Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: November 29, 2024, 11:53 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
A Conscious Universe
#41
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 7:28 pm)Cato Wrote:
(January 29, 2015 at 5:41 pm)bennyboy Wrote: The difference is that all these things are seen as expressions of ideas.

Why didn't you say Platonic Forms to begin with?
Maybe I'm an idealistic dualist Tongue

(January 29, 2015 at 7:10 pm)Cato Wrote:
(January 29, 2015 at 5:33 pm)bennyboy Wrote: That's a lot of talk for "We don't perceive the universe as it is."

We do perceive the universe as it is, albeit limited by the range with which our sense organs evolved.

Wait a minute. Are you suggesting because our perception isn't exhaustive, e.g. sight across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, that this somehow supports idealism; monist or other?
No. I'm saying that our limitations mean we interface with reality, WHATEVER it is, through symbolic representations, i.e. ideas.

This is the process of knowledge: we have experiences, we categorize and examine them, draw inferences, and test those inferences. Physicalism is itself an idea-- a representation of the commonalities in experience which lead most people away from solipsism. But establishing consistent relationships between experiences is not the same as proving that those commonalities are the source of experience.

One of you will have to explain how you go from objective experiential commonality ("You see that thing falling? Hey, so do I!") to the confident assertion that reality consists of physical mechanism and nothing else. That seems like a strange conclusion for purely experiential beings to arrive at.
Reply
#42
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 7:55 pm)bennyboy Wrote: One of you will have to explain how you go from objective experiential commonality ("You see that thing falling? Hey, so do I!") to the confident assertion that reality consists of physical mechanism and nothing else. That seems like a strange conclusion for purely experiential beings to arrive at.

i don't know about confident assertion but it looks like the default assertion to me. If we find evidence to the contrary, we'll go there. Otherwise...
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
Reply
#43
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 12:10 am)FallentoReason Wrote: I've come across this very thought-provoking article that I thought I'd share with all of you.
I tried a while back to bring up the same subject, quite unsuccessfully. The problem is, if we are a 'brain in a vat', who is watching the vat?

I tried to suggest that each of our individual awarenesses have always existed and there was no one but ourselves in charge. The result? My ass still hurts!
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
Reply
#44
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 8:41 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: i don't know about confident assertion but it looks like the default assertion to me. If we find evidence to the contrary, we'll go there. Otherwise...
The evidence is treated as objective support for a claim. However, we still have the same problem: the supposedly objective evidence is collected using purely subjective means: looking through microscopes, holding a stopwatch in your hand, etc.

Put it this way: what would be the difference between the Matrix running a simulated world in which all our physical commonalities are as we now experience them, and our "real" world? Unless you know where your experiences come from, we're looking at circular reasoning: I know where experiences come from, because I experience things, and based on those experiences, it seems most likely that they come from _____.
Reply
#45
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 9:01 pm)bennyboy Wrote: The evidence is treated as objective support for a claim. However, we still have the same problem: the supposedly objective evidence is collected using purely subjective means: looking through microscopes, holding a stopwatch in your hand, etc.

Put it this way: what would be the difference between the Matrix running a simulated world in which all our physical commonalities are as we now experience them, and our "real" world? Unless you know where your experiences come from, we're looking at circular reasoning: I know where experiences come from, because I experience things, and based on those experiences, it seems most likely that they come from _____.
The mistake in your position, however, is to conflate subjective experiences with what is actually taken to be understood as objective. Any particular subjective experience can truly lead to a mistaken interpretation in how one perceives the context of the events in reality, and by objective we emphatically mean external objects that really exist independently of us and our sense intuitions, even if only known and understood through sense. This is why we separate purely subjective experience such as a lucid dream or hallucination from everyday experience in the world: it really is real, filled with many strange and unknown features that collaborative efforts illuminate all the time. Now, of course, reality as it is fundamentally may be completely different from the world we experience, but again, we know this by taking the world as a place where laws actually exist, and real things evolve from simpler constituents unlike anything we will ever encounter in experience. This is all taken as true upon both idealism and realism. Even space and time may not be fundamental, and it's always theoretically possible that we live in a holographic universe where events occur on the two-dimensional surface of an event horizon and what we perceive as "real" is merely a three-dimensional model. Either way, this does not imply idealism, which seems to me to be an unnecessary step.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#46
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 9:01 pm)bennyboy Wrote:
(January 29, 2015 at 8:41 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: i don't know about confident assertion but it looks like the default assertion to me. If we find evidence to the contrary, we'll go there. Otherwise...
The evidence is treated as objective support for a claim. However, we still have the same problem: the supposedly objective evidence is collected using purely subjective means: looking through microscopes, holding a stopwatch in your hand, etc.

