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-- Hearing quality and musical taste [this be sereyus thred]
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Originally posted by nefardec nefardec = material is an instance of consciousness i do imply some form of objective reality. this is why i said before that system-j's everything is made of matter position is not that different than mine. one is the chicken, one is the egg

I don't believe he said that everything is made of matter. Rather, these things (i.e. thinking, consciousness, etc) is a manifestation of material interactions, which in turn does not necessitate them to be material.

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I don't have a fear of dinosaurs, but I can think plenty of instances in my life where I have been afraid of something. All fear is imaginary.

Depending on your definition of imaginary, this doesn't make too much sense. Fear is "imaginary" in the sense that it is not material. I would use the term "not physically real" rather than imaginary. Aside from this though, I don't know exactly what you are bringing home with this statement. I could go off on a rant telling you exactly why and when fear is induced and why a person exhibits fear. To me, this makes fear a very "real" thing.

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Originally posted by nefardec All fear is imaginary.

Can you please explain in concrete terms what you mean by that statement?

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Originally posted by nefardec but fear isn't. that's the important part. the things we fear are just things, right?

Well, for me fear is as much a series of events in your brain, a series of physical reactions, the release of a series of hormones. The essence, the feeling of fear, is not entirely cerebral. Far from it. Equally, it's possible to say a man eating tiger is just "a thing", but I doubt you'd be so philosophical when you're being eaten by one.

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Originally posted by habman6 I don't believe he said that everything is made of matter. Rather, these things (i.e. thinking, consciousness, etc) is a manifestation of material interactions, which in turn does not necessitate them to be material.

I don't think that our "life essence" if you like- the sensation of living- is just material but like you said I believe that sensation is the manifestation of material interactions and as such is not transcendental. To me the idea of a transcendental soul is old fashioned. I believe in sensation but why would we ever think that sensation could be divorced from the organs and stimulii that prompt it?

I have all sorts of problems with the idea of a soul. The idea it only takes a split condom to create one and then it's there forever. The question of training when it comes to stillborn babies or miscarriages. Does a day old baby spend all eternity with an infant's mind and consequently an infant's soul? If not, and if our training goes on after this existence, what is the point of this existence? I'd like to believe in the idea of a reincarnated soul, but there's far too many problems with that too. I just can't get behind the idea.

I can't see anything to make me believe in sensation divorced from the corporeal. Just can't see it.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Well, for me fear is as much a series of events in your brain, a series of physical reactions, the release of a series of hormones. I have all sorts of problems with the idea of a soul. The idea it only takes a split condom to create one and then it's there forever

I also see such things as physical reactions, but what I am interested is the actual information, not the mechanism.

It's your conception of a soul that is the old fashioned, IMO.

I don't believe that individual things have separate souls. I think rather they are part of one pervasive consciousness, and it is a matter of being aware of that or not that allows an individual to snap out of his trance and transcend the material world. I don't think it's possible to become aware like this without science helping us tremendously (as I expect it will) or without being a saint lol.

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Originally posted by Domesticated Can you please explain in concrete terms what you mean by that statement?

I will try to explain: suppose someone has a fear that his girlfriend is cheating on him. whether or not his girlfriend is actually cheating on him, there is an imagination, an image in his mind which results in the release of certain chemicals in the body that create the bodily sensation/phenomenon of fear. It always comes down to that thought.

But where does his thought, his logic come from? To a degree it may be informed by memory or cultural expectations. I don't know that you could explain it away as some sort of pheromone...

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Originally posted by nefardec But where does his thought, his logic come from? To a degree it may be informed by memory or cultural expectations. I don't know that you could explain it away as some sort of pheromone...

I see what you're saying, but you could say the same about any human emotion/instinct. I think they all have a hard-wired material basis within the brain, i.e matter creates these emotions and feelings.

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Originally posted by Domesticated I see what you're saying, but you could say the same about any human emotion/instinct. I think they all have a hard-wired material basis within the brain, i.e matter creates these emotions and feelings.

i dont know enough about the emotional mechanisms of the brain (hopefully PETRAN will post).

This indeed be sereyus thread. Hearing quality to the nature of reality.

