So what? Logic is about the form, not the content, but I haven't denied that thought processes and arguments, whether logically valid or not, have content. Try to address what I'm actually saying and not what you imagine I'm saying, and the conversation might improve — Janus

You have been talking in terms of some old classic logic point of view. There have been huge developments in Logic for many years, and now there are many types of logic. It is not really helping anyone just parroting what logic is about from the outdated point of view.

If you cannot present your own ideas in your own words, and address what I'm actually saying instead of strawman versions, instead of giving me unwanted reading advice and misinterpreting, whether deliberately or not, my words, then responding to you is a waste of time and energy. — Janus

Strawman versions? What was your arguments or points actually apart from keep saying Logic is contentless and useless methods because it cannot describe the world? My point was that we have limited space and time in writing up the most basics in the fields, hence why not go and do some readings before spewing out pointless criticisms, which are totally subjective and unsupported instead of demanding to explain the obvious.

I have been pessimistic on AI's humanisation par excellence, but having said that I was impressed by the progress of the technology in 2023 after watching some videos on the AI. It would be interesting how far they will advance as time progresses.

I recall some folks talking about transferring a human consciousness into AI, and the AI would operate as the transferred person mentally. I thought it was a Sci-Fi hypothesis, but then many Sci-Fi hypotheses came true in the real world. It seems likely that a lot more surprises will happen in the future AI industry.

Houston, we have a problem. A.I. has been catching us up. They are going to replace us soon. :(

Can AI ever be sentient? [url]http://https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0f73vlw/can-artificial-intelligence-ever-be-sentient-

AI Consciousness 2023 - 2030 Timeline of Sentient Machines

Seductive AI has no rules. It will change your life (or end it).

I mean, we can imagine consciousness without reason, so why not reasoning without consciousness? — Gregory

Isn't being conscious or consciousness the pre-condition for all the other mental activities?

I have defined what consciousness is in living existence in the other thread.

Of course it would be naive to think that a computer / machine conscious state is just simply an ON-OFF state. It was just a quick answer to the OP's question with no elaboration whatsoever, because it is a common knowledge that it involves more than that.

As you may know, when computer is switched on, it doesn't just power on, but it goes on various steps from the ROM BIOS stored booting program to wake the machine, then loads up the Operating System program from the hard disk, and fill the RAM with the application processes and make the whole machine ready to stand-by any input from all the available peripherals such as keyboard, mouse, touch screen monitors, network adaptors, and sound chips, microphones, cameras etc etc.

Again, the detailed and more precise process could be referred from the experts explanations, but this is just the simplest summary of how the machine POWER ON event works in general.  Depending on what type of computer / machine or AI device they are, of course, the BOOT UP steps might be different, but in general they will be very similar.

No matter how clever a computer or AI device they are, they will not be able to operate without electric power source i.e. from the AC or DC type of electricity either from rechargeable or direct ON Board power source such as batteries, or solar energy.  Therefore it is likely all AI devices and computers will be totally reliant on humans to supply the electric energy and also powering ON-OFF as required.

I suspect any AI or computer device will be able to operate like real humans fully in a biological and mental way.  AI devices will be manufactured for certain types of tasks such as cleaning, sorting out mails, cooking, manufacturing ...etc.  

Consciousness of AI devices will not be able to be shared by other conscious beings such as humans and other AI devices due to the nature of consciousness itself.  The contents of the AI devices consciousness could be copied or cloned to the other AI devices, but humans will still not be able to know what they would be like.

It is likely that AI devices will take over many jobs carried out by humans in the future making much of the human workforce redundant creating economic problems for them.  However, AI devices will never be able to operate like humans do in terms of biological, social and mental life.

Cogito ergo verum.

I think, therefore I am real.

Could you elaborate with a formal proof? If you want, I can try to formalize my proof as well. — Ø implies everything

I didn't need to get into the symbolic formal proof for this elaboration.  Just the plain English reasoning was enough.

