Orenholt wrote:If you're saying that brains do exist then why did you criticize me and say "She literally believes that a brain exists "out there", beyond her own experiences of the world. But scientific materialism is a very popular error, so I'm not surprised." ?
The existence of the brain, and its connection with consciousness, is only ever experienced, and indirectly,
through one's very own consciousness, just like all other data about the world. A bird chirping, perched on a telephone wire, is perceived at a very specific perspective of sight and sound: that created by the senses. Scientists tell us much about how these senses work, and the data appears reliable and congruent. Nevertheless, one can never have certainty that the causes behind the constructions of consciousness are indeed so.
The point is, the model of reality that is called the universe by scientists, is only ever that: a model. This is why empiricism isn't the tool for understanding what is ultimately real. Empiricism always falls back onto the limitations of the senses. By contrast, the philosophical method provides certainty, because its logical axioms and proofs are wholly
a priori, not dependent on the afterproof of the senses.
KJ: "There may be life on other planets" --- a concept, is it not?
O: Yes, it's a concept but the "life" may be inconceivable itself. Or are you saying that nothing is inconceivable?
" 'life' " --- a concept, is it not?
I'm trying to get you to focus in on the way your own mind is constructing beliefs about what is ultimately real. That is all.
KJ: What is beyond consciousness is not nothingness whatsoever (since that is immediately made impossible by the presence of things right now in consciousness), nor is it something distinct. It exists only as some "blurry void" because the nature of consciousness makes it so; logically, it is part and parcel the Nondual.
O: I think this has more to do with psychology than with reality itself.
Plus I think we're on different tracks because I don't accept the word "exist" as "to have an appearance of".
I think you are too brainwashed by scientific materialism, to trust in your own mind. That is why you don't have what it takes to be a philosopher.
KJ: I'm sorry, but if they're the same, then there wouldn't be two different words, with different usages and contexts. Take for instance, a human's unconscious, biological need for bile salts in order to digest and breakdown fats, without which salts the animal would eventually die, compared to a human's conscious and psychological desire for sexual intercourse, without which the animal would not die. The biological need is not the same as the psychological want. Trying to equivocate them is to no purpose that I can see (there are two words, after all), and spiritually does away with a very important tool.
O: You only need the salts IF you WANT to live.
Strange how scientific materialists tend to be poor scientists.
It doesn't matter how much wishing and wanting you do, your liver and gallbladder will keep squirting out bile salts.
Besides, isn't everything all one thing anyway?
Like Carl Sagan's
Cosmos, you mean.......?
.