Mind vs Matter: the Result of an Error of Thought

_{William Murray

June 10, 2019

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

(I think we’ve corrupted KF’s thread long enough.)

The entire problem of mind/matter dualism is rooted in a single error of thought: the reification of an abstract descriptive model of experience into an causal agency independent of the mind that conceives it and the mental experience it is extrapolated from. It is similar to the same error of thought that mistakes “forces” and “physical laws” and “energy” as independently existing causal agencies, when in fact they are abstract models of various mental experiences.

All experience and all thought about experience takes place in mind, regardless of whether or not it is caused by something external to mind. Therefore, “an external, physical world” is a mental abstraction about mental experiences. Insisting that the content of the abstraction is “real” is entirely irrelevant.

Since all we have to work from and with is mental experience and mental thoughts about mental experiences, mind is not only primary ontologically and epistemologically; it is ontologically and epistemologically exhaustive. Even if some non-mental, independent “secondary” aspect of our existential framework exists, we have no access to it nor any ability to use it. If some sort of independent physicality exists, it is therefore 100% ontologically and epistemologically irrelevent. The “external physical world” abstraction still lies within the ontological and epistemological framework of mind and it is all we can ever have access to or use.

In fact, once one understand this error of thought, the self-evidently true irrelevant nature of any supposed external world comes clearly into focus.

This error of thought has entrenched the idea of an external world as “real” so deeply into general psychology that it has contaminated thousands of years of thought. It has generated “the hard problem of consciousness” out of nothing but error. It has led to adoption of 3rd-layer abstractions about mental experience as having primacy over mental experience itself from which they are generated (much like insisting that one’s grandchild is one’s own father). It has generated an entirely false dependency on the “reality” of that abstract world in many philosophical lines of thought.

One such bizarre perspective it has generated is this: that if the external physical world doesn’t in fact exist (even though it is 100% irrelevant because it is 100% outside of our access), then mental experience – the ONLY kind of experience we actually have – is deemed “delusional,” when in fact “delusion” can factually only ever be a comparison between kinds of mental experiences and can never include any comparison to any supposed “external physical reality.” The idea that unless an actual external world exists we are doomed to delusion is entirely due to an error of thought. The delusion or reality value of anything can only ever be a comparison of kinds of mental experiences.

It gets worse. Non-materialists (people that are not materialists) insist that epistemological validity requires that some sort of external world exists independent of mind that can cause universal or near universal mental states in observers . It seems no one has figured out that if one insists that non-mental, independent external commodities can cause mental states, thoughts and experiences, they have just given up free will and have become an “in principle” materialist, consigning themselves to existence as caused automatons.

How would we determine what is an externally-caused mental state, thought or experience concerning free will and what is an independent free choice? Answer: as long as something external can cause mental states, there’s no way to know. As with materialism, even rationality is lost.

