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Isn't existence amazing?

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Isn't existence amazing?

yiming
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Posted 04/30/08 - 08:46 PM:	#51
Hey Sensabile, you believe that the world is not inside your head but separate and outside. Yet, you maintain that the world exist within language. Isn't language the articulation of thought which is inside the head too? But I would like Worset to admit that the monitor screen is inside his head. Otherwise, his sense data notion is what it is - non fact.

sensabile
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Posted 05/01/08 - 02:58 AM:	#52
I didn't say "the world exists within language".
_____________________ For the winner there was a big three-legged cauldron to stand over a fire - it was worth a dozen oxen by the Greek's reckoning - and for the loser he brought forward a woman thoroughly trained in domestic work whom they valued at four oxen. -Homer's The Illiad Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? -Mark 9:50

Wosret
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Posted 05/01/08 - 06:33 AM:	#53
yiming wrote: Hey Worset, I agree with your conclusion about no sound when no one is around to hear it. However, I would like to question you about perception. If, senses collect data and the brain translates data, then the world we see is not something objectively outside the brain but subjective translations inside it. Would you then agree that computer screen you are looking at right now is inside your head? In other words, there is no "outside"? No, a photograph of a person is just a representation of that person, so looking at the photo does not count as looking at the person, that doesn't mean that the person that the photograph represents does then not exist. I am not saying an external world does not exist, or else the stating that we don't see it directly is nonsensical.
_____________________ "cute girls really should stick with other cute girls, hm?" - Morinaga Milk

yiming
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Posted 05/01/08 - 08:57 PM:	#54
Worset, your argument is not correct. The photograph is a representation of an actual object that you can see, touch, taste, hear and smell. If you assert that everything that you see, touch, taste, hear and smell is a representation, how on earth can you prove that there is anything other than the representation? Checkmate.

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Posted 05/02/08 - 10:04 AM:	#55
Absolutely? You can't, thus "cogito ergo sum". Though if you merely take proof in the sense to mean "evidence enough to establish something as true" (as I do, and consider it to be the only meaningful way the word can be used when talking about the world) then I think that the data received is evidence enough to establish the existence of the external world. I reject absolutist concepts as useless fairytales, so it doesn't cause me a problem. It is quite easy to beat an opponent when they are made of straw.
_____________________ "cute girls really should stick with other cute girls, hm?" - Morinaga Milk

Cafe Rob
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Posted 05/02/08 - 12:16 PM:	#56
"yiming" wrote: Worset, your argument is not correct. The photograph is a representation of an actual object that you can see, touch, taste, hear and smell. If you assert that everything that you see, touch, taste, hear and smell is a representation, how on earth can you prove that there is anything other than the representation? Let’s think about Idealism. This says that the world is constituted by our ideas or imagination. This does not deny the fact that something is out there (the thing in itself) but it does deny our understanding of it. As Immanuel Kant said “Reality is relative to the particular set of ideas that an individual has in his head.” That our mind-set determines what is real. We do not passively receive the data we receive. Now, it would be a mistake to see Kant as saying simply, "Reality is relative to the particular set of ideas an individual has in his head." This could mean that since everyone has their own ideas, everyone has their own reality. Science could not be possible under these conditions. But science is possible, so a different condition must exist regarding the structuring of reality by the mind. For Kant, this structure is common to every human consciousness. It is as if we were all fitted with the same glasses. The only problem is, is that we can never get to ‘the thing in itself, out there’ but only the version represented in our mind. Hence the world is your representation brought to life by your passion and desire.

yiming
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Posted 05/02/08 - 08:05 PM:	#57
No, no, no Cafe Rob. The world is not my representation or your representation. It is a fact bloody fact! And the fact is that you guys are too afraid to admit the fact. I say if Worset contends that sense data and brain enables him to see, then admit that the monitor screen is inside his head. Integrity! A philosopher must have integrity. It not just talk!. I would kick your butt if you would try this in my philosophy class.

Cafe Rob
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Posted 05/02/08 - 11:26 PM:	#58
Calm down yiming, your getting emotional now and all the great thinkers agreed that emotions, generally, were a source of error and suffering. If you calmly think it through you’ll quickly come to realize that the concepts through which we view the world determine the way the world will be for us; that is, our mind-set determines what is real.

yiming
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Posted 05/04/08 - 09:13 PM:	#59
Ok, you think it through calmly and tell me whether or not the monitor screen you are looking at is inside your head.

