Plato’s cave in photographs

This is Plato’s Cave :

The Allegory of the Cave—also known as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato’s Cave, or the Parable of the Cave—is an allegory used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate “our nature in its education and want of education” (514a). It is written as a fictional dialogue between Plato’s teacher Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon at the beginning of Book VII (chapter IX in Robin Waterfield’s translation) (514a–520a). The Allegory of the Cave is presented after the metaphor of the sun (507b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–513e). Allegories are summarized in the viewpoint of dialectic at the end of Book VII and VIII (531d–534e).

Plato lets Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato’s Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

The Allegory is related to Plato’s Theory of Forms, according to which the “Forms” (or “Ideas”), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the Forms constitutes real knowledge.[1] In addition, the Allegory of the Cave is an attempt to explain the philosopher’s place in society: to attempt to enlighten the “prisoners”.

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

Here’s another allegory :

If you were to break those chains and walk to the entrance of the cave. If you were to step outside. Would you not be blinded by the light after all these years of living in darkness?

For a time at least, then you would adapt, wouldn’t you? You would then be able to see for the first time in your life all the “things” that are outside of that cave.

Then if you were to turn back and look at the entrance of the cave, you wouldn’t see much of what is inside would you? And if you were to walk back in, you’d be blinded by the darkness, at least a while, until your eyes adapt again.

Yet once more inside, turning to the entrance, you’d be unable to distinguish anything that is outside.

So when in darkness you can see the light, but not distinguish anything that it shines on if those things are outside the darkness, and so when in light you can see the darkness yet not distinguish anything that is within that darkness.

Question : How to see in the cave and outside the cave simultaneously?

Here’s my personal answer : you obviously can’t.

On the other hand, you don’t need eyes to see. You need vision.

So here’s one of my personal interpretations of Plato’s cave (an allegory) with few words and a few photographs (and dismissing “the fire”) :

Source : (????) 😉 🙂

 

This is what is inside the cave :

This is what is inside the cave  using a flash 😉 :

here (in raw form) is a post in “raw” form, which I think covers it all, or at least most of it :

[Post 1051]
Author : Inzababa
Date : 9th March 2012 04:51 AM

ok get ready for a huge wall of text.

I apologies, but at this stage, I might as well say what I think as I think it.

Originally Posted by Inzababa
Win? Win what? Win the fight? Win the competition? Win the debate? Win the argument?

Mate it’s not about winning.
Well you say that but it is a part of our psycological make-up. One should at least be aware of it and be prepared to take the “hit” of “loss”.

Either what I say is true or it’s not.

That’s one of my points actually, in this context; as soon as you integrate whatever “subjectivity” is (in one way or another), you influence the reasoning.

Scientific reasoning, as far as I understand it (and particularly sceptical reasoning) attempts to do away with that, something which I attempt to apply on this kind of forum.

It’s actually the number one reason why I picked this forum after having failed to communicate without all that “subjective and emotional and psychological” influence.

This can be illustrated in the forum rules : address the argument, not the arguer.

No one here, including myself, always does that.

I sincerely think though, that it is possible to talk about free will, subjectivity, and the “unknown” without getting all emotional, know what I mean?

What I know is that “troll” is something that is thrown around far too freely – for the record I do not think you fall into that category. You present yourself who has an idea and wishes to defend it and for me that is exactly the reason why I wanted to engage you in conversation on this topic.

Thanks, although I would like to (humbly) rephrase that subtly, but it makes a big difference to me.

My intent is not to defend my position, my intent is to verify my position. If no one is prepared to do that, that’s not a problem, I’ll find other means, including my own thinking.

Which is why, if I am “shown”, “proved”, “demonstrated” (rationally, without character assassination) that what I say is wrong, it’s in my interest to admit it.

Since what matters is the truth (in this specific framework or context, ie this forum with these rules), not my pride or anything else that is related to subjectivity.

What matters to me personally, emotionally, psychologically, is irrelevant. Which is why, personal questions of faith, religion, background, age, sex, authority, even intention, should be irrelevant as well.

ie : what matters is what is said, not who is saying it and why

I’d still like to say thanks again though, recognition (on a subjective level) does a hell of a lot of good 🙂

Quote:
There is no leap to “non physical”. Unless you define “physical” as “concrete”.
Well I would say there are some metaphysical definitional problems but essentially what you are proposing is physical most others would say is “non-physical”. As such I am – perhaps unfairly – putting the onus on you to “promote” what you are proposing to the lofty heights of being “physics”.

