Philosophy Now Forum

Dubious wrote:

Reflex wrote:

Dubious wrote:It's perfectly coherent if you don't accept the concept. Nothing is easier to accept than that which doesn't exist. It requires no effort at all since there's nothing to think about.

So it is logically acceptable to deny that about which you know nothing?

Bottom line. There is no greater example of a nonreciprocating assignment than attempting to know by any logic known what is forever unknowable.

That's why we have intuition and imagination. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (A. E.)

Reflex wrote:

Dubious wrote:

Reflex wrote: So it is logically acceptable to deny that about which you know nothing?

Bottom line. There is no greater example of a nonreciprocating assignment than attempting to know by any logic known what is forever unknowable.

That's why we have intuition and imagination. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (A. E.)

Total BS. If "imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand" why strive for knowledge at all? Just use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

Whoever A.E. is, it's a cute poetic statement but thoroughly unrealistic, stupid and ignorant. Try living life that way and you'll soon be another initiate of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest cooperative.

Addendum: I should have known who A.E. is. It's always Albert who pretended to be Guru on just about everything. Had he lived up to the words written we wouldn't have remembered him for any good theories.

Reflex wrote:

Dubious wrote:It's perfectly coherent if you don't accept the concept. Nothing is easier to accept than that which doesn't exist. It requires no effort at all since there's nothing to think about.

So it is logically acceptable to deny that about which you know nothing?

"Logically". You really need to find out what that is all about. This is a philosophy forum.

Dubious wrote:

Reflex wrote:

Dubious wrote:
Bottom line. There is no greater example of a nonreciprocating assignment than attempting to know by any logic known what is forever unknowable.

That's why we have intuition and imagination. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (A. E.)

Total BS. If "imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand" why strive for knowledge at all? Just use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

Whoever A.E. is, it's a cute poetic statement but thoroughly unrealistic, stupid and ignorant. Try living life that way and you'll soon be another initiate of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest cooperative.

Addendum: I should have known who A.E. is. It's always Albert who pretended to be Guru on just about everything. Had he lived up to the words written we wouldn't have remembered him for any good theories.

Reflex wrote:

sthitapragya wrote:
God not only does not explain why energy is just so, it also does not explain why the universe is just so. And it definitely does not explain why God exists. Where is the common sense in saying God exists just because? If God can exist just because, what prevents the universe from existing just because?

Can you see the bias here?Your just because is better than my just because.

You're anthropomorphizing again; you're forgetting that God is not a being alongside other beings.

Where is the anthropomorphizing? You call God existence itself. And you then give existence consciousness and awareness. In fact, you are the one anthropomorphizing existence and therefore God. And that still does not explain the existence of existence and simply raises one more question. Why does God exist? I am simply pointing out to you that had you left the question at "why does existence exist", you would not have to deal with "why does God exist" too.

sthitapragya wrote: Where is the anthropomorphizing? You call God existence itself. And you then give existence consciousness and awareness. In fact, you are the one anthropomorphizing existence and therefore God. And that still does not explain the existence of existence and simply raises one more question. Why does God exist? I am simply pointing out to you that had you left the question at "why does existence exist", you would not have to deal with "why does God exist" too.

Your concerns have already been addressed. I'm not going to waste my time repeating myself.

Reflex wrote:

sthitapragya wrote: Where is the anthropomorphizing? You call God existence itself. And you then give existence consciousness and awareness. In fact, you are the one anthropomorphizing existence and therefore God. And that still does not explain the existence of existence and simply raises one more question. Why does God exist? I am simply pointing out to you that had you left the question at "why does existence exist", you would not have to deal with "why does God exist" too.

Your concerns have already been addressed. I'm not going to waste my time repeating myself.

No, they have not. You know it and I know it. You answer is "just because". You just don't want to say it now that you have yourself said that "just because" is an irrational answer.

I went back and checked and your answer to this question was that God exists just because the existence of God explains why energy is just so. But it does not explain why God exists or why God is just so.

Terrapin Station wrote: Concepts are not identical in such cases to what they're concepts of.

Yes they are. An apple is identical to it's concept.

Terrapin Station wrote:A concept of an apple is different than an apple. Concepts of apples etc. are not fixed.

A concept of an apple is not different from the apple. The Apple cannot exist without it's conception. Therefore any conception of an apple must be fixed.

An apple cannot exist in reality..some thing has to put it there....that some ''thing'' is a conceptual idea.

The apple is an idea....it's never existed, it's never been seen...it's only known via it's concept.

Who is the one seeing the apple? ..is there a separation between the seer of the apple and the seen apple?

If you close your eyes, you may say the apple is still there separate from the seeing....but wait, how can you know it to be an apple unless you've first seen the apple, conceived the apple?...the apple is known in it's image...but can you know from where the image is appearing...can the seer be seen?....seeing is known in the seen, but the seer can never be seen or known..... objects are conceived, that which conceives an object is inconceivable. ..therefore the object of seeing is an illusory image...a mirage.

Aliveness cannot be seen or known directly...because everything already is this without a second....we only worship the image and forget the aliveness in which they appear and disappear. What comes and goes is not alive...the aliveness is that in which things come and go...you come and go in what you cannot know because you are already THAT in which you come and go.


