As we each supply our own meaning to the universe, no one else can.
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The Ontological Argument for God's existence
- Thread starter Call_of_the_Wild
- Start date
You write in a language imbued with meaning. You cannot communicate using the words, characters, and language you do without meaning which corresponds to an intersubjective reality and one which has meaning apart from that you supplied
I certainly expect so, but Mostly Penguin often makes me doubt it.
I believe in objectivity too.
Fair enough.
Salad is healthy, however.:drool:
Do you also hold to the idea that our self/awareness is a product of chemicals alone?
I have seen, in this and in other threads, strong 'electrochemical reactions' asserting strong opinions as the only truth. And I see use of strong words such as 'nonsense' etc., while describing views of others by such self denigrators.
I am not asking anyone to believe anything. I am pointing out, to whoever may be interested, to introvert the inquiry and see how subject-object division begins in the dream state from the timeless state of sleep. It is basically like seeing from the other end of the telescope.
How easy it is to believe in electrochemical reactions giving rise to the awareness, when we have never seen any such thing ever to happen. And how easy it is to say that there cannot be any higher understanding than that arrived by the random electrochemical reactions.
If random electrochemical reactions cause intelligence and our thoughts, then the whole thing is just deterministic. No thought has any truth value. Further, by reducing the self to a non-existent entity how can one still uphold its opinion as true?
If intelligence is generated in separate brains through separate reactions how communication takes place?
The premise of the Ontological Argument rests importantly on understanding our own Self, rather than that of a God, separate from our own awareness. YMMV.
I find the idea of you typing this on a computer delightfully ironic.
That is good, for a change.
Pointing out "If random electrochemical reactions cause intelligence and our thoughts, then the whole thing is just deterministic. No thought has any truth value", usually causes angry reactions with strong retorts, devoid of any civil rebuttal.
Similarly pointing out the fallacy of a true opinion from a non-existent self, causes similar reactions. Harsh or sarcastic words.
Do the harsh/sarcastic words indicate a reacting self?
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It wasn't angry; it was bemused. I'm trying to figure out why someone who thinks that electrochemical reactions can't have "truth value" would consider a computer reliable enough to actually use one.That is good, for a change.
Pointing out "If random electrochemical reactions cause intelligence and our thoughts, then the whole thing is just deterministic. No thought has any truth value", usually causes angry reactions with strong retorts, devoid of any civil rebuttal.
I'm not sure why you're (apparently) inferring that an argument that the "self" is something different from what you think it is means that the "self" is non-existent.
Yes. I said that you were different.
Now, I am surprised. Even if a Turing machine was really proven, still, one would require to see it/know it. The Seer/Knower is given in all situations, in all claims. If I deny that then of what value is my denial?
In my typing, PC and everything else, is inter-related. Yet, the Seer/Knower cannot be denied.
You are correct. But I pointed out already that an angry or sarcastic retort does not deny an emotional reactive self.
What you say applies to a person like, IMO, Shankara or Buddha, but not to us all. YMMV.
But I agree that you have brought out a fine point and thanks for that.
Sorry - I mis-read your post.
Maybe we should back up: exactly what do you mean by "truth value"? I took it to mean something like "accuracy", but it sounds like you're talking about something else.
No, it doesn't. But I don't see the basis for your apparent leap from "a 'self' exists" to "a 'self' can exist independent of the physical."
Gee! Maybe he's just talking about truth value.
Look at is this way: if something is truthfully accurate, how would you know?
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The only standard meaning I know for the term "truth value" deals with logical expressions. I would have thought would have been obvious from the context that atanu wasn't talking about that sort of truth value.
lunamoth
Will to love
I will admit I have not rad this whole thread, so apologies if this has already been covered. Better than the ontological argument is the argument of reason. Perhaps this is where atanu is heading. Reason needs to be grounded in reason. Something rational cannot be based on something irrational. If you argue that reason is wholly naturalistic and that nature also has no basis in reason, you undermine any grounds for reason, including your claims that reason is wholly natural.
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
again, how do you go from "if" he exists to he exists?
If I exist as an aware being due to electrochemical reactions or due to a software, then I am a product and I do not control the reactions that give rise to my thoughts/opinions.
A character in a movie or in a 3D game may opine, but without any truth value. The truth value of those deterministically derived opinions will be dependent on the source reactions or the source software, over which, the product awareness has no control.
That is why I repeatedly come up with the experience of transition from deep sleep to dream to waking.
We exist in sleep without any object whatsoever in the homogeneous consciousness. There are no objects in the sleeping consciousness since the mind is not operating and since there are no contrasts the state is of 'ignorance' or 'of not knowing'. But we surely exist in the deep sleep conscious state. In dream, this homogeneous consciousness breaks into subject-object. Why this happens? What is the causal relationship between a time-less/space-less state to a time realm of dream, with a so-called self and the other?
It is pertinent to mention that the Self that we mean is the whole and not the self where subject-object division has taken place.
Spiritual teachers mainly teach to introvert the outgoing mind-senses and experience the undivided whole while fully awake.
I hope all of this is not dismissed as nonsense.
And kindly do not kindly analyse it from the perspective of the waking state. That would be wrong.
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What is the basis of a timeless/space-less singularity to sprout into a 3D universe, characterized by awareness, time and space?
What is the basis of a aware-less/timeless/space-less sleep consciousness to sprout into a 3D universe, characterized by awareness, time and space?
(Does the word 'desire' sound familiar? Does Schopenhauer's 'The world as Will', sound familiar? I am not asking for agreement. I am pointing out that thinkers have thought about these aspects.)
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You can't start to count all the preceding days leading up to today without picking one day to start from and from that day there would be a finite number of days leading up to today no matter how far back you go. Since there's an infinite amount of days you have nowhere to start counting and if you just pick a day there would be a finite amount of days from that day to today. Do you understand that the statement "if you counted all the preceding days that lead up to this day" is completely illogical and irrational because there is nowhere you can start counting so that there is an infinite amount of days leading up to today?
There isn't any. That is the whole point of what I am trying to tell you! You can't pick a day and call it an infinite amount of days away from today because when you have picked it there's a finite amount of days from today to that day! How can you tell me to "take any day in the future that is an infinite amount of days away from today" when there isn't any!?
There is no such day! That is what I am trying to tell you! Any day you pick will be a finite distance from today!
But this question is completely meaningless! This something can't be an infinite distance away because wherever it is it there must be a finite amount of road between here and there! Infinity isn't a point you can reach per definition!
I repeat, infinity isn't a point on a road! Something can't be an infinite distance away! Wherever it is, there can only be a finite distance from here to there! Infinity isn't a point in time or a point on a road! It's the opposite! It's the lack of any end point in time and on the road! You can't reach anything that doesn't exist! You can't ask me to run and reach a point on a road when the point doesn't exist! There is no point on the road that is an infinite distance from my starting point! The moment you pick a point on the road you have determined the distance between my starting point and that point! And that distance would be finite! Assume we are standing on a road. You have a traffic cone. You are saying you will put it down on the road an infinite amount of kilometers from where we stand and you want me to run towards it. Where exactly would you put the cone down? You don't even have a place to put the cone down so how am I supposed to be able to run towards it?!
You simply repeat something you have read somewhere without any actual understanding of what it means. I need to know exactly where you got this nonsense from so please provide quotes.
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Which minds are "your sources"? Yours and Gods? Or are they the same?
Well, he can't very well analyse it while he's unconscious.
Looncall
Well-Known Member
You are omitting the fact that the electrochemical reactions in question are organized, not random. This destroys your argument. I note that that omission is a common dishonest ploy in religious propaganda.
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