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Enneagram Type 5 Board Archive Re: that was kinda the idea....Posted by Bartholomew on December 16, 2000 at 20:47:00: In Reply to: that was kinda the idea.... posted by isaac on December 16, 2000 at 14:41:16: You are giving me one post to say all I can, and tell you how the holes you see are not there. Let me try. It will be redundant, of course. All I can do is put the ideas all together and show you the relationships between them. I know you want me to read other people's books, but trust me. I know myself well enough to know that if someone else created an important idea, I would not be able to fully accept it, no matter how much sense it made to me, if I got it from them before I made it up myself. I would never be able to live with myself as an ideological "follower". I do not want to restrict any ideas from myself that way, even if the books do provoke independent thought, the conclusions of which I COULD accept. It's not worth it to me to spend the time, and possibly spend the ideas, just to win the favor of someone I've never met face-to-face. You just aren't that important to me, and I am not that important to you either. Central to my system of beliefs is the idea that information is everything. The existence of anything besides information is impossible to know, because that knowledge would be information. Therefore, it cannot be assumed to exist. THINK IT OVER, if you haven't already. I think you have, but just making sure. So, who is actually the perceiver? There isn't one. There are just the perceptions. Wherever the word "perceiver" is used, you can substitute the word "perceptions". This, by the way, I hadn't actually thought about until recently, with Rotten Apple. My thought systems are not set in stone. Action cannot be assumed to exist either. Thinking is thus not actually being done, from the perspective of the perceiver. Since thought is just information passively accepted by the perceiver, it can be false or true, because any information can be either false or true. Thus, any and all arguments made here or anywhere, including this one, are not necessarily false or true. Because that previous sentence is not necessarily false or true, it does not bar me from making arguments. Now, how do I define truth or falsehood? That's a tough one, and not part of my philosophy. Suffice it to say that by any definition of truth, falsehood, or uncertainty, with the proviso that any given idea can be true, false, or uncertain at any given time, but not more than one at any given time, my uncertainty thing works. For instance, you could define a true idea as one that deals with a red duck and not a blue duck, a false idea as one that deals with a blue duck and not a red duck, and an uncertain idea all the rest, and my uncertainty thing works. Or, you could define a true idea as one that can neither be proven or disproven, a false idea as one that can be proven, and an uncertain idea as one that can be disproven, and my uncertainty thing works. My view of reality is, it is localized rather than absolute. Absolute reality is what a particular worldview represents, and thus only a subset of localized reality, or perceptions. Keep reading. I want to make this as complete as possible. I do not want other people to hold a low opinion of me, especially if I hold that their low opinion is unjust. It's probably hopeless, but I should at least make a small effort. : As a matter of fact, at this point I thought you were Rotten Apple. Excuse me. I didn't notice exactly who I was responding to until later on. If I had noticed it was you, I would not have repeated it. I am not claiming math is wrong. I am claiming that it might be. : : ok, this really severely bothers me. how can the statement 10=10 have a mistake in it? it is just itself, and nothing else. we all fully comprehend the meaning of the = sign. by the definition of this symbol, 10 can only "=" 10, and absolutely nothing else. according to the rules and conventions of the axiomatic system of mathematics, the expression "10=10" is without any shred of a doubt absolutely 100% true. there are no mistakes there. if there are, find them. You did not actually think at all, as far as you know. You just received the information of your thinking, and the information that you were thinking. Information by itself is not necessarily true or false. Here is the problem I have with you: why can't you accept that a conclusion supported by logic can be uncertain, if the conclusion had nothing to do with uncertainty or probability? You always ask for specifics. You want me to say that your statement is either logically right or logically wrong. Saying that it COULD be logically right or wrong is just as good! Why won't you accept that? And, by the mistake uncertainty thing, of course I can't find any mistakes, but that proves nothing. Here is another uncertainty idea, the third and last one I have, and I only thought of it last week. Assume that logic and reason tell you one thing. Illogic and unreason tell you a different thing, or a plethora of different things. There is no reason why the logical conclusion should be favored over the illogical one, other than personal preference. The usual justification is, "It's logical." WHY IS THAT GOOD? : in this account of truth, you seem to assume that there is the class of mistake-free things, which can be accurately assumed true or false or whatever, and