As for the rest of your replies to my responses, I think it best we leave well alone, as I can no more make you see or experience what I'm seeing or experiencing. The law of oneness... can only come from you, not other.

Dontaskme wrote:Yes they are. An apple is identical to it's concept.

As usual with you, I couldn't disagree more. I suppose this is one of the fundamental places that you're going off the rails. You're confusing intension and extension.

A concept of an apple is not different from the apple.

Yes, it is.

The Apple cannot exist without it's conception.

Not true in the slightest. Apples existed long before there were concepts of apples.

Therefore any conception of an apple must be fixed.

Even if I agreed with you, "therefore" is no therefore there. That's a non sequitur. "Any conception of an apple must be fixed" doesn't follow from "A concept of an apple is no different from an apple. The apple cannot exist without its conception."

An apple cannot exist in reality..

Which is a completely ridiculous, arbitrary thing to say.

some thing has to put it there....that some ''thing'' is a conceptual idea.

For the sake of argument, I can agree with "something has to put it there." The thing that put an apple "there" the history of plant life leading to apple trees, etc.

The apple is an idea....

There are ideas of apples, and the idea of apples is an idea, but that's not the same thing as an apple.

it's never existed, it's never been seen...it's only known via it's concept.

Apples exist and are regularly seen, eaten, etc.

Who is the one seeing the apple? ..

Joe, Betty, whoever happens to be seeing it in a particular case.

is there a separation between the seer of the apple and the seen apple?

No. But that doesn't imply conflating a concept and what the concept is of. It's rather than seeing is the act of being seen.

If you close your eyes, you may say the apple is still there separate from the seeing....but wait, how can you know it to be an apple unless you've first seen the apple, conceived the apple?

The apple in no way depends on anyone knowing what it is. Knowing that something is an apple is a separate issue from whether there are apples. These are very rudimentary philosophical confusions that you're making.

Aliveness cannot be seen or known directly...

Couldn't be more false. Again, you rarely utter a sentence that isn't false. You've got quite a track record for that.

Terrapin Station wrote:Not true in the slightest. Apples existed long before there were concepts of apples.

Do you realise that what you are saying is that the apple can be known before it is known?

How can an apple be known before it's known? ......that's doesn't make sense to me.

If you are so absolutely sure apples existed long before the concept ....please explain how you know that?

How would you know what an apple is unless you had a concept of it? on seeing an apple for the first time, how would you know it's an apple?

Dontaskme wrote: Yes they are. An apple is identical to it's concept.
.

The connection between the signified and the signifier is arbitrary.
If you really think what you say is true that would make it very hard for anyone to have any kind of reasonable conversation with you, as it borders on the ridiculous.

Dontaskme wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:Not true in the slightest. Apples existed long before there were concepts of apples.

Do you realise that what you are saying is that the apple can be known before it is known?

He is not saying that in any sense. DO you think the earth came into existence the moment the word "earth " was first used? Seriously?

Right. Dontaskme, I'm not saying anything about people knowing things when I say that apples existed prior to the concept of apples. That's because the existence of apples in no way requires people to know about or to have a concept of apples. It's beyond me how this can be at all confusing.

Malus baccata, for example, existed at least 10 million years ago. Humans did not. Humans appeared later. We know this from empirical evidence. Malus baccata didn't need anyone to know about it or construct concepts of apples in order to appear. It simply evolved from earlier plant species.

And in general we know that for anything natural, it doesn't appear due to us first constructing a concept of it. We rather construct our concepts about natural things in response to our experience of them. It seems ridiculous to me that I'd have to explain this to someone who isn't a three-year-old, and maybe even then it would be surprising, but, well . . .

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
DO you think the earth came into existence the moment the word "earth " was first used? Seriously?

The earth does not know it is an earth. The earth cannot look at itself to know it exists. So where does the earth exist?

It exists in a concept.

Earth is a concept known ...the known is known as the seen ..but the looker cannot be known by the concept seen.

The looker has no way of knowing what it is looking at...simply because the looker cannot be known...except in the concept it has of itself evidence in what it sees.... looking has no way of knowing where that looking is coming from... or what it's looking at..... the looking can only be located in what's looked at...what's looked at can only be known via the concept the looker has of itself.

Both the looker and the thing seen are the same one.

Every named ''thing'' is imagined.

Dontaskme wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
DO you think the earth came into existence the moment the word "earth " was first used? Seriously?

The earth does not know it is an earth. The earth cannot look at itself to know it exists. So where does the earth exist?

It exists in a concept.

Earth is a concept known ...the known is known as the seen ..but the looker cannot be known by the concept seen.

The looker has no way of knowing what it is looking at...simply because the looker cannot be known...except in the concept it has of itself evidence in what it sees.... looking has no way of knowing where that looking is coming from... or what it's looking at..... the looking can only be located in what's looked at...what's looked at can only be known via the concept the looker has of itself.

Both the looker and the thing seen are the same one.

Every named ''thing'' is imagined.

In other words, as soon as I imagine a thing, it pops into existence?
This might be appealing to you, but sadly it is not born out by the fact of experience.