wordsmyth

actuality
n. pl. ac-tu-al-i-ties
1. The state or fact of being actual; reality.
2. Actual conditions or facts. Often used in the plural.

This isn't rocket science. There is this amazing book called "The Dictionary" by Merriam-Webster. Check into it. Unfortunately, you won't find any metaphysical answers in "The Dictionary", but it is a good resource and a good place for you to begin learning definitions for words like "exist" and "actuality". It has even bigger words than those, but if I may, I would suggest you start with the smaller words first.

Gee, I don't see anywhere that I have claimed this. That is simply one definition of "exist". Here is another...

Continued or repeated manifestation; occurence, as events of any kind; as the existence of a calamity or state of war.

Again, I strongly recommend you look for the book "The Dictionary" by Merriam-Webster. If, however, you cannot afford your own copy of this wonderful book, you may find a reasonably good substitute by following this LINK.


Space-time itself exists in the same manner that gravity exists. It has actuality. It also represents itself in a continued or repeated manifestation.

It must be feigned ignorance on your part then, because it certainly appears you are not perfectly aware of how to use the word "exist". You are fishing for a metaphysical answer where none is necessary.

You asked a simple question and I provided a simple answer. If you are looking for a more detailed answer, then I require a more detailed question.

Unless you are physically blind you should be fully capable of perceiving the sun from right here on good 'ol Earth. However, lets assume that you are physically blind and otherwise incapable of perceiving the sun in any way. Does the sun simply cease to exist because you cannot perceive it? I hope this is not your contention, because if it is I must conclude that you are completely deranged.

It is evident that we are dependant on the sun for our existence.
It is not evident that the sun is dependant on us (our perception) for its existence. Oxygen is imperceptible, so does it not exist? My spleen is imperceptible without cutting myself open to "perceive" it, so it must not exist either.

Existence is not dependant on perception. If that is your contention, then you need to back it up.

wordsmyth

Leave it to a theist to defend the fallacious method of circular argumentation. :banghead: :banghead:

darkroomjames

In reading this exchange, I get the impression of at least two articulate autistic savants (no insult intended, just a provocative POV) positing consciousness on inanimate objects to overcome schizophrenic tendencies. Of course belief in God is a socially-derived construct of reality that becomes self-perpetuating; under what verification in one's life God remains a viable source of explanation for all things now competes with scientific explanations that are better socially-verified as man's expanded experiences and progress develop into a greater overview. But we do tend to peel off from what used to be the mainstream experience until today's far more splintered pursuits.

We respond to narrowed language, subject, and personal specificity for quality communications time, avoiding distractions that don't verify our passions or world views. Not all apparent autism is created equal! Some is social status, some is narrowly social convention, some is attributable to course studies under recognition requirements, etc. We exist by verification of our humanness to one another to some degree, and if that degree isn't met, it sets off other responses that may or may not be efficient communication or appropriate to the discussion. Meanwhile our remaining time to be spent on earth is still precious, made dear by useful interactions with worthy encounters, or not. On the other hand, personal amusement and snobbery bedevil those too far from the sobriety of the discussion! As for animating dead things, this sometimes includes satire...

Albert Cipriani

Dear SRB,
You abuse the concept of “property” when you assert: So the peach I choose not to eat is forevermore different, imbued with the property of being a peach that Albert “could have experienced.” Such a rare property ought to allow the grocer to fetch a higher price for it, don’t you think? How much will you pay me for such unique peach specimens?

What’s Leibniz’ Law? – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

NonHomogenized

so, if it's so well supported by logic, why do you rely on circular arguments?

support for logic is unnecessary; that logic exists is, well, somewhat self-evident, or so it seems to me. Do you feel this is not the case? If so, why?

Alluded to, indeed. However, as I'm an ignorant heathen, I've somehow managed to never hear of any. I expect that you have logical support for idealism over materialism? Would you be so kind to explain it to me?

Bill Snedden

In Tercel's defense, I believe that he's really not off base to suggest that worldviews are unavoidably circular.

This is essentially a "rephrase", if you will, of Goedel: the consistency of a formal system cannot be evaluated from within the system itself. When we're talking about worldviews, there is no "outside" available and therefore no evaluation possible. Any attempted "justification" of a worldview is thus necessarily circular.

I must say, though, that I found Russell's attack on idealism to be pretty convincing. I wasn't aware that there were many philosophers around who still supported it. I, too, would be interested in hearing some positive reasons why idealism should be preferred over some brand of realism.

BTW, seeing the direction this thread is taking, perhaps it belongs in the philosophy forum?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Adrian Selby

What's the problem, think of yourself while you're asleep, and extrapolate to a position where everybody happens to be asleep, or even, insofar as they're aware of their environment, not there.

Materialism posits that experience is 'of' something. If that something is not itself the experience, then there is the thing that materialists think exists independently, especially as, the something would be causally prior to the experience of it, and would therefore necessarily be distinct from it.

