Consciousness and free will

[arahant]

I've seen both consciousness and free will mentioned repeatedly in several recent threads related to theism, so i thought I'd solicit opinions. I'm sure, of course, that this has all been covered before, but i know y'all like to talk, so...

I'm a materialist at heart.
What reason do I have to believe in free will?
What reason do I have to place some mystical significance in consciousness?

To me, it's almost obvious both that traditional free will doesn't exist, and that consciousness is nothing special and certainly not in need of explanation ('mind is what brain does').

Are there any scientific or philosophical arguments that should lead me to believe otherwise? I assume peoples understanding of these things derives from their personal perceived experience,no?

[Phil153]

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I'm a materialist at heart.

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Then you're probably only using part of the functionality your brain offers.

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What reason do I have to believe in free will?

[/ QUOTE ]
Reductio ad absurdum.

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What reason do I have to place some mystical significance in consciousness?

[/ QUOTE ]
None, but it's pretty strange if you really think about it.

[evolvedForm]

To speak to your question on consciousness:

Consciousness need not be looked upon as mystical. Nor should we discount it as Nietzsche and many cognitive psychologists have done. It is vital to all significance in our lives, that much is clear. Also, we cannot explain all human action without it. Would you make the same decisions after reading Shakespeare as you did before reading Shakespeare? Would you think the same thoughts? It seems clear to me that were it not for awareness of the text, we would not act in accordance with it.

Furthermore, even if you argue that we could absorb it in the subconscious without consciousness, that does not explain that we can consciously place a certain importance on something - say a random, unimportant thing - and remember it years later. (I have done this and it works). Consciousness is indeed important.

[vhawk01]

I'd just throw a lot of 'yet's in there, evolved.

[Skidoo]

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I'm a materialist at heart.

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What is matter, really?

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What reason do I have to believe in free will?

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You know it if you got it.

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What reason do I have to place some mystical significance in consciousness?

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Consciousness can't be described in terms of physical phenomena (though it is effected by them).

[vhawk01]

Those are a lot of bold (read:unsupported) assertions.

[The once and future king]

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What reason do I have to believe in free will?

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Big assumption right there. The assumption of a unified identity is allways present in the question of consciousness and free will.

[FortunaMaximus]

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I'm a materialist at heart.

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Well, you need material to create matter out of what you want in mind. So that's cool.

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What reason do I have to believe in free will?

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None at all. There should be layers of control, but there isn't ultimate free will. Well, the structure collapses upon itself, because primates have control over other primates, and sometimes it flips.

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What reason do I have to place some mystical significance in consciousness?

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About the same amount of reason you should place on feeling and love. They amount to the same thing, after all.

[Skidoo]

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The assumption of a unified identity is allways present in the question of consciousness and free will.

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Is there more than one you? If so, can you communicate with each other?

[keith123]

free will doesn't exist in the way most people think of it. it is merely the ability to act upon the decisions that we are predestined to make. we do not have the ability to make choices in life that are independent of (1) the traits with which we are born, (2) anything learned/developed through our enviornment, and (3) anything granted to us directly by some sort of higher power.

[Skidoo]

Are you saying there's an invisible force compelling me to type these words?

[The once and future king]

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The assumption of a unified identity is allways present in the question of consciousness and free will.

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Is there more than one you? If so, can you communicate with each other?

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Now you are just making the assumption of many unified identities.

[The once and future king]

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Are you saying there's an invisible force compelling me to type these words?

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If the motivation for you to type these words is visible, please describe it us.

[Skidoo]

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The assumption of a unified identity is allways present in the question of consciousness and free will.

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Is there more than one you? If so, can you communicate with each other?

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Now you are just making the assumption of many unified identities.

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I'm not sure what a dis-unified personal identity would look like.

[Skidoo]

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Are you saying there's an invisible force compelling me to type these words?

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If the motivation for you to type these words is visible, please describe it us.

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It's not visible, but I have no reason to suspect it originates outside of me.

[vhawk01]

Wouldnt he take exception to both the "I" and "me" in that statement?

[valenzuela]

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free will doesn't exist in the way most people think of it. it is merely the ability to act upon the decisions that we are predestined to make. we do not have the ability to make choices in life that are independent of (1) the traits with which we are born, (2) anything learned/developed through our enviornment, and (3) anything granted to us directly by some sort of higher power.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

[Skidoo]

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Wouldnt he take exception to both the "I" and "me" in that statement?

