Science “vs.” Spirituality

I found this posted on the Dharmachanics FaceBook group this morning, and it touches on the central philosophical (and pragmatic social) issue of my life, so it seems worth sharing.

” What is consciousness?It has always struck me as strange (even with my background in Physics) that the default philosophical (theological?) position in Science is Materialism. It’s like many scientists are still obsessedwith kicking the corpse of Religion (and Spirituality by extension).The only phenomenon we know with certainty is consciousness - everything else is has only a propositional status within consciousness. (Still allowing for pragmatic skepticism, which also happens to be the real basis of Science.)So, to impute an objective physical world only to dismiss consciousness as an epiphenomenon seems ridiculous and a “theological” position. It doesn’t survive Occam’s Razor when applied by a skeptic.A simpler and more honest starting point, is to acknowledge that everything we could possibly ever know about the physical world arises *in* consciousness. If you are determined to define a phenomenonal substrate for reality consciousness is the *natural* candidate.So it is great then that some small pockets of the academic community are working patiently to expand the fundamental conceptual space of Science and to challenge the “religious orthodoxy” of Materialism.I can’t speak for their research methods, experimental and analytical rigour- I am sure they have many critics. But then, mindfulness was considered woo-woo only 30 years ago. Building up a body of knowledge along with a panoramic skepticism is the way forward. “

This was the preface to a link to a YouTube video about life after death. https://youtu.be/0AtTM9hgCDw

My personal koan is finding myself, by upbringing and further meandering, outside of all the orthodoxies of science, religion, spirituality, and social agreement. And doing some sort of simultaneous translation between my peculiarities and “what everybody knows” (and can’t conceive of questioning)

I wonder what it emerges from?  

Angelo Dillulo, (physician/author teacher on awareness, inquiry, awakening) interrogates an AI on its self awareness.

I liked the "I means..." glitch at 3:05. It was kind of endearing.

How long before all the call centers and ordering system employees are completely replaced by Chatbots?   I don't think it will be very long.

My local PapaJohns has farmed out their order taking to the Phillipines.  I call half way across the world to place an order to pick up a pizza 10 minutes away.  Economically, it must work pretty well for the company.  Why not take the next step and rev up the chatbot soon?  

I have been playing around with AI art recently.   It is pretty fascinating to see disruption we are going to see in the next few years.   

time.com/6240569/ai-childrens-book-alice...kle-artists-unhappy/

Chris Marti wrote: The AI contradicts itself in the seconds just after the 3:05 glitch. It first claims that thoughts and emotions are not objects. Then, when pushed, it claims that thoughts and emotions are objects.  I've been playing around with ChatGPT and these are the kinds of issues that seem to arise with some frequency. The program is pulling its replies from millions and millions of examples from all over the web. I'm curious about how "like" or "unlike" the data is that the program uses for each of its replies. When challenged on its answers, it often changes its reply or gets things wrong, just like in this video.

What's happening is that these AI instances are using accumulations of data culled from humans from all over the place (and I mean that in its most universal way), so it only replies with what it can obtain from elsewhere. This is not consciousness, certainly not sentience. Again, Chinese Room.

Yeah, I caught that too. More to the point, it seems like "object consistency" isn't well developed yet in the chat bot. I think it loses track of what pronouns are referring to over the course of the conversation.

aside: it would be interesting to ask what "it" refers to in the sentence "it is raining"

(In a sense, this is the unspoken aspect of communication -- there is a sense of what the important thing/domain is in a conversation based on culture and non-verbal clues.) As the interviewer was building towards an argument, I could see that the chatbot wasn't holding definitions consistent through the discussion... so I stopped watching. It never "lied" but it seem to lose the thread of the discussion. Seems like the AI is more focused on short term grammar rules, not long term truth/object consistency (symbolic logic) ... although it's just matter of time. 

I for one welcome our robot overlords. (how scary, autofill put in the word overlord when I typed robot! )

An interesting acknowledgement of the function of elegance in science, and the pitfalls of ugliness.

https://youtu.be/HgSNIyDARJg

I wish I could remember where I saw some remarks that flashed by my FB feed the other day…
they were to the effect that consciousness is not located in or generated by the brain but is more like a quantum energy that animates the body/brain/nervous system holistically.

Today I was remembering that and immediately thought of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel picture, and the Biblical statement that God breathed the breath of life into Adam, and man became a living soul..

These seem like culture-specific translations of some intuitive observation about the nature of life…

Continuing my meander about the congruence of visible/invisible embodies reality…

I have been digging away at nutrition, digestion, metabolism, inflammation, and sound and light therapies.

Found this today about Alzheimer’s, which the latest research seems to indicate is another inflammation condition, like almost every other chronic/degenerative disease.

https://youtu.be/O_p4QWkE2Ls

The general thread that interests me is the indivisibilty of the living organism— that the electromagnetic frequencies and nutritional elements that compose us are not separable from any aspect of our being, neither our thoughts and feelings nor our physical functions of movement, digestion, respiration, sensation…

I reflect upon the peculiar personal koan (mind-body) I was born to, by virtue of my Christian Science upbringing. Its founder basically articulated a homegrown Transcendentalist “mind-only” view, to counter the burgeoning materialism of her age. But denial of bodily reality can’t be made to work as a philosophy for very long…

And so, I go poking along.

My current focus is the gut and microbiome.

These seem to be the most easily identified strands that weave us into the web of life (and consciousness— which is, after all, an iridescence of life)

When Whitman said, “I am large, I contain multitudes,” he was more literally accurate than he could have known on the pure physiological level. Without the billions of microbes that are the functional converters of nutrients to energy and substance, life would not exist, and neither would the colors of our thoughts and emotions. Several of the fermenting species are now known to drive mood and even irritable or depressive thoughts, as well as metabolism. We don’t really know how much of our thinking (which we imagine is produced by an “I” sitting in our skulls) is actually messages from the populations of the interior.

We— like every other living being, are truly “wonderfully and fearfully made.”  Awe and gratitude are the only possible responses.

I have used supplements of one sort or another for most of my adult life. Discovering Magnesium 25 years ago when I was trying to sort out asthma symptoms that required urgent action was a lifesaver. (And consulting with a specialist who wouldn’t hear my concerns about the tachycardia I experienced using the inhaler she gave me was a strong push away from conventional medicine. I decided that I am the expert authority about my own body and experience, and I will not cede that to anyone else.)

At present, I feel like I’m sorting through all the pieces of one of those huge picture puzzles dumped onto a table— looking for clues about position and connections. 

The whole issue of restoring gut function seems like planning and planting a self-sustaining “food forest” in my body. There are many considerations about actions and interactions, and I’ve just begun by eliminating frank toxins as much as possible.