Web, the layers of abstraction gives us the illusion of some sort of experience (how the hell else can you describe the internet?) Where we can communicate with a bunch of other fags like here. I think that's how consciousness is. I feel like this all sounds pretty stupid and I know im of average or below average intelligence so this may make no sense but that's my interpretation

Thank you for posting the thread that convinced me to close my browser for the night. I feel dumber every time I come to Veeky Forums.

maybe he posted on the wrong board because it's more of a phylosophical question than a science one(although he clearly stated what it's the scientific pov), but dumb? You are dumb and very narrow minded if you have never run into such questions.

Yeah, I wasn't serious and actually was posting to give you a bump. But I didn't want to wade in to what I thought would be a skeptard shitfest.

>lazy
Fffffuuuuu I had to go and look in My Pictures for that image.

But seriously, there are few "science based arguments" for it these days. You can go back to philosophy 101 and re-hash the old points of view but it's not going to convince materialists or mystics one way or the other. So here's my 5c and it will become clear why I didn't want to post earlier.

A number of esoteric systems and creation myths tell us that we are a combination of matter and spirit. For example from the bible, god breathing life into the clay form of Adam. Easy to dismiss as stories or lunatic mysticism. But the possibility with myths is that there is some kind of reality behind them. And when considering black-and-white questions such as dualism/not dualism I tend to always think that the actuality is probably something else beyond the irreconcilable opposites.

Consider a creature with a very low level of consciousness, a protozoan, a nematode, etc. It probably has no self-awareness and its mental function such as it is, is limited to responding to environmental stimuli; such a level of function could barely said to be consciousness, and is easily explained by materialist concepts and biochemistry.

But explaining higher consciousness isn't so easy. We have a consciousness which is demonstrably, intimately, influenced by if not wholly based on biochemistry, yet some people report experiences which seem to suggest human consciousness is not limited to the brain. What if, with increasing levels of consciousness as animals ascend the evolutionary tree, there is an increasing presence of 'spirit' for want of a better term, this breathing in of life to the clay. In humans we have reached a level where we can function from the 'clay', the animal, instinctual responses, or we can turn our attention to the something else... cont.

cont... the something else which allows us to make different choices; choices based on creativity, compassion, and intellect.

But so far this is just mysticism. Science doesn't have anything to say about consciousness beyond biochemistry and neuroscience. If this age-old idea of 'spirit' has any kind of reality, how could science approach it, or even begin to accept it as a possible aspect of physical reality?

I had an experience in meditation recently. I was asking the question, how does spirit interact with the physical. I 'saw' the idea of spirit or consciousness beyond the physical brain, as a fluctuation in a quantum field. At a cellular level, and I think it was a neuron I was seeing, the field interacted with the fluid around the cell. Specifically, with the state of ions in solution in the fluid. The implication being, that the quantum field could have an effect on our biochemistry.

There was a piece of research done a few years ago which appeared to show that electrons in photosynthesis are far more efficient than is predicted by classical mechanics, the suggestion being that there is a quantum effect 'guiding' the electron. This is possibly the first suggested example of a quantum effect on a physical level. I think that what I saw in that meditation was a similar effect, a quantum field affecting neurology.

There are examples in esoteric sources of similar interactions, where spirit has a guiding effect on matter. In Chinese medicine, 'chi' is said to be an integrating force which informs the physical body as to how it should be working. And the 'etheric body', a counterpart to the physical body which lays down the form for it. Or the soul or 'higher self' which contains the blueprint of the ideals we work towards as individuals and as a race.

These traditional ideas don't have any current science to explain them, beyond the possibility of ill-defined 'quantum' effects. But I hope my experience might be of interest to somebody.

And just to add, what was clear to me in that meditation is that the origins of matter and spirit are not ontologically distinct, both are expressions of quantum processes. On this basis spirit is natural, not supernatural, and dualism ceases to be a logical question.

>Can't you believe in dualism and still accept there is no soul or spiritual world and that conscienceness is merely the result of chemical reactions?

If the mind (or specifically consciousness if you want) was simply a product of chemical reaction, then that's the opposite of dualism. This is monism, the belief that there is only 1 kind of stuff, the physical.

