Depends I suppose, it would seem to be a way of the conscious mind entertaining itself and realizing wishes or fantasies.

Intresting idea actually, its like the conscious is somewhere else and the sub-conscious is aware. Opposed to REM where the sub-conscious shuts off sensory stimulai and stops all body movement.

Hmm its an intresting occurance, id like to hear your guys thoughts on this.

testing

weird.... I couldn't post nothing there for a second.... a blank white screen with the number 21 kept opening up.

Sarat Maharaj "xenoepistemics".... sorry, I can't seem to upload link.

Your number's up!
Several people have posted about this problem. Maybe Egypt man is hacking again.

I have not had a dream that I thought was real since I was 12...This leads me to believe that consciousness evolves in the individual. Perhapse your dreams seem real, because you are not true to your subconscious in your day to day life~ Once I started thinking for myself, and questioning rules and society I no longer had a new reality that existed in dreams.

As far as the touching of matter is concerned, obviouslty a scientist can say we never actually touch anything (weak force correct?), but Rick's antenna explination seemed very satisfactory to me, as well as the idea of interaction. The idea that matter does not exist seems very far fetched to me. At some point, there must be some whole unit (on the particle level) and no matter how small that unit may be, that unit is still matter (perhapse the smallest unit is simply energy).

to think of being human without art one should think about Malevich's principle of infection.

'Abstract Art Against Autonomy'

.... knowledge as a whole in which mind and body merge, diluting the Cartesian separation between the intellectual and sensory." A holistic notion that is shared by the Chilean Buddhist biologist Francisco Varela, authentic pioneer in scientific research on consciousness who in works such as El Árbol del Conocimiento and The Embodied Mind combines concepts from the pure sciences with ideas and experiences linked to diverse technologies of introspection (such as yoga or meditation)....

lol.... bloody palmy

Without my avatar this place feels so old school to me.... sweet, no associations!

old and .... dirrrty.

....I wonder what the 1st infection was?

Truth may be an opinion, but whose opinion is more valued?

..... does mass and energy warp the fabric of space-time?

.... a de-localized space, a zone that has lost its original local idiosyncrasy to develop a multiple, diffuse identity in the process of continual transformation ....

Whose relativity is more acuurate, more in tune with the pulse or the beat of the world?

Whose opperating at the right wavelenght, tapping into the right frequency?

.... vibrating strings?

I thought string "theory" was dead due to perennial and unforeseen lack of proof. At least that's what I heard last.

So, is our conscious flowing through time at two different speeds when we are dreaming? One, the percieved time during the dream. And two, the real time which went by, which we become aware of when we wake up and realized how much time went by while we were sleeping? Very often I get this feeling when I wake up in the morning that, somehow, I spent a lot less time sleeping and dreaming than I did in actuality.
Time is such a tricky thing in relationship to conciousness. It draggs-on forever when you're a kid or when you're bored. And goes by so quickly when you're sleeping, having fun or growing up in years. Heck, it feels like last xmas was six months ago, right now. But it's already back!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

I didn't study my Latin hard enough back there in high school, but I think that means, figuratively, "I'm putting the gun back in my coat."

~Let arms yield to the gown. Latin is great fun and useful to biologists/medics. I took it at school for several years and recently took a refresher course on tape.

"Audio, video, disco" - I'm off for a boogie!

Yep, I got it pretty close. I'll put my weapon away too.

No ones.

Holy, that was a lot of posts.

.... what type of mass creates what type of energy?

Why is 475 nm wavelength light blue? Why does 1+1=2? Questions without answer - not problems, but total mysteries...(or illegitimate questions?).

Those are simple questions to answer~ 473 nm wavelength light appears blue, because our mind percieve 473 nm wavelength light as "blue". 1+1=2 because we say it equals two.

1+1=2
2+2=4
4+4=13
4+1=10 nothing says we must use base 10

The number two is nothing more than a symbol that simply expresses a quantity--not mysterious at all.

Did you really answer the questions?

I suppose it was more of a short answer. I would say that our percieving 473nm wavelength light as blue is an evolutionary device--a means of categorizing. Blue and green are calming colors why? Well things in nature that we percieve to be blue or green tend to be calming (water, the sky, trees). Reds tend to be a natural warning sign (poisonous animals, blood). I'm still going to keep this to a short answer, but can you see where I am going with this?

As for 1+1=2, the answer is increadibly simply--once again it is a means of simplifying or categorizing. If I have an apple, and another apple, I have two apples. While it is not very complicated for small quantities, when I start talking about quantities in the millions it just makes sense to have some symbol for the quantity.

I would consider these to be real answers to the questions. A mysterious question would be something like, oh I don't know, why does anything exist in the first place? I find that most questions can be answered, except for the most essential questions, the foundation on which everything else stands. Sometimes it seems like the simpler the question the harder the answer...

