Philosophy Now Forum

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pmExistence as a whole is not infinite because that is not possible.

What limits do you put on possibility? More to the point, why? Why is anything impossible?

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:11 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 4:52 pmOkay, let me start by asking you this: how do you expect me to "prove" anything, if you don't also believe I have a body? How am I going to type?

I do believe you have a body. So prove it.

Apparently, I don't need to. You've already judged it probabilistically, and decided you believe I have a body. I also believe it, though on much better probabilistic evidence.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:34 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:11 pmI do believe you have a body. So prove it.

Apparently, I don't need to. You've already judged it probabilistically, and decided you believe I have a body. I also believe it, though on much better probabilistic evidence.

What is your evidence?

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:47 pm No, we don't exist in causality, as there is no causality in Eternity.

Well, then, you don't believe in science (because it requires causality), and you don't believe in logic (because maths proves infinite regress impossible), and you don't believe in entropy (because it's a 'clock' on energy redistribution)...and you believe in impossible things instead. You believe in an eternal universe, though everything around you proves it's temporal.

I can't say I know how to overcome an aversion to evidence, when it operates at such a total level.

We do not come into existence; we come into consciousness of our existence.

Oh. Mysticism. The old "we are God" thing. How dull. How implausible.

I explained what cosmos is.

Try again.

The universe is a whole, and a cosmos is a part of it.

Wait: so "universe," to you, means all the material stuff that exists? And when you say "cosmos," you only mean a "part" of it?

...one cosmos in Existence (the universe).

Wait. Now you say that "cosmos" means "universe"? So it's no longer just a "part" of the universe?

You can see why your explanation is problematic to me. You just said two different things were "cosmos."

...as there are many dimensions in it stacked like pancakes. Every dimension has its own sky or "cosmos" or "universe" - for the inhabitants, that is their World...

Wait. So now, "dimension" does not mean "universe," and "universe" no longer means "all that exists," but "cosmos" now means the same as "universe"?

...inhabitants of other planets know the truth about one Existence or the Universe, many cosmoses, and many dimensions inside them.

So...now you're wanting to tell me about what "inhabitants of other planets" know? And now the "dimensions" are "inside" the "universe," which has "many cosmoses"? Could you just provide a concise definition for each of these terms, and use them consistently? In your above message, you've mixed them up to the point that it's impossible to judge what you're saying.

If you want to learn the truth about life on other planets, read my article on lucid dreaming...

Well, there's certainly some "dreaming" going on, but I'm not finding it at all "lucid."

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:47 pm If you want to learn the truth about life on other planets, read my article on lucid dreaming, learn it, and check it out for yourself:

Licid dreaming is a technique whereby one realizes one is in a dream and holds that awareness for periods of time in the dream. The technique is likely universal but as I remember it the Tibetans developed the practice as part of their branch of Buddhism. In the 70’s and 80’s the practices of Carlos Castaneda involved lucid dreaming.

A man I knew who was involved in the Castaneda scene in LA was a master at lucid dreaming according to his own stories. He was very good at it. But he told me that in the end one sees ‘there’ what one creates through the imagination faculty. And he felt he lost lots of time chasing phantasms.

In my own case I have had at least a handful of lucid dreams and yes it was all interesting but in the final analysis rather empty.

Why do you place such emphasis on it? And do you not consider that the world you ‘assemble’ there (to use a Castaneda term) is phantasmagorical, not ‘real’?

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:34 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:11 pmI do believe you have a body. So prove it.

Apparently, I don't need to. You've already judged it probabilistically, and decided you believe I have a body. I also believe it, though on much better probabilistic evidence.

What is your evidence?

I'm here. I have a body. I use it every day. It's how I do things, including writing stuff, or getting to the gym, where I exercise it. And you believe in my body, since you ask me to use it to "prove" things to you.

So clearly, the burden of (dis-)proof doesn't fall on me. It's up to somebody else to convince me that none of the probabilities as they seem to me are really probable, if they can do such a thing. And unless they can do that, the default assumption has to remain that I do have a body. That's the rational way to proceed.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:49 pm

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:47 pm If you want to learn the truth about life on other planets, read my article on lucid dreaming, learn it, and check it out for yourself:

Licid dreaming is...

I know. But a definition is not a justification. It's just a definition. Senad might as easily define "unicorn," and then expect me to believe I can have one in my yard.

Somebody is "lucidly dreaming" he knows what life there is on other planets. Or perhaps he should call NASA, and bring them up to speed.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:49 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:43 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:34 pm
Apparently, I don't need to. You've already judged it probabilistically, and decided you believe I have a body. I also believe it, though on much better probabilistic evidence.