the class of mistaken things, which cannot be evaluated with any degree of certainty whatsoever. this isnt' so bad all its own. however, it appears that there are no things that are not mistaken. I have three classes: mistaken, not mistaken, and possibly mistaken. Everything falls into the "possibly mistaken" category. : in addition, you never address what yo umean by "mistaken". I address this issue just before the first ":" appears in this post. : what would it mean to say that "10=10" is possibly mistaken? wouldn't it mean that i had made some mistake in that expression, according to the rules of mathematics? No. It would mean that you might have made some mistake in the expression that violates the rules of mathematics. : indeed, the idea of a mistake does not have meaning unless there exists some "correct". You could be mistaken in saying this... Go on, mentally tear-gas me, if you haven't already. It'll make you feel better. Except... you don't know what I look like, so I guess it's kind of hard to visualize. Maybe try a flamethrower? You don't have to know what I look like to visualize me burning to death. : i would assume, in the realm of mathematics, correct would be in keeping with the rules and axioms of mathematics. but you seem to think that the rules and axioms THEMSELVES can be mistaken, simply becuase a human made them up. No, you are putting those particular words in my mouth. I neither implied nor said anything of the sort. The basic rules and axioms can be mistaken because they can have a mistake in their derivation from the basic rules and axioms. Given the postulate that 10=10, the conclusion that 10=10 could have an error in its derivation from the postulate 10=10. And the more you logically say that this is not so, the more room for error there is in your logic. :do you even begin to comprehend that this is a ridiculous statement? not ridiculous because i am attached to my non-bartist idea of perception, or because it doesn't assume the existence of a self, or anything else that might imply that i'm not accepting it becasue it's controversial. it's not controversial, it's meaningless. Yeah. I'm insulted you even THOUGHT I would make that statement. : the degrees of mistakenness, you also fail to address. what about something that had a single mistake in it, but now has been corrected? would you say that the corrector possibly made a mistake? mistaken in relationshpi to what correctness? I actually DID address that issue on this board, a few months ago. Yes, the corrector could have made a mistake in his correction. Or, there could have been more than one mistake. You can't assume there was only one. And, as I said before, mistaken in relationship to any arbitrary correctness. The exact definition of "correct" doesn't really matter, so long as it is a way to classify ideas. : i've noticed that you seem to have a hangup with being gramatically correct, but what if noah webster made a few big mistakes? (many of those who literally wrote our conventional spellings did make huge mistakes.) he'd still be "right", absolutely, because you, and others, have arbitrarily set him as the model of correct. therefor, he CANNOT EVER BE MISTAKEN, BECAUSE HE IS BY DEFINITION CORRECT, according to the system he's worknig in. (god, if i could get this to sink in to you just once, i'd be so happy.) It didn't sink in because it sunk in a long time ago. However, this is not the kind of truth I am talking about. I was talking about logical or definite truths. I suppose the mistake thing does apply to linguistic "truths" as well, though. And Webster CAN be mistaken. For example, he could spell the word "fire" F-I-R-E in his dictionary and, after it gets accepted that way, spell it F-Y-R-I-E someplace else. See? He can be mistaken under his own terms. : take the following example... I love examples. They are so illogical. : > the pope is a martian : this argument is logically valid. it follows the rules of the system of logic. how can it do this, and still be mistaken? (and don't bother to point out that the pope isn't a martian and martian's aren't all green, that's irrelevant.) what would it mean to say that the rules themselves are mistaken? No. The rules are fine, by definition. It's our application of them that my mistake thing has jurisdiction over. I am sure that, at some time in your life, you have done some math problem, sure you were right, and got it wrong. The same applies to your simple logical statement too. It's very hard to imagine how it is possible to make a logical error in something that simple, but let's change the situation a little to make it more clear. Assume there are thirty thousand logical statements that you incorporated into your little chain of logic. Would you trust THAT conclusion? I don't think you would. The two statements that you have here compose the same situation, just on a smaller magnitude. There is chance for mistake in ANYTHING. : You don't KNOW it follows the rules of the system. You might have deviated, unknowingly, from the system at some point. : : Any possible argument to the previous sentence could have a mistake in it somewhere. : does this one? find it, please, because i can't seem to. I didn't NEED to find it, though I have. The mistake is that you misinterpreted me. : : Of course, even that is not an necessary truth, by its very existence. I am well aware that there is no way to logically deal with it one way or the other. However, it does