Properties of humans are properties of the universe
Of course his point is that on a reasonable conversation you would be expected to accept well established scientific facts without requiring a laborious demonstration of the fact that the sun is really big compared to his head.
As we know from the first 7 pages of this thread, perception is part of reality itself. You cannot know anything about reality beyond your perception of it. They are inextricably linked.
That is where any 'fact finding' must ultimately begin.
So no, sorry, the sun (til you prove otherwise) only exists in your mind. Any interaction with reality you have is totally in your mind. There is no 'ultimate reality' beyond your mind. When the lights go out, so does the music.
If you disagree, I'm all perception about a non-perception based reasoning around it.
Ya I know I cant do the other symbol on my phone and tried to edit it but it was too late
A OR ~A
I think the symbol is valid in mathematical logic but not 100% sure
A OR ~A
I think the symbol is valid in mathematical logic but not 100% sure
I think he's just trying to prove the law of the excluded middle?
Nope. You assumed it.
Blah, blah, blah. As usual, I end up being blamed with the arguments and claims you give the caricatures in your mind rather than the actual people you are arguing with. Hmmm...actually, that makes sense given your solipsism I guess.
This is unjustified. How can you know that the sun only exists in your mind? Shouldn't you just say you don't know whether the sun exists outside your head?
Okay, I disagree. I believe the sun is a giant ball of gas 93,000,000 miles away from my head, that my perception of the sun and the sun itself are not the same thing - that my perception is of an object external to myself, so that while the perception is in my head, the object itself is not. I can't prove any of this is true, so my belief is unjustified. Nonetheless, when I examine my head, the belief, even though unjustified, is still there.
What about you? Do you think that the sun is actually less than a mile wide like my head? Is it actually very small and fits in my head? If you cut open my head, would we find a tiny little sun there? Or are there lots of suns, one in each person's head? When I go in a building, how does this sun still provide sunlight for plants to convert into energy? Should we hire people to stand in farm fields to provide sunlight? Maybe we can hire extra suns to stand in our fields for 24 hours straight for more sunlight and so greater efficiency?
Those 'well established scientific facts' were arrived at by both assuming and concluding that perceptions are indicative of an outside reality. The scientific method is circular reasoning. It assumes perception is reliable and then uses perception to 'prove' that perception is reliable. Any statements of 'fact' arrived at by the scientific method are thus ultimately fallacious, including but not limited to "the sun is x diameter and far too large to fit in my head."
So no, sorry, the sun (til you prove otherwise) only exists in your mind.
If you disagree, I'm all perception about a non-perception based reasoning around it.
What about you? Do you think that the sun is actually less than a mile wide like my head? Is it actually very small and fits in my head? If you cut open my head, would we find a tiny little sun there? Or are there lots of suns, one in each person's head? When I go in a building, how does this sun still provide sunlight for plants to convert into energy? Should we hire people to stand in farm fields to provide sunlight? Maybe we can hire extra suns to stand in our fields for 24 hours straight for more sunlight and so greater efficiency?
An illustration. Imagine that you're wearing a pair of blue tinted glasses. It hues everything you see in blue. Now at first glance, your perception seems to be implying that the world is blue. But you think well, maybe it's the glasses, and if I take them off the world really isnt blue. So you take them off and you perceive now that the world isnt blue after all. Looking further into this, you realize that your perception without glasses is now dependent on something else. Your mind. And theres no more good reason to believe that your mind is accurately depicting reality than the blue glasses were. So you decide to confront the proposition that reality is mental in nature. We can simply remove the mind from reality and assume it's there. However, while you can remove the glasses, you actually cannot remove your mind. As soon as you remove your mind from the equation, perception evaporates altogether. So your perception really is limited to your mind, and even if it weren't, you wouldn't be able to perceive the converse. You realize it's actually impossible to prove that reality isnt mental in nature. So for all practical purposes, it is.
okay, I disagree. I believe the sun is a giant ball of gas 93,000,000 miles away from my head, that my perception of the sun and the sun itself are not the same thing - that my perception is of an object external to myself, so that while the perception is in my head, the object itself is not. I can't prove any of this is true, so my belief is unjustified. Nonetheless, when I examine my head, the belief, even though unjustified, is still there.
Even your beliefs are perceptions.
<snip>
Now remove your head from the equation and tell me what you perceive.
