sandlewood

Just a redefinition of the word "detect". The word you really want is "affect". You need to watch out for equivocation fallacies in your reasoning.
These are anthropomorphisms. Water does not "seek" or "detect". It's just an expression. Naturally, objects are affected by forces such as gravity. It doesn't mean they detected anything.
The distinction is not in their apparent behavior, whether quantitative or qualitative. The distinction has to do with the accepted definition of the word "experience". As was said, the word requires consciousness in order for it to have any meaning. You are redefining the word. We don't really know what it means for a rock to have an experience.
Huh? It is not at all an appeal to authority. The argument is based on the concept of "cogito ergo sum" regardless of who first proposed it. What does the fact that he is a dead white male have to do with anything? (Anyway, argumentum ad verecundiam is an appeal to unqualified authority, which is what I assume you meant. Argument from authority is not a fallacy.)
I guess that explains your definition of "derived". Then let me refer back to a couple things:
You have said that we cannot really detect the existence of something else because we only see the information coming from it. And yet you have reasoned that that thing must exist because information is coming from it. It sounds to me like you have built this buffer between us and the things we "detect" or experience and you call that information. So it looks like: thing<-->information<-->me. You say that we cannot detect the existence of things except through information. This makes it sound like we cannot directly know that things exist because this thing called information is between those things and us. But I believe that information is the way we experience the existence of things. It's the mechanism. We experience other things via information, not in spite of it. It's not something that gets in the way. Also, I think there is a difference between detecting that I exist and detecting that other things exist.
I'm missing this. How does it follow that a god exists, even assuming you have established that we must exist even though we can't directly detect that we exist?
Well, you have just arbitrarily defined God as experiencing without detecting. And your definition of experience is suspect. I still don't know how God mysterious way of experiencing something, including himself, is any different from mine. I think therefore, I am.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Draygomb,


Because contingency is the mode of existence whereby we can only extrapolate being. Just as a car is the mode of transportation whereby the trip may be extrapolated, so too, contingency is the way in which we exist whereby our being is extrapolated. We have access only to the ways in which we exist (like having access to the car’s steering wheel and stick shift), not to the experience of being(like not being able to experience the kinetic energy we acquired as a function of doing 55 mph during the trip).

Because every contingent thing is experiencing its contingencies in lieu of experiencing its being. Death, for us, eliminates all our contingencies. Only then will we experience our being, that is, who we are in relationship to What Is, namely God. (That experience will be heaven or hell depending on how related we have become to God.)

Because contingency means the experience of existence in time and space, whereas being means the experience of our infinite extension in eternity. To illustrate, an atom both experiences and is contingent upon its strong and weak nuclear forces and gravity. These three contingencies are one and the same phenomena whereby the atom is in existence in time and space. Now if that atom’s existence were annihilated, only it’s being would remain in the form of the infinite and eternal idea of all that it had done in time and space. (Every idea is infinite and eternal.)

Because the contingency of things leads back to the Big Bang. And the singularity of the Big Bang was contingent upon the finger of God? a boundary brane (in M theory)? We can’t speak of such things. And so we can't speak of a contingent thing as always having been a contingent thing. We can only know that at some point, every contingent thing must not have been in existence at all. Since contingent things, by definition, must have come into existence, and certainly go out of existence, they must necessarily experience their existence when they come into existence and experience their being only prior to their existence or after they go out of existence. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Sir,
Yes, I think my argument is a variation of St. Aquinas’ First Mover cosmological argument.

What is a contingent being? Everything!

It is inconceivable to assume, let alone imagine, that everything isn’t dependant upon every other thing to bring forth or sustain existence.

For example life forms we know of are contingent upon carbon. Carbon, and all atoms heavier than hydrogen are contingent upon super nova. Super nova are contingent upon the force of gravity besting the strong and weak atomic forces. Those three forces, along with the electromagnetic force, are contingent upon… Finish that sentence and you win a noble prize for arriving at the unified field theory.

The problem with contingency, philosophically, is that it leads to an infinite regression, which is logically impossible. In other words, if everything we now see in this universe was contingent upon every other thing that ever was in this universe all the way back to the Big Bang, what was the Big Bang contingent upon? God? Ok, then what was God contingent upon? See the problem?

I believe I've provided an eloquent solution by separating contingency of existence from contingency of being. In my argument, "Being" serves the role that the "Unmoved Mover" served in St. Aquinas' argument. Being is the non-contingent essence of existence whereby I can bring the train of infinite regression to a grinding halt. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Ted Hoffman

Well, well, well Albert. Too bad you don't like people who do not appreciate your warped sense of humour. You should know something is very wrong with your SOH as soon as people need to grow skins as thick as a Rhinos hide in order to appreciate them.
But I digress...Back to the matter at hand:
I have noted that I am supposed to be ashamed of myself for so many things. "Shame on you" seems to be your pet phrase. Maybe you think I am overly sensitive and are trying to manipulate me through my feelings? If thats your strategy, It will not work. If you are accustomed to telling Dogs "sit" and they sit "stand" and they stand "shame on you" and they feel ashamed, then you are on the wrong territory. I don't do what Albert tells me to do.