It is one of the agreed (as I understand them) “facts” of physics that the laws, theories and conclusions that physics elaborate apply to a specific “domain”.

Seeing as “reality” is more than that domain, it seems obvious to me that an approach that addresses “all” issues of that reality is required, in particular, when looking at things (such as consciousness) which are traditionally left out.

If only because without knowing it beforehand, it may be that insights provided by other sources of knowledge (not being mystical here, I mean other “rational” points of view, such as psychology and philosophy, Quantum Mechanics, Social Studies, Anthropology, provided they all have the capacity to express their reasoning rationally and objectively (as in physics) and so on) may help solve problems that one perspective alone can not.

The biggest relevance is that the first scientists were Philosophers in the first place.

example :
Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC)[1] was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.

Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato’s teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle’s writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle’s views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics.

The way I see it, all sources of human wisdom and knowledge should be able to be “synchronised” so that it all makes sense.

When different fields contradict each other, that’s a problem which can be solved (hopefully) in a collaborative way.

But it makes no sense to me not to solve those problems, because otherwise, you have contradicting “truths” which co exist and ignore each other.

As far as I understand it, physics is not concerned with what I am talking about, and I believe that’s the biggest source of mis communication in this thread. I only realised this recently.

On the other hand, “Science” is, very much so.

Abstract words such as “physical” and “concrete” are actually well defined in dictionaries and Wikipedia. Using, for example, Wikipedia as a reference should solve the semantic problems.

Quote:
My argument is that in the case of conscious and intelligent human beings, who use abstract concepts in their decision making process, abstract concepts can be said to be part of the “elements” which cause a decision to be reached.
Yes, they could. But one cannot ignore the fact that these abstract “elements” operated in a purely physical domain. In essence saying something is “abstract” is just a way of saying there is a physical process that ignores particulars in order to treat certain physical states as if they were the same.

Eureka, someone agrees at least that they could 😀

I agree with you 100% that they operate in a purely physical domain but only in the sense that they require a physical medium and framework to exist in the first place.

There could be no Harry Potter (real or not, physical or not) without ink and paper in the first place, without the biological body of the author, without all the rest.

In the same way “we” as human beings, conscious, intelligent and so on, operate in a purely physical framework. Yet we dream, we make up, we fantasies, we define, we reason abstractly, we shape the world around us, we make decisions that may not be purely dependent on the properties of that physical “domain”.

If we look closely at what “abstraction” is :

Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal (“real” or “concrete”) concepts, first principles, or other methods. An “abstraction” (noun) is a concept that acts as a super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category.

Abstractions may be formed by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to the more general idea of a ball retains only the information on general ball attributes and behavior, eliminating the other characteristics of that particular ball.

Point 1.

There is design here, there is creation here, there is intent, there is “a reason why”. There is a “purpose” to abstractions.

whether there is design with evolution itself is irrelevant to this argument which is why it is not necessary to discuss religious topics, the big bang, how life was created and so on

Purpose which, objectively, does not exist.

Whether that purpose is “defined” by free will or will that is not free is another debate. However we create abstractions by giving “them” part of what we “are” subjectively.

Point 2.

Any abstraction is a simplification of what is real.

In absolute terms, what it refers to (its meaning) is not real unless that meaning “covers” each and every single detail about reality.

Because we do not know with certainty all there is to know about objective reality, we “absoultely” can not be 100% certain about anything in that objective reality.

Absolutes only exist (for us, human beings, which includes Scientists) within abstract frameworks.

But that’s because we make the rules of those frameworks in the first place, we make the laws, we define and construct the framework itself.

So IF this
and IF that
then THIS is absolutely true

and so on.

Details / tangent

So when you speak of a glass of water, the temperature of the water is irrelevant to you (relatively speaking).

Even though that same glass of water (objectively) is not the same glass of water from one second to the other.

In objective reality, a glass of water is much much much much more than what we think it is. (this can be explored by physics).

