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Cladking; Hi. I apologize for taking so long to respond to your posts, but MS (Multiple Sclerosis) has been kicking my butt lately. Not yet sure if this is a "relapsing, remitting" thing, or if it is a permanent reduction of my strengths and abilities, but you will have to be patient with me. I will know which it is by Spring. Please note that I always read your responses to me, and I am thinking about them. My responses may be slower, but I hope to at least make them in the same year as yours in the future. (chuckle) While I agree with the large majority of what you are stating here, I don't think that children should learn that their teachers can be quite stupid. This information did not serve me well. What I had learned was that I could not trust my teachers, and it took a few really good teachers and many years before I finally acquired the experience, knowledge, and judgement to know where to place my trust. Chidren need to be able to trust the people, who are teaching them. I believe that the problem comes from the way we view children. With all of this nature v nurture nonsense, we have come to think of children as empty little boxes that need to be filled up. We need to put the ideas into their heads that we value, so this is what our education system tries to do. I watched a video on education in this country, and it likened education to manufacturing, and explained that what we are doing is very much like "processing" children to turn them into good little citizens. The problem with this "processing" is that it is not flexible enough to accommodate natural talents and abilities. And if we are going to be honest, we must admit that thinking is disruptive to a process. When people think, they get ideas, and then questions regarding those ideas, which they expect the teacher to answer. Teachers, on the other hand, are trying to put ideas into those little heads, rather than listening to what comes out of those little heads. I have no doubt in my mind, that if the argument that I made at eight years old, was instead made by an adult, the teacher would have listened. Children are people too, just very small people. Children need to be allowed to think and encouraged to learn the differences between truth, fact, opinion, and perspective. Agreed. Cladking, I need your help. A while back, I recognized you as being another philosopher and have been thinking about that. What is it that I think I recognize? I am not sure. I have been to many forums and find that I will read a post and think, that person is a philosopher; then read another post and think, that person never was and never will be a philosopher. What is it that I am seeing? There seems to be no pattern regarding intelligence, education, the ability to articulate their ideas, or even whether or not I agree with their ideas. Some are bright, others not very bright; some educated, others in need of learning; some articulate, others that I really want to help them explain their ideas. So what is the common thread, or threads, that says this person is a philosopher. Do you have any thoughts on this? I think I was seven when I knew. I was sitting on the floor at my Mother's feet while she told stories of King Solomon. If I had been younger than four, I would have been in her lap (and would probably not have remembered), and if I had been as old as nine, the conversation would have taken place at the table -- so seven is about right. She told the stories about the babe that was ordered to be cut in half, and the two young men, who could not divide the property that they had inherited. When she was done, I stated, "That is what I want to be; wise like King Solomon." (Haven't got there yet.) My siblings also heard the stories, but they were not enthralled by them. I was. To my mind, a man who could pull truth out of lies, was more fascinating than a magician. This man could find truth, expose it, and everyone hearing the story would have no doubt that it was truth. This was a man to be admired, and I wanted to learn how to find truth -- because I was already in love with it. Philosophy is love of wisdom -- love of truth. G

Hello Dekan; To answer your question first, the reason that these other subjects are in a Science forum is because science is a branch of philosophy. Religion is also a branch of philosophy. Since all forms of government are based on either a religious belief or a philosophical idea, politics becomes part of this study. As to your first comment, please note that philosophy is a study of the unknown, which means that everyone can have an opinion. Unfortunately many people have decided that attack and debate is a good way to find the truth of an unknown. I do not agree. But if you review this thread again, I think that you will find that very few people actually answered the question posed in the OP. Most people decided to attack the validity of even asking the question, and at least on person went completely off topic by asking why a philosophy forum was situated in a science site. So it is my thought that a serious lack of respect for philosophy, philosophical discussion, and the original poster, is the cause of people wanting to "kick each other". G

