"I think, therefore I exist" -- Rene Descartes

Philosophy, An introduction to the Art of Wondering - Sixth Edition -- pages 36/37 | 1994 | James L. Christian

[thinktwice]

I love to go out on a pier and look at the waves as they travel into the shore. Try and wrap your mind around what is happening there and you will see that there is an element to reality that is 'non-material' that passes through us every moment of every day.

"Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought." -- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Signet Classic, page 231

[Dionysius]

"I stink. therefore I am!"

I think you have hit upon every Frenchman's philosophical set-piece.

[eastsider]

"I stink. therefore I am!"

I think you have hit upon every Frenchman's philosophical set-piece.

Pepe Le Pew

"I stink; zerefore, I am!"

[Hank Kerchief]

This is nominalism or subjectivism, not realism.

What a philosopher means by realism is the opposite of what everyone else means by realism. The philosopher who styles himself a realist believes universals have real metaphysical existence independent of particulars. In other words, a philosophical realist believes a red (redness) and ball (ballness) in a red ball exist independently of any red balls, and that red balls can only exist if real universal redness and real universal ballness somehow come together to be red balls which are then called a particulars.

Normal people believe red (redness) and ball (ballness) do not exist if there are no red balls, and that it is red balls that have real metaphysical existense, and their color and shape only exist as characteristics of the red balls. Normal people are are called "nominalists" by philosophical realists. Philosophical realists are called jerks by normal people, and the normal people are right.

Hank

[Aquinasfan]

UNIVERSALS

[NukeMan]

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time.

Er, can your generalization be applied to itself?

[Hank Kerchief]

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time.

Er, can your generalization be applied to itself?

It's not a generalization. It doesn't say all, but most...most...most.

Secondly, it is factual. On all issues that people themselves consider important, the majority is always wrong. For examples, religion and politics. Since no group maintains a clear majority on any religious or political view, either everyone is wrong about these things, or, if any are right, all the rest, that is, the majority are wrong.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

UNIVERSALS

I've been responding to your posts as though you had some serious intellectual interest either in discovering how reality and existence can be understood or in trying to convince me that the superstitious views of the Schoolmen neverthless contained some truth.

If the latter is your object, you cannot convince me, because I am thoroughly familiar with the teaching and have seen through it completely. Certainly you are not going to convince my by linking to sources less cogent than even your own posts.

Hank

[NukeMan]

"It's not a generalization. It doesn't say all, but most...most...most."

Well, to be sure, I looked it up: Generalization - A principle, statement, or idea having general application. And general means: affecting or characteristic of the majority of those involved; prevalent.

Ergo, most most most. I'm not trying to bust your chops. I simply noticed that you try to be scrupulous with your logic, and perhaps this is a slip. Taken literally, we would have reason to doubt your statement, since it is 'most' likely you are of the class of 'most' people!

[Hank Kerchief]

Ergo, most most most. I'm not trying to bust your chops. I simply noticed that you try to be scrupulous with your logic, and perhaps this is a slip. Taken literally, we would have reason to doubt your statement, since it is 'most' likely you are of the class of 'most' people!

My views might be entirely wrong but it won't ever be because they agree with any majority view. Almost no one agrees with me. I belong to the smallest minority that exists, a minority of one.

If you discover I am wrong, it will be in spite of the fact that my "generality" cannot apply to me.

(I don't mean to say no one agrees with me, but I assure there are not many. As you've probably guessed, that does not bother me a whole lot. For one thing, it has taught me, people can be immensely enjoyable, no matter how much they disagree with me, so long as the dissagreement is not a threat of force against my person or property.)

Thank you for the kind comment about being scrupulously logical, and I certainly do make slips, and worse. I just don't think this is one. But don't worry about busting my chops. Sometimes that is the only way to get through someone's thick skull, and mine is thicker than I like sometimes. My wife has made me aware of this.

Hank

[cornelis]

You amaze me Hank, rarely does anyone think so clearly. And state it so clearly.

I see you've been petting a cat and a dog.

[Hank Kerchief]

I see you've been petting a cat and a dog.

I ride a Harley and wear a lot of black. Cat hair and dog hair frequently appear on me, I'm afraid. You've caught me!

(And I try so hard to be the ruthless, selfish, uncharitable, mean, objectivist I'm supposed to be. Maybe if I join Hells Angels...)

