• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

The "Kangaroo Court" Debate Style

Brickjectivity

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I think it's time that someone called this debate 'style' to the forefront and exposed it for what it is...
I recognize this in use sometimes. Even though our rules envision the dream of a forum where people engage in civil debate, everyone here is a volunteer from the members to the staff. Anyone can keep the rules but not the spirit of them. There is no way to make everyone be a gentle, highly informed, patient moderate poster.

Another issue is that all of us are seeking connection, and we do that in different ways. Why do people engage in frivolous debates about sports teams? Their dedication and loyalty to teams is preposterous, but its very common. I see the same thing happen here and generally in all forums. People want to pick a side and affirm and be affirmed. Its a good feeling which can come at the detriment of the harmony we seek. True.

I think we also have different priorities, and I mean we have very different priorities. For example we get the occasional messiah. We get the paranormal pseudo scientist. We get the genius on the edge.

We also get those escaping from hard ways of life, and they sometimes are looking for a little help to figure things out. That is when the forum shines.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
I would say that I don't respect them or their opinions because I hold neither in high regard, but respect their right to hold them, because I'm not interested in imposing my beliefs on them and understand why that's the proper attitude in a free, civil society.
Honestly I don't understand this complex play on words.
I respect their opinions, even if I believe in Evolution, and I even believe in the absence of an intelligent design.
I respect their opinions because I respect their right to hold them.
Your English is excellent,
Thank you so much :)
but you're simply wrong about respect having only one meaning, at least not in American English.
Respect and admiration are two different things. They are not synonyms.
Respect and tolerance are synonyms.

Respect and approval are not the same thing. I can disapprove of your choice, yet I respect it. :)
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
I think that, for the purposes of this forum, it would be nice to have a definition and explanation of just what a debate is. Maybe it already exists, and I'm not aware of it.
An argument makes a factual claim supported by reasons. If well-made, the reasons ought to persuade minds unbiased on the issue that the claim is true. A debate ensues when the argument is challenged. The best reason to make an argument on the Internet is to have your argument challenged to see if it holds up. If you expect to change minds, you will likely have a frustrating experience.

In forums restricted to people of the same religious beliefs, weak arguments for the position will go unchallenged.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
What are concepts though? They are abstract constructs meant to represent something.
They are the direct result of sensory input. Perception IS conception. Neither can happen without the other happening. The physical sensations are literally nothing without the cognitive conceptual response. Yet you keep telling yourself and me that the physical sensations are "real" while the cognitive responses are "abstract constructs" (meaning not really real). And this is just plain wrong. Because the physical phenomena causing the sensations and the cognitive response caused by those sensations are not ideologically divisible. The idea of a chair doesn't "represent" a chair. it IS the chair, in our mind. No idea, no chair. No cognitive response, no anything.
These abstractions can be used to represent physically existing things in reality or they can refer to other, more complex abstract constructions built of multiple constructs. These more complex abstractions would be considered concepts.
There are no physically existing "things" without the ideological concept of "thingness", and of physicality, and of existence vs. non-existence.
Abstractions have no properties or characteristics in and of themselves. They are simply representations.
First, our cognitive responses are not "abstractions". They are a direct physiological response to a specific set of physical stimuli. The abstractions occur later when we seek to create labels (representations) for various categories of cognitive experiences.

