higgy1911 wrote:
I'm not seeing the failure of reductionism quite yet.
I seem to be having an experience. But I am a particular combination of energy. My dog seems to be having an experience. Likewise she is a particular configuration. My door does not seem to be having. An experience. Likewise it is a particular configuration.
Are the parts having the experience? Or is the sum of the parts something distinct from what the parts might be in some other combination?
Ok, let's try to take a look at this as reductionism.
Reductionism actually needs to invert itself and stand on its own head to do this to being with.
As an example, let's use reductionism to explain how an internal combustion engine works:
Well, what do we do? We look at all the parts and explain why all the parts are doing what they do to. We can explain this easily using reductionism. The main parts of the engine (i.e. the piston, cylinder, connecting rods, etc.) are easy to explain. They are just solid objects, and physics easily explains solid objects as atoms bound together in various ways.
The the bulk of the engine is easy to explain as just solid parts that are individual and movable in predicable ways. The crankshaft being circular restrains the piston to move up and down in the cylinder and so the motion of the engine is explained.
Next we add the fuel through a carburetor or fuel injection system, and then ignite the fuel in perfect timing with the piston's motion so that the fuel explodes and precisely the correct time during each cycle of the piston.
The energy produced by this engine is explained by the fuel molecules undergoing an energy transformation as they burn and giving off energy in the form of rapid expansion of the fuel as it burns along with a bunch of wasted heat.
Everything has been explained. But what did we do here? We actually explained everything using reductionism!
Now let's look at a brain. Can we explain a brain using reductionism in this same way?
No, we absolutely cannot.
On the contrary instead of trying to explain a brain in terms of the actions of individual parts we end up turning reductionism on its head and proclaiming that we can "reduce" the brain to being a complex configuration that does what it does NOT because it can be reduced to the sum of it's parts, but because we are proclaiming that it has become something MORE than the sum of it's parts!
This really isn't even reductionism at all. On the contrary it's reductionism pretending to have succeeded in explaining the behavior of something that cannot even be reduced to the sum of it's parts!
Reductionism fails miserably here but the reductionists keep on trying to proclaim that reductionism is working because they claim that they can "reduce" the brain to an "emergent property" of complexity.
And then they have the absolute audacity to proclaim that we see this all the time as in the case of an internal combustion engine which they claim is just another example of an "
emergent property of complexity".
But we just saw that this is not true.
An internal combustion engine is NOT an "emergent property of complexity". On the contrary an internal combustion engine can be explained using reductionism perfectly without any need to make up any make-pretend miraculous "emergent properties of complexity".
So the reductionists are not only standing on their heads on this one, but they aren't even paying attention that reductionism actually worksfor an internal combustion engine but it does not work for a brain.
In fact, the reductionists actually need to appeal to "holism". Instead of being able to reduce a brain to the working of its parts like they did for an internal combustion engine, they proclaim that a brain only works because it has obtained some new magical "emergent property" that owes its very existence to the holism of the brain. And they claim that it cannot even be reduced at all. Do away with the brain and that new emergent property ceases to exist altogether.
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Now let's stop and think about this specifically:
At one time you were a baby. That's one configuration. And you certainly had conscious awareness when you were a baby.
But now look at yourself. You are no longer a baby (fair assumption since you are posting on this forum).
You are a completely different configuration. In fact, you continually change every day. By the time you get old and decrepit you'll be an even different configuration from what you are now.
Therefore you cannot be just a particular configuration. Apparently a very wide range of configurations will do and you will always be aware that you are you.
What is the limitations on your configuration? How dramatically can your configuration be changed and you still believe that you are you?
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Imagine now that you can be teleported from one place to another. You climb into the teleportation booth and they send you off. You momentarily black out and wake up in a new place. You say, 'Yep this is me. I have arrived."
But what if they report to you that the original station still has a fully functional original of yourself? Then clearly the original must still be you too! In fact, technically you could actually say that it was the original you, and you are not just a copy of yourself.
But not to worry. Even though their are now two of you, you are just a configuration right? In fact, since this is all you are then clearly you can be copied a gazzillion times and every copy with be just another valid "you".
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Stick with me now.
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Now they teleport you again. Only this time you materialize in the new location with a new body. But you still feel like the same you in your mind. So now you are screaming, "Hey! This isn't my body!".
But wait a minute, the mind is clearly you! Otherwise you wouldn't be standing there complaining about being in the 'wrong body'.
Again they report to you that your original was also retained with your original body. And they even walk you down the hall of the laboratory and introduce you to yourself.
One of you has your original body, but the YOU that you are now experiencing has a different body and you walk up and shake hands with your original person and explain that you are not in another body.
But BOTH of these entities are YOU.
In fact, both of these entities actually believe they are you. Neither one of them can be convinced that they are not YOU.
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So now, what I am saying it that this is how reality actually works.
Everyone you meet is YOU. Without exception.
Clearly they don't know it. They think they are individuals who are not you. And you feel the same way about them. But in reality every "YOU" is the same.
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Did Jesus know this?
"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Maybe so.
Whatever you do to anyone, you do unto yourself because every consciousness in the universe is YOU.
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There is only one underlying consciousness. And it is this underlying consciousness that is having the awareness of all configurations.
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Every time you go to sleep or lose consciousness and reawaken, it's the same YOU.
And it doesn't matter whether this happens over night or over endless spans of time.
Something is having the experience of being in the configuration that you are currently experiencing . And YOU are this entity that is having this experience.
It's not the configuration itself that is having an experience.
The configuration itself is just a fleeting configuration. You are never the same configuration from day to day. So clearly you cannot be the product of a specific configuration.
Many configurations will do.
And therefore when the configuration you currently are finally ceases to exist (i.e. your physical body dies), you will then begin to experience a brand new configuration. No doubt being reincarnated into yet another configuration.
The configuration is never YOU.
You are the entity that experiences the configuration. And you are the same entity as everyone else who is experiencing a configuration.
And we call that entity "God" for lack of a better term.
Of course, the Greeks and Hebrews have perverted the term "God" but there's not much we can do about that. That's water over the dam.
In the meantime the idea that we can be "reduced" to a configuration that is more than the sum of its parts is silly. That's not even reductionism anyway. That's reductionism standing on its head pretending to be holism.
