It is understood that reality and language have a common syntax. We have been certain that quanta or bits give rise to matter and energy. Outside of myself or my being nothing is known, it can thus be assumed that nothing exists. So who cares? The past happened in a moment and the mind and the memories make it a flimsy basis on which to base reality.
Reality is basically a mind
- Thread starter Cortex_Colossus
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Thanks for wasting all our time, Solipsist.
Read Descartes and get back to us.
Read Descartes and get back to us.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Descartes thought that mind and body were separate. He believed in souls and God.
He also assumed that animals were machines without feeling.
He considered language proof that humans had souls. Animals, lacking language, were really just machines.
He managed to talk himself, and unfortunately many others, out of the obvious.
He also tend to confuse mind with thoughts and rationality, which is very problematic and has also led to many problems.
He was a bit of a dork.
He also assumed that animals were machines without feeling.
He considered language proof that humans had souls. Animals, lacking language, were really just machines.
He managed to talk himself, and unfortunately many others, out of the obvious.
He also tend to confuse mind with thoughts and rationality, which is very problematic and has also led to many problems.
He was a bit of a dork.
It's not solipsism because the same self is in everyone. There can't be anything outside consciousness because whenever we experience or see something, it is in our consciousness, otherwise we wouldnt'e xperience it.
Can you be absolutely clear. Are you categorically denying the existence of an objective world that's independent of our senses? Or are you simply saying that if such a world exists, we can't know anything about it?
Yorda:
Crom laughs at your Kantianism.
Crom laughs at your Kantianism.
There's no reason to think that there would be an external world because we can never know about it. And there can't be an external world because how could it be "external"? What would separate it from conscoiusness? The only thing that can create the illusion of separation is consciousness. External things are "inside" us. And when we say that something is objective it just refers to something that many people agree with.
Reality is not just basically the mind, reality as we know it exists in the mind.
This is why when we remove the brain, the rest follows... and here, i am talking about the brains capability to understand the reality it observes, because the reality we observe is not of ''out there,'' but essentially, ''in here.''
It's richer as you can see. Everything reduces to experience.
As arthur Eddington concurred before us, ''the stuff of the world, is mind-stuff.''
Are you saying that the external world either:
a). doesn't exist in any case:
Or
b). exists only in our consciousness.
If 'objective reality' is understood only in the sense that many people agree about its existence, then why do so many people agree about it? Is it mere happenstance, or are you suggesting a mass delusion here and on what evidence?
Basically=actuality-undefinedReality IS basically a mind...
Basically
Read Bishop George Berkeley.
Briefly and thus somewhat inaccurately, He held everything is only ideas in some mind. Modern philosophers also recognize the "other minds" problem. I.e. I cannot be sure there is anyone else like me that has thoughts, feelings and a mind. (Behavior as if they did is possible and such beings are called "zombies.") Not only do zombies have no mind, they have no feelings or in the term more technically used "qualias." For example a zombie if burned by a cigarette will cry out struggle to get free etc. but feel nothing. They are biological machines programmed to behave AS IF they had feelings.
Personally, I think there does exist a material universe without any perceiver required (IN CONTRAST TO THE GOOD BISHOP) but this cannot be proved. I especially like Berkeley’s reason for the perceived world to follow natural laws -namely only if they exist can God work miracles as miracles are violations of the natural laws. In Berkeley's POV he was a lesser spirit creation of the mind of a greater spirit, God. Everything was God or the mind of God.
Briefly and thus somewhat inaccurately, He held everything is only ideas in some mind. Modern philosophers also recognize the "other minds" problem. I.e. I cannot be sure there is anyone else like me that has thoughts, feelings and a mind. (Behavior as if they did is possible and such beings are called "zombies.") Not only do zombies have no mind, they have no feelings or in the term more technically used "qualias." For example a zombie if burned by a cigarette will cry out struggle to get free etc. but feel nothing. They are biological machines programmed to behave AS IF they had feelings.
Personally, I think there does exist a material universe without any perceiver required (IN CONTRAST TO THE GOOD BISHOP) but this cannot be proved. I especially like Berkeley’s reason for the perceived world to follow natural laws -namely only if they exist can God work miracles as miracles are violations of the natural laws. In Berkeley's POV he was a lesser spirit creation of the mind of a greater spirit, God. Everything was God or the mind of God.
True.....
However, maybe only our perception is internal. After all, the other people are sill out there and they have their own internal perceptions.
I think that if we all can describe our exernal realities in the same "objective" way, then our external realities must indeed be external. We can accurately describe what we perceive as reality and compare from our subjective realities. That's what makes them "objective" - they all follow the same subjective pattern.
This sounds like the tree in the forest arguement. If there's nobody around to hear it falling, does it make a sound? Of course it does. Likewise there exists a reality outside us and seperate from us. Even if no human beings vanish tomorrow this world will still exist, like it has for billions of years.Yorda said:
All this talk about humans being an integral part of reality instead of just observers of it seems like a new age version of the classic Earth as the center of the universe idea. I agree that we can't know reality objectively, as our perceptions are subjective to us, but the universe will still be there if we all died tomorrow. The planets will still revolve around the sun, stars will still burn, the galaxy will still be hurtling through space. This means an objective reality must exist, even if we could never experience it without our subjective perceptions.
There's a well-known anecdote about Berkeley's immaterialism and "ingenious sophistry" in Boswell's Life of Johnson.
Boswell explained Berkeley's argument to Dr Johnson and said it couldn't be refuted. Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."
(I agree with you and believe an external world does exist independently of any observer. But I can't prove it.)
How do you know these two assertions are true?
I believe this, but neither you nor I can proof it.
That's coming from someone who has a picture of an alien that doesn't even string sentances together correctly ... oh dear...
... and besides, it was initially a joke.