GENIUS FORUMS

Jamesh wrote:I think they are rational by nature. Of course it depends on what one means by rational, I take it to mean the logical processing of information and as far as I am concerned our brains are just CPU’s that process data logically. To me if everything is caused then how the hell can anyone really be irrational.

drowden wrote:And can you tell me, do you believe in such a thing as a "sudden event"?

I'd like to see an explanation from Nick as to how the mechanics of choice and freedom play out. Does a given choice we make (given such things are workings of mind) have antecedents or do they arise spontaneously? If the former, how does your seeming distaste for a deterministic framework make sense? If the latter, how can any choice be sensibly said to have any coherent relation to reality?

And can you tell me, do you believe in such a thing as a "sudden event"?

Nothing can exist in the absence of consciousness. To exist is to present an appearance, and to present an appearance is to be reliant on an observer.

If that is your criteria, then there can be nothing subjective at all. Everything would be purely objective. You have completely eliminated the subjective self.

Existentialists refer to things-in-themselves, fixed objects other than humans, and things for themselves, humans, the subjects. They picked this up from people like Kant and Hegel.

Plato and Aristotle would think humanness is a form or concept that preexists man.

Existentialists and Buddhists think of humanness as something in the process of becoming, like everything else. I think some aspects of humanness could have evolved but then is now universal and fixed, since man first evolved and until man evolves into something else.

Conditions for the existence of humans, however, were around before humans, just as conditions for sound exist before anything is around to hear it.

I think humans are distinct from other animals, not just more developed, and I think we are not more or less human from time to time or location to location. 

I don’t think morality is dictated by groups or times.

If humans are still human, then that which promotes and protects their existence is still good,

and that which threatens and destroys it is still evil.

Morality based on human survival transcends groups and changing definitions.

I think dogs experience us on a perceptual level, not a conceptual level, and they are bound by their fixed natures to do what dogs do, even though some can be trained to resist their natural reflexes.

I think the roots of the tree are bound by their nature to seek the available nutrients in the soil, as far as they are able. The have no choice about this.

Choice and non-choice, implies restriction and illusion.
If one is presented with the choice of A or B, it must either choose or not choose, but it can not disregard the choices and manifest it’s own option of C.
Also if it must either choose or not choose it is restricted and still must contend with the options presented, just as you affirm here...

If we really get into the kind of choices there are, there are about five. There is the positive-negative choice, if we just keep things two a choice between two options. It would be irrational to choose the negative, but people are free to do so. Then, there are the positive-positive or negative-negative, which are really more of choices because there is nothing complelling one to go either way. Finally, there is a baseless choice such as when one is standing in an open field, with no paths, and one must forge one's own. There is no reason to go one way anymore than the other. There is simply not enough to predict consequences and weigh options. One must just choose and bring about consequences for which he or she is truely responsible

There can be freedom within parameters. Total freedom would eliminate prescription as surely as no freedom.

In the two paragraphs prior to the one you question, I stipulate that the true rationalist would maintain that the law of identity and the law of non-contradiction would be based on underlying facts of reality. That a tree is a tree and not a tree and non-tree at the same time.

I should have included another paragraph explaining that some people might say all logic is based on that law of identity, and, if the law of identity is based on underlying facts of reality, then all logic is based on underlying facts of reality. And, underlying facts of reality are objective facts of reality.

I'd like to see an explanation from Nick as to how the mechanics of choice and freedom play out. Does a given choice we make (given such things are workings of mind) have antecedents or do they arise spontaneously? If the former, how does your seeming distaste for a deterministic framework make sense? If the latter, how can any choice be sensibly said to have any coherent relation to reality?

And can you tell me, do you believe in such a thing as a "sudden event"?

Norm Chomsky includes a creativity principle in his lingustic theorems. He demonstrates how we can interchange symbols in substitution frames to form concepts never before formed. Non-human languages do not have this capability. We use language not only to communicate with others but also to communicate with ourselves, think. And, with our unique language, we humans can think things never before thought, and without having been caused to think them.

DQ: Nothing can exist in the absence of consciousness. To exist is to present an appearance, and to present an appearance is to be reliant on an observer.

N: For many years, nobody ever saw the dark side of the moon. This didn’t mean that it didn’t exist. There are species of insects no human has observed. They don’t depend on observers to exist.

DQ:
If that is your criteria, then there can be nothing subjective at all. Everything would be purely objective. You have completely eliminated the subjective self.

N: You tend to think everything has to be all or nothing. This is a fallacy.

There can be some ability for perceptions to be influenced by feelings and perspectives. We connect dots and ignore small blemishes on the faces we love, but the small blemishes become gigantic on those we hate. Still, there are limits to our ability to change things with our minds. We cannot make bullet holes disappear just because we want them gone. We have freedom within parameters.

DavidQuinn000 wrote: It is extremely anthropocentric - which, of course, is also a major fault with Christian thinking.

Jamesh wrote:Humans by their very nature are irrational and are nothing more than subjectless objects.

