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Do rainbows exist objectively?
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2018-01-11 at 12:51 PM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Well of course. But that's a meaningless statement, nothing that happens inside your head is literally the thing that is happening outside of it, that's also the case for a computer experiencing the same thing through a sensor.
I guess "meaningless" means something different to you. Also you might believe a computer can have the same conscious experience as you and maybe it does but that seems impossible to actually know unless you could become that computer and that computer could become you. -
2018-01-11 at 12:52 PM UTChave you ever seen a painbow before?
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2018-01-11 at 1:07 PM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind I guess "meaningless" means something different to you.
Not really. As I said, if both things are necessarily physical in nature, then they both "objectively exist". If your point is that the thing in the sky is not made up of the same physical manifestation of colours in your brain, then of course. That's just the reality of anything interacting with the world. If something is one thing, then it is not the other.Also you might believe a computer can have the same conscious experience as you and maybe it does but that seems impossible to actually know unless you could become that computer and that computer could become you.
I didn't say I thought a computer could have the same conscious experience as you. It might, but that's not relevant. The point is that the arrangement of 1s and 0s that could become a picture of a cat, is not "objectively" a picture of a cat. It has to be interpreted in an extremely specific context to become a picture of a cat. That informational content doesn't exist in any meaningful way, it's just one way of interpreting the physical content of the harddrive. If you open that picture of a cat as a text file, it's not going to be a picture of a cat any more. I could also take any random assortment of matter or data (lets say a handful of sand) and in principle I could probably write some kind of imaging scheme that could interpret that into the very same picture of a cat. Those are simply functions of what relational bases your view them from. There's no reason to believe that's not also true for your brain. And there's no reason to believe either of those are anything but physical properties or descriptions of one nature or the other.
You're positing some kind of unknown "substance of ideas" that exists independently of the physical world. I just don't see a justification for that. -
2018-01-11 at 1:08 PM UTC
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2018-01-11 at 1:31 PM UTCSqueeze both your eyes tight shut, so it's pitch black, and then wait about 20 seconds. Now, while focusing your mind on the pitch black background, force yourself to see two horizontal greyish-white lines, separated by about an inch, on that pitch black background. Focus intently and conjure the lines going across. The lines appear. Focus more intently. Another whitish horizontal line appears above the first two. While focusing in your mind on keeping the whitish horizontal lines fixed in place, indirectly try to look at the pitch black background. One of the lines disappears, but another one appears higher up, then all three lines appear at once. While focusing intently at the lines appearing and disappearing, look indirectly at the pitch black background and picture in your mind a small white dot, brighter than the lines, somewhere in the black area. It will appear suddenly, fixed in place. Now think of it as moving around a bit. It starts to move. Focus intently on staring at the lines and nothing else, only indirectly looking at the white dot. A few other small white dots appear and join the first. Then they all start to move together a bit, back and forth on the pitch black background.
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2018-01-11 at 1:44 PM UTC
Originally posted by -SpectraL Squeeze both your eyes tight shut, so it's pitch black, and then wait about 20 seconds. Now, while focusing your mind on the pitch black background, force yourself to see two horizontal greyish-white lines, separated by about an inch, on that pitch black background. Focus intently and conjure the lines going across. The lines appear. Focus more intently. Another whitish horizontal line appears above the first two. While focusing in your mind on keeping the whitish horizontal lines fixed in place, indirectly try to look at the pitch black background. One of the lines disappears, but another one appears higher up, then all three lines appear at once. While focusing intently at the lines appearing and disappearing, look indirectly at the pitch black background and picture in your mind a small white dot, brighter than the lines, somewhere in the black area. It will appear suddenly, fixed in place. Now think of it as moving around a bit. It starts to move. Focus intently on staring at the lines and nothing else, only indirectly looking at the white dot. A few other small white dots appear and join the first. Then they all start to move together a bit, back and forth on the pitch black background.
That’s a pretty complicated set of instructions to remember with my eyes closed. What’s the point of this exercise again -
2018-01-11 at 1:50 PM UTCThat the mind is capable of creating subjective imagery which would appear as real as any rainbow.
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2018-01-11 at 1:51 PM UTC
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2018-01-11 at 1:55 PM UTC
Originally posted by -SpectraL That the mind is capable of creating subjective imagery which would appear as real as any rainbow.
Wow you’ve just now discovered the concept of an imagination. Maybe you will use this new found skill to post meaningful content sometimes instead of just bitching about the mods for 12+ years -
2018-01-11 at 1:58 PM UTC
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2018-01-11 at 1:59 PM UTCYou think you’re frightened now, you don’t know the half of it kid. Don’t you EVER fuck with me.