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Originally posted by nefardec I will try to explain: suppose someone has a fear that his girlfriend is cheating on him. whether or not his girlfriend is actually cheating on him, there is an imagination, an image in his mind which results in the release of certain chemicals in the body that create the bodily sensation/phenomenon of fear. It always comes down to that thought. But where does his thought, his logic come from? To a degree it may be informed by memory or cultural expectations. I don't know that you could explain it away as some sort of pheromone...

You are just missing a simple but important step.

"an image in his mind which results in the release of certain chemicals etc."

Certain 'chemicals' also precede the image, and are in fact the cause of the image in his mind.

"To a degree it may be informed by memory or cultural expectations."

I would argue, from a neuroscience point of view, that it may arise ENTIRELY from memory/environmental responses of some sort. This, of course, only begs the question: is everything simply reactionary, or does true volition exist?

Anyone ever notice after a sick club or festival/rave experience you are totally overwhelmed and your musical taste slightly change ?

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Originally posted by delusional Anyone ever notice after a sick club or festival/rave experience you are totally overwhelmed and your musical taste slightly change ?

No, most of the time I was too tired or having a headacke to notice anything at all.

Seriously, if this would be the first time you experience something new this is very likely to happen. But it doesn't mean that you like something less which you liked before.

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Originally posted by habman6 You are just missing a simple but important step. "an image in his mind which results in the release of certain chemicals etc." Certain 'chemicals' also precede the image, and are in fact the cause of the image in his mind. "To a degree it may be informed by memory or cultural expectations." I would argue, from a neuroscience point of view, that it may arise ENTIRELY from memory/environmental responses of some sort.

+1. I'm with you and System-J on this one.

Also, I think that whether it's volitional or not is irrelevant to the argument you're making, because regardless, both arise from physical changes that occur in the brain. Whether fear or another emotion is in response to exogenous or endogenous processes doesn't change the fact that it's physiological in nature.

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Originally posted by habman6 Haha sorry bro, my mistake. ID is definitely not for IDiots.

Hey, at least they're modern enough to let females into the program! Like me.

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Originally posted by Trance-MB No, most of the time I was too tired or having a headacke to notice anything at all. Seriously, if this would be the first time you experience something new this is very likely to happen. But it doesn't mean that you like something less which you liked before.

True, but I still say that seeing Adam Beyer for the first time converted me forever into a techno person. I've listened to very little trance since.

That is because techno>trance... lol

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Originally posted by delusional That is because techno>trance... lol

house>techno>trance lol

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Originally posted by PETRAN Hey freak...i enjoy your music man...i sometimes listen before i go out on a saturday night...in the toilet as well...

that is funny because i record on the toilet!

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Originally posted by habman6 You are just missing a simple but important step. "an image in his mind which results in the release of certain chemicals etc." Certain 'chemicals' also precede the image, and are in fact the cause of the image in his mind.

ok, i imagine this is true, but what creates the original impetus for the chemical reaction?

If you reduce all of life to a continuous and exceedingly complex chemical process, you still have to come to terms with the fact that the process originates somewhere, and that without this almost linguistic initial utterance, there would be no process.

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Originally posted by delusional Anyone ever notice after a sick club or festival/rave experience you are totally overwhelmed and your musical taste slightly change ?

this happens to me after i listen to anything awesome. im like a sponge.




btw this thread has revived a large interest in neuroscience. i'd really like to read a lot more on these things. the question "what is a thought made of" is probably one of the most interesting questions i can think of atm

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Originally posted by nefardec One additional note of interest - I once read a book which discussed the evolution of the human brain, with particular interest in the evolution of human consciousness. The hypothesis put forth in this book was that at some point in time, humans were more automatic creatures just eating and shitting, then at some point in time, consciousness began to evolve in the human, even as late as the bronze age of homer. The book suggests that people of this time would understand this ego or inner monologue as the voice of god, and that our consciousness has been evolving rapidly ever since. It also equates language and consciousness.

Hey nef, stop reading Julian Jaymes . No that "bicameral mind" idea is interesting. I think its a brilliant idea which is just false. Because i have a very hard time to believe that all ancient greeks of the mycenaean period were experiencing schizophrenia lol! I have to admit that whilst i haven't red that book, i am well aware of the basic "bicameral theory" and some of the basic evidence that supports it. I think that what Julian Jaymes doesn't consider is the possibility that not all but maybe SOME of the people who were schizophrenics (or epileptics for that matter) influenced the ancient writings, traditions and maybe religion itself. An even simpler view could be that it is not a very good idea to support a whole theory on the evolution of consiousness on mythology and epic-poems rather than history and more objective archaeological evidence! (such as ancient artifacts etc.). It is not necessary that ancient poems (which were works of art and history. True, there could be some historical truths embedded within but it still not history)) accurately reflected the beliefs, customs and social organization of the time-period they were written. Plus, i don't consider language to be necessary or sufficient for cosnciousness. But don't tell Lira.

