Philosophy is Dead.

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dontaskme »

Philosophy: the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge.


Existence does not question itself. A tree does not seek a reason for being. So who is the ''other'' one who wants to investigate into the truths of existence?

Who would play the role of examiner?



.
Dalek Prime
Posts: 4922
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:48 am
Location: Living in a tree with Polly.

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dalek Prime »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm Philosophy: the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge.


Existence does not question itself. A tree does not seek a reason for being. So who is the ''other'' one who wants to investigate into the truths of existence?

Who would play the role of examiner?



.
Clearly not you.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dontaskme »

Dalek Prime wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:22 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm Philosophy: the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge.


Existence does not question itself. A tree does not seek a reason for being. So who is the ''other'' one who wants to investigate into the truths of existence?

Who would play the role of examiner?



.
Clearly not you.
Correct.

.
Dalek Prime
Posts: 4922
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:48 am
Location: Living in a tree with Polly.

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dalek Prime »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:30 pm
Dalek Prime wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:22 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm Philosophy: the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge.


Existence does not question itself. A tree does not seek a reason for being. So who is the ''other'' one who wants to investigate into the truths of existence?

Who would play the role of examiner?



.
Clearly not you.
Correct.

.
I'm always strangely disappointed when I'm right about something...
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dontaskme »

Dalek Prime wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:32 pm I'm always strangely disappointed when I'm right about something...
Probably because there is no ultimate right about something and no one to agree even if there was.

What is a right or wrong perspective but a subjective experience.

.
Dalek Prime
Posts: 4922
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:48 am
Location: Living in a tree with Polly.

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dalek Prime »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 4:06 pm
Dalek Prime wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:32 pm I'm always strangely disappointed when I'm right about something...
Probably because there is no ultimate right about something and no one to agree even if there was.

What is a right or wrong perspective but a subjective experience.

.
Agreed!.... whoops...
User avatar
vegetariantaxidermy
Posts: 13983
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2012 6:45 am
Location: Narniabiznus

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm Philosophy: the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge.


Existence does not question itself. A tree does not seek a reason for being. So who is the ''other'' one who wants to investigate into the truths of existence?

Who would play the role of examiner?



.
I don't know how I missed this breathtaking jewel of irony.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dontaskme »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 6:53 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm Philosophy: the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge.


Existence does not question itself. A tree does not seek a reason for being. So who is the ''other'' one who wants to investigate into the truths of existence?

Who would play the role of examiner?



.
I don't know how I missed this breathtaking jewel of irony.
Knowledge is memory. Why investigate that which is dead?

So what is it we are supposed to be investigating?

.
Londoner
Posts: 783
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:47 am

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Londoner »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm
Existence does not question itself.
For the same reason that 'meaning' does not look itself up in a dictionary.

There is no thing called 'existence'. To treat the word as if it was a proper noun is to misunderstand the language you are using.
thought addict
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 9:47 am

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by thought addict »

Londoner wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:05 am
Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm
Existence does not question itself.
For the same reason that 'meaning' does not look itself up in a dictionary.

There is no thing called 'existence'. To treat the word as if it was a proper noun is to misunderstand the language you are using.
You're right. But if Dontaskme is talking about humans questioning their own existence, they certainly can do that.

It's a type of recursion. Some types of recursion are possible in the universe. An eye can examine its own image in a mirror. A plant or animal can enhance or destroy its own body (recursive in the sense that it's an example of an object acting upon itself). In computer software or mathematics a function can invoke itself. Recursive functions in software usually need a base case which is some condition under which the looping comes to an end. All examples of recursion will also have a starting point - some external actor that caused the process to start off. So, a body or a brain can certainly examine itself and can even destroy itself. What it arguably cannot do is cause its own creation.*

I don't see how though a mind could ever correctly refute its own existence simply because cogito ergo sum.

*Unless we're ready to throw away causality.
Last edited by thought addict on Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Londoner
Posts: 783
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:47 am

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Londoner »

thought addict wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:23 pm You're right. But if Dontaskme is talking about humans questioning their own existence, they certainly can do that.

It's a type of recursion. Some types of recursion are possible in the universe. An eye can examine its own image in a mirror. A plant or animal can enhance or destroy its own body (recursive in the sense that it's an example of an object acting upon itself). In computer software or mathematics a function can invoke itself. Recursive functions in software usually need a base case which is some condition under which the looping comes to an end. All examples of recursion will also have a starting point - some external actor that caused the process to start off. So, a body or a brain can certainly examine itself and can even destroy itself. What it arguably cannot do is cause its own creation.*
I do not think this would be 'us' questioning our own existence, rather it would be drawing attention to the fact that our notion of what constitutes 'us' is not fixed.

