Richard Dawkins as 'Anti-Philosopher'

[Bernard]

I think that humans construct a reality, or more reality, from what is already real, mwhether that is a construct or not is a very abstarct thing to have to consider.

[Jonathan.s]

Read Schopenhauer. Probably easiest to start with Bryan Magee's book on him, Philosophy of Schopenhauer.

'THE world is my idea' is a truth valid for every living creature, though only man can consciously contemplate it. In doing so he attains philosophical wisdom. No truth is more absolutely certain than that all that exists for knowledge, and, therefore, this whole world, is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver--in a word, idea. The world is idea.

Of course the world is not something that only exists in the mind. But the world is nevertheless a representation, and cannot be anything else. Our cognitive apparatus captures raw data, the mind synthesizes it into a relatively coherent whole. But that is all it is. There is nothing in it which exists in its own right, which is stable, permanent and everlasting. People used to think atoms were that, but that is no longer feasible. Even 'the atom' is now 'a model'. And where does this model exist, if not in the mind?

Anyway that is another topic.

[Bernard]

Gee that seems very hard on ourselves, masochistic even. Zarathustra is rumbling in his cave! I prefer the view of reality as being at once static and fluid, with neither having precedence and neither costing the other in integrity, in the sense of not nullifying each other by virtue of their mutually exclusive yet opposite presence. I can live with the idea, for instance, of me being separate from other things and at the same time not separate from other things, but as I expressed in an earlier post the latter non-separate reality is too abstract to be practical on a daily level, but something I look forward to experience, for the most part, when its time for me to face death.

My allusion to Nietzsche is due to him being what I considert a rather visceral philopher. Is it not valid for wisdom to have visceral origin?

[Bernard]

Just to further qualify on FN: he spoke of and more or less aspired to being an 'artistic Socrates', this to me means one who trusts in the use of his own instinct in regards to wisdom.

Anyway, hanks for you time guys, I really appreciate it!

[Notvacka]

Okay, lets eliminate humans from the equation, especially Kant....

But we can't...

Before hominoids there were plenty of trees and each one of these trees is alike to many other things called trees.

Before homonids no "things" were called trees.

Can you then present and example of a an individual which is not one of many other similar things to it?

No. I can't. Without language I can't say anything at all about anything at all.

No, I'm not talking about conceptual catagories as these are formed in ideation, which I asked not to include. I'm talking about actual things.

But without the use of conceptual categories, we can't talk about actual things.

So, I think the stumbling block I have is that I assume others consider, as I do, that the universe is more than a concept formed in ideation.

No, that's not the stumbling block. Most of us agree that the universe is more than a concept formed in ideation.

but I'm looking for the agreement that it is an actual thing and therefore MUST be one of many like things, as where there is one actual thing there are many of the same type of actual thing.

The stumbling block is that this rule, this "MUST" of yours, applies to the concept, but not necessarily to the actual thing. The actual thing exists by itself in reality. But the category does not. Your rule applies to categories, not actual things. (Though it can be hard to spot the difference.)

Do we always need to construct reality with ideas?

Yes. At least if we wish to talk about it.

...and am saying - through viewing how things actually are in reality, not just conceptually - that it must be the same as all other things that are actual, and is therefore one of many like things to it, that is; other universes.

Even if we accept your notion of categories existing in nature, and disregard the fact that we can't talk about or understand "how things actually are in reality" without using human concepts, the universe is a special category, containing all other categories. The univesrse includes all of physical reality as we know it. If you make a category that wide, if you draw a line around everything, it does not follow that there must exist other everythings.

[Bernard]

Okay, lets eliminate humans from the equation, especially Kant....

But we can't...

Hmmmmm

Before hominoids there were plenty of trees and each one of these trees is alike to many other things called trees.

Before homonids no "things" were called trees.

There is surely some form of identification among animals and even trees

Can you then present and example of a an individual which is not one of many other similar things to it?

No. I can't. Without language I can't say anything at all about anything at all.

I'm not denying the use of categories, just the inclusion of them, I mean the inclusion of the phenomenal categories, not the didactic; difference is that didactic points to the phenomenal that gave rise to the category, which becomes phenomenal through agreement and reflection

No, I'm not talking about conceptual catagories as these are formed in ideation, which I asked not to include. I'm talking about actual things.

But without the use of conceptual categories, we can't talk about actual things.

Talking about them points to them

So, I think the stumbling block I have is that I assume others consider, as I do, that the universe is more than a concept formed in ideation.