Put it this way: what would be the difference between the Matrix running a simulated world in which all our physical commonalities are as we now experience them, and our "real" world? Unless you know where your experiences come from, we're looking at circular reasoning: I know where experiences come from, because I experience things, and based on those experiences, it seems most likely that they come from _____.

There is no way to rule out "The Matrix" that I'm aware of. Similarly though, as our theistic friends will happily point out, there is no way to rule out God. It's an interesting intellectual exercise but why would you go there in the absence of evidence?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
Reply
#47
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 9:26 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: There is no way to rule out "The Matrix" that I'm aware of. Similarly though, as our theistic friends will happily point out, there is no way to rule out God. It's an interesting intellectual exercise but why would you go there in the absence of evidence?
It's not necessary to "go anywhere." We have experiences, we make ideas about them. That's reality. Whatever it is that underlies our experiences, we cannot confidently say that we have access to it, though some insist we do.

That being said, I believe that since everything we experience is, at the moment of experience, an idea, the simplest explanation is that reality is idealistic.
Reply
#48
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 9:45 pm)bennyboy Wrote:
(January 29, 2015 at 9:26 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: There is no way to rule out "The Matrix" that I'm aware of. Similarly though, as our theistic friends will happily point out, there is no way to rule out God. It's an interesting intellectual exercise but why would you go there in the absence of evidence?
It's not necessary to "go anywhere." We have experiences, we make ideas about them. That's reality. Whatever it is that underlies our experiences, we cannot confidently say that we have access to it, though some insist we do.

That being said, I believe that since everything we experience is, at the moment of experience, an idea, the simplest explanation is that reality is idealistic.

You've lost me completely. I'll be intellectually honest and concede that I may not be smart enough to understand what you're getting at. Bud Light has taken its cruel toll over the years. I just don't see that you have the simplest explanation. It looks to me like you have added layers of complexity in order to satisfy your intuitive take on the situation. It looks exactly like when the theists invent God because they can't intuit a universe without one.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
Reply
#49
RE: A Conscious Universe
We all know for a fact, that we can function, converse, feel, negotiate etc., in an imaginary world. So who can say for a fact, that this reality is any more real?
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
Reply
#50
RE: A Conscious Universe
(January 29, 2015 at 10:38 pm)IATIA Wrote: We all know for a fact, that we can function, converse, feel, negotiate etc., in an imaginary world. So who can say for a fact, that this reality is any more real?

Because we know that our consciences, ideas, or concepts do not dictate what we obsserve unlike in the imaginary world. This is a problem that idealism doesn't address, and my biggest complaint about it.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Greek philosophers always knew about the causeless universe Interaktive 10 1854 September 25, 2022 at 2:28 pm
Last Post: Anomalocaris
Video Do we live in a universe where theism is likely true? (video) Angrboda 36 12631 May 28, 2017 at 1:53 am
Last Post: bennyboy
  What God is to the Universe is what your mind is to your body fdesilva 172 25612 August 23, 2016 at 7:33 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  If a supernatural intelligence did create the universe..... maestroanth 12 2377 April 20, 2016 at 8:36 pm
Last Post: bennyboy
  Do you think the universe is real? Excited Penguin 40 6701 December 15, 2015 at 9:09 pm
Last Post: Sappho
  Does the universe care? Logisch 24 5324 July 2, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Last Post: Mudhammam
  Living Universe, Buddhism, Etc. Etc. hppavilion 5 2106 June 4, 2014 at 8:37 pm
Last Post: naimless
  The Meaning of the Universe - Maybe Beta Ray Bill 19 7119 June 4, 2014 at 5:20 am
Last Post: pocaracas
Lightbulb In the universe there is no meaning nor is it meaningless FractalEternalWheel 5 2950 January 18, 2014 at 1:40 am
Last Post: Faith No More
  How did the Universe Come to be? (my beliefs) BrumelyKris 24 7562 October 10, 2013 at 6:28 pm
Last Post: bennyboy



Users browsing this thread: 5 Guest(s)