Reality as Construct

[DogmaHunter]

Yes, you can say that. But then reasoning or knowledge doesn't exist either. So... if that is the case, then no worries, as we don't actually have any existence worthy of the word. It seems a bit far fetched to my own experience, but a lot of 'reality' seems counter-intuitive, though we would thus have refuted almost everything we believe of ourselves and the world though.

I think the point is that atheists don't consider the mind and the brain to be 2 independent entities.

The "mind", in terms of some "soul", does not exist as far as atheists are concerned.

When I speak of "the mind", what I actually mean is the neural network in the brain.
And that doesn't imply that reasoning or knowledge doesn't exist in any way.

It just means that I don't believe that there is some "ghost" hiding in my body that exists (or can exist) independently of my body.

 

[cloudyday2]

I think the point is that atheists don't consider the mind and the brain to be 2 independent entities.

Also the brain is not distinct from the body and from the surroundings. A simple example would be a person counting on his fingers and toes. Or maybe you are Sir Isaac Newton and the mythical apple falls on your head.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I think the point is that atheists don't consider the mind and the brain to be 2 independent entities.

The "mind", in terms of some "soul", does not exist as far as atheists are concerned.

When I speak of "the mind", what I actually mean is the neural network in the brain.
And that doesn't imply that reasoning or knowledge doesn't exist in any way.

It just means that I don't believe that there is some "ghost" hiding in my body that exists (or can exist) independently of my body.

This is a fairly irrelevant 'point'. I already addressed that even if we view ourselves as purely an aspect of our neural function, whether an emergent property or not, that any conception of our world would remain an abstraction drawn. As a consequence, any intersubjectivity beyond a pure solipsism, either has to be phrased according to a perception that only would be valid as an external framework, or would be inherently unverifiable. The latter even counts for a materialistic solipsism, though. This was the whole point of my mentioning of neurophysiology in the OP. Perhaps I can try and repeat myself and explain in more depth if you like. What did you not understand or where are you confused?

 

[DogmaHunter]

This is a fairly irrelevant 'point'. I already addressed that even if we view ourselves as purely an aspect of our neural function, whether an emergent property or not, that any conception of our world would remain an abstraction drawn. As a consequence, any intersubjectivity beyond a pure solipsism, either has to be phrased according to a perception that only would be valid as an external framework, or would be inherently unverifiable. The latter even counts for a materialistic solipsism, though. This was the whole point of my mentioning of neurophysiology in the OP. Perhaps I can try and repeat myself and explain in more depth if you like. What did you not understand or where are you confused?

In case of this post, it's all the buzzwords and jargon that confuses me.
That's not meant to be an insult or something. I just don't know what you are saying.

Take this sentence for example:

As a consequence, any intersubjectivity beyond a pure solipsism, either has to be phrased according to a perception that only would be valid as an external framework, or would be inherently unverifiable.

I have no idea what that means.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

For atheists, there is an easy solution: the mind doesn't exist.

Yes, atheists use their minds to conclude that their minds don't exist. Also, we have fetus salads and we hold regular invocations of Satan despite the fact that our nonexistent minds don't believe in the existence of Satan.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

In case of this post, it's all the buzzwords and jargon that confuses me.
That's not meant to be an insult or something. I just don't know what you are saying.

Take this sentence for example:

As a consequence, any intersubjectivity beyond a pure solipsism, either has to be phrased according to a perception that only would be valid as an external framework, or would be inherently unverifiable.

I have no idea what that means.

It's exactly as Aron Ra says. The Christian position is so weak that they can't be right unless realty itself is wrong. Therefore, they attack reality.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

It's exactly as Aron Ra says. The Christian position is so weak that they can't be right unless realty itself is wrong. Therefore, they attack reality.

You are being quite silly again.
Where do you think the idea that there is an objective verifiable external reality, that has systematic order, comes from?
It is an idea of the Mediaeval Scholastics, from which Science arose. Fundamentally, the Christian worldview is present within the very foundation of the sciences. It is not councidence that the Scientific Revolution arose in Christendom nor that the Perso-Arab flowering of Sciences came on the back of Aristotleanism.

Those that have been systematically undermining reality as perceived, is Science, not religion. The solidity of objects gave way to atomic theory, whose atoms themselves became vacuous. Consequently with Heisenberg's Uncertainty and Quantum theory, even the determinism and observable nature thereof, fell apart. Macroscopically, Relativity theory dealt a deathblow to objective measurement, as time and length and whatnot, changes constantly. The very fact that observation of an object changes the nature of the observed object, collapses a wave or whichever iteration of this idea you prefer, is significant.

Then in Medicine, Neurology, as I described in the OP, has completely destroyed the idea that what we perceive is accurate. All our observations are altered. Physiologically, we don't perceive what actually our sensory bodies pick-up. It gets even worse when Psychological experiments of our derived observations get taken into account - that we see what we expect mostly, and psychologically can prune out even what should be explicitly observable.

