Why the vision argument is a very good one!

[LadyForCamus]

You’re simply asserting objective value.  Again.  Without evidence.  Again.

I quote:

Now if you deny their is an exact accurate you, I will propose this. What are you estimating? And on what grounds?  If you say it's good enough and close enough to what you are, you are saying there is an accurate you, you just don't know it.

I have no idea what you’re talking about.  What is an “accurate me”?

[Mystic]

Now I propose because your actions are in reality detailed ways that we don't perceive all the details, something that maintains who we are has to know these details, and know exactly what value we ought to get through our actions.

You were going relatively well up until this one point...
jorm only gave this a sentence of her time.
I'm going to give a bit more...

Indeed we don't perceive all the detailed goings on in our brains that lead to producing our thoughts.
But that doesn't mean that there need to be something maintaining "who we are", much less that this something "has to know these details".

What we are is maintained by conservation of energy.
The details of how quantum mechanics and biochemistry lead to psychology need not be known by anything. The particles involved themselves have no intrinsic knowledge, they just do what they do.
That we, humans, collectively, can't pinpoint exactly how our psychology arises from the underlying brain activity says that we still have some more sciencing to do.

Had you no knowledge of computers, other than they use electricity, would you be able to pinpoint where and how a bunch of electrical signals in the computer correspond to the firefox tab that is displaying the AF forum? Imagine, you had no idea of the binary nature of the computer....That would be a tricky endeavor, huh?
I'd say that our understanding of the connection between the brain activity and psychology is roughly at that level. We understand how individual neurons work, we've established that neurons operating in particular regions of the brain are connected with some generic mental activities, but how one produces the other is still unknown. The "language" of the brain is unknown and there's no rosetta stone to help.

If/when we thoroughly determine that brain activity cannot account for the mind, then the soul/god hypothesis gets a chance to shine. Until then, there's no use in struggling to produce feeble arguments from ignorance.


Your last sentence there ("know exactly what value we ought to get through our actions") is indicative of your bias.
Value is something we attribute to things. Each of us attributes a particular value to everything around us. Your sentence seems to imply that there is a value that we all should attribute to something.... our actions?...
Just to show you how you can confuse subjective and objective values, tell us if the value of money, the US Dollar, is objective or subjective and why.

I am saying the brain from a biological perspective doesn't know the details to give us the exact accurate objective value to who we are. I think both you and Jo agreed with that, just don't agree we have an objective exact value, which I argue later why I believe is not a good view.

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I quote:

Now if you deny their is an exact accurate you, I will propose this. What are you estimating? And on what grounds?  If you say it's good enough and close enough to what you are, you are saying there is an accurate you, you just don't know it.

I have no idea what you’re talking about.  What is an “accurate me”?

You do know what I'm talking about. I explained the concept and context of it, in the OP.

[LadyForCamus]

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An analogy is a comparison between two objects, or systems of objects, that highlights respects in which they are thought to be similar. Analogical reasoning is any type of thinking that relies upon an analogy. An analogical argument is an explicit representation of a form of analogical reasoning that cites accepted similarities between two systems to support the conclusion that some further similarity exists. In general (but not always), such arguments belong in the category of inductive reasoning, since their conclusions do not follow with certainty but are only supported with varying degrees of strength. Here, ‘inductive reasoning’ is used in a broad sense that includes all inferential processes that “expand knowledge in the face of uncertainty” (Holland et al. 1986: 1), including abductive inference.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy || Analogy and Analogical Reasoning [emphasis mine]

Note the highlighted passage above.  It will become important in a moment.

We are hidden. It's really quite simple.  

Look at your phone or computer or something complex, yet, you use it simply.    We are in a way very complex and we have layers and layers to who we are. This is true regardless if God exists or not. If a soul exists or not. 

Before we knew anything about nerves, we were able to move our hands.

You don't know what goes behind every single action of yours, you don't have an exact proper assessment to who you are or in fact, to any of your states and hence any of your actions.

This is because the details are abstracted.   The personality and how it's generated is abstracted from you.

Or it's because these details of personality generation and so on are performed by aspects of mind/brain that are subconscious.  (And I have much much more to say about this below.  Remember, the duty to listen attentively and attempt to understand the other person's view is a duty which extends in both directions.  Do not dismiss me without a full hearing, lest you make yourself a hypocrite.)

Keep this in mind. You don't know the details. You get some sort of fuzzy image. The thing is let's say you wear glasses and you see something fuzzy, it doesn't mean there isn't an actual accurate reality to it. The thing is you yourself are an accurate reality. 

