What Are We?


Dglgmut

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Your ability to not comprehensible read what you are responding too isn't terribly remarkable; it's practically a human universal these days.

You obviously have not bothered to consider the context of the exchange between poster Dglgmut and me.

But patient as I am, I'll go through it step step for you here again:

1) Dglgmut assumed that the Objectivist position is that "we are all brains".

2) This is not the Objectivist position, and I was going to inform D. of that.

3) But I also asked myself how D. could have formed this opinion at all, i. e. I asked myself if there was anything in the Objectivist philosophy that could have lead D. to the wrong interpretation "that we are all brains".

4) The answer suggested itself to me that Objectivism's strong emphasis on rationality and reason could have led D. to his wrong conclusion.

And given statements by Rand where it says that "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."

I was well justified in replying to D. (especially in the context of this discussion where focus is on thinking processes) that the primacy of rationality and reason is the basis of the Objectivist philosophy.

A for your accusing me of sloppiness, the sloppiness was on your part since you obviously had forgotten how inconsistent Rand herself often was in what she wrote. Hence your surprise on being confronted with the above quote.

Re your statement: Rand certainly wouldn't have made such a sloppy statement as "rationality and reason." (BG),

I think one can consider what you have written below as the correction of your own error:

Thanks for the reference, though; a lot of what she says about focus and rationality is stupid, ignorant and just plain wrong.

And reason is not the only source of knowledge. A cat learning not to jump up on a hot stove twice is an example of that. People can learn it too that way. The cat doesn't learn the difference between the hot and cold stove the way we do. We can reason it out and acquire a higher level of knowledge. Rand wrote that paragraph as if she were on her fifth cup of coffee--or speed.

This criticism even touches areas beyond mere sloppiness.

I was not participating in your conversation with Dglgmut. Your post deserved to be ripped out of its context and criticized as such, which is precisely what I did. I stand by it.

--Brant

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Everything we are made of is described in The Periodic Table of the Elements.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So have we been around as long as those particles? Have we been around as long as the stuff that makes up those particles?

If not, what was added when we first became conscious?

Do we not come from the same "place" as everything else in the Universe?

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Everything we are made of is described in The Periodic Table of the Elements.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So have we been around as long as those particles? Have we been around as long as the stuff that makes up those particles?

If not, what was added when we first became conscious?

Do we not come from the same "place" as everything else in the Universe?

As Siddhartha realizes that the "Om," the word in its entirety and understands that all things exist at the same moment, all possibilities are real and valid, and time itself is meaningless, he finally achieves enlightenment.

Is this your concept?

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So have we been around as long as those particles? Have we been around as long as the stuff that makes up those particles?

If not, what was added when we first became conscious?

Do we not come from the same "place" as everything else in the Universe?

Long before we were, the stuff of nature existed. The Big Bang happened 13.5 billion years ago. We appeared on the scene perhaps 250,000 years ago.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Your ability to not comprehensible read what you are responding too isn't terribly remarkable; it's practically a human universal these days.

You obviously have not bothered to consider the context of the exchange between poster Dglgmut and me.

But patient as I am, I'll go through it step step for you here again:

1) Dglgmut assumed that the Objectivist position is that "we are all brains".

2) This is not the Objectivist position, and I was going to inform D. of that.

3) But I also asked myself how D. could have formed this opinion at all, i. e. I asked myself if there was anything in the Objectivist philosophy that could have lead D. to the wrong interpretation "that we are all brains".

4) The answer suggested itself to me that Objectivism's strong emphasis on rationality and reason could have led D. to his wrong conclusion.

And given statements by Rand where it says that "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."

I was well justified in replying to D. (especially in the context of this discussion where focus is on thinking processes) that the primacy of rationality and reason is the basis of the Objectivist philosophy.

A for your accusing me of sloppiness, the sloppiness was on your part since you obviously had forgotten how inconsistent Rand herself often was in what she wrote. Hence your surprise on being confronted with the above quote.

Re your statement: Rand certainly wouldn't have made such a sloppy statement as "rationality and reason." (BG),

I think one can consider what you have written below as the correction of your own error:

Thanks for the reference, though; a lot of what she says about focus and rationality is stupid, ignorant and just plain wrong.

And reason is not the only source of knowledge. A cat learning not to jump up on a hot stove twice is an example of that. People can learn it too that way. The cat doesn't learn the difference between the hot and cold stove the way we do. We can reason it out and acquire a higher level of knowledge. Rand wrote that paragraph as if she were on her fifth cup of coffee--or speed.