The Sciences has replaced reality that we all supposedly acknowledge, with complex mathematical models and abstract structures. The only thing holding the tenuous silver thread from madness, is the inherited philosophical baggage of Christianity.
When and if this is cut, all bets are off. So long as it remains, then everything loops back, by hook or by crook, if you investigate enough. Idealism, or any claim of verifiable external reality, deals in phantoms that leads the long way home. For there to be data at all, that is anything but pure solipsistic subjectivity, this remains the case. Materialism cannot abide reality as it is conceived, for it has to sneak in assumptions borrowed from religion to remain coherent - if the religious point this out, then the materialist argues the religious are 'attacking reality'.

First take out the beam from your own eye, before looking for the mote in your brother's.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

In case of this post, it's all the buzzwords and jargon that confuses me.
That's not meant to be an insult or something. I just don't know what you are saying.

Take this sentence for example:

As a consequence, any intersubjectivity beyond a pure solipsism, either has to be phrased according to a perception that only would be valid as an external framework, or would be inherently unverifiable.

I have no idea what that means.

I apologise if my writing is a bit difficult. Not everyone is a wordsmith. You can look up any words you don't understand, though.

That sentence though: Intersubjectivity means just what it says - Inter/Subject/ity - the ability to determine between two subjective views a commonality. For all of our views are subjective, as the only experience you actually have is your own. All supposed 'objective' values are cobbled together from subjective viewpoints, via intersubjectivity. So intersubjectivity that 'actually exists', as opposed to a solipsistic view (as in only my own experience is verifiable) view thereof, has to work by an assumed framework of reality from within which both subjective perceptions function. To have a logical validity, to be a coherent idea, any human experience, empirically derived or otherwise, requires a common framework that these things are assumed to be experiencing (or perceiving therefore). Either there is only solipsism or there is commonality, for my solipsistic experience cannot verify yours, so a intersubjectivity composed solely of solipsisms, cannot be logically coherent or valid.

I hope that helps you understand better.

 

[KCfromNC]

As a consequence, any intersubjectivity beyond a pure solipsism, either has to be phrased according to a perception that only would be valid as an external framework, or would be inherently unverifiable.

I have no idea what that means.

We can't, like, be, like, totally sure that we're not, like, living in the matrix, dude.

Most people get past this as freshmen in college. Others get stuck on it for the rest of their lives.

 

[KCfromNC]

You are being quite silly again.
Where do you think the idea that there is an objective verifiable external reality, that has systematic order, comes from?
It is an idea of the Mediaeval Scholastics

This doesn't even pass the sniff test. Ancient Greeks and Egyptians sure spent a lot of time building stuff they didn't think existed if it were true.

 

[cloudyday2]

Yes, atheists use their minds to conclude that their minds don't exist. Also, we have fetus salads and we hold regular invocations of Satan despite the fact that our nonexistent minds don't believe in the existence of Satan.

The mind is a rationalization for the brain's behavior. It doesn't actually exist IMO. Our consciousness is basically the same - just a rationalization. We don't exist at all - just a delusion.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

This doesn't even pass the sniff test. Ancient Greeks and Egyptians sure spent a lot of time building stuff they didn't think existed if it were true.

Disingenuous.

Ancient Egypt believed the sky was the body of Nut that swallowed the Solar barque, or that the sun was pushed by the scarab Khepri, or was birthed by Hathor, or was merely the Solar barque transporting Ra. That hardly allows for systematic examination of reality nor that it is consistent.

Ancient Greece had Parmenides that said movement and change was impossible, but at the same time gave us the philosophical tools that eventually allowed the modern philosophical view to be articulated, based on the Peripatetics.

Accepting the framework of observable and repeatable reality, determinable by empiric means, does not mean that if this is not accepted, that reality therefore 'doesn't exist'. Even Buddhists that consider the world to be Void or Sunya, build pagodas. It all rests on assumptions on the nature of reality, of which the modern view is derived largely from mediaeval scholasticism.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

The mind is a rationalization for the brain's behavior. It doesn't actually exist IMO. Our consciousness is basically the same - just a rationalization. We don't exist at all - just a delusion.

I wanted to mention George Berkeley to you. Your ideas of reality merely being in the mind of God from earlier, made me think of him. He had much the same idea.

George Berkeley (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Uber Genius]

My argument goes back to Plato and beyond. I even referenced the ancients in the OP. It is the idea that the Forms, abstract adjectival things, are essentially more real than our own perceptions. It is Plato's idea of the fact that we require Knowledge of the Knowledge we hold. It is also somewhat akin to Avicenna's floating man argument. Another precedent is Pyrrho's radical scepticism (which denies anything can really be known, even self-knowledge) which Augustine tried to refute in the Enchiridion. Descartes was working from a well-known tradition, but too often everyone thinks thought started at the Renaissance...

My point was to highlight the crescendo of skepticism not, as you suggest, misrepresent it as beginning with Descartes. Plato was no skeptic though. He was a Platonist in that he thought that the abstract forms were the design patterns for what existed in the world. He thought that concepts such as "the good" really existed! Abstract objects like the number 2 actual exist on Platonism. Plotinus builds out idealism further.

