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Author | Topic: Do animals have souls? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
Sorry you lost a bit of reality there. No forces can be observed. All we have ever done is observe "thier" effects. Show me force. You cannot.
If you want to talk like that, then nothing is ever observed. Forces are measured. In common scientific speech, a measurement is an observation. Thus, under the ordinary scientific use of "observe", forces are indeed observed.
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
So if I follow you: Observation in your mind, defines our reality for us?
That is not what I said. However, "reality" is our word, part of our language. In the sense that we define the meaning of our words, you could say that we define reality.
Forces are measured. In common scientific speech, a measurement is an observation. Thus, under the ordinary scientific use of "observe", forces are indeed observed. By this same definition I am observing the force of you. Unless:
Actually, I am taking observation as a kind of measurement. When you look around and see something, you see it by virtue of measuring activity that your brain and visual system are undertaking.You are saying that the only scientific observation that can define reality is through measurement? Is this the point you are trying to make? If it cannot be measured it cannot be known? However, I would not say that if it cannot be measured, it cannot be known. We do know mathematics, but not by measurement/observation.
Are you saying that my observation of two cars colliding is invalid as an observation of forces at work?
No, but you are saying that. After all, you said:
No forces can be observed. All we have ever done is observe "thier" effects.
By the same reasoning, no cars (colliding or otherwise) can ever be observed. All you can do is experience the effects of photons impinging on your retina.
What you seem to be saying is that if it cannot be meassured you do not believe in it? is this right?
No, I haven't said that. The ability of people to believe is not completely constrained by what they observe.
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
You have not addressed the point.
I addressed that by pointing out that you are using "observe" too narrowly.
You want me to believe that if I cannot observe it, it cannot be proven. I tell you that a force cannot be observed. Then you want me to accept that forces exist by our observation of the tracks they leave behind.
Those are your words, not mine. We judge a force by its effects, not whether there are any tracks.
So I tell you we are a force and that I know we are there by the tracks we leave behind.
And this is just silly. We judge a force by its effects. It does not follow that anything having effects is a force. We judge a force by very specific effects. A person can exert a force, and thus have similar effects. That does not make the person a force. If you insist on inventing your own meanings for words, then you limit your ability to communicate.
I see no difference between the abstract idea of force that science uses and the concept of us as a force.
You can remedy that problem by studying some physics.
If we are not a force then what explanation for the phenomenon that is us do you have to offer?
I actually have a fairly elaborate theory of human cognition. However, nobody much seems interested.
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
I won't further comment on your "force of you" thesis, since that discussion is going nowhere.
nwr writes: I actually have a fairly elaborate theory of human cognition. However, nobody much seems interested. Have you shared it with evc? I am curious. You use the word "I" in the above sentence. How do you mean this? Do you account for "I" as congnition. Maybe the reason people are ignoring your theory is that they choose not to be defined in that way.
I don't explicitly define "I", but it is implicit in my theory. However that isn't the problem. People have quite strong ideas on what they expect of a theory of cognition. There are, roughly, three main groups of such expectations.
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
People have quite strong ideas on what they expect of a theory of cognition. There are, roughly, three main groups of such expectations.
These are all just different views of the same thing. It is that simple. 1. A spiritual explanation (a supernatural dualistic soul);2. A computational explanation (as in Artificial Intelligence); 3. Some sort of mysticism, suggesting that the problem is unsolvable. I guess you might be thinking of the "I" as the atoms that make up my body. I don't agree with that. I don't see the "I" as made of atoms. I see it as a system of processes, which temporarily make use of those atoms to do the processing. But most of the atoms that today constitute my body, will be gone and replaced by this time next year. However, the processes go on. This quote of yours from the "You are" topic, to me, shows you believe in exactly what I am puting forth in my "force of me" topic. There is something that occurs independant of the known "forces" of physics. To say " a system of processes makes use" What do you mean by that?
I'll give an example. Think of the Mississippi river. After a while, the water currently there will have flowed out to sea. We could dig up all of the soil on the river banks, and replace it with different soil. We would still have the Mississippi river. Thus neither the atoms of soil, nor the atoms of water constitute the river. Rather, what constitutes the river is the flow of water, as constrained by the river banks. The river make temporary use of the atoms of flowing water, and the atoms in the constraining banks. However, it is the process, not the atoms, that constitute the river. And the river is not independent of the water and the banks. Without water to flow and the banks to constrain the flow, there would be no river.
My over all view is that we exist independant of and within the body at the same time.
That would make you a substance dualist. Essentially, you take the first of those three options that I suggested.
In my opinion, the person arises from the biological processes, particularly those involved in behavior and perception. This was another quote from the "you are" topic. Do you mean the conciousness arises from biological processes? The facts are meaningless until meaning is brought to them and that meaning will forever be open to interpretaion.
I would disagree with that. Facts are inherently meaningful. Statements (as strings of letters) are meaningless, until meaning is brought to them. And the meaning of statements is open to interpretation. But when we use the word "fact", we are applying that term to what we take the statement to mean, and not to the raw syntax.
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nwr Member Posts: 6412 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 4.5 |
I would like you to share with me where you believe the mysticism is in anything I have said.
Your insistence on using "force of you", while not defining it, is an example of your appeal to mysticism.
I would like you to share with me where you believe the mysticism is in anything I have said.
You could maroon yourself on a desert island somewhere. Or you go out into the woods and become a hermit. Language is intended to communicate. If you are going to insist on making up your own meanings, and avoiding the conventional usage of words, then you won't be communicating very effectively.
Please explain to me how a phenomenon "makes use" of anything.
You are trying to change what I said. I wrote of processes making use of material. Phenomena are not processes.
Yes, certainly. However, I don't claim that it necessarily arises from biological processes. Really. Then how do you explain the basis of your theory? My comment was that human consciousness arises from biological processes. You cannot jump to the conclusion that all biological processes give rise to consciousness. Nor can you jump to the conclusion that there would be no other way of achieving consciousness.
For example, I don't claim that an amoeba is conscious. Why not? I would disagree with that. Facts are inherently meaningful. This is not the case. Facts mean different things to different people.
More correctly, the words used to express a fact mean different things to different people. And where people disagree over the meaning, they will likely also disagree over whether it is a fact.
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