Hello EdEarl; Nice to talk to you again. But we are. I know that this issue is hotly debated, but it is difficult for me to see it any other way. How could we possibly understand that 1 + 1 = 2, if we did not first know and understand the concept of more and less? This is something that the Ancients debated, and it is clear that ideas are built upon ideas, knowledge upon knowledge, so there has to be some base for knowledge to build upon. The concept of more and less, or greater and lesser, has to be innate, and this is not limited to humans. Consider a small fish in a tank; if you drop something very small into the tank, the fish will dart to it to see if it is edible, but if you drop something larger than the fish into the tank, the fish will dart away to protect itself. This implies that even a fish can possess knowledge of greater and lesser. A lot of people may say that this is just an example of instinct, but what is instinct? Instinct is just a knowledge of something that is good or bad for that life form, and that life form's reaction to that knowledge. So instinct, in order to be effective, requires some knowledge. No one is debating whether or not instinct is innate, so that means that the knowledge is also innate. Most of the debate around the nature v nurture concept is derived from people like Descartes, who stated that "God" was the source of innate knowledge. So the debate is really a religion v science issue, which is not relevant to the truth of the matter. You can learn more about it in Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_idea We are also very attracted to faces. It does not matter if it is a real face, a stuffed animal face, or a "happy face" drawn on paper, as they all will draw a baby's attention. This is considered to be an instinctive reaction that many social animals share, but it also denotes a certain knowledge of a face. I agree with you here, but this is also where it gets interesting. Why is it that different people, who are exposed to the same information, will pick up different knowledge? My Mother loved wisdom and often quoted the old adages (wisdoms) to us, but I am the only philosopher in my family. Why? One might think that her love of wisdom would have made all of us philosophers, but it did not. My eldest sibling is a strategist and sculptor, the next is a very social traditionalist and artist, another is an engineer and mechanic that can write poetry and play musical instruments. I am the philosopher, teacher, and writer. We are all very different. Even identical twins raised in the same household seem to be very different in their interests and personalities. It is probably this very difference that is often noted between twins that started the superstition that twins were each half of one soul. So there is more than just exposure to experience and teaching that causes us to be different. Here is a story that might explain what I mean. Years ago, I was with my grandchildren, and my grand-daughter was doing homework. She had to write a short story and then draw a picture of it. Her story was about little animals that lived by a waterfall, but she was having trouble drawing a water fall and asked for my help. So I tried to draw a water fall, first from the front view (which looked like an ugly curtain) then from a side view (which was worse, believe it or not). I could not figure out how to draw it, so I asked her big brother to help as he is the family artist. He was about nine years old at the time. He thought about it, then drew a beautiful picture of a water fall in less than two minutes. I asked him if he had drawn a water fall before, and he said, "No. But it is not that hard." Later that night, I studied his picture in order to discern what he had seemed to instinctively know, that I did not know. What I learned was that he did not draw the water. He drew the container. He drew the cliff that the water fell from and the pool that surrounded the water after it landed, he did not actually draw the water. After considering this for a while, I realized that if I wanted to draw a cup of water, I would make it a glass that can be seen through, and then draw a line that indicates the water's level. I would not draw the water. I am not even sure if a person can draw water. We can paint water, or draw a container for it, and we can draw the motion of water like waves, but can we actually draw water? And how did a nine year old boy know this? Would this be an example of a natural-born artist? If I spent years in art school, would I become an artist? Somehow, I don't think so. I would definitely improve my skills, but I would only be able to understand what I was taught and would lack that certain something that makes one an artist. There are natural-born leaders, natural-born teachers, artists, musicians, managers, and healers. Is there some rule that says there can not be natural-born philosophers? I have met many people in philosophy forums that know more about philosophy than I will ever learn, but like my Mother, they are not philosophers. They are people who love philosophy, and I refer to them as students of philosophy, but they are not philosophers. G

Nonsense. In post # 7 (below), what you did was iterate and expound upon your asserted opinions from your first post in this thread. You clarified nothing with regard to connecting Turienx2's memories and your opinion that these memories are likely false. In order to clarify, you would have to provide a reasonable logic or evidence that supports your assertion. The reasoned "preconceptions" regarding Turienx2's "self-identify" are nonsense as you have no ability to know Turienx2's subjective mind. I will grant that it is possible to extract reams of information from a few sentences -- I do it myself -- but even I can not extract enough information from the few sentences in the OP to tell whether or not that subjective mind holds valid or invalid memories. Ideas come from somewhere, so if you can not come up with some reasoned explanation, then I will just have to assume that you are projecting your own thoughts on Turienx2. Which would imply that you are the person who continues "to reinforce merely because it aligns with your preconceptions and preferred narrative". G

Hello Members; I asked that this thread be reopened because I find it interesting and can relate to the OP. Of course, I won't be able to talk to Turionx2 because that Member has been banned, but it should be noted that others do share the opinion that the art of thinking that we call philosophy can be, and maybe is, innate. My first memory of making a reasoned and logical argument was when I was eight years old. Although I no doubt made other arguments, this one stands out in my mind because it was horribly embarrassing. It was with a teacher, and of course I lost the argument because I had no authority -- not because I was wrong. It was a life changing event that taught me a very bad lesson, that teachers could be quite stupid. Not something that we generally want an eight year old to learn. EdEarl; Although I agree with most of your post, I would caution you with regard to the words "exceptional gifts". Being born with the ability to think like a philosopher, does not necessarily translate to being born to think like an "exceptional" philosopher. We all have different talents and innate abilities, but they are also at different levels, so I don't think that this is what the OP implied. INow; This looks like nonsense. Why would Turionx2's memories be more "likely" to be false memories? Are you trying to imply that all memories are false? Or do you have some other reason that you have not stated? Imatfaal; Please note that "critical legal theory" and philosophy are not the same thing. I would also like to suggest that your statement "very few people came pre-equipped with critical thinking skills" is somewhat supportive of the idea that philosophical thinking might just be innate. John Cuthber; We are all taught about logic in the second grade when we study math, so by your suggestion, everyone should be logical. They are not. G

Kristalris; Hi. I have been following this thread for some time now, and although I do not know anything about mathmatics, I do see a problem that I hope to explain. When I read Swansont's post that stated that you keep moving the "goalposts", I identified with it, because that is exactly how I felt when in discussion with you in the prior thread. It amazed me to learn how many members are exceptional in mathmatics, and I do not wish to dispute their findings or arguments, but I suspect that your problem with them lies more in your premises than in your math. Reading your posts makes me think that you do not see a difference between truth, facts, statistics, and mathmatics. You seem to treat them as essentially the same thing; and therefore, interchangable. They are not. It would help me, if no one else, if you could explain how you think they are different, and under what circumstance(s) they are interchangable. G

Hoola; Nicola Tesla was an inventer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and a physicist. Since the AC motor is based on science, we can rightly assume that his training in science is what enabled him to imagine the AC motor and cause it to be possible. Please note that he did not imagine "flying pigs" and enable them to be possible. This is a science forum. So it is not difficult for a clear thinking person to understand that the point of this thread is that "imagination" on it's own does not make things possible. Science is required. But I agree with you about the "advertising industry" as most people would rather imagine than think. G