No, that's not the stumbling block. Most of us agree that the universe is more than a concept formed in ideation.

but I'm looking for the agreement that it is an actual thing and therefore MUST be one of many like things, as where there is one actual thing there are many of the same type of actual thing.

The stumbling block is that this rule, this "MUST" of yours, applies to the concept, but not necessarily to the actual thing. The actual thing exists by itself in reality. But the category does not. Your rule applies to categories, not actual things. (Though it can be hard to spot the difference.)

It does point to the actual thing without pointing to the category because I asked the conceptual not to be included

Do we always need to construct reality with ideas?

Yes. At least if we wish to talk about it.

And ideas need to be constantly refreshed and revised through direct apprehension of reality

...and am saying - through viewing how things actually are in reality, not just conceptually - that it must be the same as all other things that are actual, and is therefore one of many like things to it, that is; other universes.

Even if we accept your notion of categories existing in nature, and disregard the fact that we can't talk about or understand "how things actually are in reality" without using human concepts, the universe is a special category, containing all other categories. The univesrse includes all of physical reality as we know it. If you make a category that wide, if you draw a line around everything, it does not follow that there must exist other everythings.

Categories don't exist in nature; that is not a notion of mine. I'm arguing precisley that the universe is not a special category, and that it is treated as a sacred cow. All I've done is observe it and seen it has physical reality and is therefore an actual thing not just a concept. But as soon as you define something as everything there must be other everythings as the evidence is that there is no end to things (an everything is a thing)

[Notvacka]

Categories don't exist in nature; that is not a notion of mine. I'm arguing precisley that the universe is not a special category, and that it is treated as a sacred cow. All I've done is observe it and seen it has physical reality and is therefore an actual thing not just a concept. But as soon as you define something as everything there must be other everythings as the evidence is that there is no end to things (an everything is a thing)

The only problem with this is "must". Your giraffe analogy was very apt. Evidence gathered from one spot makes other spots very probable, but not strictly necessary. As for the whole animal, very little, if anything, can be said with any degree of certainty. Beyond our spot, our observable universe, we can imagine some version of God, nothing at all or more of the same. These alternatives can appear more or less reasonable, but none is completely unreasonable.

[Bernard]

No, the only observational experience we have ever had is that where there is one of a thing there is always multitudes of things alike to it. There is no such thing as a one-off thing. This doesn't equate to a probablitity. It is what occurs, without exception, in regard to actual things. If there is one thing there MUST be more things that are like to it. Sorry to be hammering this again and again.

[Notvacka]

No, the only observational experience we have ever had is that where there is one of a thing there is always multitudes of things alike to it. There is no such thing as a one-off thing. This doesn't equate to a probablitity. It is what occurs, without exception, in regard to actual things. If there is one thing there MUST be more things that are like to it. Sorry to be hammering this again and again.

No need to hammer. I get it. I understand what you mean. Still, every law and principle has its limits. And if we don't define those limits within the known, we simply have no idea where or what they are. A microbe living its entire life in a bowl of cabbage soup might conclude that because the only observational experience it has ever had is cabbage soup, everything beyond what it can observe must also be cabbage soup.

[Bernard]

This appears to me to be another point of view formed via an isolationist stance, which is not very realistic. Its from the other end of the scale: whereas before the view was isolationist in that it tended to posit the universe is a thing only original to itself, with no other things like to it, the microbe experiences things only by itself with no input from like existent things to itself; other microbes. This has no reality in the actual world, nothing ever lives and dies by itself. Also, the cabbage to the microbe would be a place of all manner of molecules that were all observedly multitudinal: sugars, gas particles, elemental particles, cabohydrates, etcetera. The microbe might observe that all things it observed came in multiples of like kind, and therefore would Have to assume that the totality of its environment, being a physically observable thing, was likewise, as is all other observable things, one of a multiple of like things.

[Notvacka]

This appears to me to be another point of view formed via an isolationist stance, which is not very realistic. Its from the other end of the scale: whereas before the view was isolationist in that it tended to posit the universe is a thing only original to itself, with no other things like to it, the microbe experiences things only by itself with no input from like existent things to itself; other microbes. This has no reality in the actual world, nothing ever lives and dies by itself. Also, the cabbage to the microbe would be a place of all manner of molecules that were all observedly multitudinal: sugars, gas particles, elemental particles, cabohydrates, etcetera. The microbe might observe that all things it observed came in multiples of like kind, and therefore would Have to assume that the totality of its environment, being a physically observable thing, was likewise, as is all other observable things, one of a multiple of like things.