Albert, you fail to give us a coherent explanation of how you come to believe in God because you are addicted to careless and ambiguous phrasing and use of words.
Maybe whatever you have in mind is actually a very logical concept. But we are human beings, we cannot read your mind. Language is our tool of communication here. For fruitful and clear communication, there is need to follow grammatical and semantic rules. If you continue to operate with total disregard to established meanings of words, I believe this discussion will end up being a total waste of time.
And in some cases, you are simply insincere. Take the following example:
You are saying that the word move in "moving a rock" and the word move in "being moved by an object of desire" mean the same thing and that the only difference is quantitative.
First of all being moved as far as the desires or emotions of a boy are concerned cannot be quantified. Therefore it cannot be compared with physical movement of a rock (which can be quantified).
Secondly, you have comitted the fallacy of reification. You are attempting to raise an abstract/intangible thing (an emotion) to the same quantifiable level as a physically quantifiable object(a rock) and an action (moving a rock).
Its a fallacy to treat an abstract thing as a concrete one.

Frankly Albert, I am getting real tired of having to explain to you meanings of words. In the above example its a blatant attempt at wasting time. Your Amphibolies are unnecessary and they seem to be either a cover for lack of a clear concept to explain, or a concept that you hold but is totally baseless. Or probably there is no concept at all.

Your ignoratio elenchi/ irrelevant conclusion betrays this. Because as many have noted. Your premises have got totally nothing to do with your conclusion. And this is because the premises are contrived ie premises 1-15 are totally unrelated to 16 1nd 17. That much is clear. It seems you have a lot in your head and you believe you have something, but its incoherent. You need to take your time and construct something sensible Albert.

As sandlewood has also noted, I repeat that to experience requires consciousness. Any assertion to the contrary is a waste of time.

Water and rocks are affected by gravity. They do not act consciously towards each other.

You are saying that when I invoke Descartes parody "I think therefore I am" I am comitting the fallacy of appeal to Authority. Well this claim indicates your poor grasp of simple logic. Appeal to Authority is only applicable if the person/body mentioned is not legitimately an expert in the field under discussion. If I mentioned Donald Rumsfield as an authority in this discussion, then Argumentum ad verecundian might have applied, but as it is, Descartes, still is an authority in philosophy and human knowledge.

You assert that detection can be done by non-living things:
To make it worse, you attempt pathetically to label my analogy as a strawman, further displaying your ignorance of logic. But I digress..
To detect means to learn, discover, ascertain the existence, presence, or fact of something.
(And remember there is a difference between a thing and something)
Pens do not learn, they do not discover and they do not ascertain.
Pure and simple.

The pen is affected by gravity. It does not detect gravity.
Whether a mud hat is made of mud or mud plus cow dung and mortared on a frame all depends on the context under which the mud hut is being discussed.
In effect your statement above tells us nothing.
Hot air.
There is information whether there is someone there to detect it or not. Sensory inputs do not create information. They are used to gather what is already existing (information). Therefore your statement above is wrong.
Please give a clear meaning of this word you have invented called "forinformation" and I will have no problem. I must warn you though that unless you have discovered a new phenomena (which would require a new name), it is totally useless and disagreeable to name what has already been named, with a new name.
I started existing when the sperm fused with the ova that formed the zygote that developed to me.
So again I not only disagree: you are wrong.
I am unique and I have my own identity, my own emotions and my own body.

This is not a religious discussion. I am not a christian and your quotations from the bible are totally wasted on me.
In any case we are not discussing xstian dogma.
We can do more than detect.
We are human beings. We can think. We can reason and we can imagine.
We came up with the word being. The concept of being is within our grasp. We EXPERIENCE, many things and we can also detect many things.
Your God has no monopoly over the experience of experiencing. We too, do experience.
Where is the evidence for this? Did God tell you this?
Come up with valid premises. Relate them to your conclusion.
That is all.
[edited for superfluous friendliness]
[edited for crystal clear meaning]

[ March 14, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

Draygomb

Albert

Why should the existence of Existence necessitate the existence of Being?

Amos

Hello Draygomb, if I was asked that question I would say that it doesn't because it if did involution would not be possible. During involution existence diminishes after the decline of its essence while during evolution existence increase after the increase of its essence. In both cases essence precedes existence contained in the "prime mover" argument.

