Roger, Just because you perceive that people are 'wasting their time' by providing their own unique points of view on questions dear to their heart (and not, by the way, on rehashing simplistic strawmen positions of philosophers that lived during the Age of Enlightenment) does not give you licence to therefore go ahead and 'waste their time.' See, it's sloppy thinking like this that makes you unwelcome on this list, not the profundity of anything you say.
What you have done is shown that you've mastered a grade school syllogism: I am a subject. These things in front of me are my objects. Where is my subject? It can't be an object! Conclusion: The world is at heart dualistic! And our subject is radically different than our objects! So we need some 'non-physical principle' to explain this mysterious subject (etc.) Therefore God...(etc) I'm not sure if you've been keeping up with the writing in the Western tradition of philosophy, or science (it was invented after Leibniz died), or if you just got bogged down in the 1700s with Leibniz et al., but this stuff is kind of old potatoes these days. What is far more fruitful (and fascinating, in my opinion) is how the brain arrives at a notion of subjectivity in the first place and how the brain works-- knowledge inferred from things like brain lesion studies and studies into perceptual self-deception. When Craig talks about multisense realism, that is an original theory he has formulated to try to unify the two realms of external, perceived objects (sensates) and the subjective feeling of what it is to be alive (sensation). On one level, sure, he's wasting time, just like all philosophically enjoyable work is a waste of time. As Bertrand Russell said: If you enjoyed the time you were wasting, then you weren't wasting it after all. But on another level, he is trying to do something original, to think something through deeply. He uses other thinkers as tools in a toolkit. And while lots of people don't agree with him, they enjoy his efforts, because he takes the time to work through challenging concepts. When Bruno talks about the UDA, he is also trying to do something similar. He is trying to unify the subjective and objective components of reality at the deeper level of arithmetic. He has an argument. He has something new to say. You are not an original thinker, Roger! You have become enamored by a stupid artifact of language having to do with subjects and objects, and something that has been far more poetically described by Zen masters than you could ever hope to do, and you hit us over the head with it like a dead fish. You have not stumbled upon some Lovecraftian truth about being by reading Leibniz. Your readings of Leibniz do not do him justice. Leibniz was a penetrating and original thinker who arrived at the idea of monads because it was forced on him by circumstances of knowledge AT THAT TIME. God was virtually an axiom due to the overwhelming power of the church, minds and brains were thought distinct because neurology hadn't been invented, and science was struggling to break free from its mold in the form of natural philosophy and Aristotelian thinking. Leibniz's thoughts were a reflection of the state of knowledge that existed at his time. For you to go own using your own watered down version of Leibniz as some kind of epistemological panacea is a waste of time in a totally different sense. In the realm of new ideas about the question of mind and consciousness, it contributes nothing. As Leibniz scholarship, it is atrocious and betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the role of history in constructing ideas. Finally, your apology says nothing about your constant political bear baiting in a forum that has no use for it. It's not even that you talk about Leibniz so much that makes you a crackpot. It's that you have so little to say of any real value. Even here, though, you might get some sympathy, if it weren't for the fact that you have betrayed your bigotry and intolerance countless times on this list. You strike me as a particularly odious fellow, one whose sole joy in life is ruining things for everyone else. There are plenty of places on the world wide web for people like you. Try 4chan, for a start. But here... TROLL!!! BE GONE!!! On Saturday, August 3, 2013 8:44:04 AM UTC-4, Roger Clough wrote: > > Hi tintner michael and Albert Cororna, > > I am accused of wasting peoples' time by constantly posting > here and elsewhere on the subject of Leibniz. > > I do that because people are already wasting their time > by posting totally impossible views on what mind is or what consciousness > is, > supposedly the chief topics on these sites. > > Why ? The current model of the mind or brain > has no subject, only a description of a subject such as "subject". > which is not subjective but objective because it can be located in > spacetime > and described in words. > > You need a living, nonphysical, subjective subject. In fact life also > needs a living subject. > The same as is reading this paragraph. > > Why ? Consciousness is bipolar, consisting of a > nonphysical-subject/physical-object > pair, a true living subject looking at a spactime physical object. > > Only Kant and Leibniz take this criticism seriously, and of them, only > Leibniz > does it specifically. > > > > Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] > See my Leibniz site at > http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough > > > ----- Receiving the following content ----- > From: tintner michael > Receiver: MindBrain > Time: 2013-08-02, 07:17:50 > Subject: [Mind and Brain] Re: Why life is impossible to understand in > thematerialistic model of e > > > > > >I suspect this is a matter of perspective. > > > >You're assuming that the current materialistic model is the only possible > >such model, rather than merely an "early evolution" model of materialism. > > > >Science is still looking at the world as materialistic pieces/parts. It > >does not yet have a true holistic, integrated materialistic model of the > >world, which understands how the parts fit together to form wholes. It > >doesn't understand "self" - how the living machine that is a human being > >can continuously configure and reconfigure its body as very > >different wholes - how a Peter Sellers can assume a myriad > >roles/personalities/bodies. It doesn't understand the mechanics of > >evolution - how bodies can be "reconfigured"/transformed into radically > >different forms other bodies. > > > >This is not surprising. So far we have only created machines that are > >"production lines" of parts - basically Rube Goldberg lines of parts > moving > >each other like lines of dominoes. We haven't created - have barely > >conceived of - machines that are truly integrated wholes like living > >creatures. > > > >When we start acquiring holistic materialistic models, I suspect your > >problems/objections will disappear. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