You are however free from souls, sprit, and other magic. Dualism simply says that the mind (at least the phenomenal part) is made up from different things than the physical. This just happens to be compatible with a lot of religions. Most non-religious dualists today tend to not necessarily think that the mind is intrinsically operating outside of the universe, but merely outside of our current understanding of how physics works at the core.

There is a lot of arguments in favor of some sort of dualistic picture of how subjective experience works in the current thread about the hard problem of consciousness:

>yet some people report experiences which seem to suggest human consciousness is not limited to the brain
Bullshit.

Yeah yeah, fuck off asshole. You're the kind of retard holding back open-minded enquiry. You have all the answers? No? Then STFU or contribute something useful.

Magical thinking is not going to get us anywhere closer to understanding how shit works.

Disagree. We need imagination and intuitive insight. Not every step humanity has made has come out of a test tube.

>yet some people report experiences which seem to suggest human consciousness is not limited to the brain.


It's called mental illness

That would be the lazy and ignorant response.

Its up to your to provide the evidence to back up your claim that it isn't just psychosis and insanity

FBBP

The fact is dualism has huge gaping flaws that elicit open mockery from detractors who believe it's theoretically possible to mimic the function of the brain through a complex enough series of pipes and switches.

This is such a retarded response. Third thread on Veeky Forums and it's very clear this isn't a place populated with particularly thoughtful people.

That response is just Fedora pseudo-science. It's a stock standard response for disputing God that, if you had thought about it... at all.. you would see doesn't fit here.

I'll prove that psychosis is what it's defined as the second you prove the majority of humans aren't suffering from a collective psychosis.

Impossible?

OH YOU DON'T SAY!

your the one saying X is real and now I am asking for your empirical evidence to suggest giving theory X any merit

As we are now be believe we are located in the brain behind the eyes between the ears right? It is logical because you are the brain after all. It feels like every sensation in your body is converging at a point in head and that is existentially you.

Now let's try to notice something very strange that is happening. When you feel the sensation of touch where is it happening? Touch some object and try to figure out where the sensation is existantially happening. It's happening at the location of the hand not in your head. You are conscious of the thing that is happening outside of your head.

And you don't believe you are in your hand since cutting off your hand won't make you disappear yet you can be aware of it even though it is not existentially you. So at the end of the day the only thing that matters is to which sensation you are capable of perceiving you identify yourself with and that includes even the things you can see and hear. So the idea that you identify yourself with everything you can percieve is not impossible. But it is insanity? For some sure but there are many people that feel that way and those people are normal members of society just like you and me.

Is "people think that they're conscious" evidence?
Because if it isn't you're a fucking pedant.

I want to know about non-dualism.

>I'll prove that psychosis is what it's defined as the second you prove the majority of humans aren't suffering from a collective psychosis.
But they are.

>Its up to your to provide the evidence to back up your claim that it isn't just psychosis and insanity

No it isn't up to me, I didn't claim anything. I pointed out a simple observation. I said, "experiences which seem to suggest", not 'experiences which definitely show'. If anyone is interested in exploring the reasons behind that observation then it is up to them.

Merely writing off anything you don't like the sound of as psychosis and insanity is, as I already said, lazy. And ignorant because you don't actually know, and your attitude doesn't further the enquiry.

Here in science we take the word of empirical evidence over the word of 3000 year old ancient theories

Interesting point. But worth making the distinction between aberrant perception and aberrant mental function. Psychotics may not function well, but someone on LSD may be having similar perceptions but still be able to think and function rationally.

The point of Buddhism or a system like 'A Course In Miracles' (don't derp if you don't know it, it's not fluffy new age-ism it's hardcore headfuck nature-of-reality Buddhism, mostly) proposes that we do not perceive reality as it is. And that our thinking is skewed accordingly. But we function with a certain consistency and the logic of societal norms. So are humans all psychotic? I would say not. Delusional? In a nature-of-reality sense, probably yes.

>LSD perceptions are rational

Nigger please

Exactly my point. If there is no evidence, get off your arse and go and experiment for some, for or against. Don't just sit there with the hurr durr anything I don't understand is insanity attitude. It's facile.

>A number of esoteric systems and creation myths tell us that we are a combination of matter and spirit.

>spirit

Empirical evidence needed.

That has been my experience having taken a fair amount. The 'observer' has been intact, mostly. Higher doses produce a clarity which is stunning; impossible to explain if you haven't had that experience. But during which, all normal day to day functions are possible, and thought processes are clear, clearer than usual.