Now remove your head from the equation and tell me what you perceive.
Also, evidently you realize how ridiculous your viewpoint sounds given how assiduously you have avoided admitting that you don't believe the sun is bigger than my head. That the sun is not actually at the center of the solar system, that the planets do not actually orbit it, and that actually it isn't in my head at all, nor am I having a perception of it, but rather only you are having perceptions in your head. I (OrP) don't exist, neither does the sun, neither does anything, including your head. Maybe some I exists, but you don't know anything about it other than that it is thinking and perceiving.
No, he said he is proving that logic is true.
If you were making assertions about the material nature of the universe outside of yourself, you were implying there is a material nature of the universe outside yourself. I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but there's really no way around it. You're claiming you didn't make an assumption about the material nature of the universe, when you clearly did. I asked you to prove that assertion, and you agreed that you cannot prove an external reality. Ok, fair enough. We both agree that we can not, of ourselves, prove that reality exists external to us.
What does this mean? It means that reality, to us, is perceptual in nature. But we are part of reality (do you contest this?), so reality must at the very least be perceptual in nature. Insofar as we are concerned, reality is only perceptual in nature. To believe, say, think, conceive anything outside of this is to step outside ourselves and our experience of reality (our perceptions). Even if it were true, we would never be able to perceive it as true, so it's meaningless to even talk about it.
You can say you believe it exists on outside our perception. Guess what? Even that belief is a perception.
No really, being elusive or otherwise opaque in your statements is not going to get you out of this. The only way out of this is to agree, or give up arguing. You cannot obfuscate or argue your way out of this.
Your experience of reality is fundamentally mental in nature. You've already agreed to this by agreeing that we cannot prove reality is external to us. The reason why we cannot is that we have no access to anything but our own perceptions. I am open to being wrong about this. It's up to you to show me that it can be done, using anything but perception to do it.
Again, it is clear you either do not understand what I am saying or you are purposely leaving things out in order to obfuscate my argument. I said that when you no longer perceive the sun, it ceases to exist to you. This is so trivial and obvious it boggles the mind that anyone would argue with it.
You just finished saying that you can't show that external reality exists, so regardless of what you say, everything you say about the sun, including what you believe about it, is dependent on your perception. Conceptions about the sun are perceptions. Speaking about the sun is a perception. Everything you do regarding the sun is a perception.
So now we have you going making baseless assertions with built in assumptions to parsing between beliefs and justified beliefs, all of them totally dependent on perception. Let's see if you can define any of those things apart from perception. Go ahead.
Ok, so you agree you are not justified in believing in p (external reality exists), yet you believe it anyway? What does it matter if I share your belief that the sun actually exists (whatever that means) if you agree the question is relying on a definition you yourself have said is unjustified?
I didn't say I don't believe it. I said anything you say, think, feel, intuit, write, watch, listen etc regarding it is dependent on your perception. Do you agree? Why or why not?
A self-contradictory statement
What does this mean? It means that reality, to us, is perceptual in nature. But we are part of reality (do you contest this?), so reality must at the very least be perceptual in nature. Insofar as we are concerned, reality is only perceptual in nature. To believe, say, think, conceive anything outside of this is to step outside ourselves and our experience of reality (our perceptions). Even if it were true, we would never be able to perceive it as true, so it's meaningless to even talk about it.
You can say you believe it exists on outside our perception. Guess what? Even that belief is a perception.
Blah, blah, blah. As usual, I end up being blamed with the arguments and claims you give the caricatures in your mind rather than the actual people you are arguing with. Hmmm...actually, that makes sense given your solipsism I guess.
This is unjustified. How can you know that the sun only exists in your mind? Shouldn't you just say you don't know whether the sun exists outside your head?
Evidently not, since you have claimed that the sun ceases to exist when I no longer perceive it, and eventually I'll die and hence no longer perceive it. Sucks for you guys!
Umm, nothing. Weird. I guess when I say that I don't believe the sun and my perception of the sun are the same thing I must actually mean it.
What is really going on here is that you struggle to acknowledge that I really do distinguish between a belief and a justified belief.
You keep arguing that I'm not justified in believing that p, which I accept, and then [waves hands] means I don't believe p, which I don't accept.