In subjective reality, “a glass of water” does not = an “objective” glass of water.

In fact, what “matters” as soon as anyone uses abstract concepts, is not reality. What matters is the abstract framework in which theses abstract concepts operate.

Which is why we need to empirically verify any abstract theories, because “we’re not sure until we test it”.

Because “until we verify it, the entire theory may very well not refer to reality at all”.

When “things” refer to “things” which do not refer to reality, they do not exist in reality and can only be described abstractly.

Abstract = a whole new world which was born and created as soon as remotely intelligent life started to “exist”.

A world which is not concrete in which we do our thinking, yet which causes us to behave in certain specific ways which can be explained abstractly but not objectively (at least not at this stage in our evolution).

A world in which “real” time (as we know it) is irrelevant, in which all the properties of the “concrete” world are entirely irrelevant.

But because Socrates and ME share that world as soon as I read his abstract thoughts expressed in a book which is written by Plato, what he thinks abstractly has an effect on what I think abstractly, disregarding any “physicist’s” laws.

Quote:
When you make a rational choice that is based on information that has been communicated to you by another human being, that choice is not based on the physical properties of the abstract concepts, it’s based on your understanding of abstract concepts.

But my understanding of abstract concepts is both itself physical and dependent on taking in information about physical things – hence why I referred to apples and counting.

Yes, I agree 100% !!

You have simultaneous understanding of both.

However, if Stephen Hawkins is speaking to a 10 year old kid about a “star”, the objective entity to which “star” refers to will be identical.

Both Hawkins and the 10 year old kid be talking about the same “thing”.

However, Hawkins will know what that star is made of, how it evolves in time and space and so on.

The kid won’t.

Details :
Yet they can communicate, but their abstract understanding will be different.

To take your apple example, Hawkins will know that an apple is made up of molecules, and atoms, and protons and so on.

The 10 year old kid will not.

If you ask the 10 year old kid whether that apple has a reflexive relationship, he will answer “of course it does”.

He will point to the apple and say “now” and “now” and “now” that apple is exactly identical, 100%

Hawkins will point to that same apple and disagree.

He will explain the relativity of time, he will explain that the energy of an entity changes its state, that the temperature that surrounds has an influence on everything that composes it, that inside that apple, there are protons flying around, that it is only relatively not moving in front of us but that because the world is moving in space, we’re both moving, objectively, we’re not in the same location in time and space as soon as any time passes.

IE :
for the kid, the apple will be 100% identical
Hawkins probably won’t ever consider that that apple is 100% identical at any two points in time.

Those are two different subjective and abstract frameworks in which Hawkins and the kid are operating.

Hawkins can operate in the kids’s framework, by assuming he knows what the kid is referring to, but the kid can’t operate in the same framework as Hawkins.

In both cases, neither Hawkins or the kid will have a singular and “real” objective framework that refers precisely to what objective reality is.

Yet, in both cases, the “not real” framework is one in which they “operate”, in which their consciousness and thoughts can put things into relation, in which an apple has an effect even though there never are 2 times the same apple.

Conclusion, your understanding of objective reality is wrong, it’s not real, unless you understand this relationship between abstract reality (subjective) and objective.

This is where we need to make sure we’re talking about the same thing :

define physical From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Look up physical in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Physical may refer to:
Body, the physical structure of an organism
Human body, the physical structure of a human
Physical abuse, abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm
Physical body, in physics, psychology, philosophy, mysticism and religion
Physical change, any change in matter not involving a change in the substance’s chemical properties
Physical chemistry, the study of macroscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems in terms of physical laws and concepts
Physical cosmology, a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution
Physical education, a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting
Physical examination, a regular overall check-up with a doctor
Physical exercise, any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness
Physical fitness, a state of health and well-being, and a task-oriented definition based on the ability to perform specific aspects of sports or occupations
Physical property, any aspect of an object or substance that can be measured or perceived without changing its identity
Physical Review, an American scientific journal founded in 1893 that publishes original research and scientific and literature reviews on all aspects of physics
Physical Review Letters, a peer reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society
Physical therapy, a health care profession

Picking “physical body” (used in physics)

In physics, a physical body or physical object (sometimes simply called a body or object) is a collection of masses, taken to be one. For example, a cricket ball can be considered an object but the ball also consists of many particles (pieces of matter).