Kristalris; I don't know much about math and nothing about the Bayesian Machine except what I have learned here, but I am pretty good at language. So I am having some problems with your underlined words above. "Assumed absolute truths" are what religion uses to argue that "God" exists. I have read some very good logical arguments based on the "assumed" truth that "God" is real, so I know that logic can be used to infer something that is not real when based on assumed absolute truths. Last time I checked, science bases it's knowledge on facts, and only assumes that those facts are valid because they have been proven, so they will be accepted until proven otherwise. If I am wrong here, I am sure that someone will correct me. It looks to me as though you are still applying logic to guesses and imagination. G

Debrule 1: You have considered some interesting ideas, but I doubt that you will get much discussion on them here. Your idea of relating consciousness to computers and the internet is very much like Daniel Dennet's explanation in his book, Consciousness Explained. I have not read Dennet's book, but you might find it interesting, and it may even answer some of your questions. Philosophers have long studied the concept of consciousness, and tried to determine if it comes to us or from us and whether or not it is universal. But there are very few people here, at this forum, who understand philosophy, so you will not get your discussion here. If you send me a PM, I will be happy to recommend some Philosophy forums that may better suit your purposes. Regarding the supernatural; religion picks and chooses which "supernatural" that it wants to recognize, modern philosophy seems to be scared of it, and science won't even acknowledge it, so be careful to not fling this word around. (chuckle) G

Kristalris; Per the underlined above, who or what dictates which data is "relevant"? Because if you choose which data is relevant, then it is your opinion/judgment of that data that causes a circular and self-supporting evidence. Would that be imagination? Or would that be reality? G

Hello Everyone; While reviewing this thread, I came across the statement, "Well, we agree that the OP is not true." in Kristalris's last post to me, so I thought that I should clarify my position. I have no idea if YodaP's proofs of the statement, "If I can imagine it; it is possible", are accurate or not, because I do not know enough about math to evaluate the proofs. But I am in full agreement that the statement is nonsense. I have no doubt that a person can find truth using math, if they know what they are doing; on the other hand, I don't use math, because I do not understand it, so I often use emotion to find truth. Why? Because emotion is inherently honest--it does not know how to lie. So this is how I would consider the problem: You are reading a newspaper and come across an article about a man, who got high on drugs, imagined that he could fly, and jumped out of a third story window to his death. Would you think to yourself, "It is a shame that he tried that on a Tuesday, because any other day it is possible that it would have worked." or " What a waste. The man was an idiot." Better yet, we will say that the person, who imagines he can fly out the window is someone that you love or care deeply about. Would you think, "Gosh, I hope this works for him because he has always wanted to fly." or would you jump forward, grab the man and wrestle him to the ground to prevent his death? If you chose the first sentence in either or these scenarios, you are lying. We can pretend to believe anything that we can imagine, but once emotion is involved, the pretense falls away. If we consider people who are suffering from illness, people who have survived death camps, and people who lay for days on a battlefield praying for death, it is pretty clear that "If I can imagine it; it is possible" is just not true. Imagination has no causal effect on possibility. Since we have already ruled out Solipsism, the only possible argument that can be made is that imagination exists and possibility exists, and that they can happen together. Here is the problem with this argument. Per Wiki: "Superstition is a belief, not based on human reason or scientific knowledge, that future events may be influenced by one's behaviour [imagination] in some magical or mystical way." It is an argument for superstition. That is what superstition is, the idea that something can be imagined and possible with no causal relationship. The rational mind has an amazing ability to corrupt itself, as is evidenced by our history, and when one bases their considerations on imagination, then the possibilities for corruption are endless. But this is not truth--not reality. I am not sure why, but I have noted that when some people turn on their computers, log onto SFN and scroll to the Philosophy Forums, they seem to think that reality jumps on the back of a Pooka and takes a midnight ride. (chuckle) Not so. Reality is still here. While reading this thread, I came across a statement that explained that science starts out with imagination and a guess, which develops into hypothesis, testing, theory, and proofs. I have read this before, in this forum. I believe that someone was quoting Feynman, who was purported to state, "First you guess." When I read that, I was sure that it had to be a misquote, or out of context, because Feynman was a very smart man. But it is possible that science has moved so far from philosophy that it has forgotten it's roots and really believes that imagination and guessing is how truth is discovered. This might explain threads like this one, and the silly ideas that come from using imagination and guessing as a starting point for scientific exploration. To be honest, I suspect that using guesses to start scientific studies would cause one to run out of funding before they got anywhere. So I am going to share my layman's self-proclaimed version of how studies start with regard to philosophy. (chuckle) First, you observe or experience something. Then you must go through the very tedious process of stripping that something of your beliefs, projections, and perspective. This is a very important step, because if you can not accomplish this, then what you are studying is yourself, your beliefs, your projections, and your perspective, so you are not studying the actual "something". If you manage to strip away all or at least most of your biases, then you can start to analyze this "something" as you now can know the truth of it; what it is, in and of itself. As you analyze and study it, you will have questions like, "What is it? Why is it? How does it work?" At this point your imagination can come into play while attempting to answer these questions, so this is the guessing part. Imagination can work here because the parameters of imagination are limited by the truth that you have uncovered of the "something" that you are studying. Then you form a hypothesis and pass it off to science, so that science can test and prove it. Science will prove the hypothesis false and call you an idiot, or prove it true and claim the credit. Either way, philosophy rarely gets the credit. So if science forgets philosophy's truths, it can make a fool of itself and produce nonsense. If philosophy forgets science's proofs, it can make a fool of itself and produce nonsense. They are a team that works hand in hand. imo Maybe this will help someone to understand the imagination problem. Unlimited imagination belongs in Hollywood. imo G

