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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 22, 2016 - 09:00pm PT
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Name a "truth" that is not the product of mind.
truth: reality
Fusion.
By what agency is this "fusion" known to you?
You're dancin' like a dervish on this one, Fruity.
The problem with trying to posit a mind-independent "reality" is that no one can describe what it might be, because mind is postulated in every description.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jul 23, 2016 - 05:51am PT
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AN: Solipsism is very unpopular. . . . phenomenologists believed consciousness, or mind I suppose, is always about something exterior to itself
First off, find [your] “mind.” Then you may be able to speculate about what is exterior and interior. Or, . . . what do you mean by “exterior” (to what)? What ARE you talking about?
(There is a reason for solipsism. If you can't say what a thing is or point to it, then you probably don't know just what you're talking about.)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 24, 2016 - 12:10pm PT
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Dingus, what you are proposing is Kantian for the most part, though Kant made a distinction between the iteration of reality that our minds provide, and a description (map) of the same. The former is qualitative/subjective, the later (map) is quantitative/objective. I believe you are saying these two are the same - to wit, that a map of the representation IS the representation. Or that since both represent some thing else, they are one in the same - sort of. Of course the fact that we are aware of content, maps, representations etc. is quit a different matter than the maps, representations, etc. themselves. That might be a point worth further study for you, though I sense you are rather fundamantalist on this map IS the territory bit, like a down home preacher holding a gunny sack full of rattlers. And just try and pry his fingers off the sack. No thanks...
You might want to bone up on a little Kant to see what he had to say, but the material is ferociously dense and for most, boring to the point of being crazy-making.
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jul 24, 2016 - 04:12pm PT
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I mean the map itself, everything you know, think, do, say or experience, is represented by a map in your mind.
EveryTHING. The map IS the terrain.
--
This is true, save for awareness/sentience itself, which does not conform to the definition of a thing:
[thing]
noun
a material object without life or consciousness; an inanimate object.
This distinction (what IS subjectivity) is crucial and cannot be encountered through studying quantifications. Most on this thread think only in terms of the things and stuff of experience, or the small "I" that seemingly is experiencing. And because awareness be reified as an object, and for most, only objects are "real," you have physicalism, or what I call the first order, what we can get hold of with sense data or qualify with words. Once we put words to what awareness is, we have a map, but awareness itself is neither content or a container. It is not some thing we can ever get behind and start to pull quantifications. So in this sense, awareness is NOT the territoritory, nor yet the stuff, knowledge, thoughts, words or experiences we humans have.
To get some sense of what this means, stop latching onto things, thoughts, etc., keep your focus wide open, like infinity on a camera lands, and be with what is there before words. No need for Gods or preaching or philosophy or physics. There are some guidelines how to do this, but no maps because there is no thing observing.
This is some pretty esoteric stuff, sort of like the subjective version of the wildly counterintuitive material in some science. Oddly, it's what is most close to us. Since we are built to report about some thing or occurance in consciousness, objectless awareness becomes an almost impossibly difficult non-place to travel and talk about, hence all this circling around and obsession with maps.
That's what the mind DOES. What IS mind often gets mistaken in this regards, but in fact we are not asking what the mind does, or what is IN mind.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 24, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
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Name a "truth" that is not the product of mind
After driving your car into a bridge abutment at 80 mph, it comes out bent up.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 24, 2016 - 08:01pm PT
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Paul, in my belief system, it's not a value to teach children fictions as truth. Nor mythologies as truth. Teach fictions as fictions; teach mythologies as mythologies. Even if they console, insp ire or encapsulate great wisdom for living.
Honestly, you just don't get it. Mythologies still speak to us and in them is great wisdom. One doesn't have to believe in magic to receive that wisdom. If you walk into Notre Dame in Paris you're not likely to respond "hey this is bullsh#t." More likely your response is going to be just WOW. There is truth and power in myth and your blanket dismissal ignores that truth... just ask Arthur Evans or Heinrich Schliemann.
Do you really want to take someones consolation away from them? Just watching 60 minute about Make a Wish Foundation... can't imagine telling one of those kids: hey get over it there is no God. There's only evolution and your gonna die...so man up.
Yeah, I just don't get that. But maybe that comes from not being a scientist.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Jul 24, 2016 - 08:21pm PT
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The map is not the terrain.
~ Abraham Maslow
Wow, 8176 posts! That's a lot of...
...post!
Thanks, jstan, for keepin' it real.
After all the navel gazing...chop wood, carry water.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 24, 2016 - 08:59pm PT
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^^^yeah. and prolly 1500 drug and porn stores!!
what's ur point?
they must be doing somethin right, we sure don't have grass like that!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 24, 2016 - 09:29pm PT
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Paul, why the need to exaggerate so? You do it here
on a regular basis.
There's a lot of room to negotiate between (a) taking bible stories literally also teaching them in that vein to babes on up and (b) "telling one of those kids: hey get over it there is no God. There's only evolution and your gonna die...so man up"
I think we're all fans of mythology here. (for its entertainment, eg, for its consolation and for its life wisdom). Just don't continue to teach it as a truth-claim for how the world really works as many of our ancestors in ages past used to do. That's the new norm, the new way, the new attitude, many are bridging to, readjusting to.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 24, 2016 - 09:33pm PT
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That's what the mind DOES. What IS mind often gets mistaken in this regards, but in fact we are not asking what the mind does, or what is IN mind.