"Chair" becomes a word used to designate a whole array of similar cognitive experience that we've had throughout our lives. That "chair" is an abstraction. But the one we are sitting in, not so much.
The set of what can be represented is infinite and undefined, really only limited by our capacity to imagine them. There are no rules of association in how abstract representations can be used and combined to create concepts except as defined within the boundaries and rules governing an abstract system, systems we create for organizing and using abstractions in a useful and meaningful way. Examples of such systems include mathematics and human language systems.
But what you're referring to here is meta-cognition. Not the cognitive foundation from which is springs. Once a physical impulse travels through our sensory system and into our brains, and then explodes into a cognitive conception that our brains can then generate multiple variations of to compare and contrast them for greater clarity. That is the phenomenon of "abstract" thought. But that does make all cognitive phenomena "abstract thought".
These abstractions of representation, once established/created/invented, can be encoded and stored in many physical forms to enable us to share these abstractions.
Yes, and they can be "wrong" in that they may miss-lable or miss-value or miss-appropriate complex conceptualized experiences. But this does not make them any less "real" or extant. It just means the process of abstraction went awry.
For example, our abstract references can be encoded in body movements, such as pointing, they can be encoded in sounds and verbal utterances. They can be encoded in symbol, picture, or alphabetic systems. But first and foremost, they are encoded and stored within the physical neuro-physiological systems that comprise the central nervous system of organisms that use abstract representations.
It's ALL both physical AND metaphysical. Perception IS conception. The brain IS the mind, and the mind iS the brain. They are not divisible. The chair IS the idea AND the thing we sit in.
What does it mean to say that a purely analytic abstraction is possible or occurring? Using my obnoxious primmer on abstractions above, let's explore that question.
There are no purely analytic abstractions. Every conception originates as a cognitive experience of sensory input, and can then be compared and contrasted with remembered, similar cognitive experiences. Allowing us to generate abstract idealized versions to represent these collections of similar cogitive experiences. The "chair" is now an ideal in our minds representing millions of chairs, past present and future, some personally experienced by us and many not. But we will know them when we them even for the first time because the will fit within the conceptual confines of our chair ideal.
If I have two abstract representations that point to two physically existing things in reality, the first being an African lion and the second being a golden eagle, I can, in my mind, break that abstraction into parts, creating separate abstract representations for those parts, be they head, legs, tail, etc. None of these representations has *any* physical properties or limits on association with other abstractions. They are not independently real and existent except as representations, not the actual thing or category of thing it is meant to represent.
They are ALL derived from "real" interactiona with "real" physical phenomena, including the cognitive phenomena wherein perception becomes conception. The abstract "bird" ideal does not need to have feathers to be "real" because it came from the very real experiences of our many encounters with feathered critters.
I can also add other properties to this creation if I wish, like the ability to shoot laser beams out of its eyes, make it impervious to fire, give it a sentient mind comparable to that of human beings with the added feature of telepathic communication, etc. As pure abstractions, there is no restriction on the association of abstractions unless we create some rules or a complete abstract system of boundaries, rules, etc.
You keep ignoring the basic fact that there are no "pure abstractions". The human brain just doesn't work that way. Our imaginations can only generate new configurations of what already have experienced to exist.
For the ‘Griffin’ to be an “existential possibility” in the physical world of reality,
See, this is where you keep going off the rails ... "the physical world of reality". The real world is both physical and metaphysical. Because perception IS conception. These are not divisible.
The point of all of this is to say that merely making fanciful associations of abstract constructs in no way confers nor enables existential possibility as a physically existent thing,
Actually, this is precisely how we humans have managed to create a whole bunch of otherwise perpetually non-existent things. It's our unique superpower, in fact.
Why are imaginary “actual” realities a problem? They are a problem because, as pure abstractions, they are infinite and boundless as to what they can be said to be and said to contain.
But they aren't. Because we humans cannot "abstract" (imagine) anything that we have not cognitively experienced. We can only abstract (imagine) new combinations of things that we have cognitively experienced. Some of those combinations are possible to manifest, and some of them are not. I'm not seeing the "problem" here.
Once the undetectable realm is created, it can be filled with whatever entities one likes, in any number and with whatever properties or characteristics one might imagine and claim that it is all objectively “real and existent”.
That realm already exists. It's the realm of all that we have NOT experienced, and so cannot cognitively conceptualize or abstract. The only way we even know it to exist is that we keep experiencing new things, which means there are things that we have not yet encountered, to experience. But of course we don't know what they are or how many of them them there are because we have not yet encountered them.
Now, once the artificially constructed abstraction of imperceptible realms is accepted as “real”, anyone and everyone can project whatever they wish into this artificial construct, all of which are now immune from any type of evaluation or confirmation.
Yes, that's true. But I'm not seeing the problem, here. It's like standing on one side of a wall, and imaging what might be on the other. We can imagine anything we want, but all our imaginations have to work with is what we have seen and experienced on our side of the wall. And no matter what we choose to imagine about the other side, we will still be on our side of the wall.
We are all familiar with the conflicts that arise between competing artificial abstract realities that have fixed and immutable requirements for human beings. Adoption of such fixed and immutable artificial “realities” creates rigidity in society that leads to stagnation and a decreased ability to adapt to a continually changing societal environment and world.

