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4th January 2018, 02:03 PM | #401 |
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I see this thread has gotten bogged down in the inescapable mire of epistemological navelgazing.
Every term has to be defined again and again until it is completely meaningless, because, according to some posters, only when we can't tell the difference between anything anymore, we can call ourselves true skeptics. Start a thread on epistemology or ontology, but don't drag every remotely philosophical thread down to the level of trying to define what the definition of the word 'define' is before we can use the word. Not every thread needs to be turned into a more-philosophical-than-thou doubt fest. |
4th January 2018, 02:11 PM | #402 |
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I don't believe in God and all the rest outside of methodological naturalism But I am a cognitive and ethical relativist/subjectivist and skeptic. #JeSuisAhmed |
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4th January 2018, 02:14 PM | #403 |
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Originally Posted by Tommy Jeppesen
religion although it has nothing useful to say as it is predicated upon the existence of a metaphysical being for which there is precisely zero evidence |
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4th January 2018, 02:17 PM | #404 |
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I don't believe in God and all the rest outside of methodological naturalism But I am a cognitive and ethical relativist/subjectivist and skeptic. #JeSuisAhmed |
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4th January 2018, 02:30 PM | #405 |
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What if you're happy but you don't know it?
Will you still clap your hands? |
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4th January 2018, 02:32 PM | #406 |
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Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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4th January 2018, 02:35 PM | #407 |
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Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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4th January 2018, 02:37 PM | #408 |
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If knowledge requires the sensation of something, but there is no sensation, then there is no knowledge.
So if I am happy and sense it, I know it. Whether that is the truth of reality, I will leave to ynot. Truth is not my thing. I like false and wrong better, since that is a part of methodological skepticism in a sense. |
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4th January 2018, 02:43 PM | #409 |
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Originally Posted by Tommy Jeppesen
planes / cars / satellites / x rays / lasers / radar to name just some and so you can most definitely observe that it is meaningful |
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4th January 2018, 02:44 PM | #410 |
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I find it meaningful that I am different from Porpoise of Life, because if there was no difference I wouldn't be me. I like being me. I accept that you properly like better being you than me.
As to happy, it is not certain and follow with logic, reason and science that you could be happy as me or in reverse for that matter. Happy is not a strong logic either or, it is a continuum of similarities and differences when it comes to humans. Now please answer the question about emotionality in the human condition. Please. |
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4th January 2018, 02:46 PM | #411 |
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I don't believe in God and all the rest outside of methodological naturalism But I am a cognitive and ethical relativist/subjectivist and skeptic. #JeSuisAhmed |
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4th January 2018, 03:03 PM | #412 |
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When, how and why did this thread become all about emotions?
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4th January 2018, 03:09 PM | #413 |
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Are you not happy about that? Then you shouldn't have brought happiness into it.
I believe I understand where you are coming from. Science is important for happiness, but that doesn't make it a scientific fact. That makes it a part of the human condition and the link you posted included emotionality. Hell, even in objective you find it; i.e. objective: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations. So is it false or not true that humans have emotions? |
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4th January 2018, 03:31 PM | #414 |
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I’m not aware or agree I was the one that “brought happiness into it “. That seems to have been yourself. Feel free to site my post(s) where I did. Not posts that were responses to your "emotion" posts of course.
This thread isn’t about your personal preference for emotion over intellect. Your continued derail might require the Mods to perform yet another derail-lobotomy, and perhaps another thread split, thread split. So is it false or not true that this thread isn't all about whether humans have emotions (other than emotions as they relate to the subject of human consciousness)? |
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4th January 2018, 03:50 PM | #415 |
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4th January 2018, 03:54 PM | #416 |
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Paranormal/supernatural beliefs are knowledge placebos. Rumours of a god’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Make beliefs truths and you get make-believe truths. |
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4th January 2018, 04:13 PM | #417 |
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4th January 2018, 05:12 PM | #418 |
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5th January 2018, 12:11 AM | #419 |
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5th January 2018, 12:37 AM | #420 |
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Post 282:
You brought happy into it. I entered here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...&postcount=272 I can't find that I brought emotions into it since solipsism is a problem of epistemology and not ethics nor aesthetics. |
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5th January 2018, 01:06 AM | #421 |
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Your definition is interesting and I don't know other alternative in this forum, although I have had a look at it. Too much comments to read attentively.