Now you're getting right at what Kant called his "Copernican revolution" in philosophy.
Everything this thread has been talking about ("is" and "does" and "maps" and so on) are ALL in the phenomenal realm; all of it is empirical.
Kant's revolution was to systematically demonstrate that ALL of that "reality" "exists" only because the "I think" (not the Cartesian version!) "synthesizes" it. Kant's point is that what mind IS must necessarily be forever beyond our grasp (sorry, scientists). By the time you are "evaluating it," the REAL "it" has already done its work and handed you its "appearances," including the "appearances" of "it" itself.
Hegel didn't like Kant's result that philosophy and science have built-in limits to their scopes of study, so he bastardized Kant's transcendental idealism with the babbling BS of "dialectic," thereby retreating all the way back to Plato (and getting very much more wrong along the way).
Ironically, Kant ESTABLISHED the validity of science (against the implications of Hume and the other empiricists). He just demonstrated that all it can study is in the empirical realm, that science is not doing metaphysics, and that what we call "real" is merely "empirically real" rather than "transcendentally real."
Go with Hegel and the other rationalists (Hegel was no true idealist), and you necessarily fall into Cartesian skepticism. Go with the empiricists, and you necessarily fall into Humean skepticism.
Kant established the proper framework of scientific (and philosophical) inquiry, and both are perpetually seeking small-t "truth." Capital-t Truth is forever beyond our ken.
It's tragic that Kant was such a terrible writer (it's not just that the English translations are bad!) that nobody can just sit down with the Critique of Pure Reason (or even the Prolegomena) and make any sense of them. So, Kant has been largely avoided, even by the bulk of the philosophical community. I personally believe that Jill Buroker (an international expert on Kant) is right when she says (forgive me for my paraphrase, Jill): Most of the issues philosophers struggle with today would be either resolved or recognized to be exercises in futility if most of them understood Kant.
Philosophy of mind is just such a study. And to the extent that scientists think that they are doing metaphysics of mind, theirs is just such a study.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 24, 2016 - 09:38pm PT
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Nice to see the POV of an actual philosopher.
EDIT: Perhaps I'm mistaken but I am under the impression that MB1 is an actual philosopher. Correct or incorrect?
Oh, I see that HFCS removed his confusing comment.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 24, 2016 - 09:50pm PT
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thanks dmt.
I love them very much and never argue politics or religion with them and silently endure when they can't bite their tongues.
i'm sure they endure when you speak of grass-fed beef also ;)
BB
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 24, 2016 - 09:52pm PT
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We know each other's positions too well, I think.
well, we all know very well your no scientist.
EDIT; awww, Fruity fled.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 24, 2016 - 09:59pm PT
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We know each other's positions too well, I think.
No offense taken. But actually you don't know "my position" really at all.
I can't even get started with "explanations" before people are howling in agony, "Wall of text. Wall of text."
But being rigorous takes space (and time and effort to read). Not suitable for forum posts. So, yes, you think you know something substantive about both what and how I think, but you don't.
And you hold scientists to a different standard. The vast majority of rigorous, scientific "proofs" are far beyond the intelligence-level and reading comprehension of most people (certainly most on the taco stand). But nobody asks, say, Ed to "demonstrate" his opinions. He's a scientist, so you just call it good and assume that he knows what he's talking about.
Even granting that he does, the science behind his and other scientist's opinions is just that: opinions. And talk about the screams of "wall of text" if they were held to actually explain or provide the "proof" that their opinions are any better than those of the lay person on the street.
Quantum theory? What a hot mess (literally). And I'll save you the effort of your immediate response: "It produces objective results. It (or perhaps evolution) is the most confirmed scientific theory we know of."
Sorry, no. One thing that can be rigorously proved (in the strong sense of a proof) is that an infinite number of scientific theories are consistent with ANY set of empirical facts. Add more facts, and you might change the contents of the set of theories, but it remains an infinite set.
All you get from science (which, by the way, ISN'T a small thing) is: "This is how the universe APPEARS to work to us at this moment." And that does get us some pretty cool engineering, which is certainly not nothing!
Where I take exception with the "successes" of science is that too many scientists think that they are doing metaphysics, telling us about how things REALLY ARE. Whatever else science is doing, it is not doing this. That thinking is the baldest and most skewed of verificationism.
But, see, I'm already slipping into WOT territory, and I have been intentionally keeping it light and skipping over the surface to make the most general of points.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jul 24, 2016 - 10:05pm PT
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Hey MB, I removed my post before you posted. So I'll retrieve it. For the record though, I was never one of those here at ST who described you as posting "walls of text."
In regards to knowing each others positions well, you don't think we covered a lot of this terrain back in 2010 -2012? I do.
Here's the afore-posted post...
