Philosophy Now Forum

as this is going to be a rather technical philosophical
piece, those of you who like ''fluff'' philosophy
may want to read some lightweight philosophy..
which is actually, mostly everyone else...

In viewing something.. let us use a tree...
we know a tree from experience... I have climbed
a tree, (falling out of a tree) I have engaged with trees
all my life.... and we have the second aspect of the tree...
which is how we think about trees...
so bear with me a moment......

does the tree know its a tree? does a tree know its leaves
are green? does a tree know that birds build nests in its branches?
epistemological, what does a tree know and how would a tree know
it? and we run into our second concept... that of the idea of tree's,
that of the color green, that of birds...
we human beings have those concepts... the color green is a human
construct... the idea of branches is a human construct....
the tree itself actually doesn't know these things as we have
defined it....

so you have two different things going on.. you have a tree,
which doesn't know itself as a tree, it just there...
a tree is not conscious of itself as a tree because the concept
of tree's is a human one...

so we have two things going on... we have objects like tree's,
rocks, dogs, cats, books, TV sets.... none of these objects,
especially the living ones, don't have any sense of being...
does a dog think to itself, I am a dog? no... that self awareness
doesn't belong to a dog...nor does self awareness belong to a rock
or a cat or a book.... the entire point of AI is to create awareness of
self.. because objects are unable to have an awareness of themselves..

and although a dog is a living thing, it is unable to see itself as a dog...
but we human beings have an mental awareness of dogs...
we are aware... conscious of dogs...and so the concept of dog
is a human one...a human construct... so we have our mental
awareness/construct of dogs, cats, tree's...

this is a dualism that exists only because we human beings
have an awareness of things and we thus name them...dog,
cat, the color green, tree's...
those objects, the dog, cats, the color green, tree's have
no self-awareness of themselves as a dog, cat, the color green,
trees... they simple are...so objects have a reality.. but
we name that reality, we give meaning and names to that reality...
we have objects and then we have the human reaction to that
object... a dualism, as it were....
but that dualism only exists because of our self-awareness,
without that self-awareness, there would not be a dualism....

so in the ongoing battle between materialism and idealism..
both are right.. there are objective materials, matter out
there and then there is the idealism aspect in which we
(with our self awareness) we name, explore the reality of
the object in hand... tree's have branches, leaves, leaves
are green, birds build nest in branches... of this is human
thinking about tree's.. the tree itself has no awareness of
itself... it doesn't think, ah, my leaves are the color green...
and I have branches in which birds build their nests in....

only human beings, have the ability to be self-aware of their surroundings,
their reality... we construct, name our reality with the made up
thinking about tree's, dogs, colors, those things themselves
have no ability to be self-aware....thus, they cannot name
themselves, they cannot think about themselves as tree's,
dogs, cats, birds, the color green.... they just are.. as material
objects... and we give them meaning by our own self awareness
of things and objects

so, you have the reality of trees and you have what we construct,
think about those tree's... materialism and idealism, both of them
exists...and not one or the other...as a binary choice...

but what about human beings?
we are self aware, we can think about ourselves in the third person...
I am, you are, we are, they are.. we can think about ourselves as
grammar questions... but tree's don't think about themselves
as grammar questions or as mental constructions, as we think
about them... they simply are.....

but what does this all mean?

that fundamentally, the universe has
two aspects, one is that we create reality by our
awareness, our self-awareness and that within our universe,
lies real things, tree's, cats, dogs, the color green....
and those things are not self aware... they have existence
outside of our own self-awareness of them, but that they
just exist.. and nothing more....

what does this mean? that the universe is and then we human
beings by our mental construction of objects, we create
meaning, values, goals, a purpose... two distinct and separate
things going on...and we might, if we were so inclined to do so,
call the objects out there.. objective.. and we view those
objects subjectively... with our own self-awareness....

and what does this all mean? Not actually sure at the moment...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 4:54 pm as this is going to be a rather technical philosophical
piece, those of you who like ''fluff'' philosophy
may want to read some lightweight philosophy..
which is actually, mostly everyone else...

as we think about it, there is no such thing, objectively
speaking, as good or evil...as things out there... good
and/or evil has no self-awareness... it cannot think about
itself...we think about good and evil, and by this subjective
thinking, we create good, and we create evil.. the words,
good and evil are just mental constructs.. something that
has no existence outside of our thinking about it...we
might say, as I have said before, boy, is that women/man
evil? but that entire idea requires a mental construct..
it doesn't exist in reality...the very idea of a man or women,
is a mental construct, one that requires us to
have self-awareness...and just as a man/woman is
a mental construct, good and evil are a mental construction...