Also, evidently you realize how ridiculous your viewpoint sounds given how assiduously you have avoided admitting that you don't believe the sun is bigger than my head.
I (OrP) don't exist
If the world only exists in one's mind , which is also a function of the material brain or otherwise , then your perception of yourself must also be in your mind (brain).
The nervous system is a reflector of thoughts which are not material but supersensible. A thought is a living being to which man, in his thinking, perceives extraordinary or within the supersensible.
In truth cosmic thinking is what forms the brain prior to birth and when a man thinks he cannot stand or withstand a full appreciation of a particular thought being for it would overwhelm him. Therefore the thoughts we perceive are attenuated or in fact the corpse( due to our abilities but not dead as on earth) of a living thought being to which we can and do relate to in a living manner during the sojourn between death and subsequent birth.
Thinking is a sensory process ( not physical-have to use words which have meaning on earth to point higher) within the spirit "thinking as a spiritual activity".
The nervous system is a reflector of thoughts which are not material but supersensible. A thought is a living being to which man, in his thinking, perceives extraordinary or within the supersensible.
In truth cosmic thinking is what forms the brain prior to birth and when a man thinks he cannot stand or withstand a full appreciation of a particular thought being for it would overwhelm him. Therefore the thoughts we perceive are attenuated or in fact the corpse( due to our abilities but not dead as on earth) of a living thought being to which we can and do relate to in a living manner during the sojourn between death and subsequent birth.
Thinking is a sensory process ( not physical-have to use words which have meaning on earth to point higher) within the spirit "thinking as a spiritual activity".
If the universe only exists in the mind, why are you arguing that the universe is self aware, since (according to you) theres no proof of such a thing as the universe?
I'm not saying it only exists in the mind. I'm saying our experience of the universe exists in the mind. So we know that reality is partly mental in nature, because we are part of reality. Its self-evident!
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?
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.
But it sounds like you do in fact already accept that the sun is not only the concept in OrP's mind.
The bolded is OrP stating the same thing as you just did, but you seemed not to accept this:
Also note that "Mind corresponds to Reality in a fundamental way" is potentially a very different and stronger claim than merely that reality is subjective in the sense that all of our knowledge of reality is mediated by our perceptions.
Again, this is OrP agreeing with that but pushing back on your attempts to jump from the above uncontroversial claims about the differences between perceptions and reality to claims about reality itself
(e.g. your original claim that reality is self-aware, or the more recent claim that it's impossible to imagine a universe which does not contain any minds), to which you responded:
1) assume we can imagine this universe has no minds
2) to be able to imagine this universe has no minds we have to imagine this universe without our mind
3) since imaginations are contained in the mind, imagining this universe without our mind removes both our imagination and our mind
4) the assumption we can imagine this universe without minds is false
Note that this also applies to imaginations of other universes, since those imaginations are contained in this universe, which is the only universe we experience and can have knowledge of. This is the universe
But it sounds like you do in fact already accept that the sun is not only the concept in OrP's mind.
... and then you pretend that your retreat was not a retreat and return to the much stronger claim.
These are not equivalent
1) human knowledge of reality is mediated by subjective perception
2) reality is fundamentally cognitive
These are not equivalent
1) human knowledge of reality is mediated by subjective perception
2) reality is fundamentally cognitive
Since we are, and our experience of reality is cognitive, then reality is partially cognitive (us). So either reality is as a whole materio-cognitive or its partly cognitive and partly material. Which one do you believe? Are you a monist or a dualist?
We are, and you're back to the fallacy of composition apparently.
Nope.
1) our experience of reality is cognitive
2) we are part of reality
3) reality is partly cognitive
4) reality is partly material (rocks aren't cognitive)
5) reality as a whole is either partly cognitive and partly material (dualism) or materio-cognitive (monism)
Which one do you believe?
1) our experience of reality is cognitive
2) we are part of reality
3) reality is partly cognitive
4) reality is partly material (rocks aren't cognitive)
5) reality as a whole is either partly cognitive and partly material (dualism) or materio-cognitive (monism)
Which one do you believe?
But you are claiming that we cant know anything about the universe, because everything we know about it is from our perceptions only. And you are also making claims about the universe.
