Inconnu

I dont see anything immediatly wrong with your reasoning, but i would suspect that the impetus of any mass associated with a thought is probably just too weak, well, it is too weak otherwise we would all be levitating to work. Thinking more on your text, the thought may indeed be physical, but the "content" is not. This is what prevents psychokenis(sp?). Again, the painting is physicaly real and would hurt you if it fell on your head, but the "contents", the imagary, carried no mass. It is not real, its an interpretation that has only meaning. It makes thoughts. Like a story, the book is real and made of atoms, but the story itself is ethereal. BTW, you should be working, do you ever get anything done? Me neither!

DMB

Thoughts may not appear to be physical, but they are grounded in physicality. They can only exist in a brain, or in a physical extension of a brain, like a book or a computer. Even then, they don't really exist in one of these media until interpreted by a brain.

Darth Dane

Thoughts may not appear to be physical, but they are grounded in physicality. They can only exist in a brain, or in a physical extension of a brain, like a book or a computer. Even then, they don't really exist in one of these media until interpreted by a brain.

So where did the thoughts come from?

"Unti"l denotes a timeframe, so there is a time from when the thought is real to it gets interpreted?





DD - Love Spliff

DMB

I can't believe you're asking this. Obviously, they originated in a brain. They were then recorded in writing in some sort of medium. The "until" I added was to cover the fact that once they are recorded there needs to be some means of reading what is recorded so that they can be received by another brain.

Now we already know that when we store records on electronic media, the technology for reading such records is quite quickly rendered obsolete, thus creating a problem for those who want to access the stored records. Similarly, ancient writing systems were lost. In some cases, as with Egyptian hieroglyphics and Cretan Linear B, they were recovered many centuries later, allowing us access to recorded thoughts of ancient civilisations.

I would maintain that in between being recorded and being read, written ideas are only potential thoughts. To be fully fledged thoughts, they need to be active in a brain. That's why I used the word "until".

Darth Dane

Obviously, they originated in a brain.

If they came from the brain, they exist don't they? Can the brain create something unreal, then "see" it as real?

They were then recorded in writing in some sort of medium. The "until" I added was to cover the fact that once they are recorded there needs to be some means of reading what is recorded so that they can be received by another brain.

In this medium the thought are not real, just because the brain hasn't interpreted it yet?

The Reality of any perceived thought, is also real before it gets interepreted yes?




DD - Love Spliff

DMB

This seems to me like playing games. Something is recorded in whatever medium we are talking about, but I don't know that it is really a thought until it is again being perceived by a human brain. In practice, however, this is perhaps an artificial distinction. You come online and read what I have earlier typed and then transmitted electronically. It seems as though, despite the time delay and the means of transmission and recording, you are making contact with my thoughts.
I'm not too sure what you mean by "reality". All thoughts need a medium for transmission from one person to another, even if it is the spoken word. The process goes
*thought*-->*transmission*-->*reception*-->*interpretation*
This process can go wrong at any stage, as with the game of Chinese Whispers where "Send reinforcements; we're going to advance" can become "Send three and fourpence: we're going to a dance". So which is the "real" thought? -- the original one, the entity being transmitted, the entity being received or the entity beng interpreted after reception?

Anyway, all this seems a bit removed from the original topic. If you really think it's worth discussing further, why not start a new topic?

Koyaanisqatsi

"Chinese whispers?" Funny. In America, it's called "Telephone" (at least in my 37 year lifespan).

Darth, you're making a simple mistake. In modal logic terms it's called "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" (literally, "after this, therefore on account of it"); the fallacy of thinking that an intanglible perception equates with an intangible reality.

The computer you are right now reading these words on, however, easily dispels such a fallacy, since the same kind of processing (on a profoundly simplistic scale, of course) is likewise right now going on in your brain (after the fact of my writing it, of course) in order for you to correctly interpret the symbols we are using (i.e., the English language) to communicate.

It has taken you a long time to learn this language and the idea of language and the processing of the symbols into language into meaning into abstraction, but it was all still a step-by-step process just as your computer employs a "ones" and "zeros"/"if, then" process which, likewise, has become more and more complex, built upon already established initial states.

As a result, you can now speak and write English and German and Italian, etc., etc., etc. Why? Because the basic steps of language have been processed by your brain so that you can now, "meta" reflectively (meaning, "a whole can become larger than just the sum of its parts") apply those basic steps to any other like-series of symbols (such as German and Italian, etc.).

That you can attain this "meta" process is only the result of how incredibly powerful your "computer" processing is (i.e., your brain).

Just look at the manner in which your actual computer (the one upon which you're reading these words; as severely limited as it currently is) processes hundreds of millions of bits of information in order to present a coherent and engaging (i.e., "lively") whole.

I don't know if you're old enough, but do you remember the video game "Pong?" It was incredibly simplistic because the math and the technology was limited. Over time it evolved into what we have today, which itself is still incredibly limited, but represents a comparatively remarkable evolutionary scale.

Now, just make a very simple extrapolation to the intricate power of your brain to see that what you're romanticisizing is still just a process; a very simple process at that. One of "if, then."

But, just like a computer, there needs to be an operator of that computer, right? A "meta" computer that is self-aware?

Well, the theist asserts that this "meta" computer had to be implanted (or otherwise externally imposed into the "sub" computer); i.e., a "soul."

The scientist (who are not all atheists, but it's a more apt qualification) asserts that this "meta" computer is an emergent quality from the "sub" computer; i.e., "consciousness." It is a result of the increasing complexity of "if/then's" that as the brain becomes more and more complex over time, a "meta" self-regulating program, if you will, emerges and takes over from the otherwise inert, comparatively simplistic programs of the "sub" brain (e.g., the autonomic system).

