Its possibility is plausible in a idealist perspective, especially in esoteric spiritual ones. — Jack Cummins

Esoterically and spiritually of course even gods and after life and heaven and hell all exist. But it is another realm of thoughts or world if you like. In philosophical analysis, not sure if they are thought of valid existence.

Not denying the existence of time reading system such as the western solar based 12 month 365 days a year 24 hr in a day what have you, as some sort of civil contract. Of course they do exist, and we use them in daily life. But time itself as some sort of being or existence is a daft illusion propelled by SF or the silly physicists.

Death involves the question of existence outside of space and time. — Jack Cummins

I have been thinking hard on the topic i.e. existence outside of space and time. Wouldn't it be a contradiction? Existence outside space and time would be non-existence or unperceived existence. Would it be meaningful object in ontological and logical sense?

I have thought about how time began in my world. There was no such thing called time in my own world when I was a child. Time didn't exist at all in my world. It was only when I went to school, I had to learn how to read time because teacher kept on teaching us how to read time.

When I learnt how to tell time from the watches and clocks, I knew keeping time was important in daily life and survival because everyone was moving and doing things around the time table. That is how time began to emerge in my little world from my reflection.

Now I have been inclined to believe time doesn't exist. Time is one of the worldly contract between folks that has been in force for thousands of years which started by a some bloke who were powerful in the ancient time somewhere.

The world might decided to call it off, and start new time system from tomorrow starting year 0, if they wanted to by another some powerful bloke who has power to do so. There are numerous different timing systems in use by different countries even now e.g Chinese Lunar calendar, Japanese royal family based calendar ... etc.

This is incoherent. People scream "ouch" because pain hurts. The salient feature of pain is that it feels bad. Any definition of pain which does not reference the subjective experience of hurting is incomplete. Imagine two old people from thousands of years ago talking about their various aches and pains. They know nothing about what the brain does or is. Are you saying then that their statements about their pains are nonsensical? Obviously, they can converse intelligently on the subject because when people talk of pains, they're almost always referring to the mental state of "being in pain" and not neurons and c-fibers. — RogueAI

You utter the word "ouch" for the pain in your body, but you don't know what the state of the neurons and electrons inside your brain is for your utterance of the word. What is clear is that it is a physical state in your brain and body, not something called "pain" exists as some objects. That's what I meant.

For finding out what conscious mind is, we need to trace how it comes into existence. Is mind posited by something or someone in your brain? It is emerged, or generated? Or embedded into your brain when you were born?

To me, mind is just the physical state of brain, which is perceptual, evolutionary and also intelligent. Because of this fact, AI is coming into the world. AI and computers are 100% physical from the body to the intelligence and capabilities they present. There is nothing mental about them.

If mind is not physical, then it should survive physical death of the body it resides in. No mind has ever done so. Mind always dies when body dies, and the death is eternal.

So again, where did this new knowledge of the book come from? Not from the ink. Not from the paper. Not from new physical facts. The “aboutness,” the meaning, seems to exist in a different category not reducible to physical properties alone. — RogueAI

You seem to be digressing into books from the original topic conscious mind. But think again. If there was nothing in the world, i.e. no paper, no ink, no humans, no physical objects whatsoever (imagine a place like Mars - a field with just rocks and hills), can a story of Sherlock Holmes exist? Whatever idea or story it might be, it needs to be in the form of physical media, DVD or ebook or physical book for it to exist. With no physical objects to contain ideas or books or music, nothing can exist.

In that sense, they are all some form of physical objects. Ideas, minds and consciousness or whatever abstract objects you might be thinking, talking or imagining, they are in some form of physical existence - they need to be read, spoken or played by the physical beings and instruments. They might be different category of physical objects which are invisible, odourless and silent. But they are all some form of physical existence in nature and origin.

There is no such a thing called pain. You have your biological body which feels the sensation of pain when hit by some hard object. You call it "pain" when no such thing exists in the whole universe. It is just the state of your body cells with neurons which sent some electrical signals into your brain, and from your education and upbringing and customs, habits and cultural influence, you scream "ouch", and utter the sentence "I have pain." or "It is bloody painful."

Your mind will be gone pretty much the moment you die. — Patterner

I would imagine so. My mind dies every night when I fall asleep too. But it resurrects every morning thanks to living body waking up. But when body gets old, and no longer waking up, mind can never resurrect.