This criticism even touches areas beyond mere sloppiness.

I don't appreciate you modifying the quoted material without the proper indicatives.

--Brant

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Your ability to not comprehensible read what you are responding too isn't terribly remarkable; it's practically a human universal these days.

You obviously have not bothered to consider the context of the exchange between poster Dglgmut and me.

But patient as I am, I'll go through it step step for you here again:

1) Dglgmut assumed that the Objectivist position is that "we are all brains".

2) This is not the Objectivist position, and I was going to inform D. of that.

3) But I also asked myself how D. could have formed this opinion at all, i. e. I asked myself if there was anything in the Objectivist philosophy that could have lead D. to the wrong interpretation "that we are all brains".

4) The answer suggested itself to me that Objectivism's strong emphasis on rationality and reason could have led D. to his wrong conclusion.

And given statements by Rand where it says that "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."

I was well justified in replying to D. (especially in the context of this discussion where focus is on thinking processes) that the primacy of rationality and reason is the basis of the Objectivist philosophy.

A for your accusing me of sloppiness, the sloppiness was on your part since you obviously had forgotten how inconsistent Rand herself often was in what she wrote. Hence your surprise on being confronted with the above quote.

Re your statement: Rand certainly wouldn't have made such a sloppy statement as "rationality and reason." (BG),

I think one can consider what you have written below as the correction of your own error:

Thanks for the reference, though; a lot of what she says about focus and rationality is stupid, ignorant and just plain wrong.

And reason is not the only source of knowledge. A cat learning not to jump up on a hot stove twice is an example of that. People can learn it too that way. The cat doesn't learn the difference between the hot and cold stove the way we do. We can reason it out and acquire a higher level of knowledge. Rand wrote that paragraph as if she were on her fifth cup of coffee--or speed.

This criticism even touches areas beyond mere sloppiness.

I don't appreciate you modifying the quoted material without the proper indicatives.

--Brant

What do you mean by "modifying" and "proper indicatives"?

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Xray: I could have said, "Everything in reality is just a chain of events."

I still think it's accurate.

So your stating "in reality" implies that you don't deny reality, i. e. you are no subjectivist.

As for everything being "just a chain of events": if you examine the chain, the events are causally related. For example, you get up in the morning, dress, brush your teeth, etc.

I'm not sure why you wrote "just". It is as if you miss an additional element there; if yes, what is it?

So have we been around as long as those particles? Have we been around as long as the stuff that makes up those particles?

If not, what was added when we first became conscious?

Do we not come from the same "place" as everything else in the Universe?

Long before we were, the stuff of nature existed. The Big Bang happened 13.5 billion years ago. We appeared on the scene perhaps 250,000 years ago.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The Objectivist philosophy is very anthropocentric in its emphasis on "Man" and "conscience".

But it looks like "intelligent" solutions in nature can exist without a conscience.

Leaves show elaborate mathematical structures, etc.

Or just think of the fascinating world of fractal structures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

Edited by Xray
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Human Unit Brant wrote:"Proper form: "Blab . . . oblab."

Universal Translater version: "humorous misdirection . . . was faking response . . . don't know answer . . . blah blah blah."

I will be unavailable for a few days on an appointment with Hurrucane Irene. I am about 15 feet above high tide so I will get some additional fuel for my generator, extra food, etc.

Peter

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Everything we are made of is described in The Periodic Table of the Elements.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So have we been around as long as those particles? Have we been around as long as the stuff that makes up those particles?

If not, what was added when we first became conscious?

Do we not come from the same "place" as everything else in the Universe?

As Siddhartha realizes that the "Om," the word in its entirety and understands that all things exist at the same moment, all possibilities are real and valid, and time itself is meaningless, he finally achieves enlightenment.

Is this your concept?

What is a moment, though? If we use the idea of a moment to form our concept of time, lets not use our concept of time in helping us define a moment.

Is a moment a state of existence, like a snapshot or a single frame of a video? At what point, then, is one state interrupted by the next? (This is actually more to do with my other thread..)

Is there really such a thing as a moment? When you hear a sound, for example, that sound depends on change. Without oscillation, there is no sound. You could not freeze time in the middle of a sound and still hear it... Without that constant rate of change, it doesn't exist.

I am really starting to dislike the word "time," as I can't put any meaning to it.

