Metaphysics is a self delusional anadyne

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Oh, well, I guess that settles it then.

Cogito, ergo sum.

That you can't make out more is either actual or wilful ignorance.

You have presented nothing more, aside from petulantly and ironically asserted objective declarations that your own ontology doesn't allow you to make.

But you have to understand that the activity of a machine is distinct from the machine. It is a totally different thing.

It can be, depending on the nature of the machine and the nature of its activity. A machine that makes tea kettles, for example, creates a distinct product at the end of its activity. A machine like a film projector, however, does not create any such distinct product as a tea kettle at the end of its activity. Indeed, it creates nothing at the end of its activity. During its activity--and only as a result of its continued activity--does it create anything, but that "thing" is an illusion, which is a different category of "thing" than a tea kettle.

Indeed, it's not really appropriate or even coherent to use the word "thing" in reference to the illusory phenomenon that a projecting machine creates, nor is it technically accurate to consider the illusory output of the activity to be separate from the activity. It is the activity that maintains the illusion. In this regard the activity--the process of film frames running through the projector at a particular speed passed a particular light source which in turn projects an illusion of light on a screen in the dark--IS the "product."

Hence the concept of categories that you are either incapable of comprehending, or, as is more likely the case, petulantly ignoring because it screws your pet little pooch.

So, what is the nature of the brain and the output of its activity? Is it more like a tea kettle machine or more like a projector?

The heat is not the heater. It is not the activity of the heater.

False, because, AGAIN, you aren't talking in the abstract; you are talking about a particular heater in a room and what the activity of the heater is doing to the molecules in the air of that particular room.

You are NOT talking about "a" Heater. And then talking about the concept of "Heat." YOU are saying that the heater's activity causes the act of exciting air molecules. And then you are saying--completely separate from that--"Excited Air Molecules are what we call Heat." And then you are saying--completely separate from that, "The concept of Heat is a distinct thing." That's how far removed--and via tenuous links and equivocation-is your ontology.

The product of the activity of the heater in the room is an increase in the excitement of the molecules in the air in that room. Period. Can excited molecules decide to turn down the heater activity by will alone? No.

Is the excitement of the air molecules a "distinct thing" separate from the activity that is causing the excitement? No. Not in any substantive manner. The act of exciting the air molecules IS the activity of the heater.

Especially if you have no idea what activity of the heater is creating the heat.

We don't need to know exactly what activity of the heater is exciting the air molecules for us to nevertheless conclude that it is the activity that is causing the excitement of the air molecules.

But once the air molecules in that particular room are excited, we do not then separate out "Excited Air Molecules" as a "distinct thing" that are in the same category of "things" as the act of exciting air molecules in a particular room by a particular heater as you keep doing.

 

[untermensche]

You have presented nothing more, aside from petulantly and ironically asserted objective declarations that your own ontology doesn't allow you to make.

Every time you have tried to make this claim about some specific of my ontology you have been shown to be ignorant of my ontology.

That is why you have no specific example where my ontology fails and can only make blanket statements without any merit to them.

But you have to understand that the activity of a machine is distinct from the machine. It is a totally different thing.

It can be, depending on the nature of the machine and the nature of its activity. A machine that makes tea kettles, for example, creates a distinct product at the end of its activity.

This is a kind of distinct product. Not the only possible kind of product.

A computer CPU creates a message that travels to a monitor.

The message from the CPU and what appears on the screen are two distinct things.

But the image on the screen is transient and nothing like a tea kettle.

A machine like a film projector, however, does not create any such distinct product as a tea kettle at the end of its activity.

It creates an image on a screen which is a reflection.

The activity is distinct from the product.

And yes, not all things are the same thing.

During its activity--and only as a result of its continued activity--does it create anything, but that "thing" is an illusion, which is a different category of "thing" than a tea kettle.

Transient entities like the image on a computer screen or the reflection of an image are as real as a tea kettle.

You have no argument just more inability to make proper distinctions.

Just because something is not like a tea kettle does not mean it does not exist.

The tea kettle theory of everything is not a valid theory.

A machine like a film projector, however, does not create any such distinct product as a tea kettle at the end of its activity. Indeed, it creates nothing at the end of its activity. During its activity--and only as a result of its continued activity--does it create anything, but that "thing" is an illusion, which is a different category of "thing" than a tea kettle.

A mind is not like a tea kettle. It is not like reflected light.

That is all you have said.

I agree. It is something we do not understand. It is many things we do not understand. It is not like anything we do understand.