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philosophizing (vs philosophy)
So it's why I learned long ago to distinguish between (1) philosophizer and philosopher and (2) philosophizing and philosophy.
Sorry MB. But then again, we've hashed all this out before haven't we? so long long ago now. We know each other's positions too well, I think.
...
Nobody else posted before I deleted (that's one of my permissions) and I deleted because I changed my mind about engaging. That simple. Anyways, I think I do still carry a lot of memory about your positions on many topics relating to "science" and "academic philosophy", etc... But it has been a long time.
Welcome to the thread. You'll get no WOT criticisms from me.
I need to catch Hillary Kaine on 60 Minutes now. Have a good night.
Ps... Remember this one? it was one of my favorites...
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1083108&msg=1094193#msg1094193
Blast from the past! :)
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jul 24, 2016 - 10:06pm PT
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^^^ you are talkin to Fruity's deleted post, right?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 24, 2016 - 10:40pm PT
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I think we're all fans of mythology here. (for its entertainment, eg, for its consolation and for its life wisdom). Just don't continue to teach it as a truth-claim for how the world really works as many of our ancestors in ages past used to do. That's the new norm, the new way, the new attitude, many are bridging to, readjusting to.
But myth does teach us truths...there is much truth in myth if you know how to read it and it does tell us allegorically how the world works. The exaggerations are yours not mine. If you think it's alright to tell sick children myths in order to alleviate their suffering then at what point do you draw the line, at what point do you tell folks the "truth" and end any consolation they may have had within the structure of myth?
Where I take exception with the "successes" of science is that too many scientists think that they are doing metaphysics, telling us about how things REALLY ARE. Whatever else science is doing, it is not doing this. That thinking is the baldest and most skewed of verificationism.
Metaphysics is a very bad word around here, though most don't know where the term even comes from. The scientists here seem to have the only key to reality or at least the certainty that key belongs to them even if temporarily misplaced.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 24, 2016 - 10:41pm PT
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Thank you, HFCS.
Believe me, I hold you in no ill regard or disrespect. I appreciate what you are (I think) trying to say.
My only point is that genuine philosophizing is a lengthy and often painfully laborious project (both to write and to read). Analytic philosophy is not a "history of ideas" or "continental philosophy," where people can just wax "eloquent" with their opinions. Most of the humanities are pretty fluffy. Analytical philosophy is not. Consequently, I have yet to find the context here to really engage in it.
Even talking about Kant at all raises all of the "futility" red flags in me. Just learning his terminology rigorously is the project of a term at a university, and the critical subtleties (that make or break his project) are not things people can "think through" on their own just by reading him!
So I find myself getting drawn into such a thread and then instantly regretting it, thinking, "Nobody here is going to devote ANY effort into getting Kant right. So there's really nothing I can say in any way I could say it here."
So, I say again, you really do not know what and how I think. You would find it more "scientific" on one hand, and much more abstract on the other, than I believe you realize.
Yes, we've had our little "skirmishes," but I always quickly realize the futility of "playing on your battlefield" when you blithely denigrate mine. Again, scientists get a pass on such forums, and analytical philosophers suffer the disadvantage of the presumption of most people that "simple is true," and "if you can't just spit it out so that anybody can understand it, it can't be right."
I gave up years ago trying to be a genuine philosopher here. So what you think you know is not me. It's the superficial "appearance" of me just trying to "nudge" thinking in this or that direction.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 24, 2016 - 10:52pm PT
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that key belongs to them even if temporarily misplaced.
Well said. You made me laugh and nod at the same time.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jul 25, 2016 - 07:39am PT
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Pretty funny juxtaposition of your two claims....
Brian Magee says analytic philosophy is absolute bunk.
Then you quote him as saying nothing of the sort:
20th-century philosophy as practised in the majority of the universities of the UK
Where is the "absolute bunk" (a mighty sweeping statement) in the subset of practicing philosophers "in the majority of the universities of the UK"?
Then the most delicious irony:
a personal friend of both Popper & Russell
Both analytic philosophers and both of whom he considered "serious philosophers." LOL
Yeah, whatever. I recommend reading your "hero" more carefully and then not quoting him to say what YOU mean rather than what he actually meant. Also, he was not a trained philosopher (undergrad only). He was primarily a politician and broadcaster.
Oh, and btw, just a heads-up, you were attempting to do analytic philosophy in your post. We all do it almost all the time, just most of us do it badly. The "bunk" is in the "badly" rather than in the activity itself. We can all learn to do it better.
Your mistake here was two fallacies of composition: applying an attribute from a subset to the whole set.
Subset of philosophers in the UK -> Analytic philosophy as a whole
Subset of views held by the subset of philosophers -> Views held by analytic philosophy as a whole
Magee actually rejected (rightly so) the idea that we can know the world all and only by analyzing our own concepts and linguistic practices. This is indeed Platonic navel-gazing at its worst. Shortly thereafter, the empiricists had their own version of navel-gazing: logical positivism.
Both views were widely debunked in their own time and never got much traction outside of narrow circles. Like science, philosophical views self-correct over time. You might as well say that "science is bunk" because of the subset of its views that were debunked. Remember phlogiston?
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