Posted by Steve on 12/21/07 16:10

"The Natural Philosopher" <a@b.c> wrote in message
news:1198242515.19935.0@proxy00.news.clara.net...
> Steve wrote:
>> "The Natural Philosopher" <a@b.c> wrote in message
>> news:1198162599.86045.0@demeter.uk.clara.net...
>>> Steve wrote:
>>>> "The Natural Philosopher" <a@b.c> wrote in message
>>>> news:1198154467.74006.0@iris.uk.clara.net...
>>>>> Steve wrote:
>>>>>> "Erwin Moller"
>>>>>> <Since_humans_read_this_I_am_spammed_too_much@spamyourself.com> wrote
>>>>>> in message news:4769595c$0$85795$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>>>> ???? ??? ?????? wrote:
>>>>>>>> Excuse me!!
>>>>>>>> Would you stop for a moment?!
>>>>>>>> O...man...Haven't you thought-one day- about yourself ?
>>>>>>>> Who has made it?
>>>>>>>> Have you seen a design which hasn't a designer ?!
>>>>>>> Good question, ???? ??? ??????!
>>>>>>> Who made your designer?
>>>>>>> .....
>>>>>>> Well??
>>>>>> well, obviously since nothing complex that we've every experienced
>>>>>> has begun as something more simple,
>>>>> Actually, science assumes the reverse is the case.
>>>> i know, you're the second person that missed the sarcasm. i thought
>>>> begging the logical delimma after that statement would have made it
>>>> clear that i was being intentional. :)
>>>>
>>> Ah, Too subtle for a dull Thursday morning with caffiene levels at
>>> critical...
>>>
>>>>> That the total complexity of life is in fact based on simple rules.
>>>>>
>>>>> The way that a simple 5 lines of code can produce the mandelbrot set.
>>>>>
>>>>> God is probably just an amoeba.
>>>> less...he is the pennacle of man's imagination and the apex of his
>>>> laziness.
>>>>
>>> Pennacle?
>>
>> lol. yep...it's a dull, coffee-less thursday morning. :)
>>
>>>>>> the most reasonable answer would be...something more complex than the
>>>>>> designer. begging the same question ad-nauseum of each increasingly
>>>>>> more complex creator.
>>>> there's the indicator that i was being sarcastic.
>>>>
>>>>>> lest we forget, gawd is a 'special' case and being omni* does not
>>>>>> require something more complex to create him/her/it/them.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Well that's just a copout logically speaking.
>>>> exactly. sad that people actually think that's a good answer.
>>>>
>>>>> I MUCH perfer the Buddhist lexcicon.
>>>>>
>>>>> The 'Tao is that which exists through itself'
>>>> which is quite illogical speaking in descartian terms.
>>> Descartes was a fool. Plenty of non thinking things evidently exist.
>>> Most Xtians for a start.
>>
>> i don't think you understand what descartes wrote. you have read this,
>> right?
>>
>> it's about being able to verify, to know for sure, what is real and what
>> is not. the only thing - and this is completely on an introspective,
>> individual basis - that can be known for certain is that *i* exist. 'i
>> think therefore i am' is not enough of a reduction, and here's why. to
>> get to this point, descarte demonstrates how our perceptions of things
>> are simply faulty and unreliable. in order to establish what is real, or
>> be more certain of its 'realness', we must have multiple observers with
>> which we can share an experience - yet, we cannot still be absolutely
>> certain of the realness of any observer but ourselves. thinking is an
>> activity that requires more than myself to observe since my senses may be
>> off; whether from neurosis, hormonal imbalance, or some environmental
>> factor such as fog obscuring my vision. thinking then, cannot be the
>> final reason that i know i exist. it must simply be that i am aware i
>> exist because logically, if i was not aware i'd not care to fuss about
>> knowing if i did or did not exist.
>>
>
> Very good explanation. Shows how translation makes sense into non-sense.

not sure i follow. was the explanation non-sense or my interpretation not
germain to descartes true contention?

> I'd always taken 'cogito ergo sum' to mean the 'act of thinking creates
> me', which is very close..but no cigar..

yet it doesn't effect my point in the least. in fact, it uses the *exact*
wording i used. the 'act of thinking'. read my explanation again. i cannot
accurately observe what it is i'm doing. i may think i'm thinking when i'm
actually dreaming...or a number of other things. the act of thinking needs
to be verified by others so that we all agree that i was, actually,
thinking. however, since i can't know that the others doing such
verification exist for sure, then i've go no way of truly knowing what i'm
doing...much less to call it thinking. make sense? no matter how you
translate that, the problem still exists, unpreturbed.

btw, 'cogito' means 'i think'. 'ergo' means 'therefore', and 'sum' means 'i
am'. there is no other way to translate it. however, descartes original
words were:

Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum

'i doubt, therefore i think, therefore i am'...and that was a notion first
considered by st. augustine ('if i'm mistaken, i am').

:)

> My friend who spends his life studying this stuff stated that all the
> problems of French philosophy would be solved if they had written in
> German..

you know, i use 'roflmao' all the time whilst not actually being on the
floor...or doing much more than giggling. this time, i had to grab for my
desk as my chair fell over with me in it! THAT was hilarious! kudos to your
friend.