We don't need to know exactly what activity of the heater is exciting the air molecules for us to nevertheless conclude that it is the activity that is causing the excitement of the air molecules.

Only knowing that some unknown activity of the brain is creating the mind tells us nothing about what the mind actually is.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Every time you have tried to make this claim about some specific of my ontology you have been shown to be ignorant of my ontology.

False.

That is why you have no specific example where my ontology fails

As everyone readily knows and can plainly see, I have pointed to several. I'll do it again now: every single time you post an objective declarative it is an example of the failure of your ontology.

It can be, depending on the nature of the machine and the nature of its activity. A machine that makes tea kettles, for example, creates a distinct product at the end of its activity.

This is a kind of distinct product.

I know, that's why I made the point.

A machine like a film projector, however, does not create any such distinct product as a tea kettle at the end of its activity.

It creates an image on a screen which is a reflection.

The activity is distinct from the product.

The activity--the act of creating an image on a screen (which is a reflection)--IS the "product."

And yes, not all things are the same thing....Transient entities like the image on a computer screen or the reflection of an image are as real as a tea kettle. You have no argument just more inability to make proper distinctions.

A machine like a film projector, however, does not create any such distinct product as a tea kettle at the end of its activity. Indeed, it creates nothing at the end of its activity. During its activity--and only as a result of its continued activity--does it create anything, but that "thing" is an illusion, which is a different category of "thing" than a tea kettle.

A mind is not like a tea kettle. It is not like reflected light.

It is exactly like reflected light. It is an illusion that does not actually exist.

I agree. It is something we do not understand. It is many things we do not understand.

Yet you keep making objective declarations about what it is and what it does and how it has a "will" and a whole shit load of other petulant assertions that can't possibly be derived from your ontology.

It is not like anything we do understand.

False. If it exists--and there is no reason to accept that it does and certainly nothing in what you just keep insisting it is by petulant fiat--it is like the illusion of a film or a thaumatrope. It's, at best, an animated analogue.

But more on point, your ontology--that holds a "dumb," unreliable brain creates it AND creates "experience packages" for it to "experience" AND that it can't experience anything directly AND that it has a "will" and meta-understanding and can make distinctions, etc--doesn't allow you to make any such objective declarations about its nature. You--being it--can't even guess what it is or what it can or can not do and you certainly can't infer anything about its nature from observation if YOU are the "mind" and whatever it knows is only what the unreliable "dumb" brain creates for it.

ALL your ontology would allow is for you to assert, I experience and that's it. You--the brain generated/brain fed "mind"--can't ever know anything else, because EVERYTHING ELSE is brain generated and you can't trust your brain.

You can't have "truths" and you can't make any declarations of "facts" and you can't possible say shit like, "Only knowing that some unknown activity of the brain is creating the mind tells us nothing about what the mind actually is."

You must forever remain in skeptical doubt of EVERYTHING, including anything you "experience" because it all comes from an unreliable brain and even THAT fundamental truth is beyond your ontology.

 

[untermensche]

It is exactly like reflected light.

I have not had such a good laugh in a while.

It is an illusion that does not actually exist.

And here we have an opinion by an illusion.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Maybe i need to post that again:

OK, so you're conclusion that the arm is moved by the mind is also a belief.

That the arm that is experienced does not move as desired until something is done with the mind is known.

This is known not believed.

The arm itself is not experienced because it is outside your mind and cannot be experienced.

Whatever is experienced by the mind can only be a representation of the arm within the brain.

The brain decides to move the arm. The subjective mind can only have the subjective experience of that. What you experience as your will to move your arm is in fact the bran's subjective experience of the brain's will to move your arm. Everything that appears to be going on inside your subjective mind is the brain's subjective experience of whatever your brain is doing. It's your brain's will and you are your brain's subjective experience of its own activity when moving your arm.

There's no need for your convoluted ontology which reminds me of the epicycles in Ptolemaic cosmology.
EB

 

[untermensche]

The arm itself is not experienced because it is outside your mind and cannot be experienced.

I assure you the arm is experienced. The arm, if it exists, is outside the mind, but not the experience of the arm.

When you begin with such nonsense you will go nowhere that matters.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The arm itself is not experienced because it is outside your mind and cannot be experienced.

I assure you the arm is experienced.

You assure me? Sorry, that ain't good enough.

The arm, if it exists, is outside the mind, but not the experience of the arm.

That the arm that is experienced does not move as desired until something is done with the mind is known.