Comments

SB said:
That is not true. It is an opening statement followed by several arguments and examples to support its claims, all of which you ignored. You dismiss several telling points without providing even a semblance of a counter argument. I realize that you are trying to play chess with several commenters, but in my case, It would have been better to say that you just don’t have time to get to everyone.
SB said earlier: SB: Most of our experiences are the product of direct contact with the material world. - WJM I understand this now to be your proposition. SB: We don’t come to know the existence of a cat, for example, by using a mental “model.” WJM - True - we have a mental experience of a cat, whether or not that experience came from outside of mind. We create models of the cat, where it exists and how we came to experience it later. SB: We simply experience this or that cat through our senses, - WJM: No. Even if the sensory equipment existed outside of mind, the actual experience occurs first and only in the mind - you seeing a cat, hearing it purr, reaching out and touching it - all those experiences take place in the mind. We know this because if you shut your mind off, the cat may as well not even exist because you cannot see it, feel it or hear it. You are working this through backward, SB. We have a mental experience of a cat. We then generate an abstract model that an exterior world exists and that we have some sort of sensory input and interface between our mental state/experience and the cat. Note that this is an abstract model laid upon another abstract model - an abstract model built from an abstract model. However, we still have the hard problem of personal experience, of consciousness: there is no reason why or explanation how anything (matter) proposed in the abstract model should or could make the jump from external physical excitation of matter or energy into a full-blown conscious experience. SB: courtesy of matter, and then we abstract the idea of cat from the matter we just experienced. WJM - No, we experience the cat mentally first. We then abstract from that experience the idea that the cat resides in a world that is independent of our mind, and create more abstract models that this outside world is made of something called "matter." You're fundamentally reversing the order of the nature of experience and subsequent modeling because you have reified the model to the point you've elevated the subject of the model to causal status in terms of your original mental experience - a dangerous and slippery slope. SB: That is how we come to - know things for what they are. We don’t define things by their atomic or subatomic structure; we define them by their nature and purpose. WJM - we define them by what their nature appears to be in our mental experience of them. SB: If we had experienced a dog, then we would have abstracted the idea of dog from its material existence. - WJM - again, you cannot abstract any ideas from "material existence"; it's literally impossible, unless you're going to say that matter causes ideas, and there is no evidence for that. We make abstractions from mental experiences regardless of what causes those mental experiences. SB: Our senses tell us about the individual dog or cat (the one) and our mind recognizes it as a member of a class (the many). WJM - the theory that external-world model physical senses tell us anything cannot be considered a serious model until that model explains how material excitations can generate conscious experience. Until then, you might as well be saying that matter creates consciousness. It's entirely unsupportable. SB: We don’t project the idea of cat onto the cat, because the cat was already there waiting to be experienced. WJM - Well, I agree with this, in that the cat is already there - just not as an externally existing material phenomena. Everything is already there, waiting to be experienced, except it resides in mind - eternally. SB: Yes, our thoughts take place in the mind because the faculty of mind was designed for that purpose. Still, those thoughts are often about things that exist outside the mind. WJM - Assumes your conclusion. Those thoughts could more easily be about things that exist in the mind because there is no hard problem gap to overcome. SB: The key point, though, is this: Not *all* of our experiences take place in the mind. Sometimes our experiences take place in the senses –at least at first. WJM - it's not possible for experience to take place "in the senses" because none of that information (proposed as excitations of matter running up the neural circuitry of the arm) is translated into experiential format until it (supposedly) hits the brain (which, I assume you think has something to do with the mind and mental experiences). Do you suppose that if I cut off your head and keep you alive in a vat, you will be able to "feel" a cat I put in your hand, or ice or a fire? You might be able to feel it if you're watching me do it ... as many experiments demonstrate. Why is that? It's because you don't experience anything at the "sense" level, only at the mental level. SB - I experience hot and cold weather in the senses and then, I think about it and react to it. I may try to project the idea of hot and cold all day long, but it will not change the weather.WJM - Thinking about things, visualizing them, is known to be able to produce the same physiological effects in many cases as the "actual" experience of a thing; quite a bit of psychotherapy is based on this. Have you ever tried to change the weather by projecting those ideas? SB: To say that we have no “access” to the outside world is to ignore the role of the senses or to deny their existence altogether. WJM - No, it is the result of proper, rational thinking and clearing out errors of thought that come from the elevation of the model of an external world to primacy over that from which it originates. SB: In the world of cause and effect, the senses are often the recipient of causes coming from the outside: The sound waves reach my ear from the outside and then I hear the music. - WJM - Until you can solve the hard problem of conscious experience and bridge the gap from states of matter to experiences of mind, this is nothing but a useful model that cannot be rationally accepted as being about anything real - its only value would be in its usefulness. Even if you could solve the gap problem, you wouldn't want to, because you would then have shown that mental experiences are caused by excitations of matter. That's going to put you in a rather bad position - much like a materialist. SB: In this case, I don’t project the idea of sound waves from my mind to the outside world. Nobody is claiming that you do. Remember, SB, in my model, there is no "outside world." SB: I know that this is the case because I also know the chronological order of events. The experience is not the cause of the sound wave, it is the effect. WJM - Nobody is claiming we don't experience sequences of events. I didn't claim that experiences are not effects; they are effects, in a sense, but not ones caused by any supposed external, independent world. More later.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
05:56 PM
5
05
56
PM
PDT}

RE your 'universal mind' concept, WJM, are you familiar with the R C doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ (based on Christ's teaching concerning the 'True Vine' in the Gospels) ? A vine of which we are the branches and Chist is the head, the Holy Spirit evidently being the sap. A kind of spiritual cloning, I suppose.Axel_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
04:11 PM
4
04
11
PM
PDT}

