met: conception and reality

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met: conception and reality

Post by fleetmouse » Fri Apr 26, 2013 6:36 pm

met wrote:
fleetmouse wrote:But our thoughts can have intention without extension - they can connote without denoting. We can posit false connections and there can be real ones that elude us. So it follows that there's something outside of our models.
No. Cuz the "stuff" outside our models could still just be more relations, more patterns. Thoughts that are to deep for us. Still doesn't have to be any actual "stuff."

Think of a computer program stored on some portable storage device. You can start the program on different computers, but no-one thinks of that as different things, different "copies" of the program. It's the same program. We see it that way cuz the media the program runs on when it's activated - electrical charges defined in some RAM - are too tenuous. Haven't got enough solidity to be "real."

That's the point. :P
Let me see if I understand your idea. Please don't take this as an attack or critique - I just want to understand what you're saying.

There are all these minds (us) running a program (to put it metaphorically) that constitutes reality as we know it - and if we commonly conceive of things like Mt. Everest, the moon, cats, dogs and so on, these things do not have self-subsistent existence apart from our conception of them. Is that what you're saying?

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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by met » Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:34 pm

fleetmouse wrote:
met wrote:
fleetmouse wrote:But our thoughts can have intention without extension - they can connote without denoting. We can posit false connections and there can be real ones that elude us. So it follows that there's something outside of our models.
No. Cuz the "stuff" outside our models could still just be more relations, more patterns. Thoughts that are to deep for us. Still doesn't have to be any actual "stuff."

Think of a computer program stored on some portable storage device. You can start the program on different computers, but no-one thinks of that as different things, different "copies" of the program. It's the same program. We see it that way cuz the media the program runs on when it's activated - electrical charges defined in some RAM - are too tenuous. Haven't got enough solidity to be "real."

That's the point. :P
Let me see if I understand your idea. Please don't take this as an attack or critique - I just want to understand what you're saying.
ing ti
There are all these minds (us) running a program (to put it metaphorically) that constitutes reality as we know it - and if we commonly conceive of things like Mt. Everest, the moon, cats, dogs and so on, these things do not have self-subsistent existence apart from our conception of them. Is that what you're saying?
No. I wasn't so much constructing my own idea idea as just trying to kick some holes in yours. The point was to remove the underlying assumptions of the solidity of the physical and see where you were then. Since all we can ever know or measure about matter and energy are the interrelationships, the way things relate (or it's perhaps more accurate to say the way the one thing relates to itself, doesn't matter) why do we have to assume there's some actual primeval "stuff" behind it all? (Other than that idea is convenient and intuitive idea for us.) Then, what if there's nothing behind it all? What if there's just the vast multitudes of innumerable layers of relationships in themselves? In this case ... "materialism vanishes," as Meta puts it.

Accepting that, what are the implications of this uncertainty about the solidity of nature for physicalism?

After that, I was talking about at your objection to life after death being produced by "copying" the pattern of a being, since that would be a different "copy" and therefore a new being. I tried to make a everyday analogy to something where different copies of the same thing weren't considered to have separate existence. Consider a complex report of some kind being held on a network file or in a networked database. You can make different copies on different computers, but as long as the changes go back to that networked document, you'll think of it as "working on the same report." There can even be more than one copy being manipulated simultaneously. But the unique identity of the document still depends on its (more permanent) existence on the network, not the number of local copies that are in existence .... the copies don't really have individual identity n our minds, they're too tenuous and unstable.
The “One” is the space of the “world” of the tick, but also the “pinch” of the lobster, or that rendezvous in person to confirm online pictures (with a new lover or an old God). This is the machinery operative...as “onto-theology."
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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by fleetmouse » Sat Apr 27, 2013 4:22 pm

met wrote:No. I wasn't so much constructing my own idea idea as just trying to kick some holes in yours.
I'm not interested in discussing this with you any further. Cheers