Saying the brain is mysterious or not fully understood today is just an appeal to ignorance. Complete knowledge of a person's brain should equal complete knowledge of their mind, right? — RogueAI

When you open your hard drive, and look into all the parts inside the drive, you will see nothing which even remotely resembles the data you stored in it.  You will see some electronic parts, capacitors, motors, transistors, chips and connectors on the magnetic platter.

Likewise, if you open your brain, and look into it, you will see nothing which even remotely resembles your feelings, images, memories and sensations or consciousness.  You will see a grey matter / organ full of veins and body mass with the neurons inside.

To see your data from the hard drive, you must run some software which talks to your hd, and transfers the data in bits which are electrical signals into the screen.

Likewise for your brain to present you with the memories, feelings and thoughts and consciousness, it must be in your body as it has been for many years living and learning, communicating with the full sense organs in your body.  Without that physical setup and symbiotic workings in your whole body, you will have no mind.   

Mind is just a reflection or expression or perceptual state of your own physical bodily state.  When your physical body is no longer existent, your mind will also evaporate into thin air.  

Why are brains conscious but hearts and livers aren't? — RogueAI

Good point, but a daft question. It is like asking why tables and chairs don't work as phones or computers? They are not designed / made to do those jobs.

Why are only some brain processes associated with consciousness? — RogueAI

This sounds like a question for the biologist and neurologist.

If the mind is identical to the brain, and I'm picturing a purple flower in my mind's eye, wouldn't that entail there's a purple flower in my brain? — RogueAI

A purple flower and an image or representation of the purple flower is not the same existence.

If minds are physical, then by studying someone's brain, I should be able to gain access to the contents of their mind, right? — RogueAI

Not all physical objects are replaceable and transparent to our understanding. Many physical objects such as radio waves, atoms, cells and the black holes, space ... etc are not things that we can fully understand what they are. Many of them are also presupposed and imagined objects from the effects or events in the world.

We can read the radio waves on the frequency counter, we still don't know what they are. We know how to generate, transmit and receive the radio waves, but we don't see or hear them direct. We only know the audio data they carry in them, but the actual existence of the waves are unknown.

Likewise, we don't know how our brain works as they do, and brain is not replaceable. Only thing we know is that conscious mind cannot exist without working brain. Hence it is very likely physical state in its nature. There is no such thing as conscious mind as mental existence.

I agree. Information processing - thinking - is a physical thing. I just posted this on response to ↪Manuel
: — Patterner

:up:

"Who am 'I' and what is the relation between mind and body? According to my understanding, there exists a specific, changeable state of some components in my brain. — Pieter R van Wyk

Could it be the past memory of the individual and reasoning ability in the brain, which tells and confirms the person with the self identity? Past memories and experience of one's life must have been stored in the form of some chemical deposits on the neuron cells in the brain just like computer can store data into its ROM and RAM and Hard drives. When search function is performed, some central processing mechanism in the brain must be able to pick out the relevant memory and place them on the reasoning organ in the brain (central processor in case of computers), from which it will be able to tell and confirm their relevance and accuracy for the given search functions performed under the request for the queries.

One's past memory can be wiped out or transformed into fantasies and illusions by physical traumas or chemical injections (by taking drugs or medical substances), which proves mind is matter which are subject to be changed or destroyed by the physical causes.

I agree. The mind turns off at times, like deep sleep or general anesthesia. — Patterner

I am even thinking that mind could be physical in its nature, i.e. mind is not different existence from our bodies. Because mind can only exist when body exists as living agent. Hence body is the precondition of mind, and mind is actually a part of body.

Just because we cannot see it or touch it, it is not physical or material? That sounds too simple.
Think of your mobile phone. Your phone rings. Someone is calling you, and the phone rings. Do we see anything coming in through your window in the sky? Nope. Radio waves are invisible, inaudible and untouchable, but it still travels through space connecting folks communications. The radio waves can be measured and captured via the device called frequency counter.

Could mind be some kind of existence like radio waves? Our senses feed the information received via our sense organs into the brain, and brain perceives the external world, feels pains and pleasures, thinks and reasons. Just like what happens in the computer processors.
Mind could be some type of electrical processing in the brain, which is totally physical and biological? No?

