Draygomb

If Existence necessitates Being why does Being not necessitate Xon? For you know one may be being but one can't be Xon. So there must Xon something that is Xon.

Adrian Selby

"1) My sensory inputs allows me to, in good conscience, infer that the things I experience really exists.
2) Conversely, things that exist allow me to likewise infer that their existence is really my experience.
3) Ergo, what I can't experience that exists is necessarily being experienced.
4) What I can experience, I can only experience indirectly as information.
5) Ergo, everything must be experienced directly by being and I call God the Being Who does this."

How does 2 follow from 1? If something's existence is really your experience, then how can it exist beyond your experience such that you could sense it and conclude that it existed?

And how do you know that the Christian God is the Being who does this, and not something else, e.g. a Being who did not in fact do any of the things in the Bible. How do you get from point 5 to the God that gave Moses tablets, has a heaven and sent Jesus to us etc.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Draygomb,


From forming a question like a laser (coherent light) spotlighting the issue, you yourself have slipped into incoherence.

A state of Being stands as a necessary integral constituent constitutive medium of existence. Being does not merely stand in relationship to existence as a cause stands in relationship to an effect.

Ergo, your attempt to posit an infinite regression in relation to Being is an attempt to treat my argument as if it were the First Cause argument, which it is not. You are like a man standing on a sand dune equipping himself with scuba gear. Pathetic. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Adrian,


The converse of a true statement is necessarily true. For example, if 2 + 2 = 4, then 4 = 2 + 2. If my wife is not a blond, then a blond is not something my wife is.

Likewise, if sensory inputs = our experience of existence, then our experience of existence = sensory inputs. That is how #2 necessarily follows #1.

Another way of expressing the same idea is that sensory inputs = experience, and that experience => existence. (where => means "infers") -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Ender,


You need not excuse your intrusion into my dialogues. You're most welcome, especially when taking on my opponents.

I agree with you that emotions are not any more intangible than rocks. Everything is intangible. Whatever can be said of human beings can be said of rocks. The apparent differences between tangible and intangible, natural and supernatural are just that, apparent, and evidence of a lack of critical thinking.

Where I disagree is here:


I've always thought of emotions as strong thoughts. I see no difference between thought and emotion or thinking and feeling. The feeling of being poked with a hot iron is every bit as rational as being slapped down by a superior argument or as emotional as being slapped by your wife as she leaves you for another man (who's been poking her!).

The burden of proof falls on him who can see things others cannot. Whether you are seeing pink elephants or distinctions between feelings, emotions, and thoughts, the burden is more yours than mine.

I fear, tho that this is somewhat tangential to the theme of this thread and you may incur the wrath of Jaliet's trained wildebeests. So be advised, and proceed at your own risk. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Ender

Well, since Jailet has yet to respond to my post, or chose not to, i'll take you on, Albert.

Then your epistemological model needs to be explained if you are going to switch thoughts with emotions. Rather i see thoughts as the "shadows of our sensations -- always darker, emptier, simpler."

Odd, given that the thought of a feeling, say, anger is qualitatively far less vivacious than the anger itself. When i conceive of the concept of angry, it pales in comparison to the very moment of anger. Although this may be construed as sexist, in general women are prone to this line of thinking that they cannot truly demarcate thinking from feeling.

You are operating with an alien definition of "rational" whereas it means to me, rather logical as opposed to passionate. The feeling of being poked with a hot iron is exactly that- an impression of heat, (intellectual beat-down) an impression of outrage, (adultery) or jealousy. WHere's the rationality in these examples?

Not unless you are working with an ill-conceived model of epistemological appropriation of reality that distills rationality to an "all-inclusive" term that covers sensations and emotions. The burden of proof falls upon whoever is making a positive claim, not just a person equipped with an extra-sensory apparatus.

Time will be the judge of that- whether Jailet is willing to defend his fuzzy thinking against a peer or whether he is unwilling to provide special privileges for a fellowman from Africa

~WiGGiN~

Albert Cipriani

Dear Ender,


The "er" intensifiers are a semantic argument for my position. If something is darker, emptier and simpler than something else, then it is really the same thing only more or less so.

"Shadows of our sensations" I think is where we have some common ground. But it's too binary. How about prism of our sensations? Just as how some nerve endings can register hot and cold while the ones next door only register pressure, so too, some sensations can only be registered as an emotion and others can only be registered as a thought.