You write: 'An eye can examine its own image in a mirror'. I do not think it can. If the eye is to be equated to its image in a mirror, then it is simply an appearance, a pattern of light, that can no more interpret its image than the image can interpret the eye. But we do not really mean 'the eye'; interprets, we mean the brain behind the eye. The brain can interpret the reflection, because the brain is not identical to either the eye or the reflection in the mirror. To say 'this is my eye' is to say that me and my eye are not the same thing.

So in one sense the eye is part of 'me', in another it isn't. Both my mind and my body can be said to 'exist', together or separately. So I'm not really questioning 'existence' as such, I'm just drawing attention to the fact that we can describe 'me' in two different ways.

But just as I can either differentiate 'me' from 'my eye' - or I can lump the two together and call that 'me' - I can carry on lumping and do the same with the rest of the universe. I can say I 'exist' as 'forces', or as 'matter'. Or I can go the other way and differentiate 'me' - my mind - from matter entirely.

So the term 'exist' has no meaning on its own, it only takes a meaning from the thing it refers to, e.g. 'me'. And what 'me' refers to varies.
I don't see how though a mind could ever correctly refute its own existence simply because cognito ergo sum.
Is the 'sum' a different thing to the 'cogito'? In English we would write 'I think therefore I am'. Is that 'therefore' because we are saying 'this thought' and 'being/existence' are synonyms? Because that would be to say that everything we think of counts as existing. In which case, it is impossible to think of anything that doesn't exist, since our thinking of it makes it exist.

Alternatively, if the 'sum' and the 'cogito' are different, if to say something 'exists' is to claim something additional to 'it is a thought', then we need something additional to the 'cogito'.

Or to put it as you do, is a 'mind' identical to a 'thought'? Or is a mind something more, real in a way that the thought on its own isn't? For example, suppose we say 'mind' is different because it is a continuity of thoughts? But in that case, we must also add a claim that linear time is real to the 'cogito ergo sum' at which point it is no longer simple.
thought addict
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 9:47 am

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by thought addict »

Londoner wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:17 pm I do not think this would be 'us' questioning our own existence, rather it would be drawing attention to the fact that our notion of what constitutes 'us' is not fixed.
Londoner wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:17 pm So in one sense the eye is part of 'me', in another it isn't. Both my mind and my body can be said to 'exist', together or separately. So I'm not really questioning 'existence' as such, I'm just drawing attention to the fact that we can describe 'me' in two different ways.

But just as I can either differentiate 'me' from 'my eye' - or I can lump the two together and call that 'me' - I can carry on lumping and do the same with the rest of the universe. I can say I 'exist' as 'forces', or as 'matter'. Or I can go the other way and differentiate 'me' - my mind - from matter entirely.
I agree with what you're saying but I don't think your objection prevents the self-referential aspect of my example. If we say the eye in combination with the nerves and brain (and perhaps mind) as a combined system capture and process information from their own image in the mirror, the recursion still takes place. The image only possesses limited information about that eye / nerve / brain system so it's not the entire system looping back on itself, but it is a subset doing that.
Londoner wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:17 pm So the term 'exist' has no meaning on its own, it only takes a meaning from the thing it refers to, e.g. 'me'. And what 'me' refers to varies.
I agree with this.
Londoner wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:17 pm Is the 'sum' a different thing to the 'cogito'? In English we would write 'I think therefore I am'. Is that 'therefore' because we are saying 'this thought' and 'being/existence' are synonyms? Because that would be to say that everything we think of counts as existing. In which case, it is impossible to think of anything that doesn't exist, since our thinking of it makes it exist.

Alternatively, if the 'sum' and the 'cogito' are different, if to say something 'exists' is to claim something additional to 'it is a thought', then we need something additional to the 'cogito'.

Or to put it as you do, is a 'mind' identical to a 'thought'? Or is a mind something more, real in a way that the thought on its own isn't? For example, suppose we say 'mind' is different because it is a continuity of thoughts? But in that case, we must also add a claim that linear time is real to the 'cogito ergo sum' at which point it is no longer simple.
To be honest, the phrase bothered me since I first heard it, in that the knowledge of self existence indeed does not seem to need the "cogito" condition. It seems it could be something even more direct - perhaps the most basic axiom on which all other reason depends. Perhaps:

Sentio ergo sum

if we take it in English to be "I experience therefore I am" rather than "I feel therefore I am". To me, as to a neurologist, thoughts are information represented by patterns of neural excitation in a brain. Thoughts can also be observed by scans and written down. First person experiences seem to accompany thoughts but they are not the same thing and I do not see any way in which they can be observed by another person nor written down.
Last edited by thought addict on Sun Oct 15, 2017 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Dontaskme »

Londoner wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:05 am
Dontaskme wrote: Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:52 pm
Existence does not question itself.
For the same reason that 'meaning' does not look itself up in a dictionary.

