Philosophy Now Forum

Cuz there's an awful lot of 'crazy' in the world that needs combattin'. Solipsism is one strain of 'crazy' [shit] that needs combattin'. If a body rolls around in that crazy [shit] he's gonna end up crazy as a shithouse rat).

It's the same reason I defend free will: I see folks who damned well KNIOW they're free willed defend the idea they're not (deny their own experience of self-direction) cuz they read it in a book; I see folks deny they -- as selves -- even exist, as they type furiously expressing themselves.

It's why I oppose communism cuz there are folks who -- despite the anti-human, anti-individual nature of communism -- promote it, defend it, would shackle me (and you) to see it locked in to place.

It's why I oppose Islamism, transgenderism, identity politics, and on and on: again, there's an awful lot of 'crazy' in the world (I live in in the world so it's my best interest to promote sanity).

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"You know you exist but you don't know whether other people are real or just a figment of your feverish imagination."

I know me, know my limits: you exist pigeon, I absolutely KNOW you do.

Have you not seen a dead body?

So what makes that body "dead"? If that body was called "Joe Smith", then why do we think "Joe Smith" isn't here anymore when the thing we call "Joe Smith" still exists?

Something isn't right and the mind/ego will try to slough it off, and it'll probably work.

Dontaskme wrote: No thing is alive. ...

Not quite, only some things are alive.

You have no way of knowing if you are alive or dead. ...

Well obviously I can't know I'm dead when I'm dead as I'm dead but I know I'm alive as I'm not dead.

Who told you you are alive and that one day you will die? ...

My Gran but she only said that one day I will die, as presumably she thought it too stupid to tell me I'm alive.

Did you from your first person appearance witness your own birth? ...

Well I had it happen to me it but I doubt it was from 'first person appearance'(whatever that is?) as at the time I was not fully developed.

will you witness your own death?

Eh!? How could I witness it? What I will be doing is experiencing dying.

You have no knowledge of such states as birth and death.

The regression therapists disagree with you but they're probably mad too. If you mean by 'state' a thing to experience then death is not such a thing as one is dead but birth is a state that happens to one. Can one have knowledge of it? I doubt it as memory and language is not well developed at that stage.

roydop wrote:So what makes that body "dead"? ...

It's not breathing, moving, eating, etc.

If that body was called "Joe Smith", then why do we think "Joe Smith" isn't here anymore when the thing we call "Joe Smith" still exists?

Because the alive body 'Joe Smith' is now dead but the dead body 'Joe Smith' has not yet decomposed or been cremated.

Something isn't right and the mind/ego will try to slough it off, and it'll probably work.

Everything is just right and dandy.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 1:46 am schizophrenics wanna know

as do all seekers of knowledge

-Imp

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 2:57 am

Impenitent wrote:I do not deny the possible existence of an external world, you simply asked me to give you an argument to demonstrate how language could be a totally internally created entity. ...

Sorry I must have missed it?

I do deny your "proof" of said external world. ...

Actually it's a proof of an other or do you claim that if it was possible to raise a baby without contact it would speak English or any other such language of your choice?

proof of an other inside your head is not empirically demonstrable...

esse est percipi - Berkeley

-Imp

So what is perceiving you if you are a solipsist?

according to the bishop, it's god.

and what is on second.

-Imp

lint & lobotomies

Dontaskme wrote: Have you seen the seer of a dead body?

Ah! The good old 'seer' I wondered how long it would be before that popped up. So which of your 'seers' are you talking about, the one that presumably we could call 'mind' or the mystical metaphysical one you've plastered over the noumena? If the former then I don't think you can see a 'mind' as I don't think it is a thing separate from the being of a body but what you can see is a living body and the difference between that and a dead one.

Impenitent wrote:proof of an other inside your head is not empirically demonstrable...

But I don't say there is an other inside my head( other than the one created by language which we call the 'I') but that inside my head I can think in a language that has constructs that for the life of me I can't understand I could create if I was the only thing around and as such I think I can logically deduce that there is an other who speaks my language out there who is not me.

according to the bishop, it's god. ...

Then there is an other out there.

and what is on second.

-Imp

I thought Watt was on second?

roydop:
If that body was called "Joe Smith", then why do we think "Joe Smith" isn't here anymore when the thing we call "Joe Smith" still exists?

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:24 pmBecause the alive body 'Joe Smith' is now dead but the dead body 'Joe Smith' has not yet decomposed or been cremated.

So now there appears to be two things (the body) and ( Joe Smith) so what knows it's dead? ...is it the body that knows it's dead, or is it Joe Smith that knows it's dead?

And how can a single body be two things?



.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:33 amBut I don't say there is an other inside my head( other than the one created by language which we call the 'I') but that inside my head I can think in a language that has constructs that for the life of me I can't understand I could create if I was the only thing around and as such I think I can logically deduce that there is an other who speaks my language out there who is not me.

It is the knowledge/language that creates the I ...absence of knowledge what are you?

A thought arises in you that says I am Arising_uk ..you know this from memory because someone else gave you your name and you took on that name, and that became your identity...but that identity has been superimposed upon your original not-knowing, this supposition has created a you ( I) ...that I was not yours...it's just an idea...and those other people outside of you are thoughts too...you cannot directly experience outside of you...you can only directly experience you ...you have no idea what you are except what the mind puts there via thought...do you see?
Thought creates the space between the thinker and his thoughts, and then tells himself, "I am looking at my thoughts'' ...but we all know this is a fiction, no thought has seen another thought, what does a thought look like? but a mirror image of that thought, an image of the imageless...do you see the dilemma?