I don't think it was a reduction of any sort. When you reduce something, you make it less or simpler. I didn't make anything less or simpler in the point.

My point was to stress the place where we find the existence of time. And it is not any where in the world, or indeed any physical or material objects which is called time. But time exists in our perception when we notice the changes in the world which happens in regular manner e.g. the Sun sets and rises, the change of seasons, births and deaths of people ... etc.

But our consciousness is about far more than just our physical bodies. — Patterner

But without body, our consciousness evaporates into nothing. Our brain falls asleep every night, and when it does, the whole world of ours disappears into nothing too until bodies waking up in the morning. Bodies keep on living without conscious minds, but no conscious mind can exist without the living body which it could be emerged from.

If there is no human mind, then there is no time. Time will end, if the last human dies on the earth.

Well, that is a loaded statement, you know. There is so much philosophy in this, one barely knows where to begin. Kant wasn't wrong (though the Critique can be argued endlessly. Was Strawson right? Here and there, yes), but seriously incomplete; such is rationalism. — Astrophel

My ideas seem to be based on natural logic rather than science.   I don't deny science, but always be aware of the limitations of science.  But yes, I do like pragmatism and intend to read Dewey, James, Pierce, Whitehead, and Strawson too.

How do we have knowledge?  I feel idealism and materialism and realism all have their points.  But they all seem to have limitations too.  Phenomenology seems interesting, but it too, seems to be only emphasising on the experience side of perception and knowledge, while mentioning the significance of body, consciousness and intentionality, they don't seem to go deeper into those areas.  I could be wrong here. I must admit I hadn't read a lot on phenomenology, and my idea on it is purely from guessing.

It is definitely correct that our senses feed us with the external world as a phenomenon i.e. appearance, but there is more than just phenomenon and appearance in the world.  There are actual facts, matters, objects and changes.  Kant was definitely correct in saying that there is the boundary of our senses, and out of the boundary there is the world of the unknown.

But knowledge is far more than just sense perception.  We apply our thoughts, logic and reasoning on the contents of perception in order to build knowledge.  Some knowledge becomes the foundation for further inference and reasoning other knowledge, hence knowledge keeps expanding.

We know that science, math, logic and language are the tools for describing, verifying and expanding our knowledge.

But going back to OP, our most foundational criteria for knowledge is sense perception. We only doubt sense perception when there is discrepancies in the perception which doesn't make sense due to possible illusion or mistake on the perception. So, the OP's premise that we tend to doubt sense perception in most cases is incorrect. Our contents of thought have more chance of going wrong due to the folks' faulty reasoning or mixing the thought process with their personal irrational emotion. Hence we often see folks making false claims and statements on others ideas, and also making bad decisions on their own affairs too.

So I would ask you, if you like, to ask Rorty's question of how things out there get in knowledge claims, just to begin showing the strength of phenomenology. It begins with the question of epistemology. — Astrophel

I have not read Rorty, hence I cannot comment on his philosophy at this point. I owned a book by Rorty titled "Mirror of Nature???", and read a few pages. But the book has gone missing, and cannot be located. Will try reading it again if and when I find the book. From my memory Rorty was mentioning a lot of Heidegger.

Sure, we can make those observations, but replicating human thinking in a computer program seems impossible. — Carlo Roosen

Why would it be impossible?

To make the move into how this constitution can be analyzed, one has to read the kind of philosophy that does just this, phenomenology. — Astrophel

Problem with phenomenology is that it is another Kantian idealism without Thing-in-itself.

For example, in what sense does "earth" in language capture the reality of the earth, being 12,714 km in diameter and having a mass of 5.9722 × 10^24 kg. — RussellA

Most folks wouldn't need such information in their life on the earth. Especially if you were a Zarathustra in the remote mountain cave living alone, the earth is a place where you are born, find food, cook, lie down for sunshine and enjoy watching the stars in the night sky. All these activities can be performed without knowing language.

For Wittgenstein, the world is not totally separate to the language that we use to describe it. — RussellA

I would rather agree with the world of Heideggerian or MP's, of which the structure or existence is disclosed or revealed by language. The world will happily keep existing without language or humans. Perhaps language and humans cannot exist without the world? It seems the case that the world has existed prior to the existence of life for long time.