Everything happening in the same moment was not my concept... I don't really agree with it. I mean, this moment is, well... it's gone now, but as I remember it, not too much was going on. I guess my main problem with it is the word "moment." These words shouldn't exist; they only make people assume they understand things that cannot possibly be conceptualized.

Xray:

What I mean is, there is no spontaneity in the Universe. Everything has a cause, including conscious actions. I never questioned whether there was a reality. I know I am aware, and that is something.

Ba'al:

You say we are an addition to the Universe and that we are made of stuff that has existed forever... How is this not a contradiction?

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Ba'al:

You say we are an addition to the Universe and that we are made of stuff that has existed forever... How is this not a contradiction?

Our species came into being about a quarter of a million years ago. The Stuff of which members of our species are made came into existence with the cosmos. Think of a house built last year. Every part of the house is made of atoms that have existed for billions of years. They were only combined into house parts recently. Every atom of your body is (as Carl Sagan would say) billyuns and billyuns of years old. The molecules, which consist of the atoms combined by electrical forces are probably more recent. But the basic pieces go back almost to the Beginning.l

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Ba'al:

You say we are an addition to the Universe and that we are made of stuff that has existed forever... How is this not a contradiction?

Our species came into being about a quarter of a million years ago. The Stuff of which members of our species are made came into existence with the cosmos. Think of a house built last year. Every part of the house is made of atoms that have existed for billions of years. They were only combined into house parts recently. Every atom of your body is (as Carl Sagan would say) billyuns and billyuns of years old. The molecules, which consist of the atoms combined by electrical forces are probably more recent. But the basic pieces go back almost to the Beginning.l

Ba'al Chatzaf

That would be a fine argument if we were inanimate objects, like a house. The constituents of a house are not behaving in any extraordinary way... our bodies, however, being at the command of consciousness... There is something else there, obviously.

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That would be a fine argument if we were inanimate objects, like a house. The constituents of a house are not behaving in any extraordinary way... our bodies, however, being at the command of consciousness... There is something else there, obviously.

We are physical natural objects. Everything about us is physical (electrodynamic mostly) and material. There is nothing about us to which the laws of physics do not pertain. Life itself is a physical process.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Ba'al:

You say we are an addition to the Universe and that we are made of stuff that has existed forever... How is this not a contradiction?

Our species came into being about a quarter of a million years ago. The Stuff of which members of our species are made came into existence with the cosmos. Think of a house built last year. Every part of the house is made of atoms that have existed for billions of years. They were only combined into house parts recently. Every atom of your body is (as Carl Sagan would say) billyuns and billyuns of years old. The molecules, which consist of the atoms combined by electrical forces are probably more recent. But the basic pieces go back almost to the Beginning.l

Ba'al Chatzaf

That would be a fine argument if we were inanimate objects, like a house. The constituents of a house are not behaving in any extraordinary way... our bodies, however, being at the command of consciousness... There is something else there, obviously.

It is all getting circular. That our brains are composed of the same elements as star matter, doesn't really lead anywhere. They are self-evidently more than the sum of their parts. They evolved into functioning organs dedicated to consciousness, self-consciousness, and sub-consciousness.

Rand, in ITOE, wrote:

"One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or "prove") existence as such, or consciousness, as such. These are irreducible primaries.

An attempt to "prove" them is self-contradictory: it an attempt to "prove" existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness."

It's worth the exercise, but it ends up in determinism, or could conclude in the fallacy of mind/body split.

Tony

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It's worth the exercise, but it ends up in determinism, or could conclude in the fallacy of mind/body split.

Tony

What mind? Look at an angiogram of your skull. Do you see a mind?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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It's worth the exercise, but it ends up in determinism, or could conclude in the fallacy of mind/body split.

Tony

What mind? Look at an angiogram of your skull. Do you see a mind?

Ba'al Chatzaf

"...and those who claim that man obtains his knowledge from experience, which was held to mean: by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts.

To put it more simply...those who cling to reality by abandoning their mind."

['The Empiricists'.]

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That would be a fine argument if we were inanimate objects, like a house. The constituents of a house are not behaving in any extraordinary way... our bodies, however, being at the command of consciousness... There is something else there, obviously.

We are physical natural objects. Everything about us is physical (electrodynamic mostly) and material. There is nothing about us to which the laws of physics do not pertain. Life itself is a physical process.

Ba'al Chatzaf

We are the physical process then, not the physical material. We are not made of physical material like the wind isn't made of air.