The common conception of physical objects includes that they have extension in the physical world, although there do exist theories of quantum physics and cosmology which may challenge this.

(I would interpret this is as not including energy.)

In classical physics in particular :

A physical body is an object which can be described by the theories of classical mechanics, or quantum mechanics, and experimented upon with physical instruments. This includes the determination of trajectory of position through space, and in some cases of orientation [disambiguation needed ] in space, over a duration of time, as well as means to change these, by exerting forces.

Which means that (the way I see it) there is a fundamental contradiction in the definition of physical itself as used by classical physicists :

An entity is physical only if it can be described by the theories of classical mechanics, or quantum mechanics and experimented upon with physical instruments.

My point (which has been demonstrated in many discussions here on these forums :

“reality” does not contain only things which exist AND can be described by the theories of classical mechanics, or quantum mechanics AND experimented upon with physical instruments.

One example : experience of that reality from a subjective and intelligent point of view (consciousness).

Something clearly illustrated in this extract from the movie Good Will Hunting.

youtube video

There is more to life and reality and existence than what can be demonstrated and empirically verified physically.

If “we” dis regard that as insignificant, it may very well be one important reason why some problems are unsolvable.

Short tangent :
If I smell the fruit “Durian” (which is notorious in Asia) and you’ve never smelt it, that experience can not be empirically “demonstrated” without “subjective experience”.

Anything “physical” has (and should, as confirmed in this thread by the point made by everyone which I rephrased on page 10) be communicated in some “***********” book. (quote from scene).

Enter subjective experience, enter consciousness, and things do not fit.

You can not make me understand, no matter how much information you use, no matter how much you demonstrate, not what “Durian smells like” but what it’s like to smell “Durian”.

“What Durian smells like” can only be experienced, not shown.

Hence the importance of subjective experience.

None of which matters to classical physicists literally, it does not “matter”. (unless I am mistaken in my interpretation of what I have read)

Because “physics” is concerned with “objective” reality which can be empirically tested and reproduced. (the “form” of things)

Although “reality” and “existence” does include consciousness, subjective experience. There is a content to my biological body, the “person” or “conscious intelligent, self aware living being” communicating to you here and now is that content.

It could be conceptualised that any form in which you perceive “me” is an abstraction of what I am in the first place….

A “simplified” definition of what I am which dis regards anything which can not be “described by the theories of classical mechanics, or quantum mechanics and experimented upon with physical instruments.”

Which is probably why “physics” (at least, as far as I know) is unable to explain how or why life emerges from none living components.

This (to me) is absolutely fundamental to so many questions that we ask ourselves, whether in science or elsewhere.

Quote:
The choice you make, the action you choose to do depends on the meaning of abstract entities rather than the physical properties of any information that provides that meaning which you are usually unaware of anyway.

Right – but the expression of the abstract and my action upon the abstract is still physical. As such the abstract remains a way of tying together particular physical uniquenesses and pretending they’re the same for the purpose of initating a decision.

Yes, the expression of the abstract and your actions are physical.

Not sure what you mean by “actions upon the abstract”.

Actually, what do you mean by that?

And again yes, the abstract is a way of tying things together in a simplified form which does not necessarily reflect how they are tied together in reality.

Quote:
That “meaning” also can have a huge impact on how you feel, and how physiologically healthy you are (for example, placebo effect).

Which again is perfectly explainable as a particular physical cascade of neurochemicals.

Only if that cascade of neurochemicals can explain exactly what intelligent consciousness is (also where it comes from, how it is built etc)

Which it can’t.

Because if it could (being a “physical science”) it would be able to reproduce it.

And never (as far as I know) have we been able to reproduce a self aware, living, conscious “entity”.

At least not without using biological and organic systems that were living already in the first place.

Quote:
My argument is that a physical referent to these sets creates an abstraction which can be used to create more abstractions and so on.

It can.

great!

Quote:
At each higher level of complexity, each abstraction’s “relationship” (within the abstract framework) is a new function of that abstraction which exists simultaneously with previously existing functions.

It is.

yes !