The proposition has implied premises.
Everything exists, exists. (True)
Something exists. (True)

Therefore (OP's proposition) Absolute nothingness is impossible. (False), but it would not be impossible if it were not for the existence of something. (true) = inconsistent

Therefore I conclude that the OP's proposition is invalid and inconsistent, because it denies the possibility of absolute nothingness, then it accepts the possibility of nothingness at the same time.  Remember something always exists.  Everything exists, exists.

This was a very useful exercise.  It isn't about whether Absolute nothingness exists or not in the real world.  It is about how we could reason on some abstract concepts, and analyse them logically. 

"What is an example of absolute non existence?
Ans.: It is the absolute non-existence between two things for all time. This absence is eternal. For example, hare's horn is the non-existent in the past, present, and will be in the future. This kind of absence has neither a beginning nor an end.

What is the state of absolute nothingness?
Is absolute nothingness possible?
Absolute Nothingness is a status with no details — no space, no time, no dimension, no features. For Hegel, this status is identical to the status of Pure Being. Pure Being also has no details, no space, no time, no dimension, no features." - Google

Absolute is actually an absolutely important quantifier in this thread. Let us suppose that "Absolute nothingness" was defined as a concept for the state of the universe before it was born.

In this instance, "Nothingness" alone would be inadequate to describe the prior state of the existence of the universe, because it would be the only existence in the pre-universe.

It only makes sense then, "Absolute nothingness" would be the very right concept as the only and pure state of nothingness.

Could you elaborate with a formal proof? If you want, I can try to formalize my proof as well. — Ø implies everything

Sure. I will make up my own analyses of the reasoning, and come back with it. Please forward your formal proof. Thanks.

think my argument can be simplified to this:

Absolute nothingness is impossible, but it would not be impossible if it were not for the existence of something. — Ø implies everything

Anything that is not nothing. — Ø implies everything

I tried to analyse the statement further with logical reasoning, and the conclusion I got is, it is neither true nor false. Therefore it is not a valid proposition.

Thus, we are left without an answer to why there is something rather than nothing. Yet, I do not think this entails any paradoxes, nor does it allow for skepticism about whether something exists or not. All that is threatened is that there may be no ultimate reason for existence; it may be that reality is a brute fact. — Ø implies everything

For the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?",  I feel that we can get the answer for the reasons for the most existence by inductive and deductive reasoning.  For example, the book exists in my room, because I bought it, it had been written by the author, printed by the publisher, and sold by Amazon ... etc etc.

But there are some existences with their properties, which are out of the boundaries of our reasoning capability in finding out their reasons for the existence with conclusive certainty such as the earth, mountains, seas, sky, space, the planets, galaxies and Gods so on.

These entities are just too old, far in distance, massive in size, or abstract for our reason to manage to work out the possible answers.  The only answers we can get would be either from the scientific conjectures or religious myths, which don't convince our reasoning system with the conclusive assurance.

Therefore we are forced to go back to Kant's CPR written in  the mid 1700s, and nod our heads to "Thing-in-Itself", and the limitation of human reasoning as declared by him.

I think my argument can be simplified to this:

Absolute nothingness is impossible, but it would not be impossible if it were not for the existence of something. — Ø implies everything

I feel part of the statement in the argument seems unclear.

"Absolute nothingness is impossible to x"?
x= exist, imagine, conceive, eat, see, smell, hear, manufacture, discard ... etc?

Can x in your simplified argument be specified and clarified?

if it were not for the existence of something. — Ø implies everything

What does "something" denote or indicate?

:cool: :ok:

I have a book called Metaphysics by Baumgarten, which Kant had studied. But I could not find any books by Wolf in English. There are some Wolf books available in German, but no one really seemed have translated Wolf's original works into English. Supposedly Wolf was a giant in Metaphysics at the time too. Wolf must have affected greatly the Kant's system, but probably in opposition way?

IE, we perceive something where in fact there is nothing. — RussellA

What would be the "something" that you perceive?

