On 10/22/2014 4:08 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]
wrote:
Richard, it occurs to me that the only thing we can know for sure is
that awareness exists. And that's because we're aware. But maybe I'm
over simplifying (-:
>
Self-consciousness and awareness are the same terms as consciousness.
Everyone experiences consciousness - it's the universal truth and
requires no proof. The truth of consciousness is experiential. To be
aware is to be conscious; to be human is to be self-conscious.
/"Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience."/ - Sam Harris
>
On Tuesday, October 21, 2014 4:02 PM, "'Richard J. Williams'
pundits...@gmail.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
wrote:
On 10/21/2014 12:07 PM, Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com
<mailto:sharelon...@yahoo.com> [FairfieldLife] wrote:
Curtis, I just had a lunch of veggies and salmon so maybe my brain is
a little more up to respond. Maybe! Definitely not as good as Sam
Harris (-:
>
According to Sam Harris consciousness is the only thing that cannot be
an illusion.
>
Anyway, my questions are:
1. how do we know that we know?
>
/We know that we exist because we are self-conscious. Without
consciousness there would be no perception or perceiver./
>
Which is kind of abstract and probably just me reliving a past life
as a haetera!
>
/Non sequitur. The fact of consciousness is dirt simple because
everyone has it, otherwise they would be unconscious. Nobody that is
conscious goes around saying they don't exist. "Consciousness is the
basic fact of life that cannot be doubted."- Sam harris/
>
2. what do we mean by knowing?
>
/Knowing is having knowledge structured in consciousness; intelligence. /
>
Ok, we see a tree fall so we think we know that it fell. Of course,
perception could be faulty.
>
/If appearances derived through one sensory channel appear
contradictory, it is natural to appeal to other senses for
corroboration. When they contradict, which sense shall we accept as
reliable? If we observe the naive realist closely, we will find that
at some times he relies principally on his eyes and, at other times,
on his ears. When different senses corroborate an error, he even more
baffled./
>
Or, to go into the arts as you suggested, we listen to a song about
first love, and from our own memories of that, we recognize the
"truth" of the song.
>
/For past experiences, to be compared, they must be remembered. But
memory often fails us. What assurance do we have that it is not
failing us again? Past experiences may have been erroneous
consistently. The materialist thinks he sees directly back into an
existing past which in reality has ceased to exist!/
/This is called in philosophy an appeal to instruments and like the
appeal to other senses, to past experiences, to repetition, and to
other persons, is a confession of failure. For it is a confession that
apparently obvious objects are NOT self-evident./
>
But here's my really favorite question,
3. Back to your post: what is meant by "worthwhile reality"?
>
/It is worthwhile to be conscious because that way get to enjoy life
and gain knowledge that will set us free. You should know the truth
and the truth will set your free.//There in knowledge higher than
absolute knowledge./
>
Are there some realities that are not worthwhile?
>
/There is only one single reality - pure consciousness - duality is an
illusion. /
>
On Tuesday, October 21, 2014 11:18 AM, "curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife]" <mailto:curtisdeltabl...@yahoo.com[FairfieldLife]>
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
M: I hope you don't mind me weighing in,this was a particularly
thought provoking post. I too am an amateur philosopher. But I am not
sure philosophy is the right discipline to answer your question from,
except to enhance the discussion of "how could we know?"
Here is the section you quite wisely focused on:
"Is a believe in the existence of component or realm beyond the
physical/material justified? When I use the expression
'physical/material' I include anything that is physical/material, or
anything that interacts with the physical/material."
M: It seems to me that in a sense this ship has sailed with the
advent of knowledge about a level of matter that is so squirrely to
our sense-bound intuitions that it does not resemble matter as we
know it, even though technically it IS matter from physics. That we
do not know all or in some cases very much about this level of
reality should give us all some humility about what is real.
But for me those who confidently claim to know about a non physical
realm through internal experience have not made their case
convincingly to me. We have a lot of mystery to explore and I am
dubious that anyone has cleared it up from a mystical tradition. I am
putting my bet on neuroscience and physics to push back into the
mystery in a more satisfying way than has been accomplished by
religious and mystical traditions. The deeper reality may be much
more amazing than has been speculated about or assumed in those
traditions whose stock in trade has been "We have it all figured out
already" over "Let's find out."
The question could be: how could we know about something non
physical? I wish people proposing these ideas would spend more time
studying these questions before they announce their assumptions. We
need to address how we could be confident of such knowledge knowing
how fallible and prone to self delusions humans are with all of our
cognitive blind spots. I rarely see this aspect in the intellectual
mix of confident assertions from the subjective angle.
Then of course you have the whole areas of human knowledge in the
arts and humanities which is plenty non physical reality enough for
me. We don't have to swing between the polarities of material
reductionism and mystical claims to see that there is a lot of
worthwhile reality beyond the hard physical. But IMO the better we
are prepared to evaluate claims the quicker we will sort out the
fascinating and true from the fascinating but bogus.
Thanks for opening up a new chapter on the discussion. Does any of
this relate to your intention in your post?
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <inmadison@...>
<mailto:inmadison@...> wrote :
there seem to be 2 questions running through this thread: 1) is a
belief in God a mental illness and 2) is a belief in God justifiable.
the first question is too cumbersome for me - having the notion of
mental illness imbedded in the question . . . and I can't speak as to
what a mental illness is, but the question is believing in the
efficacy of trickle-down economics a mental illness could be fun : )
Re the 2nd question, I'm skipping is there a proof for the existence
of God since it's pretty clear no such proof exists - and I'm
suggesting: is a belief in God justifiable?
We may believe in many things where there is no direct evidence, or
no proof, but yet that belief is justifiable. For example, we may
believe someone lied to us, even though we have no proof.
[BTW - I am very much an amateur philosopher] I am going to restate
the 2nd question as: Is a believe in the existence of component or
realm beyond the physical/material justified? When I use the
expression 'physical/material' I include anything that is
physical/material, or anything that interacts with the physical/material.
An individual who did not believe a belief in God was justified,
would believe that the material/physical world was sufficient to
explain all observable phenomenon, including the existence of the of
the physical/material world itself.
For me, I think the question is a bit of a red herring, but I admit
to having read and heard nuanced and elegant expressions regarding
the need for the nonphysical (spiritual) to explain stuff like value,
and the moment by moment appreciation of an otherwise brutish world.