I much prefer dynamic and progressive abstract social systems that are grounded in *actual* Reality, the objective reality independent of thought, that are entered into by mutual agreement and that have the mechanisms to adeptly and successfully adapt to the reality of continual change.
Everyone perceives/conceives their experience of existing a little differently. This is not "fixable". (Nor should it be.) We need to learn how to accept this, not how to 'fix' it.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process.
The truth, simply put, is 'what is'. What this means to us is up to us. What it means to most of us is that whatever the truth is, we are not in possession of it, nor in control of it. And this frightens us.
The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.
What you're talking about is control. We want to be in control, because we know that we aren't, and this frightens us. So we want to believe that we have, or can have, the truth (to know 'what is') sufficiently enough to gain control over it. This is our quest, as human beings. So yes, "truth loses all relevance" to us when it no longer serves our obsessive desire to gain control over our own fate. Very few humans, if any, are interested in the truth for it's own sake. Even though for some odd reason we really like to tell ourselves and each other that we are.
We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes.
Giving us a measure of control.
Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results.
Giving us a measure of control.
If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, ...
Giving us a measure of control.
In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.
And thereby giving us a measure of control.
Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue.
I agree that what this is really all about is control. And I agree that we can gain some measure of control over our own fates via practiced, thoughtful, trial and error. I do not think we will ever gain the degree of control that we desire. And I have seen that this realization freaks a lot of people out to the point that they will fight hard to reject it. I don't know where you stand on this.
And if that's not your definition of truth or correct or right or knowledge, then whatever else is has no practical value.
Prompting me to wonder what OTHER value truth might have for us to consider besides control. Especially given that we can never fully possess it. And I think there is another value to be found in 'the truth of what is'. And that is as an open ideal. As a kind of fantasy "fill in the blank". What would I/we want the 'truth of it all' to be if it could be anything we wanted (excluding abject control, of course). Seems like that question could be very useful to contemplate if for no other reason than self-revelation.
 

MikeF

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Yes, that's true. But I'm not seeing the problem, here. It's like standing on one side of a wall, and imaging what might be on the other. We can imagine anything we want, but all our imaginations have to work with is what we have seen and experienced on our side of the wall. And no matter what we choose to imagine about the other side, we will still be on our side of the wall.

This is a good framework for us to explore what we are talking about. We imagine a scenario in which we have no way of gathering information about what lies beyond some barrier, be it a wall or an insurmountable mountain range.

We both accept the premise that we, standing on our side of the wall or mountain range, can say nothing about what actual conditions might exist on the other side and what it may contain.

I agree that we have the capacity to imagine anything we want within limits of experience, but I think we disagree as to what that may consist of. I think we both agree that we have conceptions of our raw sense information, our visual "picture" of things and conditions we see stored in our memory. We have temperature sensations associated with objects and events, texture, taste, etc. Yes, these raw-ly perceived experiences form the core of our database of conceived of things. But, as my Griffin example shows, we can abstractly break apart these perceived conceptions and create new and independent conceptions that were not raw-ly perceived. So a leg on its own, detached from the original organism, for example. We can continue to break things down quite minutely depending on the thing in question. All these new abstractions as independent concepts were not necessarily experienced through raw sense data as independent entities as such, yet have been "experienced" as constructs built from our imagination.

Now, think of all things and conditions we raw-ly experience, and then break all of them apart into recognizable pieces, then think of all the myriad ways those pieces can be mixed and matched to form concepts that were *never* sensually and raw-ly perceived as such. Now mix and combine that set of never perceived abstract concepts. The degrees of separation can be endless for non-perceived abstractions constructed mentally in this manner.

So, while I have experienced a lizard, and I have experience fire on my side of the wall, I have the capacity to conceive of a lizard scaled up to an immense size and have it breath fire. I have never seen one on my side of the wall, but boy, I can certainly project my immense fire-breathing lizard on to the blank canvas of that unknown on the other side of the wall/mountain.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What you're talking about is control.
Yes. That's the value of ideas that deserve to be call knowledge. We can use them to achieve our goals, which in general can be described as maximizing desired experiences and minimizing undesirable one. I say that that's the purpose of life. That's what we're doing when we try to meet Maslow's hierarchy of needs - to avoid harm, privation, shame, remorse, loneliness, rejection, etc., and replace it with safety, sufficiency, pleasure, friendship, love, self-respect, the respect of others, etc.. To the extent that we can learn to do these things will determine how pleasant or unpleasant our ride on the planet will have been.
I respect their opinions because I respect their right to hold them.
I've told you that that is two different uses of the word for me and I believe for most English-speaking people.