Quote:
Because abstractions “simplify” and dismiss certain “real” (and physical) properties, at each successive level, the dismissed properties’ role in the relationship becomes “smaller”.

It does.

woohoo 🙂

this is why I’m happy :

(if two abstract entities are related in a way that the real physical properties (objective) is (even partially) irrelevant, then both “exist” according to my definition of existence “as such” even if they do not exist “in reality”.)

ie

if santa claus flies with raindeers
then
santa (as defined in the abstract framework) exists (as defined in the abstract framework) because he flies (again, as defined in the abstract framework)

not because Santa has any specific “objective” properties that (necessarily) describe objective reality

not because “flying” (as defined in the abstract framework) respects any kind of objective law

but simply because “he” couldn’t fly without existing in the first place.

However “he” (as defined by his function in the abstract framework) only exists within the abstract framework.

Yet whether something exists only in one framework or another, as long as it does exist, then that’s it end of discussion, santa exists.

Quote:
Because abstract concepts of any level of complexity can all be defined, explained, described and “created”, and because the result of this can also be expressed objectively (ie in a book), when a person reads a book, the effect that the meaning of what is in the book has on “him” (which inculdes his consciousness) is “the meaning” that is in the book rather than the components of that meaning (whether they are themselves abstract or not)

This is again the problem – you put the meaning in the book when meaning requires both the book and the reader – without both components there is no meaning.

I think you’re partially right.

For those specific abstract relationships to exist (for them to have that specific function), which does not negate the existence of other simultaneous relationships (including not abstract) they need to operate in an abstract framework.

If the reader does not share that framework, the relationships don’t and won’t ever exist to him.

This bit is (I think) the most important bit, because it’s where you disagree with me.

Whatever relationships (functions) I can abstractly create can be expressed in detail on an objective medium.

ie : if witches can fly on broomsticks, I can explain why in writing.

There are two main differences when communicating this specific kind of information.

1. instead of referring to “the real world”, the abstract concepts refer to a world which does not exist outside of the abstract framework both you and me conceptualise

2. instead of providing you with a variable of a function,

where you already know the function but don’t know the variable (for example, the degree (variable) that the function “temperature” refers to)

1. The specific structuring of components that make up a new entity to which a name and function is assigned (technically speaking, that’s not creation, that’s transformation).

It provides you with an entire “world”.

It provides you with those components themselves :

Quote:
2. The gradual construction of an abstract framework which does not refer to reality within which “not real” entities relate to each other, have functions and so on.

ie you’re (in the words of Hans) “ordering” things (which are not real) in classes (which don’t even have to respect reality either).

All of which (all of which) can be “built” and expressed by using code / information that exists thanks to the medium which communicates it.

ie : in a book

None of which (specifically) need to be known by you before you read the book.

They are not real because I made them up.

You can’t possibly know what it is I am ordering until I describe that world to you.

Tangent :
The meaning is not in the book.

The meaning is not in the patterns of ink written on the book.

The meaning is not either in the English language that the author used to write the book (and that the reader uses to read the book).

The meaning is in the thoughts of the author which he expressed using English as a pattern of ink in a book.

(ie : it’s the other way round).

Which is why the “medium” and its physical properties are irrelevant. As long as you can read what I think.

Something you can only do (I think) if we share the same “abstract AND subjective framework”.

Not something which (as far as I know) can be explained using “science”. (yet).

When you read what I write, you are reading a partial expression of what I am thinking.

This is what I’m thinking, this whole post “is” my thoughts. (not the other way round).

That’s how consciousness “works”, however no one I ever heard of can explain it.

Reading my words is almost the same as reading my mind directly (in principle).

Quote:
It is based on the meaning that you understand and conceptualise.
Right – but again this is not controversial.

What I’m trying to say is that that “force” only exists (as far as I know / as far as I’m aware) in your consciousness.

The cause and effect relationships between what you imagine and what I imagine are direct from your imagination to mine, without passing through anything else, except the medium used to communicate what I imagine.

The “force” (though I wouldn’t call it a force, not sure… I’d rather replace that with “cause and effect relationship”) therefore, doesn’t exist objectively.

However, we can observe its influence :

Sagan :

Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. Public libraries depend on voluntary contributions. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

with regards to this :

The controversy is creating a new force for this. My ability to take an abstract non-real scenario is basically derived from my ability to take a non-abstract real scenario and modify it.