I disagree with the idea that humans are irrational by nature. I think they are rational by nature. .

N0X23 wrote:The amount of War, genocide, homicide, suicide, infanticide, misogyny, terror and destruction, generated by people’s blind faith in their archaic superstition and mindless rituals, is the single greatest example of man’s natural inclination to be pornographically irrational.
The lengths that a Human will go to protect it’s deluded irrationality, knows absolutely no bounds.

I understand, and I also understand the basic human nature of being selfish and self-centered no matter what, then again, what thing in nature is not.

Like cannibalism?

I still like to own a dozen slaves to survive my laziness.

Nick, I think I better leave you to the heavyweights since English is not my first language nor am I that academically trained. I would just like to say that I consider you a very serious thinker, but on the other hand, you couldn’t be any different.

Why have you introduced this arbitrary classifications of choice? Categorizing
different types of Unicorns does not validate their existence.
You’ve completely disregarded any relevance here.

Subterfuge will get you no where Nick. ;)

Freedom within parameters?
A casually determined, bound and limited Freedom ?!

It seems to me that you actually postulate two categories of “true rationalists.“ An Objective Rationalist (OR) and a Subjective Rationalist (SR).

The OR, based on A=A, would hold that there can be no thoughts about trees (or anything else) without a tree outside of the subject. Two people can be standing side-by-side observing the very same tree. If one of the people is colour blind and the other has 20/20 vision, none of that changes what the tree actually is. Naturally, a tree is a tree and anyone seeing it otherwise is insane or faulty in some way.

The SR, on the other hand, would hold -- equally based on A=A -- that the tree as he knows it is not necessarily the tree or the same as the tree as another perceives and therefore knows it. The SR concludes that in the same way the colour blind individual’s perceptions cannot be relied upon to determine a permanent form of any particular object as its "true" form, neither can his.

So, in what sense are the facts of reality objective?

To be honest, my first instinct when I saw this was to rather rudely ask why the hell you're tossing Chomsky at me (just because Chomsky said something doesn't automatically make it right or meaningful).

But instead I'll say this: I like Chomsky's politics quite a lot; however, his area of expertise is linguistics; the guy is not a philosopher.

And besides which what you said he said has little bearing on the issue. I don't understand why you think it does. It matters not one whit that we are capable of thinking something new. That doesn't address the questions I posed; you haven't really addressed the questions I posed which leads me to think that you don't see the issue for what it is (or are seeing it entirely differently from me).

Yes, we are capable of having new thoughts; this is called "creativity". This capacity even allows us our own teleology if you will. But that doesn't alter the basic issue - that such thoughts either have antecedents (i.e. causes) or they do not. Maybe it's just the particularly linear perception of causality that you find problematic. If so, think of it this way: any thought, new, creative or otherwise requires certain things for it to exist at all. It requires a brain, a host for the brain and all the factors that go into making a thought possible. If we think of a "cause" as that which is necessary for a thing to exist", it is obvious that any such thought, and indeed any thing at all, is caused. Now, you may not like this definition of "cause". That's ok, but if you don't I'd like to see a better one (i.e. a more philosophically useful one).

He's been name-dropping ever since he came here, which makes you wonder what his motivation for doing philosophy is. Is he engaging in it to understand truth? Or is he simply trying to etch out a little niche for himself within the academic sprawl?

How do you actually know these things exist in the absence of an observer? You are merely speculating.

We might theorize, when looking at the moon from down here on earth, that it has a far side. It certainly seems to have one given our past experience of the moon and of physical objects in general. But the only way to actually prove that it does have a far side is to go around and have a look.

The bottom line is that you are engaging in an act of blind faith in asserting that things exist independently of an observer. It's essentially no different from the blind faith displayed by Christian fundamentalists.

But it's a rather meaningless issue to my mind because regardless of whether we choose to imagine things having "objective existence" or not, the fact remains that most things in the Universe will probably always be impervious to our desires to change them. Our minds will probably always to be too feeble to alter things in that manner.

Mount Everest, for example, only continues to remain a large solid mountain if the causal conditions allow it to be. Should we somehow gain the telekinetic powers to mentally destroy it or change it into something else, then that too will be due to causal conditions.

In other words, Mount Everest isn't an "objective entity" simply because we cannot currently alter it with our minds. And should we gain these mental abilities to change it, the metaphysical status of the mountain doesn't somehow change. In both cases, it remains what it is - a causal manifestation of Nature.

The idea that the metaphysical status of physical objects hinges on the strength of our own psychic abilities is laughable. It is extremely anthropocentric - which, of course, is also a major fault with Christian thinking.

The argument used to support causality is tautologous. How does one know that something is caused? “Because it happened.” What if it happened in an unpredictable way? “It was caused to happen that way.” This is circular reasoning.

Can humans think something never before thought? Yes, apparently so. Then, can they be prime movers, initiators of actions which were not previously initiated? If they can think things never before thought and implement them with action in reality, and not point to any reason for doing so, They made a free choice, a baseless choice, an uncaused action.

