Re: CHAT: mass-hallucination?

Ray Brown wrote:

> On Friday, June 17, 2005, at 05:07 , Joe wrote:
>
>> Christopher Wright wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 19:00:43 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I'd suggest two or three axioms for the universe that we can be
>>>> sure of:
>>>>
>>>> 1)A consciousness (namely, me) exists.
>>>> 2)There is some ability to process data (although 'process' implies
>>>> time, which, again, rather lacks evidence), which leads to the way I
>>>> percieve the world.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Actually, I'd refine that to:
>>> 1) A consciousness (namely, me) exists.
>>
>
> If one is questioning absolutely everything, then just how can you be
> certain that a consciousness actually exists, still less that that
> consciousness is you?

Well, that really depends on how you define 'consciousness', here, but
the way I see it, since I'm percieving all of this, I must exist, or it
wouldn't be percieved.

>
>>> 2) This consciousness is bound to a state or states that allow
>>> knowledge
>>> and thought. (This does not imply any veracity to that knowledge.)
>>>
>>
>> Hmm.  Maybe.  I'd suggest that thought is not neccesary.  Something
>> could be feeding us something that we interpret as thought, for
>> example.
>
>
> Quite so - something maybe feeding us something we interpret as
> consciousness.
>
But if there is a 'me', as far as I see it, there is a consciousness.

>>  Knowledge, however, of an instantaneous state, is neccesary.
>
>
> Umm - so not 'cogito ergo sum', but rather 'scio ergo sum'     ;)

Something like that. 'Sentio ergo sum', perhaps (Latin grammar not
totally up to scratch)?

>
> But why? If it is possible that something could be feeding us something
> that we interpret as thought, then is it not equally possible that
> something could be feeding us something that we interpret as knowledge of
> an instantaneous state?
>
Totally.  But knowledge is not neccesarily true.  I'd say that something
must have the capacity to 'know' the data that's being fed to it, just
as a human (in the conventional world) 'knows' what its eyes are feeding
to it.

> At some stage we just have to make an assumption or two - an act of
> belief.
>  In Descartes' case his basic assumption was that he was thinking. In
> both
> Joe & Christopher's case that they have an individual consciousness.

I don't know about 'individual'.  I've seen it suggested that it it's
just one part of a greater consciousness.

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