The problem of your definition is that it shifts the problem to the concept of "Ego". I suppose you speak of a “narrative” as the use of a language. If we analyse how we use the word “consciousness” we see that it is a synonymous of “be aware”. In doing so we distinguish two kinds or behaviour: conscious and inconscious. When acting by a reflex I am not conscious that I am doing X. The stimulus causes an automatic response. Always the same. In a conscious behaviour I am aware of the situation and my own position. Usually the conscious behaviour implies some kind of deliberation and intentionality. And the same stimulus don’t always leads to the same response. I have not really given a definition of “consciousness”. It is impossible. I only have given some comparative examples. We have nothing more. We cannot define “consciousness” but we need the words “conscious act” to make a distinction that is capital in psychology and in common language. Therefore, science cannot explain what consciousness is. Because it is nothing. It is not a thing, but a way we act. Can science explain the difference between conscious and inconscious behaviours? It depends of what we understand by “explain”. Science explains facts when they can be deduced from a complex of laws and circumstances. And this explanation is scientific when it can be verified with a controlled experience or similar. This is to say: deduction, prediction and verification. In this sense the explanation of conscious behaviour by science is very limited. It can not make precise predictions on particular behaviours. Therefore, many questions about our conscious behaviour have to be considered only in terms of a low probability. This is the way the spiritualists tray to chime in. But spiritualism is a way to nowhere. Spiritualism doesn’t explains anything. Just it uses empty words. |
5th January 2018, 03:19 AM | #422 |
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Just on a technical point - the colours of the filmed image, are afaik chosen by us as humans anyway (i.e. we construct the photographic process so as to produce the visual effect that we call "green" … or even many different shades of green). So I think colour rendition from the camera is not independent of our senses/brain ... but I think the camera should be recording all other details of the image independently from any use of our human brain/senses. As I say, one objection might be to claim that when we look at the photograph, our brain and our senses change the nature of that photo-image to make it seem to us exactly like the picture we painted. But I think there are numerous objections to any suggestion like that, and in fact the direct evidence is also incompatible with a solipsist-type claim like that ; e.g. cat's, dogs, birds also see that same structure of the building...how do we know? Well that's shown by the fact that cats/dogs/birds etc. do not walk/fly into the face of the building! ... and once inside the building cat's and dogs will always pass easily from room to room without walking into things ... the cat will jump on exactly the same table or chair that we see with our senses/brain, etc... in fact all animals detect exactly the same “reality” that we do. |
5th January 2018, 03:52 AM | #423 |
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You are aware that the word "exist" has heavy philosophical baggage and in general words like "thing", "exist" and "real" are problematic, because they are tied to metaphysics and ontology. In one sense there are no things, existence or real. There are different processes and experiences and when you look closer "thing", "exist" and "real" are cognitive constructs used to signify different processes and experiences. Just as the the mind is not a thing or a property of a thing, because a brain and body is a process, not a thing.
There is no matter or things, there are natural processes and some people believe that there supernatural process, but you don't have to believe in supernatural to have a life. |
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5th January 2018, 03:52 AM | #424 |
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5th January 2018, 03:56 AM | #425 |
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Someone actually interested in the topic? I’ve been wrong before but let's give it a try.