I’d argue the opposite.

You weren’t born with a proper understanding of objective reality. You grew to understand the world around you as you gained knowledge.

When you were 4 years old, an apple was an apple. It contained no molecules, vitamins, no “states”.

When you were 4 years old, an apple had a reflexive relationship.

“In reality”, an apple is not the same apple more than once.

See? It’s the other way round.

That ability: to perceive the real world around you for what it is rather than for what you initially represented it to be is : consciousness.

Not only self consciousness, but consciousness of an objective reality in which other subjective entities evolve.

If I scare a child, what scares him is what he relates to being scary. Not what actually “is” a threat.

“the more I know, the more I realise that I do not know”.

In essence it is irrelevant whether or not the thing I am refering to is a true representation of reality or not – creating the simulcra does not demand that.

Exactly my point.

However this relationship does not exist in “not living things”.

Quote:
Which is why you can be made to be afraid, to feel excited, to be “thought provoked”, to integrate principles that you may apply afterwards, by a scary fictional movie that takes place in a fantasy world.

Yes I can – in essence the substance of lies is that it creates a personal interpretation of reality that does not correlate well with the objective sense of reality.

yes ! exactly !

Quote:
It’s based on the abstract meaning of concepts which you understand, perceive etc.

Again this is not controversial. Just the idea that this takes place in a way that is fundamentally different to a rock rolling down a hill.

The controversy is that the source of that influence can be abstract, and because it can be abstract, it does not obey any laws of physics.

Quote:
But human beings don’t do things out of necessity. That’s what makes us different to most animals;

I would not argue this. The idea that animals do “necessary” things comes from the idea that nature is “designed”. In a godless universe nothing that anything does is “necessary”. From an evolutionary perspective as long as what you do ends up producinig more things like you nothing else is relevant

ok I understand that (I never equated evolution to the existence of God by the way).

What I mean is that most animals, plants, indeed all other living things I can think of, do things out of necessity, humans don’t. (with the necessity for hunting, for example, being “to feed”).

And a lot of these abstract behaviours do not appear to be uniquely human – but that’s another thread entirely.

yeah you’re right (and my preceding point is then partially wrong), but as you said, it’s another thread.

Quote:
Why? I don’t know, but we do.

Why not? Pretty much that we do may or may not be consequential.

yeah, related to the “free will” topic.

Point was, in the case of conscious, intelligent human beings, “necessity” is a factor that influences people, it’s a “motivation”.

On the other hand, it isn’t always so.

Hence the complexity of consciousness which isn’t always rational (or at least doesn’t seem that way).

Quote:
I’m not inclined to impose my own conclusions on anyone, I’m not asking it to be peer reviewed, in fact, to simplify, from page 10 onwards, the “conversation” turned around from me asking questions to me trying to explain what I thought.
[QUOTE]I would argue that mere participation demonstrates otherwise but that’s me.

Yeah, but after someone asks me something, or replies, or whatever.

That’s what I meant.

For example, if you had not posted, I would not have posted this huge wall of text.

And if no one else had posted, the thread would have died, because I would not have tried to “provoke” a reaction spontaneously.

Basically, up to page 10, I was asking questions, people were replying.

After that, people were “telling” me things and “asking” me things, to which I replied.

Before page 10, had no one replied after a few days, I would have maybe bumped the thread with another question, or rephrasing or something.

After page 10, that was no longer the case, had no one replied, I wouldn’t have replied either.

(and if you and/or no one else replies after this post, neither will I).

Quote:
However, the emergence of “human consciousness” is (in my mind) one of the biggest revolutions this world has ever seen so far, and potentially one of the biggest things that may have an impact on “reality” as we know it.

Technology and science is (in my view) reliant on this question.

I can see why one might argue this but it is always tempting to put oneself at the centre of the universe as history shows. Personally I think we owe a lot more to the humble bacterium.

I know what you mean, it’s one argument which I used very very often.

We used to think we were the center of the universe, we used to think the sun went round the earth, etc etc etc

Sagan (again, using him often because he has “scientific authority”) wrote this :

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

(that was your point)

but this is mine (which he also makes)

Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars. We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.