Kristalris; After reviewing your last post, I had a lot to think about. Most of the problems with your argument are not due to bad reasoning; they are due to misinformation. This is a commmon problem in the Philosophy forums, and not your doing, as this misinformation is perpetuated by the current attitude toward philosophy. I am probably not the best person to explain this to you, but you deserve a reasoned explanation rather than ridicule or condescention, and I don't see a lot of philosophers cueing up for the job. My knowledge of philosophy has been gained informally, so you will have to accept my layman's simplified version. It is my hope that I can explain this problem without offending you or the scientists, so please consider: I think this is the crux of the problem. Philosophy has never been under scientific rules, science has always been under philosophic rules. You may have heard the statement that, "Science is a child of philosophy."? But you have never heard that philosophy is a child of science, which is because science got it's rules from philosophy. Although science and philosophy share a common root, they are very different disciplines, and this difference is what is not well understood. Consider that philosophy started out as a discipline that studied what is real and true, then early on philosophy found that some things that are real and true are "fixed", others are not. These "fixed" truths are true to all people no matter the perspective and no matter the time; such as, a book which is a "fixed" truth. A book will remain a book from one day to the next no matter how many people look at it, it will still be a book and will still be in the same place unless some cause moves or changes it. As more and more was discovered about "fixed" truths, an entire discipline evolved to study these "fixed" truths. That discipline is science, and the "fixed" truths are now called facts. Science studies the facts of reality. Philosophy continued to study truths that are not "fixed" and the unknown. A truth that is not "fixed", is a truth that is relative to perspective and/or time, as time can change truth and each different perspective can have it's own truth. The unknown is extremely difficult to study because it is just too easy to imagine what we wish the "unknown" to be and rationalize our imaginations into supposed truth. So the discipline of philosophy must adhere to much more strident rules, that science does not have to deal with. Philosophy studies the truth of reality. Although the study of probabilities is based in science, math and fact, the results of the calculations are probable--not truth. Probabilities study predictability for purposes of decision making, control, and power as regards the unknown. This is not a study of reality or truth. This may well be true, but it is also true that one can always find a solution to a problem while considering only one assumption. That assumption is that the problem fits the solution. (chuckle) Philosophers are sticklers about reality and truth, so we like the solution to fit the problem, which can sometimes complicate things, but we really do like truth, so we put up with the complications. I retired from law and would like to discuss this, but it would take us off topic. So another time. Probability does not equal truth, at most it equals "close to truth--probably". So no it does not answer my question on "if". Bayes theorem is also not fact, it is theory. Truth can be based on fact, but it can not be based on probability, and can only be considered on theory. Here you are mixing science and philosophy again. Mathmatics is a study of facts that can find more facts, but that does not mean that these facts will find a larger and unknown truth. And there is no such thing as "absolute truth". It does not exist. In order for a truth to be "absolute", it would have to be true in all times from all perspectives, so it would be a "fixed" truth, which means that it would be a fact. Try going into the science forums and telling them that you have found THE ABSOLUTE FACT. Let me know how that works out for you. (chuckle chuckle) It may be true that it is a speculation, but that does not make it a philosophical truth. This may be part of the problem that blurs the distinction between philosophy and science. When science started to speculate, it may have also started to view philosophy as speculation. Speculation is based in some facts; philosophy is based in some facts. Speculation deals with unknowns; philosophy deals with unknowns. Speculation is often pseudo-science; do people think that philosophy is pseudo-science? Maybe. This may be how the comparison got started. Philosophy holds a very high standard for truth and speculation does not meet that standard. But possible does not mean a probability in philosophy. Here you are playing a word game that destroys your logic. The sentence was, "If I can imagine it, it is possible". It was not, "If I can imagine it, it CAN be possible." This is yet another example of changing the problem to fit your solution. Philosophy studies that which is real and true, so we can not adjust reality to fit with our solutions. The original statement is not true. Maybe so, but this is still about "guesses" and probabilities, it is not about truth. This is a philosophy forum and we deal in truths. The statement, "If I can imagine it, it is possible." is not true. It is a word game. Consider: If the statement, "If I can imagine it, it is possible." were true, then I could imagine that it would be true for me and false for you; therefore, anything that you imagined would become impossible. But being the clever person that you are, you could simultaneously imagine that everything that you imagine is true, but everything that I imagine is false; then neither of us could imagine anything that would be possible. But then Harry Potter, who is more clever than both of us combined, could see this problem and immediately imagine that everything he imagines is possible, but everything that anyone else in the world imagines is not possible, so he would win. He would be King of the World, Almighty God, the beginning and the end--a solipsist. But I thought you agreed that solipsism is nonsense. What do you think Monty could make of this? G

