ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (06/22/85)
>> In general, I find that the strongest conclusion I can draw from the >> mystical experience is that there is some supernatural order which shows >> some unification of the natural order. [Charley] > >Why does that sound like a conclusion you've already presumed in order to >reach that conclusion? You speak of the limits of language. "Supernatural" >is a word, a piece of language conceived and invoked by humans. What does >it mean? From the structure of the word parts, and from the nature of the >way the word is used, "beyond the natural" sounds like the intended meaning. >How do we define natural? What are the limits of what is natural? Where are >the boundaries between "natural" and "supernatural"? Are they anything more >than arbitrary demarcations that facilitate the conclusions we want to draw >about the universe and about the nature of the supernatural? Charley is not >alone is not having answered these questions. [Rich Rosen] Consciousness, the subjective experience of existing, pure awareness, is supernatural, since it is in principle not objectively verifiable. -michael
jim@ISM780B.UUCP (06/23/85)
> Consciousness, the subjective experience of existing, pure awareness, > is supernatural, since it is in principle not objectively verifiable. I very much agree with Michael. This fundamental uncontrovertible fact of human existence is, I think, the driving force behind the powerful but pointless search for God and the paranormal. Since we have this massive chunk of unrationalizable subjectivity right in our core, we seek futilely to mechanize it but giving it purpose (God's), or form (the soul), or method (ESP), or by simply denying its existence altogether (extreme behaviorism). But all of this junk won't change the awesome fact that, for no demonstrable reason, there is a subjective you and some day there won't be, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it (the latter; it is relatively easy to do the former, to destroy the ego on your own, although the common reluctance to do so just helps underscore how totally trapped we are within our physical manifestation). The human brain give rise to the mind. Why? It isn't necessary. Merely because the cosmic joker wanted a good laugh. -- Jim Balter (ima!jim)
norm@ariel.UUCP (N.ANDREWS) (07/02/85)
The reason some people claim that "consciousness... is in principle not
objectively verifiable" is because both the concepts "objectively" and
"verifiable" are genetic descendants of the concept of "consciousness".
It is because consciousness (and the concept of consciousness) is antecedent
to the concepts of proof and verification, we cannot reasonably ask for
proof that consciousness exists. To deny the existence of consciousness while
upholding the concepts of proof and verifiability would be to steal the use
of the concept while denying it! This fallacy, which I think has been ident-
ified long ago, has been termed by Nathaniel Branden as The Fallacy of the
Stolen Concept.
Humorlessly,
Norm Andrews
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