Ted Hoffman

Is it your contention that Involution is always Possible? Why sould something be possible only if
its possibility leaves room for the possibility of involution?
On another point, I think the explanation you have given (all that stuff about evolution and involution) is irrelevant as far as the question asked by Draygomb is concerned.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Sandlewood,


Repeating the words of a dead guy does not an argument make. You find Descartes convincing. How special. I do not. So where does that leave us? How boring. If you believe his cogito defeats my notion of being, argue it, otherwise you and Jaliet are just making a craven appeal to authority.

And if you won't argue it, I will. His statement is a tautology. I think I exist cannot prove I exist because "I" is part of the predicate. The subject Descartes is trying to prove exists, himself, is the actor, the one doing the thinking. So he has assumed the existence of himself in the act of thinking and thereby tautologically arrived at the conclusion that he exists. Rubbish!



Correction, we cannot detect our own existence, are as good as dead to ourselves, without sensory inputs. Only living things can have sensory inputs. Rocks, for example, don't have senses for their inputs. The common denominator between our sensory inputs and a rock's inputs is information. Ergo, "information" is the term I use to describe the means whereby things experience their existence.



Something touches something = experience.
The experiences of touch = existence.
The thing that experiences touch = being.
Being = God.



Yes, and no. Being is the direct way of experiencing existence in that being is, by my definition, infinite and eternal and therefore capable of being touched completely and without movement. "Cogito ergo sum" does not qualify as a species of this because our thoughts are a species of physical time-based touch. Thoughts are just another form of physical touch whereby we experience our existence, but not our being.



That's because only one being can be, which is God. If a grain of sand could be, it'd be God. Ergo, the article "a" must precede "being," as there is only one "being" and no such thing as "beings."



Thank you. I know you didn't mean that as a compliment, but that doesn't stop me from taking (stealing) it as a compliment!



On what basis do you assert that you detect gravity and a rock is merely affected by gravity? You are engaged in a solipsism. I choose my words carefully. When I say that a pen detects a hen gravitationally, I mean just that. What a life form detects and what inanimate matter is affected by are synonymous concepts. To argue that they are not is to argue the solipsism that living matter is qualitatively different that inanimate matter.



Duh! Stay with me. Stop employing Jaliet's schoolmarm technique of rapping my knuckles every time I use a word unconventionally. I've defined my specialized usage of these words. Pick apart my definitions, not me for employing my definitions.

Neither of you seem to realize how fat and comfortable you are with conventional wisdom. Wisdom precedes language. Language is always a Johnny-come-lately in the service of wisdom. Just because you don't see Johnny in your dictionary is no reason not to accept the baggage I'm making Johnny carry here on safari. I've drawn pictures of Johnny carrying my line or reasoning into the tangled jungle of your misconceptions. Stay with it. Stop stepping out of line. You'll end up in the Webster's tar pits.



Really!? I can just as solipsistically assert that "we don't really know what it means for Sandlewood to have an experience."



Show me. All we can do is detect the existence of other things, that is, be touched. Now the concept of being touched implies two entities. Ergo, we intuitively infer that:
1) What touches us is an existent thing that is not us.
2) We are an existent thing capable of being touched.

Both are un-provable assumptions we all make for the sake of convenience and sanity. You're caught up in the same tautology as Descartes if you think that you can detect that other things exist without in that same act of detection, detect that you yourself exist, for, IT TAKES TWO TO TOUCH.

Implicit in the experience of being touched is the assumption that you, the touchee, exists, and it, the toucher, exists. Properly speaking, no one detects that anything including themselves exist. What we do is detect being touched and infer that we and what touched us exist.



My argument does not prove that God exists, it proves that you are a hypocrite if you do not infer that God exists given the same evidence upon which you happily infer that you exist. I've shown that our existence is an inference based upon our being touched. I've shown that His Being is an inference based upon us "being" able to be touched. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

[ March 14, 2002: Message edited by: Albert Cipriani ]</p>

HelenM

<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Ender

Pardon my intrusion, but i think you're incorrect with defining an emotion as an abstract or intangible thing. Emotions are actually passions that are original and complete unto themselves, (Hume) i.e. sensory impressions that the mind experiences. which is why they are not subject to logic or reducible to truths or falsehood. Emotions, much like any other sensory data, are irrational, in the sense reason alone is unable to derive or verify or justify the principles of morality.

since impressions (passions, sensory data, sensations) are the source of ideas, they may generate further impressions, i.e an emotion may arouse another. But ideas themselves (logic, reason, language) are faint copies of the impressions that they are nearly always less lively, less vivacious, and less "present." In this epistemological model i've presented, emotions are not Abstract thoughts but "original facts."

Not to defend Albert- since he's doing a wonderful job of painting himself in a corner by mixing prose with philosophy while neglecting consistency or eschew rigorous thinking for metaphorical allusions.

~WiGGiN~

[ March 14, 2002: Message edited by: Ender the Theothanatologist ]</p>