What is life?

[Fido]

Originally Posted by 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.

I would not say it as you said it; but I could say life is all of life's perception of it. If you go on a journey how can you say where you have been and what it was like? You can only relate your own experiences with dates, and places, and names common to many people. You can never say: I experienced Denver by myself. Well ya; you and everyone else. Knowledge on the other hand might be said to be all perceptions, as the reverse is true, that you never know what you do not percieve, and it is always perception that makes people think they know something. Even Moses saw his burning bush, and so he testified to what he knew. If the perception is false the feeling it gives is not false. And knowing is an emotional state. We learn first what most effects our emotions.

[boagie]

Fido,


These are simply two levels of understanding, one does not negate the other, the wiser man knows however that, to have value/meaning in his life he must create it himself, this is not all that common an understanding or wisdom. NOTHING IN AND OF ITSELF HAS VALUE/MEANING, these are things created of consciousness.

[Zetetic11235]

I don't necessarily agree though. Emotion and reason can on most but the very basic levels be divorced from one another. One might claim somthing to be true synthetic a priori, such as a new revelation in some field of mathematics, and that person might have found such truth entirely divorced from the presence of emotion.

The feeling one gets from stimulation that is divorced from the basic for of the object of focus, is the only thing which I might say could be false. The sensation cannot be said to be false, only the interpretation of it could be such. The illusion, therefore, is quite real, but the perception of it by the subject may well be false, for what is perception but synthetic juxtiposition of prior judgments upon prior experience.

[boagie]

Zetetic,

The area of judgement is always a source of possiable error, and emotion may well indeed effect judgement, but the experience of object as sensation is direct, pure, and without flaw, it is what it is, it is informing ones biology about its relation to whatever the object is. What is done with the information after this point, is where error may occur.

[Zetetic11235]

Indeed, I agree with but minor discrepencies. For what sense does it make that sensual data could be false but judgments upon them be true?

[Holiday20310401]

If our actions are reactions to the environment then we perceive the environment through sensation. So we must indeed judge based on sensation to some degree.

So I don't understand what you're getting at Zetetic.

If sensation is pure and without flaw then judgement is also unless the information is becoming flawed or corrupt, and such an instance or phenomenon would not be due to sensation, but other information.

Thats odd.... Why would I assume such nonsense. That would support my idea of a quantum side to the development of consciousness. Because information comes through sensation therefore when life forms sensation must come first and them information, unless there is intrinsic information linked directly to something actual. Perhaps the was particles bond and interact that make up the body, some quantum dynamics, would answer this? Or maybe I have a wrong assumption.

[boagie]

Holiday,

"If our actions are reactions to the environment then we perceive the environment through sensation. So we must indeed judge based on sensation to some degree."

Right, but sensation is true to ones biology, even if the biology was somewhat disfunctional, the sensation would still be true to that disfunctional body, in other words it does not lose any validity, it is what it is, an experience.

"So I don't understand what you're getting at Zetetic."

"If sensation is pure and without flaw then judgement is also unless the information is becoming flawed or corrupt, and such an instance or phenomenon would not be due to sensation, but other information."

Judgement is not pure, judgement might depend upon your accumulated knowledge, the metal that you were about to pickup if you had not sensed its heat, it looks cold, but it is not cold, it is white hot! With no past sensory experience your judgement might have you try to pick it up.

"Thats odd.... Why would I assume such nonsense. That would support my idea of a quantum side to the development of consciousness. Because information comes through sensation therefore when life forms sensation must come first and them information, unless there is intrinsic information linked directly to something actual. Perhaps the was particles bond and interact that make up the body, some quantum dynamics, would answer this? Or maybe I have a wrong assumption."

Sensation is information, and the information is relative to your body, the metal is white hot, that truth is the relation between subject and object--the relation between you and the object, but, from this point the process of the understaning takes over, and if you have not taken the time to sense the temperature, the understanding might say, of this white hot metal, that it is cold, pick it up.

Sorry you were addressing Zetetic, but, we can see what he might have to add.

[Holiday20310401]

No thats great, I needed that example, I was brain dead when I wrote such nonsense.

I was too narrow viewed on the term judgement.

[Zetetic11235]

I think that supplied with your information and mine conjointly, Holiday has come around, though I am interested in what he has to say of his brand of dualism in comparison to my monistic view.

Yes, what I meant by judgement is any inductive process over sense data past and present. The sense cannot be false, it has physical occurance that is present whether your inductive reasoning draws conclusion A or conclusion B, however, A and B cannot typically both be the case when it comes to sense and perception. The sense data is the same whether you see an elephant or anillusion of one, but there are several key relational differences between the real occurrence and the illusion the main one would be mutual confirmation; if someone else were there, they would be able to confirm it. Even if you define people as objects of mental perception, there still holds a certain relational set of characteristics and the reltaion map of reality remains unaltered. This is why I think relational reality is an important concept, it seems uniquely suited to dissolve problems of perception.

[boagie]

Zetetic, Holiday,


Yes, I do see what you mean I believe, where to the individual, perception is reality, the groups reality is agreement, and this agreement is but a compounded relational experience, a collective evaluation and judgement. It is what you might say that we consider authority, maturation I believe involves taking some of that authority back, we learn from childhood to heed the voice of authority from all directions, even where that authority does not recognize us as individuals. There is a great difference between cultures where one is based on the individual, while others are based on a relational world view, but this for another thread.