Did you have any success entering lucid dreaming states? — Janus

I woke up in a dream once, but I changed something that went against the integrity of the dream reality and I immediately woke up. That never happened again.

When I got sucked into the limbo state was when I was doing that meditation where you ask "Who am I"? I never did that again, but sometimes I could feel the limbo coming. I discovered that if you focus on breathing, it goes away.

The bigger they get, the harder they fall.

I was sucked into a kind of deathly vortex which seemed to be a state of paralysis between waking and sleep — Janus

I would get that too. I eventually learned that if you focus on breathing you can get back out of it.

As much as we criticize globalization, a collapse of globalization has absolutely dire consequences. The Bronze Age Collapse was the first collapse of globalization. Another collapse of globalization happened when Antiquity turned into the Dark Ages. — ssu

One of my favorite topics. The second collapse was Rome. Per Eric Cline, natural disasters including drought and earthquakes appear to have contributed to the Bronze age collapse. The other factors were warfare, and internal social upheaval that may have been the result of class struggle (but we don't really know). Cline believes it was a 'perfect storm' of events. With climate change set to increase stress in the world, we very well may be headed for another collapse.

Then later followed Castaneda's Art of Dreaming instructions with amazing results altering my understandings of reality. — jgill

Cool!

I agree. I think Biden was from the generation that saw US prominence as an imperative, but we're moving toward the phase where we realize there's no percentage in trying to secure global order. Let it all go to hell. Why should we stick out big fat noses into it?

As a child, I was convinced that there's something behind the world I can see, as if it's all a veil and whatever is behind it is "more real.". When I later came across Plato's allegory of the cave, I was a little shocked because it seemed so familiar.

I can't avoid reading my childish ideas into Plato and all the other philosophers who seem to echo the same thing. At this stage I think "more real" is a metaphor.

I guess this thread should go in the lounge. It's theology, not philosophy.

Christianity is pretty irrelevant to ethics. — Banno

Jesus was a moral nihilist of sorts, replacing the whole Mosaic law with the rule of love. Most of the human race isn't ready for Christianity. We still need moral laws like a bunch of bratty children.

Maybe it's related to Hegel's idea of partial truths, or Rumi's "magnificent lie.". This implies a higher truth, or something more real, but that's just poetry for it.

Through this thread I kind of changed my mind, though. The prevailing scientific view of the self isn't Cartesian is it? Except for a couple of physicists who entertain some kind of panpsychism, aren't most scientists non-reductive physicalists?

I suspect Descartes would be uncomfortable with the contemporary radical separation of subject/object. — Arne

Hagberg says that view originates in the 20th Century and was projected back onto Descartes.

One day the world will end, and we won't know why it will end until it does end. Until then, the jury is out as to whether the guy you knew is correct. — Hanover

That's good. I want it to be a surprise.

I know that argument, but that's the stupid argument from logical necessity, like God can be created by syllogism. — Hanover

I knew a guy who claimed that if we don't go over to the Mayan calendar, the world will end. He wrote letters to the UN trying to explain to them that the word "week" sounds a lot like "weak", and based on that, we need to change the way the days are named. "Like for instance, today is Blue Galactic Monkey day." he said.

Was South Vietnam a treaty ally of the US?
Nope. — ssu

US involvement in Vietnam was due to appeals from the French. The French told the US government that trade routes for rubber went through Vietnam, so that if it became communist, those routes would be cut off. The US originally fought in Vietnam with their ships disguised as French vessels. Crazy, but true.

Descartes believed God is a necessary thing, which he demonstrates by analyzing the idea of perfection. Descartes' Ontological Argument

Or, more properly, they are -- but they are also acts of intellect. — Moliere

Yea. Existentialists tell you to pay attention to your first person experience, but they do it in an intellectual way. Kind of contradictory. :grin:

but it's still very intellectual. — Moliere

I don't think so. Kierkegaard is the beginning of existentialism. His point was that the the more fully you become lost in the landscape of the intellect, the more disconnected and alienated you'll be from the knowledge that's most direct and intimate: the knowledge of what it feels like to be alive.