Albert has a good point of course that an objective event as we are aware of it is rendered a subjective experience, but the awareness for me is the subjective experience. We are not aware at the point of contact as it were between our senses and that which is external to them, awareness is something that is a brain process, a physical abstraction of the information from the sense paths.

In this respect, we can differentiate between unicorns and our partners by way of public confirmability of the latter, and the notorious absence of public confirmability of the former. The specific characteristic of public confirmability in this case resides in the fact that my wife as my wife is publicly confirmable simply because if you understand what I'm talking about, and you can see my wife, its there for you to see. Unlike God, which is a concept that is part of a metaphysical system that I find successfully modelled with an alternative 'atheistic' system.

Of course, I agree we can only know of something as instantiated in reality by the sensing of it, but unless we are to conclude that we created the instantiation, I don't understand the problem of asserting that the instantiation isn't there. Certainly, any act of creation I understand from a human involves the manipulation of prior existing experience in new ways. But it doesn't make sense to say that we cannot have new experience, because we do, and insofar as we do, it follows that we would not be able to create that, i.e. instantiate it in reality.

I am interested in how we posit the existence of dark matter without having sensed it, and would be interested to know what you think should our positing of something as existing prior to the sensing of it, should it subsequently be sensed, would be the effect on a view that there is nothing instantiated in reality that isn't sensed.

(Apologies if this appears to criss cross between Alberts and Tercel's points)

Jobar

The knower (subject) and the known (object) are one knowing. Existence and experience are both aspects of a single reality.

From the materialist POV, it can be claimed that awareness is an epiphenomenon, or function of, matter.

From the idealist POV it can be claimed that, like Schroedinger's Cat, matter does not exist in any set state until it is perceived, and so consciousness shapes reality, and matter is an epiphenomenon of mind.

These two seem mutually exclusive, yet we cannot prove or disprove either. The answer seems to be that they are complementary; like the obverse and reverse of a coin, you must have both to say that anything exists.

Attempts to express the actual unity within apparent duality are ancient; it was first written about in Sanskrit. Philosophies based on this underlie Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism; for convenience of expression, I call it pantheism.

I cannot see how this gives any solace to monotheists, though- because traditional monotheism requires a creator apart from that which is created (i.e., the universe.) Pantheism explicitly denies this, and so any attempt by monotheists to argue from a monistic POV will eventually find them arguing against any expressible concept of an independently-existing God. Like Darth Dane, they wind up saying that God=universe, and that the human spirit is the Holy Spirit. Although this is acceptable to some few Western religions, like Unitarians, most find this black heresy; there have been many mystical sects which wrap pantheism up in code and obfustication in order to avoid the Inquisition, or a fatwa, or the sort of expulsion from the community which Spinoza suffered.

Bill, I think this is in the territory where EoG and Philosophy adjoin; as it applies directly to the question of EoG I propose we leave it here. But if the topic continues to be more philosophical than theological, then I'll put it in Philosophy. J.

Darth Dane

Everything that Is, Is!(including the universe) = God Is

I don't if it is true, but a lot points to this fact.

In any case "I Am"




DD - Love Spliff

Koyaanisqatsi

:banghead:

All right, I'll make this as painfully simple as I can (with the extended help of Goedel).

You now have direct evidence, quite literally directly in front of your eyes of a possible independently existing entity, with the improbable psuedonym of "Koyaanisqatsi."

Accordingly, you now have two choices to make in regard to this evidence (the evidence of the totality of the words--glyphs--that your mind is right now correctly grouping and processing into what is known as the English language for you to comprehend the coherency of the whole).

1. Accept the evidence as sufficient to establish "Koyaanisqatsi's" independent existence
2. Reject the evidence as insufficient to establish "Koyaanisqatsi's" (and by extension, any "one" else's) independent existence

Yes? That's it in a nutshell.

If you affirm 1, then no problem. The evidence is sufficient.

If you afffirm 2, of course, then, problem.

So, fine. A problem then implies examination of the evidence to determine why it is insufficient. But what scenario can be imagined to account for a legitimate rejection of the words "Koyaanisqatsi" writes as being insufficient to affirm 1?

Well, the only explanation (as everyone seems to agree on--irony, dripping) is solipsism; nothing factually exists beside the solipsist imagining it all. Let's say Tercel is the solipsist (since there can be only one).

Ok. Fine. Then all discussion immediately ceases and all of us literally disappear, because short of tremendous mental instability, the second Tercel is aware of his own solitary existence, is the second that Tercel reallizes his ultimate pointlessness (or, insanity, which).

I'll explain more through Darth Dane's response:

Ok, but let's remain consistent. He's not just all one or alone, nothing in the entire universe exists. Solipsism doesn't stop at sentient beings not-existing; it states that there is no objective reality. None. The whole shooting match is entirely concocted in the consciousness of Tercel's necessarily non-physical "being" (whatever the hell that could be).