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What a show-stopper.

[vhawk01]

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Wouldnt he take exception to both the "I" and "me" in that statement?

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What a show-stopper.

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I'm not sure if that was some shot at me or if you don't know what a show-stopper is.

[DougShrapnel]

Keith, I believe you are right more so then people who say free will exist or free will doesn't exist. Howerver, the choice of the word predestined is lacking in reason if you hold the thoughts you appear to have. It's a minor nit but important.

[John21]

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What reason do I have to believe in free will?

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Big assumption right there. The assumption of a unified identity is allways present in the question of consciousness and free will.

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Are you saying that I can't declare a self-evident axiom (I am), or that there's no place for it in the scientific method?

[Skidoo]

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Wouldnt he take exception to both the "I" and "me" in that statement?

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What a show-stopper.

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I'm not sure if that was some shot at me or if you don't know what a show-stopper is.

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No cheap shot intended. Someone's got to 'splain how I am not me or some such rhetorical bovine excrement.

[thylacine]

arahant said:[ QUOTE ]
I've seen both consciousness and free will mentioned repeatedly in several recent threads related to theism, so i thought I'd solicit opinions. I'm sure, of course, that this has all been covered before, but i know y'all like to talk, so...

I'm a materialist at heart.
What reason do I have to believe in free will?
What reason do I have to place some mystical significance in consciousness?

To me, it's almost obvious both that traditional free will doesn't exist, and that consciousness is nothing special and certainly not in need of explanation ('mind is what brain does').

Are there any scientific or philosophical arguments that should lead me to believe otherwise? I assume peoples understanding of these things derives from their personal perceived experience,no?

[/ QUOTE ]

I am an atheist, naturalist, materialist, etc.

It is self-evident that consciousness exists. I would be very interested to hear an explanation of consciousness, but I have never heard any thoroughly convincing explanation but I expect any explanation to be completely consistent with my atheism, naturalism, materialism, etc. I would not recognize anything inconsistent with those isms as being an explanation at all. An atheistic, naturalistic, materialistic explanation could certainly include utterly novel ideas though.

I definitely believe that free will exists. If we had no free will, then we would be just helplessly and powerlessly watching reality unfold, with absolutely no control whatsoever over anything. I find that utterly ludicrous. I cannot absolutely prove that free will exists, but it is certainly obvious that it is pointless to not believe that free will exists.

[MaxWeiss]

I don't get how consciousness is still being debated. Any small investigation into swarm intelligence and neurophysiology reveals how consciousness arises in these purely materials things, like our complex brains. It's not a mystery people.

And as far as free will--well you will have natural tendencies and biases, most of which you will be unaware which leads to individual human free will, but on a larger more general scale I will be inclined to argue that Issac Asimov had the right idea with psychohistory---the science of predicting the (general) future based on the probabilities associated with human tendency (probability), even if an individual still posses free will.

[keith123]

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Are you saying there's an invisible force compelling me to type these words?

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well what caused you to type those words? something outside of who you are, what you've learned/experienced, and any intervention from a higher power?

[Skidoo]

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Are you saying there's an invisible force compelling me to type these words?

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well what caused you to type those words? something outside of who you are, what you've learned/experienced, and any intervention from a higher power?

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Funny coincidence that you would post that just as I'm checking this thread.

I, through my intention, caused myself to type those words.

Conscious agency is not reducible to more elementary components.

[keith123]

how did you derive at that intention?

[Skidoo]

Free choice does not have deterministic antecedents.

[keith123]

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Free choice does not have deterministic antecedents.

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there is no reason why you make choices?

[Skidoo]

Nothing deterministic.

[keith123]

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Not at all. If fact, it's a tautology.

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i edited before your response, sorry.

[FortunaMaximus]

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I don't get how consciousness is still being debated. Any small investigation into swarm intelligence and neurophysiology reveals how consciousness arises in these purely materials things, like our complex brains. It's not a mystery people.

And as far as free will--well you will have natural tendencies and biases, most of which you will be unaware which leads to individual human free will, but on a larger more general scale I will be inclined to argue that Issac Asimov had the right idea with psychohistory---the science of predicting the (general) future based on the probabilities associated with human tendency (probability), even if an individual still posses free will.

[/ QUOTE ]

QQFT, kid.

I only read a few volumes. His style's a little dry when it stretches over a series, but his ideas rock.