I think you are taking my little cabbage analogy a bit too literally here. And perhaps we can't get any further, anyway. I'll summarise my objections to your "must" statement:

1. Categories do not exist in nature. We use categories to describe things that exist in reality, but in themselves, these things do not exist as "things". It's a fallacy to confuse a category with what it represents in reality. I'm not entirely sure that you really understand what this means, but I don't think I can explain it better than I already have, so I'll settle for you simply disagreeing.

2. Beyond what we do know, we know nothing. I'm pretty sure that you get this, which makes it harder to figure out why you don't agree. But I don't think I have anything more to add either.

[Bernard]

Categories of things are not the things they categorise, which exist whether categorised or not. I don't know why there should arise confusion about that.

I felt your analogy was not good because it set up an isolationist approach, which is exactly what my argument is revealing as a false approach, an erronous way of regarding and contemplating issues of existance: every actual thing that exists does not occur as solitary phenomena, such as in the case with your microbe. I feel you are unwilling to let go of this approach and as such cannot respect the full import of my argument. It seems a resigned way of dealing with the issue that you have here; much like if my wife wished to discuss with my me certain issues of our relationship, and I continuously opine to her that none of it matters because we are all going to die, and so all our separate relationship issues become an unresolved homogeneous mass. It would insult and agrieve her were I to continuously do such.

[Bernard]

And we can't ever by satisfied with "this is all we know" and that's that. We have to put what we know into the forge and destry what is useless so we have space and energy for further exploration. I offer the following as a contemplation and incitive toward knowledge:



Syntax

A man staring at his equations
said that the universe had a beginning.
There had been an explosion, he said.
A bang of bangs, and the universe was born.
And it is expanding, he said.
He had even calculated the length of its life:
ten billion revolutions of the earth around the sun.
The entire globe cheered;
They found his calculations to be science.
None thought that by proposing that the universe began,
the man had merely mirrored the syntax of his mother tongue;
a syntax which demands beginnings, like birth,
and developments, like maturation,
and ends, like death, as statements of facts.
The universe began,
and it is getting old, the man assured us,
and it will die, like all things die,
like he himself died after confirming mathematically
the syntax of his mother tongue.


**************************

The Other Syntax

Did the universe really begin?
Is the theory of the big bang true?
These are not questions, though they sound like they are.
Is the syntax that requires beginnings, developments
and ends as statements of fact the only syntax that exists?
That's the real question.
There are other syntaxes.
There is one, for example, which demands that varieties
of intensity be taken as facts.
In that syntax nothing begins and nothing ends;
thus birth is not a clean, clear-cut event,
but a specific type of intensity,
and so is maturation, and so is death.
A man of that syntax, looking over his equations, finds that
he has calculated enough varieties of intensity
to say with authority
that the universe never began
and will never end,
but that it has gone, and is going now, and will go
through endless fluctuations of intensity.
That man could very well conclude that the universe itself
is the chariot of intensity
and that one can board it
to journey through changes without end.
He will conclude all that, and much more,
perhaps without ever realizing
that he is merely confirming
the syntax of his mother tongue.

***************************


From "The Active Side of Infinity" by Carlos Castaneda
Copyright 1998 by Laugan Productions

[Notvacka]

It seems a resigned way of dealing with the issue that you have here; much like if my wife wished to discuss with my me certain issues of our relationship, and I continuously opine to her that none of it matters because we are all going to die, and so all our separate relationship issues become an unresolved homogeneous mass. It would insult and agrieve her were I to continuously do such.

Yes. That's why I suggest that we might have reached the end of the line with this discussion in some sense. From a certain viewpoint, it's perfectly reasonable to say that nothing matters because we are all goning to die. But it's of course unreasonable to view every issue from this point all the time.

Let me remind you of your initial statement in this topic:

I don't get why some people think that life had a beginning.

But you do "get" it. You just don't agree with it. Your Castaneda quote describes two views of the world, both based on language. And my first contention with your "must" argument is exactly that your conclusion is drawn from language.

And we can't ever by satisfied with "this is all we know" and that's that.

True. And I never suggested that we should. I do, however, think that we should be aware of the limits of our knowledge. If you consider my statement, I think you realise that it's a truism, obvious and self-evident:

Beyond what we do know, we know nothing.

What we know depends on what criteria we place upon "knowledge", and we are back to language again.

[Bernard]

The first instance of syntax Casteneda presents relies on language, but the second draws from something else, something he would have described as silent knowledge, a syntax more related to vision than sound, as is with talk/language.

I believe I have repeatedly demonstrated that my argument is based on observation of the actual reality of things around us. That I present my argument thru language is a non- issue.