Virgil H. Soule says:

We’re up against a brick wall in our understanding of the universe. We look out in any direction and we see Cosmic Background Radiation that apparently originates at a red-shift of about 1100. We can measure the position and velocity of everything we see but only relative to ourselves. We have no way of determining anything absolute about the universe because we are on the inside looking out.

We have the same problem with the human mind: we’re on the inside looking out.

“Cogito ergo sum.” That’s all we can say.

Koen says:

I believe what you refer to as “semantic apocalypse”, Buddhists and others might refer to as “enlightenment”.

Dr. Dennis McClain says:

I had a transformative experience that I think is relevant and serves to disprove your assertion by example.

I’m a neuroscientist. (Did you catch “Why, we just found smoking can offset Parkinson’s” in ‘Thank You For Smoking’? That was mine.) I found late in life that I’m part native American and sought someone to teach me about that part of me. While learning from an elder who was my mentor, I was struck by lightning. He got all excited because he too was struck by lightning. He told me, as his teacher told him, that being struck meant that I was to practice ‘fire medicine’.
I said “Usti, that’s nice, but I’m a scientist, not a traditionalist, I don’t work that way.”

He said “So what is it you do?”
“I’m a neuroscientist. I study the brain.”
“With what?”
“I use electrophysiology, brain waves.”
“What are those?”
“Electricity generated by brain cells.”
“Electricity. That’s energy. That’s fire. You’re already doing it.”

From that I came to understand that any viewpoint is limited (that is in keeping with your assertion) and therefore not the one-and-only correct viewpoint (yes, even science). Others can be different, equally applicable and equally useful within their own culture without detracting from another. And when one viewpoint comes into contact with a differing one the result can be synergistic in that the person can grasp both viewpoints plus gain insight into that ability — more than the sum of the two.

The history of our species has been one of multiplying and increasingly diversifying cultures. They have all spontaneously developed a world view equal in sophistication for their needs. There is no end in sight for this increasing complexity. Potentially, world views could diversify forever. As populations grew and spread, interaction occurred. As communication technology developed, more interaction occurred. As it does, minds are transformed to grasp this increasing complexity. The effect is not one of an averaging out, of making a mutt out of many pure breds. Rather, we retain our own viewpoint, sometimes more than one, sometimes switching from one to another, and at the least allow ourselves to admit others are out there with different viewpoints that are as valid to the as ours are to us.

The entire history of our species serves as the example that we are most likely predisposed to perpetually diversify our world views and create intraspecies complexity from the interactions of those which we incorporate into those world views. The evidence argues against a dead end, except for those viewpoints which may be detrimental to themselves and die out or self-destruct, leaving the viable to continue to develop through a sort of planetary genetic algorithm.

Finally, as a point of science, it is far better to take data from observations than from assertions. I’ve presented an (admittedly, interpreted) observation in opposition to your assertion, based on another’s assertion. Put your money where you want — mine’s on observation.

Reverend Dave says:

Who cares? If the debunking happens, what difference will it make to you, or me? We have to continue living, or lay down and die. Conciousness is how we live. And allegedly, in death there is none. So what difference will this make?

bob says:

“After enlightenment, the laundry.”

Basically our thoughts are just representations our brains use to keep us alive. It really isn’t all that horrible a thing. It is how humans evolved. Some animals have claws, some can run fast, some can reach the higher fruit. We think. We can abstract and plan and remember and idealize. Its just our niche. The suffering comes in when you take it to far and start to think you are something really special. Apart from the Universe. Above all creation. There will no doubt be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth if your this apocalypse ever comes to pass on a large scale. Just like there is doubt and sadness to some extent for a Buddhist as they leave their own ideas of self importance behind.

“Man is the animal that thinks something is wrong.”

But you know what? You see the universe for what it is and what it is, is so much more than our humble little brains could ever hope to imagine. And we are just a part of that. It really isn’t all that bad to let your ideas go. It isn’t as bad as you imaging it to be; but the ‘imagining it to be’ is what causes us problems.

Of course all that doesn’t mean you’ll no longer need to do the laundry when you get home from work.

Jason says:

A couple of things come to mind. First, it seems to me that if what we are moving toward is a greater understanding of the forces which condition us, and the limits of our capacity to understand the universe, these are both very positive and useful developments.

Take for example someone who acts unconsciuously driven by an addiction. That behavior is self perpetuating in large part because of the fact that it is unconscious. If that person has a “moment of clarity” and can see that automatic behavior as not really an operation of free will, then a kind of higher order free will can be brought to bear. Meta-free will if you will, which is possible because of the recognition of the fact that one’s behavior is conditioned.

Similarly, if we can determine the neurologic forces that operate on us that condition our responses to the universe, there exists the possiblity of manipulating those from a higher order of abstraction, reprogramming our conditioning to more suitable programs. The question of what meta-values would apply would itself be subject to conditioning which could be the subject of meta-meta programming. In fact the project of understanding the limits of our brain is a way of transcending those limits through higher and higher levels of abstraction, each manifesting a kind of free will with respect to lower order conditioned behaviors. Accordingly, I submit, understanding our semantic and neurological limits and conditioning is how we bootstrap ourselves into free will.

As far as the blind brain hyposthesis, I think that it is fair to say that the idea that there is no consciousness (i.e. individual consciuousness) is not a new one. Early Buddhist thinker Nagarjuna comes to mind. Also most of Vedanta. If understanding that from a rational perspective were sufficient to cause a person to abandon the concept of personal conscousness, I would expect that worldview be more widespread than it is. More likely would be the discovery of some neurological mechanism which causes us to feel as if we exist, and which we could chose to interrupt (this would be an interesting example of meta-free will).