So then we have to ask, where do thoughts of I come from? where did the very first ( I ) come from? ....this is the infinite regress problem...and that is why your knowledge can only inform you of your fictional character that you then believe to be real...prior to this believed fictional character.... what are you? are you even here/there?

As you can see, you are indeed self-creating...the only one around. Knowledge informs the illusory nature of reality.
Be yourself, the real fictional character as believed, nothing but dreamscape within dreamscape all the way down.

The picture is in the painter, the painter is not in the picture.

.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:29 am

Dontaskme wrote: Have you seen the seer of a dead body?

Ah! The good old 'seer' I wondered how long it would be before that popped up. So which of your 'seers' are you talking about, the one that presumably we could call 'mind' or the mystical metaphysical one you've plastered over the noumena? If the former then I don't think you can see a 'mind' as I don't think it is a thing separate from the being of a body but what you can see is a living body and the difference between that and a dead one.

Notice I never mentioned two seers ..you did.
I said have you seen the seer of yourself the one you claim to be the seer seeing a dead body? ..if your body is dead, who is still alive seeing that dead body?

So if the mind is not separate from the body, and the mind cannot be seen by the body, that is saying it is the body that can see it is alive and dead?
If the body is dead like you assume, then how can that body know it is dead if it's dead?

Can you see that the body cannot know whether it is alive or dead?

So what knows?



.

Dontaskme wrote: So now there appears to be two things (the body) and ( Joe Smith) so what knows it's dead? ...is it the body that knows it's dead, or is it Joe Smith that knows it's dead? ...

Neither as it is dead.
Although I'm not saying that it is impossible for there to be a life after death for 'Joe Smith' as who knows but if there is then 'he'll' be a body with senses, memory and a language in an external world.

And how can a single body be two things?

Depends what you mean by 'things' but essentially it can't.

Dontaskme wrote:Notice I never mentioned two seers ..you did. ...

My apologies, all this 'seerering' got to me. So just to be clear there is only one seer in your metaphysic. If so what am I seeing right now?

I said have you seen the seer of yourself the one you claim to be the seer seeing a dead body? ...

That is not what I claim, what I claim is that if one is dead then I won't be seering.

..if your body is dead, who is still alive seeing that dead body?

Depends upon if I've outlived all my friends or family or if I've died where someone can find me but generally in my culture the one who is still alive seeing my dead body will be the funeral director.

So if the mind is not separate from the body, and the mind cannot be seen by the body, ...

Er!? My opinion is that there is no 'mind' as a separate entity from the body.

that is saying it is the body that can see it is alive and dead? ...

Wave your hands about in front of your face, pay attention to your breathing, feel the weight in your soles, etc, you are alive. Now of course you can say but what about coma patients and my answer would be that they are still alive as they are breathing but don't know it as they are not conscious. Of course some have said they were but just couldn't move.

If the body is dead like you assume, then how can that body know it is dead if it's dead?

It can't as it is dead.

Can you see that the body cannot know whether it is alive or dead?

No I can't, as I can see that it can see that it is alive but it certainly can't see that it is dead as it is dead.

So what knows?

The living.

Dontaskme wrote:It is the knowledge/language that creates the I ...absence of knowledge what are you?

You mean in the absence of language? If so I am a body with senses and memory in an external world.

A thought arises in you that says I am Arising_uk ...

Not really, the thought arises that I am called Arising_uk here.

..you know this from memory because someone else gave you your name and you took on that name, ...

Nope, I made that one up all by myself.

and that became your identity...

Nope, it became a part of my identity.

but that identity has been superimposed upon your original not-knowing, this supposition has created a you ( I) ...that I was not yours...it's just an idea...and those other people outside of you are thoughts too...you cannot directly experience outside of you...you can only directly experience you ...you have no idea what you are except what the mind puts there via thought...do you see?

Hold on! Are you saying there is an entity called 'mind'? Are there lots of them or only one in your metaphysic? If the latter what am I thinking right now?

Thought creates the space between the thinker and his thoughts, and then tells himself, "I am looking at my thoughts'' ...but we all know this is a fiction, no thought has seen another thought, what does a thought look like? but a mirror image of that thought, an image of the imageless...do you see the dilemma?

I have a distinction between 'thoughting' and 'thinking', the latter is what one does with language and the internal voice, the former is what does in the absence of the latter and is made up of the remembered representations provided by the body's senses. So can I look at my thoughts? No if what is meant by the operations of the body's subsytems, i.e, the firing of the CNS, the passage of the chemicals of the endocrine system, etc but yes if I pay attention to the thoughts behind the thinks, i.e. I can think of me and then pay attention to the various thoughts that arise with that thinks.

So then we have to ask, where do thoughts of I come from? where did the very first ( I ) come from?

Depends what you mean by 'I'?

If you mean the 'I' of language then the first was with the first two creatures that had memory and the means and necessity to communicate their experience of the external world.

....this is the infinite regress problem... ...

It's only an infinite regress is you ignore the ground of the body.

and that is why your knowledge can only inform you of your fictional character that you then believe to be real...prior to this believed fictional character.... what are you? are you even here/there?

I an a body with senses, memory and a language in an external world and 'here' is where this body is and 'there' is either an other body observing me or where I want to go next.

As you can see, you are indeed self-creating...the only one around. ...

Then who are you talking to?

Knowledge informs the illusory nature of reality. ...

There is nothing illusory about there being an external world.

Be yourself, the real fictional character as believed, nothing but dreamscape within dreamscape all the way down. ...

Except you have a ground in this 'seer' of yours do you not?

The picture is in the painter, the painter is not in the picture.

They surely are as a painting, if done by a person, is an expression of the painters thoughts, an attempt to communicate them.