Hum. That planet that was a city. Whoa. If that's to be the final structure of the Universe... Amazing. Good read on the ideal, btw.

K.

[John21]

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I don't get how consciousness is still being debated. Any small investigation into swarm intelligence and neurophysiology reveals how consciousness arises in these purely materials things, like our complex brains. It's not a mystery people.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're interested, this is a great article (paper) on emergence: National Academy of Sciences - Laughlin - Theory of Everything (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/1/28)

Overview from Laughlin's book.
"Not since Richard Feynman has a Nobel Prize-winning physicist written with as much panache as Robert Laughlin does in this revelatory and essential book. Laughlin proposes nothing less than a new way of understanding fundamental laws of science. In this age of superstring theories and Big-Bang cosmology, we're used to thinking of the unknown as being impossibly distant from our everyday lives. The edges of science, we're told, lie in the first nanofraction of a second of the Universe's existence, or else in realms so small that they can't be glimpsed even by the most sophisticated experimental techniques. But we haven't reached the end of science, Laughlin argues-only the end of reductionist thinking. If we consider the world of emergent properties instead, suddenly the deepest mysteries are as close as the nearest ice cube or grain of salt. And he goes farther: the most fundamental laws of physics-such as Newton's laws of motion and quantum mechanics -are in fact emergent. They are properties of large assemblages of matter, and when their exactness is examined too closely, it vanishes into nothing."

[soon2bepro]

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Are there any scientific or philosophical arguments that should lead me to believe otherwise?

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There are, but none is anything but a bunch of crap so far.


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I assume peoples understanding of these things derives from their personal perceived experience,no?

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Everything a person is derives mostly from their personal experience (and genetic info). In this case, as in most others, it is evident that the reluctance to adopt a skeptic position derives from people's subjectivity and their inability to make good use of reason without being bound by their feelings and desires.

[soon2bepro]

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free will doesn't exist in the way most people think of it. it is merely the ability to act upon the decisions that we are predestined to make. we do not have the ability to make choices in life that are independent of (1) the traits with which we are born, (2) anything learned/developed through our enviornment, and (3) anything granted to us directly by some sort of higher power.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.

Though I don't like the way you word it. It may sound stupid to some readers.

[soon2bepro]

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Are you saying there's an invisible force compelling me to type these words?

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If the motivation for you to type these words is visible, please describe it us.

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LOL! Very nice reply!! /images/graemlins/laugh.gif /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[The once and future king]

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Someone's got to 'splain how I am not me or some such rhetorical bovine excrement.


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Yet you have yet to muster any exaplantion of what "I" means. Also note that at no point did I say how "I" am not me. I just said that you were making unfounded assumptions about what I is and means.

Do you think that if we cut away from all the emotions thoughts memories cravings and aversions that comprise you we will arrive at some central command point that is detached and isolated from all the former and is the seat of Field Marshal Free will of Skidoo, the great I?

No, rather your being is a great amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language. Out of this stuff emerges points of awareness,consciousness, or moments of Iness. Each of the moments is unique and has no direct relation to any former moment of Iness or any proceeding. The Iness has no primary controll over the qualities that are emergent within it, this is why you are subject to moods, tiredness, alertness , emotions and rationality.

However there is the will. The will can effect proceeding qualities to a degree but is never free to totaly determine them and indeed to select the nature of the qualities themselves. In most people and at most times the will is overwhelmed quite easily by emergent qualities such as anger, craving, fear etc. It also to be noted also that the will is also an emergent quality in and of itself and is not allways present in equal degrees from moment to moment.

The I as you describe it the last vestige in secular thought of religous thinking. It is realy a soul: Prestine, untouchable and indivisible.

[Skidoo]

You have all the ingredients without assembling them.

In fact, the "central command point" can be more or less identified with the intentional subject free to act without predetermination, to the extent that such freedom exists.

[Praxis101]

[ QUOTE ]

Consciousness need not be looked upon as mystical. Nor should we discount it as Nietzsche and many cognitive psychologists have done. It is vital to all significance in our lives, that much is clear. Also, we cannot explain all human action without it. Would you make the same decisions after reading Shakespeare as you did before reading Shakespeare? Would you think the same thoughts? It seems clear to me that were it not for awareness of the text, we would not act in accordance with it.

