The Half-life of Facts.

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
These guys think that because they are complex creatures...the only answer is that there are multiple "you" involved.

That's not quite it. It is just as hard to prove that there is a unified self as it is to prove that our 'selves' are made up out of many different and conflicting impulses and ideas that are internally negotiated into what others experience us as.
And again it is a matter of perspective. I doubt you will think my view of these things makes much sense if you don't accept the same premises that I do. And it would be the same for me when I am relating to your views, of course.

Keep in mind that MY POSITION is that I do not know.

It is possible that the reality you and Fresco describe...is actually the way things are.

It is also possible you guys are way off base.

I repeat...I do not know...and I can think of no way to make a meaningful guess in either direction (all those names Fresco throws around notwithstanding, because I don't think there is any way they know either).

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

This is some heavy sh*t, guys.
BTW, I Wink

to you, Frank, with my good eye.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

The hypothetical situation of "the thing without a thinger" I leave out entirely. I do not know anything about "unexperienced reality".

I would have bet that you do not know that, Cyracuz...

...BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN IT DOES NOT EXIST.

REALITY MAY NOT depend in any way on human...or any other sentient being...observation or interaction with it.

You simply seem unwilling to acknowledge that...just as Fresco is unwilling to.

You guys have decided that reality is what you claim it to be...and there is no room for anything else.

Fine.

That is what die-hard Christians do. They decide that a GOD must exist...and that the GOD has certain traits and expectations that MUST BE. They have absolutely no room for any dissent from that protocol.

That is what they are...and that is what you and Fresco are.

It makes me shudder to see such elected blindness.

0 Replies

@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

This is some heavy sh*t, guys.
BTW, I to you, Frank, with my good eye.

Back atcha with my good eye (the left one), JL. Wink

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

It is possible that the reality you and Fresco describe...is actually the way things are

After all these years spouting about that can't you see that it is totally meaningless on an ontology thread. ? Your vested interest in maintaining your self integrity by chanting that mantra is as useless as a belief in the ultimate possibility of eventually condensing water.

Roll up ! Come and get Frank's Instant Reality here, Just add reality !

Rejoinders about my condescending pomposity. rather than a glimmer of understanding on your part are unfortunately somewhat predictable.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Quote:
It is possible that the reality you and Fresco describe...is actually the way things are

After all these years spouting about that can't you see that it is totally meaningless on an ontology thread. ? Your vested interest in maintaining your self integrity by chanting that mantra is as useless as a belief in the ultimate possibility of eventually condensing water.

Roll up ! Come and get Frank's Instant Reality here, Just add reality !

Rejoinders about my condescending pomposity. rather than a glimmer of understanding on your part are unfortunately somewhat predictable.

Wake up, Fresco. Smell the coffee.

Whatever the REALITY is...it IS.

I do not know what it is...and I suspect you do not know either.

You are trying to pretend you do.

To pretend you know what you truly don't, is a display of weakness.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Quote:

The tinnitus in my ear may be a "mental fact" to me. But it's a delusion. It does not represent any fact about the world outside my mind. What you call "mental facts" are not facts.

The tinnitus in your ear could be a very real result of some very loud noises heard for too long in the past, eg music on earphones or in concerts.

Aren't your thoughts real? If you write and publish a book with those thoughts, won't this book be real? And if it sells well, won't the money be real?

A2K members literally read your thoughts, as written on A2K... Therefore those thoughts have some reality. I know it's not so simple in that one can express oneself poorly or get misunderstood, but assuming we understand you well, how could you share with other posters something that does not exist?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

It is possible that the reality you and Fresco describe...is actually the way things are.

We can never know. We can only know how things seem. And we cannot really hope to explain them. Only describe them.
That is perhaps why one of the first things I read in my physics book was that the natural sciences do not seek to explain anything, only describe it.

When someone explains something, it is reasonable to ask "how do you know". When someone describes something that question becomes a little less relevant.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Aren't your thoughts real?

My thoughts are real in the sense that I am really thinking. They may or may not be real in the sense that their content corresponds to reality. To decide this point, my thoughts would depend on input from outside of my brain. And mathematicians don't have this kind of input into their theorems.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
It is possible that the reality you and Fresco describe...is actually the way things are.

We can never know. We can only know how things seem. And we cannot really hope to explain them. Only describe them.
That is perhaps why one of the first things I read in my physics book was that the natural sciences do not seek to explain anything, only describe it.

When someone explains something, it is reasonable to ask "how do you know". When someone describes something that question becomes a little less relevant.

I don't buy that, Cyracuz.

If you acknowledged that you do not know the true nature of the REALITY of existence...we would have no dispute at all.

I would listen to your guesses...which you often present as facts rather than guesses...and we would both know they are guesses. We also would both know they might be correct...and they might be wrong.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

My thoughts are real in the sense that I am really thinking. They may or may not be real in the sense that their content corresponds to reality. To decide this point, my thoughts would depend on input from outside of my brain. And mathematicians don't have this kind of input into their theorems.

Therefore mathematics exist as pure mental facts. This said, nature sometimes appears to follow mathematical laws, or can be predicted with the help of mathematics. That does puzzle me.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Frank is chanting mantra 2:
Sedentary ignorance is wiser than informed exploration
Or in technical terms...
Nobody can claim to jello the jello nature of jello.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Therefore mathematics exist as pure mental facts.

Call it what you want. If all you mean by that is that mathematical theorems are as real as a tinnitus, you're not saying anything impressive about the facticity of mathematical theorems.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

Call it what you want. If all you mean by that is that mathematical theorems are as real as a tinnitus, you're not saying anything impressive about the facticity of mathematical theorems.

Mental facts are just as important as facts about water or wine.

An important feature of mathematics is that they are purely subjective - as pure mental facts - and also purely objective, since the truth value of a theorem is the same for everybody, in theory. If Pythagoras' theorem is true for me, it's true for you. No other types of facts have this quality, I think. We can disagree about anything but mathematics.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Frank is chanting mantra 2:
Sedentary ignorance is wiser than informed exploration
Or in technical terms...
Nobody can claim to jello the jello nature of jello.

I guess I should stop discussing your religion. Obviously you get upset when people point out the inconsistencies.

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

If you acknowledged that you do not know the true nature of the REALITY of existence...we would have no dispute at all.

We have had this discussion before.

I do not speak of the true nature of the reality of existence.

If I said "right wing people are stupid", would you read that as a fact or as my personal opinion? Is there any need to specify what I intend that to be?

0 Replies

@fresco,

Except that we are jello, and there is no reason to assume that our experience of jello is fundamentally different from the nature of jello, seeing as how that nature is our nature...

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Indeed, with particular attention to the word "we"!

0 Replies

You two jellies ought to work this up to an act you can take on the road.

Both of you have indicated that you know what you are now alleging has been an opinion. If it truly had been offered as opinion, we would not have had a difference. But apparently you guys want to maintain that fiction..and okay with me, because it is part of the comedy of the act.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

We can disagree about anything but mathematics.

Non-Euclidean geometry rejects Euclid's parallel axiom. That's a disagreement about mathematics, and there's no evidence anyone could provide that one is right and the other is wrong.

2 Replies

The Half-life of Facts.

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know