There are no sound waves; no dark matter; no snakes; no tables; no puppies; no 67 year old albinos; no quarks; no protons; etc., etc., etc. In fact, there's not even a Tercel; there is only Tercel's consciousness. It's not even a "brain in a jar" proposition; there is no brain, no jar, no pink, viscous miracle fluid that keeps the brain alive.

To accept solipsism is to accept absolute non-existence of literally everything accept the individual consciousness of Tercel, which, in turn, must necessarily not actually exist in any spatial-coordinate fashion, since the minute one grants something like, "well the universe could exists independently of Tercel's consciousness; he's just trapped in it and alone and that's why he imagined all of us" is the minute you have just affirmed 1.

If you're going to posit these things, you must take it to its logical extreme in order to see why it is fallacious, yes?

So, if Tercel's consciousness (we'll call it TC....actually, let's call it THC for Tercel's Holy Consciousness....among other things ), if THC is true, then there is no "there there" for THC to be alone within. There is no "within," as that implies some form of spatial relationship.

Go "back" in time to the point where THC would have possibly "become" so lonely as to force his psychosis into hallucinating an entire universe with the complexity that we have all around us. THC just "is" as a brute fact and nothing exists.

How does a brute fact consciousness then possibly slip into any kind of psychosis that would lead to such an elaborate self-deception? What would there have been for THC to feel lonely about?

The reason all of us feel lonely is precisely because we know others factually exist "outside" of ourselves and we therefore miss their presence. But prime THC has no equivalent frame of reference!

There is no there there for THC to comprehend what being without it (i.e., loneliness) would mean.

That's like saying a two year old misses Soviet era Russia. It doesn't exist to a two year old! Hell, it doesn't exist to any of us any more. A two year old would have absolutely no idea what it was in order to miss it or want to create it to fill a void it has no idea is a void to begin with.

If that baby lived to be a trillion years old (remaining in its pure state the way THC would remain), it would never even consider imagining Soviet era Russia! Why would it?

Remember, solipsism means that only THC is a brute fact and nothing else, so, again, short of psychosis somehow manifesting in THC, there would be no reason and no impetus for it to imagine something other than its own consciousness, as well as, and most importantly, no frame of reference to imagine anything to begin with.

The fallacy that everyone is committing, ironically, once again proves our independent existence, since we are all projecting a form of pyschosis (egocentrism) to a question that necessarily negates any form of psychosis. How could THC--in his pure, pre universe state--manifest such psychosis when there is nothing around to act upon THC?

There is nothing else but THC prior to any alleged psychosis that results in imagining a universe, so even if THC were sufficiently self-reflecting, upon what would it self-reflect? There is no self, other than the conscious, ephemeral state.

This is why deconstructing solipsism proves it can not obtain.

Well, then, you've just negated the notion that Tercel is the solipsist and affirmed that there is a "there" there for Tercel to be within. In other words, you've just granted objective reality existing independently of THC.

Where would the pure THC (yes, I do love typing that ), the only "existing" consciousness get the idea of Nature and plants and animals?

He would have no reason and no frame of reference to imagine such an existence. You're looking around you and factoring backwards. That's the fallacy of solipsism. To understand why solipsism can not obtain in the universe we have, you have to start with THC and extrapolate forwards.

Trust me . You're fallaciously imposing your own understanding (and tacit acceptance) of objective reality and applying it backwards to a being that would have no clue what the hell you're talking about.

Even without the exploded extreme and granting that no sentient "like" being exists for THC (thereby throwing out solipsism and positing "only one cosnciousness existing"), but the universe does independently exist (i.e., matter and the laws of nature, etc.), there would still be no frame of reference for THC to imagine all of us within. THC has no body! There is no "I made you in my image" from a being that has no image!

So, absent possible psychosis of THC (whatever that could be, beside the delicious double entendre), the very fact that you are reading my words and the words of others as well as engaging those words by posting a response is more than sufficient evidence to prove an independent existence of at least two "like" beings; yourself and "Koyaanisqatsi."

Once that is established, extrapolation takes over from there.

Edited to add: about the dream analogy. The reason we can imagine the things we do in dreams is because we have a vast knowledge base of our phsycal existence in order to bend and break. Raising our dream state as a salient issue is only to affirm 1, since without a frame of reference, there could be no fly bys. One would first have to tacitly understand and accept an objective three dimensional world, for example, before one could bend or break the rules of that objective three dimensional world, yes?

Making something subjectively relevant out of an objectively extant construct ipso facto proves the objecitvely extant construct, yes?

If not, then from what frame of reference would such a concept come?

Edited further to add: I just reallized why Tercel and like-Tercel keep obstinantly denying all of this in order to fallaciously establish solipsism, since its logical deconstruction is identical to the logical deconstruction of the classic Judeo/Christian god concept. The only difference, of course, is the fallacy of omniscience to account for the missing frame of reference.

Yahweh could not have made us in his image, since there was no image to base us upon. Hence, apologetics instead of obvious rejection.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc kills you know...?