:)

>> as for 'plenty of non thinking things evidently exist[ing]', you missed
>> the point. descartes is demonstrating that you can only know that you
>> exist. all else may be illusionary. he would begin challenging your posit
>> by simply asking, "how do you know anything exists".
>>
>
> I would also state that even that is not necessraily the case.
>
> I prefer Wittering Stein 'the truth is whatever is the case' or some such.
>
> Existence exists. The Ego bit is not a given. In fact nothing is a given.
> All is relative. In order to *have* an objective world one must have an
> observer. However neither are *necessary* for existence to exist.

and what a discredit we'd be doing to existent things were we to surround
them with things that were just figments of our imagination or to perceive
them differently than they are. any observer must be able to know how it is
that he knows what he knows - epistimology. as for the merit of a thing
simply existing without observers, that's the oldest consideration/cliche i
know...

if a tree falls in the woods but there is no one to hear it...

the answer for me would be, who cares. look at it this way...i cannot leave
ego out of the equation. if i can only verify that i exist and that i am
aware that this is about all i can confirm, then it is relative, completely,
whether or not *anything* else exists - in whatever form of reliability that
may be. something very well may exist if i'm not around to verify that it
does, but, do i care?

>
>> it is arrogant and foolhearty
>
> Foolhardy. I should have popped in a smiley.

i know...i warned you that i didn't have coffee yesterday. :)

>> to call descartes a fool...unless you either demonstrate yourself, in
>> what ways he is a fool. you must first begin, then, by knowing what
>> descartes has said. and that, beyond a cursor glossing.
>
> Cursory.

i know, i know. :)

> Well I just did.

i don't think you did. maybe highlight the key point(s) that counters
descartes so i can see what i missed?

> Existence can be experienced without thought.

i don't think this can be demonstrated, can it?

>>>> tao can only know that it exists (though NOT via 'thinking == am'),
>>>> else it wouldn't care to ask whether or not it did.
>>> Thats implying that the tao is a French philsopher. It isn't.
>>
>> the saying of which you are so fond, personifies tao. according to
>> descartes,
>
> Which is why I refute Descartes. All one can truly say is that one is
> aware of existence, so existence and one, exist, as a necessary duality
> required for objective consciousness.

i don't think this is anti-ergo-sum...i think this would be the
preface...'cogito'. :)

> BUT we know hat when we fall asleep, we lose objective consciousness:
> Ergo, either existence ceases when we fall asleep, or existence continues
> apart from our experience of it.

we assume we know. what descartes begins with in his statements *is* the
dream delimma. the question begged of him, "how do you know a dream is real
or if it is something else?" however, here, the context is existence...not
our perceptions of it. at no time, dreaming or awake, does 'cogito ergo sum'
become invalid. thinking simply switches from a temporily conscious state to
a less objective one.

> Using Occam's razor, the latter is a more elegant and simple explanation.

but neither apply to our awareness of our existence. so, when we are asleep
or awake, we are aware of the fact that we exist. you are putting forward a
delimma that simply doesn't have conflict.

>> tao can know it exists. you, however, can only know that you exist.
>> logically, since both your and tao's senses can fail yourselves and given
>> that each is not certain that the other person (or object, whatever, tao)
>> is real, you are left to conclude that it is impossible to absolutely
>> know not only whether or not a thing exists, but also whether or not the
>> thing is existing through itself - which is wholly circular logic anyway
>> and should be thrown aside.
>>
>> to me, it's just more religion mumbo-jumbo.
>>
>
> Well I don't take it that way. Any more than I take Descartes to be that.
>
> Its an honest attempt to drive a stake into the fabric of 'whatever is the
> case', and say, 'here is a starting point'.
>
> In essence all religions and philosophies do that. The Xtians drive a
> stake in and say ;heres' God, and the Bible is the explanation: start from
> there and it all makes sense'.
>
> I don't object to that on absolute grounds, I merely note that it is -
> whilst at first a simple and clean starting point -, ultimately pretty
> useless. And actually on inspection far more complicated than simply
> saying 'lets start from a simple point, existence exists,., and awareness
> of existence is something I, presumably others like me, (and presumably
> other life as well) have'
>
>
> That doesn't to me mean existence has to have personality: Descartes is
> too tied up in personality. Probably a catholic upbringing. Personality to
> me is not a priori for existence: Only for objective reflection of it into
> a worldview.

i agree with what you've said. i think the starting point for me is
determining how it is that we know what we know. i think descartes clearly
used 'cogito ergo sum' as his starting point. in that light, it doesn't
matter what other object is considered. they will all be considered realtive
to that perspective...simply because you can't prove all is not an illusion.
i don't think he requires personality to be prerequist to existent. just
that he can verify his own existence but nothing more. as for, say, a
rock...it may well exist though it is not animated. from *our* perspective,
we need a way to make sure it is real to *us* - regardless of if it has a
personality or not.

all may be real or all may be false. my starting point is finding a way to
reliably tell.

btw, i didn't miss the catholic joke. :)

