fairly irritated reply (long, so allow a good 10-15 min to read)

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: : : (i should take a moment to clarify "awareness". i mean to say the recognition by the "thinking thing" of a certain bit of information.) : : now, as descartes put it, cogito ergo sum. that is, since there is thinking, we can conclude that there is a thinknig thing. that thing labels itself "i." "i" think, therefor, "i" exist. it's all very semantic and straightforward, really. : ////////////////// : Read my comment on action farther down the page, or if you don't wanna, I will state it again (in a clearer manner that's harder to disagree with). The only evidence of action, or of anything, is information about the action. Even more semantic and straightforward. Information is not necessarily true or false. Again, semantic, word based arguments, but there's material behind them. Since the information of the action happening is not necessarily true or false, the action did not necessarily happen. Only the information about the action (in the form of perception) necessarily exists. Thought is an action. In short, Descartes was full of it. : ////////////////// : : you see, you can really admit more than just that there is information being recieved. you are also THINKING ABOUT the information. (or "acting in response to it", if thought is another sort of action or vice versa.) : ////////////////// : As I stated a few lines above, you don't know you are thinking about it, you just know that you are perceiving thinking about it. : ////////////////// : : so, experience exists, and it is being processed by a thinking thing. in shorter words, i'm experiencing. : : descartes wrote this when he woke up one day and said, "wow, there's a tremendous amount of bullshit flying about. i wonder how many things i can actually believe? well, let's throw it all out and start over." i don't pretend to be a descartes scholar, but it's a valuable philosophy of mind discussion. : : so, there are a number of possible theories to explain the phenomenon of experience. one of them is solipsism. (literally, "myself alone"-ism) basically it's the minimalist approach. there is a thinking thing, and a source of information. (quite possibly they are the same entity split into 2 or more parts.) just for the sake of convention, i'm gonna label the source of information "god." (don't get confused, it's not a magical super-person ghost in the sky, just a useful object in the theory.) basically, god is the rest of the universe which is not the thinking thing. god supplies "me" with information. "i" supply "god" with my choices (tho it's likely god already saw them coming.) god then supplies the thinknig thing with more information. and so on. when the thinking thing isn't experiencing something, god doesn't send the information TO the thinking thing, so, in a sense, it doesn't exist at all. all that exists here is information, the dream and the dreamer without physical stuff. : ///////////////// : I cannot restate this point enough. There is not necessarily a thinking being. There only need be a being that receives information. If this "thinking being" bullshit is part of solipsism, I guess I am not a solipsist. I am more minimal than a solipsist. I only use logic. I do not attempt to pass off belief as philosophy, as solipsists pass off belief in thought as philosophy. In my book, philosophy = logic, and beliefs = religion or science. : ///////////////// : : now, just cause there's no hard meat (only the information that makes the thinking thing THINK there is) doesn't mean that the dream is pleny orderly and that a rational being cant' navigate quite well within it. god's just nice like that, so it made a dream that's a big predictable puzzle. : //////////////// : What do you mean, "dream"? Perception is all there is, so why call it not real? It is all that IS real. : //////////////// : : some people feel that solipsism is too lonely, so invent other ideas. thatis, what if there's plenty of thinking things, and one god supplying information to all of them. unfortunately, this multiplies the amount of entities in the explanation greatly. (plus, it brings up the problem with dogs and antelopes, do THEY experience? so is there a thinking thing corresponding to all of them, in some sense? it gets sticky.) : : all things being equal (and they are) the theory with the fewest objects is more likely. : ///////////////////// : YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH! Likely? In the realm of belief, in this case specifically belief in solid things such as antelopes, all beliefs that do not counter logic are equal. Complexity has nothing to do with it. Why should simple = likely? No reason at all! The simple = likely thing is not logical, but it doesn't run counter to logic either, so it's a belief too. This is a pet peeve of mine. : ///////////////////// : : : now, another theory is that there IS no god, and the "thinking thing" is just a really cool computing automaton recieving information from a noumenal world. other persons are just other self-centered computing automatons. in this paradigm, there are exactly the same number of objects as in solipsism (it's