themadhair
Well-Known Member
Quoting because it illustrates the rather huge problem here.
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Let's Present Some Evidence ...
- Thread starter PureX
- Start date
PureX
Veteran Member
Well then. Now you want to argue about the reality of subjective/objective human concepts? 'Willamena' is a lot better in that area then I am.
Commoner
Headache
Dude, this is page 89 of you jumping back and forth without getting a single resonable point across.
PureX
Veteran Member
They don't have to die, just become unconscious of you. Without their awareness of you, you become immaterial. Bye! *just teasing*
themadhair
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately you weren't teasing in your earlier comments where you pretty much implied the same thing....
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I've been arguing nothing differently all along. If anyone wants to argue that love, beauty, justice, and/or god objectively exist apart from human (conscious entity) concepts, I'd love to hear the evidence.
PureX
Veteran Member
I was only teasing about the "Bye" part. Not the immaterial part, though that's probably the wrong word.
Yes. YOU are a concept. And when people become unconscious of that concept, YOU won't exist for them. You vanish ... become immaterial. I suppose you still exist for yourself, but how sad and boring that would be. And really, what would it matter? You'd be invisible. They'd see someone in front of them, I suppose, but that someone wouldn't ever be you. He would always be a stranger to them. An unknown.
I suspect that's a topic for another thread, though.
themadhair
Well-Known Member
Sounds like you are equating a thing with the perception of a thing again. Didnt I not point out to you why this is no-no?
PureX
Veteran Member
I keep forgetting that you are the 'decider of all truth'. How foolish of me! Nevertheless, from all human perspectives, there is no difference between the "thing" and the "perception of the thing" except perhaps for the theoretical difference. I mean, we know that there is a difference in theory (theory of relativity) but in actuality, they remain the same. What we experience, is what it is, for us. And what we don't experience, isn't there for us, except in theory.
themadhair
Well-Known Member
So the physical me is the same as the concept of me...? That doesn't work.
You really haven't thought this through have you?
Do you accept that the concept you is the same as the physical you? Does it accurately reflect you as far as you know?
themadhair
Well-Known Member
Doesn't the fact that you asked that second question not prove my point?
nonbeliever_92
Well-Known Member
purex, you do realize that you're not making sense right?
OmarKhayyam
Well-Known Member
I think PureX has been reading The Tempest and thinks he IS Prospero.
The world doesn't exist if we don't. So for the better part of 3 billion years the earth did not exist.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Are you really arguing that there is NO external reality that exists independent of us and independent of our perception of it? If so, you really are in the twilight zone.:sad4:
Greetings friends. At this point in the thread there seem to be only two objections to post 526 presented as potential evidence. Although i must bow to the wisdoms already offered by Willamena and PureX perhaps more can be added.
Nonbeliever_92
One objection comes from nonbeliever_92, Purely subjective experiences cannot be held as viable evidence for anything. That may be the position of many, nonbeliever, but some of us have a different opinion. Experience with support from other facts as presented in 526 can be held as evidence. In this case the other facts include the following: the experience has occurred many times throughout history and is well documented; descriptions of the experience are essentially the same; those with this same realization and giving the same essential description cut across religious, cultural, ethnic and racial divisions; and the experience can be somewhat transmitted to others and therefore intersubjectively verified.
Themadhair
Another question has been raised by themadhair concerning conformational bias and the possible exception to interpretation of this experience given by Scientologists that he has talked with. It seems a good point to give careful consideration to conformational bias when examining any subjective experience. That is why the points above were offered in the first place. Themadhair, do you not consider the points above on the similarity coming forth from such diverse backgrounds to weaken any concerns about conformational bias? This diversity does include Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims and this answers one of your questions about them in agreement with Willamena. You ask us to weigh equally the example of your own conversations and subjective interpretation of Scientologists experience as they describe them orally to you against the broad spectrum of documented evidence presented on this Mystic Experience? Permit me to offer also, given with respect for you and any Scientologists, that doubts come to mind on your Scientology example. One doubts seriously if we are writing of the same Mystical Experience because the Experience has dramatic transformational characteristics including a paradigm shift in ones perspective of reality which most likely would become visible.
Best Wishes,
A1O1
Nonbeliever_92
One objection comes from nonbeliever_92, Purely subjective experiences cannot be held as viable evidence for anything. That may be the position of many, nonbeliever, but some of us have a different opinion. Experience with support from other facts as presented in 526 can be held as evidence. In this case the other facts include the following: the experience has occurred many times throughout history and is well documented; descriptions of the experience are essentially the same; those with this same realization and giving the same essential description cut across religious, cultural, ethnic and racial divisions; and the experience can be somewhat transmitted to others and therefore intersubjectively verified.
Themadhair
Another question has been raised by themadhair concerning conformational bias and the possible exception to interpretation of this experience given by Scientologists that he has talked with. It seems a good point to give careful consideration to conformational bias when examining any subjective experience. That is why the points above were offered in the first place. Themadhair, do you not consider the points above on the similarity coming forth from such diverse backgrounds to weaken any concerns about conformational bias? This diversity does include Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims and this answers one of your questions about them in agreement with Willamena. You ask us to weigh equally the example of your own conversations and subjective interpretation of Scientologists experience as they describe them orally to you against the broad spectrum of documented evidence presented on this Mystic Experience? Permit me to offer also, given with respect for you and any Scientologists, that doubts come to mind on your Scientology example. One doubts seriously if we are writing of the same Mystical Experience because the Experience has dramatic transformational characteristics including a paradigm shift in ones perspective of reality which most likely would become visible.
Best Wishes,
A1O1
Copernicus
Industrial Strength Linguist
Yes, but while consciousness persists, it matters. Or do you think that we should act as if it did not?
God is as real as any imaginary being. Real beings are actually more real than purely imaginary ones. You may disagree, but I'm ready to stand my ground on this one.
Because it is entirely possible that what we experience now is all that we ever will experience. As unlikely as it may seem to you, it is possible that we will exist after we die in exactly the same sense that we existed before we were born. That is, not at all.
And I have just answered.
Commoner
Headache
So, unless something is also a concept, it does not exist.
Not so long ago, there was no concept of evolution - nobody had any idea that it was going on. We now have this strange concept that we call evolution - but this concept is strongly relying on the fact that the process started long before anyone knew about it - long before anyone could know about it.
Is there evolution? Was there evolution?
If there were no minds that could conceptualize it and therefore it didn't exist, how did we come to have these minds that we explain with the concept of evolution.
Is that the same thing that would happen if humanity died out - or just forgot - would evolution cease to exist?
If that is your stance, then we have no common ground on which to debate from. I would argue that some things exist beyond the concepts, independant of the concepts. The only things that do not exist beyond our minds are our concepts - but that's not all there is.
PureX
Veteran Member
Our perception of it is all we have. So how can we know that a reality exists apart from our perception of it?
PS, in the future, if you want me to respond to your posts, stop with the snide comments. That goes for all of you. And I will promise to do the same.
The objective world exists "as far as we know". It is the world stored in our memory (memory of subjective experience) and recalled, consciously or subconsciously when we need to compare our subjective experience to something to determine things like "accuracy" (which, for things like navigation, might reoccur every moment). We recall it, bring it up to date to project it as the present, and allow it to be a useful map.
Was that your point?