WJM
The entire problem of mind/matter dualism is rooted in a single error of thought: the reification of an abstract descriptive model of experience into an causal agency independent of the mind that conceives it and the mental experience it is extrapolated from. It is similar to the same error of thought that mistakes “forces” and “physical laws” and “energy” as independently existing causal agencies, when in fact they are abstract models of various mental experiences.
You are assuming your conclusion with a vengeance,
All experience and all thought about experience takes place in mind, regardless of whether or not it is caused by something external to mind. Therefore, “an external, physical world” is a mental abstraction about mental experiences. Insisting that the content of the abstraction is “real” is entirely irrelevant.
Another assumed conclusion. The senses could exist in a material brain and thoughts could originate in an immaterial mind.
Since all we have to work from and with is mental experience and mental thoughts about mental experiences, mind is not only primary ontologically and epistemologically; it is ontologically and epistemologically exhaustive. Even if some non-mental, independent “secondary” aspect of our existential framework exists, we have no access to it nor any ability to use it. If some sort of independent physicality exists, it is therefore 100% ontologically and epistemologically irrelevent. The “external physical world” abstraction still lies within the ontological and epistemological framework of mind and it is all we can ever have access to or use.
Yet another assumed conclusion. If matter does exist, then we can work with it and from it. You continue to make one bald assertion after the other. It seems evident that your entire enterprise is an assumed conclusion. Meanwhile, you have not explained how, in the absence of matter, you can know the difference between a dog and a cat, perform a design inference, or explain why it takes billions of years for the light of a far away star to reach us. That raises another question: Do you support those quantum theorists who reject the laws of causality and non-contradiction on the basis of quantum experiments? If not, why not?
If some sort of independent physicality exists, it is therefore 100% ontologically and epistemologically irrelevent.
Please define "independent physicality." Would something be independent physically if God created it and continues to sustain its existence, even though it can play a distinct causal role.StephenB_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
12:25 PM
12
12
25
PM
PDT}

Deleted - WJMPaoloV_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
12:07 PM
12
12
07
PM
PDT}

SB: Most of our experiences are the product of direct contact with the material world. WJM
That assumes your theory that an external world exists is true – IOW, you are assuming your conclusion here. In fact, your entire comment assumes your conclusion.
That is not true. It is an opening statement followed by several arguments and examples to support its claims, all of which you ignored. You dismiss several telling points without providing even a semblance of a counter argument. I realize that you are trying to play chess with several commenters, but in my case, It would have been better to say that you just don't have time to get to everyone. If you examine your own opening statement, you will notice that it, too, is vulnerable to the claim that it assumes its conclusion. But I didn't stop reading it for that reason because I expected you to follow with rational arguments just as I followed my opening statement with rational arguments, all of which are the product of many years of thoughtful reflection. As it is, I am not yet confident that you can argue against them.StephenB_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
10:57 AM
10
10
57
AM
PDT}

WJM, What is the relationship of the Biblical concept of "spirit" to "mind" in your thinking? Thanks.benwel_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
10:53 AM
10
10
53
AM
PDT}

WJM “If you think what I’ve been writing so far is crazy, wait until I start talking about how space and time do not exist.” Can’t wait!! Vividvividbleau_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
10:50 AM
10
10
50
AM
PDT}

Deleted - WJMPaoloV_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
10:15 AM
10
10
15
AM
PDT}

WJM,
What “case” do you think I’m trying to make?
You have made the assertion that matter does not exist and appear to be defending it against our objections.
I don’t see that you’re addressing the logic I’ve presented. You’re asking me for a description about “how it works,” which has no bearing on the logic that forms the ontological and epistemological structure of mental reality.
I don't think there are necessarily any logical problems with what you're proposing. We can come up with all sorts of models which are not logically inconsistent. I am much more interested in "how it works". I envision myself as an embodied being moving around a physical world, and vaguely understand what things such as "refractive index" mean from that perspective. I find it massively implausible that the concept of "refractive index" makes any sense in the complete absence of matter.daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
10:10 AM
10
10
10
AM
PDT}

Deleted - WJMPaoloV_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
09:59 AM
9
09
59
AM
PDT}

DaveS @32: Just because you don't understand the answer doesn't mean I didn't answer. Like everything else one experiences, a "refractive index" is a representation of information acquired and filtered via psychology. What "case" do you think I'm trying to make? The only case I'm "trying to make" is the logical one. I don't see that you're addressing the logic I've presented. You're asking me for a description about "how it works," which has no bearing on the logic that forms the ontological and epistemological structure of mental reality. There are things I can and cannot do at this time because of my particular and universal psychological structures. Every identity requires limitations and context in order to exist (experience) as an individuated identity. That's an inescapable rule of mind. Those limitations and contextual features are manifest in any experience - including physical experience, or else there would be no physical experience of any kind.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
09:22 AM
9
09
22
AM
PDT}