I like the way you keep things so simple, Flex. I, for one, believe you. But thinking about thinking (philosophy) has made it a career out of complicating things for us. But in the end, I believe, we'll find out that maybe the ultimate answer (about life, consciousness, ect) is very simple; we were just making the question as complicated as humanly possible. and making things harder for ourselves in the process.

Poisonous dart frogs: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/dartfrog.htm So red as warning is far from being a generalization. For humans, blue ought to be a warning sign - blue sky - sunburn - ouch - don't do it again!

Many animals have blood that is not red (Earthworms, leeches, & insects have green blood. Starfish & many other invertebrates have colourless or yellow blood. Lobsters & crabs have blue blood as it contains copper instead of iron [any red present is probably from a bitten mammal]).

The red colour of haemoglobin is due to the oxidation state of the iron within a particular local environment (esp associated water) and, of course, especially related to oxygen binding. If red was a warning sign in the way I think you imply, then carnivores would be fainting all over the place!

Some interesting facts about colour vision:

• All humans are born colourblind (until about 4 months old).
  
• Colour vision is quite rare among vertebrates - humans/primates see colour, but most other mammals don't. Most fish & amphibians see colours; some birds & reptiles do. Unlike most insects, butterflies & bees have colour vision to guide them to plants.
  
• 5 million+ cones (the colour-sensitive cells) line the postage-stamp sized retina.

Are you talking about Quantum Physics here? Energy is energy, it can only be obtained or lost by atoms. Mass? Im a bit confused, are we talking about matter? about weight?

In terms of matter, the question really is which Element of matter produces BLANK amount of energy?

In terms of weight then it doesnt make sense, Energy is not reliant on the weight of something to produce the energy, Energy release can be very large from a very small amount of mass, like splitting an atom.

Believe it or not I do subscribe to a functionalist interpretation of consciousness, so I am also inclined to agree with Flex. In fact, I have always resided on the physicalist side of the spectrum (mostly as a functionalist, though I have also entertained the notion of eliminativism), however I have come to the opinion in recent years that the question of "experience" is not one that can be dismissed categorically, imo. I suppose this comes from my discontent over the degree of resolution that has been attained to date. The arguments do, after a while, tend to become obtuse and circular - color scientists, inverted qualia, zombies, etc. All of these "intuition pumps" seem to come back time and time again to the same basic dialog we are having above.

I am a functionalist, not because I am entirely convinced or satisfied with its framework, but because it represents the best conceptual model currently available. In the end, functionalism might be more than sufficient to explain cognition, with concepts such as "qualia" turning out to represent elements of reality that are actually mind independent.

But getting back to beating the dead horse, the inverted spectrum does seem to produce the functionalist counter point intuitions rather well.

Why is 475nm wave length light experienced by myself as blue and not green, or red, or yellow, etc. There is no explanation to this other than to say "because" which is effectively to subscribe to 1:1 correspondence (a difficult position to defend, just ask an identity theorist). Or, the other option is to dismiss the quesiton entirely by being eliminativist about the reality of qualitative experience (eg, Dennett's Quining Qualia).

Being a consummate outsider, and having no ivory tower to defend within academia, I am quite content to remain uncommitted on matters such as these. If the goal is to be true to myself, then any position taken must be stipulated as based on contingent truth.

Here's a clip from an interview between Robert Wright and Daniel Dennett which addresses the topic of consciousness and is also very relevant (in some ways almost identical) to the exchange we are having:

www.meaningoflife.tv/video.php?speaker=dennett&topic=conscious

Particles don't necessarily need mass to provide energy.

I have come to a conclusion very similar to this one, but probably for entirely different reasons. Can you please elaborate on this?

.... still in that 3-dimensional box, eh?

What happen's when we split neorons?

I use the term "experience" in different ways, both of which are germane to our discussion. The first deals with perceptual aspects of consciousness. The second refers to a particular means of acquiring knowledge.

I will try to address your question more directly when time permits.

Thank you. Please do, as I'm now intrigued by your answer and the two approaches you mention.

Humanity is the current wave of primary Art from the physical forces within the Universe. We are an outward and inward biological expression machine, a canvas, growing more complex with every new idea.
We are the Art and the Artist. The world is my muse and I am the art.


This question is a strange one. How do I know that what you call blue is not my red? Since being born you were told the sky, sea etc. is blue. If it looked red, you'd still call it blue. Maybe its entirely my perceptions of pleasure/pain that give the colour red its meaning. Maybe its entirely cultural.

Its more likely that your perception of blue is also my perception of blue, since we are both human and follow the same genetic pattern. But it is a philosophical question that has everything to do with our subjective realities.

Your the one that asked about mass and energy.

