Re: CHAT: mass-hallucination?

On Thursday, June 16, 2005, at 07:00 , Joe wrote:

> Ray Brown wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Are you suggesting that not only my senses but the senses of people who
>> live in our road and of certain other people here in the south-east of
>> England are untrustworthy? Are we all suffering some sort of
>> mass-hallucination? Or what???
>
>
> I'd say that not even mass hallucination is neccesary.  It's possible
> that you're the only person in the universe -  you only need one
> hallucination to hallucinate everyone else hallucinating.
But if I am the only person that exists and I am hallucinating, then it is
arguably mass hallucination, I being the one and only mass. A weak point
in this argument is that the hallucination appears to be _consistent_ over
a a longish time-span.

Yes, yes - I know it may be that I was created less than a nanosecond ago
together with all my 'memories'.

But if I am the only person that exists then the recent thread on whether
commands to believe are felicitous or not is irrelevant, since what I say
goes    :)

> I'd suggest two or three axioms for the universe that we can be sure of:
I count only two axioms.

> 1)A consciousness (namely, me) exists.
That is remarkably like Descartes' "cogito [ergo] sum". How can you be
certain that _you_ exist?

For all I know your messages could be spawned by some smart piece of
software that reads the conlang list      :)

How do I _know_ that even I exist? How can I be at all certain that my
consciousness is in any sense real?

> 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.
And _data_ implies other existenceS (since 'data' is either a plural or a
mass-noun) for which you have as much or as little evidence as you have
for time.

> Other than that, everything is an assumption.
Sorry - I disagree. *Your two 'axioms' are themselves assumptions* - you
have provided no evidence for either.

> Personal musings over.  Comment if you want.
I have done so - or at least a reply will appear to have been generated
;)

> It interests me.
Does it? (Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you actually have some
sort of existence)

Assuming that I have any sort of existence - I am certain of two things:
1. that philosophers will still be arguing over such matters as the human
race comes to an end.

2. that there are more appropriate lists for discussing such matters than
the _Con(structed) Lang(uages)_ list. Unless, of course, you are
constructing a language for the inhabitants of the planet Solipsismus, who
each believes that it alone exits and that the other inhabitants are
figments of its imagination.
==============================================

On Friday, June 17, 2005, at 01:22 , Joseph Bridwell wrote:
[snip]
> <humour>
> Telepathic aliens. I first considered that they might be aliens who
[snip]
> I pick telepathic aliens, perhaps even vampiric. How often do you lose
> blood when tending them?
> </humour>
Not often - and not enough blood to satisfy even the teeniest vampire. I
guess it's the same telepathic aliens that cause Joe to imagine that he
actually exists   :-D

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760

PS - assuming of course that 'mind' exists and indeed that language is not
an illusion.

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