Wosret
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Posted 05/04/08 - 10:18 PM:	#60
Is the thing I am directly seeing inside my head? Yes. Does it correspond to something that exists outside of my head? Also yes. I am seeing what sensory data of the monitor that exists in the objective world I have gathered through my eyes, which has been translated into a working 3D representation of the monitor inside of my head. I don't see what's hard to understand. I thought that my photograph example was good. Both exist, the representation (inside my head) and the thing that is being represented (outside my head). This realisation is what leads some weak minded individuals to solipsism, or ideas about being a brain in a vat, or being in a metrix scenerio. All of which are technically possible, and there is no way to tell if they aren't the case, though there is absolutely no reason to think that it is the case. Some people (the religious come to mind) have an idea in their head that if something can't be disproved, then it somehow becomes reasonable to just believe it. Though many don't seem to think the idea through all that well. I once heard a story (don't know if it's true) that someone sent Bertrand Russel a letter telling them that they were positive that solipism was true...lol seemingly without realising what a huge waste of time it is writing to people that don't exist. Edited by Wosret on 05/04/08 - 10:26 PM
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yiming
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Posted 05/05/08 - 10:26 PM:	#61
But Worset, even Bertrand Russel left the question open when he asked if the fire burning his finger was inside or outside his head. Solipsism is a belief - the belief that all reality is just one's own imagining of reality, and that one's self is the only thing that exists. The truth is, the self doesn't exist. The monitor is neither inside nor outside your head. The monitor is a sensate fact - you can see it and touch it. Why do you want to reduce perception into explainable terms of physics?

Cafe Rob
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Posted 05/06/08 - 12:54 AM:	#62
"Toe" wrote: things are not as they seem Transduce, definition; to convert (energy, an electronic signal, etc.) into another form. It’s what the mind does. It converts an electronic signal into another form. And then ‘things’ are not what they seem to be. I think we should never lose sight of the evolutionary benefits. Man has evolved naturally and presumably how we see the world must bestow some survival benefit. Obviously we need to be aware of sound, and colour too. Take ‘unity’ for instance. A conscious experience is a unity in the sense that many features are experienced all-at-once by the subject. How this happens when different features such as shapes and colours are processed by different parts of the brain is itself a mystery, which has been called the binding problem of consciousness

sensabile
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Posted 05/06/08 - 03:32 AM:	#63
The way people are talking about this simply isn't helpful. Asking whether or not an object is inside our "head" is just plain nonsense. You need to be more specific and clear about what you really mean when you say such a thing.
_____________________ For the winner there was a big three-legged cauldron to stand over a fire - it was worth a dozen oxen by the Greek's reckoning - and for the loser he brought forward a woman thoroughly trained in domestic work whom they valued at four oxen. -Homer's The Illiad Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? -Mark 9:50

iSerpent.
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Posted 05/07/08 - 12:51 PM:	#64
I agree. This is something I've thought about most of my life, escpecially within the past five years or so~ But it's a shame that not many people think like that. I'll admit; I'm only human, and I have my days where I want to yell out the window and tell everyone they suck, but, in the long run; existence is simply amazing. Everything about it. Even on the bad days. I actually feel quite honored to be able to even have bad days. x3; But I suppose I'm just one of those people that appreciates everything; despite the outlook. Nice post. <3
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Cafe Rob
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Posted 05/08/08 - 11:34 AM:	#65
"iSerpent" wrote: But I suppose I'm just one of those people that appreciates everything; despite the outlook. Earlier in this thread we were talking about the idea that the world is our representation. In other words it's dependent on our mind for it's validity, we never see it the way it is. Your post is a perfect example of this theory. Quite apart from all the philosophical moral and ethical theories that have been written, just take a daily newspaper for instance, do you appreciate and feel elated about the news you read, 'despite the outlook.' Is the world still 'right' for you irrespective of what happens to all the other millions of people around the world? Edited by Cafe Rob on 05/08/08 - 11:39 AM

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