Hank

[LogicWings]

Again, materialism can provide no coherent, logical explanation for the reliability of our senses (nor the unified experience of consciousness itself for that matter).

This is not only an Assertion Without Proof, it is the Fallacy of 'Can't Prove a Negative.' YOU cannot prove that no such reliability exists, since, if it doesn't exist, it cannot be proven to exist. This statement PROVES that you don't know how to think, what thought is, or what logic is. I cannot take such an assertion seriously.

I CAN logically prove the reliability of the senses because without them nothing can be proven, or verified, to exist. Not Jesus, not justice, not courts, not altruism, not truth, not the Bible, not love, not the poor, nothing, none of it. Every single aspect, every single word, every single concept is utterly and completely dependent upon the reliability of the senses or it is all lies.

You read the Bible? You depend upon your senses. You know you must breathe? You depend upon the reliability of your senses. You think your senses are unreliable? Stop breathing. Stop eating. Stop sensing. Stop being.

You cannot. Being and sensing synonymous. You have NO OTHER MEANS to verify anything other than your senses. You cannot prove otherwise. The burden of proof is upon you.

The syllogism is:

To survive you must assume the reliability of the senses.
You survive. Therefore you assume the reliability of the senses.

If you don't then you make a fool out of every person who has ever starved to death. What, you think they didn't know they needed food? Because their senses told them they needed food and those senses were unreliable? This is so utterly foolish it hurts to even think somebody actually still thinks like this.

Every single person who chooses to survive depends upon the reliability of the senses, or they don't survive. You want to prove me wrong, go jump off a bridge or cliff or something and fly to a soft landing.

Otherwise, stop bothering me with nonsense,

[LogicWings]

I would make a distinction between understanding fully (comprehension) and understanding in part (potentially up to and including a "working knowledge").

Tracking.

If what lies beyond our comprehension may be understood in part due to inference,

Then you 'comprehend' only to the degree that you may infer. If you 'infer' it isn't 'beyond.'

to the volitional efforts of someone there presenting us knowledge of its nature and substance (Bible happens to call that "glory," literally translated "weight" from Hebrew)

So, because somebody else said it is so, it is so? How do I verify this other than to accept it? If I can verify it, then I'm not dependent upon their 'presenting us knowledge' and if I can't then I have to suspect its veracity.

then we may know in part (even if "through a glass, darkly").

Reminds me of the 3 blind men and the elephant, (can't get any darker than that). If you only know part, you don't really know what you know. Kind of sums it up for me. So many people only have a partial picture and want to launch off telling everybody else how to live. I'm tired of this. Prove it all to me or shut up.

[LogicWings]

"Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought." -- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Signet Classic, page 231

I know Rand admired him tremendously. I keep meaning to go there. This gem is an example why. thanks

[LogicWings]

Philosophical realists are called jerks by normal people, and the normal people are right.

Made me laugh again!

All these mystics. All these magicians arguing over which magic is the more powerful. None live in reality.

Like Osama claiming that God is on their side and, therefore, they will win. How many times have we heard that? Makes me shake my head when I hear what some say here about stem cell research. Can't they see they are saying the same thing, only the subject and the level of willing ignorance and rejection of science is different?

Oh well, answered my own question. No, they can't.

[thinktwice]

"False words are not only evil in themselves but they inject the soul with evil." -- Socrates

[thinktwice]

"Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought." -- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Signet Classic, page 231

The dramatic context of that line - the situation and resolution -- is a far better gem.

[CaptainJustice]

Reality is that which exists, and if God exists in reality, He necessarily must have created Himself. I disagree sort of. i think God either IS existence, or precedes it in some fashion. There has to be an uncaused causer. The jewish kabbalah has an interesting concept called "tzim tzum" meaning "contraction". The kabbalah states that God is infinite, and thus, to create anything that wasnt God, God had to "suck in" or contract and create room for a universe. Perhaps "existence" as we know it is that space. I'm under the notion that God is much "bigger" than even Jehova in the Bible. I think the personal God isnt the fullness of God. I think that were God to fully "exhale" everything would cease to exist and it would just be God in His infinity. But who knows.

[thinktwice]

That which exists is everything that is, and if God created everything that is, God must be more than "is."

Think ... transcendent.
Think ... beyond infinity.
Think ... indeterminate form.