Kristalris; If we are going to continue this discussion, it must be between us and not include negative comments regarding other member's abilities. I do not always agree with YodaP, but have read enough of that member's posts to come to the conclusion that YodaP has a good mind and an understanding of philosophy. So I have no wish to debate the merits of any third-party member's posts, and would like to keep this between us. The problem that I have with your argument is that you seem to interchange the word "probability" with the word "possibility". They are not the same. Now if the original statement was, "If I can imagine something that fits within the parameters of science and Bayes probability theorem, it is possible!". Then I might have to agree that this is possible, but that is not the case. The original statement, "If I can imagine it, it is possible" sets the parameters of "possible" under the parameters of "imagine". Imagination has no parameters. And according to you, imagination is garbage and does not fall within the rules of Bayes Theorem, as follows: So I don't agree that Bayes Theorem even applies in this case. I certainly hope you will forgive me for this observation, but it appears as though solipsism, the religious "God" idea, and Bayes Theory have something in common. They have each taken an idea that they "imagine" to be true and applied logic to this idea in order to rationalize it and make it appear to be real. This is not reality. (chuckle) Lucky for me, I am not a scientist. I am a philosopher. Did you notice that this is the General Philosophy forum, not the General Science forum? The fact that the formula requirments dictate a testable hypothesis indicate that the formula is self serving and somewhat circular, so I would question it's ability to find truth. This formula seems to be a statistical game of probabliities, designed to predict reality, but it does not define reality -- or truth. G

Hypervalent_Iodine; Thank you for answering my questions. I had hoped that there was a time limit on the warnings, but did not really anticipate it. As I suspected, the warnings will remain and have a "building" affect on my reputation so that any grey area will be colored by the warnings prompting more warnings. A spiraling effect. The problem is that I have a tendency to write some very interesting and thought provoking threads. Most of the time moderators like my threads because they are rarely boring, generate new ideas, and a lot of lively discussion, but I have never written on the Supernatural before. (chuckle) I do not post very much in the Science area because I am not a scientist, although I do read there. I try to avoid the religion forum because I always end up defending religion, even though I am not religious, so most of my posting is in philosophy and mostly in my own threads. You are correct in that I am not posting much because I can not start any threads unless I can find a way to trust moderation. I had hoped that this thread would lead to some trust, but it does not look like it. So far, in this thread, I have taken the defensive position as I saw no purpose in finger-pointing, but it looks like I may have nothing to lose. I will have to do some research and consider my options. G

Hello Kristalris; I very much enjoyed the video that you presented, and got a lot of laughter out of it. Thank you. I have never broached this subject before, but would like to take a stab at it, so please consider the following. It may well be true that a "hypothesis is held to be true until falsified", but it is also true that a hypothesis must be testable in order to falsify it. So is "possible" testable? The problem with the word "possible" is that it has no parameters, so only the consequence of that possibility, in hindsight, is testable after it becomes real. So one is not really testing "possible". Is "imagination" testable? Only after it becomes realized in reality. So I don't see how you can call this a hypothesis, as it is not testable. Now one could say that "if you can imagine it, it is possible" is a truism. But again, truisms are always true, so how could one know that it is always true? In hindsight, many things that were thought impossible became possible through someone's imagination, but not all things imagined became possible, so we can not call this a truism. Because the statement begins with the word "If", it implies a relationship between "imagine" and "possible"; "if this, then that". There are two ways to look at this, either "imagine" is a prerequisite to "possible", or "imagine" causes "possible" -- neither are true. Rain turns into snow because of temperature, not imagination, so there are things that are possible that do not require the prerequisite of imagining. Imagination is thought and is produced by the rational aspect of mind, so it can not actually cause a change in reality. Thought has no power over reality, so imagination, on it's own, does not cause anything to be possible. Think of imagination as you would a tool, like a hammer. A hammer is a very handy tool to have when building a house, but a hammer can not build a house. Imagination is a very handy tool to have when considering possibilities, but imagination can not cause those possibilities to become real. So I see this as a word game that has nothing to do with reality or logic. The only other way to view this is to say that "imagination" actually causes reality, which is the solipsist's view. Solipsism is nonsense. imo Do you disagree? G