There is no thing called 'existence'. To treat the word as if it was a proper noun is to misunderstand the language you are using.
Existence IS..but it does not exist as any thing. But 'thing's' exist within it. A tree for example exists because a tree can go into nonexistence. To say that the tree exists is meaningful because it's nonexistence is possible, but the pure IS-ness of Existence cannot not exist.
When we say existence exists we create something out of the word existence.

There is no person or questioneer existing: existence is not a person or any thing, there is here only pure impersonal existence in it's totality which is not-a-thing...Words personify that which does not exist including the word exist. Beyond the fiction of language there is just the pure IS-ness of being (Nothing and Everything-VERB..ing) ..and the word for that is Existence.


.
Londoner
Posts: 783
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:47 am

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Londoner »

thought addict wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:15 pm
'cogito ergo sum

To be honest, the phrase bothered me since I first heard it, in that the knowledge of self existence indeed does not seem to need the "cogito" condition. It seems it could be something even more direct - perhaps the most basic axiom on which all other reason depends. Perhaps:

Sentio ergo sum

if we take it in English to be "I experience therefore I am" rather than "I feel therefore I am". To me, as to a neurologist, thoughts are information represented by patterns of neural excitation in a brain. Thoughts can also be observed by scans and written down. First person experiences seem to accompany thoughts but they are not the same thing and I do not see any way in which they can be observed by another person nor written down.
Although we have that one famous line, the main theme in Descartes is 'I doubt therefore there is a doubter'. So, since he is starting from the position of doubting all perception (which might be a dream, or illusions sent by some demon), he could not accept your idea because he is not yet in the position of knowing that the scans etc. you perceive are real.

When I read Descartes, I do not think 'cogito ergo sum is the core phase we take it to be. (It isn't particularly stressed). The arguments for the reality of the universe, and what sort of thing we are within it, are ones that would have been familiar to any medieval philosopher; a version of the Ontological Argument and so on.

So, I see what you mean but I think it might be better not to link it to Descartes because I think Descartes is linked to a lot of metaphysics that you might not want to go along with.
Londoner
Posts: 783
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:47 am

Re: Philosophy is Dead.

Post by Londoner »

Dontaskme wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 9:19 am
Existence IS..but it does not exist as any thing. But 'thing's' exist within it. A tree for example exists because a tree can go into nonexistence. To say that the tree exists is meaningful because it's nonexistence is possible, but the pure IS-ness of Existence cannot not exist.
When we say existence exists we create something out of the word existence.
I would be careful with language here. If 'existence' does not exist, then things cannot literally 'exist within it', because there is no thing for them to be 'within'.

We can think of 'existence' as a concept, a category. In that sense we might say things were 'within' it, but only if those 'things' are also understood as concepts.

You say a tree can 'go into nonexistence'; what would that mean? That 'tree' ceases to be an idea? As a specific object of possible perception? Or the tree ceases to be in the condition of being alive? If there are conditions in which you can say the tree no longer exists, then there must also be conditions under which it does exist.

In that case, the category 'existence' means something specific, it refers to specific conditions. For example, if we say only living trees still exist as trees, then the concept 'existence' would here mean 'living things'. And a tree would not be in that category in its entirety, but only because of one conceptual attribute; its being alive.

So I would continue to argue that 'existence' has no meaning. It takes its meaning from whatever we are discussing, so that in one context X can be said to exist, in another it doesn't. There is no right or wrong about it.
There is no person or questioneer existing: existence is not a person or any thing, there is here only pure impersonal existence in it's totality which is not-a-thing...Words personify that which does not exist including the word exist. Beyond the fiction of language there is just the pure IS-ness of being (Nothing and Everything-VERB..ing) ..and the word for that is Existence.
As I argue, I think 'existence' is entirely personal, or rather inter-personal. When I say 'dreams exist' or 'Mount Everest exists' the meaning of 'exist' is not the same. It's meaning in each case is established within the act of communication. You refer to something 'beyond the fiction of language'. I would say that the thing beyond language would be the users of that language; their intention.

(I should remark that when reading your posts I do understand you are trying to use words to express something that is really beyond language. So, while I may criticise your words, I do not think that my criticisms prove you are wrong.)
Post Reply