open up the possibility that any mathematical proof could be false. : i reject this conclusion. It can't even be called a paradox, because even that is uncertain. Tell me, WHY do you reject the conclusion? Without using examples, tell me just what is wrong. And if you use my own mistake idea against me, I will laugh so hard... : another problem here... The only thing that covers this is that you might have a mistake in your argument somewhere. I don't have a specific, by the mistake idea. BUT. How can a truth be made when there is nothing but the truth and no one to make it? This is a rather unclear restatement of what I said right before the first colon in this post. The mistake idea may not be in accordance with the entire idea of perceptual reality, but the lack of action idea IS in accordance, and says the same thing. : wouldn't it just be the information representing a mistaken conclusion? but then, that assumes the existence of a "correct" version (ie, that the thing can possibly NOT have mistakes in it). i'd assume the correct version of "6=5" would be "6=6", since this is keeping with the rules of mathematics, and that's the realm of these expressions. but.. math ITSELF can be wrong, so how can anything be certainly correct by math? for having spent 4 years on this, it's a damn sloppy system. For an idea to definitely lack mistakes is not possible, but that perfect idea is the basis for comparison. Think about uncertainty theory in particle physics. It is impossible to know the exact location and speed of any given particle at the same time. However, physicists still work with it, and compare their degree of uncertainty to the impossible state of perfect knowledge. : : they may not need to be tested in a laboratory (since this wouldn't really make much sense), but they do need to be rigorously analyzed and criticized, poked at and argued. i dont' see you doing this. i see you avoiding any really difficult issues and whining a lot. if they are mathematical, then let's see a proof. oh, wait, proofs are bad, cause they might be mistaken, and can't be trusted. very convenient. Ahem. Proofs are fine. That's like saying food is bad because it might contain arsenic. You can't be certain about either one, but you can use them both, however illogically. And I HAVE given an informal, verbal proof, several times. : : : : slippery definition of "reality". in short, you equate "experience" (the information being processed in a 1st person manner) with the word "reality." it would be useful if you differentiate between this and the "real world" that exists apart from teh phenomenon of experience in many metaphysical models. you really should do some studying about philosophy of mind. seriously. : : Okay. The "real world" that exists apart from the phenomenon of experience consists of the objects represented by the set of beliefs describing why a certain perceiver has the information he does.
I note here the total lack of acknowledgment of my definition of the "real world" : interesting studying technique. don't read anything (except one book, but don't finish it), just think a lot. you've only been thinking for 4 years? how old are you? i ca'nt remember ever NOT thinking. No no, I mean I've only been thinking about THIS in PARTICULAR for 4 years. But you knew that. Actually, I remember a week or two when I was 5 years old when I was thinking about death and what it feels like, but I didn't really start thinking about stuff like this until 5th-6th grade. I think it had something to do with stress. Oh, and I bet you CAN remember not thinking. It's very easy to remember not thinking, much easier than to actually stop thinking. From experience, you know that you never stop thinking. But it is very easy to forget your thoughts at some time in the past and instead remember your senses. : i sure as hell HOPE that comes as a slap in the face. that was exactly the intent. My philosophy is not the only thing I was thinking about. Also on my mind were my set of beliefs regarding the relationship of consciousness to the scientific world view and the problem of why I do what I do. : what are you afraid you might find in another person's ideas? I answered this in my first paragraph, waayyy up at the top. In addition to what I said there, I also fear the loss of the fun of finding things out on my own. : : [comment about the minsky book moved to where i respond to the other comment about the same thing] : : : You have hit the nail right on the head. : i've understood what you've been getting at all along with the information and no ego thing, yousimply don't aknowledge my criticisms as anything but ignorance. you see, plenty of philosophers have various different positions and approaches something akin to this point you feel the need to constantly make (but rarely apply.) I rarely apply it because it is just about impossible to apply. And how HAVE you criticized my "information and no ego thing"? I don't remember any criticism. : : I said before that I refer to the perceiver for LACK OF A BETTER WORD. Just call him the man that wasn't there. : : : This gets me so f***ing angry that if I were sitting next to you while reading this, I probably would have trouble restraining myself from punching you in the face. : that's the spirit. The thing about criticism being worse if you know it is true is rarely a valid insight. Unfounded but repeated, strongly vocalized, and terrible insults make the receiver much more