Matter/energy/spacetime qualia

[Speakpigeon]

How is one qualia selected from the whole palette?

What selects a specific qualia?

Does every point in spacetime have the whole qualia palette available to it, given the right configuration of matter to extract the qualia?

Does matter contain the qualia, and unleash it, or is it contained in spacetime, and unleashed by certain configurations of matter?

Is there research into this?

How would one go about researching this?

How would one go about testing various configurations to find out what qualia are unleashed by specific configurations of matter?

Is it still too soon to ask these questions?



Is building a big block of dopamine or serotonin like building a big orgasm? <-- silly, or could we make a new big bang with an associated spacetime collapse until something akin to us exists again?

On substance, I think it's more rational to turn your question inside out like a sock. We know our qualia as such, first-hand, from our own personal subjective experience. We don't actually know anything else. The best we can do is to believe in the physical stuff like space, time, energy, matter etc. We don't actually know them, and we don't actually know that they exist as such, if at all. So, I tend to see the rational (i.e. logic + empirical facts) question to ask, as why our qualia include the quale of the material world? Many qualia we experience only present themselves as being part of this material world. We can only experience blueness as a property of something material, like the blue sky or the blue eyes of our loved one. I cannot experience blueness without experiencing the quale of the material world and only as a part of it. Asking for science to solve the problem is a bit like for the Americans to ask the Russians so solve their problems. Maybe not such a great idea.

And we already understand in broad terms how we get to invent scientific properties like space and time, energy and matter etc, from our qualia. Yet, we are definitely missing the basic connection between qualia and the scientific concepts of the physical world.

Still, I'm hopeful that science will one day move its fat arse to look into this question for good. Maybe as this generation of old hardcore materialists die out, the new ones will have a more open mind and critical spirit. Most of them seem quite old judging by their jumbled English, their inability to use their keyboard properly, and the sheer inanity of their posts.

So, let's wait just a bit.
EB

 

[ryan]

Where is there any evidence the body knows what an idea is?

I don't know what this has to do with what I said. The ideas would all still be happening in the mind, not the body.

You are the one saying something besides the mind is choosing ideas.

How can you choose an idea if you don't even know what an idea is?

But this is all happening in your mind. The mind "choses" (maybe, maybe not), and the body remains a machine.

 

[untermensche]

We are aware of what is happening in the mind.

There is no good reason to think any of it is an illusion.

That is new-age nonsense.

 

[ryan]

We are aware of what is happening in the mind.

There is no good reason to think any of it is an illusion.

That is new-age nonsense.

I don't know how you can be confident in your certainty when the mind appears more so to be a ghost in the machine rather than a functional entity. I still believe that free will is possible, but it seems that no free will is possible too.

Why can't just be observers as a property of a body?

 

[untermensche]

How is one confused about wanting to say a certain thing then commanding the hands to type it out?

Where is the confusion?

 

[steve_bank]

We are aware of what is happening in the mind.

There is no good reason to think any of it is an illusion.

That is new-age nonsense.

I don't know how you can be confident in your certainty when the mind appears more so to be a ghost in the machine rather than a functional entity. I still believe that free will is possible, but it seems that no free will is possible too.

Why can't just be observers as a property of a body?

Tremendous gut wrenching belly laugh.

The endless questioning of one's own existence and reality. Your mind is but a fart in the cosmic wind.

 

[untermensche]

The mind, as far as we know, is the most interesting thing in the universe.

It is the only way anything has value.

 

[ryan]

How is one confused about wanting to say a certain thing then commanding the hands to type it out?

Where is the confusion?

I may be commanding my hands, but I am not so sure that my command is the cause. And sometimes I try to command my hand but it won't move if it asleep. We may just think our commands are effect the body

- - - Updated - - -

We are aware of what is happening in the mind.

There is no good reason to think any of it is an illusion.

That is new-age nonsense.

I don't know how you can be confident in your certainty when the mind appears more so to be a ghost in the machine rather than a functional entity. I still believe that free will is possible, but it seems that no free will is possible too.

Why can't just be observers as a property of a body?

Tremendous gut wrenching belly laugh.

The endless questioning of one's own existence and reality. Your mind is but a fart in the cosmic wind.

Why are you laughing? What does this have to do with what I said?

 

[untermensche]

If you can first think of a way you want your hand to move then have the hand move exactly as you intended on command what would make you doubt you are commanding the hand?

 

[ryan]

If you can first think of a way you want your hand to move then have the hand move exactly as you intended on command what would make you doubt you are commanding the hand?

Because the more we understand biology and chemistry applications to the body, the more we see the parts making these changes to itself in a causal way. The mind's effects are nowhere to be found.

 

[untermensche]

If you can first think of a way you want your hand to move then have the hand move exactly as you intended on command what would make you doubt you are commanding the hand?

Because the more we understand biology and chemistry applications to the body, the more we see the parts making these changes to itself in a causal way. The mind's effects are nowhere to be found.