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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by met » Sat Apr 27, 2013 7:01 pm

oooooo! does that mean you've conceded the viability of life after death? ;)

( & yes, I agree that conception and reality is an interesting topic too, but not what i was on about on that thread..... )
The “One” is the space of the “world” of the tick, but also the “pinch” of the lobster, or that rendezvous in person to confirm online pictures (with a new lover or an old God). This is the machinery operative...as “onto-theology."
Dr Ward Blanton

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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by Metacrock » Sun Apr 28, 2013 8:02 am

fleetmouse wrote:
met wrote:No. I wasn't so much constructing my own idea idea as just trying to kick some holes in yours.
I'm not interested in discussing this with you any further. Cheers
wow. I've noticed a lot "them" (whatever term: materialists?) do this way. When you say 'I am not going to privilege your view as the foundational view assume that you have to be right about the all the basic knowledge stuff, they just get really testie.
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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by Metacrock » Sun Apr 28, 2013 8:05 am

MEt:No. I wasn't so much constructing my own idea idea as just trying to kick some holes in yours. The point was to remove the underlying assumptions of the solidity of the physical and see where you were then. Since all we can ever know or measure about matter and energy are the interrelationships, the way things relate (or it's perhaps more accurate to say the way the one thing relates to itself, doesn't matter) why do we have to assume there's some actual primeval "stuff" behind it all? (Other than that idea is convenient and intuitive idea for us.) Then, what if there's nothing behind it all? What if there's just the vast multitudes of innumerable layers of relationships in themselves? In this case ... "materialism vanishes," as Meta puts it.

Accepting that, what are the implications of this uncertainty about the solidity of nature for physicalism?

After that, I was talking about at your objection to life after death being produced by "copying" the pattern of a being, since that would be a different "copy" and therefore a new being. I tried to make a everyday analogy to something where different copies of the same thing weren't considered to have separate existence. Consider a complex report of some kind being held on a network file or in a networked database. You can make different copies on different computers, but as long as the changes go back to that networked document, you'll think of it as "working on the same report." There can even be more than one copy being manipulated simultaneously. But the unique identity of the document still depends on its (more permanent) existence on the network, not the number of local copies that are in existence .... the copies don't really have individual identity n our minds, they're too tenuous and unstable.
pretty bright met. Or our bodies. we 'become' different people every so often with regeneration of cells, but there's a continuity.
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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by met » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:28 am

That's a nice, simple & direct way of getting at it meta....
In a study published in the Annual Report for Smithsonian Institution in 1953, scientists found that 98 percent of our atoms are replaced each year. Atoms make up molecules, which make up cells, which make up tissues, which make up organs.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=11893583

.... seems the essence of us - even physically - is the pattern, the organizational principle, not the "stuff" that embodies it
The “One” is the space of the “world” of the tick, but also the “pinch” of the lobster, or that rendezvous in person to confirm online pictures (with a new lover or an old God). This is the machinery operative...as “onto-theology."
Dr Ward Blanton

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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by Metacrock » Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:12 am

met wrote:That's a nice, simple & direct way of getting at it meta....
In a study published in the Annual Report for Smithsonian Institution in 1953, scientists found that 98 percent of our atoms are replaced each year. Atoms make up molecules, which make up cells, which make up tissues, which make up organs.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=11893583

.... seems the essence of us - even physically - is the pattern, the organizational principle, not the "stuff" that embodies it
great follow up.
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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by met » Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:54 am

Image

Dr McCoy;s objections notwithstanding....
The “One” is the space of the “world” of the tick, but also the “pinch” of the lobster, or that rendezvous in person to confirm online pictures (with a new lover or an old God). This is the machinery operative...as “onto-theology."
Dr Ward Blanton

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Re: met: conception and reality

Post by Metacrock » Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:05 am

met wrote:Image

Dr McCoy;s objections notwithstanding....

LOL! :mrgreen: :D :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
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