KF @34: I've already addressed this. (1) You are applying "delusion" from it's material-world oriented perspective, which renders it inapplicable here. (2) Delusion vs realty can only ever be a comparison of kinds of mental experiences regardless of if an external world exists or not, rendering your objection moot. Unless you're going to argue that we cannot tell the difference between different kinds of mental experiences, you have no case here. Here's another kernel for you to chew on: the concept of "delusion" is entirely derived from an error of thought. There's no such thing because all experiences are real because experience = reality. Because some experiences are non-consensual does not make them less real.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
09:12 AM
9
09
12
AM
PDT}

WJM, you will notice, I consistently speak to grand delusion, a degree that effectively undercuts the reliability and credibility of senses and rational or moral capacities, leading to self-referential discredit by absurdity. We all err, and our perceptual faculties are capable of illusion, we even depend on that to see moving pictures. However, that error exists is self-evidently true and undeniably warranted, instantly establishing that truth is, that it is possible to know truth, that some truth is known to utter certainty, and that systems of thought inconsistent with such . . . subjectivism, solipsism, relativism, anything yielding grand delusion . . . are errors, are falsified en bloc. More, later, RW stuff still beckons. KFkairosfocus_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
08:37 AM
8
08
37
AM
PDT}

PaoloV/Dionisio, Yes, this is largely a philosophical discussion. If you don't like it, there are many other threads which focus on science.daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
08:32 AM
8
08
32
AM
PDT}

WJM, What you wrote @2 is not a scientific statement, is it ? “We are all part of universal mind, which lies entirely within all of us, making each of us part of each other’s mental world.” It’s a philosophical statement. And it’s devoid of proof. It’s just an opinion elevated to the category of philosophical worldview. I respect it. As much as I respect that some people like to buy discolored jeans with holes.PaoloV_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
08:29 AM
8
08
29
AM
PDT}

WJM,
My intent would be to better my vision.
What is there to look at under your model? I'm sorry, but you're not making a very strong case here. You can simply assert that all experience is ultimately psychological, but you leave a great deal unexplained (for example, what refractive index is).daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
08:23 AM
8
08
23
AM
PDT}

DaveS: My need for glasses (or eyes, for that matter) is ultimately a matter of psychological structure. My intent would be to better my vision. The structure of my psychology searches through the associated information and represents "how to get better vision" as models predicting methods of acquiring the goal. The process is played out in my physical experience however my psychology dictates. For others it might play out as getting surgery, acupuncture, doing eye exercises, taking supplements and some special diet, praying, meditating, or a combination of those things if they want to accomplish it without going the more common route. All physical methods are manifestations of psychological processes, which is why people can have enormous variances of methodology to achieve the same results. It's not the physical process that is essential - which is why we have miraculous, spontaneous cures for some and not others, why placebos work for some and not others, why some methods work for Jim and not Joe. I don't need glasses in other experiential states - like, when I'm dreaming, visualizing, or visiting other physically consistent frameworks. There are cases of people that have been completely blind since birth but can see perfectly during NDEs or OOBEs.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
08:07 AM
8
08
07
AM
PDT}

PS: I'll rephrase part above the above post. Instead of:
Why do we need to bother getting glasses?
substitute:
What exactly is the process of "getting glasses" in your model?
daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
07:46 AM
7
07
46
AM
PDT}

William j Murray@23 That’s what I was thinking thank you for the clarification and the response.AaronS1978_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
07:44 AM
7
07
44
AM
PDT}

WJM,
The body and the sense organs represent our sense of personal identity – who and what we hold ourselves to be, how we exist and experience and in what format.
Thanks for addressing my questions, but I have to say this is very vague. I don't consider this a satisfactory account of why we have sense organs. Or why we bother to get glasses, when matter doesn't exist. My understanding is that glasses are made of matter, with lenses designed according to physical principles so as to correct our vision. These principles have been discovered through centuries of work, and allow optometrists to accurately determine what prescription we need after a few moments of examination. This is too much to ask, I know, but it would be very interesting to read a "dialogue" between you and your optometrist, where you explain to her/him various aspects of your appointment in terms of your model. For example, the optometrist might give you different options for lens material based on refractive index. What is refractive index in your model?
Yes, and I’m blind in one eye. Let me attempt to anticipate further questions here and make offer a broader, more significant form of your question: why don’t I heal my eyes? Why don’t I grow wings? Why don’t I make myself younger and perfectly fit? Why don’t I stop my aging? Why don’t I mentally create a million dollars in my bank account?
Those are good questions, to be sure, but probably not the next ones I would ask. I would continue with more fundamental things: Why do we need to bother getting glasses? What are glasses if not physical objects? Why do we need to eat?daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
07:16 AM
7
07
16
AM
PDT}