Perhaps she was a kindred spirit of Hume’s — Wayfarer

Maybe the monkey was a secret agent sent out to the Crown Prince by Hume?
Perhaps that would be the reason why it is so difficult to get hold of any of Wolff's books even today :( :)

There seems to be a family resemblance between Bracketing and Nominalism. — RussellA

An interesting point ! :up:

Mind can also perceive the process of changes and temporality of objects in the external world.  When an object changes from existence to non-existence (the book on the table),  the property of the object changes from extension to non-extension.  The property of extension to non-extension of material objects can be perceived as Absolute nothingness.

All existence is either absolute existing or absolute non-existing. There is no in-between or half existence.

A book at one moment in time can only exist in one location. For example, in the morning, it exists on the desk. But in order for it to exist on the desk, it cannot exist anywhere other than on the desk, for example, under the desk or ten metres to the right of the desk.

As I perceive the book existing on the desk, at the same time, I also perceive the book as not existing under the desk.

Generalising, to be able to perceive something somewhere, I must be able to perceive nothing somewhere else. — RussellA

You can perceive the essence of the Absolute Nothingness via Husserl's phenomenological method called Bracketing, which is to bracket the distracting details of the perception such as the book, existence, the table ...etc, and just concentrating on the subjective experience of Absolute Nothingness - i.e. {the non-existence} of the book at that moment of your perception.

Thanks for your reply on the counterpart words for those words.   This is a new way to view the words for me. I will mull them over.  

I think the abstract words are definitely in the world of language, but they can also be in one's mind i.e. as psychological states or events.

For example "absolute nothingness" can be described as a psychological state prior to someone's birth, if he believed in the existence of soul separate from his body.  The consciousness part of the soul of the person before birth would be "absolute nothingness".

  Or if one believed in one's own consciousness in the soul after one's death, then would be "absolute nothingness".

Or if there was a book on the desk this morning. You saw it there lying on the desk. But when you saw the desk when you returned home from the town after few hours of errands, it has gone. There is nothing on the desk.

Someone might have moved it to the other room, but you don't know which room, or if it had been actually moved by someone, or was it dropped into a box underneath the desk, or actually you don't recall what has been happened or done to it. Only thing you recall is that you saw the book on the desk this morning.

At that moment, in your mind, you have the feeling or perception of "absolute nothingness" about the existence of the book.

:lol: :ok: :fire:

If a word had no counterpart, it wouldn't be part of language in the first place. — RussellA

What are the counterpart words for "car", "book" and "Coca Cola"?

Interesting to note that the criticism also applies to his book. Not for nothing is Hume sometimes called 'the godfather of positivism'. — Wayfarer

Yes, interesting indeed. Do you have the quotes from Hume's works?

Having said that, it exists as you wrote it down.  It exists on its own as a concept without meaning or denotation. 

If it didn't exist, you couldn't have thought of it, or typed it up. And if you will, the meaning of "Absolute Nothing" is an abstract concept which has no meaning, and no denotation.  It could have other meanings, if a group of people agreed to give their own meanings to the concept.

Before the thread was made up, it didn't exist. When the thread was opened, and the word was typed, it exists on the screen in the thread - I can read it :) .  According to Wittgenstein, meanings are dead before use. When they get used, they get born and are alive ... something like that in the Blue Book.

It doesn't exist in the external world, but it does exist in one's mind, and on the paper, and computer screen, as you write it down. Is it the "Absolute Nothingness" you meant? or did you have something else in mind?

There seem to be too many religions already. The world doesn't need any more new religions.

In Hume's view, "Absolute Nothingness" is an empty concept, which denotes nothing.

Hume wrote in his Treaties, “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

If I could explain that, then I would be world famous. — RussellA

I bought a half dozen Neurology and Psychology books on the Brain and Perception, and scanned through them over and over again for days, but none of them gave the answers. That was what I was saying in my previous posts.

