Cosmic meaning?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
81

To be clear, what I said was, ““How do we know neurons are necessary for thinking?” We don’t know that, but so far the only examples of thinking we have are the thinking that comes from organisms endowed with neurons.”

As you can see I did not rule out the possibility of thinking without neurons. I literally said we don’t know neurons are necessary for thinking. So please don’t misportray my position.

Also I never said rocks learn or communicate. I said they respond to stimuli, which was one of your own criterion for supposing that plants might be thinking. Again, let’s make sure we are being precise here. This is a complex issue and it’s going to be a lot more difficult to figure out if we aren’t even representing each other’s positions accurately.

So with those clarifications out of the way, I must also point out you did not offer your definiton or explanation of what thinking is. We can’t move forward without that. Please offer this and any critique of my own explanation if you see any weaknesses in it.

I appreciate the links to stuff about how plants release chemicals in certain situations, which other plants respond to, etc. etc. and all of that seems perfectly mechanistically explanable in terms of natural selection. I see no “choice” involved here, nothing indicating there must exist some sort of interiority of which I spoke in my explanation of what I consider thinking is. The interiority, subjectivity, the reasoning process at the level of IDEAS not merely chemical molecular responses and chain-reactions. Perhaps what we humans call thinking, for us, our own sort of thinking, is a much more sublimated higher-order version of the lesser sort of thinking plants are doing-- that all ‘thinking’ could be understood as these sort of ‘if-then’ basic logical chain-reaction processes between stimuli and responses. I can get down with that idea. It would mean plants are doing a sort of thinking via their biomechanical reactions, even though they seemingly lack any kind of interiority-subjectivity-volitive “I” that humans have (and I say that because plants display no signs of having an individuality, basically every plant of a given species is pretty much the same as any other, they don’t individualize or individuate themselves nor act idiosyncratically compared to others of their species, at least as far as I’ve ever seen). So plants are doing that sort of ‘thinking’ since we are for argument sake here defining thinking as nothing more than the stimulus-response chain-reaction basic logical operation sort of thing. Humans, then, would be doing this same sort of process but taken to a much higher level. We can sense and respond to a much larger range of phenomena including much more abstracted and subtler ones, compared to what plants are responding to. Or we simply possess much more sophisticated and precise organs for sensation and we also happen to have the advantages of a huge brain able to record a lot in memory and give us things like symbolic language and culture, which plants surely do not have.

In any case, feel free to offer your definition or explanation of what is thinking. Then we can move forward from there.

82

Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.

Given free will, I’ve always seen the paradox here as revolving around the fact that some of us [me for example] have no problem at all thinking of themselves from both perspectives. In the context of all there is, only someone very naive would not construe him or herself as insignificant. And yet at the same time they may well construe themselves as the center of the universe. After all, reality to them comes from their own accumulated experiences. And if it does come down to it and their very survival itself comes at the cost of everyone else dying…?

Quora:

"How do we reconcile the paradox of being both insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe and infinitely valuable as individuals?

I think this common assumption of our insignificance might be challenged in eight arguments:

First: Relative size alone cannot be a measure for the absolute significance of a thing. Comparisons don’t tell us anything about one’s value in absolute terms, or a whale would be more significant than a human being merely because of its size. The same with certain dinosaurs, space rocks, planets, even galaxies. Complexity may tell us something about significance, but not size alone.

Size?! Not many people I know would put much stock in that. Perhaps the size on someone’s bank account or someone’s army or someone’s ego can make all the difference in the world here, but physical size alone seems to be of little significance at all.

As for complexity, the universe itself may well be so complex that the human brain is not even able to grasp it. Either ontologically or teleologically.

83

OK, now you’re misrepresenting yourself or right out lying.
Here’s what you said:
1)

Trees don’t think. They have no neurons.

Not only are you making the claim that trees don’t think but also that anything without neurons can’t think.

2

Show me “thinking” taking place without neurons

Here’s you tried to shift the burden to me. Certainly I have the burden for my assertions, but you have for yours.