Just because some humans have not found the mind that is no reason to think it isn't there.

The mind is that which experiences and knows it is experiencing as it is doing it.

If there is experience they has to be a mind.

 

[ryan]

If you can first think of a way you want your hand to move then have the hand move exactly as you intended on command what would make you doubt you are commanding the hand?

Because the more we understand biology and chemistry applications to the body, the more we see the parts making these changes to itself in a causal way. The mind's effects are nowhere to be found.

Just because some humans have not found the mind that is no reason to think it isn't there.

The mind is that which experiences and knows it is experiencing as it is doing it.

If there is experience they has to be a mind.

We both agree that the mind exists. The argument is more about its role, if any. The mind exists - no doubt - but I say right now one cannot be certain whether or not it has an effect on energy/matter.

 

[untermensche]

The mind is an evolved decision making device. It is an aid to survival in the here and now.

That is what it does.

And it makes decisions better than blind reflexes so it remained.

And anything that remains can be built upon.

 

[steve_bank]

I may be commanding my hands, but I am not so sure that my command is the cause. And sometimes I try to command my hand but it won't move if it asleep. We may just think our commands are effect the body

- - - Updated - - -

We are aware of what is happening in the mind.

There is no good reason to think any of it is an illusion.

That is new-age nonsense.

I don't know how you can be confident in your certainty when the mind appears more so to be a ghost in the machine rather than a functional entity. I still believe that free will is possible, but it seems that no free will is possible too.

Why can't just be observers as a property of a body?

Tremendous gut wrenching belly laugh.

The endless questioning of one's own existence and reality. Your mind is but a fart in the cosmic wind.

Why are you laughing? What does this have to do with what I said?

If your mind is a ghost, I do not believe in ghosts. Your type of speculations are a few centries behind. Brain operates by what we call chemistry. There are no demonstrations of mind being anything but based on brain chemistry and part of the brain.

At some point most rational people reach a conclusion based on observation and science, except for the religious and mystically inclined.

 

[ryan]

The mind is an evolved decision making device. It is an aid to survival in the here and now.

That is what it does.

And it makes decisions better than blind reflexes so it remained.

And anything that remains can be built upon.

Okay, but you have yet to provide evidence for the mind's physical control. It feels like our mind is causally connected to our body, but then again if I wanted the sun to come up every morning, I may think I have that power too. It may just be that the mind is the something that wants what the body is doing.

 

[untermensche]

The mind is an evolved decision making device. It is an aid to survival in the here and now.

That is what it does.

And it makes decisions better than blind reflexes so it remained.

And anything that remains can be built upon.

Okay, but you have yet to provide evidence for the mind's physical control. It feels like our mind is causally connected to our body, but then again if I wanted the sun to come up every morning, I may think I have that power too. It may just be that the mind is the something that wants what the body is doing.

You are right.

I have not done what thousands of scientists working full time for the last few decades have not done.

I have not explained what the mind is objectively.

But I still have no reason to doubt.

 

[ryan]

If your mind is a ghost, I do not believe in ghosts. Your type of speculations are a few centries behind. Brain operates by what we call chemistry. There are no demonstrations of mind being anything but based on brain chemistry and part of the brain.

At some point most rational people reach a conclusion based on observation and science, except for the religious and mystically inclined.

Do you believe that the mind emerges from processes in the brain? If you do, then how does the mind emerge from non-mental parts? Explain this, and I will stop calling it a ghost.

 

[ryan]

The mind is an evolved decision making device. It is an aid to survival in the here and now.

That is what it does.

And it makes decisions better than blind reflexes so it remained.

And anything that remains can be built upon.

Okay, but you have yet to provide evidence for the mind's physical control. It feels like our mind is causally connected to our body, but then again if I wanted the sun to come up every morning, I may think I have that power too. It may just be that the mind is the something that wants what the body is doing.

You are right.

I have not done what thousands of scientists working full time for the last few decades have not done.

I have not explained what the mind is objectively.

But I still have no reason to doubt.

So if you don't know what it is objectively, then how do you know the mind can affect the physical?

 

[untermensche]

You are right.

I have not done what thousands of scientists working full time for the last few decades have not done.

I have not explained what the mind is objectively.

But I still have no reason to doubt.

So if you don't know what it is objectively, then how do you know the mind can affect the physical?

I have no reason to doubt I am making my fingers type the letters I am choosing.

 

[ryan]

You are right.

I have not done what thousands of scientists working full time for the last few decades have not done.

I have not explained what the mind is objectively.

But I still have no reason to doubt.

So if you don't know what it is objectively, then how do you know the mind can affect the physical?

I have no reason to doubt I am making my fingers type the letters I am choosing.

All you have is a feeling or intuition. That is not enough to make a certain claim. You know from pharmacology that you need more than just positive results. You need to explain how it works.