I don't understand how you can respect an opinion you find flawed. The best I can do is respect another's right to be what I consider wrong, but I could never respect what I consider a wrong idea.

I have an acquaintance who is also a bridge partner who I like. I respect that he's jolly, fair, reliable, and more. I respect that he wants to learn to play bridge better, but not that he can't learn. I mentor him. We play online together and then I send him a summary of my thoughts on his choices.

Once I told him that because he invariably fails to recognize the meaning of a particular bid, which invariably results in disaster, that I would not be using that convention again until after the first time that HE makes the bid properly. He became very angry at that. I understood it to mean that I could advise hm on particular situations, but that discussing learning in general was off the table, which is unfortunate, since his replies to my comments are usually him explaining what he was thinking.

I don't mind reading that, but if that's all he writes in reply, it's a waste of his time. It doesn't matter what he was thinking, just whether he still thinks it and if so, why he disagrees. I'd much rather read, "I see your point" or even "I don't get your point" than "I was trying to show you yadda yadda"

What I'm saying here is that I respect the man, but not his ideas or reactions regarding bridge, or how he has effectively cut me off from helping him more. Those opinions and choices were mistakes. How can I respect that? But I do respect his right to make those mistakes. Thise are very different uses of the word respect.
Respect and admiration are two different things.
I use them interchangeably. I respect Joe Biden. I admire his values, his knowledge, and his accomplishments. I disrespect Trump because I find him base and loathsome - the opposite of admiration.
Respect and tolerance are synonyms.
That, too, but that's the OTHER meaning of the word. I used the word forbearance, but it's essentially the same thing.
Respect and approval are not the same thing. I can disapprove of your choice, yet I respect it.
That which I respect in the first sense (admire) I also approve of. I approve of Biden. I admire Biden. Therefore I respect him. With Trump, chane approve to disapprove, admire to disesteem, and respect to disrespect and hold contempt for.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
Yes. That's the value of ideas that deserve to be call knowledge. We can use them to achieve our goals, which in general can be described as maximizing desired experiences and minimizing undesirable one. I say that that's the purpose of life. That's what we're doing when we try to meet Maslow's hierarchy of needs - to avoid harm, privation, shame, remorse, loneliness, rejection, etc., and replace it with safety, sufficiency, pleasure, friendship, love, self-respect, the respect of others, etc.. To the extent that we can learn to do these things will determine how pleasant or unpleasant our ride on the planet will have been.

Do you assign no value to what we might call "pure" knowledge? We have spent a lot of money and time inventing and creating the Webb telescope. I can't think of anything it does that advances our well being on this planet. Yet I suspect that you share my attribution of great value to the knowledge of the universe that it provides, despite the fact that we will almost certainly never be able to incorporate it into our lives. I could think of lots of other examples, but hopefully that will illustrate my point.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
This is a good framework for us to explore what we are talking about. We imagine a scenario in which we have no way of gathering information about what lies beyond some barrier, be it a wall or an insurmountable mountain range.

We both accept the premise that we, standing on our side of the wall or mountain range, can say nothing about what actual conditions might exist on the other side and what it may contain.

I agree that we have the capacity to imagine anything we want within limits of experience, but I think we disagree as to what that may consist of. I think we both agree that we have conceptions of our raw sense information, our visual "picture" of things and conditions we see stored in our memory. We have temperature sensations associated with objects and events, texture, taste, etc. Yes, these raw-ly perceived experiences form the core of our database of conceived of things. But, as my Griffin example shows, we can abstractly break apart these perceived conceptions and create new and independent conceptions that were not raw-ly perceived. So a leg on its own, detached from the original organism, for example. We can continue to break things down quite minutely depending on the thing in question. All these new abstractions as independent concepts were not necessarily experienced through raw sense data as independent entities as such, yet have been "experienced" as constructs built from our imagination.

Now, think of all things and conditions we raw-ly experience, and then break all of them apart into recognizable pieces, then think of all the myriad ways those pieces can be mixed and matched to form concepts that were *never* sensually and raw-ly perceived as such. Now mix and combine that set of never perceived abstract concepts. The degrees of separation can be endless for non-perceived abstractions constructed mentally in this manner.