The arm is outside the mind and the experience of the arm is inside the mind. That you have the experience of an arm does not entail that there is an arm, and therefore you don't know that there is an arm.
EB

 

[untermensche]

That's exactly what I've been saying.

We have faith in the arm. Faith in the objects we experience.

We do not have knowledge.

We have knowledge of our experiences only.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It is exactly like reflected light.

I have not had such a good laugh in a while.

Spoken like a true intellectual poseur.

It is an illusion that does not actually exist.

And here we have an opinion by an illusion.

Funny how you use a medium that illustrates precisely that. Or are you under the impression that the words you are right now reading exist somewhere and aren't instead actually made up of light (that are in turn following patterns of 1s and 0s)?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

That's exactly what I've been saying.

We have faith in the arm. Faith in the objects we experience.

We do not have knowledge.

We have knowledge of our experiences only.

No, THIS is what you've "exactly" been asserting:

The brain-generated "mind" only has direct experience of the act of experiencing the "experience packages" our brain's create for the "mind."

Nothing else can obtain from the parameters you've established. "Faith" and "will" are not conditions that can be derived from the parameters of your ontology. Iow, you're just pulling those out of your ass because you think you can NOW use empirical evidence (i.e., "it seems as if the 'mind' moves the arm by will alone, therefore the mind moves the arm by will alone." That is precisely your approach.)

Your base assumption is that anything that is experienced is subjectively "real" and because there can be no certainty of an "objective reality" it follows that what is subjectively real is therefore our objective reality. If it seems like there is a little homunculus inside of us whose job it is to "experience" then that is what is "real," regardless of any true objective reality.

Iow, as you had put it previously (and I paraphrase), if it seems magic is real, then it is.

Which means, of course, that you can just make up any shit you want and because it was made up it therefore is real, because what YOU mean by "real" is "subjectively experienced" and what everyone else means by "real" is "objectively true regardless of perception."

But, of course, the fatal flaw in all of that is the brain. The brain must be objectively true regardless of perception in order for it to generate anything; for there to be any kind of activity. You can't ever separate the "mind" from the brain, which is why you are so pathetically (desperately) trying to do precisely that. Everything automatically fails if you can't force "mind" to be a distinct "product" of brain; a tea kettle, not merely an illusion. Hence your constant category error.

It is an illusion, but your dogmatic beliefs require it to be a tea kettle and you clearly don't give a flying fuck how badly you torture semantics and logic and equivocate and anything else to just petulantly demand that an illusion of a tea kettle is identical to an actual tea kettle.

We all know it and we just keep watching you slam your head into it over and over and over.

 

[untermensche]

I can't discuss anything with illusions.

As an autonomous mind I need another autonomous mind.

Maybe one will show up.

 

[Grendel]

You are very much like people who believed it was the Sun that orbited the Earth just because it was what they could see every day since birth and had no reason to doubt what they saw. Yet, they were wrong. You're case is significantly worse because today the science of the brain is already quite advanced. If you were rational, you would have at least serious doubts about your belief. And yet, you say you have none.
EB

Very good!

(I don't know why you guys persist in your efforts to convince Unter. Because he has very little science education it becomes impossible to point out his error using tools he does not comprehend. There is no point in getting angry with him, he's doing the best he can. Aggression just drives him further from knowledge)

just sayin .... Greg

EB ... been busy lately. Will be back to give a better explanation of the OP ..

 

[untermensche]

What exactly do you think I need to be convinced of?

That the mind is an illusion?

I never heard anything so ignorant as a mind claiming it is just an illusion.

Or a mind that says it is not in total command of the ideas it presents in some way.

The experience is of being in total command.

And there is no reason to doubt this experience.

Anyway, to doubt would just be another command.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That's exactly what I've been saying.

No it's not.

You said "I assure you the arm is experienced", and "This is known not believed". This entails there is an arm and that you know there is an arm.

You said "That the arm that is experienced does not move as desired until something is done with the mind is known". This entails there is an arm, that you know there is an arm and that you know whether the arm moves or not.

And now you're saying, "We have knowledge of our experiences only"!

This demonstrate conclusively you don't understand English and you don't speak English anyway near well enough to have any rational conversation.

As is it, it's impossible for any of us, and many people here have tried very hard, to know what your conception may be. For all we know, it may be all logical and therefore acceptable, or just logically inconsistent and therefore completely idiotic. Given that you're also an unpleasant character, we're all inclined to believe you're just an idiot. And you're doing nothing to dispel that impression. Correction: you're effectively incapable of demonstrating you're not an idiot, certainly because your English is just abysmal but most likely because you are indeed an idiot.