My point is that we seem to have more reasons to believe in realism by virtue of our experience of the real world than of anti-realism/idealism. Namely, our exerience of the external world and other minds. The reason I brought up Descartes is that he inaugurates a modern discussions on these polar opposite epistemically inferences. He is the first to claim that all we can know is the contents of our mind or consciousness. So he is the correct focal point.

Bishop George Berkeley suggested that no one has any direct or unmediated knowledge of the world. God is the efficient cause of all our perceptions. He is the extreme in the idealist camp.

Why not instead, think that we have a real world that we can perceive more fully over time? That insight is given to biblical authors and Mystics alike that is valuable for us to reflect on in our own journey.

It seems that this approach equally values the Mystics at the same time avoiding the self-refuting claims around knowledge and the recalcitrant facts of idealism.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The mind is a rationalization for the brain's behavior. It doesn't actually exist IMO. Our consciousness is basically the same - just a rationalization. We don't exist at all - just a delusion.

You're describing yourself as both an agnostic and as a generic theist, so I don't know why you presumed to speak for atheists. Furthermore, I don't think you speak for agnostics or theists either when you say the mind doesn't exist.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You are being quite silly again.

Again?

Where do you think the idea that there is an objective verifiable external reality, that has systematic order, comes from?

Infants develop the notion of object permanence on their own.

It is an idea of the Mediaeval Scholastics, from which Science arose.

At best you can say it is a notion that they formalized or developed, but they did not conceive of it.

Fundamentally, the Christian worldview is present within the very foundation of the sciences.

LOL.

Christianity:
1.) Compelled beliefs
2.) Forbidden beliefs
3.) Belief without evidence is a virtue
4.) Virtually all core beliefs are, scientifically speaking, impossible

Hmm, yes, I see how science came out of that.

It is not councidence that the Scientific Revolution arose in Christendom nor that the Perso-Arab flowering of Sciences came on the back of Aristotleanism.

Yes it is.

Those that have been systematically undermining reality as perceived, is Science, not religion. The solidity of objects gave way to atomic theory, whose atoms themselves became vacuous.

I think the point there is that it isn't physical matter which is what makes things seem solid, but forces. And in that regard, atoms are not vacuous. Forces are everywhere.

Consequently with Heisenberg's Uncertainty and Quantum theory, even the determinism and observable nature thereof, fell apart. Macroscopically, Relativity theory dealt a deathblow to objective measurement, as time and length and whatnot, changes constantly. The very fact that observation of an object changes the nature of the observed object, collapses a wave or whichever iteration of this idea you prefer, is significant.

This is why the elimination of bias is important. I don't see where this idea is present in Christianity.

Then in Medicine, Neurology, as I described in the OP, has completely destroyed the idea that what we perceive is accurate. All our observations are altered. Physiologically, we don't perceive what actually our sensory bodies pick-up. It gets even worse when Psychological experiments of our derived observations get taken into account - that we see what we expect mostly, and psychologically can prune out even what should be explicitly observable.

Right, but has it ever occurred to you that we can still just do the best we can? You seem to prefer to just toss up your hands and scream, "Nothing is real!"

The Sciences has replaced reality that we all supposedly acknowledge, with complex mathematical models and abstract structures. The only thing holding the tenuous silver thread from madness, is the inherited philosophical baggage of Christianity.

I'd love to see you attempt to demonstrate this.

When and if this is cut, all bets are off. So long as it remains, then everything loops back, by hook or by crook, if you investigate enough. Idealism, or any claim of verifiable external reality, deals in phantoms that leads the long way home. For there to be data at all, that is anything but pure solipsistic subjectivity, this remains the case. Materialism cannot abide reality as it is conceived, for it has to sneak in assumptions borrowed from religion to remain coherent - if the religious point this out, then the materialist argues the religious are 'attacking reality'.

Assumptions borrowed from religion?

First take out the beam from your own eye, before looking for the mote in your brother's.

I have an idea for a drinking game. Bust out quotes of Jesus that NO ONE ON EARTH abides by. You went first, so I'll take a drink. My turn:

 

[cloudyday2]

You're describing yourself as both an agnostic and as a generic theist, so I don't know why you presumed to speak for atheists. Furthermore, I don't think you speak for agnostics or theists either when you say the mind doesn't exist.

Hmmm, when I was an atheist, that is what I believed. There is no mind. There is a colony of cells - not much different from a slime mold. ... Anyway, whatever you think is fine with me.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Hmmm, when I was an atheist, that is what I believed. There is no mind. There is a colony of cells - not much different from a slime mold. ... Anyway, whatever you think is fine with me.

This is the equivalent of saying that cars have no engines because it's just metal, rubber, and plastic.

 

[cloudyday2]

This is the equivalent of saying that cars have no engines because it's just metal, rubber, and plastic.

No it is the equivalent of saying that cars do not have minds.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

No it is the equivalent of saying that cars do not have minds.

Ummmm... no.