  1. Then in response to Mags silly response to my post you wrote:

According to self-effacing libtarded false authority-worshipping simps who instinctively love nothing more than to cut down their own kind and remain obediently self-blind to billionaire corporations and political groups who they naively believe “care about them”, yes we should. As long as “muh establishment respectable publication” says jump their instinctive response is only to respond with “how high?”
Implying that I fit your political fantasies and bile.

4&5
Then to the ether

I mean, imagine actually hating yourself that much. To compare yourself and what you are and have, with a slime mold.
and

Average libs be like

But, now you tell me just to be clear you merely asked a question.

You’re an ass. So, desperate to confirm your views you conveniently can’t even remember what you said - perhaps the question should be ‘can Humanize think or does he rely on hallucated versions of people he disagrees with, insults, misinterpretations and distraction to reassure himself that he can think’.

I am raising the possibility that our biases, as they have in the past, might be making us continue with false assumptions and this attracted the above idiocy and weak burden shifting bs on your part.

You keep on keeping on your reasserting your opinions. I’ll see if anyone actually wants to discuss something and ignore you.

84

You have definitely hit the mark here!

85

I feel bad for thinking you might be genuine. My bad.

Just another loser, can’t even keep up.

Bye.

86

“How do we know neurons are necessary for thinking?”

(What I said) → "We don’t know that, but so far the only examples of thinking we have are the thinking that comes from organisms endowed with neurons.”

I can’t imagine being any more clear. The fact this is ambiguous to you is… yikes.

Still waiting for that definition of thinking, by the way. How can you discuss a complex topic like thinking if you can’t even give a basic definition of the term?

This is a huge problem in philosophy. I see this often, people talk and talk and talk and talk but they never bother to define the key terms. Once you begin to start attempting to defines those key terms, however, a lot of the problems fall away. You realize all you were doing is talking in circles around something you had no idea what you were even talking about, lol.

Ego strokes and mental exercises like sudoku puzzles… is what most philosophy has fallen to. And every time I get my hopes up for a legitimate discussion with someone who actually has a few functioning braincells, seems to collapse into another cesspool of hurt pride and low-IQ coping. Oh well.

Anyone else here remember when ILP used to really be something?

87

Not really silly is it, considering this… :point_down:t3:

¿Why is science so eager to belittle the human mind?

…because there’s money in it… companies can’t make money solely out of minds, but they can out of machinery.
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Does this then mean UBI for all?

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Trees use chemical-pathway communication, like they also utilise photosynthesis to create sustenance… no neurons necessary - I thought that was common knowledge

Here is where they are, on the family-tree of life, under the eukarya branch of living organisms.

IMG_5751
IMG_5751780×424 53.5 KB

“Can trees talk to each other?

Trees communicate with each other through a network of fungi in the soil, called the “Wood Wide Web”. This network allows trees to share nutrients, warn each other of danger, and exchange information.”

“Here are some ways trees communicate with each other:

  • Share nutrients: Older trees can provide nutrients to help saplings grow faster.
  • Warn of danger: Trees can send chemical signals to warn each other of droughts, diseases, and other threats. For example, if a Douglas fir is injured by insects, it can send a chemical warning to a nearby ponderosa pine, which can then produce defense enzymes.
  • Exchange information: Trees can use scent signals like pheromones to exchange information with their neighbors.

Trees can also be linked to each other via an older tree, which ecologist Suzanne Simard calls a “mother” or “hub” tree.”

88

Good point. Money is a big part of it. Also this pathological need to belittle and put down humanity by trying to say things like “plants can think too”. Lol.

Oh how dare you say humans are better than plants! That’s speciesist! You are a biased bad person! Haha. I don’t know which is worse, that such a position comes from deep self-inadequacy or merely from seriously midwit-level low IQ.

