Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Hespire, it sounds from that quotation like Smith
> didn't go along with the buffered outlook (hence
> his "not favored by scientists" admission).
> Rather, he thought that existence is such that
> human beings, whether or not they realize it, are
> embedded in, or participate in, some whole greater
> than oneself. My sense though is that he would
> deny agency to this transcendent mentation. That
> leaves the question, then, regarding how human
> beings would possess a faculty that is unknown to
> the ground of our thoughts.
>
> I'm probably getting a little out of my depth here
> but I hope others, and yourself, will have a lot
> more to say.
>
> I did think of something I read that (thought
> experiment!) I'd like to have HPL, CAS, and REH
> read, and then ask them, "What do you think of
> that?"
>
> Here it is. (Click on the link.)
>
> [
www.theguardian.com]
> research.highereducation1
>
> I sent this to a friend who had asserted, "the
> mind resides somewhere in the skull." But can one
> still maintain that view, if someone's skull is
> filled mostly by water? (Granted -- it's not tap
> water!) Can one maintain that view, if someone
> having an organ transplant begins to experience
> strange desires that prove traceable to the dead
> donor? I pressed my friend, who basically
> indicated he didn't care to discuss the matter
> further.
>
> Now I wonder if CAS would have been quite
> intrigued! But one suspects Lovecraft would have
> been uncomfortable with this sort of thing.
> Consider the abstract of this paper:
>
> The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein chose as his
> prime exemplar of certainty the fact that the
> skulls of normal people are filled with neural
> tissue, not sawdust. In 1980 the British
> pediatrician John Lorber reported that some normal
> adults, apparently cured of childhood
> hydrocephaly, had no more than 5 % of the volume
> of normal brain tissue. While initially
> disbelieved, Lorber’s observations have since
> been independently confirmed by clinicians in
> France and Brazil. Thus Wittgenstein’s certainty
> has become uncertain. Furthermore, the paradox
> that the human brain’s information content
> (memory) appears to exceed the storage capacity of
> even normal-sized brains, requires resolution.
> This article is one of a series on disparities
> between brain size and its assumed information
> content, as seen in cases of savant syndrome,
> microcephaly, and hydrocephaly, and with special
> reference to the Victorian era views of Conan
> Doyle, Samuel Butler, and Darwin’s research
> associate, George Romanes. The articles argue
> that, albeit unlikely, the scope of explanations
> must not exclude extracorporeal information
> storage.
>
> Forsdyke, D. (2015). Wittgenstein’s Certainty is
> Uncertain: Brain Scans of Cured Hydrocephalics
> Challenge Cherished Assumptions Biological Theory
> DOI: 10.1007/s13752-015-0219-x
Dale, let's accept for the sake of discussion that the "mind" has a non-physical dimension to it. It is more than simply the contents of the skull.
This then implies that this extra dimension is akin to what's commonly thought of as spiritual. It is a non-physical attribute that other such entities--those also possessing such "minds"--can readily recognize. There are varying opinions of from whence this attribute derives. I.e., is evidence of it carried in an individual's DNA? If so, this would be a physical marker for a non-physical attribute.
If it is not in any way indicated genetically, and has apparently no physical grounding, does it belong to the "physical" world, at all--and by this I mean is it connected to the physical world, but as yet undetected by such means as we possess to examine the physical world. In other words, it would be like Pluto's existence *before* first being observed in 1930: it existed (so far as we may infer), but was not known. Its existence might have been inferred mathematically from the orbits of other planetary bodies, but was itself unknown.
If it does not belong to the physical world, does it belong to any other organized domain? If so, is it evidence of the possibility of a deity in the broadest possible sense?
OK, let's continue with the existence of undetectable attributes of the human mind. This mind is differentiated from non-human minds by complexity, and especially complexity of sophisticated abstract thought. And yet I'm convince by life experience that many other animal species also possess some of this capability--it's a continuum of mental potency, in a sense. My cat does not believe in a deity, so far as I can tell--but is well aware that he can get into serious peril if he does not avoid certain situations. They're like his ten commandments, in a sense.
Continuing this idea of a continuum, do these other species' "minds" also have a non-physical attribute--one that can be inferred from observation, but cannot be measured or detected by any current means? Perhaps they have less of it, just as they seems to have less capacity for abstract thought.
Dale, we've exchanged. You'll know that I'm basically a materialist *by circumstance*. I'm not committed to it philosophically, but the vast bulk of my life experience--maybe all of it--is best explained by material phenomena. I'm looking here for a new world to explore. I'm looking for a non-deistic undetected non-physical dimension as it affects *all* of the observable physical world. If there's a continuum without a threshold, it implies that every physical object we can observe also has some non-physical attributes. This would include not only the higher animals, but insects, micro-organisms, plants, and inorganic objects like rocks.
But if there is indeed a threshold, above which the non-physical dimensions provide evidence that they exist, where is that threshold, and how did it come about?
Big, wide open door here... :^)
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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