a lengthy discussion i would not like to go into, cause it's also boring. several writers have written about this topic.) so, therefor, pure solipsism and pure realism are the two most likely theories. (neither is NECESSARILY true, of course. it's just that they are more LIKELY true than any other possible explanation.) : : sometimes one is more convenient than the other, and i personally like to switch between the two paradigms from time to time. : ////////////////// : Screw, I don't think I need to state the action thing again, but just a reminder - So long as we are talking logic, there is no computing automaton. Computing is an action. One thing about explanations though: (I might put this in a seperate post, it's important) If one thing can be completely explained two ways, the two ways to explain it are equal. : Oh, your concession that solopsism is not necessarily true - I agree heartily. My perception/information thing IS necessarily true though, as long as you are considering logical conclusions necessarily true (they aren't, but if you really act that way, then philosophy is pointless) : ////////////////// : : : : :Getting information means you know you get the information. I've considered this to be possibly false, too; the knowledge of getting the information must be information as well, and there must be knowledge of this as well, and so on ad infinitum. Seemingly, we don't have this much useless information kicking around. Maybe that argument is valid, though I have now discarded it. : : you're talking about metathinking, thinking about thinking. well, thinking about thinking IS thinking. and we do it. some would say (and have) that metathinking ability is a qualification for personhood. we can even metametathink, like i'm doing now by discussing metathinking, that is, we can think about metathinking, ad infinitum. of course, it reaches a point where we just say "this is silly, it's ALL thinking." we don't get caught in an infinite loop and go crazy. (evolution likely picked those freaks out of the herd long ago :) : //////////////// : Dammit, stop using the t-word! I was talking about knowledge. You don't need to think to know. Knowing is not an action, it is a state. Thinking is an action. : I forgot to put this in: my current thinking is that knowledge of perception/information is not a normal type of information. It's self-verifying. : //////////////// : : :It's just more intuitive to me to think of everything as perception. In this context, the question "Is reality 'real'?" just means "does the nature of the information I receive through my senses agree with the information I receive from my thoughts/worldview?" Not necessarily, but this is fairly unimportant. : : you'd be answering the question "is the thinking in line with the perceptions?", not "is reality real." from any paradigm, reality is real. in a solipsist world, the question could be restated "am i getting information from god?" of course you are, tho. from a realist point of view, "is the stuff that's there really there?" of course it is. : : a much better (or at least, more interesting) question would be "am i experiencing reality?" in a realistic paradigm, this is a question regarding the quality of my information gathering devices (eyes, ears, skin, the parts of my brain responsible for talking to these organs, etc.), but in a solipsist paradigm, this is a much more interesting question. is god "lying" to me? (of course, since there is no "truth" besides what it gives me, how could it "lie"?) more appropriately, the question becomes, is my experience of the sense data actually in line with the sense data itself? here, it's a question of whether perhaps the desires and memories of the thinking thing are influencing its ability to accurately understand what god is "telling" it. or, in other words, is the thinking thing somehow MAKING itself experience something that god is not supplying it. : : so, the question becomes, in either paradigm... : : am i making myself experience something that is not really there? : : it's funny how that works, aint it? : /////////////// : The only problem here is over terms. The important point is to realize what you really mean in an intuitive sense, and see how that translates to whatever system of belief/system of logic you are using. I translated the common sense version of "Is reality real?," which is basically "Is that table really there? Do I really have an arm?" into the perception/information terms that I use. : /////////////// : : : : : 2.) Your stuff about thinking: I discard it entirely. In this perception-oriented view of the world (Is it solipsism or not?) all action, including thinking, is just certain types of perception or information. The actual action is not necessarily there. The actual action is just what our worldview tells us is happening. We do NOT know we think, despite however much it may seems so. As a matter of fact, right now I am perceiving a memory of practicing meditation last summer until I could stop thinking completely for a second or two at a time - sort of mentally holding my breath. : : all thinking *that you are aware of* is a certain sort perception. if you're not aware of it, it's not percieved. a