On treeness of Oak1, and other things

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I don't believe that this is true. That is, I don't believe that whatever has come out of the mouths of mathematicians, or logicians, has necessarily been a consequence of 'observation'.

I would appreciate evidence of how any of Euclid's postulates and axioms diverge from observation.

Euclid's primary claims are not observationally correct.

Could I have evidence for that assertion please? And not Zeno.

1. Zeno's paradoxes presume that an infinite series cannot sum to a finite amount - this is demonstrably false.
2. His paradoxes predate Euclid by over 100 years and were not based upon Euclidean axioms or techniques.
3. Zeno himself knew he was wrong, but just didn't know why. It would take over 2000 years for conclusive reasoning to solve the paradoxes.

I only have to cite Zeno of Elea - who lived about 2500 years-ago - to lend weight to my point. He was famous for his logical parodoxes, derived purely from logic, which made claims contrary to observation!

Actually, Zeno's paradoxes were derived from (faulty) logic applied to observation, not purely from logic. But continue.

Actually, Zeno's paradoxes are reducible to a critique of the reality of space (and time).

See point 1 above. They are reducible to a false assumption.

Logical conclusions are not necessarily a subsequent claim of observation. That much is evident in the works of many philosophers, not just Zeno. The same applies to mathematicians.

People make mistakes and use faulty logic, in other words? I doubt anyone would dispute that.

Sure, including - possibly - yourself. The point was that the reality of the world might be questionable - and not, necessarily, either Zeno's or Euclid's logic.

That is as maybe. I did not dispute the point. I will reiterate, however, that Zeno's logic was faulty.

And, btw, Euclidean logic is not necessarily 'wrong' - it's just at-odds with how 'the world' is perceived.

Is it? How please? And are you referring to Euclid's postulates here? Or to the logic which builds upon them to produce mathematical proofs?

The so-called 'proof' that Euclid's logic was wrong was [apparently] demonstrated by observation. Which actually proves nothing, since that which is observed is not known to be 'reality'.

Again, a case of short-sightedness and ignorance facilitating absolute judgement about absolute logic.

I will assume that you are again referring to Zeno's paradoxes here when you mention this so called 'proof'. Again, they do not show anything, being based upon faulty logic, except that some falsehoods are notoriously difficult to prove wrong. I made no claims about reality. I never have done.

People are so short-sighted.

So this is an eyesight issue? Don't prescription lenses help?

What a Beavis and Butt-head comment that is.

It was facetious, irrelevant and utterly irresistible. Mea culpa.

My point has been made: the observation of something doesn't prove that the logic of something is necessarily wrong. Since we cannot know whether that which is observed is actually 'reality' itself, then we cannot say that 'logic' that aspires to be synonymous with said reality is necessarily wrong as proved by observation.

You are quite right that we cannot absolutely rely on reality. To do so would require belief. However, I have never made any claim that we should. I have simply claimed that:

1. Euclid's axioms are compatible with observation (however flawed a view of actual reality that may be.)
2. The logic which he subsequently used to build upon those axioms was sound.
3. The results derived using those axioms and that logic also agree with observation.

Were a genuinely contradictory counter-example be shown (ie. one where no logical flaw could be shown to exist) all of Euclid's elements and most of mathematics would unravel instantly. This would demonstrate that there was a flaw in the axioms somewhere, which would indeed imply that reality was not as it was observed. This has not happened yet. As a sceptic, I cannot rule it out. I can merely invoke Occam's razor and assert that the probability of such a thing happening is extremely unlikely in my opinion.

Reality may well be an illusion but it is a remarkably persistent and internally consistent one (so far - at least.)

It all boils down to a simple fact: if what we observe was 'reality', then philosophy would be obsolete. Unfortunately - with regards to your own BELIEFS on this issue - nothing confirms that what we 'observe' IS 'reality'.

I have no beliefs on this issue. I am quite prepared to accept that reality could be a complete illusion and that I will awaken at any moment to find that I am a purple walrus and that the universe is merely a cage in some cosmic zoo. I would require evidence to that effect, mind you. So far, all of the evidence I have come across points in the other direction.

