Absolute thought

[Jarhyn]

Ah, souls.

Ah, the soulless.

Please take this as meaning to be kind, No Robots, but you have not yet even defined what a "soul" or what an "intellect" or what a "consciousness" is.

You cannot rely on common definitions or for people to just understand you here. Arguing the common definitions is like trying to build a house on the top of a sand dune.

The terms must be made to mean something specific, concrete, if you wish to argue any thing about them on an academic level, otherwise you can play stupid games involving conflations and equivocations, and we aren't here really for stupid word games.

Awareness, consciousness, all the things that I hammer other people on, well... You are opening yourself up for a hammering, too, because you never defined these things suitably.

Now, if you want to argue some definition, first you have to find some undeniably real thing or relationship, and point to some part of the relationship or thing and say "this part, given this system, is a soul of this thing". After that, you have to say "this is why it's a soul and what I mean by that", and then we can discuss whether your definition makes sense and allows use in all the clear cases, and see if it allows processing the corner and edge cases "cleanly".

Then you have to accept from this definition correlate properties, rather than assuming properties on the basis of some other definition.

If you cannot do that, you fail in your quest to even justifiably use "soul" in the way you do.

 

[No Robots]

^And I suppose you would toss Spinoza into the same dung hill.

Spinoza was a man of his times. Though he cut through a lot of religious crap, he knew little true physics, cosmology, biology, nothing about quantum physics, or evolution.

Understandjng Spinoza takes more careful thought than you seem to understand.

Spinoza's work is a monument that will guide human development for all time:

The metaphysical foundations necessary to support an adequate scientific method, the vision of a unified science entailed by such foundationist propositions, the criticism, and, partly, correction of Cartesian physical theory, original use of the mathematical tradition, anticipations of twentieth century doctrines of space and time, the application of a complex investigative method in the emerging field of scientific hermeneutics: all these features are to be discovered when we look at Spinoza in the context of the history of the sciences, from his own time to ours.--Introduction / Marjorie Grene. In Spinoza and the Sciences / edited by Marjorie Grene and Debra Nails. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986, pp. xviii-xix

Quantum physics confirms Spinoza's insight. Einstein considered himself a follower of Spinoza. As for evolution, Spinoza provides the foundation for a biology free from evolutionist woo.

 

[No Robots]

Waton on the nature of the human soul:

Man is a trinity, consisting of nephesh, ruach and neshomoh. Nephesh is the soul in its primordial and most implicit form; it is the life in the blood. Ruach is reason, and neshomoh is the intellect: Until man attains to reason he is still a natural being, a mere animal; only when he attains to reason does he attain to his true nature; until then man is only an animal; take away from man reason, and he becomes an animal. The soul of man is the essence of man; his body and mind are only means through which the soul functions in this material world. The soul goes through an evolution. It begins as nephesh, when the soul is wholly implicit, and embodied in the blood. Thus far, man is still an animal. Then the soul becomes ruach, which is reason. The soul then becomes explicit and conscious of herself, and only then does man attain to his human nature. The ruach resides in the brains. Finally, the soul becomes neshomoh, the intellect. In this state the soul attains her highest state of self-consciousness and explicitness. The soul then perceives that she is part of God, she identifies herself with God and enjoys what Spinoza calls the Intellectual Love of God.

 

[Jarhyn]

Waton on the nature of the human soul:

Man is a trinity, consisting of nephesh, ruach and neshomoh. Nephesh is the soul in its primordial and most implicit form; it is the life in the blood. Ruach is reason, and neshomoh is the intellect: Until man attains to reason he is still a natural being, a mere animal; only when he attains to reason does he attain to his true nature; until then man is only an animal; take away from man reason, and he becomes an animal. The soul of man is the essence of man; his body and mind are only means through which the soul functions in this material world. The soul goes through an evolution. It begins as nephesh, when the soul is wholly implicit, and embodied in the blood. Thus far, man is still an animal. Then the soul becomes ruach, which is reason. The soul then becomes explicit and conscious of herself, and only then does man attain to his human nature. The ruach resides in the brains. Finally, the soul becomes neshomoh, the intellect. In this state the soul attains her highest state of self-consciousness and explicitness. The soul then perceives that she is part of God, she identifies herself with God and enjoys what Spinoza calls the Intellectual Love of God.