Swansont; I apologize for being so late with my response, but life seems to be moving faster than I am lately. There is no contradiction. Being civil means drawing a line in the sand where you will do nothing to abuse the other party and will accept no abuse. Nice and polite demand much more. Being polite means holding the door open for someone else. Being nice means sometimes stepping back and letting another person's desires take precedence. In a forum where people commonly use the tactics of debate, holding the door open can get you locked outside, and stepping back can be seen as a retreat or withdrawal that encourages attack. If you don't believe this, I can show you examples from my own thread. Regarding tactics, you and I both know that behaviors can be used as tactics, but that does not mean that all tactics are behaviors. Either you have not read the thread, Supernatural, or you were not looking for the tactics as they are obvious. When I first decided to try to write about the supernatural, I knew it would be difficult. This subject is surrounded by centuries of ignorance, superstition, mysticism, and religious belief; but even so, I think it is important to understand in order to fully understand consciousness. Normally it takes proof to change beliefs, and all I had was some evidence, so a serious strategy was required. In the first paragraph of the OP I stated that I study the philosophical understanding of consciousness and use the supernatural to that end. A strategy--designed to set the parameters of the discussion. I then compared people, who refuse to discuss this, with "screaming virgins". A tactic. -- This was a dare designed to get past the knee jerk response to the word, supernatural, and add some humor to dispell some of the tension associated with the supernatural. In the second paragraph, I went into the history of the word, supernatural, and painted religion as the cause of the problem and science and philosophy as the heroes. (This was easy to do because it is the damned truth.) A strategy -- designed to let people know that this was not about religion and "God", but rather about a serious analyzing study of the supernatural. Later I stated that "God" is arguably President of the Paranormal Club. A tactic -- designed to show that I have no allegiance to religion. Then I went on to explain why I thought that it was important to study the supernatural. There were two more things that needed to be addressed almost immediately; acceptable evidence and rationalization. I introduced Dr. Ian Stevenson as his work on reincarnation has been peer reviewed, challenged, but not refuted, so it is acceptable as evidence. Then I took advantage of something that EdEarl said to introduce the concept that rationalization can not be used with an unknown. This was a necessary strategy because people will imagine whatever they like, rationalize it, then call it truth, so this needed to be addressed immediately before that nonsense started. Later I sent EdEarl a PM and explained my taking advantage of him, which was a tactic. He said he understood. We are still friends, which is good as I respect his mind and value his friendship. The rest of my strategy was to debunk myths, demystify mystics, and explain anthropomorphism, while comparing acceptable phenomenon with supernatural phenomenon; such as, ESP and human bonding. Both are a connection of minds, but no one understands the mechanism for these connections even though they both work through emotion. The tragedy of this farce is that I never got to explain anthropomorphism, and without an understanding of this concept, no one can understand how the supernatural actually works. But I lost control of my thread and never truly regained it. I tried to get the moderator to close it--no luck. I tried leaving it, and the other members used it to gossip, tell jokes, and generally abuse the topic, so I went back and tried to steer it back on topic. On page 14 I finally learned a new tactic--ridicule. Ridicule is what people use in this forum to get rid of someone or close a topic, so I ridiculed the other members theories on consciousness, and mercifully, the topic finally closed. Silence on your part would mean that this thread would never have been started, so apparently this issue is not "(temporarily) resolved". I have another question. When do the warnings come off? Or do they ever? Your point is understood. It is also understood that you do not want an explanation. G

YodaP; Not even close. I was first attracted to your title because I just spent 15 pages in the thread, Supernatural, explaining that imagination is a poor tool to use in philosophy. But I don't think anyone was really listening. I do think that my explanation that rationalization can not be used to find an unknown was understood, but I don't think that people realized that rationalization is just logic applied to imagination. People take an unknown, imagine what they think it is, then create logical steps to whatever they have imagined--and they call this rational. The problem here being that the rational part of the mind is the only part that knows how to lie. It seems to me that imagination is a coping ability. We take what we don't know or don't understand and use our imaginations to make it more palatable. But that does not make it more real. Philosophy studies what is real, not what is palatable. I do agree with you that math is a definite way to find and establish truth, and suspect that this is because math evolves from innate understanding. The innate understanding of more and less is at the root of math, but this is not the only innate understanding--not the only available truth. I study consciousness and life, so I do a lot of work on awareness and emotion, which are also innate understandings. If you can supply me with a formula that explains awareness and/or emotion it would be wonderful. Until you do, I will have to simply rely on the old tools of observation, experience, logic and reason. G

Swansont; Thank you for your prompt response. Please consider the following: I did not at any time "describe this approach as a successful tactic". It was not successful. It was not a tactic. It was bad temper. I was angry and made a personal attack; I recognized the problem and asked for moderator help; the help was like throwing oil on fire; then I was furious and got worse. This is not an excuse, it is what happened. Now if you want an excuse, one could say that I was PMSing, or that I was in a lot of pain at the time, or that I am half Irish, but the reality is, I was very angry. ***Not a tactic.*** Because you did not address my above-mentioned tactics, I am going to consider that you did not find them to be specifically against the rules. But you did find them offensive. They were not meant to be offensive, but to be informational. I probably could have used a better term than "pack" mentality, like maybe "team player", but that would imply that a philosopher can join the "team", and this is not possible. I know that there has been more than one thread in this forum made by a philosopher, who believes that they are not being treated fairly--I have read them. But I also seriously doubt that anyone is intentionally trying to abuse the philosophers. I believe that this difference is caused by the different way that scientists and philosophers think and work--because their work is so different. It was my intention to try to explain how a philosopher must present their ideas in order to get any help in a science forum. So if there are any philosophers reading this, please consider the following. In elementary school, we are all taught how to do a science experiment. We must study whatever we are testing and ensure that the only variable is what we are testing for; otherwise, we are not testing anything. Science is about focus, control, details, and proof. It is an exacting and precise discipline, and can only accomplish it's goals by adhering to these rules. This is what makes science great. Philosophy, on the other hand, deals mostly with unknowns. It would be a little absurd to try to focus on the details of an unknown. So philosophers observe, and use reason and logic to find commonalities or recurring patterns to try to put some parameters around something that is unknown. So our work is more expansive than focused. So let us take a very simple example of an unknown problem. We will say that someone gave me a puzzle in a jar. I have no picture to help me, and hope that I have all of the pieces, and no extras. I take the pieces out and turn them all up and study them. It looks like a country scene, but there is little that I can discern, so I start to sort them by color. I have a fair amount of red that looks like flowers and maybe an old barn and some other pieces. So I take them to my local science forum and ask, "What do you think?" Those very focused and precise people will state, "Not one of those pieces is evidence of anything. There is no correlation between the pieces except color, and you don't even know if they belong together." Then they will go on to explain how every piece is completely different from the others in various ways, and is proof of nothing. My topic will close. I will feel like an idiot. So for my advice: Just take the puzzle pieces that look like a barn or shed. Hold the rest in reserve, and you may find that some of those detail oriented people can help you put the barn/shed together. Then pull out some other pieces, and maybe someone will note that one piece looks like a pump and there are often pumps by a barn for watering and washing the animals. Just because you think that it looks like a barn, does not mean anyone else will. Have pictures of barns. Have blow-ups of your puzzle pieces that show the wood grain. Have some kind of evidence that backs up your thinking. . When the first person states that it does not look like a barn, whip out your evidence. Do not wait. If three different people agree that it does not look like a barn, your thread is dead. Once there is agreement, you are working against belief, so evidence becomes invalid and proof is now required. If you let it get to the point where people start demanding proof, you are finished. Science deals with proof; philosophy does not. I actually had a person in my thread tell me that philosophy only knows what science has told them, so it is clear that respect for and understanding of philosophy is at a low point. If you let yourself be a doormat, someone is going to wipe their feet. Be civil, be informed, be intelligent, and have references, and you may get to learn something from these science guys. G