So, while I have experienced a lizard, and I have experience fire on my side of the wall, I have the capacity to conceive of a lizard scaled up to an immense size and have it breath fire. I have never seen one on my side of the wall, but boy, I can certainly project my immense fire-breathing lizard on to the blank canvas of that unknown on the other side of the wall/mountain.
I'm still not seeing the problem, here. This ability to combine experienced conceptualizations in ways that we have not experienced is our 'superpower'. It's how we are able to generate and enable possibilities that were otherwise impossible, and make them real. My only issue with this is that we are so obsessed with gaining absolute control by any means and at any cost that we use this superpower very unwisely. And it's going to be our downfall if we don't start focusing more on wisdom and less on control.
 

MikeF

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I'm still not seeing the problem, here. This ability to combine experienced conceptualizations in ways that we have not experienced is our 'superpower'. It's how we are able to generate and enable possibilities that were otherwise impossible, and make them real.

This is absolutely true. It is our 'superpower'.

The only problem centers around what of our imaginings can be said to be possible in terms of objectively existing independently of abstraction. For example, the concept of an airplane has always been a possibility within objective reality external to abstraction before such was even imagined, based on the properties and characteristics of the objective world. It is these properties and characteristics of reality external to abstraction that sets these limitations on what is and is not possible. Simply creating/imagining an abstraction does not confer or enable objective, non-abstract, existential possibility.

The fire-breathing giant lizard and the eye-laser shooting Griffin are only objectively and independently possible if they conform or comport with the limitations inherent in the properties and characteristics of objective Reality.

Some folks think that simply imagining does confer automatic possibility, or worse, actual independent existence, and for some that comes in the form of an existent entity that has requirements and makes demands of us that must be complied with, all sprung, however, from the imaginations of fallible Homo sapiens. This presents a problem, and based on the added imagined property of undetectability, one that is difficult to contradict beyond pointing out its absence and demonstrating the actual cause for things attributed to the imagined, undetectable entity. Right?

My only issue with this is that we are so obsessed with gaining absolute control by any means and at any cost that we use this superpower very unwisely. And it's going to be our downfall if we don't start focusing more on wisdom and less on control.

That is a very real concern, but I think it is a separate issue. It is an issue that can only be solved politically. You are not going to be able to stop people from trying to figure out how Reality works. All you can hope to do is generate a political consensus on how best to use that growing understanding wisely. In my subjective opinion, such political consensus should be made within a framework that corresponds and comports with actual Reality. That, to me, seems wise.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
This is absolutely true. It is our 'superpower'.

The only problem centers around what of our imaginings can be said to be possible in terms of objectively existing independently of abstraction. For example, the concept of an airplane has always been a possibility within objective reality external to abstraction before such was even imagined, based on the properties and characteristics of the objective world.
But this is exactly wrong. No airplanes were ever possible or were ever going to be possible in an "objective" reality because objective reality cannot create abstract concepts representing sensory experiences and then combine them in new ways that it has never and could never combine them. The only reality in which that can happen is in the metaphysical cognitive realty being created in our minds. That's why cognitive abstraction is a superpower. And so far as we know, no one does it like we do. And if we were not doing it, all the new possibilities that were generated this way are not and would not every have become possible.
It is these properties and characteristics of reality external to abstraction that sets these limitations on what is and is not possible. Simply creating/imagining an abstraction does not confer or enable objective, non-abstract, existential possibility.
We have no idea what is possible and what it not possible beyond our own very limited trial and error experience. It's why we keep generating new possibilities in our minds, and then finding new ways of implementing them.
The fire-breathing giant lizard and the eye-laser shooting Griffin are only objectively and independently possible if they conform or comport with the limitations inherent in the properties and characteristics of objective Reality.
They already exist as abstract concepts. No one knows if they can or do exist as an actual physical experience. That information is still on the other side of that "wall" that we cannot transition.
Some folks think that simply imagining does confer automatic possibility, or worse, actual independent existence, and for some that comes in the form of an existent entity that has requirements and makes demands of us that must be complied with, all sprung, however, from the imaginations of fallible Homo sapiens. This presents a problem, and based on the added imagined property of undetectability, one that is difficult to contradict beyond pointing out its absence and demonstrating the actual cause for things attributed to the imagined, undetectable entity. Right?
We do not know what is existentially possible or not possible because we did not set those parameters, and we have no idea who or what did, or how or why. But because we are SO obsessed with the idea of being in control of everything, we like to pretend to ourselves that we do know. At least a lot of us do. We just assume that the limitations we experience on this side of the wall must hold fast on the side we cannot experience. Because that gives us an illusion of control over the side we cannot access.