That doesn't say what it is, or what the term means. It assumes that's already all been hashed out or understood. It's just vagaries.

I'm asking you to actually step back from this and assume that all your terminology is at least "suspect" of being poorly defined.

All the words you use, you should be able to construct using simpler words or primative concepts which you can evoke by pointing to some thing or function in reality.

For instance when I use the term "soul" I can point to "the source code is a soul of a computer program in any world where there is a compiler for it."

I don't think you're really thinking this through very far.

 

[No Robots]

The problem, Jarhyn, is that you are unable to think the soul at all. Your own soul is undeveloped, unable to attain to neshomoh. You are aware of ruach, ie. reason, but you have learned to distrust it; and so, like the vast majority of people in our time, you are reverting to nephesh, to mere animal existence: sense perception and appetite.

 

[Jarhyn]

No, I'm just unable to smile and nod and pretend until I fool myself into believing in things that are not there.

With my concept of soul and universe, I can invent a universe full of souls and people that are defined by those souls who are every bit as meaningful and alive as the people here, with all of the same "immediate problems", a heaven to instantiate them in were they to die, etc.

I might eventually actually get to do that some day, because I dare to say "people are trying to think about something smart someone said once and failing miserably to understand it and building up sophistry around their misunderstanding, their little pretend-shadow of truth."

And sometimes it's just a malformed glimmer to the person who first saw the smart thing, itself a paltry shadow in reflection.

We are arriving now at the point in time where things finally "click", too, and I sure hope to survive, because there is turbulence ahead.

 

[No Robots]

^And so you remain in your cloud of unknowing, insisting that everyone else is also in a cloud of unknowing.

 

[steve_bank]

Matter/energy may be a lot more complex than it is usually given credit for being. The three pans - pantheism, panentheism, and panpsychism offer a monistic and materialistic form of theism. In any case, matter/energy, material things, are all we can directly experience and whose properties we can test.

matter is anything that has mass in kilograms. Energy is the ability to do work in Joules.

It can not be any more simple than that.

 

[lostone]

But an electron or any other particle is a smear in space with an extensive history, information, which at least in theory, is recoverable. Photons and gluons also are matter without mass.

 

[No Robots]

Ah, souls.

Ah, the soulless.

Are souls our souls?

Your soul seems to have been replaced by an arsehole.

 

[steve_bank]

I think photon mass is debatable. It has measurable momentum.

My general view is science is a set of equations for which experiment produces predicable outcomes.

Whether or not theory and how we imagine reality based on theory actually reflects reality to me is not knowable.

I forget who sad ithis. The size of an electron is whatever it needs to be. I don't know if an electron exists but I know I can do useful things with the concept.

That fist my views.
ibe the partcle slit difraction experiment is to say when we look for a particles we get a paticle, when we look for a wave we get a wave. The wave particle duality. It works in the application of electromagnet theory, but it says we have no idea what is really going on.

 

[lostone]

Energy is the capacity to move mass - that makes it sort of a circular definition, doesn't it? A circular definition that works good enough for most purposes.

Almost Everything we deal with, or can deal with, in one way or the other involves energy or mass, even if we can't pin down exactly what those things are.

The exception being consciousness, subjective experience, whatever we define that to be, which seems to be a subject most people, even the skeptics here, can't agree on. How does consciousness, whatever we define it be, emerge from energy/mass? That is the so far hidden issue about mass/energy so complex that that we cannot reach any conscensus on it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Energy is the capacity to move mass - that makes it sort of a circular definition, doesn't it? A circular definition that works good enough for most purposes.

Almost Everything we deal with, or can deal with, in one way or the other involves energy or mass, even if we can't pin down exactly what those things are.

The exception being consciousness, subjective experience, whatever we define that to be, which seems to be a subject most people, even the skeptics here, can't agree on. How does consciousness, whatever we define it be, emerge from energy/mass? That is the so far hidden issue about mass/energy so complex that that we cannot reach any conscensus on it.

