It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

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

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Walker
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Walker »

Impenitent wrote: Wed Dec 28, 2022 1:11 pm Ludwig had the same problem

-Imp
Without the ear sense, he heard more of the unknowns that the elephant said, and then he told us by orchestrating.

Many without the eye sense see more of the elephant, as Little Stevie Wonder and later, Big Stevie Wonder also told us by demonstrating.
Dimebag
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Dimebag »

It is not possible to know anything with certainty.

Our consciousness provides us with a map of the world outside our mind.

We generate this map from birth. Our parents impart certain icons in this map, shapes, colour, words etc.

Once we learn words, we can begin to flesh out more and more detail in this map. We are essentially building our internal world from this differentiation and labelling.

We then use our maps to navigate our bodies in the world outside our minds, and actually we do this from the very beginning. In the beginning we need so much help from our parents because our maps have so little differentiation that they are essentially unusable. But slowly our maps give us affordances to perform actions in that world outside our minds. Then, our maps confirm for us via attainment of desirable objects, whether they are correct. They are self correcting maps. We simply pick objects which we wish to attain, and move towards them, and if we have difficulty, usually there is something in our map which needs updating, which was unknown. We gain more resolution, and build more contingencies and planning for the future when using our maps.

And always, the confirmation for whether our map is accurate is whether we attain our desired goal, or whether something in the map was unexpected, whether something in the world outside our map caused something unsatisfactory to our bodies.

That is the only test for whether our consciousness is accurately reflecting the world outside our minds. It is a kind of trial and error, then an updating of our perception and understanding of the world outside our minds.

It is a wonder this works, but it does. And it works well enough for most things. It works well for attaining objects. For accruing wealth and for avoiding unsatisfactory things.
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Dontaskme
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Dontaskme »

Harbal wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 12:59 pm
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am Proof:

1. It is not possible to know the unknowable
2. A world outside the knowing is unknowable
3. It is not possible to know a world outside the knowing
4. Mind is knowing
5. It is not possible to know a world outside the mind
6. It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind
7. The world is my mind
I think most people who have an interest in philosophy will get the meaning in the thread title, so your convoluted chain of what I imagine you consider to be logic is not only unnecessary, but actually an obstacle to understanding.
There is nothing to understand. ( Paradox) All that can be known is thought which cannot be known (paradox)

Thought usage is the brains cognitive way of making use of thought as a language in order to process a thought until thought thinks it understands, and yet no thought is ever doing this...the current thought or image is an image of the imageless. The current thought or image knows nothing. It is known.

Is it not possible to penetrate this mystery of 'is' and 'is not' ( an image of the imageless) (paradox)

Nor does the mind, what is known understand. All understanding takes place beyond the mind. The mind is simply the formulation of the understanding. It is not the understanding itself. Understanding is always the non-objective experience of the knowing of being.
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Trajk Logik
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Trajk Logik »

Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am Proof:

1. It is not possible to know the unknowable
2. A world outside the knowing is unknowable
3. It is not possible to know a world outside the knowing
4. Mind is knowing
5. It is not possible to know a world outside the mind
6. It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind
7. The world is my mind
Then how do I know what you wrote and when you submitted your post by looking at my computer screen, which is part of the "outside" world?

Your "proof" makes no sense because you failed to define, "know".

You can't know anything without using your senses.

Causation is what allows the transfer of information from the world to your mind. You know thanks to your senses acquiring information and your brain for storing that information for future use. You can't even know 2+2=4 without using your senses. You had to learn that by using your eyes to see and your brain to categorize.

Knowing is simply a justified belief - justified by logic and observation, not just one or the other as in most other beliefs (hypotheses).
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Dontaskme
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Dontaskme »

Trajk Logik wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:15 pm
Then how do I know what you wrote and when you submitted your post by looking at my computer screen, which is part of the "outside" world?

The paradox here is that the 'I' that wants to know is a temporal object in Awareness. This I/dream-object cannot comprehend/know the subject, much like an object in space cannot grasp space.

You want to 'know' the non-dual IT while this requires the dualistic position of knower/known. Say that this would be possible; that you would know IT, then what would know the 'knower' while the knower is 'doing' the knowing?


All use of metaphor requires thought. In other words it is nothing but mind AKA the thinking process. What is pointed at here with words/mind, extends outside the mind. The mind is here in the same position as the object in space; it cannot 'grasp' THAT in which it appears.

This is the horizon that the mind cannot look beyond and here an intuitive leap confirms that if thoughts appear, they appear to something that cannot be brought into focus as it is THAT what does/is the focusing.