angry toward the critic than if the insults had a strong basis. If criticism is TRUE, the object of criticism feels bad about himself more than angry at the critic. If it's FALSE, the object of criticism has a greater righteousness in striking outward. : maybe you're afraid of not knowing or being made aware of not knowing? it's a stereotypical unhealthy 5 trait, and you exhibit all of the telltale signs. I would not claim to be a healthy 5. : : um... I believe that I have patched them up in this post. : by big gaping holes, i mean serious questions and issues that are raised and that you do not address. you do respond to every response with another post, yes. i never meant to imply that you are guilty of forgetting threads, but i see how it could be interpreted that way. what i meant was that you do not sufficiently address issues that are raised. you make no effort to understand the objection being raised, and you tend to simply repeat in different words the same point that has the same problem, or you accuse the critic of being ignorant of your wisdom. I do this because I was talking about the illogicity of logic. How can that even be discussed? It really can't. I do the best I can. : from time to time, you rest on the "i've worked so hard" defense. i'm sick of arguing with you. I can't say I have worked very hard. I have done a lot of work, but it was gain without pain. : : If I am saying "outrageous" things, and I by no means concede that I am, I am doing a damn good job of it. My "outrageous" statements are the greatest things I have ever created in my life, whether they are right or wrong. : yer not doing a damn good job of it. nietzsche did a damn good job of it. dennett does a damn good job of it. as forbeing the greatest thing you've ever created, this is just another example of the "i worked so hard" defense, which doesn't hold a drop of water as far as i'm concerned. this may sound mean, but i don't really CARE what you've created in your life, i care only about what you post on this particular message board, becasue that's all the information you are to me. you should understand that. Perfectly so. : quit whining.
: i'm giving you one post to convince me that i should ever read another thing you write. if i'm not satisfied, i wont' respond to any more of your posts. you just are not fun to debate with. I probably should not have used up this last post debating philosophy. I probably should have done something creative and interesting and unrelated entirely to my philosophy. I am pretty sure that this will be the end of contact between us. What the hell. : : aHA, see, i thought you just dodged questions a lot. turns out IM the idiot, eh? hahahahah. you have been trying to make them understandable, but you dont' actually respond to issues and problems that are raised, you simply go over what you said in different words. in fact, i'm really glad that i pissed you off, cause i was getting really bored of your standard post, and in this one you said all the standard stuff plus a bunch of insulted self-aggrandizing defensive crap. There is a reason I respond to insults with a spray of pure ego force. Besides feeling really good to do, it is the most provoking possible thing I can do to the insulting person. Try it sometime when someone really gets you angry. I can almost guarantee that it will shake them up. It sure shook YOU up. : : I know exactly what goes on inside my own head. : why don't you explain it to every neurologist and psychologist and philosopher of mind, then? I KNOW it's a pretty extravagant claim. That's why I am so proud of it. Yes, I have a subconscious. However, in retrospect, I can always identify my motives precisely. I UNDERSTAND my subconscious. It is possible to know exactly why one is doing something, while one is doing it, and want to stop doing it, and be unable to. Trust me. It is a rather exquisite form of torture. : humans aren't as good at this as they think they are. you are no exception. what kind of zen master do yo uthink you've become in 4 years? wake up. you have a lot of the telltale signs of being afraid of not-knowing and vulnerability complexes typical of unhealthy 5s. did you know that was going on in your head? or is it even, now that you're looking for it? it's remarkably easy to not see what we dont' want to see. I know just what is going on in my head. I am pretty sure that as a 5, I am unhealthy. I would be more sure if I understood the health levels better. And you want to know just what kind of Zen Master I have become in 4 years? (get ready for an egotistical outburst) (Forget it, I DID write an egotistical outburst, then felt better, then deleted it. Just take it on faith that in this space, it was here.) : : can't argue with that. they're about equal as far as i can see ;) Hisssssss... : : As a matter of fact, I never said anything of the sort. I am also fairly well-informed about developments in the field of artificial intelligence. I have subscribed to and faithfully read "Scientific American" and "Discover" magazine for close to 10 years, and for 2 years I have subscribed to and faithfully read MIT's "Techonology Review". I have also read two books on artifical intelligence. This does not make me an expert, but it means I have some ground to stand on. : then why did you dismiss the idea out of hand? I DIDN'T! I think it's highly possible! I just thought that it would be inefficient and slow, because the more english-like a