89

I’m not really interested right now in what someone other than me said. I said that slime moulds are better than some humans in doing mazes. I think it’s silly to think this might mean I think humans should become slime molds. And as I said, I don’t even know what that means. How do humans become slime molds. If you think Larry Page or whoever meant that humans should turn into slime molds because they can do mazes better than some humans, you could ask him about it.

I don’t make assumptions about what you post given what Larry Page writes. But the real silliness has to do with the idea that anything, probably including Larry Page, thinks that humans should become slime moulds. But if he does, he’s an idiot in a number of ways and I do hope you call HIM out on it.

I don’t know why you are telling me this. I know about trees. Nothing you say here contradicts anything I said. If anything you are supporting my position.

Silly posts can be fine. I was sure you were going to say you were pulling my leg. But it’s fine either way. But liars like Humanize…even if you share beliefs, I wouldn’t cast your lot with the likes of him. Not saying you are, but it’s a whole 'nother can of beans. In his case creating farts here.

90

Sure, plants can communicate, but I wouldn’t call that thinking but sensing.

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91

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You don’t see the intended [nuanced] humour in my reply, I take it…?

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How am I supporting your position, in that trees talk to each other when there is no talking going on, but chemical reactions? like with all non-animated objects,
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I’ll leave HumAnize to speak for himself…

92

Naw I already said all I need to. The dude cried and ran away when I asked him to give his definition or understanding of what thinking is.

1 Like
93

I always have read books from the epilogue to the foreword for some reason, so I can only surmise that a thought is merely an action of the brain, that produces a thought that is the mind. The cosmic significance of that thought of the mind, is that if it wasn’t the mind, than in no way would it be possible to think that up.

As a matter of fact only mankind could have thought up the idea of the cosmos, by looking up and seeing it up there. Even if a missing link between species can be accounted for , the origin of the species can not offer a universal correspondence that can ever be seen. But does that disprove that there absolutely is no need for minds to be inferred from brains? That would be preposterous,

So the odds against minds necessarily developing brains is as certain as thoughts developing from minds.

How the intervening search for how the origin of species came to represent the idea of the force of intelligence within that force, are the levels of inquiry of how it was seen along the continuous way , and discerning all possible leads along the way.

()

I tried to copy and past the original p
‘Preface’ here, but the system did not allow it, as I am jumping into here, not unlike an existential unknown.

()()

So I reproduce it here:, looser then need be, perhaps:

“Raymond Tallis argues against Universal Intention-…

 The idea of cosmic purpose is one which 
  many of us are familiar from religion. 
  What happens in this world ,so the story
  goes, is ultimately an expression of 
  divine will.”

Now Lambigious says,

    More to the point(mine) “Without god and 
    and religion mere mortals must either 
    come up with a secular equivalent [at
    least on this side of the grave] or accept 
    that there may not be a teleological com-
    ponent underlying human existence or   
    existence it’self…”

()()()

A contention here may be around Tallis’ phrase
‘so the story goes’ (as ultimately an expression of divine will)

the story may have inferred the likes of ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ or, it may have been deferred to just another narrative. Not sure,
but I feel as though this slight difference of interpretation may make all the difference in the world, this one particularly.

And where Lambigious comments that: “Without god and religion mere mortals MUST either come up with a secular equivalent […….]. or accept that there not be a teleological component underlying human existence or existence it’self.,”

The argument becomes iffy, where it denotes to an interpretation of a paraphrase, that’s tenuously can go to either interpretation.

)(

The reason for these conjectures have to do with the guidance that we must come up with a secular equivalent OR accept that there may be a teleological component….

This may be true, from the point of view that resembles thoughts aimed at from a religious pulpit to a congregation who suffer for not believing without eyes to see, but surely no sermon from the mount can reflect that hunger for Faith, how much less belief.

Direct Devine recollection has occurred at various times, but the Source of the original experience, can not have occurred to even the disciples, except to one, that One of whom so much, credebility has been assigned as dubious, and even enigmatic, or even gnostic.

John

94

Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.

Well, if God is booted out of the picture, the universal judge with a privileged insight becomes, what, a manifestation of the universe itself?