Hi YodaP; I really enjoyed your post right up to the last paragraph, then I wondered. Are you talking about me? G

Hello Swansont; This question has been bothering me for a while now, and I would have rather addressed it in a PM, but you stated that it should be addressed here--so here I am. While posting in the Speculations forum, I gave what I thought to be some very good advice for philosophers, who post in a Science forum, as follows: You responded with the following: The problem is that I don't think that my tactics earned me warnings--my temper did. This was when I did not have any tactics to solve the problem, so I fell back on simple manners. Which just encouraged the problem, so I hit the report button. The moderator's "help" is what actually blew my temper. This happened twice, so now I don't touch the report button, and I don't get any more warnings. Simple. But back to the point. I think that the advice that I gave is sound and necessary for any philosopher to know when working in a Science forum. I also do not think that what I advised is against the rules, but I could be wrong. So did you assume that my warnings were caused by the tactics, or is there some specific reason why you think that the above tactics are against the forum rules? Thank you for your considerations. G Edit: I apologize for misspelling your name. I corrected it in the post but do not know how to correct it in the Title.

Hello Ringer; You asked some reasonable and intelligent questions, so I will try to explain my position. Terminology. Definition. Neurology's definition and Philosophy's definition. Which definition is chosen is relevant to the source of conscious awareness. "Part of the brain"? I am aware that neurology explains that, their definition of consciousness, is processed by and emerges because of the brain, but have no knowledge of a specific physical piece of the brain that is consciousness. Am I wrong? Regarding our single-celled ancestors, did you notice that I stated that the idea of life coming after the brain was "nonsense"? There is nothing "ill defined" about neurology's or psychology's concepts of consciousness. They are very well defined concepts and similar in some ways. I have studied in neither discipline, so you will have to accept my layman's interpretation, but I think that neurology's concept is about being aware of yourself and surroundings, psychology's concept is about control of your mind. Both concepts imply intentionality and some control or power over your awareness. Philosophy would call this being aware that one is aware. But people who are unconscious and even in states of coma have been known to hear what was said around them, and the sub/unconscious aspect of mind will sometimes surpise you with a "Freudian slip", so these states of sub/unconsciousness are still aware. Being unconscious is not the same as being dead. So yes, brain activity is very much a part of these definitions of consciousness. This is why philosophy theorizes that a tree has no idea that it is aware (alive) -- no brain. The psychology that understands feeling, emotion, and awareness is not much more than 100 years old, so it will take a while for it to overturn thousands of years of belief. Also note that psychology is considered a "soft" science, as are animal behavior studies. Psychiatry, endocrinology, and biology do study some forms of emotion because they can study something physical like the brain, chemistry, and hormones -- instincts. All of these things relate to the brain and neurology, which reinforces the idea that consciousness comes from the brain. But if you need further evidence, go to the Philosophy forum where you will find yet another debate on the "Brain v Computers". Debates like this are all over the science and philosophy forums. Or if you need a more respectable reference, go to the on-line SEP (the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), which is a very well respected and peer reviewed encyclopedia. In the SEP you can find out all about Dennett's book, "Consciousness Explained" where he shows that computers are going to miraculously become aware, and you can find out about Chalmer's book, "The Hard Problem of Consciousness" which is a rebuttal to Dennett's book and brings up the "zombie" theory. It is a great deal of fun. If you type in "emotion" for a search in the SEP's Contents, you will get Stoicism, some articles on feminism, and a great deal on how to control emotion, mostly from eastern religions/philosophies. So in science, studies of emotion are "soft", and in philosophy studies of emotion are about controlling it. I think that psychology is the first to really study emotion, feeling, and awareness, and I expect that psychology will be the forerunner in the quest to understand consciousness. I did not make a "straw-man" argument. Well that is the question, isn't it? Everybody seems to have a different idea, and all of the disciplines have a different theory. But no one has a valid theory of consciousness that fully explains it. I looked at the ideas from science, philosophy, and religion, then went further and considered the paranormal/supernatural. What I decided was that they all knew something about consciousness, but were slicing and dicing it to make it fit into their interpretations. My conclusion was that consciousness is much more vast and complex than people realize, so I decided to break it down into aspects rather than disciplines in order to study it. I think that consciousness is all of the mental aspects. It is what we are aware of, what we feel, our emotions, our knowledge, our memories, and our thoughts. Instincts, imagination, dreams, and creativity are all combinations of the first six aspects. All species possess at least some of these aspects in different combinations, and I suspect that consciousness in it's simplest form is part of our reality. The simplest way to define consciousness is that it is communication. Whether that communication is internal or if it deals with the external reality--it is all communication. I am not sure that I want a discussion of the philosophical idea of consciousness in a "speculations" forum. G

