Are we ourselves or just a reflection of our surroundings?

[Zenreon]

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45719746]Because "the apple fell off the tree therefore god exists because he made the apple fall" is purely circular[/QUOTE]

Well good thing you used my own claim, otherwise you might have accidently attacked the wrong argument.

If something exists, then there must be something which must exist. Everything else is only derivative of the properties contained by the neccesary entity.

It is a simple case of if something happens, then there is an explanation.

Then again, I guess you want to argue that there is nothing which exists that gives structure the the universe and physics is a illusion... wait, no you wouldn't.

[HumanAbyss]

No, something may give the universe structure but where you see the need for an entity that is concious to some degree, I do not see that as a requirement of the statement "The universe exists" where as you clearly do.

"The universe exists" is in your logic followed up by "Because a necessary entity exists". I shorten this considerably to "The universe exists because it is necessary for it to exist" otherwise my statement that the universe exists couldn't happen. I do not see where an entity itself needs to be inserted into the equation. I do not see it as necessary to do so yet, and I need something stronger than an ontological assertion that he must exist. The entity being an entity of some level of conciousness complicates this argument to a degree in which I just can't fathom how it's an argument to be made without proof.

[Zenreon]

How could you tell the difference between a neccesary entity producing a universe, and a universe being existing neccesarily? Just because you say the universe exists neccesarily does not denote it as the highest level entity. It may be, but it may not be. I am not making that assumption and so I only refer to it as the highest level entity. All I am saying is that along the line something must be neccesary. And furthermore, in order to produce this immensely complex existence, it too must be immensely complex to account for it. Consciousness can be simply said to just be the conglomeration of information systems into something which can refer to itself intelligently.

Ultimately, at this point in time, it is hard to distinguish this neccesary entity as there is so much in existence that could be argued to be unneccesary. That particular flower, your birth, etc. It seems that only if we were to distill existence to it's purest form would we be able to get an accurate representation of the highest order entity. This entity, which you seem to want to refer to as the universe, has been in existence forever.

Since the original question was; what gives structure to the universe, and your answer seems to want to be 'the universe'. Then it turns out that it is you who is being circular.

[HumanAbyss]

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;45720146]How could you tell the difference between a neccesary entity producing a universe, and a universe being existing neccesarily?[/QUOTE]

Yeah, you can't, so how do you?

[QUOTE]Just because you say the universe exists neccesarily does not denote it as the highest level entity. It may be, but it may not be. I am not making that assumption and so I only refer to it as the highest level entity.[/QUOTE]

Okay but you're adding in something with a great deal of complexity to something that's already complex. You make the assumption that this highest level entity is conscious, something I don't think we could even know at this point, but you're making that assumption.

[QUOTE]All I am saying is that along the line something must be neccesary. And furthermore, in order to produce this immensely complex existence, it too must be immensely complex to account for it. Consciousness can be simply said to just be the conglomeration of information systems into something which can refer to itself intelligently. [/QUOTE]

Okay. So how does this complex entities conciousness exist? In what medium? We don't know, so why assume?

[QUOTE]Ultimately, at this point in time, it is hard to distinguish this neccesary entity as there is so much in existence that could be argued to be unneccesary. That particular flower, your birth, etc. It seems that only if we were to distill existence to it's purest form would we be able to get an accurate representation of the highest order entity. This entity, which you seem to want to refer to as the universe, has been in existence forever.[/QUOTE]

Who says what's necessary? That's a very arbitrary line. The only way that line could be objective is to be derived from god, and why would an all powerful all knowing god that is the very fabric of the universe itself allow something it deems to be unnecessary to exist?

We only have ourselves as a reference frame, so our ideas of god are naturally based on ourselves.

[QUOTE]Since the original question was; what gives structure to the universe, and your answer seems to want to be 'the universe'. Then it turns out that it is you who is being circular.[/QUOTE]

Describing the rules of the universe as the universe isn't really circular. Describing the universe as god, a being we can't ever know or understand, and attributing all of it's rules, structure, and form to said concious entity seems considerably more circular to me.

