JLNobody wrote:You may be rightl, Frank. Can't know "for sure", whatever that means. But as I SEE it, the orienting ego is illusory. One can see that to be the case when one has reasonable success with meditation. Try it.
Wouldn't bother...because when you seek something...like the Christians seek their god...it is found.
What I am saying is...perhaps the illusion is in the "one can see that...".
The use of language can be very confusing. "I can see" can be rhetorical.
Nobody
I agree that the "I" only exists in his presence in the world. I exist interacting with things. The cartesian "cogito" was an entity exterior to experience, an essence. I don't accept this perspective.But, even if we only exist in our presence with things, that doesn't mean that the "I" is a thing among others. When you enter a room you receive several stimulus but if your intention is to work with your computer, you don't even see the chair on the opposite side of the room. And if you see an electrical cable loose you see it with the imediate idea of danger.
What I mean is that, in the interaction with things you are not only reacting to stimulus according to your human nervous system, but also giving meaning to things. An electric cable that is loose is not dangerous in itself: it is nothing more than an electric cable loose. But your mind reacts to the perception of the cable giving it a meaning.
If you think of it, most our interdependence with things is based on meanings we give to them: fear, indifference, desire, utilisation...
Very good, Val. But we must remember that not only is "dangerous" a meaning we have ascribed to the electric cable that is loose, but we have also ascribed to our phenomenal field upon entering the room the meaning "electric cable that is loose."
It's something engrained into our brains; we don't touch a hot stove twice unless there's some screw loose upstairs.
Val +JLN
Your discussion of course has many elements my own "interactivist" view of "reality".
But the question I now pose myself having read Capra's attempt to escape from anthropocentricity is whether the interactionist position is still constrained by a "prediction and control" overview, or is there a coherent vantage point external to that "cognitive need". Capra in essence replaces "cognitive need" with "ecological sustainability" but I am uneasy about his reliance on this.
If any of this is obscure you might wish to refer (again) to
www.tcd.ie/Physics/Schrodinger/Lecture3.html
fresco
the site you mencioned is very interesting, and I subscribe Capra's statements entirely. In fact, it is the same perspective given by Prigogine - see "Temps et Devenir" and "La nouvelle alliance" - and Atlan.
This theory has several philosophical consequences, in the concept of time, free will, etc.
Atlan, for example, describes life as a game of molecular interactions.
This theory of non-linear systems - and self organized systems - has created, in my opinion, a new perspective, not only in science but also in philosophy: the cartesian idea of an essential subject and a given object can no longer be accepted. We exist in relations, interactions, within an organized system with it's pattern.
But, from an ontological perspective, there is also the problem of intentionality. All organized systems have initial conditions that cannot be see as traditional causality. As I understand it, it is more like a pattern.
Those initial conditions, in our case of human beings, include the way we configure external stimulus - I say "external" as they interact with our nervous system and mind.
And those initial conditions are in the several modalities of our presence in the system. Fear, indifference, care -"sorge" in deutsch - time and space ...
I think Heidegger is not far from those new perspectives, specially in the way he sees the man in his presence in the world, and not as a independent subject. The essence is in the existence (or presence, perhaps a better translation of the german word "dasein".
Val says "Atlan, for example, describes life as a game of molecular interactions."
Artist Eugene Delacroix envisioned life as a series of intense
encounters..."People and forces clash headlong. They change each other, sometimes through love or compassion, more often through conflict or
combat. But one way or another there is continual confrontation." time life
Confrontation and battle are natural tendencies of all fauna.
shepaints, thanks for the information. I have a very poor knowledge of painting and painters.
you are welcome val, and likewise. I have a very poor knowledge of philosophy and philosophers!
Fresco, I find the Santiago conception of cognition to be very revolutionary, especially as it includes much more than conscious "cognition.". It's resolution of the mind-matter ( as well as the process-structure) paradox is most welcome. I tried to do that somewhere recently by framing it as a false dichotomy, ontologically speaking, and describing it as an epistemological matter of perspectives. I'll be away for three days but would like to pursue this matter when I return, perhaps in a new thread.
val wrote:Taliesin, I didn't understand your statement. Do you mean that "truth" exists, like the platonic "Forms"? And what do you mean by objective? Do you mean truth exists in itself, exterior to human experience?
exactly. truth is defintely not subjective.
Raheel, you say that truth is objective. I say that "Reality" is whatever is, thus making it an objective fact. But "Truth" has to do with the QUALITY of our INTERPRETATIONS of the nature of what is. Moreover, the quality (i.e., the trueness and falseness) of our "truth" interpretations (theoretical propositions) about "what is" can change with new experience/evidence thus making truth subjective. AND THAT'S AN OBJECTIVE FACT (at least as I see it now).
"Facts" are also nebulous - it depends on the observer.
The fact is that truth is a function of the knower. That is to say that "truth" is a "correct" or "useful" answer to OUR questions. What we sometimes discover is not accurate direct perceptions of Reality itself (whatever that means) but SIMULATIONS of reality. That is to say, we create MODELS of reality and sometimes forget that however useful or gratifying they are, they are not the same thing as Reality itself.
Mystics, as opposed to intellectual truth seekers, see reality directly, and they do this by seeing into their own nature--which is to say Reality as it is reflected in their experience.
The truth is objective.
Perceptions of the truth are subjective.
REALITY is objective.
Perceptions of REALITY are subjective.
Try to keep the two separate.
Very good, Frank. Couldn't have said it any better.
Perception creates reality anyone?
Frank, you say that:
"The truth is objective.
Perceptions of the truth are subjective.
REALITY is objective.
Perceptions of REALITY are subjective.
Try to keep the two separate."
You seem to be equating The Truth with Reality; at least they are both considered objective. But you then say that the perception of both Reality and Truth are subjective. This division of the subjective perception of the objective truth/reality accords with your (and most people's) dualistic subject-object distinction.
In contrast to your assertion that both the truth and reality are objective, I say that truth statements are "subjective" and the Reality to which the truth statements refer are "objective". As such, I recommend that YOU keep the two separate. I believe that the objective-subjective distinction is itself an ontologically false, but useful, dichtomy, which is why I put them in quotes.
-edited
