Philosophy Now Forum

I usually do it as a preventive measure.

Say you know someone fresh out of prison about to commit the crime that will cause a third strike, locked up for life scenario. Got into the wrong crowd. I'll be mean to the degree to break up that crowd. I've done it before. Utilitarian. But it wasn't understood why. But he isn't in jail either. He just needed breathing room. I've done others too, but prefer nice.

Constantine wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:21 am I usually do it as a preventive measure.

Say you know someone fresh out of prison about to commit the crime that will cause a third strike, locked up for life scenario. Got into the wrong crowd. I'll be mean to the degree to break up that crowd. I've done it before. Utilitarian. But it wasn't understood why. But he isn't in jail either. He just needed breathing room. I've done others too, but prefer nice.

OK. So maybe I should understand your statement "Because I'm nice" as more along the lines of "because I'm being nice" or "Because I prefer to be nice in this case".

I'm just following the lead of Age. I think I'm beginning to understand him a little more.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 8:09 pm That's a good question.

'What', EXACTLY, is, supposedly, 'a good question' here?

I do NOT SEE ANY question ANYWHERE in that post.

But what I do SEE is an ACCUSATION, and a CLAIM, with an apparent ABSOLUTE REFUSAL to SUBSTANTIATE the ACCUSATION, and CLAIM.

And to make matters WORSE, THEN A CLAIM that it is hard to EXTRACT INFORMATION out of some people.

The amount of CONTRADICTION and HYPOCRISY that is SAID and WRITTEN in this forum would be SO SURPRISING, that is; if the reason WHY 'these people' DO 'this' was NOT ALREADY KNOWN.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 8:09 pm I would think that to "disprove" something is to show that something once thought to be true is shown to be either not true or else not proven.

Just like how the earth being flat, the sun revolving around earth, and the Universe expanding and began were all once thought to be true, but SHOWN otherwise.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 8:09 pm If "I think therefore I am" is not true or proven to someone, then whoever has "disproven" it perhaps doesn't agree that because he or she "thinks" that she or he "is". Or perhaps he or she disagrees that she or he "thinks"?

Or, JUST MAYBE absolutely NO one has CLAIMED this, IN ANY thread, which, for some reason, WILL NOT be named, and it is just CLAIMED that someone said 'this', in the hope to 'lure' or 'troll' "others" into a very specific kind of discussion?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 8:09 pm Not sure, but I suspect "eliminative materialism" is at work behind the claim that Descartes claim has been disproven.

Has even the CLAIM that there was A CLAIM that, ALLEGEDLY, ' "descartes" CLAIM has been disproved ', even been VERIFIED, and PROVED, itself YET?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 8:09 pm Can't say I hold eliminative materialism as a very ethical position to hold, but maybe that's because I happen to be a thing that also thinks.

'I' IS A 'Thing', which happens to be AWARE of SOME of the 'thoughts' arising and receding within a body.

Age wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:27 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 8:09 pm That's a good question.

'What', EXACTLY, is, supposedly, 'a good question' here?

I do NOT SEE ANY question ANYWHERE in that post.

Could it be that you weren't looking at the title of the thread?

Descartes I Think, Therefore I Am Disproven?

I have a long exposure to the use of coercive force. It doesn't win you friends. Well.... it does if you just want to show off. Proper use, with maximum preservation of self judgment and sense of free will leaves people thinking you are the offender causing a ruckus. It is like police in poor, crime ridden neighborhoods. If they do their job just right, everyone stands around staring at them like they are the bad guys for arresting a parent in a crowd with a kid crying. Kid is gonna think the cop evil.

I just regret I let a few close to me fall through the cracks. Lost a brother and sister to gangs and prison. But I also have alot of regrets other. Lived a complex, complicated life.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:49 pm

Constantine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:36 pm I was told in a thread that shall not be named that Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" position was recently attacked and disproven.

I've done a fair amount of digging around in his collected works and have lots of research done on the question of consciousness. The individual for whatever reason won't give me the source. If this source rings in someone's mind, please tell me.

And no, I'm not a Cartesian. I'm just interested. Hard to extract info out of some people.

There are arguments against the cogito, but it hasn't been disproven. Proofs are for math and symbolic logic. There are some good arguments against it or saying that it is weaker than it might seem at first glance. I looked at the other thread and while both of you were confusing at times, he was a pest and calling you asking for a source for the debunking a cop out was very silly.

The first main problem with the cogito is that just because there is thinking or really cognition going on it doesn't mean there is an 'I' for example.

But this is NOT what that 'term' or 'phrase' was meaning NOR inferring, well NOT to me anyway.

WHY did you ASSUME that 'this' is what 'that' means?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:49 pm There could just be this phenomenon. This experiencing, which either persists through some time or doesn't.

Constantine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:57 pm I agree there isn't always a basis for a I, but there is always a basis for a I when you deduce that. I'm not saying program a simple Lambda Calculus program to blurt that statement out is consciousness.... but if you can arrive at that conclusion with a sense of awareness having never been programmed to do so, then it is valid.