Philosophy encompasses the entirety of rational thought about the world. Science and mathematics can be considered aspects of philosophy, indeed they once were. Accepting as an axiom that what we can observe actually is reality (not the same as believing - no faith required, merely a working hypothetical model) reduces philosophy to what is usually referred to as science these days. This is not negation of other possibilities, simply pragmatism, and is my preferred view of the universe until proven otherwise.

Rejecting that axiom and replacing it with an unobservable alternative admits the more speculative branches of philosophy back into the mix. These are equally valid (and often fascinating) fields of study but they are, perforce, based upon a model which is purely hypothetical as it has not been (and may never be) observed.

Basically, I'm just calling you short-sighted.

[/quote]

Which is true, in a physical sense if not a metaphorical one. And reminds me that I must get my eyes tested soon. I could hope that reality is wrong and that I can actually see perfectly but I am far to blinkered by the observable to accept that I can drive safely without my glasses!



If you read what I have written here carefully, you will see that I am disagreeing with you a lot less than you imagine - solely about Zeno. I make no claims about reality and whether or not it should be accepted.

[Little Idiot]

You did not win the point, LI.

You merely claimed that the existence of mathematical proofs somehow validated your point. But mathematical proofs are built upon earlier proofs, etc. (it's proofs all the way down) until, in the final analysis, they are built upon axioms which cannot be proven and are merely taken as being self-evident.

Here's the stinger.

Those axioms are accepted as self-evident because they agree with our observation of empirical data.

Thats a U-turn from your position earlier where you said

A proof in science means only that empirical results agree with predicted results within acceptable margins of experimental error. It is only ever a demonstration that the theory it is 'proving' is a reasonable model, not the truth.

In maths, a proof is far more than this. A mathematical proof, if it is sound, is absolute. It follows directly from clear definitions and previously proven lemmas. Take away the universe and maths will still be true.

So, yes, I would say that things can be known other than by empirical evidence but only very special and completely abstract things.

The point I claim to have won is that we have other ways of knowing, in addition to the empirical, which you clearly agreed with, in the above quote.

Even if the axioms are accepted by people because they agree with our observation of empirical data, does that sufice to prove the axioms truth relies upon such agreement, or does it only show we accept more easily things which agree with observation, regardless of the truth of the thing?

Even if, as you are saying, we accept axioms which agree with emperical observations, that does not mean that (odd + even = odd for all evens and odds) or (irrationality of root 2) can be demonstrated emperically.

Therefore;
Why does my point "emperical evidence can not demonstrate all known knowledge, therefore there is at least one other way of gaining knowledge" not stand?
Since this is the crux of the victory I claimed, why am I not entitled to make the claim?

[Little Idiot]

What can you tell me about this representation thing in the mind that seems to be one of your opening points?

(a) We do know the existence of the physical world by our experience of it.
(b) We can not know the existence of the physical world outside of our experience of it.
Therefore
(c) In order to know that the world exists by our experience of it, there must be an experiencer to know the experience and know the knowledge of the world. The experiencer has the capacity to know and to experience.

C doesn't follow but that's the least of our problems here.

So you are suggesting that there can be known knowledge which is not known by a knower.
Do you agree?

What you say in the whole post is pretty common talk at an R1 level. Amounts to not much more then that we have senses and a brain to make sense of them. Even neuroscientists use words like processing and representations though they need be careful. I think the words form this would be one of Wittgenstein's language games and it's fine as long as no meaning is given outside of usage.

We intend to go deeper so I strongly caution you that words like 'know' and 'sense' and 'representation' and 'processing' are going to be far more carefully drawn and used or else discarded altogether.

That is the right fate of 'observer'. This is fine if it's just us folks talking folksy talk and referring to ourselves as a whole. If we want to figure things out about mind however we must toss this piece in the trash.