And you're constantly devious, a clear sign of idiocy. You never provide anything like a straight answer to even straightforward questions, making any debate too protracted to go anywhere.

We have faith in the arm. Faith in the objects we experience.

We do not have knowledge.

We have knowledge of our experiences only.

That's excellent too me, but what you say here just contradict things you've said before.

Further, if you really understood what this means, you wouldn't go on making dogmatic assertions about the world as you always do, to the point of making yourself unpleasant. If you really understood you know nothing about the world, you would turn the rhetoric to a minimum and you've been doing the opposite, behaving like a Pope and a Trump in one person.

And I'm not finished.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

The experience is of being in total command.

And there is no reason to doubt this experience.

This entails that there is no reason to doubt you are in command of an arm and that therefore there is an arm to begin with and that you know there is an arm.

This is in direct contradiction of what you just said here:

We have faith in the arm. Faith in the objects we experience.

We do not have knowledge.

We have knowledge of our experiences only.

Just one more example of a long list.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

You are very much like people who believed it was the Sun that orbited the Earth just because it was what they could see every day since birth and had no reason to doubt what they saw. Yet, they were wrong. You're case is significantly worse because today the science of the brain is already quite advanced. If you were rational, you would have at least serious doubts about your belief. And yet, you say you have none.
EB

Very good!

Sure, but you should understand that this is something we all do now and then. UM is just doing it all the time.

(I don't know why you guys persist in your efforts to convince Unter. Because he has very little science education it becomes impossible to point out his error using tools he does not comprehend. There is no point in getting angry with him, he's doing the best he can. Aggression just drives him further from knowledge)

just sayin .... Greg

I think there are good reasons for that. Lots of people here may be delusional about their ability to help UM come out of his mental condition.

Also, as I see it, explaining things to other people is often essentially explaining things to yourself. I think this is the main (positive) use of forums except for a few dogmatic people here that I call "sciency types" and "ayatollah" or "hardcore materialists" (also: "big mouths"). Essentially, people who have nothing to explain. They're just repeating mantras they don't understand and shouting propaganda without realising that's what they are doing.

EB ... been busy lately. Will be back to give a better explanation of the OP ..

I doubt that but I'm sure you'll be back.
EB

 

[untermensche]

That's exactly what I've been saying.

No it's not.

You said "I assure you the arm is experienced", and "This is known not believed". This entails there is an arm and that you know there is an arm.

No it doesn't.

I experience color all the time. But color is not something that exists out in the world. It only exists as an experience.

Experience is knowledge.

Objects are a matter of faith in the experience.

 

[untermensche]

I think there are good reasons for that. Lots of people here may be delusional about their ability to help UM come out of his mental condition.

My condition is I make your ideas look ridiculous.

Bad ideas like a real completed infinity is possible.

Or bad ideas like the active autonomous contemplative mind is an illusion.

 

[untermensche]

Nothing else can obtain from the parameters you've established. "Faith" and "will" are not conditions that can be derived from the parameters of your ontology. Iow, you're just pulling those out of your ass because you think you can NOW use empirical evidence (i.e., "it seems as if the 'mind' moves the arm by will alone, therefore the mind moves the arm by will alone." That is precisely your approach.)

Only if we limit the mind to experience.

But the mind is active. It can do things.

But the mind is born in a different state than it is at 20.

At birth the mind is partially formed and has no information.

So all it can do is trust experience. And trusting is enough to survive so there is never a reason to doubt.

We are not newborns anymore.

We can see it is just trust all along.

There is no way to prove there is more than experience.

We trust that the MRI is there and is showing where the problem is.

The surgeon trusts his eyes and his ability to move his hands and the knowledge he possesses.

And the patient many times reports the pain in the leg is gone after an operation on their lumbar spine. Not always.

So this reinforces the trust. But it proves nothing.

It can never be proven.

That is the nature of being a mind.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That's exactly what I've been saying.

No it's not.

You said "I assure you the arm is experienced", and "This is known not believed". This entails there is an arm and that you know there is an arm.

No it doesn't.

I experience color all the time. But color is not something that exists out in the world. It only exists as an experience.

You also said "the arm is experienced"... This entails that the arm, like colour, is not something that exists out in the world. This is absurd. What we mean by "arm" is definitely not something that "only exists as an experience" but instead that would exist "out in the world". There's just no way to have any rational conversation with you.
EB