God and time and space

[Juma]

How would we know that exactly?

I would agree with you only that we know (I certainly know but I can only assume that other people do as well) the things we happen to have in mind (and only at the moment we have them): pain is my favourite example, but beauty when I have the impression of beauty is just as good an example; colours; feelings; so many other things we may not even have names for them. However, it does not follow that the pain I experience today is identical to the something else I have the impression of remembering also as pain. The thing is, what I experience now is the memory of something I take to be pain, not pain itself (which is fortunate since memory of pain is already unpleasant enough). So, how could I possibly know that the two are the same sort of things? Same for beauty. I think that what matters is that we believe (not know) they are the same. This is good enough for practical purposes. This also explains behaviours. Now, if we move away from the requirement of knowing, and look at our beliefs, it is also interesting that the things we believe are beautiful in the material world, say a flower, are actually never identical. So we have to assume for it to work at all that people somehow code for beauty. So, presumably, we not only know beauty as the immediate impression of beauty, but we also probably have some reference inside our brain, whatever this is exactly. This doesn't seem to be much different from how computers work. They have certain codes that stand for certain things in the material world. What the computer knows is the code. So we may have what amount to a code inside our brains that stands for beauty. However, if we assume that this code can only have come to my brain through the material processes of the material world, we have no good reason to claim that the code in my brain is really identical to the one in your brain, let alone that of Plato. All that is needed is that we somehow believe we broadly understand what other people say. If so, contrary to your claim that there is such a thing as Beauty, somehow identically and magically accessible to each of us as to Plato, we may only have access to particular codes in our brains standing for particular experiences individually determined by our body and our environment as we move through life. We are naturally very easily fooled by the uniqueness of our individual experience of our own personal beauty code so that we tend to take it for some sort of absolute, or universal. But there is no evidence for this. The only evidence is beauty as we may experience it now, probably just a code. And then a very interesting system of beliefs whereby we work out a model of what we think is the real world, which we then take for the real world itself.
EB

Do you require evidence to know if you have experienced beauty?

Similarly, when others speak or write of their experiences with beauty, do you believe them?

I'm not concerned with the mechanics of beauty, codes, genes or neurons, I'm talking about the mind. Call it subjective if you like. We can discuss subjective things on an abstract level, can't we?

Experiencing beauty is just some sort of nice emotion. What is so special with that?

 

[Horatio Parker]

Experiencing beauty is just some sort of nice emotion. What is so special with that?

Would you agree that nice beauty is at times transformative?

Does an experience of nice beauty ever change a life?

 

[Juma]

Experiencing beauty is just some sort of nice emotion. What is so special with that?

Would you agree that nice beauty is at times transformative?

Does an experiences of nice beauty ever change a life?

What? Any strong feelkng can change your life. A

 

[Horatio Parker]

Would you agree that nice beauty is at times transformative?

Does an experiences of nice beauty ever change a life?

What? Any strong feelkng can change your life. A

So you now admit that beauty can be a strong feeling, more than just nice? Profound perhaps? Meaningful? Communicative?

 

[Kharakov]

Useful to.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Useful to.

Yes.

You're a little ahead of me....

 

[Juma]

What? Any strong feelkng can change your life. A

So you now admit that beauty can be a strong feeling, more than just nice? Profound perhaps? Meaningful? Communicative?

So what? What is your point?

 

[Horatio Parker]

So you now admit that beauty can be a strong feeling, more than just nice? Profound perhaps? Meaningful? Communicative?

So what? What is your point?

That beauty is capable of changing people, it has a power.

We can discuss our experiences, we say things about them, it therefore has intelligibility.

It has vitality, meaning that beauty can motivate or energize.

Fair to say?

 

[Juma]

So what? What is your point?

That beauty is capable of changing people, it has a power.

We can discuss our experiences, we say things about them, it therefore has intelligibility.

It has vitality, meaning that beauty can motivate or energize.

Fair to say?

What has that to do with this thread?

 

[Horatio Parker]

What has that to do with this thread?

Everything.

We're talking about a universal experience, available to all. Eternal to the human mind, unchanging. Beautiful, vital and intelligible, imparting those to the beholder. Good. An object of love and desire.

In short, being, or reality itself.

Or, God, existing outside of time and space.

 

[George S]

What has that to do with this thread?

Everything.

We're talking about a universal experience, available to all. Eternal to the human mind, unchanging. Beautiful, vital and intelligible, imparting those to the beholder. Good. An object of love and desire.

In short, being, or reality itself.

Or, God, existing outside of time and space.

Existence requires no consciousness. Existing as a thinking human being is a quite different trick. It involves self reference. It involves the recognition that this "being a human being human" is what you, my interlocutor, do too.

We exist in concept space as self-concepts each. This "being a human self-concept" is how I can expect human reactions from you. We learn how to be a human by observing what other human beings do.

Among other things we can project a point-of-view onto anything. We can place this point outside reality and call it a god-like point-of-view.

Is there a real self-concept with that point-of-view? Or are all gods made by projecting a self-as-we-know-it there.

 

[Juma]

What has that to do with this thread?

Everything.

We're talking about a universal experience, available to all. Eternal to the human mind, unchanging. Beautiful, vital and intelligible, imparting those to the beholder. Good. An object of love and desire..

. There is no such thing.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Everything.

We're talking about a universal experience, available to all. Eternal to the human mind, unchanging. Beautiful, vital and intelligible, imparting those to the beholder. Good. An object of love and desire..