I don't know if you saw my SEP quotes, but Descartes also points to this as what he meant by "cogito": he is talking about awareness, which is only sometimes of ideas.

Well, I open my eyes and see a bird, and think, "Huh, a bird" and then I close them and the experience has ended. — J

Like a curtain coming down. You just need some credits rolling. :grin:

I know this isn't what you mean, but it's what I mean when I ask about a temporal slot for a particular thought, understood not psychologically as a brain event but some other way. Brain or no brain, isn't it still an event in time? — J

Yes, probably. You're kind of stomping all over the existentialism with your intellectual observations, tho.

Yes. — J

Really? That's wild. What's that like?

Become aware now of the sights and sounds around you. Do you detect a beginning or ending to the experience?

Fair enough, but is the first-person thing an event that happens from T1 - Tn? — J

The answer to that depends on your hinge propositions. If you believe time is an illusion and the soul resides in eternity, then you would say no.

Always a pleasure to get your insights, thanks. BTW, Wall St is not liking the fact that Biden told Ukraine to strike inside Russia. Stocks are tumbling.

From the SEP

"Third, the certainty of the cogito depends on being formulated in terms of cogitatio – i.e., my thinking, or awareness/consciousness more generally. Any mode of thinking is sufficient, including doubting, affirming, denying, willing, understanding, imagining, and so on (cf. Med. 2, AT 7:28). My bodily activities, however, are insufficient. For instance, it’s no good to reason that “I exist, since I am walking,” because methodical doubt calls into question the existence of my legs. Maybe I’m just dreaming that I have legs. A simple revision, such as “I exist, since it seems I’m walking,” restores the anti-sceptical potency (cf. Replies 5, AT 7:352; Prin. 1:9)." — SEP

Also:

"Second, a present tense formulation is essential to the certainty of the cogito. It’s no good to reason that “I existed last Tuesday, since I recall that I was thinking on that day.” For all I know, I’m now merely dreaming about that occasion. Nor does it work to reason that “I’ll continue to exist, since I’m now thinking.” As the meditator remarks, “it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist” (Med. 2, AT 7:27, CSM 2:18). The privileged certainty of the cogito is grounded in the “manifest contradiction” (AT 7:36, CSM 2:25) of trying to think away my present thinking." — SEP

Descartes sort of invented the idea of nerves because through dissecting bodies, he saw the "strings" that go from the central nervous system out to the muscles. He thought that these strings are plucked in some way so that the body moves like a puppet. He also famously concluded that the soul must be in the pineal gland. I think it's pretty clear from the Meditations that he isn't defining "thought" as an event in the brain, though. It's more of a first person thing.

But Russians can reach their objectives of breaking the Atlantic tie and to severely weaken NATO. That is the real goal of Russia here. — ssu

I guess Russia-EU relations will return to normal now that Trump is taking office. Gas and oil will begin to flow again? The US will lose whatever influence it ever had over Europe. Europeans hate America anyway, so that's probably a good thing for everyone.

And they can succeed because if Trump really sees that the biggest enemy is the deepstate in the US, that "makes forever wars" and Putin says that he is now fighting the US. Aren't then the objectives totally in line here with the same objectives? — ssu

Trump's attack on the "deep state" is just about securing his control over the government. He doesn't share the ideological sentiments of his supporters. Putin's fight against the US is over, I think. Trump and Putin are pals.

In my view, the populist idea is simply learning the wrong lessons from past conflicts: that sometimes it actually is worth wile to intervene even if Smedley Butler's old ideas are sometimes true, when the war goals are bizarre and a simple reaction to the people's demand for revenge. — ssu

I think we're entering a new global era. The US will continue to shrink off of the world stage. China will continue to grow and learn. All eyes will turn eastward.

