Hi! Thanks for this post. I have been interested in this subject since it was called the mind-brain identity theory.
Western science, it seems, is fixated on physical substance. What if, for the sake of argument, physical substance is only one of or a special case of reality. The most fundamental term(s) used to describe the universe are space-time. Neither of which is, arguably, composed of physical substance.
Yet there is a precise and repeatable causal relation between physical substance (especially very massive or very fast) and spacetime. Skirting the issue of occupying space for the moment, does some-thing need to have mass to be real? Can a no-thing be real?
What if consciousness is a no-thing? Imagine the mind entangled in some as yet undefined way with the brain. A simple concept might be modeled on an electrical transformer and a convenient attribute of transformers is they can work in both directions. In this model the primary represents the brain and the secondary represents the mind. Much research has identified particular chemical electrical activities with associated thoughts but can we be certain which is driving which?
Is it any more fantastical to imagine all of spacetime, matter, energy, life and thought was present within a pin point at the moment of the big bang?
Hi Til, thanks for your thoughts. I’ll focus on these three questions: “Skirting the issue of occupying space for the moment, does some-thing need to have mass to be real? Can a no-thing be real? What if consciousness is a no-thing?” Regarding mass, remember the section titled “The meaning of mass” in my last letter (on the concept of force in physics). Mass a constant that crops up when we calculate correlations between particle detections. Only in the classical story books (non-relativistic and non-quantum) does it have anything to do with being real. Then about consciousness and things. In my Aurobindonian framework of thought, it can be said that ultimately there is only one thing, which as substance constitutes everything and as consciousness contains everything. Yet this consciousness is supra-mental and that one thing doesn’t appear. The things that appear to us, in our mental consciousness, are manifested by means of more or less stable reflexive relations, i.e., relations between that one thing and itself.
Hi! Thanks for this post. I have been interested in this subject since it was called the mind-brain identity theory.
Western science, it seems, is fixated on physical substance. What if, for the sake of argument, physical substance is only one of or a special case of reality. The most fundamental term(s) used to describe the universe are space-time. Neither of which is, arguably, composed of physical substance.
Yet there is a precise and repeatable causal relation between physical substance (especially very massive or very fast) and spacetime. Skirting the issue of occupying space for the moment, does some-thing need to have mass to be real? Can a no-thing be real?
What if consciousness is a no-thing? Imagine the mind entangled in some as yet undefined way with the brain. A simple concept might be modeled on an electrical transformer and a convenient attribute of transformers is they can work in both directions. In this model the primary represents the brain and the secondary represents the mind. Much research has identified particular chemical electrical activities with associated thoughts but can we be certain which is driving which?
Is it any more fantastical to imagine all of spacetime, matter, energy, life and thought was present within a pin point at the moment of the big bang?
Hi Til, thanks for your thoughts. I’ll focus on these three questions: “Skirting the issue of occupying space for the moment, does some-thing need to have mass to be real? Can a no-thing be real? What if consciousness is a no-thing?” Regarding mass, remember the section titled “The meaning of mass” in my last letter (on the concept of force in physics). Mass a constant that crops up when we calculate correlations between particle detections. Only in the classical story books (non-relativistic and non-quantum) does it have anything to do with being real. Then about consciousness and things. In my Aurobindonian framework of thought, it can be said that ultimately there is only one thing, which as substance constitutes everything and as consciousness contains everything. Yet this consciousness is supra-mental and that one thing doesn’t appear. The things that appear to us, in our mental consciousness, are manifested by means of more or less stable reflexive relations, i.e., relations between that one thing and itself.
"In my Aurobindonian framework ... consciousness contains everything." Sounds like the ALL in a little book called: The Kybalion.
http://www.yogebooks.com/english/atkinson/1908kybalion.pdf