No physical process, though, like you implied before, is independent of a preceding physical process. You believe we are a link in a chain, then? If we are a physical process, though, we cannot have free-will... So you disagree with objectivism on this?

Also: A physical process can explain the motions of our brains, but not our awareness. Like whYNOT's Rand quote, basically, awareness is not part of the physical universe and cannot be explained by using our understanding of the physical universe.

whYNOT: Good quotes.

Edited by Dglgmut
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We are the physical process then, not the physical material. We are not made of physical material like the wind isn't made of air.

Wind is air in motion. If the air is in motion with respect to the something it is wind blowing against that something. All components of wind are natural and physical, from the air molecules to their motion with respect to the object. Wind operates according to the laws of mechanics.

Even material is a physical process. All parts of the atom are quantum fields. Energy in motion in spacetime.

If you get beaned by a baseball that is an interaction between the quantum fields composing the baseball and the quantum fields composing your head. All that exists is physical stuff in motion in spacetime. Democratus was right.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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It is all getting circular. That our brains are composed of the same elements as star matter, doesn't really lead anywhere. They are self-evidently more than the sum of their parts. They evolved into functioning organs dedicated to consciousness, self-consciousness, and sub-consciousness.

Good points.

Rand, in ITOE, wrote:

"One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or "prove") existence as such, or consciousness, as such. These are irreducible primaries.

In other words, they are axioms that cannot be proved.

An attempt to "prove" them is self-contradictory: it an attempt to "prove" existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness."

What precisely are those "means of non-existence" and "means of unconsciousness"?

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We are physical natural objects. Everything about us is physical (electrodynamic mostly) and material. There is nothing about us to which the laws of physics do not pertain. Life itself is a physical process.

And this process produces countless 'intelligent' solutions without a conscience, like for example blood circulation.

Leaves show elaborate mathematical structures, etc.

Or just think of the fascinating world of fractal structures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

So if elaborate mathematical structures in nature and all the intelligent solutions can exist without a conscience, what is it that guides those processes?

Edited by Xray
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A process has no components, though... only stages.

Air is not what makes the wind... Wind is something that happens to air.

So everything is a process, including us. We are separate from the other processes, though, and the process that caused our existence. Or, we are a stage of a grand process.

Is this what you're saying? Because once again I fail to see how this explains awareness.

Edited by Dglgmut
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Rand, in ITOE, wrote:

"One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or "prove") existence as such, or consciousness, as such. These are irreducible primaries.

In other words, they are axioms that cannot be proved.

An attempt to "prove" them is self-contradictory: it an attempt to "prove" existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness."

What precisely are those "means of non-existence" and "means of unconsciousness"?

Exactly. They are nothing. That's what you get with axioms, that you have to step outside them to prove them -- into non-existence, and non-consciousness -- and you can't.

Tony

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Rand, in ITOE, wrote:

"One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or "prove") existence as such, or consciousness, as such. These are irreducible primaries.

In other words, they are axioms that cannot be proved.

An attempt to "prove" them is self-contradictory: it an attempt to "prove" existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness."

What precisely are those "means of non-existence" and "means of unconsciousness"?

Exactly. They are nothing. That's what you get with axioms, that you have to step outside them to prove them -- into non-existence, and non-consciousness -- and you can't.

Tony

How would one deal with the axiom "Existence is illusion", which can't be proved either?

Edited by Xray
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Rand, in ITOE, wrote:

"One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or "prove") existence as such, or consciousness, as such. These are irreducible primaries.

In other words, they are axioms that cannot be proved.

An attempt to "prove" them is self-contradictory: it an attempt to "prove" existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness."

What precisely are those "means of non-existence" and "means of unconsciousness"?

Exactly. They are nothing. That's what you get with axioms, that you have to step outside them to prove them -- into non-existence, and non-consciousness -- and you can't.

Tony

How would one deal with the axiom "Existence is illusion", which can't be proved either?

An illusion cannot exist separate from existence, because then it wouldn't exist.

You could say otherness is an illusion, but that depends on your definition of otherness.

That which is not you could be your brain, it could be your thoughts, it could be your feelings... If those are not you, what else is left? If they are you, who's to say everything else isn't?

Even material is a physical process.

Wait... Doesn't a physical process depend on material?

Edited by Dglgmut
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Wait... Doesn't a physical process depend on material?

There is a scant distinction between a quantum field and a quantum particle.

And from relativity theory we learn mass and energy are equivalent in that they can convert one to the other.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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