But that's all just fantasy. The unknown remains the unknown, and what is or is not possible there is also unknown.
That is a very real concern, but I think it is a separate issue. It is an issue that can only be solved politically.
We, that's a silly presumption. Why couldn't it be solves philosophically? Or socially? Or religiously? Or some combination of these?
You are not going to be able to stop people from trying to figure out how Reality works.
Why would we want to? But we do need to stop them (and ourselves) from controlling it unwisely.
All you can hope to do is generate a political consensus on how best to use that growing understanding wisely.
Consensus happens in lots of ways. The more ways it occurs, the greater the consensus.
In my subjective opinion, such political consensus should be made within a framework that corresponds and comports with actual Reality. That, to me, seems wise.
But we don't know this "actual reality" you speak of. And the deeper we try to dig into it, the more complex and unpredictable it becomes.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
They already exist as abstract concepts. No one knows if they can or do exist as an actual physical experience. That information is still on the other side of that "wall" that we cannot transition.

The concept of a thing is only a model of the thing and not the thing itself.

Your - or my - concept of a dragon is not a complete dragon, but only the aspects of a dragon that you consider important. It's a Potemkin Village version of a dragon, not an actual dragon.

The classic illustration of this is trying to draw a bicycle: even allowing for varying levels of drawing ability, it's practically impossible for someone to draw a picture of a bicycle that would actually work.

Even a bicycle mechanic who's very familiar with every part of a bike wouldn't be able to get the crystal structure of the steel (or weave of the carbon fibre) correct to the point that parts of the bike wouldn't immediately snap when used.
 

MikeF

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
We do not know what is existentially possible or not possible because we did not set those parameters, and we have no idea who or what did, or how or why. But because we are SO obsessed with the idea of being in control of everything, we like to pretend to ourselves that we do know. At least a lot of us do. We just assume that the limitations we experience on this side of the wall must hold fast on the side we cannot experience. Because that gives us an illusion of control over the side we cannot access.

But that's all just fantasy. The unknown remains the unknown, and what is or is not possible there is also unknown.

I'm gonna focus in on this part above.

I completely agree that the unknown remains the unknown. The unknown, however, is not *there*, it is *here*. It is about what remains to be discovered to be possible *here*.

In all our efforts to push back the boundary between what is known and still to be known, the world in which we inhabit has not materially changed. It is still essentially the same oceans, rivers, rocks, sun and stars, etc that all of our ancestors saw and experienced. All that has changed since our earliest ancestors time is a much better understanding of the how and why behind it all.

What I find ironic is that you declare the unknown to be unknown in one breath, yet presume the parameters of reality to have been set, then presume the possibility of a who to set them along with a how and a why.

If it is as unknown as we both seem to agree that it is, then we can't say boo about any of that. All we can do is muddle along the best we can with what we actually do know and continue to find out.
 

Firenze

Active Member
Premium Member
If we had a way to know that we are wrong, we wouldn't have been wrong in the first place.
This ignores the fact that some people lie to themselves, when deep down they know they are wrong - but merely lack the intellectual integrity to admit their error - so they ‘dig in’ and become desperate to ‘save face’. We see that all over the planet.
But we DO have a way to know we are wrong. It’s called Logic. If your argument contains one or more logical fallacies - then, “if you’re really being honest with yourself”, you acknowledge your error. Sadly, this board is no different from millions of others, where a fallacy is pointed out but obstinately ignored, or a fallacy is claimed where none exists, because the poster doesn’t understand the fallacy.
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
But this is exactly wrong. No airplanes were ever possible or were ever going to be possible in an "objective" reality because objective reality cannot create abstract concepts representing sensory experiences and then combine them in new ways that it has never and could never combine them. The only reality in which that can happen is in the metaphysical cognitive realty being created in our minds. That's why cognitive abstraction is a superpower. And so far as we know, no one does it like we do. And if we were not doing it, all the new possibilities that were generated this way are not and would not every have become possible.

This is demonstrably incorrect. Objective reality has created airplanes, they're called "birds". As far as I know, no abstract concepts were involved in the process of evolution that produced them. What's more, even now no man made airplane flies as well as birds do.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The concept of a thing is only a model of the thing and not the thing itself.
There is no "thing". Thing-ness is a concept created in our minds by the way our minds respond to physical stimuli.
Your - or my - concept of a dragon is not a complete dragon, but only the aspects of a dragon that you consider important. It's a Potemkin Village version of a dragon, not an actual dragon.
All "actual" physical stimuli (that we can perceive) becomes immediately conceptualized in our brain. It's compared and contrasted many, many times with many other recalled experiences of physical stimuli until this experience is contextualized, and labeled, and adequately (we feel) conceived. And that conceptualization gets added to a bigger, more inclusive set of them. And those to yet another, even greater set, and so on until everything is being fit into a very large elaborate conceptual complex that we call "reality".