For example. The other day I stepped into my car, closed the door, and immediately detected the stench of dog dew. It produced in me the emotion of disgust and outrage. Contrast that with me in third grade learning how to spell "D-O-G S-H-I-T." The form of those letters written on a page can only be experienced as thought. Whereas the form those letters symbolize squished on my shoes can only be experienced as an emotion.

We disagree as to the qualitative difference between an emotion and a thought. I say that the rainbow of results our brains process from sensations are all thoughts. You arbitrarily divide the cool colors of thought from the warmer colors of emotion.

For example, not wanting shit on my shoe is a thought and not an emotion. But having shit on my shoe is an emotion and not a thought. I reject this for the simpler, having shit on my shoe is a thought I really really don't want to have come to me via my nasal passages. It's a strong thought (and odor!) that we arbitrarily call an emotion like how a real warm shade of orange might be called red.



I've been outted! First Rosie MacDonald, now Albert Cipriani. So my name is really Alice and my sex change operation went badly. -- Cheers, Just-Call-Me-Al, Cipriani

Albert Cipriani

Dear Sir Drinks A Lot,
I use the word "thing" as a placeholder. I use the word without any prejudice. It contains no hidden assumption as to its material, spiritual, abstract thing-ness. These are all metaphysically bogus distinctions without differences. A thing is an entity. Per Occam's razor, let's not multiply them unnecessarily.



Yes, all things are contingent upon other things and upon being. God is not a thing and not contingent. He is simply the non-contingent being. Tho I may make the semantic slip and say something like "God is the only non-contingent thing," I don't mean to ever imply that He is a "thing."



I find the scholastic use of the concepts of "form, matter, substance, and essence" un-useful. In a loose way of speaking, to answer your question, I'd say that water is water no matter what form (gas, liquid, solid) it is in.

The conceptually accurate way to answer your question is as follows: experientially, an ice cube is a new thing every single moment you experience it. It need not melt for it to become a new thing to experience. Everything is unique as is every experience of any thing. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic 3/15/02

Amos

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Ender

Not that I am denying that there is a fundamental relationship between thoughts and sensations, but that they are not necessarily the same thing. In an phenomenological exposition I believe that the mind constitutes the sense of the object equally as well as the object supplies the mind empirical data. By this epistemological model I infer that emotions or sense data are “copied” in the mind as “ideas.” Impressions are much more “livelier” and “more vivacious” perceptions than ideas, which are merely “feeble” copies.
Several reasons that substantiates this assertion:

• when you reflect upon your ideas (thoughts, words, memories) you will find out the very sensations or sense data that inspired them.
• if you were born without the faculty of one of your senses, then you cannot and will not have the idea of whatever sensation a working sense receives. Ask any blind person about the merits of sights or a deaf person about Beethoven’s 5th symphony. I speak from experience and I cannot conceive of a mellifluous symphony.
• if you have never experienced a certain thing, you will not have any idea of that thing. I.e. if you have never tasted wine, you will have no idea how it tastes.

Too binary? You should study Parmenides and see if his monism is more to your liking. As for “prisms” our senses is a better fit for that picturesque analogy- since you have been espousing a certain empirical streak in this thread, you will have to either concede that external sensations produces internal ideas in the mind. While it is true that some nerve endings register different forms of sensations, they would not be able to register a damn thing in a sensory deprived chamber, nor give rise to any kind of idea.
How does this support your disagreement that there is no qualitative difference between an emotion and a thought? The smell overpowers any thought of the stench any day of the week. The emotion of disgust and outrage outranks the thought of being disgusted or being outraged. The thought of the word “dogshit” in no way compares to the sensation of dogshit! Try again.
Arbitrarily? Try philosophically. I’ll let that snide remark slide this time.
actually, “not wanting dogshit on your shoe” is a desire, not a thought. The thought is the ability to transform the ideas into a coherent picture in your mind, with the help of language you are able to communicate about dogshit without having to resort to its actual presence. And having shit on your shoe is not exactly an emotion but a sensation- you experience its stench, its shape, its texture- and the resulting behavior is emotion! the strong thought stems from the even more powerful sensation of stench.

~WiGGiN~