>>>> 'through' is an activity that requires 3rd party verification. it is
>>>> objective. and, since one cannot be certain that anything is real,
>>>> beyond the 'first case' - i exist - then one has no reliable means to
>>>> verify *how* one exists, i.e. 'through itself'.
>>>>
>>> Indeed. Its a nonsensical statement that is used to show how the logic
>>> of human thought cannot apply to the fundamentals aspects of things.
>>
>> it's simply nonsensical because it is a self sustaining philosophy with
>> no possible means of falsification! the 'fundamentals aspects of things'
>> are subatomic particles.
>
> That again is a statement of faith, not fact. An inference drawn from a a
> particular worldview, but that worldview is not absolute: A worldview that
> places a stake in the ground, calls it 'PHYSICAL reality', and makes its
> existence the most basic thing there is. THAT faith is called material
> realism. And even that doesn;t actually result in subatomic particles, as
> we can see. We are now into 10 dimesnional string theory, which is hardly
> particles at all.

*sub* atomic was a term used specifically to point to the ever increasing
discoveries of smaller and smaller and smaller particles...such that it
leads to the notion of string theory. as for 'through itself' NOT being
falsifiable, how is that a statement of faith?

>>not only can humans conceive of such things, we've objectively verified
>>them. i reject both statements outright.
>>
>
> I think you should spend less time with Descartes, and more time with e.g.
> Karl Popper. And maybe Kant.

i've read lots of kant...i'm not a big popper fan however.

> The 'physical world' is only a description of the aspects of existence of
> which we happen to be particularly aware. And upon which we have arrived
> at a degree of consensus. In the final analysis there is much of our
> experience which is personal, unique, and cannot be agreed upon, because
> it IS personal and unique. Nevertheless that experience exists.

and here's where i tend to lose a bit of interest. and this is particular to
me, so take it as you will. i want to know how it is that we know what we
know, and that, objectively. i realize that i 'experience' dreams and that
others have hallucinations and others experience fully verifiable events.
while all of these things result in an experience of one type or another in
my mind, there must be a way to distinquish them. for me it's important
because while they can all be beneficial, they can also be
detrimental...relative to my survival or well-being in general. i can for
the most part control the objective, but can't always with non-objective
things. i certainly discount none.

>
>>> Remember thats a translation from another language. The mneaiong miay be
>>> aking top a 'train that lays its own tracks'.
>>
>> and in the real world, tao would be bound to the same laws of physics
>> that we are.
>
> I think - and I am not going to make a stronger statement than that - that
> the Taoist would argue, that the Tao IS the laws of nature, so to speak.
> But they would not restrict that to physics.
>
> Lets examine the Rational Materialist worldview: At its core is Stuff,
> space-time, and Laws. These are the things that 'just are' without
> explanation as to why they 'just are' At a given level that is no more
> silly than saying 'God IS, and he did the rest all by himself'

save the fact that they can all be verified, of course. :)

> Its true to say that the big bang theorists go a little deeper, and posit
> a state at which 'stuff', space time, and laws all arise simultaneously as
> a 'twist' in the fabric of Reality..
>
> Now you and I can appreciate that - almost..try saying that on a rocky
> hillsied in Isreal 4000 years ago, and blank incomprehension is the
> result. So, 'in the beginning was god, and god said 'let there be
> light'..mnakes a decent enough sort of parable.
>
> My objection is the literality with which such a parable is interpreted
> TODAY. And its lack of functionality.
>
> You cant DO anything with it.
>
> Instead, it's all spun into a doctrine of unnatural laws that proscribe
> human behaviour.

exactly correct. i find the solution problematic however...god doesn't seem
to want to inspire any corrections to the book or communicate in general, as
he did when we were still so limited in understanding. to me, that's an
indication that man created god rather than the other way around. but
anyway, i think we aren't arguing that point at all.

>> it would leave evidences that could be observed. and at its best, energy
>> would be the most applicably analogous notion one could to affix to tao -
>> a self-sustained thing. enter entropy and the demise of whatever tao is
>> or may be.
>>
>
> I think you miss what I take to be the point. All Taosist philosophy seems
> to be saying is that there exists natural laws, and the sensible person
> does not attempt to deny or work against them, but with them.
>
> The difference being that the Taoist comes from a different worldview -
> one that does not place 'stuff,. space time and laws' as the a priori
> assumptions, but more places existence, laws (together being the Tao) and
> consciousness of them' as the primary points. The physical world is held
> to be derivative of them, rather than the creator of them. In a sense the
> actuality of physics as she is today, is somewhat converging on this
> viewpoint. Certain aspects of what we have held to be hard physical
> reality only actually come into existence IF we make an 'observation' upon
> them.

while i don't follow, or hold steak in, taoism, i have always held the
notions of universal law forming reality. thus, all the 'stuff' is an
extension of the laws. i think that is as congruent to the truth as is the
notion of life adapting to environment - 'a product of environment'...an
extension. again however, i'm only interested in what i can experience. and
in experiencing, i want to be able to tell what is real and what is
imagined.

i think that's why i've never been a big tao fan.

btw...i have to break here and pick up reading later on. it's good to
finally see someone who actually studied for some reason other than a grade.
:)

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