Are you offering a psychological story -- that is, a story about actual thoughts -- in which case it must indeed occur in time? — J

Why?

Ah yes. With the magical supervenience, which fills all manner of explanatory gaps. — Wayfarer

There's nothing magical about Davidson.

Putnam suggests that the Metaphysical Realist is committed to the existence of a unique correspondence between statements in a language or theory and a determinate collection of mind and language-independent objects in the world. Such talk of correspondence between facts and objects, Putnam argues, presupposes that we find ourselves in possession of a fixed metaphysically-privileged notion of ‘object’.

Putnam is wrong, though. A realist can employ Davidson and bypass any need for correspondence.

Americans could be perfectly capable of shooting themselves in the foot and breaking their strongest alliances — ssu

I think Trump might come to the aid of the British, but not the EU. Trump sees the EU as weak and unworthy of respect.

I don't know a single person who supports Trump who cares Kamala is a woman. — AmadeusD

I don't either. I guess we've moved on from sexism. That's cool.

I guess I had that wrong then. :up:

But isn't it true that Putin came to power in order to protect Yeltsin? Putin guaranteed that Yeltsin wouldn't be prosecuted for corruption. Putin in turn can't leave office without ending up in jail, so maybe he engineered the gutting of Russia by way of war with Ukraine in order to protect his position? Is that totally wrong?

An infinitesimal is part of a continuum, though. It involves the idea of a limit. I don't think Descartes would have used that idea.

According to Descartes existence occurs in discreet moments. It requires a cause, namely God, to create it moment to moment. — Fooloso4

Yes. I like that view, it's a spin on one of Aristotle's proofs of God. We aren't doing a textual analysis of Descartes though. In other words, we aren't using any writings of Descartes as the limit to the discussion.

In the Third Meditation Descartes says :

For a life-span can be divided into countless parts, each completely independent of the others, so that from my existing at one time it doesn’t follow that I exist at later times, unless some cause keeps me in existence – one might say that it creates me afresh at each moment.

I take it that it is in response to this that Sartre says:

Moreover this conclusion could be drawn from the fact that thought is an act which engages the past and shapes it outline by the future.
— Being and Nothingness, p 156 — Fooloso4

I don't think these two are in conflict. If change is inherent to thought, it doesn't matter much if that change produces discrete moments or comes as a stream, does it?

I read up to about there to refresh my memory. The theme I see is certainty, which is understood as something which is clear and distinct that cannot be doubted. — Moliere

I think the project he sets is to find an indubitable proposition. Once he's there, there doesn't appear to be anyway out of the brain vat except to just have faith that God wouldn't let the Evil Demon torture us with lies. Kind of dubious, but maybe it made sense at the time? I think Descartes uses an old scholastic(?) idea about the necessity of God. God is existence itself or something like that.

Does "I think" refer to the experiential whole? — Moliere

Some commentators insist that it does, but I'd have to go on an expedition to find those sources. :smile:

I think stipulating what the evil demon can and cannot do is a part of the game, in a way. By stating what the evil demon is or isn't limited by you begin to pick out a foundation, be it certitude or something else. — Moliere

Descartes' foundation is a benevolent God, right? The Evil Demon is used to show that logical truths aren't indubitable. For a piece of knowledge to survive the Evil Demon, it would have to be intrinsic to the Cogito itself. Is change intrinsic to the Cogito?

I think of the Cogito as experiential. At this moment, I experience the world around me. I find that I can't doubt that this experience is happening. That I think of cognition as something that's happening does suggest that I think in story arcs.

It takes time to think and to be. — Janus

The Evil Demon could make you believe that. The quote in the OP is pointing to something intrinsic to thought. Something the Evil Demon couldn't fool you about.

As I said ways back, it's about choosing how best to talk about medium-sized small goods. Better to supose that they do not cease to exist when you forget about them. — Banno

Very true.