bahman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 3:55 pm
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:49 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 6:24 am
RCSaunders,
Noted there are various threads on this.
Instead of hunting old threads, suggest this new one.
So what is really true and truth?
I'm not sure what you are asking. If you are asking if I buy the false dichotomy of, "Realism vs Idealism," I certainly do not. Truth is not determined by which brand of philosophy someone adopts.
Truth is not a thing, it is an attribute or quality and pertains only to propositions. A proposition which states a relationship that is correct is true, else it is false. There is no other kind of truth.
I'm sorry you have been deceived by this ancient sophist false dichotomy of, "realism vs idealism," or, "empiricism vs rationalism," or any other supposed division in the nature of reality that forces one to deny either the reality of material existence of their own consciousness. The lie was begun by Plato and philosophy has never extricated itself from that superstitious nonsense. There is no such dichotomy. Reality is all that exists and has the nature it has independently of our consciousness or knowledge of it, but it is that reality we are directly conscious of and all our knowledge is about that reality and the fact we are conscious of it. Our consciousness and that which we are conscious off are not the same thing.
By reality, I mean all of material existence, which includes all physical entities, all living organism, all conscious living organisms, and the rarest of all entities, conscious volition rational organisms, or human beings. Life, consciousness, and minds are as natural as all other material attributes, but are not physical attributes.
What are the material attributes and physical ones?
Good question!
By material existence I mean the same as ontological existence, that is, all that exists and has the nature it has independently of anyone's knowledge or consciousness of it. "Independently of," does not mean, "separate from," it means whether or not anyone is conscious of or has knowledge of that existence.
All of these exist and have the nature they have: every physical entity, living organism, conscious organism, and volition/rational conscious (mental) organisms, i.e., human beings. These all exist materially, and all have physical attributes or qualities, but only organisms have life as a quality, and only conscious organisms have consciousness as a quality, and only human beings have minds as a quality. Life, consciousness, and volitional/rational consciousness (mind) are, like the physical qualities, perfectly natural qualities of existence, but are not physical qualities; they are additional qualities of nature in addition to the physical qualities.
What differentiates physical natural qualities and the non-physical natural qualities is that all physical qualities can be directly perceived (seen, hear, felt, smelled, or tasted) or deduced from what is directly perceived (by the physical sciences, for example). The non-physical natural qualities cannot be directly perceived nor can they be explained in physical terms. We cannot for example directly perceive our life, but we know we are alive, because we are. We cannot directly perceive our consciousness, such as "seeing," for example, but we know we see, not by seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling or tasting it, but by the fact we do see. In the same way, we know we have minds, not because we can perceive them but because we do consciously choose what we do, learn, and think.
Of course our own life, consciousness, and minds do not exist independently of ourselves, but they do exist and have the nature they have, just as all of physical existence does, whether anyone else is conscious of them or not and therefore are perfectly natural, material or ontological existents.
I obviously reject the physicalist hypothesis that everything can be explained in terms of physical attributes alone, but equally reject that there is anything supernatural. Life, consciousness, and mind cannot be explained in terms of physical attributes, but are perfectly natural attributes of reality beyond the physical attributes. Every entity is a physical entity with all the physical qualities. Some physical entities have the additional quality of life and are called organisms. Some organisms have the addition quality of consciousness, and some conscious organisms have the additional quality of mind. No physical quality, life quality, consciousness quality, or mind exists independently of the entity or organism they are the qualities of. There is no dualism.