This is where the above passage becomes important.  You are arguing by analogy to vision here.  That only works if the similarities to vision are accepted and without dispute.  Moreover, because the similarity you are citing is that there is an imperfect and a perfect representation -- the core of your argument -- you are effectively begging the question here.  That invalidates your argument on technical grounds if no other.  I don't agree that personality is like this.  Rather, I would suggest that the details of personality, inasmuch as they are known, are fully known by the subconscious.  The situation is more like you being in one room, connected to a person in another room by walkie talkies.  The person in the other room knows the full details of a chessboard and can communicate them to you.  This eliminates the need for any additional witnesses such as God.   Simply reasserting your analogy of an imperfect and a perfect visual representation without providing actual evidence that the perfect representation is independent of you (or things about you that can be known, like your actions) is simply asserting what you attempt to prove.

A very important secondary question is just what exactly personality is.  If you're going to suggest that there is such a thing as a perfectly accurate representation of a personality, then you have to have a good and accurate definition of just what a personality is.  So far you've skipped actually providing any kind of account of what a personality is in order to grease the wheels of a false analogy.  If I accepted your general understanding of personality, I might be sympathetic to the notion that a perfect representation of personality which is independent of you exists.  However I don't agree that personality is something which has to be complete and well defined in order to be known.  My subconscious mind offers up many details of who I am such as how patient I am, how intelligent, and so on, without there ever needing to be a complete database of these qualities that exists outside my subconscious mind.  Other people have similar, but critically different databases of information about me that they compile based on my actions and based on inferences they make about me (which are based on a "theory of mind").  Someone sees a person be rude to me and I respond gently; they start building an image of me as someone who is patient.  Someone who hasn't observed me has no idea what my personality is like.  Someone who has known me a long time has a substantial base of inferred knowledge about who I am.  This isn't because they have been replacing their imperfect vision of me with more and more perfect versions, but rather because over time their minds have been making more and more inferences about me, probably using the same subconscious processes or similar, and thus they are building on having greater knowledge about my actions and thoughts.  This is a completely different picture of personality than the analogical one you have presented, and doesn't require any "personality" or knowledge of such to exist independent of simply having either subconscious knowledge about my past (my own understanding of who I am), or knowledge and inferences made about my words and actions gathered from observing me (another person's understanding of my personality).

You are. Whatever you are and whatever generates you, generates an accurate reality. But you aren't a reality that is divorced from perception. Perception and you go hand to hand.
Like sea is made out of water,  your "personhood" is made out of vision. Even when you do an action for the future, you project before you do it, a vision of you doing it, then put to play. And when you think of your past self at a given time, you project images of who you through perception.  

This is okay as far as it goes with the caveats noted, but again, vision is just an analogy, nothing more.  I see nothing here that can't be provided by mundane access to information about myself.  Note specifically here that it is the reality which is accurate, not necessarily any "vision" of it.  That remains to be shown.

Now the proposition is you don't have all the details of what makes you: you. This is true again regardless if God exists or not.

And that proposition is what is under dispute.  As noted above, it's possible that all the details of who you are -- from your perspective -- are known to your subconscious, or can be "given" by your subconscious (that is, your subconscious can be mistaken about whether you are patient, say concluding that you are, when in fact you are not; in that case, your subconscious has an imperfect representation of who you are, but no such perfect representation exists elsewhere; no perfect representation exists in that case -- the same applies to other people's perception of you, mutatis mutandis).  Typically, people have a group of traits which they know, or have inferred about themselves.  The question at issue is whether the values known to them need to exist in some perfect form either independent of them, or even exist at all.  I've provided a plausible account of personality in which, as much as they can be known the details of your personality are known to you (or to others through mundane observation of your words and actions).

We aren't given the knowledge of the self but a little in both ways.  There is so much to what generates us, and we don't get it.

That's an assertion which you haven't supported in any way.  Plus, knowing your argument, you claim that this "more" that is not known to you is known to God.  Since you don't have access to God and what he knows, I fail to see how you are going to establish this with any kind of supporting evidence.  If it's just a bare assertion that personality is a whole of which which we only possess a part; without any support for the claim, then the argument fails right here.

Yet remember, whatever we sense of ourselves is through some sort of image and vision.

Remember?  Visual perception is an analogy here.  You seem to be representing it as some literal process of vision.  Regardless, as noted above, your analogy only works insofar as you demonstrate that the cases are in fact similar.  Since you haven't done that, and are using the vision analogy itself as a kind of evidence, you are indeed begging the question.

I propose a long with our non-complete and sometimes totally misguided perception of ourselves,  there is to be an accurate maintaining vision of who we are in accurate way. That is just as you can't exist without vision in some sense, the accurate detail who you are has to have an accurate vision.

This is carrying your proof by analogy to far.  In addition to having assumed your conclusion, you are intentionally painting in details that aren't immediately obvious based solely on your intuitive grasp of the analogy and your overall argument.  What evidence do you have to support the idea that a full, complete and accurate representation of who you are has to exist in order for partial and incomplete representations of who you are to exist?  I've shown how the latter can exist without the former, and all we have on your side is an assertion otherwise.  You need to support your claim that "the accurate detail who you are has to have an accurate vision," and I haven't seen you do that.  If you have and I am unaware of it, or you wish to do so now, please bring it to my attention.  Until then, we'll just have to chalk this up to my "imperfect representation" of you.

Now I propose because your actions are in reality detailed ways that we don't perceive all the details, something that maintains who we are has to know these details, and know exactly what value we ought to get through our actions.

That is it knows the subtle fine accurate details of every good deed and every evil deed. That which makes us inherit our actions knows us inside out, and must know our circumstances.

It's fine to propose something as long as you follow it up with evidence and sound reasoning.  I haven't seen you do that.

The subconscious I propose cannot be that, because, it didn't have access to all the details more then you or anything like that.   It doesn't know all the details to asses your situation either.  It sees through a fuzzy vision as well, but can't be the maintainer of the accurate you.

Your proposition here is dependent upon your prior proposition that there has to be an accurate representation in order for there to be an imperfect representation.  As such, you are attempting to refute the proposition of the subconscious using something that you haven't yet established.  If for no other reason, that would void your objection altogether.  Your counter to the subconscious argument is critically dependent upon your first establishing that in order for an imperfect representation to exist, a perfect representation must first exist.  Until you do, your objection to the subconscious explanation goes nowhere.  As noted above with my example of knowledge about how patient I am, I can be wrong about that -- a conclusion reached through inference, assumption, and subconscious reasoning -- without there needing to be an accurate representation in some way "causing" the existence of my flawed knowledge of myself.  In that case, my flawed internal knowledge is just flawed in mundane ways, not because of any similarity to vision.  By my lights, no perfect representation need exist.  I'm not sure such is even possible -- what does it mean to have an accurate perception of how patient I am?  This seems to be a purely qualitative measure and thus has no absolute / perfect value.  You seem to be dipping somewhat into an understanding of personality which is necessarily quantative, rather than qualitative, but I'll leave that alone for now.

I propose further that only the best and perfect judgment can perceive you accurately.  Any imperfection with respect to the judgment would make you inaccurate.  It perceives things exactly how they are.

Again, you are building on foundations which you haven't secured yet.  What on earth does it mean to "make someone inaccurate?"  You need to rephrase that before I can attach any meaning to it.  As noted, your proposition appears to be something you just pulled from your ass.  Less proposing, more demonstrating.  (And since any actual demonstration of this seems to require knowing the mind of God, as well as knowing a person, I fail to see how you're going to pull it off.)

Now if you deny their is an exact accurate you, I will propose this. What are you estimating? And on what grounds?  If you say it's good enough and close enough to what you are, you are saying there is an accurate you, you just don't know it.

That's an unwarranted conclusion.  As noted above, I can make sense of inaccurate perceptions/inferences about myself without needing to postulate that there even exists a perfect representation of me.   So, no, that's a non sequitur.  It doesn't follow that because there exist flawed representations of me that there must exist representations of me that aren't flawed.  It's perfectly reasonable to assume that all that exist are flawed representations of myself, distributed among myself and those people who know me.  All we have to counter that proposition is a crude analogy, which seems to beg the question, and several propositions which don't appear to be well supported.  If you have some support for these "propositions" then you need to provide them (and the vision analogy by itself is not acceptable support for the reasons already noted).

In fact, it's non-sense to say there is no accurate you.  It's the foremost thing we witness and know,  we may doubt the existence of the whole world, but not that we exist.

And this is the heart of the dispute.  I've provided a perfectly sensible alternative account of personality, so at best the idea that there is no accurate "you" is nonsense is itself hyperbole.  I assume that by saying "we exist" you mean that the "you" that we are necessarily exists.  Again, this gets back to the need for precision in defining what you mean by a "you."  I know that I physically exist, but that's not what you mean.  I suppose that in principle there could exist an accurate representation of who I am -- how patient, intelligent, loving, etc. -- if one had perfect knowledge of both my past, my thoughts, and perfect knowledge of exactly what defines each of these properties of intelligence and so on.  However, as noted, it doesn't appear necessary that such a perfect "vision" must exist in reality for us each to possess imperfect "visions" of who we each are as persons.  If you feel it is necessary, you need to support your belief with reasons and evidence.  From my perspective, I'm at a loss as to how you would "know" that a more perfect representation of me exists solely on the basis of the existence of imperfect representations.  Until then, your belief that an accurate "vision" of me even exists in reality seems to be nothing more than a conclusion reached by you because your argument demanded it.  Until then, all I see is your incredulity, and that's not an argument.

What you are is then a fundamental starting point. Yet who we are is the greatest mystery. No one can possibly know what and who we are, but the absolute being.

That a perfect being could know us perfectly is not something that I dispute.  What I do dispute is that a perfect being having a perfect "vision" of us is necessary for there to be imperfect, but nonetheless robust "visions" of us.  You claim that this perfect being's vision of us in some sense "causes" our imperfect visions of ourselves.  I have to ask how you could possibly know this?  Regardless, it seems to fall in the category of "additional work you need to do" on your argument, and not something that you've established.  I haven't gone back over your previous thread on this argument, so I don't know if you've provided said support there or not; if you have, either link me to it, or provide a summary here. 

In fact, if you really reflect, you really mirror that self and see the light it exists by, you see that you exists through vision of God.

You can't be divorced from the vision of God. There is nothing ambiguous about this. You do an action, you forget it, it doesn't mean it's gone. Not part of you. God records it and maintains your value accurately.

Neither can a biological brain do it neither can the highest of all beings do it aside from God, it's only God the most High, that sees your personhood with perfect judgment and you can't accurately exist without perfect judgement and you accurately exist.

You have yet to really establish that the "it" -- having a perfect representation of you -- is necessary.  If you had, then your argument might become somewhat more plausible.  But you haven't done that.  Until you do, there are very mundane ways by which a brain, mine or someone else's, might develop an imperfect image of who I am that are in no way causally dependent upon there existing a perfect representation of who I am.  Until you demonstrate that necessity by more than a question begging analogy and dubious assertions, then your argument fails.

QED:  God has been absolutely proven.

I marvel at the arrogance of you claiming that you have done this task perfectly given the number of holes I see in your argument.  Regardless, I'll just chalk it up to youthful exuberance.  I don't believe you have in fact demonstrated that which you set out to demonstrate (QED), at the least, you have not done so in its entirety in this post.  Anyway, you claim to have me on ignore, so I don't know if you will even read this.  However, I feel that I have been both attentive and charitable toward your argument, without any unmerited objections or irrelevancies.  If you disagree, please point them out and I will attempt to attend to the matter more proficiently and effectively.  Unlike you, I don't see honesty as a key ingredient to coming to justified conclusions; that depends more on talent and experience, with honesty only being such that one doesn't lie to oneself.  As Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."  That is about as far as I would push the honesty gambit.

Anyway, if you can provide the shoring up for your argument in the areas discussed, I would appreciate it.  If you never read this, then, I guess, tante pis pour vous.

I apologize in advance for any errors or omissions.  None were intended.

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Ninja’d!

😝😝😝

[Mystic]

If you are more interested in the "accurate" you debate, or exact value, I would go to this thread: https://atheistforums.org/thread-40867.html

I looked back and found I also briefly stated the vision argument in there, but, not really being too aware that I did.

If you have any question LadyForCamus, in light of the thread I linked to and the discussion that ensued, it would be a good starting ground.

[pocaracas]

I am saying the brain from a biological perspective doesn't know the details to give us the exact accurate objective value to who we are. I think both you and Jo agreed with that, just don't agree we have an objective exact value, which I argue later why I believe is not a good view.

Sorry, I tend to stop reading when I find stuff that needs addressing before any further ground is granted.
I'm already reading a book on Aristotelian metaphysics and feel myself losing braincells at each page, so I can't afford any for you.

What I may have agreed is that the neural pathways don't have the concept of value in them... but, as with most of our mental activities, on a highly abstracted way, they (some of them, at least) contribute to what we consider to be the attribute of value towards a particular thing, towards ourselves and towards other people.
I will agree that this highly abstracted mental state of value attribution is present in most humans, if not all. I agree that, as a society, we've come to agree, even if implicitly, upon some larger than zero value of any other human beings.
This societal agreement can be viewed, from the individual's point of view, as a value seemingly imposed by an outside influence. In other words, human value can seem to be objective; it can feel to be objective; it can feel like you have no choice upon the matter, as if it had been imposed unto you, unto me, unto everyone!
But has it really been imposed?

I think the example of money is a very good one, as it is one that is well known to be of human origin. There is no actual outer influence upon it, just humans.
Is the value of money imposed unto you, me and everyone? Or is it controlled almost imperceptibly by all of us?

Do we need a divine influence to account for "value"?
Or is our brain enough?

[Mystic]

Pocaracas, I will respond to you I promise. I just realized I need to do my essay soon. So will be withholding from this debate till I get it done!

Thank you for the discussion, I will come back. Just need some time to get school work done!

[Aegon]

Do they have "Intro to Logic" at your university? I recommend you take it.

[Mystic]

Do they have "Intro to Logic" at your university? I recommend you take it.

I got an A+ in it.

[Aegon]

Do they have "Intro to Logic" at your university? I recommend you take it.

I got an A+ in it.

Then explain this drivel.

[purplepurpose]