What you wrote in c is classical Cartesian dualism. You can't save it like you claim by turning both mind and PW into menticles. It doesn't even matter if I turn both mind and PW into physicles. Still dualism. With the idea of processing and representation and then presentation you will always have the dualist problem of infinite retreat. I do mean retreat.

The only way to cure the retreat is to stop retreating and stand firm and say "I am now Mind, hear me fucking roar". Which is classical Cartesian dualism.

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

If we cross to R2 here is what we find. There ain't no fucking observer. And there needn't be.

If you have no other sensory input (impossible) and one circle of orange light appeared before your eyes it would start to light up paths through your brain and set in motion a flurry of activity that would quickly settle into a state much like a flickering standing wave.

The exact nature of that wave would depend upon all of the previous history of your brain and be very much guided by all the previous experience of circles and orange light.

But that's it. There is no observer or presentation. Presentation IS representation. Observer IS the standing wave.

Why does that prove anything more than the orange light causes standing wave like activity in the brain?
How does that show or even suggest that the observer is the standing wave? At best it may show the observation is of the standing wave.
It simply doesnt - you are assuming the object (standing wave) is the subject which is aware of the orange light - and dont say there is no awareness because thats one of the starting assumptions; you are aware of an orange light by the nature of the exeriment described.

In summary what started with the observation of an orange light and was traced by electrical impulse throught the CNS into the brain, where its last known form is as a standing wave like brain activity (as response to seeing the orange light). Because at this point you can not follow to any additional steps you are assuming that is the observation - which is a category error, that is the last traceable form of the observed.

But it gets a little complicated at this juncture. There are things like association cortices that gather multiple inputs and create their own rich little SW's. There are also motive forces inside the brain like attentional modulation, automatic orienting responses, and the motor of waking and consciousness itself.

The standing wave of orange circle can take on a life of it's own and persist after the sensory input is gone. It can be examined by sequences for further salience to the organism.

What does "further salience to the organism" mean, if not that it is known or meaningful to the organism?

And that last is all consciousness really is.

But no observer. No Fucking Observer!

Then if there is no observer, we are dancing around the central issue of what is aware of the orange light? There is awareness of the orange light, right?

[SpeedOfSound]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

here's a couple of clues about dualism.

At best it may show the observation is of the standing wave.
...

In summary what started with the observation of an orange light and was traced by electrical impulse throught the CNS into the brain, where its last known form is as a standing wave like brain activity (as response to seeing the orange light). Because at this point you can not follow to any additional steps you are assuming that is the observation - which is a category error, that is the last traceable form of the observed.

Maybe you can explain what it becomes after it's 'last known form'.

[SpeedOfSound]

The only way to cure the retreat is to stop retreating and stand firm and say "I am now Mind, hear me fucking roar". Which is classical Cartesian dualism.

Right here I tell you why your 'quick patch' to your idea doesn't save you from dualism

What you wrote in c is classical Cartesian dualism. You can't save it like you claim by turning both mind and PW into menticles. It doesn't even matter if I turn both mind and PW into physicles. Still dualism. With the idea of processing and representation and then presentation you will always have the dualist problem of infinite retreat. I do mean retreat.

[Little Idiot]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

here's a couple of clues about dualism.

At best it may show the observation is of the standing wave.
...

In summary what started with the observation of an orange light and was traced by electrical impulse throught the CNS into the brain, where its last known form is as a standing wave like brain activity (as response to seeing the orange light). Because at this point you can not follow to any additional steps you are assuming that is the observation - which is a category error, that is the last traceable form of the observed.

Maybe you can explain what it becomes after it's 'last known form'.

It 'becomes' an objects of awareness, it 'becomes' an idea known by the mind.
I use quotes because it has been an idea all along and doesnt become an idea. Unless we entertain the possibility of the mind as primary in the process of experience, we can never explain this last step. In the 'its all mental' model there is no contradiction, in the physical model this is the thing-to-thought gap; how does the thing become the known thought?

Thats why you reach the self-contradictory conclusion there aint no fucking observer - the observer is a subject, not an object. The observer will never be found as an object, but the capacity for you to make the observations and state 'there aint no fucking observer' depends on you observing the observations upon which you reach your conclusion.