You have misunderstood the notion that our model of reality does not reflect actual reality. There are two points you're not getting, one peripheral and one fundamental. Instead of a camera, imagine a robot such as is widely available today. The robot can navigate terrain, avoid objects, identify colours, process sounds and register touch. Just like us, its own model of reality reflects the external world to an extent comparable to our own. We can see this by the fact it doesn’t bump into walls or fall over cliffs. Yet its internal model of reality is nothing remotely like our own. It has no coherent, internal, conscious vision of a three dimensional, sensory world, yet what it does have is sufficient to navigate reality just like we do. Imagine if instead of hearing sounds, you saw shapes. Imagine if instead of seeing colours, you smelled aromas. Some people experience this, it is called synaesthesia. Synaesthetics experience a model of reality markedly different to yours and mine, yet it is no less worthy of being said to represent what is 'out there'. It’s no onerous task to imagine the existence of an alien brain, vastly different to a human one and with a model of reality unrecognisable to us, but which also offers a no less a valid model of reality than ours. These models are equally credible whilst being completely different, so logically no single one can lay claim to the ability to mirror reality. The portion of electromagnetic spectrum detectable by the human eye is around 0.003%. This means that 99.997% of information potentially available to human vision is not even a candidate for processing by the brain. Of the remaining 0.003%, most of that is filtered out by the brain for one reason or another, leaving us with a perception barely exceeding zero in terms of the totality of what is out there. Imagine we could expand our vision into the infrared and ultraviolet, and beyond. We would now be able to see heat signatures, radiation, radio waves and more, and we would see all this in colours we literally cannot conceive of. In fact, there's no reason why we should see them as colours. Experiencing them as form or sound or indeed using senses we don't currently possess would be equally valid. Our internal model of the world would then be completely different to our current model, yet external reality has not changed one iota. We 'see' light and dark and assume that's what is 'out there'. It is not, it's simply the stimulation to which we are sensitive and what our brains re-model and highlight for our attention. And this is before we even touch on other non-electromagnetic aspects of reality that we cannot perceive, such as gravity and space-time itself. The model we build in our heads is simply one of an infinite number of potential models, constructed from a staggeringly small subset of the information ‘out there’, that allows us to experience our macro world sufficiently to function effectively in our daily lives. Each of these models is equally valid regardless of their objective differences, and thus they cannot possibly be reflections of that reality. We have evolved to notice the deep pool up ahead so we don’t walk into it and drown, but we haven’t evolved to detect the radiation given out by a lump of plutonium, which could kill us just as effectively as the pool. One is real and we can't detect it, one is real and we can, so how can we claim to see reality? What is not intuitive, and needs to be understood, is that the 3D visual and sensory experience in your head is created ENTIRELY by your brain. This seems obvious but I’ve found academic acceptance of the principle rarely results in an understanding of what it implies. Every external input is deconstructed to an electrical impulse and it is those electrical impulses alone that are processed by the brain and used to create that incredible 3D visual surround-sound tactile panorama you think of as 'the world'. Everything you experience has been created from scratch inside your own head. We say we ‘see’ light, but there is no light in our brain. The same goes for all our senses. It is not woo to state that our conscious experience is an illusion (using the definition of ‘deceptive’ as opposed to ‘false’), it’s scientific fact. That illusion informs us of a broader reality, yes, but it interprets that reality as opposed to reflecting it. Google Image the term "actual human brain" (I’m serious, actually do this now). Now look around the room in which you’re sitting, and out the window if possible, and realise that your entire experience, the 3D world you see, hear and sense is someone created and maintained inside that gob of greasy meat. Most people understand this academically but they don’t grasp the implications, what it really means. They intuitively imagine that our sensory organs are somehow ‘transmitting’ reality directly to the brain where it plays out on some internal cinema screen for us to observe. Some people will never get it, despite being fully conversant with the relevant scientific and philosophical principles. For others it will click and when it does it’s a revelation. If you haven’t experienced a sudden shock then you don’t get it, no matter how much you think you do. So that is point one, the peripheral point. The key issue is that of the nature of reality itself, before it even reaches our sensory organs. Quantum mechanics offers a description of reality that is far and away the best description science has ever come up with. Experiment after experiment proves it correct to amazingly high degrees of accuracy. And what quantum physics tells us, unequivocally and indisputably, is that at a fundamental level, reality is not what it appears to our macro senses. Whilst it’s not scientific to describe quantum processes in language it’s broadly true to say that reality comprises energy and probability and not much else. At a fundamental level there are no objects, there are no ‘things’, there is no notion of ‘travel’, there is not even cause and effect. Regardless of the fact we cannot consciously experience the quantum world, regardless how much we protest that it “doesn’t matter because it’s really small and we’re not”, it does constitute reality at the most elementary level (as far as we know). At a macro level the lunacy of the quantum world is kept in check by the laws of probability. A single subatomic particle has no