Alrighty after looking at those picture of poison dart frogs I will add more to my assumption of blue--anything that looks psychedelic will probably result in a psychedelic trip or death after ingesting I don't know about you, but when I look at that frog it screams poison~ As for fearing the sky beacause it is blue...well do I even have to say that would be a pretty stupid thing to do? You don't get a sun burn because the sky is blue, you get a sun burn from the sun. If anything you would fear the cloudy hot day which amplifies the suns rays without your knowing.

My point was that color has most likely developed as a social mechanism for classification. Girls tend to like pink, boys tend to like blue why? At birth girls are subject to pink and boys blue. If a boys favorite color was pink people would make fun of him. Colors opperate as symbols just like language. Why do we ask people what there favorite color is? Well it can sure tell you alot about the person.

Take it easy man, Hey Hey is a big joker around here. As for me, though, Blue is and has always been my favorite color. It even influences what sports teams I follow. And all the way to the clothes I wear.

Lol I got that HeyHey was joking, but it was a pretty good point for a joke so I felt a need to rebut

The first question is actually interesting and relevant to the "hard problem." It may have a solution some day, and if the hard problem is ever solved, the solution may be a trivial subset of the hard problem solution. Solving the "easy problem of consciousness" might even provide an answer. To dismiss it as a question without answer may be premature.

The second question is interesting too, but in a different way. At a superficial level, the question asks why is our symbolism constructed as it is. At a deeper level, the question asks if other ways of quantitive thinking are valid.

Code buttons, in regards to your query:

Entertain, for a moment, that it were somehow possible to interact with your younger self. The bond between the..."two" of you would be incredibly strong. You would know the younger you more intimately than anyone you have ever known in your life. Yet even with that level of intimacy, would it be possible to fully convey to him what has become your perspective of reality? Could you impart to him the wisdom that came from years of experience? -- The heart ache of breaking up with a great love, the exhilaration of achieving something that you put your heart and soul into, the joy and sorrow that accompanies the birth and death of loved ones...

"Experience" of this sort has gained a special place in my valuation of reality, but this wasn't always the case. As a fledgling philosopher I suckled exclusively off the tit of the analytic tradition. The continentals came off as gibberish (naturally) and for a long time I chose to avoid them at all cost. Only experiences of great significance managed to alter my perspective and let me realize how much I was a product of my time and place. Once this realization did hit me however, I became relentless.

So, I would argue that true wisdom is not just book knowledge, but also experential knowledge. Certainly part of the reason for this is the current media we use for communication. Words are not "things in themselves". These commicative limitations may partially change in the future if virtual reality technologies are developed, but not to any significant degree. I say this because an essential aspect of experience comes from the unique interaction of an agent with its environment. Two agents placed in identical environments may (and probably will) have very different experience. And thus I've come full circle to the conversation I linked to between Dennett and Wright over the nature of consciousness. The whole argument over epiphenomenalism is of very little interest to me, but the other point that Wright champions concerning the fundamentally subjective nature of consciousness is a crucial point, imo. I agree with Nagel in that I do not believe I could know, even in principle, what it is like to be a bat with echolocation. Of course, in the future it might be possible to perform various types of sensory augmentation that would allow me to experience echolocation, but I would still only be experiencing this as an augmented human being -- not as a bat! My point being that each cognition IS a unique neural pattern that performs its own unique interpretation of the functional relationship it maintains with the environment.*

*(Futurist duplication scenarios involving molecular nanomanufacturing are sometimes viewed as a complication of this issue, but I tend to see those thought experiments as a separate matter involving identity and its corresponding values.)

I agree with you wholeheartedly, as I've come to the same conclusion myself. From my own experience, and the way in which I view my interaction with reality, I feel that I am becoming a better man the closer and closer I come to full circle down the pathway of life.

I wonder if the path that has taken us this far down the evolutionary road can be considered experience as well. Which would entail a knowledge (the knowledge of experience), which we all carry somewhere in us (in our brains maybe, or our genes?) due to just being part of being here and now. And how could you measure that knowledge? Where is it represented in words, or measurable, meaninful symbols (besides the obvious: the common language of science)? What do you think? Silly question, maybe?

I don't think it's a silly question at all.

Have you considered the implications of evolutionary psychology?

Wiki: Evolutionary Psychology

Discussions of evolutionary psychology have taken place all over BM, in various guises, and it is one of the most frustrating subdisciplines of psychology due to the empirical evidence issues. But this latter point is complicated further still - see the wikipedia article above. The final paragraph ends:

Another criticism regarding empirical evidence is a perceived lack of cross-cultural proofs. Many empirical studies come from a single culture. In these cases it is unknown if discoveries hold across all cultures.

We often discuss faith issues on BM, and the how empirical evidence fares in the context of religions, but we have not explored the cultural contexts well, if at all. Any of us who are scientists will need to get to grips with this, maybe especially if we are involved in science education.

Thanks for reminding us of the wikipedia article. It has opened a new area for me, at least, to think about [cross-cultural proofs].