[Little Idiot]

The only way to cure the retreat is to stop retreating and stand firm and say "I am now Mind, hear me fucking roar". Which is classical Cartesian dualism.

Right here I tell you why your 'quick patch' to your idea doesn't save you from dualism

Exactly, you 'tell me' i.e. assert the point. You do not explain or justify it.
The point (idealistic monism ('its all mental') is a duality) is no more valid than if I 'tell' you the physicalist monism ('its all physical') is a duality.

What you wrote in c is classical Cartesian dualism. You can't save it like you claim by turning both mind and PW into menticles. It doesn't even matter if I turn both mind and PW into physicles. Still dualism. With the idea of processing and representation and then presentation you will always have the dualist problem of infinite retreat. I do mean retreat.

I do not accept this as a valid eplaination; there is simply mental mind, mentally creating and mentally knowing the mental ideas. For duality there needs to be two direrent things; where is the second (non-mental) thing to complete the duality?

[GrahamH]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

Is it possible to have 'objects of awareness of which this 'awareness' is not aware?
You seem to have two contradictory things - awareness (experiencer) and constructor of experience (mind).
How can the 'knowing power of awareness' not know about the construction of experiences of a world?
How can a 'fundamental awareness' not be fully aware of itself?

[Little Idiot]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

Is it possible to have 'objects of awareness of which this 'awareness' is not aware?

Yes, each individual awareness is aware of only a limited amount.

You seem to have two contradictory things - awareness (experiencer) and constructor of experience (mind).

The experiencer is the individual consciousness, but I dont consciously do the constructing, so there must be an unconscious part of the mind doing it. Thats not contradictory though.

How can the 'knowing power of awareness' not know about the construction of experiences of a world?

The individual is not conscious of 'doing the constructing' he is conscious only of the result (the eperience) of the construction.

How can a 'fundamental awareness' not be fully aware of itself?

Fundamental awareness is not identical to individual awareness. We are here talking of an individual awareness having a sensory experience (of orange light).

To digress for a moment onto 'fundamental awareness' to answer the question; It is individual awareness which is not fully aware, I have made no such claims for 'fundamental awareness.'

[GrahamH]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

Is it possible to have 'objects of awareness of which this 'awareness' is not aware?

Yes, each individual awareness is aware of only a limited amount.

You seem to have two contradictory things - awareness (experiencer) and constructor of experience (mind).

The experiencer is the individual consciousness, but I dont consciously do the constructing, so there must be an unconscious part of the mind doing it. Thats not contradictory though.

How can the 'knowing power of awareness' not know about the construction of experiences of a world?

The individual is not conscious of 'doing the constructing' he is conscious only of the result (the eperience) of the construction.

How can a 'fundamental awareness' not be fully aware of itself?

Fundamental awareness is not identical to individual awareness. We are here talking of an individual awareness having a sensory experience (of orange light).

To digress for a moment onto 'fundamental awareness' to answer the question; It is individual awareness which is not fully aware, I have made no such claims for 'fundamental awareness.'

You are making a thing 'individual awareness == observer' from a property or relation. If minds can be aware of some things, but not others, then how can minds be 'awareness'?

What do you think 'the mind' is?

[Little Idiot]

Is it possible to have 'objects of awareness of which this 'awareness' is not aware?

Yes, each individual awareness is aware of only a limited amount.

You seem to have two contradictory things - awareness (experiencer) and constructor of experience (mind).

The experiencer is the individual consciousness, but I dont consciously do the constructing, so there must be an unconscious part of the mind doing it. Thats not contradictory though.

How can the 'knowing power of awareness' not know about the construction of experiences of a world?

The individual is not conscious of 'doing the constructing' he is conscious only of the result (the eperience) of the construction.

How can a 'fundamental awareness' not be fully aware of itself?

Fundamental awareness is not identical to individual awareness. We are here talking of an individual awareness having a sensory experience (of orange light).