Maybe it isn't, maybe it's way more straight forward, but i'm not seeing it

[Zenreon]

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;45720222]

Okay but you're adding in something with a great deal of complexity to something that's already complex. You make the assumption that this highest level entity is conscious, something I don't think we could even know at this point, but you're making that assumption. [/quote] That assumption is not central the idea that if complexity is maintained, complexity must exist in that which maintains it. The more complex a software on a computer, the more complex the information interactions are within it upon its hardware.

[quote]
Okay. So how does this complex entities conciousness exist? In what medium? We don't know, so why assume?
[/quote]

In the same way our consciousness seems to be a floaty odd thing produced by a seemingly predictable and structure 'dead' set of molecules, so too would the consciousness of the highest level be comprised of a seemingly 'dead' structure which interacts with itself.

Honestly, where is YOUR consciousness? It's information is stored in your brain, but where is the actual consciousness? Your question seems to follow similar grounds to that.

[quote]
Who says what's necessary? That's a very arbitrary line. The only way that line could be objective is to be derived from god, and why would an all powerful all knowing god that is the very fabric of the universe itself allow something it deems to be unnecessary to exist?
[/quote]
unnecessary =/= Necessarily not

[quote]
We only have ourselves as a reference frame, so our ideas of god are naturally based on ourselves.
[/quote]
And perhaps logic and inference, but that too is based on ourselves now isn't it?

[quote]
Describing the rules of the universe as the universe isn't really circular. Describing the universe as god, a being we can't ever know or understand, and attributing all of it's rules, structure, and form to said concious entity seems considerably more circular to me.

Maybe it isn't, maybe it's way more straight forward, but i'm not seeing it[/QUOTE]

Question;
Does the universe exist within time?

[HumanAbyss]

Why did you dodge my first question?

[Zenreon]

Because seeing as neither of us can make that distinction it really only leaves us at point of axioms. Whereas you choose one, I choose the other. Without further evidence neither of us can reasonably press the issue. I can only draw upon logical inference combined with known fact, this produces my philosophy. Each of us has our own way to structure the argument, and each sees the other as circular.

I say that there is a necessary entity which gives structure the universe.
You say the universe is that necessary entity which gives structure to itself.
I say you have no proof of that, and furthermore whatever structure the highest level entity has would need to be constant. If the highest level entity needed to give structure to itself, how would it do so in the first place? It seems to me the only way out is having an entity with necessary properties that then can act upon the universe which has unnecessary properties.

In other words; The highest level entity simply is, and other things are the way they are because of that. Things are not the way they are because of the way they are, THAT is circular.

[HumanAbyss]

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;45720322]That assumption is not central the idea that if complexity is maintained, complexity must exist in that which maintains it. The more complex a software on a computer, the more complex the information interactions are within it upon its hardware.[/QUOTE]

So conciousness in this case is just hardwired into the universe?

[QUOTE]In the same way our consciousness seems to be a floaty odd thing produced by a seemingly predictable and structure 'dead' set of molecules, so too would the consciousness of the highest level be comprised of a seemingly 'dead' structure which interacts with itself.[/QUOTE]

No, I think about it much differently than that. I sit behind my eyeballs, seeing through them, I am my eyeballs, but I am not thinking with them, they are the windows through which the universe is gazed. I reside in my brain, I am my body, but the active thought process is deep seated in my brain. The thoughts and activities my brain participates in are directly part of my body and it's complicated hormonal functions giving my thoughts their shape and form as my brain partakes in a complicated dance of biochemistry, it is not as simple as being a floaty invisible point in space. I do not see how any sort of conciousness isn't derived from our distinct physical forms.

[QUOTE]Honestly, where is YOUR consciousness? It's information is stored in your brain, but where is the actual consciousness? Your question seems to follow similar grounds to that.[/QUOTE]

Well seeing as any sort of non dualist system of thought seems to be something that we shouldn't talk about, I don't know. I don't see it as part of a dualist system and instead see it from the opposite perspective of a monist.

[QUOTE]unnecessary =/= Necessarily not[/QUOTE]

Okay?

[QUOTE]And perhaps logic and inference, but that too is based on ourselves now isn't it?
[/QUOTE]

Yes. Logic is our attempt to sort the universe out, however we often find ourselves wrong because our biology doesn't have the capability to accommodate more complicated and accurate models of the universe so it has flaws in it often. We do our best to correct this by doing our best to remove human perception from these ideas and simplifying them as much as possible.

