Posted by The Natural Philosopher on 12/21/07 20:34

Steve wrote:
> "The Natural Philosopher" <a@b.c> wrote in message
<snip>

> 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?
>

Thats where a smidgeon of transcendental bollocks shifts ones
perespective, old boy.

Its possible to subjectively verify existence without actually being
there at the time..sort of.

Itds more a 'Cogitas, ergo est' at that point.

Or 'Non cogito, sed semper est' perhaps.

Its a finely balanced point, somewhere in the continuum of possible
states of consciousenss, but enough people have been there..


>>> 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?
>

It can be experienced tho. Just about every shamanic or religious order
has a deep mysterious Path To God/Enlightenment or whatever.. They ALL
work. I reckon. You probably get one every moring when you wake up,
before normality asserts itself..you are awake, but not functioning
rationally.

If you don't end up in a mental hospital first, there are plenty of
tried and tested methods of extending the state for longer. Post coital
bliss is a halfway house. For example. Cf Aleister Crowley and the 'true
meaning of the 'Whore of Babylon'' ;-)


>>>>> 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'. :)
>

It depends on how interpret the statement.

I would say more like 'existence exists, *something* thinks, and I and
the world come into being as a necessary pair' - that part of existence
thats doing the peering, and the thing it thinks its peering at.;-)

So for me the most simple structure is that stuff is..not physical stuff
either - data, raw experience, and some part of that knots itself up
into a mirror, and reflects the rest of it into it..and calls the
reflection 'the physical world' and the thing that's both doing the
knotting, and looking into the mirror,. the 'self' - the knotter being
roughly the subconscious, and the looker, the conscious, mind.

(cf God the father (existence), God the son (the percieved world), God
the holy ghost (the subconscious manipulation of data into structure) et
al, ad nauseam)

However these are crude terms, because in order to talk about them, we
have to stick them in the mirror..and make them 'part of the world'

This is where I think religion and spirituality OUGHT to be making the
point - they don't of course - and that is that what the world seems to
be is largely what we make it. I am not saying there isn't a deeper
reality behind it, somewhat independent of our minds, but the whole
shape it appears in is down to unconscious mental effort. Buried deep in
Christian mysticism you DO find such hints, but by and large the
response of Christianity has been to take this - in my mind purely
mechanical process - that constructs a meaningful world out of raw
experience, externalise it and call it God. The Creator Of The World.
Well in a sense, so it is. but not in the sense that the silly sheep think.

It does leave me in a peculiar position. In a sense I understand - or
feel I understand, the basis of world religions very well, and see some
merit in all of them, as pointers towards a particular system that I
think maps reality rather well.

However not one of them seem to realise what knowledge they are actually
supposed to be peddling. Which expressed in modern terms is really the
science of consciousness..if that makes sense, and the fact that
consciousness is what created the world, as we know it. Out of the
world, as we can't know it directly..unless we believe the Gnostics etc.


>> 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.

Ah..well thats extending the concept of thinking a fair bit. I tend to
make it solely verbal conscious thought..there is a lot going on
elsewhere, I grant you, but I tend not to apply that label to it..and
indeed 'cogito' is very much a verb of conscious thought..dreaming is
dreaming, and other forms of awareness are not thinking either.

>
>> 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.

When I am asleep I am not aware of my existence. If you are, you
probably are a witch doctor..

I cant say for sure, but the most reasonable explanation is that
existence exists whether we are aware of it or not. You cant really
twist that around and claim that if it exists, its because its thinking
about itself. Thats really another way of saying the universe is an
intelligence, and that's that. Might as well stick with God.

>
>>> 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.

Well I know the answer to that one. We *don't* know that we know. It's
merely an ad hoc predicate of seeing ourselves in the way that we do, in
the world we think we live in.

Cut through the crap. Stop the thinking, and see for yourself! SOMETHING
is aware (of the world?), allright,. but it ain't YOU, as you know
yourself Jim! :-). Change the way you think or stop thinking, and the
world changes round you. And you change as well. What's going on? YOU
are not what you think you are, that's all. YOU may not even EXIST more
than a figment of (your own? Something elses?) imagination.

Lewis Carroll is particularly good in this area. Too many mushrooms
probably.


>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.

Indeed. In fact I suspect all IS an illusion, apart from a teeny nub of
reality. Its a jolly useful and convenient and comfortable illusions and
it works pretty well..BUT its all whats reflected in the mirror. Not
whats being reflected. I think Descartes simply did not go far enough.
Kant tried, but it came out almost incoherent.



> 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.
>

Why bother? If it works, use it. You can only work on the basis of where
you seem to find yourself, real or illusory makes no difference if you
can't tell, and we can't. Unless you take the red pill its never 'bye
bye kansas' and you can't arrive at a point of reference sufficiently
outside the one you are in to compare it with anything else.

I mean that's the whole point of Karl Popper, and the instrumentalists
go further..we aren't arriving at fundamental truths here..thats a
fiction for the sheep. We are arriving at elegant reductions of the data
that save the data..thats all. Its handy to talk about 'going down the
shops' even when the actual reality may be a complex shift of
probabilities in a 10 dimensional universe that is in itself only one of
an infinite number of possible one that coexist interpenetrated with
each other..or whatever the latest quantum bollocks says..we wouldn't
GET down the shops if we had to deal with all that. FORTUNATELY for us.
Some mecahnism,. or some god, or something, reduces it all to a simple
matter of going out the apparent door,getting in the car, starting it
and driving down what seems to be a road, to what seems to be a
different location, and buying a pizza. Or whatever. Out 'thinking'
reduces ALL that complexity to the very few useful THINGS we need to
remember, and for which we have standard ways of dealing

THAT'S the miracle.