To digress for a moment onto 'fundamental awareness' to answer the question; It is individual awareness which is not fully aware, I have made no such claims for 'fundamental awareness.'

You are making a thing 'individual awareness == observer' from a property or relation. If minds can be aware of some things, but not others, then how can minds be 'awareness'?

What do you think 'the mind' is?

I would say a mind is not awareness, but a mind includes awareness. Obviously I am not aware of all that my mind does, so it also includes sub-conscious.

A mind includes but is not limited to awareness. The mind also has the capacity to generate the thoughts of which it is aware. Sometimes this is done consciously, often it is not.

A single, short definition which covers all nuances of mind is not an easy task, but a start on individual mind could be;
"The mind is the processes by which both conscious and unconscious thought can be generated, manipulated or processed and which allows awareness of conscious thought."

[SpeedOfSound]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

More R1 nonsense. The knowing power? I can't even continue with this one...

[Little Idiot]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

More R1 nonsense. The knowing power? I can't eveb continue with this one...

The awareness (property of mind) - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

Happier now?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

You did not win the point, LI.

You merely claimed that the existence of mathematical proofs somehow validated your point. But mathematical proofs are built upon earlier proofs, etc. (it's proofs all the way down) until, in the final analysis, they are built upon axioms which cannot be proven and are merely taken as being self-evident.

Here's the stinger.

Those axioms are accepted as self-evident because they agree with our observation of empirical data.

Thats a U-turn from your position earlier where you said

A proof in science means only that empirical results agree with predicted results within acceptable margins of experimental error. It is only ever a demonstration that the theory it is 'proving' is a reasonable model, not the truth.

In maths, a proof is far more than this. A mathematical proof, if it is sound, is absolute. It follows directly from clear definitions and previously proven lemmas. Take away the universe and maths will still be true.

So, yes, I would say that things can be known other than by empirical evidence but only very special and completely abstract things.

The point I claim to have won is that we have other ways of knowing, in addition to the empirical, which you clearly agreed with, in the above quote.

Even if the axioms are accepted by people because they agree with our observation of empirical data, does that sufice to prove the axioms truth relies upon such agreement, or does it only show we accept more easily things which agree with observation, regardless of the truth of the thing?

Even if, as you are saying, we accept axioms which agree with emperical observations, that does not mean that (odd + even = odd for all evens and odds) or (irrationality of root 2) can be demonstrated emperically.

Therefore;
Why does my point "emperical evidence can not demonstrate all known knowledge, therefore there is at least one other way of gaining knowledge" not stand?
Since this is the crux of the victory I claimed, why am I not entitled to make the claim?

Later. I have a funeral to go to. But basically, my wording was misleading in the earlier quote. I will elaborate later.

[SpeedOfSound]

This is only dualism as long as you are saying the body, brain, and world are not mental. If they are all mental i.e. objects of awareness, and the knower is awareness, where is this duality you asset?
Awareness knowing objects of awareness within awareness is not dualism.

Last line is nonsense and you completely miss the point about what dualism is. It is what you are trumpeting.

Why is it not sensible? It says
The (knowing power of awareness) in the mind - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

More R1 nonsense. The knowing power? I can't eveb continue with this one...

The awareness (property of mind) - knows ideas - within the mind.
Or; The mind knows the ideas.

Happier now?

Nope. All you are doing is stating obvious properties and functions of human brains. Badly. Confusedly. It is the same with your objective/subjective talk. These are words we have to talk about obvious things. We are supposed to be getting beyond the obvious here.

I am going to give you the science and explain these things with that. Your job is to give me real explanations according to your beliefs about ow it all works, not locker room talk. Don't just say a bunch of things with undefined words. Okay?

In your exchange with GH you talked about U and C processes of mind. Do you think those are physical processes or both in your spirit-mind?

You do realize that it is spirit-mind that you are proposing don't you?

I have to bitch slap you for that little thing you snuck in about observing observation too. Don't start muddling things up with 'science is just an observation too' kind of stuff. You and I are talking about one subject observing an orange ball. Our own minds or the minds of scientists are not up for discussion in that focus.