Furthermore, even if you argue that we could absorb it in the subconscious without consciousness, that does not explain that we can consciously place a certain importance on something - say a random, unimportant thing - and remember it years later. (I have done this and it works). Consciousness is indeed important.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with everything you say, except I don't see where Nietzsche "discounts consciousness," and I got the impression that he himself indeed recognized this same value in it.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't get how consciousness is still being debated. Any small investigation into swarm intelligence and neurophysiology reveals how consciousness arises in these purely materials things, like our complex brains. It's not a mystery people.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're interested, this is a great article (paper) on emergence: National Academy of Sciences - Laughlin - Theory of Everything (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/1/28)

Overview from Laughlin's book.
"Not since Richard Feynman has a Nobel Prize-winning physicist written with as much panache as Robert Laughlin does in this revelatory and essential book. Laughlin proposes nothing less than a new way of understanding fundamental laws of science. In this age of superstring theories and Big-Bang cosmology, we're used to thinking of the unknown as being impossibly distant from our everyday lives. The edges of science, we're told, lie in the first nanofraction of a second of the Universe's existence, or else in realms so small that they can't be glimpsed even by the most sophisticated experimental techniques. But we haven't reached the end of science, Laughlin argues-only the end of reductionist thinking. If we consider the world of emergent properties instead, suddenly the deepest mysteries are as close as the nearest ice cube or grain of salt. And he goes farther: the most fundamental laws of physics-such as Newton's laws of motion and quantum mechanics -are in fact emergent. They are properties of large assemblages of matter, and when their exactness is examined too closely, it vanishes into nothing."

[/ QUOTE ]


What Robert Laughlin basically says in his book (and the linked article) is that his personal area of scientific expertise is all that matters in science. He is saying that there is nothing worthwhile to be discovered in fundamental physics, and he is dismissing in advance any future discoveries in fundamental physics as irrelevant, since Robert Laughlin has already uncovered the secret of the universe. Robert Laughlin's arrogance makes his book virtually unreadable, which is a pity since the subject is very interesting. Also, his arguments against reductionism are actually incredibly weak.

[DonkBluffer]

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No, rather your being is a great amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language. Out of this stuff emerges points of awareness,consciousness, or moments of Iness. Each of the moments is unique and has no direct relation to any former moment of Iness or any proceeding. The Iness has no primary controll over the qualities that are emergent within it, this is why you are subject to moods, tiredness, alertness , emotions and rationality.


[/ QUOTE ]
ORLY?

So what I am is an "amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language"?

Well, that clears that up. No longer need to wonder 'Who or what am I?' lol

[The once and future king]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

No, rather your being is a great amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language. Out of this stuff emerges points of awareness,consciousness, or moments of Iness. Each of the moments is unique and has no direct relation to any former moment of Iness or any proceeding. The Iness has no primary controll over the qualities that are emergent within it, this is why you are subject to moods, tiredness, alertness , emotions and rationality.


[/ QUOTE ]
ORLY?

So what I am is an "amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language"?

Well, that clears that up. No longer need to wonder 'Who or what am I?' lol

[/ QUOTE ]

Again with the assumption. Its overpowering your ability to read. Where do I say I am = AMBOS. I say BEING = AMBOS.

Being and I are very differnt things.

[DonkBluffer]

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No, rather your being is a great amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language. Out of this stuff emerges points of awareness,consciousness, or moments of Iness. Each of the moments is unique and has no direct relation to any former moment of Iness or any proceeding. The Iness has no primary controll over the qualities that are emergent within it, this is why you are subject to moods, tiredness, alertness , emotions and rationality.


[/ QUOTE ]
ORLY?

So what I am is an "amorphous blob of stuff determined and mediated by symbology e.g. language"?

Well, that clears that up. No longer need to wonder 'Who or what am I?' lol

[/ QUOTE ]

Again with the assumption. Its overpowering your ability to read. Where do I say I am = AMBOS. I say BEING = AMBOS.

Being and I are very differnt things.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not in my vocabulary. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

'I am' is the only 'being' I know.

[MaxWeiss]

I am not equipped to respond as I really don't know that much about the topic and the stuff in that link is way over my head.

However, I am already skeptical of anybody who, after knowing how far we have come in science, truly believes we are somehow close to a theory of everything or even that all our laws can be derived from one. This is another flaw due to human bias. Too bad they compared him to Feynman, who likened nature to a chess game, where there's just a set of rules that we have, and they may or may not be related, or related in an understandable way with regards to our current knowledge.

