Check out the latest thread on consciousness in SMP created by Veedz if you want a mind****. You're all/we all could keep going round in circles around premise four. I know where it ends.

To assume that you are merely part of the universe is quite reasonable, you are doing so and ironically so are your interlocutors.
I have my own views. But I shouldn't.


One question:

Did you begin at the moment of conception of when you were a dirty thought in father's mind?

He means that the contents of our imaginings exist (in some sense) in our minds. Which is true enough, although I would say this idea requires some nuanced ontology: my imaginary winning lottery ticket is different from the real one in several important ways. It might be clearer to say that minds are representational and can contain representations of imagined entities. The representations exist in this universe, but that which is represented in them may not.

So you claim you can use your imagination to create new universes which are separate from the whole universe where the imagining occurs?

No, you can use your imagination to imagine such (counterfactual) universes, not to create them. The distinction between a representation and that which is represented in it is useful again here. It's sort of like if someone tells you they can paint a village scene they don't mean they can create an actual village.

It is true that our ability to imagine counterfactuals and interrogate them in some depth is one of the more profound cognitive abilities that we possess, though.

The point is that imagining universes does nothing. All imagined universes are subservient to the universe they are imagined in. This universe not only contains but must contain minds. So even if universes imagined without minds could be imagined (they cant be without begging the question), they would have nothing to say about the universe, which must contain minds.

Link?

Ans: The universe conceived me.

thoughts exist, imaginary universes dont exist in any way in which "exist" makes sense. Otherwise you are also arguing for the existence of santa, leprechauns unicorns etc.

They exist as conceptions, like I said.

Meh. Our basic concepts are too far apart for this conversation to be of much value without more charity than you are willing to extend.

'Of' = or and I also left out a 'your'. I am using an on screen keyboard because some keys aren't working.

I haven't a link. If my memory serves me right, you can click on a name to see a list of the threads they started.
I know it was him, though, had my head wrecked for a few days...again.

You think asking me to beg the question is charity? How bout you just stop begging the question?

You cant imagine a universe existing outside this one because imagining is dependent on this universe. You assume it's ok to imagine outside this universe while depending on this one to imagine. That's question begging, and fallacious. Asking me to do that is indeed more than I am willing to give.

The universe conceived(s) itself, and I am part of the universe, so the universe conceived me.

Your philosophical views are maturing. You are sitting on the fence. You are asking the right questions and have booked a one way ticket down a rabbithole. Enjoy.

I dont know what that means, or how that supports your original argument

What about it dont you understand? Conceptions exist in minds, correct? And minds exist in the universe? So conceptions exist in the universe.

It doesnt support or detract from my argument in any way. You brought it up.

I missed this so I need to address it. If you analyze this closely you will see that you are depending on a hypothetical third persons cognition to imagine those things. Since imagining is a function of the mind, it cannot be done outside of one which is why you rely on one (your own) to imagine the things you do here. The fact that you did this and didnt realize that you did it proves to me that you dont quite understand what I'm getting at and why it must be so.

I assume OrP is in the same spot. It requires a paradigm shift that some people ITT have already made that I am sure you will understand as soon as you get it.

Umm, no , you brought up the fact that imaginary things exist, in various posts as arguments to rebut the points made by others.

As to what I dont understand, I dont understand what you mean by exist. Concepts dont exist in the universe other than as a thought about something, so an imaginary universe doesnt exist in any meaningful way, other than as a thought.

The word "sun" refers to the giant ball of gas around which the Earth orbits. When I think the sentence: "the sun is bright today," there is some physical correlate (presumably) to this thought located in my head, but the actual giant ball of gas is not itself in my head. Your argument relies on believing that the giant flaming ball of gas is actually in your head, and so if your head was no longer around to think about it, the sun itself would disappear.

But your perception of the sun is a function of your brain. When you look at something, your transducers (eyes, ears, nerves, etc) are converting 'something' into electrical signals and then those electrical signals hit your brain and you think you see the sun. You dont actually have any experience of the sun outside of your own brain/mind, do you?

If your brain shuts off, your experience of the universe would likely end. So to say that the universe wouldn't disappear is false. It would disappear to you.

This proves at the very least that your interaction with 'the universe' really is happening in your mind.

Conversely, the universe would not be the universe without your mind (or more generally, mind). So in a very real way, the universe is as dependent on mind (in a general, global way) as your mind is on it (in a specific, local way).

Mind corresponds to Reality in a fundamental way.

That something I mentioned earlier is probably information, and our minds are information processors. If the stuff of the universe really is information, and mind corresponds to reality in a fundamental way, then the universe must itself be a giant information processor.

If you think about it a bit, it cant be any other way. How could the universe maintain its consistency unless it was processing its own information? How could it assure that A v ~A is followed across all its constituent parts? Wouldn't just one example of A + ~A render the entire universe inconsistent?

Lovely. However, the giant flaming ball of gas itself is not in my head. I'll grant that my perception of it is in my head, and my perception of the sun depends on my being around to perceive it. But the sun itself doesn't, because it is a giant flaming ball of gas, not an idea or perception in my head.

I was having a late lunch and this was reminding me a little bit of Descartes' famous cogito argument, in a sense.

Specifically, the conclusion that because there are thoughts there must be a thinker.

That's perfectly fine, it's similar to the second version of the statement I pointed out before:

But it's like you want to go one step further: because there is a thinker the thoughts must be about the thinker. And that doesn't follow. It would be valid to point out ways in which the contents of my thoughts are conditioned by my nature as a thinker, or the biology of brains, and so on, but that's not the argument you've made.

Prove it.

When you die, will the sun cease to exist?

Fundamentally the thing in your brain is unprimed cognition. It takes sense data to experience anything "outside" yourself. What's more telling is how the proper functioning of the brain itself is dependent on stimulus. Go check out a sensory deprivation tank to see that the brain will invent it's own sense data if it is deprived of it.

In fact there is no way to prove anything outside yourself, as all of the proofs would rely on your perception of instruments or maths or logical laws or whatever. Perception is the end of the rabbit hole. Since you cant delve deeper than it without also relying on it, all you can say with absolute certainty is that reality = perception (mind) in some fundamental way.

The diameter of the sun is approximately 864,337 miles wide, while the diameter of my head is less than a single mile. Thus, the sun can't fit in my head. Furthermore, if the sun was in my head, you would be dead, since you would then be too close to the blazing heat my head would emit.