There does appear to be a great deal of consciousness that proceeds conscious awareness. Fighter pilots are cued into this. Snipers. Strategists. Ancient pythagoreans studying light patterns in the eyes. You don't have to have a sense of self for that, but you do need a reactive awareness and save for the bottom most lowest tier of phenomenology a point of orientation to observe from. But this doesn't require language skills and thus not Descartes. But that doesn't disprove him either.

WHY would ANY one even BEGIN TO ASSUME that there is NO 'Self'?

ASSUMING. Therefore, there IS SOME 'thing', generally known as an 'I'.

Or, 'I' ASSUME, therefore 'I' am.

Because it was assumed in the other thread by him/her.

And there are circumstances were you can have a selfless intelligent AI orienting and observing, such as cameras doing facial recognition searches that lack self awareness. Hence my frog conversation.... that was the biological side of the phenomena. But this wasn't really what the other thread was about. It was weird. He really wanted to win.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:03 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:49 pm

Constantine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 7:36 pm I was told in a thread that shall not be named that Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" position was recently attacked and disproven.

I've done a fair amount of digging around in his collected works and have lots of research done on the question of consciousness. The individual for whatever reason won't give me the source. If this source rings in someone's mind, please tell me.

And no, I'm not a Cartesian. I'm just interested. Hard to extract info out of some people.

There are arguments against the cogito, but it hasn't been disproven. Proofs are for math and symbolic logic. There are some good arguments against it or saying that it is weaker than it might seem at first glance. I looked at the other thread and while both of you were confusing at times, he was a pest and calling you asking for a source for the debunking a cop out was very silly.

The first main problem with the cogito is that just because there is thinking or really cognition going on it doesn't mean there is an 'I' for example. There could just be this phenomenon. This experiencing, which either persists through some time or doesn't.

How can there not be an "I".

There cannot NOT be.

To ASSUME that there IS NO 'I' would be, and IS, literally, 'Self'-refuting, or 'I'-refutation. Which IS, OBVIOUSLY, NOT even A POSSIBILITY.

For an 'I' to make a CLAIM that 'I' do NOT exist IS just ABSURDNESS and NONSENSICAL, in the EXTREME.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:49 pm Are you at this instant in which you are typing, not conscious?

BEFORE 'we' get carried away here, the 'you' and thee 'I' are NOT the SAME 'thing', and this is NOT from the perspective on 'me' typing here and 'you' typing there, NEITHER.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 9:49 pm While I admit you could be an AI chatbot for all I know, I can attest to the fact that I exist at this moment, and that I am having what we conscious beings refer to as "thoughts".

This is NOT EXACTLY True AND Right. But 'it' will suffice, for 'now'.

Constantine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:25 pm I can't figure out how to post images yet, but say you are able to see hynagogic hallucinations, such as colorful static in your eyes when closed or sometimes open. About 40% of the population can. That's 60% who can't. That static is a precursor for imagination. The human mind can manipulate it into shapes and things. It turns into the sleeping dream state.

These human beings keep BELIEVING and INSISTING that there is some such 'thing' as and called 'the human mind'.

When the ACTUAL Truth WAS REVEALED, the ACTUAL ABSURDITY and HILARIOUSNESS of 'this' IS, and BECOMES, CRYSTAL CLEAR.

Constantine wrote: ↑Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:25 pm At the most basic this static has a 0-1 duality. It can be 0-0, 0-1, or 1-1, for any two points side by side.... just like the static on a old analog TV set. Any two points side by side two any two points can likewise have this byte rule at times.

If you are a primitive organism, say a early worm in the Cambrian Era, a distant ancestor of ours, or a frog, that's essentially how you see. A frog will pick up a trajectory of something moving across the static doing a systematic flipping of the binary code, and snap its tongue out to grab it.

How self aware is a frog? How many species rear their young, and of the ones who sorta do, how many aren't prone to cannibalizing their young? Not many. Most are abandoned. They have a sense of observation and of pain and fear, for they leap the fuck away when I approach them.... but I doubt they have a deep sense of self. I have my doubts many are philosophers. A mole.... perhaps. A bird perhaps. A worm.... fuck no.

Ok. You win too.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:42 am I have always argued that the cogito amounts to the subject does something therefore the subject exists... it is circular...

Well that is EXACTLY NOT how I see 'it'.

But then 'I' NOT seeing 'things', in the days when this is being written, the way that 'you', adult human beings, DO is VERY COMMON.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:42 am Nietzsche had some arguments against it as well...

an article by Jonas Monte illustrates Nietzsche's positions:

https://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/monte-Sum_ergo_cogito.pdf

-Imp

Being AWARE of 'thinking', or 'thoughts', MEANS that there is SOME 'Thing' AWARE, or CONSCIOUS. And that 'Thing' is sometimes just referred to and called 'I'.