Getting high and having a laugh with your mates may leave you a giggling mess when you start out, but later on, stronger trips are something else entirely.

How does that compare to mushrooms?

Mushrooms made me realize I am the devil and the elite don't realize it yet but they all worship me.

Dualism doesn't make sense.
Radical externalism is the only sensical interpretation of the mind, especially since biosemiotics has come into play. You can interpret it has a sort of brain/mind dualism where the brain(or various other mechanisms, even the simplest life has a mind) is just a sensory organ that perceives the mind.

>Is the mind a product of biochemical processes of the material world or can it exist outside of perceived reality?
The mind is percieved reality. Biochemical/biophysical processes are what allows a living system to percieve the mind.

Have a couple examples
>tree senses sunlight with photoreceptor cells
>sends electrical impulsethrough vascular system, parts of tree receive impulses and respond by positioning themselves to face towards the sun
Biosemiosis. Here the mind doesn't exist in the tree but exists in the sunlight and chemical signals that the tree interprets. It's sign relations and the mind is in the signs.
Another one
>human brain interprets symbolic meaning associated with various words
>human brain remembers the symbols and their meaning
>human brain arithmetics these meanings together in order to form conscious thoughts
>human brain responds to certain stimuli to release chemicals that illicit emotive response to these thoughts and interprets the chemical signals in a way that tells it how to "feel" about its thoughts.
Here the mind doesn't exist in the brain but in the symbols(words) that the brain remembers. So the brain is just a biocomputer running a program that is aquired via machine learning. This surely has huge implications for artificial intellegence.

This is cutting edge biosemiotics and philosophy of the mind, I demand you pay for it. If you don't venmo me 1 gorrillion dollars you will be sued by springer and go into financial ruin.

There are different types of mushrooms but the most common UK ones didn't produce the same state for me. I always felt tired and heavy on them, never reached the same clarity. Satan. Sir.

Mushrooms allowed me to see the processes I explain hereAnd ecological interactions, as green paths of energy radiating from the environment and permeating through life in wonderful networks of loops and relays. That's just with mushrooms. In combinations of LSD and mushrooms our chemical teachers took me a step further and allowed me to experience that phenomenon mystically.
Consuming massive amounts of psychedelics during a time when I was meticulously studying ecology, biosemiotics and systems/network science resulted in an enlightenment, and a radical shift in my already radical worldview.
Psychedelics potentiate knowledge, and it takes a rational mind to sort things out. I would have never seen that if I didn't know what I know about living systems.

Cool

I did lots of mushrooms a year ago I went though like 2-3 ounces in a few months was doing them like 3 times a week sometimes.

Ended up getting bad trips(nothing like mind meltingly bad just severe paranoia) but now I want to go back into it, but I'm afriad I broke my mind or that one more trip will be the straw that breaks my consciousness or gives me permanent anxiety/paranoia

Interesting. I don't think I could have seen this
if I hadn't had a physiology training.

And it seems like your experience has led you to something similar. I had to read your post again, late and tired here, but I tink I'm getting it.

>Radical externalism... mind is perceived reality
>Biochemical/biophysical processes are what allows a living system to percieve the mind.

This is congruent with some Chinese chi gung and martial arts where the idea is of a 'universal mind' or 'mindstream' which we appreciate more of, or appropriate more of for ourselves (or identify more with) as we progress through training.

>severe paranoia
Did you smoke weed at the same time? Completely different experience without. But yes, be careful.

Ya I've been smoking since I was 14, trying to quit since I think thats whats giving me anxiety.

I hear smoking a bowl before hand helps but next time I might just try having a beer or something.

After one beer I'm always like man I feel like I could do some good shrooms now

I would strongly recommend no other substances if you're going to trip. Smoke a cig if you smoke usually, but no alcohol etc. Anything you put in becomes the background of your physiology which may then be amplified by the trip. Alcohol is a depressant. Coke was interesting during a less strong trip one time, but if you want the real experience, go for the pure trip.

I just get pre-trip jitters and I spend the first two hours of my trip regretting that I did shrooms and that its going to break my mind

Bump before bedtime

helpful bump

Are these your posts in the consciousness thread?
If not, I think you found yourself a buddy.