• Consciousness question
    I think you're talking the self.Raul

    Maybe I should use that word instead if it's clearer.
  • Consciousness question
    For that I suppose we'd need an identical body to be recreated, or at least functionally identical perhaps.
  • Consciousness question
    We think alike bert1. A good explanation of the nuances between panspychism and personal conscious awareness.Benj96

    Yes, it's an important distinction to make I think. In a lot of conversations about consciousness, 'losing consciousness' when brain function is disrupted is taken as overwhelming evidence that consciousness is a brain function. Understandably so, if we don't make this distinction between consciousness and identity. It's also understandable that identity is seen to persist when someone 'loses consciousness', because from everybody else's point of view, the living body remains. There still is a sleeping bert1, with legal rights and spatio-temoral location etc, from Benj96's point of view. bert1 seems to still exist. But there is no bert1 from bert1's point of view. The deeply sleeping body has no point of view of its own, temporarily, and it is in that sense that identity is lost.
  • Consciousness question
    I understand panpsychism. So do you believe that when you die, you’re consciousness, as in your perceptions abd experiences, will carry on?GLEN willows

    Not mine. On my view, identity is lost, not consciousness. So I no longer exist. But the functional unities that persist are conscious still, just as they still have mass. I'm a functionalist about identity, but not about consciousness. When I die I lose the functional unity that is bert1 forever. I might also lose it when I am in a deep sleep perhaps, or get knocked out. But it gets rebooted again.
  • Consciousness question
    Brains are made of matter, suitably organized. So, experience a product of matter (or physical stuff if you prefer), as is gravity and everything else.Manuel

    The 'so' suggests an inference, but I can't see a valid one without adding something in. Is it that experience is a product of the brain?
  • Consciousness question
    They are not the only two options. Some panpsychists (like myself) might say that consciousness is a basic property of matter, like charge, spin or mass. That way it's inside your brain without being a function.
  • Greatest Power: The State, The Church, or The Corporation?
    Yes, that's my general impression too. We need some kind of electoral reform to do away with fist past the post voting systems that always result in a two-party system.
  • Greatest Power: The State, The Church, or The Corporation?
    Not sure, but I'm way more scared by corporations than by democratic governments, even shit barely democratic ones in which the democratic recourse is to throw the Wanker Party (left wing) out and elect the Cunt Party (right wing) instead once every five years (and vice versa). The people can't get rid of corporations at all. The only defence we have against corporations is regulation.

    I'm just an idiot, correct what's wrong with that. I'm not a political scientist.
  • Philosophy of Science
    The non-materialist's impossible burden is to explain ... the difference betwixt the immaterial and nothing. Mayhaps that is what non-materialism is all about - a study of nothing!Agent Smith

    What's the difference between a materialist and a monist then?
  • Divine Hiddenness and Nonresistant Nonbelievers
    The argument form the OP is using is modus tollens and it's valid. Your counterexample is not a counterexample. If p1 and p2 are true, c follows. c (The round Earth does not exist) just happens to be false, independent of the premises and that probably threw you off.Agent Smith

    Yeah. The argument in the OP is likely unsound (P1 is doubtful), but valid. I'm baffled by this simple mistake of 180's.
  • Question
    I, a simple thing, am in a state of thinking about beer. Now I cause myself to think about wine instead.Bartricks

    Wine on beer makes you feel queer.
  • Might I be God?
    ↪bert1 It's entailed by omnipotence!! The definition of God that I gave - and that you completely ignored - is that God is omnipotent (among other things). That entails that there is only one God. If X denotes someone who has 3 + 1 apples, then it denotes someone who has 4 apples. That you can't see that doesn't mean it wasn't there in the definition.Bartricks

    Sorry I'm so stupid
  • Might I be God?
    Uniqueness follows from omnipotence - you can't have more than one omnipotent person.Bartricks

    OK, but that's still not part of the definition you gave.
  • Might I be God?
    Now, engage with the substance of my case and stop telling me about how you misuse the word God.Bartricks

    You're not my real dad
  • Might I be God?
    I do not think I am GodBartricks

    You mean this? You were intending that as part of the definition? If so, that's not clear, and uniqueness is implied not explicit.
  • Might I be God?
    Opening line of the OP. Read itBartricks

    It contains no stipulation of uniqueness
  • Might I be God?
    Yes, my definition of God entails that. That's why I said right at the outset that by God I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. It follows that to qualify as God you need those properties and that having those properties makes one God. All you needed to do was read my OP.Bartricks

    Oh, but that's not right. I did read your OP. From this:

    It's not a God making property. If I am omnipresent it does not follow that I am God, nor does a lack of it imply i am not God. Any number of persons can be omnipresent, but there is only one God and so on.Bartricks

    You are clearly saying it is not just a matter of arbitrary stipulation that God need not be omnipresent. You give reasons for its exclusion other than its not meeting your stipulated definition. Namely, that omnipresence is consistent with multiplicity, but God is one. But not according to your definition, which you are taking as primary! You didn't include uniqueness in your original stipulation.
  • Might I be God?
    It's not a God making property. If I am omnipresent it does not follow that I am God, nor does a lack of it imply i am not God. Any number of persons can be omnipresent, but there is only one God and so on.
    If you want you can insist that having red hair is the God making, but then you are simply using the term God to denote red headed people and are not using it as I am.
    Bartricks

    Oh, OK. You think omnipresence is neither necessary nor sufficient for God, but the other onmis are both necessary and sufficient? Is that your position?
  • Might I be God?
    I've defined God as an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. Omnipresence is not a God-making property and seems positively incompatible with omnibenevolence as it would mean God watches us shower.
    An omnipotent being has the ability to be omnipresent, but they would not exercise it.
    Bartricks

    You can choose whatever omnis you like for your definition, of course. You prefer benevolence to presence, I was just wondering why. Is benevolence simply more traditional? Or you feel it is more consistent with the others? Seems to be that latter.