In a computer, it means that there no longer needs to be a programmer; the computer programs itself; in humans it means that millions of years of direct, physical experiences have resulted in "removal" from nature; that millions of years of adapting to natural trials and tribulations was our "programmer" that we no longer need, because we can program ourselves (hence, urban blight and nuclear weapons and ozone depletion; all, arguably, examples of non natural occurrences).

Now, which of these two assertions has a tremendous body of verifiable, testable, repeatable evidence to support it?

I'll give you a hint. It ain't the theist's.

Again. All you need to do is look at your computer and think how advanced it is now compared to its ancestors and then simply project let's just say, ten thousand years from now.

Forget that our own evolution was over millions of years, just take a comparative assessment of the technology and processes in your current computer as compared to the "Adam" of computers and then project forward just ten thousand years from now. Go from "Pong" to "Pong plus 10,000 years" and you tell me whether you can't understand from what the scientific approach springs.

And just to pre-emptively dispense with the Intelligent Design analogy/argument you are most probably now formulating as a rebuttal, remember that a computer came as a result of observing our own (i.e., nature's) laws of processing informatioin ("if, then").

It is thus not a creation of animal (i.e., man) as it is a reflection of animal; a perfect and tangible extension of the manner in which animals process the information of the three/four dimensional paradigm.

By positing transcendentalism, you may very well be presaging an eventual evolutionary state, but you're not describing a current state of existence. That a "meta" computer within a "sub" computer can project forward to a possibly logical "end" is certainly legitimate, but it does not equate with dispensing the interim progression.

Thus, when you say things like, "In dreams we can fly, therefore the experience of flight should translate into the experience of flight outside of the dream state" may actually have merit in the abstract; but it so far has no merit in the tangible.

This does not mean, however, that one can simply discard the tangible, no matter how "sure" you are of the supposed logical conclusion one can draw.

Like it or not, and in spite of Lennon, thought is not the best way to travel yet in any tangible manner (i.e., I can't think myself to Oregon to see my parents, other than in an abstract manner). Perhaps it will obtain in human evolution (I certainly think it possible), though most likely not, since the other element of tangibility that you're not factoring in is that it is dynamic.

I see no reason why telekinesis couldn't obtain as a natural evolutionary process, whereby our "meta" brain (i.e., consciousness) is able to communicate the necessary instructions to "short circuit" or "bypass" the "Pong"-like clumsiness of "instruct arm to move object," other than the fact that currently does not, charlatans to the contrary.

Part of the understanding of emergent consciousness (the "meta" brain) is certainly the idea (as well as the verifiable, testable, repeatable fact) of "will effects matter," but part and parcel to that is the flipside; "matter effects will."

What you are fallaciously championing, IMO, is the illegitimate discarding of the flipside; that matter also effects will.

Yes, the observer effects the experiment, but the experiment also effects the observer, so consciousness is not necessarily the end-all/be-all to existence.

To discard the flipside is therefore fallacious and more the result of misguided wish-fulfillment than hard science. You can certainly do it (as a writer, I do it all the time), but as a practicle application to your existence, it is not just unwarranted, it is not tenable.

Just because you can imagine something, does not mean that something factually exists (i.e., independently of your imagination). While that might not mean anything to you personally, that doesn't negate the fact, it just denies it.

So, the question becomes, why deny it? It clearly exists or there wouldn't be anything for you to either deny or transcend. What knowledge can be gained by denying so much in favor of what ultimately would result in little more than personal mental masturbation?

Because only you exist? If that's the case, then I would direct you to the other post in which I deconstruct solipsism for you.

A denial of the totality of what surrounds you--no matter how intuitive you may think it is--serves no purpose and obtains in no worthwhile goal; unless, again, your goal is to pretend something is true in spite of what exists to demonstrate the contrary.

Edited to add: I tell you what. The minute you can coherently explain to me why a remotely controlled fog of atoms has to pee, is the minute I'll take your transcendantalism more seriously.

johngalt

I need a strong logical and rational explanation, not some BS feelings or stuff like that.

Rungles

JerryM writes: I think that if there is a God, whatever happens must be in accordance with his will. Therefore, if it's part of God's will that I should become a believer, then eventually I will be, and God will arrange the conditions that will effect my conversion. And if this never happens, then it just wasn't meant to be. It's all in God's hands.

First of all, could someone help me with how to do a proper response on this page, including quotes, etc? I haven't visited this site in a while and some stuff is new. Thanks.

In response to JerryM: You won't be able to escape accountability that easily. If God exists, then he must be the Calvinist God, granted. If that is true, then He predestines the ends (your conversion), but He also predestines the means (your obligation to submit to His law). It dosen't follow that if He controls everything that will happen, then you don't have a responsibility to do right. Humans have a responsibility if God says they have a responsibility.

Rungles

onceuponapriori

As a theist, I'll take a shot at this. It's a hard question, since it's really not as clear-cut as it seems.

To stop believing in a creator-god, I'd have to first make sense of the origin of the Universe, absent God.

To stop believing in the specific God that I do, I'd need to be faced with a tremendous amount of evidence -- enough to convince me that each of my personal experiences with him have been the product of completely deluded states.

Of course, I might not worship this enitity, and yet still believe he exists, if I was confronted with solid proof that he was cruel and evil.

I'm in the process of learning as much as I can, about as much as I can. Perhaps after studying evolution, physics, philosophy, etc for a long period of time, I'll become convinced that my current belief was invalid. Somehow I doubt it, though, as it seems that the more I learn, the more sure of God's existence I become.

Thanks for listening.