. There is no such thing.

No such what thing? Beauty?

 

[ontological_realist]

How would we know that exactly?

I would agree with you only that we know (I certainly know but I can only assume that other people do as well) the things we happen to have in mind (and only at the moment we have them): pain is my favourite example, but beauty when I have the impression of beauty is just as good an example; colours; feelings; so many other things we may not even have names for them. However, it does not follow that the pain I experience today is identical to the something else I have the impression of remembering also as pain. The thing is, what I experience now is the memory of something I take to be pain, not pain itself (which is fortunate since memory of pain is already unpleasant enough). So, how could I possibly know that the two are the same sort of things? Same for beauty. I think that what matters is that we believe (not know) they are the same. This is good enough for practical purposes. This also explains behaviours. Now, if we move away from the requirement of knowing, and look at our beliefs, it is also interesting that the things we believe are beautiful in the material world, say a flower, are actually never identical. So we have to assume for it to work at all that people somehow code for beauty. So, presumably, we not only know beauty as the immediate impression of beauty, but we also probably have some reference inside our brain, whatever this is exactly. This doesn't seem to be much different from how computers work. They have certain codes that stand for certain things in the material world. What the computer knows is the code. So we may have what amount to a code inside our brains that stands for beauty. However, if we assume that this code can only have come to my brain through the material processes of the material world, we have no good reason to claim that the code in my brain is really identical to the one in your brain, let alone that of Plato. All that is needed is that we somehow believe we broadly understand what other people say. If so, contrary to your claim that there is such a thing as Beauty, somehow identically and magically accessible to each of us as to Plato, we may only have access to particular codes in our brains standing for particular experiences individually determined by our body and our environment as we move through life. We are naturally very easily fooled by the uniqueness of our individual experience of our own personal beauty code so that we tend to take it for some sort of absolute, or universal. But there is no evidence for this. The only evidence is beauty as we may experience it now, probably just a code. And then a very interesting system of beliefs whereby we work out a model of what we think is the real world, which we then take for the real world itself.
EB

Do you require evidence to know if you have experienced beauty?

Similarly, when others speak or write of their experiences with beauty, do you believe them?

I'm not concerned with the mechanics of beauty, codes, genes or neurons, I'm talking about the mind. Call it subjective if you like. We can discuss subjective things on an abstract level, can't we?

"Do you require evidence to know if you have experienced beauty?"

You know for sure that you are experiencing what ever you are experiencing and for that you do not require evidence; but you do not know that you are experiencing what some one else calls beauty. For qualia you do not require evidence.

 

[Horatio Parker]

You know for sure that you are experiencing what ever you are experiencing and for that you do not require evidence; but you do not know that you are experiencing what some one else calls beauty. For qualia you do not require evidence.

So my feelings about the world require no evidence - unless they happen to involve the experiences of others, in which case they are invalid? Sounds like a rather rigid relativity.

 

[ontological_realist]

Everything.

We're talking about a universal experience, available to all. Eternal to the human mind, unchanging. Beautiful, vital and intelligible, imparting those to the beholder. Good. An object of love and desire..

. There is no such thing.

To Horatio Parker:- How have you come to know that these are eternal to human mind? Or that they are unchanging?

 

[ontological_realist]

You know for sure that you are experiencing what ever you are experiencing and for that you do not require evidence; but you do not know that you are experiencing what some one else calls beauty. For qualia you do not require evidence.

So my feelings about the world require no evidence - unless they happen to involve the experiences of others, in which case they are invalid? Sounds like a rather rigid relativity.

What ever you feel, you do not require evidence to know that you feel that. Others may not know what you feel, they require evidence to know what you feel.


https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=8UG8VIf9FuqrmALhx4HQBg&gws_rd=ssl#q=Qualia

 

[Horatio Parker]

. There is no such thing.

To Horatio Parker:- How have you come to know that these are eternal to human mind? Or that they are unchanging?

"Eternal" in this context isn't scientific. Language in this context is designed to invoke as well describe. But we mustn't confuse the tools with the result. So, then, eternal and unchanging because the experiences of others have been studied, described and written about, and they seem consistent with my experience.

 

[Horatio Parker]

So my feelings about the world require no evidence - unless they happen to involve the experiences of others, in which case they are invalid? Sounds like a rather rigid relativity.

What ever you feel, you do not require evidence to know that you feel that. Others may not know what you feel, they require evidence to know what you feel.


https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=8UG8VIf9FuqrmALhx4HQBg&gws_rd=ssl#q=Qualia

If people share their experiences and agree that they are the same, that's evidence, no? Multiple people feeling their shared experiences are equal are equal.

 

[George S]

What ever you feel, you do not require evidence to know that you feel that. Others may not know what you feel, they require evidence to know what you feel.


https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=8UG8VIf9FuqrmALhx4HQBg&gws_rd=ssl#q=Qualia

If people share their experiences and agree that they are the same, that's evidence, no? Multiple people feeling their shared experiences are equal are equal.

I suspect the experience of being a human being being human is as variable as snowflakes. And, as with snowflakes, a degree of symmetry -- a degree of predictability.

You and I may have different visceral reactions to the same event. But the character of experience of empathy, beauty, and truth seen should be at least nearly the same.

One of these is the singularity of being. Just one you. One Ever-changing now and ever changing place. Yet we do feel different from that person we were at half our age.

This feeling, I think, is what the brain does in our kind of primate.

The magic of being is not "I Am" it is: Thou Art.