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Now you could read this as in support of a material consciousness, that the evolution of consciousness was a purely material process like the evolution of the forward-facing eye, emotions, etc. This seems true with a limited view of what consciousness is, as I hinted at, I believe it is all-pervasive and that the human brain doesn't as much develop consciousness within its organ, but rather harnesses it like an eardrum might harness pressure changes.

So you hold a semi-mystical view that the brain is an antenna "receiving" the mind. Which is an interesting idea but there is no evidence for it! i think there was an interesting quantum theory of consciousness put forward by Penrose and Hameroff called "Orhestrated Objective Reduction" (Orchard-O.R.). Check-out the book by Roger Penrose "Shadows of the Mind". It is an itneresting theory which is supposed to explain the "hard problem" of consiousness (see Chalmers on the "easy" and "hard" problems of cosnciousness)by proposing that quantum effects occuring in some protein structures within neurons called "microtubules" result in the generation of subjective experience.




According to the current theory, consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, (much like spin) and given the "right" configurational structures (such as the parallel packing of microtubules within neurons), it can "express" itself. Accoridng to those researchers, the brain (through neurons/microtubules) generates countles "superpositions" in which possible mental states co-exist. The "reduction" of those superpositions results in a single subjective concsious moment. Hence free-will and the stream of consciousness are discrete conscious events (this idea is based on previous ideas of the superb 19th/20th century philosopher and mathematician Alfred Whitehead) that result from the "objective reduction" of those superpositions.





The idea ofcourse is idealistic and dualistic but despite that, it is very explicitly and scientifically stated and even if other scientists don't like it, it is probably the most specific and scientific theory of consciousness ever stated! The ideas were heavily criticised at all levels by such thinkers such as the neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland (which had her criticisms ready before the publication of the paper by Penrose and Hameroff!). Despite that, i find it much more explicit and specific in comparison to other generic theories. The authors also have very itneresting backgrounds. Roger Penrose is a well-known nobel-prize winning mathematician and physicist and Hameroff is a doctor of anaesthisiology. Interesting huh? (at least if you don't know all these already!)

quote:

But where does his thought, his logic come from? To a degree it may be informed by memory or cultural expectations. I don't know that you could explain it away as some sort of pheromone...

Not by a pheromone but by previous neural activity. People sometimes find it hard to understand how various areas of the brain are activated. The dominant view of the brain is that of a computer that receives "input", performs a computation and produces an "output", some people wonder where the non-sensory motivation/volition/higher thought "input" comes from. They can think that there is a seperate "homunculus" (embodied or disembodied) that affects various brain areas. This seperate-homunculus view weakens, if one think of the brain an an on-going chaotic system in which one canno't be sure where "input" ends and where "output" begins. Rather, previous "output" can also become subsequent "input". Think of when you turn your eyes to foveate an image to your retina. What comes first? The visual input of the image to your retina (input) or the efferent motor signals that move your eyes (previous output)? (Or the shifting of the "spotlight" of attention before that? Or the reason that made the spotlight of attention move? And so on and so on...)




In a similar way you can think about the stream of thought and the generation of volition. There is no "master-thought" that generates the stream of thought (and hence motivation and volition). There is just a stream of thought generated in a chaotic manner through-out the brain. Remember that chaotic is not random (if one knows the initial factors he/she can predict the possible final states of the system). For some reason or the other, some streams would "win" over other streams providing the input to subsequent streams and so on and so on (the idea is similar to Dennett's "Multiple draft model" and to modern "non-linear" views of cognition). There is no clear beginning, middle or end. The brain never turns off (except for death were consciousness ends). Neurons are always "lit-up", producing the chaotic stream of consciousness...

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Originally posted by neatski True, but I still say that seeing Adam Beyer for the first time converted me forever into a techno person. I've listened to very little trance since.