This Awareness is Self-Shining, no outside knower can know IT

IT is not some-thing to be known by some-one. IT is the knowing that cannot be known. In essence you are that Knowing.
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Trajk Logik
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Trajk Logik »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:35 am
Trajk Logik wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:15 pm
Then how do I know what you wrote and when you submitted your post by looking at my computer screen, which is part of the "outside" world?

The paradox here is that the 'I' that wants to know is a temporal object in Awareness. This I/dream-object cannot comprehend/know the subject, much like an object in space cannot grasp space.

You want to 'know' the non-dual IT while this requires the dualistic position of knower/known. Say that this would be possible; that you would know IT, then what would know the 'knower' while the knower is 'doing' the knowing?


All use of metaphor requires thought. In other words it is nothing but mind AKA the thinking process. What is pointed at here with words/mind, extends outside the mind. The mind is here in the same position as the object in space; it cannot 'grasp' THAT in which it appears.

This is the horizon that the mind cannot look beyond and here an intuitive leap confirms that if thoughts appear, they appear to something that cannot be brought into focus as it is THAT what does/is the focusing.

This Awareness is Self-Shining, no outside knower can know IT

IT is not some-thing to be known by some-one. IT is the knowing that cannot be known. In essence you are that Knowing.
Contradiction. If the knowing cannot be known then how do you know that you are that knowing?

Word salad is unnecessary when we already have words that do a better job at explaining what knowing is.

It appears to me that you are actually advocating solipsism. If there are no objects/processes outside of the mind and the knowledge it possesses, then the mind is all there is and you only exist as words on this screen, not another mind, only when I read them.

How can I know anything about you except by the consequences of your actions in the world (ie you typing and submitting a post on the internet)? Using the terms "subject" and "object" cause problems. If you are a subject, then why do you appear as an object within my subject? You claim to be a subject, but prove it to me. Going by what you are saying, I am the only subject and you are just words (objects) on the screen.

As a realist, I understand that I might not always be able to observe, or know the causes of what I am presently observing. I understand that things are happening even when I'm not there to observe it. I understand that you are not words on the screen but the cause of the words that I read on the screen, and can then go about communicating with you by creating my own words on the screen for you to read.

As a realist, I understand that I am more than just my mind/awareness, and that there are aspects of me that are not just mental, but physical. But, as a monist, I don't think of mental and physical to be different substances that interact, but merely types of the fundamental constituent of reality - information. Thinking of the fundamental constituent of reality as information, processes, or relationships resolves the mind/body problem, as what we are are not physical objects or mental subjects. We are a relationship of many processes, or information.

Knowing is the process of using stored sensory information for some purpose, even it's just (re)calling the information into working memory. Knowledge is that stored information that is (re)called. Knowledge can also be attained by integrating the stored information like we do in philosophical and scientific endeavors, taking two or more things we know and integrating them to acquire a greater understanding of a larger part of reality. Good philosophy is that which attempts to integrate all knowledge and discard those parts that do not integrate nicely with the whole or are not substantiated by observations.

Knowledge of the self is an integration of various observations and prior knowledge. If the self is thought about as only the subject, or the mind, then an infinite regress is created like the one created when a camera that is connected to the monitor turns back to look at the monitor and creates a visual feedback loop, or the infinite tunnel, on the screen. The thinking process loops back on itself, thinking about thinking. What we are really doing is talking about thinking - talking to ourselves about our own thinking. With language we can use symbols to refer to our own awareness and mental processes, but that does not mean that we are only our awareness or mental processes, so thinking that your mental processes are your only processes is what creates the problem.

What are the boundaries of me and you? If everything is a relationship, then where does the me stop and the you begin? Our boundaries become blurred when we interact with each other. That blur/interaction is another relationship. The boundaries can be arbitrary as it appears to be dependent upon what we are talking about at any given moment (our bodies vs our conversation). I would say that our agreed upon boundary is the spatial-temporal limits of our tactile sensations, or the surface of our skin. By integrating sensory information (like visual and tactile) we can see further than we can touch. All senses, except maybe taste, have an extended spatial dimension. We use the information one sense is providing us to confirm what another sense is informing us of (integrating sensory information (ie consciousness). Subjectivity comes from the way the information is "displayed" with the spatial dimensions from all the senses overlaid and the world being located relative to the location of the body. Subjectivity is the way the sensory information is arranged as a relationship between body and world. It's not useful to me to know how the world looks from your position. To navigate the world, I need to know how it looks from my perspective. The world is not located relative to my eyes, but that is how it appears because that is what is useful. A view from nowhere is not useful when navigating the world, finding food and mates and avoiding predators. Imagining views from nowhere (science and philosophy) are only useful if they help us navigate the world from a view from somewhere.
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bahman
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by bahman »

Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am Proof:

1. It is not possible to know the unknowable
2. A world outside the knowing is unknowable
If by unknowable you mean a world that cannot be known then you need to show that such a world exists.
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am 3. It is not possible to know a world outside the knowing
True if you can show that unknowable exists.
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am 4. Mind is knowing
No. Mind knows things. Mind is not knowing.
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am 5. It is not possible to know a world outside the mind
Does not follow. Please read the previous comments.
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am 6. It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind
Does not follow. Please read the previous comments.
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am 7. The world is my mind
Does not follow. Please read the previous comments.
popeye1945
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by popeye1945 »

Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am Proof:

1. It is not possible to know the unknowable
2. A world outside the knowing is unknowable
3. It is not possible to know a world outside the knowing
4. Mind is knowing
5. It is not possible to know a world outside the mind
6. It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind
7. The world is my mind
It is impossible to escape one's subjective nature, and this is the only way we come to know the world. It is not possible to know if something outside our subjective consciousness can exist or does exist.
socrat44
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by socrat44 »

popeye1945 wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:21 am
Magnolia5275 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 3:15 am Proof:

1. It is not possible to know the unknowable
2. A world outside the knowing is unknowable
3. It is not possible to know a world outside the knowing
4. Mind is knowing
5. It is not possible to know a world outside the mind
6. It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind
7. The world is my mind
It is impossible to escape one's subjective nature, and this is the only way we come to know the world. It is not possible to know if something outside our subjective consciousness can exist or does exist.
Did you have consciousness before you were born?
Iwannaplato
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Iwannaplato »

popeye1945 wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:21 am It is impossible to escape one's subjective nature, and this is the only way we come to know the world. It is not possible to know if something outside our subjective consciousness can exist or does exist.
If you are correct, who is the we you are talking to? You say 'our'. How do you know others like you exist? How do you know they are like you?
popeye1945
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by popeye1945 »

Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2023 6:27 am
popeye1945 wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:21 am It is impossible to escape one's subjective nature, and this is the only way we come to know the world. It is not possible to know if something outside our subjective consciousness can exist or does exist.
If you are correct, who is the we you are talking to? You say 'our'. How do you know others like you exist? How do you know they are like you?
Observations and assumptions.
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Iwannaplato »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2023 10:06 am
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2023 6:27 am
popeye1945 wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:21 am It is impossible to escape one's subjective nature, and this is the only way we come to know the world. It is not possible to know if something outside our subjective consciousness can exist or does exist.
If you are correct, who is the we you are talking to? You say 'our'. How do you know others like you exist? How do you know they are like you?
Observations and assumptions.
So, via observations and assumptions you can know about if something outside your subjective consciousness can exist or does not exist.
popeye1945
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by popeye1945 »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sun Jun 18, 2023 10:13 am
popeye1945 wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2023 10:06 am
Iwannaplato wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2023 6:27 am
If you are correct, who is the we you are talking to? You say 'our'. How do you know others like you exist? How do you know they are like you?
Observations and assumptions.
So, via observations and assumptions you can know about if something outside your subjective consciousness can exist or does not exist.
No, to you others are also objects, even your own body is an object in the physical world. We accept other people as like us because they look and behave like us, so, here is where assumption comes in. Nothing can be known outside of subjective consciousness, and apparent reality is bodily experience.
Iwannaplato
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by Iwannaplato »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:01 am No, to you others are also objects, even your own body is an object in the physical world. We accept other people as like us because they look and behave like us, so, here is where assumption comes in. Nothing can be known outside of subjective consciousness, and apparent reality is bodily experience.
So, you don't know if we are limited in the way you know you are. And when you talk about the situation you don't know it, you are speculating.
popeye1945
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Re: It is not possible for me to know the world outside my mind

Post by popeye1945 »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sun Jun 18, 2023 1:19 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:01 am
No, to you others are also objects, even your own body is an object in the physical world. We accept other people as like us because they look and behave like us, so, here is where assumption comes in. Nothing can be known outside of subjective consciousness, and apparent reality is bodily experience.
So, you don't know if we are limited in the way you know you are. And when you talk about the situation you don't know it, you are speculating.
You are a conscious entity; others are objects that look and behave like you and your assumption is, they are conscious subjects in a physical world of mostly objects lacking consciousness.
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