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2018-01-11 at 3:59 PM UTC
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2018-01-11 at 4:12 PM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Then you agree with my point.
At what point did you think we were in disagreement? As I already said, I won't disagree with you if you want to claim that "red" or "blue" is a specific arrangement of one's and zeros so long as those ones and zeros refer to activity in a person's brain and not something floating up in the sky. -
2018-01-11 at 6:14 PM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon I'm not some kind of hardcore materialist but I see no rational justification for a belief in some kind of "substance of ideas" so to speak, specially when that concept proposes that we are special in some way: that we, being no different as a physically constructed race of beings, happen to have special access to some kind of conceptual world that, say, a rock or a computer does not.
So this is what motivates the notion of philosophical zombies. If you think p-zombies are at least conceivable (that there's no internal contradiction in the idea, not just that they may not be naturally possible) then you would seem to affirm a substance of ideas, as such a substance would be the only thing to differentiate zombies from non-zombies.
Originally posted by Captain Falcon
>ssb4
not even once -
2018-01-11 at 6:23 PM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind At what point did you think we were in disagreement? As I already said, I won't disagree with you if you want to claim that "red" or "blue" is a specific arrangement of one's and zeros so long as those ones and zeros refer to activity in a person's brain and not something floating up in the sky.
Okay, but to say that the experience of blueness is not the same as something being blue is like a "duh", that's not an insight, you're saying thing A is not the same as thing B. The sense experience objectively exists and the physical phenomenon that spurs it objectively exists. If your point is that the sense experience isn't literally hanging in the sky, then wtf ki d of insight is that?
I know an institute that would value this conclusion:
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2018-01-11 at 6:38 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny So this is what motivates the notion of philosophical zombies. If you think p-zombies are at least conceivable (that there's no internal contradiction in the idea, not just that they may not be naturally possible) then you would seem to affirm a substance of ideas, as such a substance would be the only thing to differentiate zombies from non-zombies.
I don't really believe in p-zombies for that very reason: IMO if you can accept the materialist idea that all of that exists is the physical world and sense-experiences can be mapped onto physical phenomena (which is reasonable IMO; there is basically no evidence for anything except that), then I don't see how you can ever say a p-zombie exists unless they lack the physical properties or features that correspond to "consciousness".
Or let me put it another way: How does such a substance distinguish itself from nonbeing? I don't think there is any phenomenon that needs to be described by the idea of such a substance of thought, that exists outside of the physical realm (we should give it a name: "Conceptium"?).
It seems to be a superfluous idea, unless it's just a placeholder for whatever physical description could be attached to it, but has not yet been found.>ssb4
not even once
Yeah I couldn't find a Melee combo video of only the Captain Fabulous skin. But SSB4 isn't bad, it is a pretty fun casual game. At least it isn't Brawl, y'know? -
2018-01-11 at 7:08 PM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Okay, but to say that the experience of blueness is not the same as something being blue is like a "duh", that's not an insight, you're saying thing A is not the same as thing B. The sense experience objectively exists and the physical phenomenon that spurs it objectively exists. If your point is that the sense experience isn't literally hanging in the sky, then wtf ki d of insight is that?
I know an institute that would value this conclusion:
No, you don't seem to get it yet.
Nothing is coloured until light enters an eye and a brain turns that light into colour. Yes, things exist that reflect or absorb different wavelengths of light. Again, those things are not blue unless light enters an eye and a brain turns that information into whatever you experience as "blue".
Are you getting it yet? -
2018-01-11 at 7:10 PM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind No, you don't seem to get it yet.
Nothing is coloured until light enters an eye and a brain turns that light into colour. Yes, things exist that reflect or absorb different wavelengths of light. Again, those things are not blue unless light enters an eye and a brain turns that information into whatever you experience as "blue".
Are you getting it yet?
No. I just explained how you can still see images in your brain without the need of any light. -
2018-01-11 at 7:11 PM UTC
Originally posted by Open Your Mind No, you don't seem to get it yet.
Nothing is coloured until light enters an eye and a brain turns that light into colour. Yes, things exist that reflect or absorb different wavelengths of light. Again, those things are not blue unless light enters an eye and a brain turns that information into whatever you experience as "blue".
Are you getting it yet?
The text on your screen doesn’t exist until the light from your display enters your optic nerve and your brain turns that data into words. Therefore this website does not objectively exist.
/Obbe -
2018-01-11 at 7:13 PM UTC