[QUOTE]Question;
Does the universe exist within time?[/QUOTE]

No time exists within the universe as best we understand it. Time is a relation between space, matter, and energy.

[editline]17th August 2014[/editline]

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;45720457]
In other words; The highest level entity simply is, and other things are the way they are because of that. Things are not the way they are because of the way they are, THAT is circular.[/QUOTE]

you're doing the same thing...?

[Ziks]

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;45719554]Well for starters, all of existence must be processed and maintained by this entity.[/QUOTE]

I suppose this may be true in a sense, barring some configuration we can't imagine.

[QUOTE]Thus any complexity which exists is only but part of this entity, which leads me to believe that this entity is highly complex.[/QUOTE]

Here's where we must diverge, because by highest level entity I refer to the structure representing the mechanisms that produce our reality, not the product of those mechanisms. The kernel of reality if you will. This kernel may produce minds within the worlds it weaves, but I don't see why it should be assumed that its core structure should encode a mind.

[QUOTE]Furthermore, seeings as the definition of mind is not something mathematically objective, then there is no good grounds to draw the line between a computer and a mind, and a mind and a supermind. Ultimately, the reasoning for why this is a mind is because it is a highly complex information processing, storing, inputing and outputing system. Although, depending on how you draw object boundaries, this entity may infact just be processing, instead of 'inputing and outputting'. This mind is aware of all things as it must neccesarily interact with them to maintain their existence.[/QUOTE]

Correct, although the primary heuristic for selecting a definition should be how much information is yielded by applying that definition. I can't argue with your wish to define "mind" in an extremely lax way so that it may apply to the highest level entity, you are absolutely free to do so. However, my own definition of mind includes requirements such as the ability to reason, anticipate and intend.

[QUOTE]I do not see it as radically unreasonable that the highest level entity too would have abstract representations of the things it interacts with, as a part of the way it interacts with them. We are but simple processing beings, yet we have these experiences to accompany what many people argue is just dead interactions of molecules. If we are but dead complex interactions and we have experience, why would an even more complex system (which is 'dead') not too have some sort of abstract representation contained therein?[/QUOTE]

I might have misunderstood the statements I was arguing against there, as I was describing why a system that produced minds could not always be declared as a mind itself.

[QUOTE]Also, suppose that the information required for describing all aspects of a person's sentience was able to be recorded upon an unchanging thing. A flashdrive for example. Would sentience exist by nature of it functioning mathematically within the description? Or would it just be a false description of sentience? If something implies all informational states of something else, then can it not be substituted as such?[/QUOTE]

That's a really interesting philosophical question that I've been thinking about too. For example, the mathematical structure of the set of all bit strings naturally contains encodings of all possible universes (including our own), each in their individual entirety. Not only that, but the encodings that describe entire coherent universes would be stupendously outnumbered by ones that describe only fragments of a coherent universe surrounded by noise, and it would all depend on how those encodings are interpreted. Would that structure contain conscious substructures? Perhaps we can argue that they don't, or at least that structure does not exist, because otherwise we would expect our surroundings to be extremely incoherent. But then maybe it is only the sentient substructures with coherent surroundings that have the ability to reason about their existence?

[QUOTE]It seems to me we have just as much grounds to call eachother a mind as we do to call the highest level entity a mind. We both process information in such a way that produces complex internal simulation.[/QUOTE]

Depending on whether you define "mind" in a way that includes things like intentionality or the ability to reason and anticipate.

[editline]18th August 2014[/editline]

For example, here's a possible mechanism for the highest-level entity that would not be a mind by my definition, and because of its simplicity it seems like a more probable configuration than any that I would call a mind:

[quote]Enumerate through all bit strings, like this:

'', '0', '1', '00', '01', '10', '11', '000', ...

For each one, apply [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110]Rule 110[/url] 2^n times, where n is the length of that string.[/quote]

This kernel will describe the complete execution of all computable structures, including this universe (assuming it is computable). The kernel itself does not encode anything that I would call a mind, but it will produce minds as output.