If you understand what was said in the paper and what all this means, if you could explain it in more layman terms, I would appreciate it! Also, please expand on your last two sentences, I don't quite understand what you (or the theory) is saying! If I can at least grasp the concept, I think I will have enough that I can come up with a response, even if it's you're right and I'm wrong (though of course I'm not leaning towards that conclusion!!!)

[MaxWeiss]

This I like!

[MaxWeiss]

What's QQFT?

[Skidoo]

Quantum Quantum Field Theory. It's QFT with sugar on it.

[FortunaMaximus]

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What's QQFT?

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<chuckles> Ah, just somethin' that makes the round table look like a walk in the [censored]' park.

Split the letters in half. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Take it easy.

K.

Edited to add: Thanks, skidoo.

[John21]

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I don't quite understand what you (or the theory) is saying! If I can at least grasp the concept...

[/ QUOTE ]

Conceptually he's saying: the theory of relativity is caused by things - it's not the cause of things. He's also saying that Newtonian physics are caused by matter, and that the laws governing interactions - result from the matter. Concluding that there are emergent properties and/or processes to the interaction of things we can never understand by simply understanding the things better (reductionism).

I'm not ignoring thylacine's comments. But I think a little context needs to be presented. Laughlin was awarded the Nobel prize - he's not considered a dullard by his peers, and he does have a genuine concern for the direction mainstream theoretical physics is taking. And just like David Bohm, who was at one time considered the second coming of Einstein, they have been ostracized and branded as heretics, once they stepped out of line.

You can determine your own opinions, but the one thing that the theories of Laughlin and Bohm have in common is their dependence on an underlying wholeness. Wholeness (oneness) flies directly into the face of reductionism and materialism.

But no matter how you resolve the question in your own mind the idea that "relativity is caused by things and not the cause of things."
Or David Bohm's concept that the current relativistic theories in physics describe the whole of reality in terms of a process whose ultimate element is a point event - can be looked at differently. There remains the possibility that the basic element (quanta?) be a 'moment' which, like a moment of consciousness, cannot be precisely related to measurements of space.

At least as far as I can follow the debate you have one camp trying to define the plank epoch in length extended in space and another trying to define it with time. The former at least has a shot at being provable, the latter? How could we possibly define/prove a 'moment' in time?

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
but there isn't ultimate free will

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely disagree. And as proof I would offer up the way and times you change your avatars. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[MaxWeiss]

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There remains the possibility that the basic element (quanta?) be a 'moment' which, like a moment of consciousness, cannot be precisely related to measurements of space.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh yeah, I heard something about that many years ago; somebody was arguing that time was individual moments and we are traveling through them in a similar way we travel through space. This, again, seems more philosophical to me, unless there is some kind of data to add to the equation which necessitates this type of view.

You ask how we can define a moment in time. Well how can we define a piece of space either?? One foot (or other unit of measure) comprises the distance between point A and B. One minute comprises the time between events A and B. Conceptually that isn't hard for me to get, so I am having trouble understanding what your difficulty with it is.

The biggest problem I think there is in current physics is a need for many scientists, and people at large, to have a working theory which also conforms to our intuitive conceptual grasp of the world, but to me that just doesn't seem necessary. As you probably guessed, I am a fan of Dawkin's newest book, and he makes a point in it about how our brains are wired to understand the medium sized world in which we operate, and these odd things that happen in the very large and very small orders of magnitude are not odd in any way, they just seem odd to us, not having experienced life at those sizes. He proposed an idea where children's games which operate at a quantum mechanical level should be played and that hopefully those children will have a greater intuitive understanding of nature at that level and come up with brilliant new theories.

I also want to state that I think it is naive to assume we know enough about nature at large to encompass all our theories into one unified theory of everything. That seems silly. What cherished beliefs (in science) do we hold that we will laugh at in the (near??) future. A thousand years ago, it was reasonable to believe, based on evidence, that the earth was flat. Without the technology to see things at a different scale, all the evidence points to that being true. The ground does seem flat. But again, that is the beauty and indeed the nature of science, to self-correct. Though I personally don't understand/agree with the Nobel prize winning guy you are talking about, it is very important for scientists to challenge EVERYTHING and NOT to immediately accept or reject what seem like obvious ideas, because without deviating from the accepted norm, no progress in the way of self-correction can be made. His theory may turn out to be wrong and people may laugh at him, but even if one in a thousand like him are right, they are better serving the ultimate purpose of science.