Yep, like I said this is likely to happen when you experience something new, just like you did. It happened to me serveral times.
That you like or listen techno more now, doesn't necessarily mean you hate trance now, only you like techno better and that gets all your attention. Nothing strange with that IMO.
I used to listen house in the 80's, haven't listened a lot of it recently, but still can enjoy some of that old stuff. Same for Eurodance and Happy Hardcore in my case.

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN According to the current theory, consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, (much like spin) and given the "right" configurational structures (such as the parallel packing of microtubules within neurons), it can "express" itself. Accoridng to those researchers, the brain (through neurons/microtubules) generates countles "superpositions" in which possible mental states co-exist. The "reduction" of those superpositions results in a single subjective concsious moment. Hence free-will and the stream of consciousness are discrete conscious events (this idea is based on previous ideas of the superb 19th/20th century philosopher and mathematician Alfred Whitehead) that result from the "objective reduction" of those superpositions. The idea ofcourse is idealistic and dualistic but despite that, it is very explicitly and scientifically stated and even if other scientists don't like it, it is probably the most specific and scientific theory of consciousness ever stated! The ideas were heavily criticised at all levels by such thinkers such as the neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland (which had her criticisms ready before the publication of the paper by Penrose and Hameroff!). Despite that, i find it much more explicit and specific in comparison to other generic theories. The authors also have very itneresting backgrounds. Roger Penrose is a well-known nobel-prize winning mathematician and physicist and Hameroff is a doctor of anaesthisiology. Interesting huh? (at least if you don't know all these already!)

Yeah, that is really interesting. This is more where my thoughts are going these days (to consciousness being a fundamental property of the objective universe, if not the fundamental matter itself)

I once read a really intriguing and strange 19th century book called "Etidorhpa: The End of Earth" in which the author described a universe which consisted of a kind of ether of consciousness:

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This result is the all-pervading spirit of space (the ether of mankind), as solid as adamant and as mobile as vacuity. If you can reverse the order of this phenomenon, and imagin an irregular retardation of the rapidity of such atomic motion, you can read the story of the formation of the material universe. Follow the chain backward, and with the decrease of velocity, motion becomes tangible matter again, and in accordance with conditions governing the change of motion into matter, from time to time the various elements successively appear. The planets may grow without and within, and ethereal space can generate elemental dirt. If you can conceive of an intermediate condition whereby pure space motion becomes partly tangible, and yet is not gross enough to be earthy matter, you can imagine how such forces as man is acquainted with, light, heat, electricity, magnetism, or gravity even are produced, for these are also disturbances in space motion. It should be easily understood that, according to the same simple principle, other elements and unknown forces as well, now imperceptible to man's limited faculties, could be and are formed outside and inside his field of perception.

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN In a similar way you can think about the stream of thought and the generation of volition. There is no "master-thought" that generates the stream of thought (and hence motivation and volition). There is just a stream of thought generated in a chaotic manner through-out the brain. Remember that chaotic is not random (if one knows the initial factors he/she can predict the possible final states of the system). For some reason or the other, some streams would "win" over other streams providing the input to subsequent streams and so on and so on (the idea is similar to Dennett's "Multiple draft model" and to modern "non-linear" views of cognition). There is no clear beginning, middle or end. The brain never turns off (except for death where consciousness ends). Neurons are always "lit-up", producing the chaotic stream of consciousness...

yes, this is awesome - i think the best way to think of it is like a little ecosystem or weather system within which there are storms of activity, currents, etc


also regarding 'mystical'. i am of the opinion that 'mysticism' or 'wonder' is another word for blissful ignorance. There's nothing really wrong with feeling wonder or regarding something as mystical, because it means you are on the edge of the known and can then challenge it, but I think the most important part is then challenging that and moving beyond ignorance. Maybe SYSTEM-J and I would agree that I believe everything can ultimately be explained.

happy-hardcore isn't music

Haha, I guess some people expect me to post a youtube vid now.

Visit Rotterdam and tell this about Gabber

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Originally posted by smellyblack that is funny because i record on the toilet!

What? Seriously!?

Those electro-house basslines...my god...

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Originally posted by PETRAN house>techno>trance lol

---->-----trance>house>techno>trance>house>techno>trance---->--
------<----------<------------<------------<-----------<----------

quote:

Originally posted by delusional happy-hardcore isn't music

And fear of happy-hardcore is very, very real!

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Originally posted by EddieZilker And fear of happy-hardcore is very, very real!

Fear vs Happy?

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