iNow; Is your response in reference to my post or someone else? G

Hi Unorthodo_x; Welcome to the forum. . . (chuckle chuckle) This is all true and I agree with you. Ophiolite's rebuttal is, of course, nonsense. I expected that it would be, but checked just in case I was wrong. All of the links are about the brain, and the brain's relationship with consciousness--not about consciousness. I am not sure that science actually has a position on consciousness as there is no valid theory of consciousness that fully explains it, but scientists seem to think that it emits from the brain. It is my thought that they are confusing the medical neurological explanation of the conscious, unconscious, and preconscious aspects of mind, with actual conscious life. There are some huge problems with this position, the least of which is the ignoring of emotion, feeling, and awareness. Then there is the problem that all life is sentient, therefore; all life is conscious, but all life does not have a brain. So if we decide that consciousness comes from the brain, then the brain came first, caused consciousness, and life followed. The really sad part of this thinking is that if you exchange the word "brain" with the word "God", this is a mirror explanation of the account in Genesis. It is nonsense. Consciousness does NOT come from the brain. The brain processes consciousness, and develops it, and expands it, but the brain is not the source of consciousness. It can't be, because our brains are a latter development in evolution, so they can not be the source. Another problem is that equating consciousness with thought, memory, thinking, and knowledge, while avoiding the aspects of feeling, emotion, and awareness, make a human brain and a computer essentially the same thing. They are both processors. But a computer is not alive, it does not possess feeling, emotion, or awareness, and can only mimic these things--it is not conscious. Science is making progress in it's search for consciousness in many different fields. Neurology is finally learning something because it has teemed up with endocrinology, and so it is finally studying emotion. Biology is learning a great deal about pheromones, which is another aspect of consciousness. Physics seems to be knocking on the door, and psychology knows a great deal more than people realize about consciousness. So work is being done, but most of these other fields do not state that their work is relative to consciousness--but it is. As far as alternate ideas being shunned, consider that religion offers an alternate idea, and most science forums have a religion forum where the members spend time ridiculing religion. Also consider that philosophy has a very different view of consciousness, which includes all conscious life and has theories about consciousness in the universe, but in this forum the words "idiot philosopher" are used without any fear of reproach. Also consider that this thread was split off of a thread in the Philosophy forum, and deposited in Speculations in the Science forum, so that the definition of consciousness would be accepted as emerging from the brain. Hell yes, alternate ideas are shunned, ridiculed, and strategically avoided. If you are going to spend time in science forums and have "different" ideas, then you need to know what you are dealing with. There are some very bright people in these forums, but most of them are already well ensconsed in their beliefs, so you have to work and have back-up to get them to listen to a new idea. The large majority of the membership is made up of "wannabe" scientists, and for some reason that I do not understand, these wannabe scientists think that philosophers "wannabe" scientists. (chuckle) So there is not a lot of respect for philosophers. What we have is a few good leaders and a lot of followers, which creates a kind of "pack" mentality. If you were out in the woods and came upon a pack of wolves, what would you want to have? First, don't be carrying too much--just present one idea at a time. Second, you would want a weapon--make sure that the idea you present has some back-up that is acceptable. Third, you would want to do as much damage as possible to the first wolf that approached to discourage the others--so hit the first one hard and fast. Be intelligent, civil, informed, and have references at the ready, but nice and polite gets you nowhere. I managed to get 15 pages on the topic of the "supernatural" in this forum, which is no small feat, so I believe these tactics can work. It was difficult, but I learned some things, so it was worth it. This strategy won't make you popular, but you might be able to discuss your topic. Good luck, and I hope to be able to see more of your ideas. G

Hi Jduff; Before responding to your post, I would like to discuss your title. Jumping from belief to religion is a big leap, and I don't think that it is a valid assumption in this case. Religion requires that there is a concept belief, but also requires rituals, events, and dogma, along with some kind of persona to believe in. So I don't think that Atheism qualifies as any kind of religion, and is more an anti-religion. I will grant that many Atheists lean toward the Eastern religions, but that is mostly because they are more a philosophy than a religion, so this works for many of them--but does not make Atheism a religion. Here I agree with you. If people believe that there is no life after death, then they accept science's take that consciousness is the brain. If people believe that there is life after death, then they accept religion's take that consciousness is God. Neither of these beliefs are fact as there is no valid theory of consciousness that explains life or death. G

Hi Believer; Just some thoughts for your consideration. I suspect that the problem you are having comes from the term "nothing", as I doubt that "nothing" actually exists. Now the concept, "nothing", exists; as in there is nothing in the fridge to eat or there is nothing in my coffee cup. But when we use the word this way we are talking about a specific something that we are looking for--something that is missing. The fridge and coffee cup are not actually empty, and if nothing else, there is air in them. But using the word "nothing" in relation to reality is a little different. You are essentially saying that no thing exists. Things can exist, but how could no thing exist? What holds the place that is presumably empty? The Ancients considered this problem and named the Aether as a chaos that the universe sat in and determined that this was the placeholder. Einstein also considered the Aether as real and necessary. So I doubt that "nothing" actually exists in reality--there is something there, we just don't know what it is. I have to go with option two. If we think that there is something that existed before time and space, then we must consider that it is outside of time and space. If so, then it could well be eternal as far as we can understand it. Without matter, time seems to disappear, so cause and effect would not work that same way that it does for us. Tell me, which came first--the inside or the outside? G