The goal of science is not to provide answers, but to continually ask better questions. (oooohhhhhh, deep.)

[John21]

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The goal of science is not to provide answers, but to continually ask better questions. (oooohhhhhh, deep.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that's the problem a lot of people have with science. Whenever an answer is found two or more questions emerge. There seems to be a need for certainty that humans crave, and science is not the best appetizer.

As far as Dawkin's goes, I've read his books and I have problem with "The God Delusion." In my mind he's throwing the baby out with the bath-water, because to me the way I see it, the baby's 'god is love' and the bath-water is 'religion'. My problem with what he had to say is that I feel this deep affinity towards the baby (God), but I can't ignore his arguments and the conclusion he reached that the bath-water (religion) has become toxic.

My first reaction to reading his latest book was that the guy went on monkey-tilt. But after thinking about it for awhile, I can see what he means by saying that if we grant this blanket immunity in Western Civilization to religion we by necessity of the case must grant it to all cultures and their religions. And what is plenty obvious with radical Islam, the consequences of doing so are not good.

So in my desire to save this baby from the bath-water my thinking is Christianity should follow a similar path that the Eastern religions like Buddhism have trodden. How this will happen is another question, but I think it's one that will ultimately be settled internally.

[51cards]

If God is love and nothing more, like a sick sadistic bastard who gives people an excuse to commit more sick sadistic acts, then why do we need another word for love?

If you wanna say, "What's wrong with synonyms, lots of words have synomyms, go buy a thesaurus, etc, etc" then why is God capitalized?

'God is love' is crap. Stop using it as an excuse to cling to one last vestige of some ancient myths.

Throw the baby out.


Afterthought: I just realized you might not have meant God = love. If so, explain what you mean by is.

[51cards]

If you want to defend the baby I'm still listening.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to defend the baby I'm still listening.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll take a shot at it.

The way I see it, there are two ways of looking at absolute reality. We can look at it as a whole composed of parts or a bunch of parts that make up the whole. For simplicity sake, lets consider a house. We can say the house is made up of a bunch of parts or the parts make up what we call a house. This might seem like pure semantics, but I would argue it goes beyond that.

And the reason I'd say it extends beyond semantics is in how we ultimately end up describing the relationships among the parts. If we consider that the parts make up the whole, we are in a sense left with the task of explaining how or why a support pillar interacts in the way it does with a roof truss - with no context to place the interaction in.

However, when we look at it in the context of the 'whole' house, we can see the relevance or purpose of the interactions. And more to my point, we can see an inherent harmony that exists, that we could not deduce from looking at a sum of parts.

The reason I choose to look at ultimate reality from the perspective of the whole composed of parts, is because it allows me to deduce an inter-connectedness and harmony between the parts, I couldn't infer by simply looking at the parts alone.

It's that inter-connectedness and harmony I refer to as love, and I can't reach this conclusion following the other path, for me it's a spiritual dead-end.

Maybe you see all this a being illogical and irrational - I can understand that. Ultimately, science and religion come to an impasse, because spirituality is founded on an entirely subjective axiom that science rejects - namely, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
spirituality is founded on an entirely subjective axiom that science rejects - namely, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Modern science is based on that axiom.

[John21]

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Modern science is based on that axiom. Do you see why?

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No.

"The scientist subconsciously, almost inadvertently, simplifies the problem of understanding Nature by disregarding or cutting out of the picture to be constructed, himself, his own personality, the subject of cognizance. That is exactly the reason why the scientific picture of the world does not itself contain any ethical values; nothing about esthetics, no word of our ultimate aims and destiny."
-Schrodinger

[madnak]

Schrodinger's right. That says nothing about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The entire concept of emergence is basically the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, that based on the specific arrangement of its parts the whole can perform functions that none of its parts are able to perform, even in combination.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
Schrodinger's right. That says nothing about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The entire concept of emergence is basically the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, that based on the specific arrangement of its parts the whole can perform functions that none of its parts are able to perform, even in combination.

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I understand your point, but my question is can we get from emergence to meaning? Or phrased another way, can we find meaning without looking for it?

I'm just having a hard time grasping how a subjective experience can 'emerge'. How can the beauty I see in a painting be an emergent property of paint and canvas?