uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
Karl Popper's falsificationism is far from perfect, but there is mileage in the idea that anything that isn't demonstrably wrong could be true.
This is certainly acceptable for the world of thought where we are dealing with apparent things and ideas - this is a world of right and wrong, true and false and the judgements vary depending on your point of view (what is right to you may be wrong to me...)
But there is no wrong or false in direct experience - as I said perviously, it is beyond/before the mind places it in a prefabricated box labelled X, Y, Z...
The taste of an apple is as it is, its neither right nor is it wrong - this is actually true for all direct experience.
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
To me though, that there appears to be a universe made of some sort of stuff is explained quite neatly by the hypothesis that a universe made of some stuff actually exists. Tricky thing to prove, but I find the evidence compelling.
Sure... the conventional evidence is compelling. Are you surprised that this is the case? We have been brought up living this belief - why should we doubt it?
If people would be taught from childhood on that they exist in some sort of simulation then this would be our basis for describing/making sense of existence and I am pretty sure that each and every "natural phenomenon" (gravity, speed of light and whatever else) would be scientifically explained/proven based on this understanding.
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
Well no, "the experience of eating an apple" is one thing I am certain I have had
What's wrong with this:
1) An empirical fact / direct experience is not a thing.
2) An apple is a thing
3) You have never experienced eating an apple.
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
I could be mistaken in my belief that I have had the experience of eating an apple because I have actually eaten an apple, but again, it strikes me as a plausible hypothesis.
Well... you can only know if the belief/hypothesis that you have had the experience is actually true by investigating, right?
Just thinking about it wont take you any further (even most people believe it does).
What once happened, or not happened, is now only a memory, which again is nothing but another thought...
If you eat an apple now, and really, honestly, investigate into what is happening then you should be able to tell if there are all these "parts" that thought talks about.
If you eat an apple, maybe even with your eyes closed, and discount all the running commentary that thought comes up with... what is left when the conceptual interpretation is - if only for a moment - switched off?
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
This is where I think you make an invalid leap. It may be so, but it doesn't follow from 'all you need is ideas' that 'all there is, is ideas'.
I didn't say 'all you need is ideas' or even 'all there is, is ideas', did I?
What I was saying was that "experience is on a different level than our dualistic interpretation". That directly experienced reality is non-dual - which can be seen directly here/now - and that all interpretation, aka conceptual thought is the dualistic wrapper that provides meaning, that introduces borders, separation, judgement and even a separate self, the I, that has these experiences.
Also, I would rather say: "all things are ideas", but also: "reality is not a thing"
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
Alex: Can you find a border between the taste and other tastes?
...
Frankly, yes.
Can you describe this border that exists between tastes? How does it look/feel/taste like? What makes you believe that this sensation is a border?
Is this border maybe only another taste/sensation that thought describes as a border?
If so, how could taste be a border to another taste?
Wouldn't you agree that before tasting an apple, there was also a taste present? Yes, this taste might be described as "tasteless", but it for sure was there (even you might not have been thinking about it and thus haven't formed a conceptual memory of it).
Its like saying one color is the border to another color, whereas in reality its just color - color A / the border (color B) / color C
And as I explained before: color = seeing / and seeing cannot separate more seeing, can it? And just like that taste cannot separate more taste...
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
Nope. As Shakespeare's Juliet says: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By Any Other Name would smell as sweet.”
Perfect example
...and, in the end, even "sweet" and "smell" are just names...
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
I think there are other possible meanings. Given that Lao-tzu also said: "To know yet to think that one does not know is best. Not to know, yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty." it could be interpreted as a warning. Some people accept that they will never stop learning. Others believe they have all the answers thanks to some 'Way' they have concocted.
Sure, thats the beauty of us having different perspectives... we all see different meanings, but there is also the meaningless - e.g. the smell of "That which we call a rose".
Also, I agree that we have concocted a "Way", as well as a "someone" that can progress from ignorance to enlightenment - but the more we see through the veil of thought the more the "way" (which is also just an idea) vanishes into non existence and one sees that everything has always been perfectly here/now and that all the learning and its answers are not more important than the song of a bird.
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
Long story short; the leap that Parmenides made was from 'There is not nothing' to 'There is no nothing'. It doesn't follow.
"Nothing", just like "everything", is a concept, thus again a "thing" - not an empirical fact (you cannot experience nothing).
Stating that there is a thing that is nothing (or even: not a thing) makes no sense at all.
It would be much more elegant to simply come to the conclusion that there are no things in the first place, thus no nothing, no everything, simply no thing (outside of the idea of things - but ideas don't make it so, right?).
uwot wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 11:53 am
I disagree. I may be wrong, but I don't think thought can be 'digitised' in that way, I'm fairly confident the human brain is an analog device.
Well... scientist seem to start believing that the brain actually digitises received data (and also stores it in discrete form - makes sense if you want to store huge amounts of data in something like a brain) - see:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _the_Brain
Furthermore it simply makes sense, considering how we handle and process visual data:
... The cells in the retina convert the light into electrical impulses. The optic nerve sends these impulses to the brain, which produces an image.
Looks a lot like an Analog to Digital converter to me...