If you think what I've been writing so far is crazy, wait until I start talking about how space and time do not exist.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
06:47 AM
6
06
47
AM
PDT}

DaveS @24 asks:
[1}Ok, but what do you believe the purposes of eyes and ears are, if the physical world is an illusion?[2] Do you wear eyeglasses?
[1] The idea that physical experience is an "illusion" is rooted in the external-world paradigm. It's not an illusion. One of the problems here is that the external-world paradigm has generated a language that assumes that paradigm, making it very difficult to even think about or from a mental-reality perspective.. What we experience as an external physical world is, essentially, various aspects our own psychology held mostly at the unconscious and subconscious levels, which can be modeled as informational patterns and constructs we have attached ourselves to. The body and the sense organs represent our sense of personal identity - who and what we hold ourselves to be, how we exist and experience and in what format. Experiential reality = us experiencing our own psychology and whatever that psychology permits from the infinite information available to us, including other people and consensuality (inasmuch as our psychology permits). [2] Yes, and I'm blind in one eye. Let me attempt to anticipate further questions here and make offer a broader, more significant form of your question: why don't I heal my eyes? Why don't I grow wings? Why don't I make myself younger and perfectly fit? Why don't I stop my aging? Why don't I mentally create a million dollars in my bank account? My inference here is that you think it should be easier to do those things if we lived in a mental reality. That is what happens when you attempt to challenge the mental reality model from the perspective of the external world reality. Here's your answer: if we're already experiencing mental reality (which is the premise of my model), why would you expect any of those things to be easier if we're living in a mental reality? That doesn't make any sense. Making significant changes is one's psychology is incredibly difficult. What do you think is easier: overcoming a low self-esteem, or remodeling your bathroom? I've been doing this for 30 years or so; uprooting a deep belief and changing it, for many people, is as difficult as sprouting wings and flying.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
06:23 AM
6
06
23
AM
PDT}

WJM, A PS to my previous question:
Ok, but what do you believe the purposes of eyes and ears are, if the physical world is an illusion?
Do you wear eyeglasses?daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
05:34 AM
5
05
34
AM
PDT}

AaronS1978 @16: The point is, regardless of any model of how we acquire experience or where it comes from, the only place we actually experience **anything** is in mind. The concept of an external (to mind) physical body - senses - nervous system - electro-chemical exchange and interpretation (magically!) into experience is a theory based entirely on mental experiences and extrapolated via mental thoughts, then held in mind as a mental, abstract model that - unbelievably - considers mental experience, which is necessarily primary in all of that, as secondary .... the model is generating that which created the model in the first place, according to them. It's bizarre.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
05:33 AM
5
05
33
AM
PDT}

A reminder to participants: I do not allow character or motivational comments or insinuations, or other forms of trolling in my threads. Those posts will be deleted. Complaints about deletions will be deleted.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
05:25 AM
5
05
25
AM
PDT}

StephenB @9 said:
Most of our experiences are the product of direct contact with the material world.
That assumes your theory that an external world exists is true - IOW, you are assuming your conclusion here. In fact, your entire comment assumes your conclusion.
For some reason, there is this idea floating around that to acknowledge the material world as real, which it is, is to also subscribe to the philosophical error of materialism (matter is all there is). Nonsense.
If some external world can cause mental states, you've become an in-principle materialist and you've lost free will. Vividblue @10 asks:
If everyone in the world were sleeping (unconscious) at the same time does this mean that London, NY, etc dont exist?
The unconscious is part of mind. Fasteddious @11 said:
I and any number of others can compare thoughts about “the real world” outside our minds without prior collusion, and agree on most (if not all) aspects of it. Thus, as far as we are able to discern, we all share the same physical reality and the mental models we each have of it are coherent and very compatible.
You're assuming your conclusion here - that consistent, consensual mental experiences means an external world actually exists. The only way you can validate that phenomena outside of mind actually exist would be to have some way to experience or test for it outside of your, or anyone's, mental experience. This is impossible - even test results have to be experienced to be known. IOW, there is no way to verify that an external world exists. Claiming that the model of an external world built from patterns of mental experience verifies that such a world exists is classic model reification. Let me try to explain this. We might construct a model that an unseen planet exists because of patterns of behavior we see in light and in the orbits and movement of other planets. We can actually go there and find that planet, and experience it. The reason this is different is because, regardless of how good the model of an external world is, we cannot, even in principle, ever go there to verify its existence. It's literally impossible. A model can never demonstrate that what it refers to exists; it can only demonstrate the value of the model.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
05:23 AM
5
05
23
AM
PDT}

