Atheists - do you understand faith?

[Borachio]

Tell it to me like I'm five.

[Traitorfish]

Descartes proof demonstrates that something is thinking in this moment, but it does not tell is what it is actually doing the thinking or whether it persists from moment to moment, which means that it doesn't tell us if it is anything that we would recognise as "the self".

[ParkCungHee]

Originally Posted by Borachio

Tell it to me like I'm five.

Sorry, it's just kind of retreading old ground in this thread.

That's a high standard to meet for philosophy but I'll try and make it:


Descartes tells us that "I" am, but he doesn't tell us what "I" is, or what it was and will be. It doesn't tell us anything about I at all. Since we don't know what 'I' is, we cannot simply assume that it is the same self that we imagine ourselves to be.

I certainly exists, but it might be a very different I than we imagine.




Also, as a sidenote I'm not going to get into, as with many philosophies of the mind, Descartes pronouncement has rather weird implications for abnormal psychological states.

[Borachio]

xpost
I'm truly sorry. But I don't understand. Is it me? Try like I'm a really stupid 5 year old. (Then I'll give up trying your patience, I promise.)

What do you mean when you say "I"? (If you ever do.)

What has this to do with my atoms?

Are we on to quantum mechanics? Because, if so, I feel I'm never going to understand this. And I shall have to file it under undecidable.

I have other consequent questions, but these will do for now.

[Whiskey_Lord]

Originally Posted by Borachio

I feel I'm never going to understand this. And I shall have to file it under undecidable.

Join the club.

[Graffito]

Originally Posted by Borachio

Tell it to me like I'm five.

well first of all you have Santa and the easter bunny.... and fairies

but as you get older you must learn that the faith you had was false and accept a new kind of faith in the one true god, to accept this you must find that other peoples faith is false... unless you are lucky enough to be born Hindu where one more God does not rock the faith boat...


from experience MY five year old would have gone why? why? why? why? to each part of the statement then how? how? how?

[Ayatollah So]

Originally Posted by ParkCungHee

That's the idea.

Sneaky bastard.

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

(That's certainly what an externalist would argue: that the self emerges out of the interaction of the body and the external world, and so does not persist in itself from one moment to the next, but is rather a series of individual selves through which we recognise a continuity. The transtemporal self, for them, is an abstraction, rather than something that actually exists.)

What's an externalist? From some dictionary website I got:

externalism [ɪkˈstɜːnəˌlɪzəm]
n
1. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) exaggerated emphasis on outward form, esp in religious worship
2. (Philosophy) a philosophical doctrine holding that only objects that can be perceived by the senses are real; phenomenalism

Is it #2?

Originally Posted by ParkCungHee

In fact drawing a line between matter that is part of your body and matter that is not is also strictly ideological. So really all you can say is "The universe looked like this" and then "the universe looked like that."
Statements like "I grow old" or "That man stole my wallet" break down as meaningful statements.

Only in weird cases. 99+% of the time, "that man stole my wallet" has a clear and agreed-upon meaning in the context of its utterance.

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

Descartes proof demonstrates that something is thinking in this moment, but it does not tell is what it is actually doing the thinking or whether it persists from moment to moment, which means that it doesn't tell us if it is anything that we would recognise as "the self".

Very well said. On the other hand - Cogito ergo sum is a mere tautology - but at least it is a tautology, hence a truth. The sentence "cogito", or for that matter "oro" (I argue), licenses the sentence "sum", positing a "subject" performing these acts. And that mere shadow of a self might be one of the "selves" that people have in mind. I don't see why we have to be assume that everyone uses "self" in the same way, or even that any one person ( ) uses it in a consistent way.

[Borachio]

Yeah, all this is well and good.

But for me it comes down to this:

I prefer Diogenes p---ing in the soup any day, to Socrates talking b------cks all day long.

Guess that makes me lazy. But statements like "I" don't know what "I" mean by "I" don't seem to take me anywhere.

Certainly nowhere I want to go.

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by Ayatollah So

What's an externalist? From some dictionary website I got:

Is it #2?

I'm not familiar with either of them, to be honest. What I'm referring to is externalism as a philosophy of mind, the idea the mind emerges out of the experience of the external world, rather than being something ontologically prior to that experience. An externalist is somebody who affirms such a conception of the mind/self.

[Borachio]

Brahma satyaṃ jagat mithyā, jīvo brahmaiva nāparah

Brahman is the only truth, the spatio-temporal world is an illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.

Weeeell, I guess. Trouble is I like things simple. Life's too short to spend it all with one's nose in a book....I wanna be outside a bit...looking around and marvelling.

[Leoreth]

Sanskrit is an amazing language.

[Borachio]

Originally Posted by ParkCungHee

Also, as a sidenote I'm not going to get into, as with many philosophies of the mind, Descartes pronouncement has rather weird implications for abnormal psychological states.

This sounds interesting! Can you give me any link to a reference for this, please.

[ParkCungHee]

Originally Posted by Borachio

This sounds interesting! Can you give me any link to a reference for this, please.

Well, I don't know if anyone's written on this before, but certain people have thoughts which they do not feel or believe to be their own. If I think therefor I am, if something else thinks do they also exist?

For example, for the past few weeks, I've been dealing with intrusive thoughts, thoughts that I have no control over, seem fundamentally alien, and are definitely not mine. For a schizophrenic who hallucinates voices, this feeling must be even more intensive. If we accept that we exist because of our thoughts, shouldn't we also accept other things exist because of other thoughts?

Only in weird cases. 99+% of the time, "that man stole my wallet" has a clear and agreed-upon meaning in the context of its utterance.

Yes, but that clear agreed-upon meaning is based on certain other metaphysical assumptions. Accepting a strictly materialist or radical monist perception of people, you couldn't use that statement to accurately ascribe cause or blame, and could only use it as shorthand in the place of more precise terminology.

[Borachio]

For example, for the past few weeks, I've been dealing with intrusive thoughts, thoughts that I have no control over, seem fundamentally alien, and are definitely not mine. For a schizophrenic who hallucinates voices, this feeling must be even more intensive. If we accept that we exist because of our thoughts, shouldn't we also accept other things exist because of other thoughts?

Ah, I see. I hadn't thought of this. I shall have to ponder it for a bit.

[plarq]

Self-strengthening echos from peer group.

[Traitorfish]

Not all atheists are like that.

[timtofly]

Originally Posted by ParkCungHee

Well, I don't know if anyone's written on this before, but certain people have thoughts which they do not feel or believe to be their own. If I think therefor I am, if something else thinks do they also exist?

For example, for the past few weeks, I've been dealing with intrusive thoughts, thoughts that I have no control over, seem fundamentally alien, and are definitely not mine. For a schizophrenic who hallucinates voices, this feeling must be even more intensive. If we accept that we exist because of our thoughts, shouldn't we also accept other things exist because of other thoughts?


Yes, but that clear agreed-upon meaning is based on certain other metaphysical assumptions. Accepting a strictly materialist or radical monist perception of people, you couldn't use that statement to accurately ascribe cause or blame, and could only use it as shorthand in the place of more precise terminology.

I thought you were a monist? How is that different from a dualist?

[Borachio]

I'm really losing the plot of who thinks what, why and where. I wish someone could just write a brief summary of all this for me. I'm getting very confused.

[Ayatollah So]

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

What I'm referring to is externalism as a philosophy of mind, the idea the mind emerges out of the experience of the external world, rather than being something ontologically prior to that experience. An externalist is somebody who affirms such a conception of the mind/self.

Nice - sign me up. And for self-conscious minds, throw in "other subjects of experience" alongside "external world" as a basis for the emergence of the mind.

Originally Posted by ParkCungHee

Yes, but that clear agreed-upon meaning is based on certain other metaphysical assumptions. Accepting a strictly materialist or radical monist perception of people, you couldn't use that statement to accurately ascribe cause or blame, and could only use it as shorthand in the place of more precise terminology.

Meh. I think you're sneaking in a big chunk of (highly suspect) philosophy of language to make that "shorthand" claim.

[Borachio]

I'd certainly agree that consciousness is an emergent thing. If that's what you mean.