    For me presence seems to be the most important one, and the one that generates the most difficulties if left out.
  • Might I be God?
    And so, once more, it seems I cannot be completely sure that I am not omniscient, even though I appear to be ignorant of a great deal and to have many false beliefs.Bartricks

    Don't put yourself down Bartricks. You can take humility too far.
  • Might I be God?
    By 'God' I mean an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent personBartricks

    How do you feel about omnipresence? Omni-gods are sometimes omnipresent, sometimes omnibenevolent, but curiously not often both in these kinds of discussions.
  • The mind and mental processes
    Why can't this happen in the dark:

    The brain models a self~world relation. That is why consciousness feels like something - the something that is finding yourself as a self in its world.apokrisis

    But this can:

    The computational paradigm boils down to a simple argument. Data input gets crunched into data output. Somehow information enters the nervous system, gets processed via a collection of specialised cognitive modules, and then all that results – hands starting to wave furiously at this point - in a consciously experienced display.apokrisis
  • Please help me here....
    If everything is X, then we might as well say nothing is, for nothing is picked out.Pie

    Yeah, it's just he's so sure about that.
  • Please help me here....
    No, he won't.Banno

    Oh, what will he say?

    EDIT: Perhaps it's this one:

    "The same logic that leads to skepticism about objects existing independently of my mind can be applied also to other minds. So if we have no reason to believe in mind-independent objects, we also have no reason to believe in other minds, therefore solipsism. "

    Is that it?
  • Please help me here....
    Go on...Isaac

    It's Banno's turn. He'll say realism is much better for explaining object permanence than idealism. Then I'll say the next bit.
  • Please help me here....
    I think Saussure is basically rightPie

    I'm not so sure he is
  • Please help me here....
    The OP asks us to consider the relation between idealism and solipsism. So it is worth considering how an idealist reaches the conclusion that other minds exist.Banno

    Let's get it over with. Object permanence. Your turn.
  • Is the mind divisible?
    Take a lump of clay. This lump is currently a sphere. That is a property it has. Now change it so that it is a cube. Well, it has changed shape, but nothing has been added or taken away from it. That is, the clay has not been divided.Bartricks

    Sure, but it changes its shape because of the particles in it moving around. Its ability to change shape depends on the fact that it is composed of many small parts. That doesn't disprove you of course, it may be that indivisible minds are just not like clay in the relevant respects. I was just trying to understand how something indivisible can change. You could say "Well it must do, because minds change and minds are indivisible, exactly how they do it is not my concern." I've heard people say that kind of thing on this forum about other matters (i.e. such and such must be the case somehow, and it's not the job of me as a philosopher to work out the details of how).

    EDIT: maybe it's a kind of stretchiness that isn't like the stretchiness caused by chemical bonds in, say, rubber? But I'm thinking of spatially extended analogues, whereas you don't think minds are spatially extended at all (unlike me).
  • Is the mind divisible?
    Minds 'have' states - they're called mental states for that very reason. A mental state is a 'state of mind'. That is, a state a mind can be in.Bartricks

    You said earlier that minds are indivisible, not made of parts. But they can be in states that are different from one another. Typically, objects change their states by rearranging their parts in some way. But for a partless immaterial soul, I'm struggling to understand how such a thing could support different states. How can it change?
  • Understanding the Christian Trinity
    Sancta trinitas unus deus.Agent Smith

    Frater domi dormit

    Pater non domi scribit et studet
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    People keep trying to attach some kind of importance or magic to consciousness when it's nothing more than just taking in information.Darkneos

    It is more than that though.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Okay. I misunderstood. You already had the answer before you asked.180 Proof

    Nay, I wasn't sufficiently clear. We do have to specify a reference point, but one of the entropic states will do as a reference. I guess the question then becomes, if everything after that state is the future, and everything before it is the past, then is not the entropic state itself the present state?
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    You're asking for a "reference point" other than the relative reference points (entropic states).180 Proof

    No I'm not
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Entropy doesn't care about the direction of time. That's a misconception. See here:Tate

    Oh, no doubt. I have no idea. 180 was the one saying that future is more entropy and past is less entropy.
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Nope. Unlike abstract objects "6 & 7", lower entropy is relative to higher entropy. There is no "absolute reference point". Thus, relativity of simultaneity.180 Proof

    I never said nor implied there was an absolute reference point
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Entropy-states are relative to one another (re: before / after). A lower degree of disorder relative to a higher degree of disorder.180 Proof

    So we have to specify a reference point, then, no? Without that there is no past or future as 6 is in the past of 7 but the future of 5. So we need to set a reference point of 5 or 7 before we can tell what 6 is. We need a now before the concept of past and future make sense, even thermodynamically, no?
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Entropy states from low to high:

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

    Which ones are in the past and which ones are in the future?
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Is the present real or imaginary, psychologically?

    What, thermodynamically, separates the past from the future?
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    Now is a point and points are imaginary.180 Proof

    Oh, OK, so there is no now. Are the past and future imaginary?
  • A universe without anything conscious or aware
    I don't even know what your ramble means.180 Proof

    Oh, that's a shame. Anyone else know what I'm talking about? Or is it too opaque for everyone?

    EDIT: Whenever you are conscious, it's now isn't it? Is that how it is for you? That's how it is for me.