problem appearing from nothing for no reason, disappearing into nothing, being in two places at once, moving from A to B without crossing the distance in between and taking an infinite number of paths from A to B at the same time, and doing all this in a manner that is completely unpredictable (that is, unpredictable in theory, not just in practice). Every single particle that goes to form our macro world behaves in accordance with quantum laws but because we are only able to perceive gross groupings of these particles, the probabilities associated with each particle aggregate to a state of stability, creating the solid and dependable world we take for granted. There is a chance that your computer will spontaneously relocate itself to Mars, based on quantum probability, but the simultaneous alignment of probabilities of so many particles is so unlikely that it is only relevant to us as an academic exercise. (We could go into waveform collapse and the observer effect and cats in boxes here, and reinforce the idea that what we see is not really what is occurring, but I don’t think there’s a need). This solid and dependable world is not the actual world. Intuitively we believe it is because there is every evolutionary advantage to doing so, and millions of years of evolution has crystalised our thinking, and our organs of perception are vastly limited. We experience the world through an arbitrary model we create in our brains. That model is largely consistent between individual humans and allows us to lives our lives and share verifiable information about our environment with other humans, but it is still an illusion. A helpful illusion, a persistent illusion, a structured illusion, but an illusion all the same. |
5th January 2018, 06:00 AM | #426 |
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5th January 2018, 06:09 AM | #427 |
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baron I'm afraid it's you* that has misunderstood what others have been saying in this thread if you think you've posted anything different to say Ians's points.
I doubt there is anyone here who self-labels as a "materialist" who would disagree with anything you say in the above post. As I said before you seem to be fighting against your own misconceptions of what other people mean, no one in this thread is arguing that the world is made up of little particles of matter arranged in myriad ways in the sense the classical materialists meant. *Of course it could be my misunderstanding and not yours but at the moment I don't think it is. |
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5th January 2018, 06:20 AM | #428 |
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An excellent post there from baron although none of what he said is actually news. We know the human eye can only see an
infinitesimal part of the electromagnetic spectrum. We know the quantum world is fundamentally different from the classical one. We know the brain is a reality generator par excellence. So is there anyone here who does not already know any of this |
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5th January 2018, 06:34 AM | #429 |
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5th January 2018, 08:26 AM | #430 |
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Well, it's clear one of us is misunderstanding. My post contradicts Ian S's completely. He maintains that a person's drawing of a landscape can be compared with a photo of the same landscape and, on being shown to be similar, the idea that reality is independent of the brain is proved. I said this is simply not true. This single assertion can be easily disproved by using an infrared camera, or a camera that records x-rays. Indeed, you don't even need to do this. Just check out your TV. It looks out onto the world just as we do but it picks up video and TV shows. It's looking at the same world as we are but instead of being tuned to the visible spectrum it's tuned to the microwave band.
But my reply went beyond this and I pointed out that reality, as best we know, is nothing more than fields and potential. There is no light, no sound and no form actually 'out there', all of this is a creation of our own brains. |
5th January 2018, 08:44 AM | #431 |
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5th January 2018, 08:51 AM | #432 |
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5th January 2018, 09:08 AM | #433 |
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Just because we only perceive a subset of reality, that doesn't make that perception wrong, merely incomplete.
You appear to be claiming that because a chair is made of wood it is not a chair, just wood. But because the wood is made of atoms it is not wood, just atoms. But because the atoms are made of quantum stuff... Category errors all the way down. |
5th January 2018, 09:09 AM | #434 |
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5th January 2018, 09:11 AM | #435 |
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5th January 2018, 09:22 AM | #436 |
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5th January 2018, 09:26 AM | #437 |
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Really? I specifically divided my argument into two parts and talked at length about how the first point - the "peripheral" part - was about incomplete and differently targeted observation, and how the second part - the "fundamental" part - was about the actual nature of reality. The real mystery is how you could conceivably have read my post and remain unaware of this.
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5th January 2018, 09:46 AM | #438 |
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5th January 2018, 09:49 AM | #439 |
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5th January 2018, 09:58 AM | #440 |
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If your TV doesn't "look" at anything, how does it receive its information?
I'm sure you're being facetious, but to get back to the point, the analogy is accurate. We use our sensors to detect electromagnetic information which is decoded and assembled into an image of 'out there'. A TV uses its sensors to detect electromagnetic information which is decoded and assembled into an image of 'out there'. The process is identical, yet the result is completely different. |
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