Even if Cogito ergo sum is apart of the deception its still solipsism, only that the single mind is possibly both the deceiver and the deceived.


Perhaps you can elaborate on what you meant, I get the feeling we agree.
Right, in fact that was the history of the term. Its very inception regards the nature of knowledge and it clearly shows us one of two paths, belief that nothing can be known, which abra has said over and over again in various ways, or the belief that we can know things.

Its funny how the fact is known, and the fact is that we do not know.

I was raised by a single mother, and feel the same way, what does that say?

Ok, we all know reality is not necessarily what we entail it to be, this is why solipsism is so idiotic.

Please pay close attention to the distinction between what is, and what can be known.

For a philosophy to be solipsism you must have an environment that has only a single consciousness and a single creator, or trickster, or provider of detail, whatever you want to call it.

Here is the sticking point, either you believe that there is a separate reality from what you perceive or you don't. Beliefs as we all know are subjective and hardly a good starting point for rational discourse.

If you think that reality starts with mind, and thinking builds up to form, then the first principle is that thought must occur before form.

The only logical conclusion from that is that a singular mind starts it all.

From that all you can assume is that a single mind exists. Which given Cogito Ergo sum ( I think therefore I am), means it could very well be your mind tricking you into thinking other minds exist.

If a single mind exists as your premise you must assume a mind at least one, exists.

However you cannot prove, or even know, if another mind exists. So with out assuming that laws of nature exist this situation puts you in a place where solipsism is the difference between epistemology, and ontology.

Where what is known, is no different that what can be . . .


You can never know anything about reality, you are stuck in a situation where you must assume everything, quite a pathetic place to be in given all that we can accomplish with naturalism . . . .


Essentially naturalism is a given becuase it explains so much more of the working reality we experience, and other philosophies just flounder around seeking meaning even several thousands of years after there introduction . . .

_______________________________________________________

Buzzed philosophy on a Monday, who knew . . .

And still I smash my opponents, I knew there was a reason I was so mature and knew more than anyone else on the planet earth. Wow such an authority on every subject I am, I think ill start a thread where I talk about how poeple under 31 are so smart and mature . . .

How old was Heisenberg when he proposed the HUP?


How old was Einstein when he set about his STR?


How old was Stephen Hawking when he realized Hawking radiation?


Honestly Abra, your a fool for making this your point. Your a fool anyways so it matters little to me, but its really quite illustrative of the weak arguments you propose, and how your mental faculty is either failing or never was strong.

So what does the brain do if not store images, or impressions, or interpretations, or any content at all . . .

Subjective perspective, ohh how wonderful.

Everyone thinks they are more mature then people they often disagree with: FACT.

This is also the same with intelligence. Its only the ends of the Bell curve that often know where they are . . .

No one calls themselves stupid when the person in the car next to them in traffic makes them mad. Its always the other person that is stupid when you are mad . . .

No one thinks there opinions have been arrived at through faulty logic.

These are all wonderful side effects of having perspective in the first place.

Isn't it wonderful how much I know about perspective, I must be more mature then all of you . . .

Beliefs are not innately religious.

Why do religions get the corner market on belief? Cant I believe that my chair will support my weight without having a church of weigh bearing furniture?

Conversely can we not observe a world around us explainable via natural processes and then take as a given, ie believe, that if it explains everything we look at (research), maybe it will continue to explain everything we look at.

When you can build a circuit board with your mind and get FM (or better yet GOD 93.3) let me know, till then its naturalism for me.

Evolution is both a fact, and a theory.

Theories are a body of facts explained. Evolution is a complex topic, evolution as the variation of allele frequencies in populations over time is a fact. It happens, even if it changes and stops completely one day, it still happened that is a fact we can stick a label on, its been observed and documented.

Here is a good video by an evolutionary biologist where in the first few minutes he explains this distinction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_itJihgk9EA

I agree its fine the way it is, forums at the end of the day represent nothing more then what the people who use them want.

. . .but its made of lots of tiny robots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0wetQwH9nY&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div

Love Dan Dennet's work.

What is funny to me about abra, is that he uses the word reductionism as a four letter derogatory term, but he is the ultimate reductionist, taking everything down to the smallest level then equivocating the phenomena to the largest scale and confusing epistemology for ontology.

I find it an interesting dichotomy to say the least and there is NOTHING wrong with reductionism, its a valid and powerful method of explaining complex systems, its when the scale of usage is outside of the magnification to be useful that it becomes the derogatory 4 letter term in common usage.

Its equivocating the phenomena at the smallest level to the highest level without linking the two through explanation of each in-between step.

When abra says science tries to explain the unexplainable he is equivocating Heisenberg uncertainty principle to all of science, ludicrous indeed. Even the uncertainty principle is exact in its uncertainty.



Even here he dodges the question and is ultimately wrong. Epiphenomena are being deeply studied TODAY, and good if not rigorous explanations already exist. In fact I read a study recently where with magnetic fields and fMRI to watch it we are able to induce feelings of love, irritation ect in people, or even a feeling of a presence, or of god.

