Re: OT: Reality (was: Re: Atlantean)

En réponse à Andreas Johansson :


>Attack what I'm saying! You can't defeat an objection by denying the
>assumptions implicit in the statement objected to!
Yes I can, when those assumptions are not clearly defined and as such 
subject to denial.

>If there are other people, we don't need any proof there is! It's simply
>_true_, by definition! And if there aren't other people, they're not there to
>have different perceptions, wherefore the point is frikken moot!
Indeed. My whole point exactly.

>Excuse my exlamation marks, but that made me angry.
Why? Because I pointed out to assumptions you implicitly made without 
saying it? When you do that, you make such attacks possible. It's your own 
fault for not being consistent and not presenting *all* your assumptions 
clearly as such. If you don't, how can other people know you're treating 
them as assumptions?


>Explain to me what meaning the identity of one thing in your friend's
>subjective perception with one in yours could possibily have if the thing does
>not have an 'objective' existence?
Simply that we have common illusions. Not impossible as such. Ever heard of 
collective hallucinations?

>  The very identity as such is objective, or
>so it would seem to me.
Not to me, and I see no reason why you can conclude that from what I say.

>(And it's _you_, not me, who assumed an identity between the things, despite
>you and your friend's different perceptions thereof.)
I don't. I don't even assume such things actually exist. I'm only talking 
about perceptions here, "thing" being here "a bundle of perceptions treated 
as a whole by ego's mind". No objective thing here.


>Zhang apparently believes so.
Then you misunderstood him.

>Also, I don't see your problem with believing in hammers or whatnot. To
>believe in a hammer means to believe it exists - just like believing in God is
>to believe He exists. And while my belief in the existence of various hammers
>certainly isn't proved beyond every reasonable doubt, that has just about zero
>practical interest.
Indeed! So why believe at all? At least believing in God brings something 
to the people who believe in it (if some goal in life). Believing in the 
objective reality of a hammer doesn't bring anything, since it's its 
subjective reality you're reacting to when you use it.

>  Experience suggests I like the results better if I believe
>in the existence of any hammers I perceive, and that's all I have to go by.
And experience suggests that whether I believe in the objective existence 
of hammers or not doesn't matter. In my experience, my subjective reality 
(i.e. the sum of my perceptions) is empirical, i.e. if I receive a hammer 
on my foot, it will do as others have done: it will hurt. I needn't assume 
the existence of an objective reality to come to this conclusion.

>Further, you certainly do seem to believe in objective reality as I understand
>the term - the Cartesian ego has to _exist_ to make sense.
Of course, but it's not a *belief*. It's something I just cannot doubt. 
Because when I'm doubting, I cannot doubt that I'm doing the doubting. I 
cannot say "I don't exist" and mean it, because if I didn't exist I 
couldn't say such a thing. It's not that I *believe* in my (in ego's) 
existence, it's just that I have no way not to believe in it and be 
consistent. "I exist" is therefore not in the domain of the belief, but in 
the domain of the internal consistency. It's just not consistent not to 
assume my own existence (maybe that's wrong, but my mind cannot do 
otherwise). But the cogito doesn't say anything about the existence of an 
objective reality *outside* of ego. And even the existence of ego is not 
objective in the true meaning of the sense, since I'm the only one to 
experience it. I'm the only person who cannot doubt myself, everybody else 
can (if they exist outside of me :)) ). As such, even ego's existence is 
purely subjective.

>  And assuming it
>doesn't exist doesn't make much sense, as you yourself has demonstrated in
>earlier discussions on this list.
Of course not. But is it meaningful or just a limitation of my own mind? I 
don't know. And it still doesn't prove to me the existence of an outside 
objective reality. And once again, believing in it or not wouldn't change 
the way I *have* to behave in response to my perceptions anyway, so why 
bother? :)) In my opinion an assumption that doesn't bring anything is not 
worth it, and certainly not worth believing in.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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