I mean, think about it: what is scienctific knowledge and how does it present to me the moon as it is? One has to look not at the quantification, for this doesn't give us anything but relational structures in a system that is ontologically distinct from the presence of the moon itself. — Astrophel

Science can only describe what are observable. The hidden and unobservable parts of the world for them are same as metaphysics i.e. conjecture, inference and abstraction. Knowledge has limits, and all existence has both knowable and unknowable aspects which are the inherent properties of them.

Quantifications on the objects will make the knowledge more objective, but not absolute or ultimate.

Is it not the case that Wittgenstein believed that our language "is" our world, where the world is embedded in language through the hinge proposition? — RussellA

It is an interesting idea of W, but not sure if it is 100% correct. I feel the world has nothing to do with language or hinge proposition. The world is totally separate from us, existing on its own never saying anything at all. It is doubtful also if the world would listen to us if we said something to it i.e. the world has nothing to do with language. We just use language to describe it, and communicate with others.

If we lived alone like Zarathustra in a cave somewhere on the remote mountain, then we wouldn't need language at all, and still live ok hunting, cooking, watching the stars at night and enjoying the sunshine during the day.

But then, what contributions does "the mind" make to "the moon" being the moon when it encounters that out there we call the moon? Clearly the moon is not simply in one's mind, but nor is the moon simply out there. It is the simplicity that spoils this response, for to say the mind "just sees it" is to ignore the question of epistemic distance as if it didn't exist. Science may do this, for this is not the kind of thing it thinks about, but philosophy? This is where philosophy begins. — Astrophel

It is definitely the case that the Moon doesn't exist in me when I am seeing it.  It exists out there in space somewhere. It also is the case that the Moon causes the image to appear in my mind when I am seeing it, because when some nights it is raining or cloudy, the image of the Moon doesn't appear in my mind at all even if I try to see it.

A lot of processes happen physiologically, neurologically and chemically in the body and brain when we see an object.  It is not a simple event even if we say "I see it there" sounding simple.

The image of the Moon in our mind is not the biological, neurological or chemical substance in the brain or retina, but something immaterial which emerged from the brain as an abstract entity which is the same nature as concepts.

What are the implications? We can only understand the world using language. But if the world is our language, and language cannot understand itself, then this inevitably puts a limit on our understanding of the world. — RussellA

You need more than language for accurate understanding the world i.e. rational thinking and inferring with the observations on the reality.

Language alone can misled folks into the muddle rather than truths on reality. Think of the sad cases where some unthinking folks just read what the internet shady websites says, and accept whatever they say on the topics of even logic, and then just blindly trust them. and even taunt the others' correct ideas.

We need critical thinking and rational inference on the reality coming to our own conclusions on the world. Language is a representational and descriptive tool of the world. Language alone cannot reveal the whole structure of the world.

In other words, we use the language game to understand the world, and this world is nothing other than the language game itself. — RussellA

Like the formal logic cannot capture or cope with the whole reality, language alone cannot capture or understand the world. Free reasoning based on inference and sense perception must be accompanied for the full capture and proper understanding the world.

However, other thinkers offer up several different types of knowledge. For instance, a distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how." Knowing how to ride a bike, for example, does not seem to reduce to propositional knowledge (at least not easily). Its justification is the ability to stay upright on a moving bike, which is not linguistic. It seems possible that someone who has lost their capacity to understand and produce language might nonetheless know the to ride a bike. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not sure if being able to ride a bike should be regarded as knowledge based on the theory of knowing how.   It should be regarded as an ability to interact or control the balance when on bike, hence an ability of riding a bike.

How would it be like to be a bat?  No one would know it unless he or she is a bat.  Whatever comments on that question would be a fictional description from imagination.

Knowledge is the rational beliefs on reality verified by sense perceptions, personal experience or logical reasoning.

True, but they don't doubt that they have the doubt as to whether the Earth exists. — RussellA

Problem with hinge proposition is vagueness of its definition. There are other propositions that I don't doubt at all, and they are not hinge propositions. For example,

If I won the lottery jackpot last night, I have 24 million pounds in my bank account today.
I didn't win the jackpot.
Therefore, I don't have 24 million pounds in my bank account today.

Above is not a hinge proposition, but it is the absolute true fact (which is verified via the logical reasoning and reality), and I don't doubt it at all. It is exempt from doubting.