language gets, the more inefficient it gets. The idea I was trying to get across there was that yes, it's possible, but why would you want to do it? : you should know that it's likely not even that far off. and i'm not talking about java and vb and languages that employ english-like syntax and virtual data storage. (btw... in c and c++, you can always find the location of your data in memory. it's an integer returned by the & operator.) What's the relevance of this? I knew that, but how is it connected to anything else? : there is work being done now in the field of natural language processing and algorithm analysis, so that a system could take a natural language bit of instruction and make efficient code out of it. but, like last time i mentioned this, it's not really the topic at hand. I remain skeptical about the possibility that it would make EFFICIENT code. : : I have two reasons I don't like to read philosophical stuff. One, it takes away the fun of figuring it out for myself. Two, I TRIED reading a book about the internal workings of the mind once, but the approach that the author took was ridiculous, and impossible to take seriously. : : : you refuse to crack a single book and read some other philosopher's arguments in the philosophy of mind, yet you declare yourSELF the master of this dicipline, having created a perfect and absolute explaination that you refuse to examine with rigorous philosophical analysis, becasue you declare this system invalid!!!! : : I declare the system invalid, but I use it. It's all I have, and I take it for all it's worth (possibly nothing, but nm). And as I said, I have cracked ONE book, and found it intolerable (The Society of Mind, by Marvin Minsky). Actually, I HAVE read more than one book that INDIRECTLY refers to the mind. We have about 500 books on various Eastern philosophies, and I have read maybe 10 of them. They haven't affected my personal philosophy much, though. : hhahhahaHAHAHAHHAHAahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!! : 1) trust me, there's plenty to figure out. youre actually interested in a topic in which there is a rebuttal for every argument and for every rebuttal. no one's gonna rob you of the fun of anything by telling you straight out the answer. if anything, it's only going to make it easier for you to do what you're already doing, except that you'll have to maybe think a little harder and you'll come to interesting conclusions sooner. how is this less fun? you're still figuring it out on your own, you're just being less stupid about it. : and yeah, plenty of books indirectly relate to the mind. milne's books relate indirectly to bears, but grizzley's dont wear red t shirts. you didn't like minsky. bfd. stay away from minsky. read some criticisms of minsky; in his book, he must mention that he doesn't agree with SOMEONE, so pick up their book. : stop whining. I never said that. I would never be that "pretentiously stupid" And I learn as best I can. Refer to paragraph 1 at the top of this post. BTW, when have I ever claimed I am a genius? Oh, and about my trying to read a book on the mind and not liking it - this is my hobby. I do it because it is interesting and fun and it makes me feel good. If I have to do things I dislike, the entire point is gone. : and, what's more, you DONT have 500 books if you haven't read them. you have 10 books and 490 shelf-weights. they're just big wallpaper with pretty covers. you are a quack. you do no studying, and declare yourself a master. I said WE have 500 books. I am 16 years old, remember? Mostly my mom reads them. Our family has about 4000-5000 books total, and none of us have read all of them, but put together we come pretty close. : : I have worked on my philosophy very much in the past and I am, believe it or not, still working on and thinking about certain aspects of it. Currently under examination is motivation. I am trying to figure out what exactly is the relation between desire and belief. I consider thinking as much work as, if not more work than, reading. : and if you read you can't think? this is another version of the pretentiously stupid claim i just mentioned. you wouldn't benefit from more information? what kinda 5 ARE you?? dude, you just suck. Yeah. Remember my attempts to figure out my type, and how unsure I was of exactly what it was? Most of them were under the name Anonymous. I am still not really clear on it. That is one of the reasons. I have a thirst for knowledge, but only if it is nothing like anyone else around me is doing. And when I read, it CAN kind of cut off my thought. : if someone had posted something so blatantly attacking everything i hold dear, calling me a moron in the way i did you, accusing me of crimes against scholarship and intellect, i would do everything possible to respond with as much strength as i could. i would quote the materials they suggested i read, and prove that i am right beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that the issues they raised are invalid. i was hoping you would do something like this, but instead, i guess i just provoked more whining. that's too bad. I don't think I actually WHINED. It was more like, I BRISTLED. It's not easy to whine and be angry at the same time. By the way, I called you an idiot. You didn't quote anything at ME, either. We both argued in the same way - with the ideas we had floating around in our heads at the time. :
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