What is life?

[boagie]

Originally Posted by Fido

Meaning is value. What is the value of a flower, master? What will you give for it, asks the master. What is the meaning of life master? What will you not give for it? replied the master. Life is the meaning of all meaning, the scent of all the flowers, and fresh air instead of dead meat in your mouth.

Fido,

O' I quite agree we can give our lives meaning through giving meaning/ value to the things in our lives, the point is, nothing in and of itself has meaning/value, but only in relation to a subject. There is no meaning to a flower, it just is, if a subject desires to eat it he attributes value to it as it is of value to his own biological maintaince and/or pleasure. NOTHING IN AND OF ITSELF HAS MEANING, good thing it is a relational reality, or is it?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

It makes sense to me.

It does? Can you explain it to me?

[Zetetic11235]

The point was merely that life is only your perception of it. Stuff and nonsense! German Idealism!

What of physicalism? The converse to Idealism, the mind is in fact physical and under pull of physical law. It is bound relationally to that which it experiences.

Here is my conception of what is the case. In the problem of the illusion, the subject finds himself experiencing what anoother might not, but the illusion is true as a physical occurence in the brain. The illusion is just a missfiring of synapses, an undue chemical occurance in the brain. The illusion itself, thus, is the case, however, the subjects interpretation of said event, may not be. It is not a point of contest that the event took place, but rather it is the interpretation and extrapolation upon the occurance that strays into falsity. For it is inductive that one should think that one's sensual events coincide with the events of others. The illusion, with no external reference, builds on this inductive process and the subject must assume its reality, having no other events by which it can be dsicredited.

Now, if the illusion exhibits properties such that it acts contradictory to the general case in question, e.g. in the case of the pink elephant, if you cannot ever get closer, or if the elephant disappears, or if you can walk through it like a ghost ect, you must conclude that it is not an elephant which is pink, but rather somthing else which superficially resembles it. If further the subject finds that upon relation to other sentients, the being is not in mutual experience, then he must draw the conclusion that it is confined to himself.

Arguing from a pure Idealism, what the subject has experienced to be the case in mutual experience is general confirmation on the part of those whom are percieved as sentients. Upon denial, the inductive framework of interaction the subject has developed experientialy indicates that this occurence is not the general case insofar as it is not affrimed by these entities which would generally affirm it.

Now, in the case of there being no secondary or tertiary subjects by which the first can meter his experience in this way, the subject is resigned to either accepting the experience as mutually confimable or not mutually confirmable. Erring on the side of caution, if the illusion is far too fantastic, the subject might prefer to act as though the illusion was not mutually confirmable, though his correctness is not affirmable in either case.

An occurance, by my reckoning, is sensual, and only that. Perception is the reaction to the sensation by induction on prior experience. Certain contradictions to the general case are sufficient to confirming the nature of an experience.

[Holiday20310401]

It has to be a dualistic reality, otherwise it has no potential and that would mean actuality (not linked to potential) is "unperceivable" and is monistic.

So reality implies relation to the self. I think anyways. So in that truth is found by potential in perception in all comes back to one's biology that implies the virtue; though virtue doesn't factor in this.

Originally Posted by kennethamy

It does? Can you explain it to me?

Boagie already did, giving what the quote meant to him

Ofcourse such ambiguity allows potential and meaning to vary for everyone, thus the original point of the quote.

[boagie]

Zetetic,

Excellent summation, do you agree, that sensation is never wrong, in that it is self-defined, it is experience nothng more and nothing less, therefore it cannot be said to be false. If reality is perception but it finds no agreement with the group, then it must be a disfunction of ones biology, and as a disfunctional biology, its experienced sensation is again, true to itself.

[boagie]

Holiday,

It is a relational reality, when one considers a nihilistic perspective meaning being aware that the physical world is without meaning in the absence of a subject, the only thing left standing is the relation between subject and object, or the world to ones biological perspective. Apparent reality thus, is a biological readout.

[Holiday20310401]

Well then is a non relational reality possible?

I doubt it, at least, not a perceivable one.

[boagie]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Well then is a non relational reality possible?

I doubt it, at least, not a perceivable one.

Holiday,

No that is the nature of our reality at anyrate, I cannot myself imagine a reality of a different nature. Perhaps there is though, but not involving life/consciousness and so as you indicated, it would not be a perceivable one.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by boagie

Fido,

O' I quite agree we can give our lives meaning through giving meaning/ value to the things in our lives, the point is, nothing in and of itself has meaning/value, but only in relation to a subject. There is no meaning to a flower, it just is, if a subject desires to eat it he attributes value to it as it is of value to his own biological maintaince and/or pleasure. NOTHING IN AND OF ITSELF HAS MEANING, good thing it is a relational reality, or is it?

I could agree with you that nothing has meaning of itself if life were nothing; and since it is not eternal, and we are not immortal then that argument could well be made. If life were existence it would be here tomorrow as it was yesterday. In a sense it is not, but is always here, now, or not. But it is exactly that transient nature of life that gives it value to the conscious. What does it matter that we externalize all meaning? It means because it means to some one special, our selves. And it inevitably means life. What do we love? What is your favorite color. What is your favorite season. What is your favorite food. The answers do not define IT; your answers define you.

So life is meaning whether we see it reflected in nature or anti nature. And meaning is in us so long as life remains. And our sole method of making life some what eternal is to share it and give it up. It is nothing we can grasp, and hold. Life is only a thing, a quality, percieved in context. And all that is percieved is percieved through this same lens, that see things not at all, or colors them red, or green as it knows them.

[Zetetic11235]

If there is one(a non relational reality) ,we would not be able to percieve of it, and we are not of it, thus we cannot really talk about it.

I would say that a man divorced of sensual expeirence is essentially dead. Even if one takes judgments a priori, which substantially dissolve in monism, there is neither presence of synthetic nor analytic judgements a priori, for there is nothing to assemble. What interests me, is the minds eye, the mind's ear, the mind's tongue, the mind's nose. Are the building blocks of perception internal such that they limit what we percieve, or external in that they limit what can be percieved? I say neither and yet both. The limitations of physical reality, have influence on the mind in the physicalist system, in essence, the mind is of the physical and thus is not limited from anything which the physical can be and does not place limits on the physical that are not implicit in the nature of physical objects. This is the view I tend towards.

The Mentalistic or Idealist system, posits that physical reality does not exist and all is of and within the mind. The mind shapes reality and not vice versa, or if the case is vice versa, we cannot know it to be such. I find this dubious, especially since it is not falsifiable nor is is very well evinced, whereas physicalism is.

I believe quite staunchly in monism, it seems to me that all brands of monism are suceptible to supervenience with respect ot each other and that makes the case for monism all the more powerful. All monisms could probably be shown to be equivalent in effect.