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[silverspawn]

Actual idealism holds that it is the act of thinking as perception, not creative thought as imagination, which defines reality. Therefore, one idea, or another, can only be a formulation of particulars within the bounds of a known totality, in which one idea is not on any side of those particulars. Totality constituting the whole cohesive reality, is negated in such idea by itself. Integration of totality against idea, in appealing to oneself, is the sole fruitful means of idea, which poses no favoritism to the developed ideas giving a knowing precedence to the world it has created itself into. Anything less is a presupposition and therefore innately unreal. This totality is the act of thinking, not thoughts so regarded by thinking.

[silverspawn]

The problem with researching philosophical ideas is that so many of them are just word salad

[silverspawn]

I've never said this because it feels needlessly contrarian, but it is in fact true; "half full" does not feel more optimistic to me than "half empty".

I definitely wouldn't use "half empty" to describe a glass though.  It seems much more natural to talk about what is there than what is missing. Generally, a lot fewer things are there than not there.

[infangthief]

I think you're still dodging the question? If "consciousness" is fundamental and irreducible, and "matter" is fundamental and irreducible, and they are not the same thing, then either consciousness has causal effect on matter, or it doesn't -- right?

I think things from one Aspect cannot totally cause things from another Aspect.

Dooyeweerd's Aspects are: Quantitative, Spatial, Kinematic, Physical, Biotic, Sensitive, Analytical, Formative (aka Historical), Lingual, Social, Economic, Aesthetic, Juridicial, Ethical, Pistic (aka Faith).

I think you need some kind of 'leap' to get from one Aspect to the next.
I don't really know what we're meaning by consciousness, but I'm assuming it is a Sensitive or Analytical thing. So I would say it can't be caused by Physical and Biotic stuff. Some kind of leap is required.

Similarly I think I would say:

• If I limit myself to numbers (quantitative), I cannot produce lines or planes (spatial). Once someone turns up and introduces the idea of a 2D plane, then I can say, oh, that helps me understand these complex numbers better, but the complex numbers didn't cause the plane.
• If I have no social capability, I can describe two organisms (biotic) in a room with words (lingual) coming out of their mouths. Then someone with the social capability turns up and says those two are having a conversation (social).

In each case the 'leap' is someone turning up who is capable of a higher aspect (but this is hypothetical; probably all people are in fact capable of all aspects).

[infangthief]

But back to your original question about whether atoms or bits are the cause of consciousness, I could actually see "bits" being an answer that could work, with appropriate definitions.

If consciousness means a purely analytical thing (which might be how AI people would use it?), then perhaps it could be built up from bits as fundamental building blocks in the analytical aspect.

[faust]

I think you're still dodging the question? If "consciousness" is fundamental and irreducible, and "matter" is fundamental and irreducible, and they are not the same thing, then either consciousness has causal effect on matter, or it doesn't -- right?

I think things from one Aspect cannot totally cause things from another Aspect.

What about partially cause? silverspawn said "has causal effect", which is very different from "is totally caused by". It seems to me that the question is dodged again.

In each case the 'leap' is someone turning up who is capable of a higher aspect (but this is hypothetical; probably all people are in fact capable of all aspects).

There is no reason to assume that humans in general are capable of all aspects, right? There may be aspects we will never be able to grasp?

Indeed it seems to me that an argument like this is frequently employed in theology; like saying "God works in mysterious ways" would be saying "God is capable of an aspect that human are not; therefore humans will never be able to understand Them."

[silverspawn]

I think you're still dodging the question? If "consciousness" is fundamental and irreducible, and "matter" is fundamental and irreducible, and they are not the same thing, then either consciousness has causal effect on matter, or it doesn't -- right?

I think things from one Aspect cannot totally cause things from another Aspect.

Dooyeweerd's Aspects are: Quantitative, Spatial, Kinematic, Physical, Biotic, Sensitive, Analytical, Formative (aka Historical), Lingual, Social, Economic, Aesthetic, Juridicial, Ethical, Pistic (aka Faith)

Thanks; this is a very helpful reply.

I would summarize it as "I don't like your ontology and thus won't answer your question in your terms; instead, here is my ontology".

This is what has happened in the past and I always find it annoying, which is why I naturally ignore it, which is why it's really good to be reminded. There needs to be some explicit argument for why you don't get to reject the basic setup, which I do think is universal and can't just be rejected. (I'll post it once I've figured out the best way to make it.)

[silverspawn]

Although insofar as it's  really about not knowing what we mean by consciousness, we mean "what it's like to be someone" (and the definition is included in the current version of post #1 on this topic). If e.g. it's something that it's like to be a bat, then that thing is consciousness. You can of course dispute that there is such a thing, which gives you illusionism

[infangthief]

If e.g. it's something that it's like to be a bat, then that thing is consciousness.

A cricket bat or a long-eared bat?

[silverspawn]

a long-eared bat. (Although I think a cricket bat also has subjective experience, so that would technically also work.)

[silverspawn]

In general, you could replace every instance of "consciousness" with "first person subjective phenomenal experience" which would be a less overloaded but longer term

[silverspawn]

So I think what I would say is that the setting is agnostic with respect to the correct ontology, so having a particular ontology isn't a valid reason to reject it.

E.g., if your ontology divides the world into aspects like Quantitative, Spatial, Kinematic, Physical, Biotic, Sensitive, et cetera, then consciousness may just be a boundary around a bunch of things rather than a "natural" or "fundamental" kind. But it still exists, so you should still be able to say e.g. whether or not it has causal effect. (And the case that it doesn't exist at all is also covered; that's illusionism.)

