Time to say Hi!

[Gee]

Gee, I will get back to your reply but I was accurately stung by your comment that I did not pay complete attention to your thread.

I will accept your apology if you will accept mine for my lack of patience.

So lets start from the beginning as you are correct that I tend to read a point in the sub-discussions and engage at that level, as on the whole I prefer to discuss and clarify one to one rather than many to many.

I know. You are a linear thinker, and I'll just bet that you believe that right and wrong, and good and bad, actually exist. Linear thinkers tend to address things one to one, system thinkers tend to address things many to many. If you expect to have any real discussion with me, you are going to have to exercise some stretching of your one to one ideas, and I am going to have to exercise great patience for explaining my many to many ideas. This could be good, as I need to learn how to break down my thoughts into something that can be absorbed by other people. But time is against me, so I do not want to answer questions like, "What do you mean by 'soul' or 'emotion'." What I mean is whatever a standard dictionary means. I do not need "busy work", and will lose my patience if I find myself answering questions that seem ridiculous.

This is your personal and cultural bias as the concepts of Monism and Dualism arose from the personal discoveries of the philosophers involved. So it was not about 'consciousness' in Leibniz's case but about the bottom level of reality,

This is the kind of statement that I take issue with. What is the "bottom level of reality"? Well, for humans, that would be consciousness, as there is no reality, at least not for us, without consciousness. Don't even bother arguing that they are different.

By the way, I know that Leibniz's Monads theory has been shot down, but it reminded me of Higg's Bosuns. It really irritates me that MS has taken enough of my cognitive skills that I can not wrap my brain around these concepts, but I saw a similarity.

As to Monism v Dualism, this is what I think: Monism is about life and consciousness coming from a physical source; Dualism is about life and consciousness coming from a God or spiritual source. I think that both are wrong and both are correct. Am I making you crazy?

Philosophy works very hard to walk all around emotion when theorizing about consciousness. Religion is mostly about emotion. My thought is that they both study one aspect of consciousness. Or philosophy is trying to study what it is, while religion is studying what it feels like. It would be like taking a deaf person and a blind person to Niagara Falls and having them discuss the falls. One would argue about what they see, and the other would argue about what they hear. Both would be right, but both would be wrong as to what the falls actually is. Does this make sense?

Now this could support your belief in panpsychism but I think your idea wants a continuum of 'mental matter' to 'consciousness' that is not supportable.

Here you did it again. There is no place in this thread, or anywhere else, that I expressed a "belief" in Panpsychism. I said that I found it "interesting", repeatedly. Do not interpret my words. I will generally say what I mean, not something close to what I mean.

So searching for explanations of 'consciousness' in the reductions of science or any other metaphysics is, in your words, a pointless game of power rather than being about consciousness.

Yes, as long as philosophy decides to ignore some aspects of consciousness. One can not ignore the emotional aspect of consciousness and understand consciousness. We can not parse it out to our specifications. So why do they ignore it, if not for political reasons?

After 2000 years of this kind of debate, we have discovered that everybody is wrong, so I suggest that a change of tactics may be in order. ...

Where did you get this idea from? Philosophy has come to many conclusions and where it hasn't its defined the boundaries of the discussion.

Yes. It defined the boundaries of discussion of consciousness to exclude emotion as that is religious.

Personally I think you do not like 'Socratic discussion' as your response to my questions showed. Although I think you may be right in that this is how we rationalize things but then I think this different than reasoning about them.

After this post, I will find the information on Socratic discussion and post it.
When we use reason and logic, we can use either rational thinking or critical thinking. I found many instances where rational thinking caused us to be dead wrong--and everybody knows we were wrong. So I looked for a rule to guide me and found that rational thinking is only effective when there is a known ending and beginning as it is a way to connect known quantities. Therefore science uses it a lot. Critical thinking is not connecting, it is exploratory, it is more like studying puzzle pieces and seeing similarities, or common threads. There is a good deal of speculation in critical thinking as it looks for the quantities. It is useful when dealing with an unknown, but a waste of time when dealing with a known.

Science employs this type of thinking regularly, and it is a good way to establish the connection and facts of the matter, but when the "one" thing or the "another" is not known, problems arise.