And we really want to believe that our conceptualized "reality" is an accurate representation because if it's not, we are living life blind and rudderless. And that's very dangerous.
The classic illustration of this is trying to draw a bicycle: even allowing for varying levels of drawing ability, it's practically impossible for someone to draw a picture of a bicycle that would actually work.
But the drawing is of the concept of a "bicycle". And the metal thing with the wheels is a functional manifestation of the concept of the bicycle. Neither of these is more or less "real" than the other.
Even a bicycle mechanic who's very familiar with every part of a bike wouldn't be able to get the crystal structure of the steel (or weave of the carbon fibre) correct to the point that parts of the bike wouldn't immediately snap when used.
But it's not those things that define a bicycle. (Or reality.) Or that the label "bicycle" is labeling. It's the whole conceptual idea-set. It's all those encounters we've had with sets of experienced stimuli that we determined to be similar enough to warrant that singular label.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I'm gonna focus in on this part above.

I completely agree that the unknown remains the unknown. The unknown, however, is not *there*, it is *here*. It is about what remains to be discovered to be possible *here*.

In all our efforts to push back the boundary between what is known and still to be known, the world in which we inhabit has not materially changed. It is still essentially the same oceans, rivers, rocks, sun and stars, etc that all of our ancestors saw and experienced. All that has changed since our earliest ancestors time is a much better understanding of the how and why behind it all.

What I find ironic is that you declare the unknown to be unknown in one breath, yet presume the parameters of reality to have been set, then presume the possibility of a who to set them along with a how and a why.

If it is as unknown as we both seem to agree that it is, then we can't say boo about any of that. All we can do is muddle along the best we can with what we actually do know and continue to find out.
We can surmise that there are both extant possibilities and non-extant impossibilities because otherwise, there could only be abject chaos. Everything and nothing. Which couldn't even logically be said to exist. Also, we can experience for ourselves the limitations constraining what is possible any time we witness our desires being thwarted.

The problem is that we can't know what those possibilities and impossibilities are. We want to know. And we love to pretend we know, but we really just don't know. A man could not get to the east by heading westward. Until he could. A man couldn't levitate or fly through the air like a bird, until he could. A man cannot travel faster then the speed of light, until he does. Dragons are just make-believe, until we create one. God is just an empty fantasy, until it isn't.

We love to pretend that we know what is and what isn't, and what could never be. But even our own history shows that we really have no idea.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
This is demonstrably incorrect. Objective reality has created airplanes, they're called "birds". As far as I know, no abstract concepts were involved in the process of evolution that produced them. What's more, even now no man made airplane flies as well as birds do.
This is a bird ... not an airplane.


This is an airplane ... not a bird.


The bird was always "obectively" possible. And so it "objectively" occurred (completely apart from human cognition). The airplane was not objectively possible. And it would never have objectively occurred (completely apart from human cognition). It only occurred because we humans imagined it, and then were able to make it happen.
 

MikeF

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
A man could not get to the east by heading westward. Until he could. A man couldn't levitate or fly through the air like a bird, until he could. A man cannot travel faster then the speed of light, until he does. Dragons are just make-believe, until we create one. God is just an empty fantasy, until it isn't.

The pattern that I am seeing here is man imagining and then man making it happen. Is it my understanding then, it is just a matter of time before man creates a living, breathing god-entity?

There are lots of things imagined to exist just around the corner that are found not to be there when the corner has been turned. It is then said to be just around the *next* corner, only again found not to be there. Do you recognize this pattern of behavior as well?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The pattern that I am seeing here is man imagining and then man making it happen. Is it my understanding then, it is just a matter of time before man creates a living, breathing god-entity?

There are lots of things imagined to exist just around the corner that are found not to be there when the corner has been turned. It is then said to be just around the *next* corner, only again found not to be there. Do you recognize this pattern of behavior as well?
Two points, really. One is that we don’t know what is possible and what isn’t. And the other is that things that were not otherwise possible can become possible through the power of our imaginative minds creating connections and relationships that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
 
Top