WJM,
If that is the definition you want to use, then since we all probably believe things that are not true, whether or not belief in an external world is “delusional” becomes a trivial matter.
We are all deluded about some things, surely. But not things such as who the current president of the US is. If I am wrong about who our president is, I would definitely want to know that. That sort of "delusion" is highly nontrivial. Similarly, mistakenly believing that matter exists would be nontrivial. For contrast, here's one example of a trivial "delusion": Believing that Sinbad starred in the movie "Shazaam". Many people believe that, but it's false.
All experience of sense organs are mental.
Ok, but what do you believe the purposes of eyes and ears are, if the physical world is an illusion?daveS_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
05:18 AM
5
05
18
AM
PDT}

DaveS @3 said:
According to this dictionary, “deluded” means “believing things that are not real or true”.
If that is the definition you want to use, then since we all probably believe things that are not true, whether or not belief in an external world is "delusional" becomes a trivial matter. KF @4 said:
Referring to the extended Smith model in the OP, we can see that consciousness would be part of the self-aware self moved behaviour of an oracle, but by an interface to brain and thence to wider body, there is no incoherence in an onward interaction with a real, physical world.
Arguing for your model is not the same as arguing against the logic of mine. If you want to compare models, however, fine: my model is more efficient in this respect because it doesn't require an interface **or** an entire external physical reality. Much, much more efficient, in fact.
On theism, that world is a creation, and is the natural domain of our common experience. Such a domain is antecedent to our particular existence.
Thisis an irrelevant (to the logical validity of my model) ideological assertion in support of your worldview, and is yet another, additional abstraction required to support it.
This seems to beg the question by positing that we in effect live in a Plato’s cave where our in-common world is a shadow show on the wall, a sort of simulation, similar to the notion that on a grand multiverse, the most plausible explanation for the perceived world shared with others is that a Boltzmann brain by fluctuation of the underlying quantum foam has popped into composite being, programmed with a simulation of a world perceived but which has no reality in concrete sense beyond the somehow simulation.
This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that the original mental error of model reification has deeply embedded that error into thought. The "shadows on the walls" are not shadows in the mental reality model because there is no "outside the cave" because the cave is not a cave at all. The whole allegory is a product of an error of thought - investing in the abstraction that something external is causing the internal. Your complaint here is lodged from an inapplicable perspective when it comes to examining what my model actually means and the logical coherence and practical value of it. You go on, asserting "external world" commodities and philosophical perspectives as if they somehow falsify or undermine my model, when my model has rejected that world and those perspectives as being anything other than reified abstractions and thought based on the error of reified, abstract models. Saying that "we have sense organs" or "a brain" or "interaction with a physical world" or "confirmation from others" does nothing to counter-act my position that (1) all experience is mental (regardless of what it may be "of" or "caused by"; (2) you are reifying models mentally extrapolated from mental experiences as independently existing objective phenomena; and (3) arguing from a position that assumes your conclusion (about an external world) by inserting such points into the discussion where they have no relevance. Until you can show how we can have non-mental experiences, or how we can verify that an external world actually exists (in a way that doesn't assume that model to be true), then you have no evidential or logical leverage. Even the complaint that it would be "delusional" is utterly false because delusion vs reality values have always been comparisons between kinds (or models) of mental experiences. All I'm doing is eliminating a whole universe of excess baggage. DaveS @8 said"
We have sense organs, which allow us to obtain “information” about our physical surroundings, do we not? Otherwise, what are eyes and ears for?
All experience of sense organs are mental.William J Murray_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
04:54 AM
4
04
54
AM
PDT}

Brother Brainless:
If what WJM says is actually true, then all of the arguments for objective moral truth are wrong (which I think they are, but for different reasons).
Cuz you say so? Really? Why do all losers think they can just say something and it's true?ET_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
04:04 AM
4
04
04
AM
PDT}

EMH, now you know part of why Plantinga spoke to our senses working in their proper environment, and being aimed at substantial truth. The implication or mere significant likelihood of grand delusion is fatal. KFkairosfocus_{June 12, 2019
June
06
Jun
12
12
2019
12:12 AM
12
12
12
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply