Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

@Frank Apisa,

You certainly can see my point that any X you can't think about it is not even prone to be doubted, can you ? Things that you can think about are in the very least real as concepts, abstract object constructs...

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bump

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5304149)
You certainly can see my point that any X you can't think about it is not even prone to be doubted, can you ? Things that you can think about are in the very least real as concepts, abstract object constructs...

I have no idea of what you are saying here. Not trying to be a wise-guy here, Fil...I simply do not understand what you are saying.

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@Frank Apisa,

I am saying whatever you can think about must have some level or degree of existence, of realness...in the least as an abstract object, you can't doubt objects you cannot name or conceive...ultimately the non real to you are all those things that might exist and that you cannot conceive off, if there are any...so again it may be the case you know all there is to know about reality if reality it is the solely sum of your experiences ! Hell you don't even know the extension of "you" (the "I") do you ? who's to say "I" is not "you and me " eh ?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

.dismissing something like this can be proven a far more difficult exercise then you may think.

No. Naive realists might think so if they conceive of "sets" consistent of "things" independent of observers. Once you remove that axiom you open a whole range of angles ranging from non-binary logic (aka fuzzy logic) to complementarity . And of course naive realists have a particular attraction to the word proof (in its binary garb) which underpins their love affair with "objectivity".

Nor does "common" conflict with "specific". The conjunction of the two is used when "the reality of guilt in a specific case" is commonly established in legal scenarios, or the "reality of a the presence of specific pathogen" is observed in common medical scenarios. The key issue is such usage is to do with social confidence levels in what to do next. i.e "Reality" has no independent meaning outside its functional role as an arbiter or promoter of subsequent action.

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The title is 'Where is the self?'

For someone to make a guess there has to be the belief that there is a self that can make a guess and something to guess about.

What happens when someone who will only guess, has to guess that there is a self, and there is something other than self, and that the guessed self, guesses about the guessed other than self, in order to make a guess about it?

Frank's 'self' is part of the reality he believes is true and those things he guesses about are part of his reality that he also believes is true. He therefore has beliefs about reality that he believes are true. He therefore cannot claim that he never believes or assumes that some parts of reality are true... the act of guessing requires the assumption that reality consistes of a self and other for the 'self' to 'guess' about 'other'.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I am the walrus.

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@fresco,

What you are advising bottom line is to throw logic out of the window...not that you or anyone else for all practical purposes can really do that on a daily basis when trying to convey his thoughts to others, and that was my point...I don't see any improvement by including observers or excluding them, sets still sets...

The reality of guilt has nothing to do with the specificity of the case rather what your guilty off is just the mechanic design by which such guilt is established, guilt being a general consensual concept...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I am advising (with my cognitive psychologists hat on) that "logic" is a mode of argument based on the intellectual concept of fixed set membership and is delimited by such a constraint. It can only proceed from agreed transparent axioms and tacit assumption of the complete range of variables within a context. In the case of understanding "consciousness" it has little or no importance because as Piaget pointed out, "logical thought" is an end product of cognitive development rather than a mechanism for it.

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@Frank Apisa,

You wrote,

Quote:

ci...what makes you think I have no knowledge?

You've answered your own question about understanding reality. Your reality is all the experiences you have had, and what you do with that knowledge in the future. That is reality in a nutshell!

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Quote:
Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5304128)
You wrote,
Quote:
ci...what makes you think I have no knowledge?

You've answered your own question about understanding reality. Your reality is all the experiences you have had, and what you do with that knowledge in the future. That is reality in a nutshell!

Actually...that doesn't come close to answering my question...but...

...how do you know what REALITY is in a nutshell?

Or is that just a blind guess?

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@igm,

Quote:

The title is 'Where is the self?'

No it isn't...no matter how convenient it is for you to pretend it is.

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igm wrote:

...the act of guessing requires the assumption that reality consists of a self and other for the 'self' to 'guess' about 'other'.

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Here, in a nutshell (to borrow a phrase) is what we have:

Through all of recorded history philosophers and scientists have been grappling with the question of: What is the REALITY of what IS? What is the true nature of REALITY?

The finest and greatest minds that have ever existed on our planet have pondered the question…and have come up with various theories, many of which conflict with others. So…essentially, after millennia…and after the greatest minds ever on the planet have pondered the question…we are left with the answer: WE DO NOT REALLY KNOW!

I have steadfastly insisted that I do not know.

And I am getting all sorts of static about that answer…including from people who essentially are saying that they KNOW the answer that all those great minds have been unable to come up with. Some of those people are so sure about their answer….that they are insisting that I KNOW the answer also.

I find this interesting and amusing.

Don’t you?

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank, If you have "experiences," you have reality. Most of those experiences were more or less chosen by you - like your participation on a2k.

Forget all those philosophers who can't explain the "simple facts of life."

We all have them - even those so-called expert philosophers who by their writings show they have experiences also, and have learned something - even mistakenly.

Once you are born and become "aware" of your environment, you experience reality - even if some are mis-perceived. That's the strange thing about human brains; they consist of electrical charges that may misfire. Sometimes, they can be "cured" by medication.

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@cicerone imposter,

Good point(s) C.I. . To have awareness is to realize Reality. Maybe it's not to have solid theoretical "knowledge" of Reality, but the experience itself IS Reality. Funny how we make a problem of it by our strange ways of framing it as a meta-ontological issue. I do not know if my occasional references to ULTIMATE Reality manage to avoid being equally funny.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5304283)
Frank, If you have "experiences," you have reality. Most of those experiences were more or less chosen by you - like your participation on a2k.

Forget all those philosophers who can't explain the "simple facts of life."

We all have them - even those so-called expert philosophers who by their writings show they have experiences also, and have learned something - even mistakenly.

Once you are born and become "aware" of your environment, you experience reality - even if some are mis-perceived. That's the strange thing about human brains; they consist of electrical charges that may misfire. Sometimes, they can be "cured" by medication.

Let's try this again, because perhaps I was not clear the first twenty or thirty times:

I DO NOT KNOW THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY!

It does not matter if I "have" reality or not; or whether I am experiencing something about reality...or any of those other things.

Allow me to repeat:

I DO NOT KNOW THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY!

Do you?

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@JLNobody,

Same comment applies to you, JL.

And same question.

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@Frank Apisa,

The "true nature of reality" is your life experiences. It doesn't matter whether your perceptions of it are real or not. It's your biology/brain that experiences it.

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@cicerone imposter,

You mean, C.I., that it doesn't matter if your perceptions are realistic or not. I insist that all perceptions are real (whether or not they are realistic). Even a mirage is real, a real mirage--even though it is not what it may appear to be, e.g., a lake.

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Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

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