What does this mean? It means that reality, to us, is perceptual in nature. But we are part of reality (do you contest this?), so reality must at the very least be perceptual in nature. Insofar as we are concerned, reality is only perceptual in nature. To believe, say, think, conceive anything outside of this is to step outside ourselves and our experience of reality (our perceptions). Even if it were true, we would never be able to perceive it as true, so it's meaningless to even talk about it.
You can say you believe it exists on outside our perception. Guess what? Even that belief is a perception.
No really, being elusive or otherwise opaque in your statements is not going to get you out of this. The only way out of this is to agree, or give up arguing. You cannot obfuscate or argue your way out of this.
Again, it is clear you either do not understand what I am saying or you are purposely leaving things out in order to obfuscate my argument. I said that when you no longer perceive the sun, it ceases to exist to you. This is so trivial and obvious it boggles the mind that anyone would argue with it.
"Insofar as we are concerned," "that reality, to us, is perceptual," "meaningless to even talk about" all these claims are where we disagree. I don't accept your reductions of either our language or epistemology to being about purely mental phenomena and think it is completely fine to believe in things outside of our ability to directly perceive.
We can use mental models of the universe that imply the existence of things we don't or can't perceive, and then accept the existence of these unperceived things because of our confidence in those models being accurate as a description of the universe.
You don't agree, largely (as it seems to me) because you refuse to distinguish between the map and the territory, the thing being represented and the sign being used to do that representation. I don't know why, because we haven't found a common language to talk about this.
FYI, as it is typically used in philosophy, "perception" doesn't refer to any type of mental content, but specifically to the mental content that comes from our senses. So, for instance, solving an abstract math problem is not typically considered a form of perception, although it is a form of cognition.
I wish the bolded wasn't so accurate as a description of your approach to philosophical discussion. Disagreement and argumentation is a good way to explore a topic, but we also need to remember that discussion is a cooperative endeavor. Ultimately, the goal should not be to win or grief other people, but to come closer to the truth of a matter and to expand our own sense of what is reasonable to believe. This requires trying to find the areas of agreement between us as the starting points for understanding how or why we disagree on other areas.
I'm not purposely leaving things out here - I'm pushing you to clarify the area of disagreement. You say all we can know is what we perceive, and our perceptions are in our heads, so all we can know is in our heads.
It's easy enough to make a mistake by calling out people for misunderstanding obtuse language used in ones own posts, but when you do the same thing despite the crystal clarity of someone else's, a reasonable person might start to suspect you're doing it on purpose to avoid the gravity of the arguments.
but secondly, it seems to me the only person who finds your arguments in this thread "crystal clear" is you. You might want to consider that.
n.b. I haven't gotten around to some of your earlier posts but partly that's because I'm not really very clear on what it is you're even trying to say, because you keep changing your formulations but it appears you think they all mean the same things.
first, let me say: lol
but secondly, it seems to me the only person who finds your arguments in this thread "crystal clear" is you. You might want to consider that.
n.b. I haven't gotten around to some of your earlier posts but partly that's because I'm not really very clear on what it is you're even trying to say, because you keep changing your formulations but it appears you think they all mean the same things.
but secondly, it seems to me the only person who finds your arguments in this thread "crystal clear" is you. You might want to consider that.
n.b. I haven't gotten around to some of your earlier posts but partly that's because I'm not really very clear on what it is you're even trying to say, because you keep changing your formulations but it appears you think they all mean the same things.
It is clear to me you dont understand it, because of the unintended hyperbole of your criticisms.
What else does imagination do besides create? Am I ruining some joke I missed!
first, let me say: lol
but secondly, it seems to me the only person who finds your arguments in this thread "crystal clear" is you. You might want to consider that.
n.b. I haven't gotten around to some of your earlier posts but partly that's because I'm not really very clear on what it is you're even trying to say, because you keep changing your formulations but it appears you think they all mean the same things.
but secondly, it seems to me the only person who finds your arguments in this thread "crystal clear" is you. You might want to consider that.
n.b. I haven't gotten around to some of your earlier posts but partly that's because I'm not really very clear on what it is you're even trying to say, because you keep changing your formulations but it appears you think they all mean the same things.
1. What is not a view cannot support existential (“is real”) claims.
2. A view from nowhere is not a view.
3. A posited mind-independent reality necessitates a view from nowhere.
C1. A posited mind-independent reality cannot support existential claims.
C2. Only a mind-dependent reality can support existential claims.
Or something like that, maybe.
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