Same for atoms. if your ontology doesn't deal in terms of atoms, that just means atoms are a boundary around a bunch of other things, but they're still there. Unless you think atoms don't exist, in which case that's subjective idealism.

[silverspawn]

And as faust has said, I'm not talking about "total causes", i'm talking about "any causal effect whatsoever".

[infangthief]

And as faust has said, I'm not talking about "total causes", i'm talking about "any causal effect whatsoever".

Ok, yes, I was assuming causal meant produces / creates / explains / totally accounts for.

[infangthief]

As in your original question:

what is the cause of consciousness; bits or atoms?

"the cause" - sounded like it meant "the thing that completely causes / creates / explains"

[silverspawn]

well, it was, in that question. (Although "cause" is sloppy even there since two of the theories have innate correspondence rather than a causal effect.) But that was talking about the effects of matter on consciousness, not vice versa

[silverspawn]

Imagine thinking meditation doesn't work

[Awaclus]

Imagine thinking meditation doesn't work

How do you find the motivation to meditate? I often feel like I have more important things to do with my time, but obviously I actually (as opposed to supposedly!) spend some of my time doing things of questionable value at best, which I could trivially afford to spend meditating instead if only I chose to do that.

[Awaclus]

Which is not to say that I never meditate, but mostly I just meditate when it's particularly important e.g. in order to sleep well, calm down, have a higher tolerance for uncomfortably cold weather, etc.

[silverspawn]

I think in general, when you want to start doing X, you should categorically not rely on motivation. You typically feel motivated when deciding to do X in the future, but not when it's time to do X in the present.

Instead, just use willpower.

My running algorithm is something like, taking commitments extremely seriously and don't commit to something lightly. That way, failure to adhere to a commitment feels like a very big deal and thus I usually will through even when I'm not  motivated.

Then commit to e.g. meditating 10 minutes every day and do it; the longer you don't fail to follow through, the higher the price for failure, the less likely that you'll fail next time.

There's also the book Mini Habits which argues that you should solve the problem by comitting to extremely simple tasks. Not "Meditate 10 minutes per day" but "meditate 20 seconds per day", but then don't fail that under any circumstances. After 20 seconds, you're free to stop, but at that point you've already started (which is the hardest part) and often you'll just do more voluntarily.

[silverspawn]

That said, right now I'm testing the Neural Annealing thesis, so I do 1 hour meditations every couple of days (yesterday was the third one), and so far I am motivated, so they've come for free. In the past, I've had alternating long periods of meditating every day without fault and then stopping for some reason, leading to a long period of not formally practicing at all. Last time it happened because I gradually weakened the standard for what counts as as formal meditation, and sometimes I was like "eh I had this 20 minute period where I was sort of mindful, that counts", and that slipped into losing the habit. Still feel like that was a pretty large failure.

[silverspawn]

Poker theory!

A tournament I've played a lot is fifty50 Turbo. It works like this. There are 8 players. The tournament ends when 4 are out. The remaining four get (almost) their buyin plus a share of the remaining prize pool proportional to their chips.

More elegantly put: the bottom half pays their buy-ins to the top half; the top half distribute it according to stack-size.

By far the most important math concept here is the relative value of chips gaining vs. losing chips, also called the ICM (independent chip model). The easiest way to look at it is this. Suppose 5 players are left and you & another guy both have 100 chips (this is 1/15th of your starting stack, so almost nothing). Your expected cut of the losing half's buyins is negligible; even if you survive it (remember that the tournament ends as soon as 1 more person drops out), you get a tiny slice. But MAKING it into the top half is huge because you get your buy-in back; this is worth around 2800 chips.

So winning 100 more chips is worth almost nothing (who cares if you get 1/120 or 1/60 of the pie?), but losing 100 chips is really bad. This means you should be extremely risk averse.

If everyone plays optimally, this leads to really absurd looking behavior, especially once blinds are large and only 5 people are left. If you're the richest guy on the table, it's often correct to go all-in with hands like 58s, whereas it's correct for players after you to fold things like AJo. That's because gaining more chips is so much worse than losing all of them. And if you're a poor guy shoving (=going all-in) against another poor guy, it's even more extreme.

You can math all of this out exactly given some simplifying assumptions. In practice it's a little different because most people call too wide and shove too tight; this then means you should yourself shove a little less wide than the math suggests, but only a little.

[silverspawn]

Anyway so if you're rich, the correct play is to BULLY ALL OTHER PLAYERS MERCILESSLY. This is really hard for me. It's (a) because I worry "oh no I've just taken a bunch of pots, if I push too far, they'll think I'm bluffing"** and (b) because I feel guilty for asking for more given that I've already been lucky.

**They don't think this; they think "I know this guy probably has nothing, but I can't profitably call because of the ICM and because it's poker so there's like a 1/3 chance they'll win even if my hand is better".

But this is REALLY BAD. Winning the game in first place with 7000 chips vs. in first place with 4000 chips is a BIG DIFFERENCE. It's more than a buy-in worth of difference. This is one of the situations where you have the MOST room to increase expected monetary returns through skill. You shouldn't look at this game in isolation a la ("I'm already winning this game"). It's not about this game! It's about your average expected return per tournament. It's about your level of overall skill, and playing this situation properly is a major component of that.

[silverspawn]

In fact I think this is probably the area where missed out on the most expected EV in the recent past. Right now I had a tournament where I did it properly and woosh I won with 6800 chips. Some luck sure but not even that much.

[silverspawn]

gaining more chips is so much worse than losing all of them.

*gaining more chips is so much less good than losing chips is bad