I think you confused as there is no thinking about things unknown in science, if they were unknown then there'd be no discussion. With respect to the subjective, I think you'd have to say what you mean by 'objective' first before I could reply.

You see that word "but" that I made red? Well that word changed the rest of the sentence. You took this out of context. I am not confused. Science deals with knowns. Anything subjective is unknown, except to the subject. It is really that simple.

Third, I believe that "random chance" is nonsense and science is not going to find any answers as long as they keep putting their faith in neurology. ...

You'd have to say what you mean by "random chance" in this case, as Biology talks about the sieve of natural selection acting upon random mutation, not "random chance".

You are doing it again. "random chance" or "random mutation", it makes no difference. The point is that they believe that it is random, I do not. I believe in cause and effect, not luck.

Although neurology can tell us a great deal about the brain and some things about the mind, it has no comprehension of the origin, scope, or workings of consciousness.

I'd have to understand what difference you have between " the mind" and "consciousness" before I could even begin to understand what you are claiming?

So don't understand. I am losing my patience.

Some day consciousness will be proven, but I suspect that the proof will come by way of chemistry, hormones, and study of the endocrine system--probably long after I am dead. ...

Sorry!? What are you talking about, philosophically that is, as Descartes proved it long ago in this subject with, "I am".

If you had read the whole thread, you would already know what I think about Descartes proof.

If religion knows most about something then its about what, in Philosophy, is called the existential question and this assume self-consciousness as a prerequisite not consciousness but we'd have to agree what you mean by "consciousness" and whether it differs form "self-consciousness".

Consciousness means life--if it has a body. Consciousness without a body is an unknown.
I exist because I say so, and anyone who does not agree can go flame him/herself. I have lost my patience.

Please read the entire thread before commenting again. Some of these questions were already answered.

Gee

[Gee]

Socratic Dialogue not Debate
Dialogue:
Is collaborative: multiple sides work toward shared understanding.
One listens to understand, to make meaning, to find common ground.
Enlarges and possibly changes a participant’s point of view.
Creates an open-minded attitude: an openness to being wrong and an openness to change.
In dialogue, one submits one’s best thinking, expecting that other people’s reflections will help improve it rather than threaten it.
Calls for temporarily suspending one’s beliefs.
One searches for strength in all positions.
Respects all the other participants and seeks not to alienate or offend.
Assumes that many people have pieces of answers and that cooperation can lead to greater understanding.
Remains open-ended

Debate:
Is oppositional: two opposing sides try to prove each other wrong.
One listens to find flaws, spot differences, and counter arguments.
Defends assumptions as truth.
Creates a close-minded attitude: a determination to be right.
In debate, one submits one’s best thinking and defends it against challenge to show that it is right.
Calls for investing wholeheartedly in one’s beliefs.
One searches for weaknesses in the other position.
Rebuts contrary positions and may belittle or depreciate other participants.
Assumes a single right answer that somebody already has.
Demands a conclusion

[lancek4]

Socratic Dialogue not Debate
Dialogue:
Is collaborative: multiple sides work toward shared understanding.
One listens to understand, to make meaning, to find common ground.
Enlarges and possibly changes a participant’s point of view.
Creates an open-minded attitude: an openness to being wrong and an openness to change.
In dialogue, one submits one’s best thinking, expecting that other people’s reflections will help improve it rather than threaten it.
Calls for temporarily suspending one’s beliefs.
One searches for strength in all positions.
Respects all the other participants and seeks not to alienate or offend.
Assumes that many people have pieces of answers and that cooperation can lead to greater understanding.
Remains open-ended

Debate:
Is oppositional: two opposing sides try to prove each other wrong.
One listens to find flaws, spot differences, and counter arguments.
Defends assumptions as truth.
Creates a close-minded attitude: a determination to be right.
In debate, one submits one’s best thinking and defends it against challenge to show that it is right.
Calls for investing wholeheartedly in one’s beliefs.
One searches for weaknesses in the other position.
Rebuts contrary positions and may belittle or depreciate other participants.
Assumes a single right answer that somebody already has.
Demands a conclusion

Where does the dialectic come into this?