Brent: 2 quotes from your text: 1."You seem like the man who wrote to Bertrand Russell, "There is no way to refute solipism. I don't know why more people don't believe it." - - " AND: - - 2."So if you don't adopt solipism, if you assume there is some world outside the flow of your thoughts to which they refer, then a model of that world needs to include time, both duration and direction."
\Both quotes refer to "A certain kind of" *solipsism,* mostly with Schopenhauer in mind. How about adding other kinds to it, maybe beyond the restrictions of our human (add: physicalisticly thinking conventional) predictions? E.g. the personalized 'mini'-one (credit: Colin Hales) that everybody has a 'self-(own)- formatted' (mini)solipsist image of the (YES, * accepted* as 'existing') overall reality-world, based on the fraction one received (perceived?) of it and interpreted according to his personalized background-tool (genetic brain and stored(?) personal experience) - callable: 'perceived reality' - ? Why should such (freely) imagined world carry those figments of a 'physical world' as does our human conventional science of today: "if you assume there is some world outside the flow of your thoughts to which they refer, then a model of that world needs to include time, both duration and direction." Why did you omit causality, energy, gravity, (sub)atomic, etc. etc. to make it really the world we developed over the millennia of ignorance? Just imagine what you cannot imagine. Then assume whatever you like and we can talk. Maybe in relations and complexity? Unlimited? You presume a 'model' (one!) - indeed an image of what we established as our figment. which supported an ingenious technology indeed, an edifice of poorly understood phenomena with insufficient argumentational explanations - *as* ALMOST good (where paradoxes and small inequities (i.e. big catastrophes) still abound) . I am talking about 'freeing up the mind' i.e. letting out more ideas than 'allowed' by conventional physical/mathematical sciences or just plain old-Greek heritage. I don't claim to be smarter, only more 'stuff'' is available in our enriched cognitive inventory of today. John M On 5/1/10, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: > > On 5/1/2010 4:54 PM, Rex Allen wrote: > > On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 5:47 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@dslextreme.com> > <meeke...@dslextreme.com> wrote: > > > Fine. You solve all problems by postulating that your consciousness is > fundamental, it just IS, > > > I don't solve all problems. I only solve all metaphysical problems. > > But isn't that what physicalists attempt to do by postulating a > physical universe? > > > > > and for some unknowable reason it is a sequence of > experiences which happen to correspond to living in an orderly and time > directed universe. > > > The reason isn't unknowable. There is no reason. Period. Full stop. > > This is in comparison to the two physicalist alternatives available to > explain *actually* living in an orderly and time directed universe: > > 1) There was a first cause that led to our orderly universe, but that > cause was itself *uncaused*. > > 2) There's an infinite chain of prior causes that led to our current > orderly universe. > > Option 1 is not significantly different from my proposal. It just > adds this extra "physical" component that in some way underlies the > conscious experience that we all know and love. > > Option 2 is...also not significantly different. There is no finite > "knowable" reason for our orderly universe's existence. And this also > raises the further question of why our infinite causal chain instead > of some other? And if you have an answer, then why that answer > instead of some other? > > So not only does option 2 lead to an infinite causal chain - it also > requires an infinite chain of infinite chains of reasons to explain > why *our* infinite causal chain exists instead of some other infinite > causal chain. > > If you ever stop and say "because that's just the way it is", then you > collapse back into option 1. > > Right? > > > > > And do you believe this sequence will persist in > producing orderly and consistent experiences? > > > I do believe that. BUT...why do I believe it? Well, ultimately, > there is no reason I believe it. I just do. > > > > Then why don't you believe that a physical universe is a good explanatory > model for it? Or do you believe that and you're just playing at not > believing it? > > Do you believe it? And if so, why? > > I would expect an honest physicalist to say that he believed it > because, given the initial conditions of the universe plus the causal > laws of physics as applied over ~13.7 billion years, it could not be > otherwise. > > > > That's a particular model. It's not why one "believes" the model. > Actually an honest physicist or engineer never *believes* a model - he > entertains it, he uses it, he considers it. He prefers one to another > because it predicts more of his experience or is more accurate in those > predictions. He only believes it in the practical sense that if acting he > will act as if it's true. > > But I'm not sure where that leaves you. You started with the Boltzmann > Brain argument that our thoughts are probably mistaken. But that "probably" > depended on a certain model universes and how they work. And it implied > that having thoughts is already extremely improbable. So if you have > thoughts - and you must since you take consciousness as fundamental - then > that already implies something about the world, i.e. it is not timeless > since thoughts have duration. So if you don't adopt solipism, if you assume > there is some world outside the flow of your thoughts to which they refer, > then a model of that world needs to include time, both duration and > direction. > > He has no *choice* except to believe it. require different initial > conditions, or different causal laws. > > > I thought you were not believing it because there were no initial > conditions or causal laws or universe. It's all what a physicalist would > call an illusion - i.e. a seemingly coherent series of experiences that do > not refer to anything but just are. But then you seem to switch viewpoints > and want to use the consistency of a solipist know-nothing position to argue > about which universes might exist?? > > You seem like the man who wrote to Bertrand Russell, "There is no way to > refute solipism. I don't know why more people don't believe it." > > > Brent > > Do you imagine you are discussing this question with someone named Brent? I go back and forth on whether I believe this. I certainly believe that there is a Brent out there somewhere who is experiencing the flip side of this conversation, but not necessarily that there is any causal connection between us. And I certainly don't believe that either of us has any choice in the path the discussion takes. What would causality amount to in an Einstein-style static block universe? If it turned out that 4-dimensionalism was correct, what would it mean to say that you and I are discussing this question? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