Also, and by the way, the ONLY 'thing' can be KNOWN, FOR SURE, are the 'thoughts', or 'thinking', occurring. Absolutely EVERY 'thing' ELSE could be a 'figment of the imagination'. But, AGAIN, there HAS TO BE SOME 'Thing', 'imagining'. And, AGAIN, this 'Thing', with the ABILITY TO be AWARE OF, or CONSCIOUS OF, 'things' is just sometimes known as 'I'.

I'm aware of the argument. I said you won.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:42 am I have always argued that the cogito amounts to the subject does something therefore the subject exists... it is circular...

Nietzsche had some arguments against it as well...

an article by Jonas Monte illustrates Nietzsche's positions:

https://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/monte-Sum_ergo_cogito.pdf

-Imp

From the quoted article:

Thus, Descartes does not call into doubt the conceptualization of thinking, existence, consciousness,
and so on.

I'm not sure what that means. As far as I'm aware, Descartes wanted to find a foundation based on something which he could not possibly doubt.

The two 'things', which could NOT be possibly doubted are there ARE 'thoughts' existing, AND, A 'Thing', which IS AWARE, or CONSCIOUS of, 'those thoughts'.

Now, the entire so-called 'physical Universe' could just be a COMPLETE 'figment of imagination'. BUT, 'the thoughts' that 'I' am AWARE OF, EXIST. Although, and obviously, EVERY one of 'those thoughts' could be False, Wrong, Inaccurate, and/or Incorrect, or partly so. BUT 'thoughts' EXIST and so does the One that IS AWARE of 'them'.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am That was the whole impetus of his meditations, the reason he undertook them. He was unsettled by all the uncertainty that was afflicting Europe at the time.

'Uncertainty', NATURALLY, exists, AND, so to does 'certainty', NATURALLY, exist. Neither is to be AFRAID, NOR SCARED, of, and which 'I' CERTAINLY NEVER AM, (which is CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, by some though).

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am So having a great interest in mathematics, he decided to try to see if he could build certainty in a Euclidean manner using a first axiom. He searched his thoughts for something that he could not even possibly doubt. He found that no matter how he approached it, he thought and because he thought, he must also be for if he were not, then he could not have thoughts.

'Thoughts', themselves, exist. But there is NOT 'one', which is 'having' thoughts. There is, however, One who IS, sometimes, AWARE of the 'thoughts', and 'thinking', which exist.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am How one defines something like "existence", "substance" "consciousness" etc is open for much debate, however, in its simplest form Descartes hit the one rock he couldn't break with doubt. He exists (or at least existed).

That "he" exists, or at least existed, is also up for QUESTIONING, and CHALLENGING.

WHO, and/or WHAT, IS 'It', which ACTUALLY exists? Is A QUESTION, which THE ANSWER FOR, is REALLY, literally, quite REVEALING.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am Of course, now he's stuck with the possibility of solipsism.

When what 'you', people, individually define 'solipsism', then 'we' can RESOLVE ANY and ALL issues, and/or problems, ANY of 'you' may well have here.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am He went on to "prove" that God exists

Who did "descartes" PROVE that God exists TO, EXACTLY?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am and that God is not a deceiver and that he can therefore trust the clear and distinct ideas in his mind, such as found in maths and science, etc.

"his mind"?

And, are you here saying that if one 'proves' God exists, to 'them', THEN they can TRUST EVERY so-called 'clear and distinct idea'?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am Whether he succeeded in getting out of the Cogito is subject to much debate, however, I will say, one probably cannot be an ethical agent in the world if one does not believe others exist in the same way as oneself.

The futility and faulty reasoning here IS SO OBVIOUS, that is; once one learns HOW to FIND, SEE, and KNOW what the ACTUAL Truth of 'things' IS, EXACTLY, here.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 1:00 am Therefore, I find it pragmatically impossible (even potentially unethical) to dwell only in the Cogito and be of the mind that no other being around us who is like us feels pain or joy or suffers or anything else as we do.

The CONTRADICTIONS and INCONSISTENCIES in sentences BECOME BLATANTLY OBVIOUS here once the Truth WAS FOUND, and KNOWN.

Constantine wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:14 am Because I'm nice.

If your reply here is in relation to my CLARIFYING QUESTION:
WHY will you NOT tell us in which thread that the CLAIM above appeared in?

Then okay. But I have absolutely NO clue AT ALL what 'nice' would have absolutely ANY 'thing' to do with REFUSAL to just name A thread.

Anyway, if that your reply here of yours is NOT in relation to my QUESTION, then what IS that reply in relation to, EXACTLY?

Constantine wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:14 am Some people don't know how to debate, and it was apparently really, really, really, really, really important I lose.

Are you talking to anyone in particular here?

If yes, then who, EXACTLY?

Also, and by the way, some do NOT even do 'debate', let alone wanting to learn how 'to debate'.

Constantine wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 3:14 am So I agreed to lose, but I really wanted his tangential mention of Descartes being proved wrong to materialize given it is a area I work on.

If I give the link, it will spoil his victory. It meant alot to him.

I STILL have absolutely NO idea NOR clue what you are even referring to here, except for 'some OTHER thread'.

But, then again, 'you' may NOT even be talking to 'me' anyway.