Though I’ve never really understood how anyone can connect the dots between “I” and the universe. Let alone divinely. Some argue that we must all become at one with the universe. Like we are expected to, what, just know what that means?

How can we do it? That’s easy enough. You simply become at one with one or another of these folks:

Meaning, morality and metaphysics all collapsing together into any number of dogmatic slumbers. After all, how else to explain objectivism’s wide-spread appeal.

Consciousness, of course is hard-wired into us at birth. But obviously how it has ended up being embodied by each of us as individuals makes it rather clear that biological imperatives only go so far. Ever evolving “rules of behavior” in a world of contingency chance and change down through time speak volumes regarding the role that memes can play.

95

)(

We may be hard wired per conscious realization down the line in an infinitely variable cosmos, but what does such consciousness entail in terms of recognizing how the manifold dot’s connect in their entirety ? , but how much of that is within the slumber party we are all playing?

96

Which has little to do with what he’s saying. He is pointing out that without some absolute judge how do we arrive at the judgement that we are insignificant in some objective way. Note: he is not saying he has demonstrated that we are significant objectively, just the the opposite claim seems to have no basis.

Those people generally do NOT believe we are insignificant. Unless those two quotes came from very different parts of his essay, the second he is challenging the assertion that we are insignificant objectively. Those religions are not saying that.

He seems, if anything, to be arguing against a certain objectivist claim. The claim that we are objectively insignificant. Do you think we are objectively insignificant and how would you demonstrate this? What determines objective meaning that you have tested this notion with?

97

I like the insight that a nihilist is an objectivist because they won’t tolerate subjective meaning. But on the other side of the same coin, a self-proclaimed objectivist who is actually a voluntarist whose meaning does not pivot self=other is every bit as much a nihilist. Moreso, perhaps. Their meaning is a wholotta nuthin.

It’s the untangler who blazes a trail through all the nihil, paving the way in gold… who finds and reestablishes the lost Eden.

Or something.

self=other

98

Ergo the Cosmos sees through (look out) the nihil, more than nothingness can look in to being one or another.

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99

Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.

Then the part where some confront the complexities here by insisting that, actually, there is one and only one way in which to grasp them. Also, the part where they may well have confronted the complexities here by insisting only what their brains compelled them to insist.

Suggesting things here – technically? theoretically? logically? epistemologically? – is basically where it all begins. What really counts however is taking those suggestions out into the world and connecting the dots between words and worlds. Otherwise, it’s just speculation. Fascinating speculation at times, of course, but the bottom line always remains the same: that believing something here is hardly the same thing as demonstrating it. And that includes all of my own conjectures here as well. But at least I always come back to the profound mystery embedded in the existence of existence itself. Connecting “I” to that?

Uh, prove it? Though, sure, if, in the staggering vastness of all there is, you are yourself able to take some comfort in at least the possibility of being at the “summit” of material existence…? Well, good for you.

100

Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.

How big:

“The stars are non-collisional,” says Conselice. “The gap between the stars inside a galaxy is typically hundreds of billions to tens of trillions of kilometres. The chances of two stars colliding in a typical galaxy merger are less likely than you tossing a coin 27 times and them all coming down heads.” BBC

On the other hand, how exactly are things like this actually calculated?

Then the world of the very, very small:

Uh, theoretically perhaps? Or are there members here who can go into great detail regarding how a proton or electron billions of light years apart from its entangled mate might actually go about this. God’s will perhaps?

We’re stuck here of course. Or the vast majority of us are likely to be. Stuck trying to make sense of things that sometimes seem preposterous. We have little or no choice but to take “the experts” word for it.

Is that what we are really all about? We’re here to provide the universe itself with a way in which to understand the universe itself? And, perhaps, that our exchanges here are [incredibly yet true] but one more manifestation of that “intimacy”?

Okay, here we go: one more thing that philosophers can speculate about until scientists actually provide them with…the objective truth?

Click, of course.