Among the lessons I’ve taken away from my Hoffman adventure is that as I’ve followed the philosophical roots of “dualism” back through Descartes (1600s) and on past Anselm (1000s), one thing has become clear. the entire philosophical edifice of this Mind-Body “Problem” was formed from within that Abrahamic God-fearing mindset that gave us the three major religions, with their self-serving patriarchal mentality, heaven and hell, along with branding dualism’s hard boundaries and need for a sense of certitude into our imagination and onto our expectations.
The Abrahamic worldview perceives people as isolated objects, not only from this planet, but each other, even from ourselves. The creatures we live with and the landscapes we exist within are treated with contempt and wanton waste.
Regarding the “Mind-Body Problem.”
Dr. Solms makes a wonderful analogy that highlights the error being made:
Question: Was it lightning or thunder that killed the man?
It’s a meaningless question.
Lightning and thunder are simply different aspects of the same phenomena.
Our Mind and consciousness is the interior reflection of our living body (both its interior housekeeping and external interaction with the environment). We simply cannot have one without the other.
We are embedded within an interconnected web of life and are the direct products of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution.
Why isn’t that reflected in modern philosophical discourse?
Learning to appreciate the deep-time pageant of Evolution puts an entirely different richer light upon our interior existence. An awareness that encompasses the whole of time and this planet that created us.
It also gives us a deep appreciation for the continuity of life. Life is good, life is precious, but death is no enemy, painful though it may be. Death is part of the cycle that brings forth new life. Revel in the pageant you are blessed enough to be witnessing. While you can.
As for God?
Who is “God,” but a creation of our unique complex human minds dealing with our day to days?
Where did God come from?
From human curiosity and wonder. From puzzling over observations, contemplating questions, seeking answers. From love and hunger and fears in the night along with glorying in the warming sunrise.
From contemplating the suddenly dead carcass of a loved one From buried memories of being coddled within mom’s loving protective bosom and mourning those who are gone.
From our need for someone truly personal, who’s always there, never dying, ready to listen to our constant chatter, ideas, complaints, fears, longings, wishes, all of it in complete confidence.
Think about it, our relationship with our God is the most intimate relationship of our lives and reflects our ego in every way. All of it, happening within our mind, or more descriptively, within our Mindscape.
Point being, we are the product of our Earth - God is the product of our mind. That’s why our conceptions of God always wind up being driven by our Ego, not by any outside force.
Nothing wrong with that, if only we could bring ourselves to explicitly recognize as much.
For some people these realities are jarring and resented, but that doesn’t make it any less the reality humans exist within. For others, if these ideas resonate, take comfort, stay true to your gut instinct, do your homework, you’ll get there.
Appreciating the Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide.
All sorts of fresh insights flow from that simple explicit recognition of our human condition.
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Index
Cc’s Students’ Study Guide for The Case Against Reality.
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Donald Hoffman Playing Basketball in Zero-Gravity,
a critical review of, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman, ©2019, W.W.Norton Company
(Titles are linked)
(1.01) The Prelude, Prof Donald Hoffman Playing Basketball In Zero-Gravity
(1.02) Chapter 10a, Community: Network of Conscious Agents (1/3)
(1.03) Chapter 10b, Community: Network of Conscious Agents (2/3)
(1.04) Chapter 10c, Community: Network of Hoffmanian Conscious Agents (3/3)
(1.05) Chapter 1, Mystery: The Scalpel That Split Consciousness
(1.06) Chapter 2, Beauty: Siren of the Gene
(1.07) Chapter 3, Reality: Capers of the Unseen Sun
(1.08) Chapter 4, Sensory: Fitness beats Truth
(1.09) Chapter 5, Illusory: The Bluff of the Desktop
(1.10) Chapter 6, Gravity: Spacetime is Doomed
(1.11) Chapter 7, Virtuality: Inflating a Holoworld
(1.12) Chapter 8, Polychromy: Mutations of an Interface
(1.13) Chapter 9, Scrutiny: You Get What You Need, in Both Life and Business
(1.14) Appendix, Precisely: The Right to Be (Foolish)
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Hoffman/Prakash’s Objects of Consciousness, Objections and Replies
Frontiers in Psychology - June 17, 2014
(2.01) 4/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, (conclusion)
(2.02) 1/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (1-12)
(2.03) 2/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (13-17)
(2.04) 3/4_Hoffman, Objects of Consciousness, questions + replies (18-21)
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(3.01) Diary - But, wait! There's more. Ten Learned Responses:
“Probing the interface theory of perception: Reply to commentaries, by Donald D. Hoffman, Manish Singh & Chetan Prakash"
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. volume 22, pages1551–1576(2015)
Abstract
We propose that selection favors nonveridical perceptions that are tuned to fitness. Current textbooks assert, to the contrary, that perception is useful because, in the normal case, it is veridical. Intuition, both lay and expert, clearly sides with the textbooks. We thus expected that some commentators would reject our proposal and provide counterarguments that could stimulate a productive debate. … (HSP)
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(3.02) Barton Anderson - Where does fitness fit in theories of perception?
(3.03) Jonathan Cohen - Perceptual representation, veridicality, and the interface theory of perception.
(3.04) Shimon Edelman - Varieties of perceptual truth and their possible evolutionary roots.
(3.05) Jacob Feldman - Bayesian inference and “truth”: a comment on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash.
(3.06) Chris Fields -Reverse engineering the world: a commentary on Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash, “The interface theory of perception”.
(3.07) Jan Koenderink - Esse est Percipi & Verum est Factum.
(3.08) Rainer Mausfeld - Notions such as “truth” or “correspondence to the objective world” play no role in explanatory accounts of perception.
(3.09) Brian P. McLaughlin and E. J. Green - Are icons sense data?
(3.10) Zygmunt Pizlo - Philosophizing cannot substitute for experimentation: comment on Hoffman, Singh & Prakash.
(3.11) Matthew Schlesinger - Interface theory of perception leaves me hungry for more.
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Student Resources - Background info:
(4.01) Rainer Mausfeld: ‘Truth’ has no role in explanatory accounts of perception.
(4.02) Paul Mealing: considers Hoffman's "Objects of Consciousness.”
(4.03) The Case For Reality: Because Apparently Someone Needs to Make One
(4.04) Sabine Hossenfelder: in Defense of Scientific Realism and Physical Reality
(4.05) "Emergence" - A Handy Summary and Resources
(4.06) Physical Origins of Mind: Dr. Siegel, Allen Institute Brain Science, Tononi, Koch.
(4.07) Can you trust Frontiers in Psychology research papers? Student Resource
(4.08) Critical Thinking Skills - In Defense of Reality - A Student Resource
(4.09) Philo+Sophia - Love of Wisdom - A Student Resource
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(5.01) Summary,
explaining why I've pursued this project.
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Dr. Mark Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness, while incidentally highlighting why Hoffman’s “Conscious Agents” are luftgeschäft.
(6.01) Dr. Mark Solms demystifies Chalmers' "Hard Problem" of Consciousness.
(6.02) The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, farmer, vintner, humanitarian.
(6.03) Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms' scientific publications.
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My homemade philosophical underpinnings.
(7.01) An Alternative Philosophical Perspective - “Earth Centrism”
(7.02) Appreciating the Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide
(7.03) Being an element in Earth’s Pageant of Evolution
(7.04) It’s not a “Body-Mind problem” it’s an “Ego-God problem.”
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confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com
Email: citizenschallenge gmail com
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