There are many ordinary propositions such as above which are exempt from doubts, especially when verified by sense perceptions, personal experience or logical reasoning on the reality.

Or is it certain that the experience of me typing this discussion is happening, even if I can't be certain about it. — Kranky

Are you certain about the fact that you are not certain about anything?

I cannot doubt that I doubt, even if I am a simulation. — RussellA

There is your certainty. We don't normally make claims using hinge propositions in daily life. We only discuss about them in the philosophy games (as opposed to the language games).

True, but they don't doubt that they have the doubt as to whether the Earth exists. — RussellA

They believe that doubts are also simulation.

Where does Wittgenstein write that those propositions which are exempt from doubt are "lived truths"? — RussellA

I have heard about "lived experience", but not "lived truths". What is "lived truths"?

In order to doubt anything, one must rely on that which is beyond doubt. In other words, one cannot exit all language games and still be capable of doubting. — Joshs

Descartes doubted everything including even his own existence. But one thing he could not doubt was the fact that he was doubting. The fact that he was doubting proved that he was thinking, and therefore cogito ergo sum.

I guess you could doubt them, you just exit the language game when you do. — frank

When we exit the language game, we are in the philosophical game where we discuss about all types of propositions if they make sense.

Any part whose meaning is exempt from doubt in your mind can be called a hinge proposition. — RussellA

Revisiting on hinge propositions, they could still be doubted in theory since doubts can be methodological like that of Descartes, or psychological.

A man who lost his hands in the war or work will doubt he has hands, even if he now has robotic hands.
Folks living in Paris in Texas USA could doubt if Paris in France.
Folks who believe life could be simulation could doubt if the Earth exists.

The whole point of a hinge proposition is that it is exempt from being doubted. Doubting a hinge proposition cannot even be considered. — RussellA

What are the philosophical / epistemological / logical grounds for hinge propositions being exempt from doubt?

:ok: :up:

No. That's why I have pieced together my own philosophical theory of how the primal Energy (causation) and Laws (information) of the Big Bang could evolve into living and thinking beings. :smile: — Gnomon

Isn't evolution from living biological species to the same living biological species but for the better adaptation for the survival in the given environment?

The primal Energy and Laws of the Big Bang is not living biological species, but it sounds like non-living force of some sort. How could the non-living evolve into the living?

How would you replace "exempt" by "impossible" in the above sentence? — RussellA

You don't. It was a suggestion for W if he used the word "impossible" rather than "exempt", it would have been clearer in the point.

"Exempt" is normally used for the situation where an object is free from liability, duty or restriction. Hence it seems not a proper word to use for doubt.

My idea is that you can doubt on anything and everything if you choose to do so. Even the fact "Paris in France." could be doubted under the simple syllogism.

Names of cities could be changed into some other name through time.
Paris is a name of the city.
Paris could be changed into some other name through time..

which implies Paris might not be in France sometime in the future. (weak doubt for the possibility in the future = still a doubt).

:ok: Seems to be delicate nuance in the uses, but the gist of the claim seems it is impossible to doubt?

FYI, USA has 23 towns and cities called Paris, and the French government folks could decide to change Paris to "Sartre" or some other names they feel more suitable one day. :)

"Exempt from doubt" has a different meaning to "cannot be doubted." — RussellA

What is the illocutionary difference between the two expressions?

True, but on a thread about Wittgenstein's On Certainty, the question is, how did Wittgenstein describe doubt? — RussellA

I understand W said that hinge propositions / certainties cannot be doubted or are not allowed doubting. I don't agree with that. Anything and everything can be doubted by the psychologically motivated minds.

If someone decided to doubt whether if the earth exists, or Paris is in France, then there is no way stop him from the doubting. Psychology overrides and takes precedence to reasoning.

Wittgenstein says "exempt from doubt" — RussellA

There are different types of doubts too i.e. rational doubts based on reasoning, and psychological doubts based on feelings, emotions and beliefs.

When a doubter is psychologically motivated by such as the groundless beliefs or Machiavellianism & Hyper-Competitiveness syndrome, he will not notice or understand the rational side of arguments or knowledge on the facts even with the clear evidence and rational explanations on the matter.

There would be no way to stop him from the doubting unless the causes for the psychological motivations for the doubts are resolved.