These experiences are being replicated artificially, what does that say about the physicality of this experience, and how it must be explainable via physics if we can manipulate it via physical principles?

You dont even understand my objections, Nova seems to . . .

I have no problems with anything in QM, I use it on a daily basis in my graduate studies. I have asked for your math, your research, heck your citations, you refuse to provide it, so please do not wonder in the back of your head why I do not believe you have any greater understanding then any popular science hobbyist.

Science is science, when you bring some ill look at it. Has not happened yet. So far all that has happened is your interpretations of strange phenomena.
You have not demonstrated a professional level of knowledge, just a popular account of weirdness. You use words in a non scientific way to preach your spirituality, this is anti science, science either uses words in a very specific way, or tosses them out completely and creates new ones. Your recent blunders regarding physicality is a great example.
Heck you have shown to NOT understand causality on many occasions, not understanding the difference between the various shades of causality yet here you speak of it, and reference my name as if I have made a claim . . . where is this claim I make? I smell a straw man coming.

What happens is YOU make claims, and we (myself and creative) either a) school you using citations, or b) you are close enough to not be bothered and we let you run perhaps quibble a word or two, or c) you so poorly understand the science that you end up contradicting your own claims by the end of the thread, its embarrassing, or you bring up atheism and beliefs for no reason at all, like you have done here in hope of providing enough smoke to obscure your blunders.

I tell you what, cite something, anything, and you will at least get rid of me for a few days while I actually go over the research, reference professionals in the given field and ask for there advice, unlike you I am a member of the scientific community and do not pretend to know everything, no less pretend to be an authority LOL.

I study and research nano partcles, and high energy light, but that does not make me an authority on those topics, its sad to see science so abused to fill the needs of a forum trolls ego, but by no means is it uncommon these days.

I used to post daily science news in hope for some comments, perhaps some idle speculation, nope nothing. No one is interested. If its not gossip, or feel good spiritual navel well wishing, its pretty much ignored, or maybe you get a few, ahh cool posts, but that was it.

As far as REAL academic philosophy, not the colloquial any thought will do as philosophy tripe, its so misunderstood that its rare you can engage more then a few people and learn, or add anything new.

What is interesting to me also, is these labels we use, new age. Not a single concept that falls under this title is new at all. They use science buzz words that are newish, and not well understood by the public so they get away with themselves knowing little or nothing about the science behind it, its great fun.

People go on and on about this, yes we all know there is no being called science that can support ideas.

I always understand what people mean when they say science supports so and so, its really synonymous with the scientific community accept such and such as true, or fact, or whatnot.

Lets not beat people up for using colloquialisms.

So physics works becuase it doesn't explain anything . . yea sorry but your out of the ballpark wrong.

Physics is our best effort to understand the universe yes, and it has succeeded beyond humanities wildest dreams, even just 100 years ago those dreams would not have been as rich as the reality we see today due to the discoveries in physics.

You flail around trying to find meaning, end up making the most ludicrous statements.

Describing something as balls and somehow that represents physical reality, but not describing it as balls is not physical reality?

Sorry abra, you lost me or more likely I think your just lost. Things being different then once we assumed is wholly different then reality not being physical.

Seriously you have lost track of any real quality meaning you where reaching for with this.

Well I am only assuming that a religion is indeed a religion when it starts to try to speak for god, or know gods will.

I dont think that is accurate at all. I do not post for revenge, how silly, what a petty reason, no if I wanted revenge it would be intimate.

I post becuase the topics are interesting and you guys have points of view starkly different so it makes it fun.

Also most forum goers are very easy going about this stuff, its pretty rare someone starts with the ad homs, and personal attacks.

The adversarial nature of my, creative and abra discourse has everything to do with a lack of effort by abra to really even engage at the level he claims to be an authority on in science.

That works in two ways.

It also means to know the mind of god, and pretend you know what he wants . . . . you would need to know what god knows which is clearly impossible for humans to do, right?

So all of religion is a sham.

All things that have positive characteristics that can be identified interact in such a way as to be physical.

Bosons do interact abra, how else could we identify them? Try to read what is written you may gain some understanding. I can even reference several research papers about boson self interactions if you would like . . .

If anything you yourself have pointed out in this thread that making a distinction between physical and non physical (outside of solidity) is meaningless which is essentially agreeing with me, its kind of funny you do not see that.

Non-physical is meaningless it has only negative characteristics to define it. (unless referencing solidity)

Physical on the other hand cannot be defined in terms of solidity with out specific context, this has already been said, and so you going back to that shows a lack of comprehension.

So physical instead is that which interacts, in any way what so ever. This includes the set of things that which interact in such a way as to be UNIDENTIFIABLE, as well as interact in such a way as to be identifiable, so the whole notion of what we can and cannot known DOES NOT EFFECT this at all, the definition is at a higher level then the distinction of epistemological ramifications.

This whole thread has demonstrated that most people agree that physical can have meaning, but non-physical can only ever mean: non-existent, unless you are referencing solidity in which case this is a contextual definition that only has meaning when applied within certain limiting contexts.

Seems clear as day to me, thank you very much everyone for contributing I think this one is dead unless someone else has something meaningful to add.