would an alien being, say Vulcan's, be able to know
or tell the difference between men and women, by
just looking at us? or would the average "Vulcan" know
or understand what good or evil means without some definitions?
because the 'Average Vulcan" may not have a mental definition
of what good or evil is, or they may define it differently,
radically different than we do/would....or is the human construct
of good vs evil, so incomprehensible to them, that they
have absolutely no idea what we are talking about?

for me, I believe that the idea of good and evil, are so much
a human construct, that they would be
incomprehensible to space aliens like "Vulcans".....

because of evolution, we human beings, at the same time,
value such things as cooperation and competition..
diversity and a similarity... we value both diversity
and uniformity...... and quite often fight wars over
these two ideas... would an alien civilization be able
to understand how we human beings, have two distinct
and separate values like diversity and uniformity,
to have the same "value" as each other...

as far as I can tell, it is because diversity and uniformity
are really mental construction of human beings...
in the "real" world, without self-awareness, they are the same
thing.. do dogs, for example, see themselves as being "different"
breeds? Does a German Shepard think of itself as being superior to
a Cocker Spaniel? a dog can only seek like things... oh, look...
but to a dog, they can't see it as another dog, or breed, species
or friend or foe....those words are human constructs... in
which we define or clarify objects out there...but dogs don't do
that.. they are unaware of such things...

Kropotkin

we human beings, have a mental construct of
a table... so, a "Vulcan'' comes to earth, into my
household and see's a "table" and that "Vulcan"
might say, "Oh, I see human beings have ''glerks".
and I might say, ''NO, that is a table.'' and that alien
might say, No, that is a ''glerk"....and you might
be able to construct an entire abbot and costello
bit, "who is on first" bit from the alien idea of
''glerks'' and human idea of the table...

and who is on first, well that depends on which side
of the glerk you are sitting on...

Kropotkin

Hi Mona, wassup?

Nuthin' much. Bakin' a cake.

For ...?

Peter, it's his b'day.

Lucky Peter! A b'day cake and from Mona!

Well, truth is I'm the lucky one! Peter's the best thing that happened to me.

He feels the same way, I'm sure.

You think so?

I know so!

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 6:00 pm we human beings, have a mental construct of
a table... so, a "Vulcan'' comes to earth, into my
household and see's a "table" and that "Vulcan"
might say, "Oh, I see human beings have ''glerks".
and I might say, ''NO, that is a table.'' and that alien
might say, No, that is a ''glerk"....and you might
be able to construct an entire abbot and costello
bit, "who is on first" bit from the alien idea of
''glerks'' and human idea of the table...

and who is on first, well that depends on which side
of the glerk you are sitting on...

Kropotkin

Depending on what types of aliens,
Some aliens may only cognize a cluster of dense particles; some cognize pieces of solid matters and they do not recognize any specific objects as 'what we perceive as 'table'.

Note these;

What is Philosophical Objectivity?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31416

Two Sense of Objectivity
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39326

Scientific Objectivity
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39286

What is subjectivity is related to first person's individual[s] opinion, beliefs and judgments,
what is objectivity is intersubjective consensus within a collective of subjects.

Both subjectivity and objectivity are critical to the well-being of individuals and that of humanity.
Subjectivity facilitates personal freedom and creativity, while objectivity facilitates standards that are necessary for communication that enable progress.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 6:00 pm we human beings, have a mental construct of
a table... so, a "Vulcan'' comes to earth, into my
household and see's a "table" and that "Vulcan"
might say, "Oh, I see human beings have ''glerks".

The Vulcan obviously buys his furniture at Ikea.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 4:23 am Depending on what types of aliens,
Some aliens may only cognize a cluster of dense particles;

Which is what 'glerk' means in the Milky Way Esperanto. You really think PK didn't know that??

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2023 5:32 pm they are unaware of such things...

Objects / things are not aware. Any 'thing' that can be thought about is not the awareness that is aware of them, and at the same time is the awareness because there is no awareness without an object to be aware of. So both the subject and the object have to exist in the exact same instance of knowing. Both object and subject arise in conjunction with each other in the instant they are known one with the knowing, which is the only kowing there is, knowing itself as and through the apparent mechanics of mental differentiation.

Ultimately, 'conceptual things' do not exist, except in their conception, as an abstract thought in awareness. Awareness is this immediate unchanging, unmoving knowing, but at the same time, is aware of changes, and movement. ( A seemingly paradoxical phenomena of the body/ brain/mind mechanism. )

As the 'I-thought' ...aka 'Awareness', is self-arising within and to itself only. This ''I-thought'' attaches itself to objects of desire (thoughts, feelings, and emotions) that manifest as a movement in time. When we're identified to objects, we forget that we're the witness of the movement of objects and not the objects themselves.

A ''thought'' is like a snapshot of what is ultimately seamless, with no beginning, and no ending, this infinite flow of existence.

A 'thought' freeze-frames this unknowing infinite flow of existence into something that can be known as and through it's conceptual image.