DQ: He's been name-dropping ever since he came here, which makes you wonder what his motivation for doing philosophy is. Is he engaging in it to understand truth? Or is he simply trying to etch out a little niche for himself within the academic sprawl?

N: First, I drop names because it is a short cut to explaining entire theories associated with the philosophers whose names I drop. I assume the people with whom I talk are familiar with those names and we can save time and space. Second, it is honest to give proper attribution. I don’t want to paraphrase the theory of forms and pretend I made it up myself. I want to give credit where credit is due. Third, I do want etch out a little niche for myself within the academic sprawl. I want to compare and contrast myself with others.

DQ: How do you actually know these things exist in the absence of an observer? You are merely speculating.

We might theorize, when looking at the moon from down here on earth, that it has a far side. It certainly seems to have one given our past experience of the moon and of physical objects in general. But the only way to actually prove that it does have a far side is to go around and have a look.

N: Empiricism is not the most pure way of knowing things. Our senses fool us in a variety of ways.

Descartes demonstrated how he could determine his own existence without any sense perception, and Kant held that we could use empiricism and rationalism to get a high degree of certainty about reality. The empirical information would be like raw data which could be processed by the machinery or reason.

DQ: The bottom line is that you are engaging in an act of blind faith in asserting that things exist independently of an observer. It's essentially no different from the blind faith displayed by Christian fundamentalists.

N: No. You go too far. A leap of faith is not blind faith, unless you are Hume and maintaining that a small gap is as good as a mile. It’s really revealing that you would try to discredit me by somehow turning me into a Christian fundamentalist.

DQ: But it's a rather meaningless issue to my mind because regardless of whether we choose to imagine things having "objective existence" or not, the fact remains that most things in the Universe will probably always be impervious to our desires to change them. Our minds will probably always to be too feeble to alter things in that manner.

N: That is why we refer to some things as objective. They are independent, at least to some extent, of our mental wishes and whims.

DQ: Mount Everest, for example, only continues to remain a large solid mountain if the causal conditions allow it to be. Should we somehow gain the telekinetic powers to mentally destroy it or change it into something else, then that too will be due to causal conditions.

In other words, Mount Everest isn't an "objective entity" simply because we cannot currently alter it with our minds. And should we gain these mental abilities to change it, the metaphysical status of the mountain doesn't somehow change. In both cases, it remains what it is - a causal manifestation of Nature.

The idea that the metaphysical status of physical objects hinges on the strength of our own psychic abilities is laughable. It is extremely anthropocentric - which, of course, is also a major fault with Christian thinking.

N: And it has nothing much to do with what I was talking about. You do go on and on, don’t you?

Well, not quite. One proves the truth of casuality by proving that it is logically impossible for anything to be without causes. At the very least, a thing is dependent upon its constituent parts for its existence, as well as upon the existence of time and space, and the existence of Reality itself. All of these things count as causes.

Well, I'd rather you drop it all and simply address the issues directly with your own reasoning.

Academic categories are usually too shallow and rigid to yield any real insight into the nature of reality. It's essentially a waste of time.

In my experience, academia is little more than a refuge designed for intellectuals who want to avoid all contact with reality. This is why academic conversation always comes across as lifeless and dull.

I agree, but as far as this particular issue is concerned, it is the only methodology available to us.

The opposite idea, however - namely, that nothing can exist independently of an observer - can indeed be proven by logic with 100% certainty.

Do you really believe everything you read? Descartes didn't succeed in demonstrating his own existence at all. At most, all he demonstrated was that there is existence of some kind, that Reality is not nothing whatsoever. Beyond this, his proof for the existence of his "I" was very weak, and his proof for the existence of God was even weaker. A very overrated thinker, in my book.

A "degree of certainty" in one's knowledge isn't good enough. It either has to be 100% certain or it's worthless.

It is one thing to speculatively propose that things can exist independently of an observer, as a kind of tentative theory. I could accept this as a naive, but honest, proposal. But to assert it as a definite principle of existence - I'm sorry, but that's blind faith, on the same level as Christian fundamentalism.

Why do you ask David, "How do you actually know these things exist in the absence of an observer?", when David has already said that nothing can exist independently of an observer?

How do you actually know these things exist in the absence of an observer? You are merely speculating.

We might theorize, when looking at the moon from down here on earth, that it has a far side. It certainly seems to have one given our past experience of the moon and of physical objects in general. But the only way to actually prove that it does have a far side is to go around and have a look.

But of course, even if we do this, we cannot leave behind the observer's perspective in any way. So even this manouveur is insufficient to demonstrate that it has a far side when not being observed.

The bottom line is that you are engaging in an act of blind faith in asserting that things exist independently of an observer. It's essentially no different from the blind faith displayed by Christian fundamentalists.

I think rational self-interest is a good thing. It recognizes that we are intertwined with other people and advancing their self-interest also advances our own.

I much prefer talking with people who selfishly enjoy talking with me than those who feel they are only doing their altruistic duty.

All humans should have a right to promote and protect their flourishing survival, not just some at the expense of others.