What is your evidence?

I'm here.

Cogito ergo sum. How do you discern that you having a body is more probable than you only thinking you have a body?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:49 pmI have a body.

Which I believe, but prove it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:51 pm Somebody is "lucidly dreaming" he knows what life there is on other planets. Or perhaps he should call NASA, and bring them up to speed.

One thing about you, or I should say your religious, spiritual and general conceptual position (radical Evangelical Christian) is that the position itself cuts itself off from all religious and existential views that are not its own.

If you were aware of other practices or approaches (such as outlined in Vedanta, one example) you would be (I gather) compelled to see them as “works of the Devil” and pagan idolatry (etc) and therefore as false and unreal. That is one (huge) downside of Hebraic-influenced Christianity: judgmentalism, prejudice: arrogance.

My impression is that you have installed such a prejudicial view in your own self. Even Christian mysticism would, I gather, discomfort you.

Like Wilbur Boneman and many others here you have a mind that is structured in such a way that it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to even conceive of other perceptual modes. Any of those descriptions (of mystic experiences, perceptions, visions) would pass through your judgment faculty and be harshly judged, and I reckon you would determine them delusional.

It is a Vedic notion that just as our world and our ‘sphere’ (location) exists and is part-and-parcel of Creation (and yes, created by a divine entity) that other world ‘certainly’ exist.

So, if a ‘soul’ exists that could go to Heaven or Hell (speaking of possibilities you allow), it is ‘logically conceivable’ that a soul could voyage to another planet, another ‘planet’ (sphere, loka) and interact with intelligences there.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:31 pmLike Wilbur Boneman and many others here you have a mind that is structured in such a way that it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to even conceive of other perceptual modes.

Kinda my entire schtick. How do you manage it, Gus?

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pm Existence as a whole is not infinite because that is not possible.

Maybe it's possible. Maybe it's not. Anything you can't exhaust is effectively infinite.

You can't be sure it's finite until you get to the end of it.

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pm Energy, a part of Existence, is finite.

How do you know that? Have you exhausted all energy?

If you don't like the word "infinite" - use the word "unbounded"; or "limitless".

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pm You can prove the negative by proving that it is impossible that it to exist.

Proofs of impossibility only work within some specified theoretical contexts. That doesn't lead to universal truths of any kind - it only proves impossibility within that specific logical framework.

If you want to prove that it's impossible for a needle to exist any given haystack - you actually have to search it. All of it.

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pm For example, Existence is eternal.

How do you know that? If existence is eternal why is the universe only 14 billion years old? How can something "eternal" have a finite age?

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pm Existence as a whole is not infinite because that is not possible.

Senad Dizdarevic wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 5:19 pm Existence is eternal.

If existence is eternal then it's infinite in age. But you said existence is not infinite.

Contradiction.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:26 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:49 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:43 pm What is your evidence?

I'm here.

Cogito ergo sum.

That means, "I think, therefore I am." I'm not sure how you think that raises an issue. You'll have to spell it out.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:49 pmI have a body.

Which I believe, but prove it.

I just did. It's much more probable than not, since I'm writing to you, among all the other things I mentioned. And you believe it. So now it's on the skeptic to prove there's reason to disbelieve what seems obviously true. Burden of proof.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:51 pm Somebody is "lucidly dreaming" he knows what life there is on other planets. Or perhaps he should call NASA, and bring them up to speed.

One thing about you

I seem to live rent free in your head.

This isn't about "me," it's about the argument. See if you can catch up.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:26 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 6:49 pmI have a body.

Which I believe, but prove it.

If you specify the methodology via which you proved (to yourself) that you "cogito" you could trivially extend it to "here's one hand. And here's another".

Even if solipsism is true - you still have hands. Relocate them to whatever ontological category you want - they're still here, and you can still count them.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:45 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 27, 2025 7:31 pmLike Wilbur Boneman and many others here you have a mind that is structured in such a way that it is very hard, perhaps impossible, to even conceive of other perceptual modes.

Kinda my entire schtick. How do you manage it, Gus?

You mean to say that your shtick is that you believe everyone has minds structured in specific ways and thus they tell themselves “stories” about what reality is and what it demands of them?

How do I manage what? That in many senses I agree with what you say (though I came to the position through a different path)?

I think that — even as Immanuel points out — that your position (that philosophy is ‘story’) is quite postmodern. But what is the alternative to modernity? Postmodernity is the necessary outcome.