> 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?
>

The statement of faith is that physical reality really exists in the way
you think it does; Don't be insulted. In order to be a normal conscious
being there has to be some a priori assumptions. The Xtian starts with
God, the Materialist starts with the physical world. I would say the
only difference in what I do, is that I know what assumptions I make,
and for what purposes, don't consider any of them grounded in *facts*,
and use other assumptions at a moments notice. I.e. I am not BOUNDED by
faith. It's a servant..not a master. If you like faith in the integrity
of my cars mechanics gives me the confidence to take a corner fast, but
it doesn't mean I consider it never needs servicing, or that I will be
unduly alarmed if the back steps out on a patch of ice. And if it goes
into a total; uncontrolled skid. I'll probably be praying it hits
something relatively soft ;-) Heck. Might as well play the percentages
eh? :-)


>>> 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.

There is, but thats where it gets far too weird for usenet. espceially
comp.land.php...


> 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.
>

I will make a bald assertion that is not verifiable, and is totally
unscientific. Based on my personal experience. You can FEEL what is
going on, better than work it out logically, in some cases. The
(subconscious?) will try and map whatever it feels is important, via
whatever means it gets it, to whatever state of mind you happen to be
in. Hallucinations are always based on *something*. If you are highly
visually oriented thats juts your subconscious trying to pass on
something in the only way it can. Ditto hearing voices etc..Being an
invetreta daydreamer, I have had more weird stuff happen like that than
I would care to mention. Some remains inexplicable. Some was obvious at
the time. Some I worked out at least to my own satisaction later.

Colin Wilosn said the the purpose of consciousness was not to let things
in, but to keep things out. I largely ascribe to that.
I finally noticed taht what was actually going on when I
(a) stopped thinking
(b) became aware of aberrant perceptions

That they were always accompanied by a FEELING. In time I learnt to feel
the feelings and the aberrant perceptions largely vanished.

The touchy feely sense is the one to explore other worlds than the
rational. Its saved my bacon a few times. I guess you might call it
instinct..

I will dislike someone because they make me literally feel bad, they
give me a pain in the neck, or make me literally feel sick. Later I can
rationalize that to other people, and justify it. At the time though,
its a straightforward gut reaction. I don't claim supernatural powers
tho. Could just be that my subconscious has recognised a behaviour its
seen before in other troublesome types..and is trying to tell me..



>>>> 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. :)
>

Well can they?

How do you verify the material world? Ok you kick it and it hurts..but
that doesn't 'prove' it exists in the wasy you think it does,. It merely
shows that a certain action produces as certain response. You *could* be
plugged into the Matrix with all your nerves being stimulated by a
computer simulation..;-)

There is no ultimate bedrock on which to construct your mental edifices.
Get used to it. Keep em light and portable I say. Or build them on
Faith, but then you are stuck in one place..


>> 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.
>

I think that God, like man, arrives out of a twist in the mental fabric.
Certain sorts of people will look out on certain sorts of worlds, and
find a god therein, or not,depending on the nature of the twist. It
depends what they consider inside themselves, and what they consider
outside themselves. I myself am quite happy with a smart subconscious
that sends me signals, constructs my reality, and do not need to pretend
it ain't there, and its God talking to me. Others obviously find that a
far more preposterous and disturbing concept than Big Daddy in the Sky.
For a start, it means taking total responsibility for your life. Not
many people really achieve that.


>>> 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.
>

Assume its all in your mind, and see where that leaves you. Or lets put
it another way, whats imagined is real. Everything is imagined. That's
not the point. The point is how useful are those imaginings?Many a time
I have stood at the checkout in a supermarket, im,agining that I had a
smachine gun, and just how many out of the revolting array of
overweight, dull self absorbed specimens of humanity I would, given the
chance to get away with it, take out in an orgy of destruction. On
particularly bad days it approaches 95% :-)

Now I do not have to tell myself that 'God told me to do it',. nor do I
take out the gun and do it. I see it simply as a sad reflection on my
perception of how basically unaware most of the people around me are.And
what problems that causes. I am fully aware that my subconcious has a
wicked sense of humour, and is trying to tell me to be the same..Not
that Satan is tempting me or some such bollocks.

You can only deal with what you are aware of. The important thing to
remember is that none of it is totally real, and yet it all is real.
Thoughts and feelings can be witnessed: They exist every bit as much as
sticks and stones. The difficulty is in finding a way to deal with them,
as the usual rules do not apply.

> 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.
> :)
>

Oh, I had my reasons allright. Too much weird stuff and no explanations.
Well as the moral sciebtists say, when you are stuck, go back to first
principles.

Descartes did not go far enough, for me. Most philosophy consists in one
person or another nailing a stick in the gound and saying 'this is your
reality checkpoint: measure all from here'

Noble stuff, but they are all stick in differing places.

I am more a metaphysician. The point I came to was this.

"Assuming we cannot find the One True Point in which to mail the Reality
Checkpoint, because in the final analysis, all points are equal, should
we nail one in at all, and if so does it matter where"?

My conclusion was, that if you needed one at all, to lean on when
walking got tiring, right where you happened to be was plenty fine.

Just don't turn a useful crutch,into a fixed inescapable location, and
for heavens sake, don't bow down and worship it when you have.That is
plain SILLY.

Even sheep don't do that..











>

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