great deal of information is processed, tho. : ///////////// : If this was intended as a contradiction, well, all I can say is it does not contradict me. And about thinking you are not aware of - that can't be proved to exist any more than thinking you are aware of can be proved to exist. In the case of unconscious thinking, there is no indicator at all that you are thinking, so there is no problem over whether the indicator is correct or incorrect. : ///////////////// : : not-thinking is a very interesting sort of experience. if you never have, i suggest you read laurence leshan's "how to meditate." it's really just such an amazing book. meditation is so essential to having a sharp and functional mind. : ////////////// : I know a lot of different ways to meditate, and I have created a few VERY powerful ones. I know how the taoists say to meditate, how the T'ai Chi people say to meditate (similar to the taoists), how the yogis say to meditate, how a lot of new-age freaks say to meditate, how the Buddhists say to meditate, and how the Hindus say to meditate. My most recent meditation technique is a sort of bonding with nature (I thought of it myself, not learned) that is based on my religion (also original). My religion deals almost entirely with perception/information/consciousness. It's not philosophy; it's belief. One of the parts of my religion says that there is a "total feeling" for each conscious being - a single sensation that is not felt by a conscious being, but is the sum of all the sensations felt by the conscious being. I try to clearly imagine in my mind the characteristics of the being (usually a part of nature, like the wind or the earth) that I am trying to bond with. I then try to feel the total sensation of the being (for example, the wind). When I do it right, I get a warm sensation all over and a sense of euphoria. : ////////////////// : : : 3.) Your stuff about forgetting philosophy and living normally: : : i never said to forget philosophy. i said to switch paradigms when it's convenient to do so. : : if anything, you should get more into philosophy. you are so SO not done with what you could do with your mind. plus, while you may have been able to come to a lot of the same conclusions as a lot of philosophers, reading philosophy can be a wonderful shortcut. plus, if you read somehitng that's wrong, you can figure out WHY it's wrong, and that's anothe rshortcut to understanding your world. it's great for you. : /////////// : Here, my ego intercedes. The main reason I don't like reading a lot of other people's ideas is I enjoy the pleasure of thinking stuff out on my own. It's an ego trip. If I already had the idea from someone else, I then have no chance to think up the idea myself. When what you enjoy is inventing, rather than the uses that inventions can be put to, it makes perfect sense to reinvent the wheel. : /////////////// : : if you define person to be any information-gathering object, then yes, computers are people. but, i think that this is a useless definition, because computers ARENT people, in the conventional sense. for this reason, if we include a lot of not person things in the definition, then i have to come up with another definition, and a whole other TERM, to mean what i want it to mean, and that's awhole long of work. what i'm looking for is a definition of personhood that is both useful and clearly defined. (and, i have a feeling, as i have mentioned, that it is a fuzzy characteristic.) : /////////// : I think the simplest definition of "person" is "thing like me", and the only characteristic that seems special about "me" is my perception. Maybe you say that something has to perceive itself thinking, and that's the special characteristic people have. I say, what the hell, its just another perception, it don't matter any more than the others. Any discussion of "person" has deep undertones of worth of things, so opinions on whats valuable will always be a big part of any personhood discussion. That's why "person" will always have different meanings to different people. Kinda hard to philosophically argue about who's opinion is better, cuz they're OPINIONS, and it often disintegrates to a shout fight. : /////////////// : : what you talkingabout here is something that some philosophers of mind have talked about, called the "something it's like to be" something. that is, what is it like to be a rock? well, it isn't like anything. now, what is it like to be you? i could imagine that, especially casue you're a 5. is there a "something it's like to be" a computer? or a dog? : : i'm not a big fan of the "something it's like to be" classification, cause we're all automatons. : ///////////////// : I'm a big fan of it. My comment on meditation includes a bit on it. Technically, it's illogical. It's based on the belief that other people or things are solid and have all those physical characteristics that they seem to have, and it's based on the belief that other things or people feel at all. But, there isn't any reason why NOT to believe stuff. Just don't confuse it with pure logic. : ////////////////// : ////////////// : Keep those responses coming! : //////////////

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