Energy is the measurement of a system's ability to change from state to state.

It is a sum total of dynamism.

There. No more sticky mass to worry about.

 

[lostone]

The Standard Model has many flaws and holes in it. There is much yet unexplained. Beyond that lies only speculation, some speculation more reasonable than others.

 

[Jarhyn]

The Standard Model has many flaws and holes in it. There is much yet unexplained. Beyond that lies only speculation, some speculation more reasonable than others.

I'm talking on a mathematical level. That's what energy is, whenever discussed in anything that isn't videogames or fiction.

It's the ability to cause change.

That's all it is, in everywhere it is discussed.

As to what all this stuff is, fuck all if I know. I just know some useful things about the way it's interactions work.

 

[steve_bank]

When I started out as an enginner I think i was looking for some kind of deep revelation.

Energy and mass can seem like smoke and mirrors but it really isn't.

Eventually I realized there was nothing to units other than a definition.

Work, energy, and heat in Joules amd mass in kilogtams.

The SI MKS system of derived units form an unambiguous system. Energy and work are units of measure no different than meters.

There is nothing below that other than philosophy.

If you look at SI onlne you will see energy, work, and heat as all SI derived units are defined in terms of meters, kilograms, and seconds. MKS system.

 

[lostone]

Do not mistake me; I am thoroughly a materialist. I am merely noting that there are many issues not yet fully explained to everyone's satisfaction and citing some ways some philosophers have sought to explain those issues. Scientists do science and leave much of that kind of thinking to those philosophers, except when they seek out a science writer to help them write books for popular consumption for unwashed laymen like myself.

 

[lostone]

When I started out as an enginner I think i was looking for some kind of deep revelation.

Energy and mass can seem like smoke and mirrors but it really isn't.

Eventually I realized there was nothing to units other than a definition.

Work, energy, and heat in Joules amd mass in kilogtams.

The SI MKS system of derived units form an unambiguous system. Energy and work are units of measure no different than meters.

There is nothing below that other than philosophy.

If you look at SI onlne you will see energy, work, and heat as all SI derived units are defined in terms of meters, kilograms, and seconds. MKS system.

IOW, what cannot be measured by observations is philosophy; I have no issue with that. Better left to philosophy than taken from religion.

 

[lostone]

A liberal view of Panpsychism. Matter tends to organize into protons, electron, gluons, etectera. Those particles tend to form atoms. Under certain conditions, carbon atoms tend to form organic chemical compounds. Again, under certain conditions, organic chemical compounds tend to for RNA, and then DNA. DNA, under certain conditions, leads to the formation of single celled organisms. Single celled organisms tend to form multiple celled organisms. Multiple celled organisms develop nervous systems to respond to their environment. Nervous systems form models of their environment, using neurons, etcetera, to seek food, mate, and avoid being eaten. We label those entirely subjective models 'thoughts', but do not know how to measure them, so we use philosophy to describe how they function.

 

[steve_bank]

When I started out as an enginner I think i was looking for some kind of deep revelation.

Energy and mass can seem like smoke and mirrors but it really isn't.

Eventually I realized there was nothing to units other than a definition.

Work, energy, and heat in Joules amd mass in kilogtams.

The SI MKS system of derived units form an unambiguous system. Energy and work are units of measure no different than meters.

There is nothing below that other than philosophy.

If you look at SI onlne you will see energy, work, and heat as all SI derived units are defined in terms of meters, kilograms, and seconds. MKS system.

IOW, what cannot be measured by observations is philosophy; I have no issue with that. Better left to philosophy than taken from religion.

That works for me.

I read Durnat's short summary of philosophy. In the intro he says science is that which can be quantified, all else is religion and philosophy. Of course the lines get blurred.

One of my favorite quotes is fromlvin.

A quote by William Thomson

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your kno...

www.goodreads.com

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”​

I consider the BB as mathematical philosophy, it can never be experimentally tested.


People have no prblem with the units of meters for distance, it is an arbitrary definition.

Yet when it comes to energy and matter they get bent out of shape. It is not as easy to see energy as a measurement than it is is to see meters.