What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Profound statements with no content. These are very common. I find them annoying because people find them so enthralling and yet because there is no content they cannot be refuted.

I don't like the article at all -- it's barely readable -- but I'm interested in your notion of 'profound statements with no content' and would like to discuss an example of your choice.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Does a DVD player understand what it is playing?
Does a printer understand the contents of a document it prints?

To the extent required by them, yes.

Will the Chat Roulette genital recognition algorithm comprehend the significance of the patterns it is designed to recognize?
Since the significance is relative, once could ask 'to what extent'. But I would say no, the algorithm would not comprehend the significance nor does that have anything to do with whether or not the patterns themselves have meaning, to the algorithm or us.

Am I correct in assuming that you consider creativity to be a mechanical operation?
Yes.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I don't like the article at all -- it's barely readable -- but I'm interested in your notion of 'profound statements with no content' and would like to discuss an example of your choice.

OK. Here is a clip of Obama giving off such empty, profound statements.

YouTube

OK, seriously...

Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

WTF does that mean? The Second Law of Thermodynamics reverses whenever there are no conscious beings in the area?

The mystery of life and death can't be examined by visiting the Galapagos or looking through a microscope. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves.

That is a very good example of what I am talking about. They are statements chosen for emotional impact and rhetorical value; to create the illusion in the listener that something important was said, when really nothing was actually said. It just sounds profound.

It might be thought provoking in a poetic sense, but not in an intellectual sense.

Originally posted by twhitehead

[b]Am I correct in assuming that you consider creativity to be a mechanical operation?
Yes.[/b]

This interests me. Please could you elaborate, using an example of a creative act by way of illustration?

Oh yes -- please also define what you mean by 'mechanical'. It seems that you consider practically everything to be mechanical in nature, so that you might just as well say 'natural'. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I don't like the article at all -- it's barely readable -- but I'm interested in your notion of 'profound statements with no content' and would like to discuss an example of your choice.

I often find that people claiming to be Buddhist, or with Buddhist leanings are good at profound statements with no content I can understand. Whether they do actually have content, I am never quite sure. However, I am always left wondering whether they intend to convey content to me - not realizing that they are not succeeding, or whether they just like sounding profound.

Perhaps they are purely right brained statements with zero left brain (i.e. explicit) content. This is not appropriate in science.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I often find that people claiming to be Buddhist, or with Buddhist leanings are good at profound statements with no content I can understand. Whether they do actually have content, I am never quite sure. However, I am always left wondering whether they intend to convey content to me - not realizing that they are not succeeding, or whether they just like sounding profound.

No doubt Buddhists are as liable to talk nonsense as anyone else.

Then again, texts such as the famous Zen koans are not intended to 'convey content'.

Nargajuna is said to be worth grappling with.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Perhaps they are purely right brained statements with zero left brain (i.e. explicit) content. This is not appropriate in science.

What are you referring to?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
This interests me. Please could you elaborate, using an example of a creative act by way of illustration?

Are you looking for an example in which no consciousness was involved?

Oh yes -- please also define what you mean by 'mechanical'. It seems that you consider practically everything to be mechanical in nature, so that you might just as well say 'natural'. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes I consider practically everything to be mechanical in nature. I am not sure what you mean by 'natural'. Is that as opposed to 'supernatural'?
By 'Mechanical' I imply that everything follows processes, and there is no magic going on. Specifically, for most trivial processes there is no difference between a human carrying it out or some mechanical device such as a computer or dvd player.
I am not sure why creativity has come into it. I thought we were talking about meaning.

I do think consciousness is something special, but I also realize it is grey edged. I know my cat is conscious, I am not so sure about my fish. Both can find meaning.
What about a worm? Its crawling along, and smells something. It knows that that smell means food. It has found meaning in a smell.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
What are you referring to?

The "profound statements without content" I am referring to, which I believe are the same as the Buddhist statements being discussed.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Are you looking for an example in which no consciousness was involved?

I'm not anticipating anything in particular -- just asking you to explain what you mean by saying that creativity is mechanical. Examples are always helpful if you can think of any. I don't want to prescribe any though as you are the teacher this evening.

Thanks for your explanation. The type of consciousness that I refer to by default is 'reflexive self-consciousness', 'the actualised capacity to cognitively refer to yourself' (as Metzinger puts it), rather than plain phenomenal experience. I tend to think that machines lack that capacity. So do not a few human beings, it seems. Not sure about worms, I wouldn't rule out the possibility ...

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
No doubt Buddhists are as liable to talk nonsense as anyone else.

Then again, texts such as the famous Zen koans are not intended to 'convey content'.

Nargajuna is said to be worth grappling with.

OK. Yes. That's what I'm talking about. The Zen koans are not intended to communicate left brain, explicit concepts, but rather right brain, abstract states of mind. This is perfectly valid for it's own purposes but it does not allows us to make scientifically precise determinations with respect to the material world.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
OK. Yes. That's what I'm talking about. The Zen koans are not intended to communicate left brain, explicit concepts, but rather right brain, abstract states of mind. This is perfectly valid for it's own purposes but it does not allows us to make scientifically precise determinations with respect to the material world.

I'm not sure anyone would recommend using Buddhist texts to build a space ship. But the concept of zero, first developed by Indian mathematicians ca. C6, would probably be useful.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
OK. Yes. That's what I'm talking about. The Zen koans are not intended to communicate left brain, explicit concepts, but rather right brain, abstract states of mind. This is perfectly valid for it's own purposes but it does not allows us to make scientifically precise determinations with respect to the material world.

No; koans are a specific technique that is used in order to ease the practitioner to shift permanently her/ his point of attention in order to focus at a given predetermined innefable status of being. And this phrase that I just wrote should be instantly discarted too because it is merely a map and not the territory.
Take koans out of their physical environment, which is a hard trained mind, and with an absurd content you will remain.

Koan to the Zen practitioner is nothing but the Boat that will get her/ him to the other side. And Zen is pure mind free of delusion
😵

Right. Koans are techniques for adjusting one's state of mind. They are not means of communicating precise, concrete ideas between people.

It drives me nuts when people try to use techniques to adjust my state of mind as though they were some kind of guru I needed enlightenment from when we're talking about science or other ideas involving careful analysis with controls for bias.

EDIT - In my opinion it is a often a rhetorical trick people use so that intelligent opposition cannot refute their false claims. It's a power play; the person is trying to maintain an intellectually superior attitude but their intellect can't back it up.