Brain is the foundation of all mental events, but we still don't know answers to the hard problems. But we still have mental events, so we can discuss and investigate them in conceptual level.

I apologize for the belated response. I was very busy the past week (or so), but I can assure you that your response was not forgotten. — Bob Ross

Hello Bob Ross
No problems. No need for apology. We get all busy time to time. Thank you for getting back to me.

Ok, so, after thoroughly digesting my own OP for the past week or so, I think I understand more what you are getting at; and I am going to provide a counter-argument to my OP as an amending thereof. Please, if you are still interested in this discussion board, read it and let me know what you think. — Bob Ross

Yes, by all means. I will read your counter-argument, and get back to you. My response will also be not too quick due to other things I have to do in my daily life. Please bear with us. :) Thank you.

1. Something inside my body (and therefore a part of) is aware of it (my body) and its surroundings. My body plus that which is aware is referred by me as "I". — Daniel

When you say something inside your body, is it a physical object? Or is it something non-physical? Can you see or touch it?

From your answers on 3 & 4, it seems that all your mental objects are also physical. I hope I am understanding your points correctly. Could you please explain on that? How can mental substance be also physical?

Is it even correct to say mental substance? What is substance? Can mental events be substance?

A common epistemological question is the relationship between the mind and brain, the relationship between the mental and the physical, in asking how can the mental emerge from the physical. — RussellA

However, Realism and the physical brain cannot be excluded from the epistemological discussion. — RussellA

Could you then please explain how the brain generates the mind? Please explain in detail how can the mental can emerge from the physical.

I would like to ask you some more basic questions regarding the topic.

1. Do you claim that "I" is the same as the "self"? or is "I" a human being?
2. Do you claim that the "self" exists?
3. If the self exists, then is it a physical or mental substance?
4. Can substance be mental? or is it only physical?

To say that the physical brain cannot be brought into the epistemological debate is to take the side of Idealism, thereby excluding the possibility of Realism. — RussellA

I am not denying the existence of the brain, or the involvement of the brain in mental events.  But dragging the brain into the Epistemic discussion has been always the same - nothing much in essence and nothing really fruitful to add into the conclusion apart from just muddling up the points. 

We all know it is the brain which is responsible for all the mental events. That is just common knowledge, but the rest is unknown how the brain state generates mental events or what are the mental states or events we have in nature.   We know we have mental events such as perceptions, feelings and sensations ... that is all we have to work with in Epistemology and Metaphysics. And there are plenty to investigate and discuss in the conceptual level of the topic.

There are some interesting theories by scientists that mental events may not be all 100% from the brain.  There are some Amoeba species, which don't have brains. Just visual sensors in their body, but they make movements towards their prey, eat the prey, and then return to their original location using the sensors. Knowing the preys and returning to their original location by their willed movement are looked upon as mental discernment by the Ecologists. If this is the case, then are all the mental events from the brain functions? Could brain then totally be eliminated in investigating mental events?

Most of the classic philosophers have been talking about the nature of the mind without mentioning brain. And the ancients used to think hearts are the source of mental events, not brain, and breaths are the minds and souls of the living.

The Indirect Realist would say that our perceptions of the external world are not directly of an external world, but are directly of an internal representation in our mind of an external world. Such a representation may or may not directly correspond with the external world that is causing such representations — RussellA

Indirect realist sounds like an idealist in disguise under the mask of the realist. If you say, it is just a representation of your mind, then it looks to me idealist, even if you say it is indirectly from the external world (it gave impression that the external world bit was added to try to assert you are a realist as well, not the disguised idealist :) ).

Do you believe that the external world objects are real, or just a representation of your mind? I mean do the external world and objects keep existing even if while you are asleep, or they don't exist anymore when you are out for the count?

I still think that these individual perceptions, sensations, emotions and feelings and all the mental events are not the self, but they are just a logical evidence that those mental events are under your own ownership.

The self is a special form of perception which looks inward into your mind, being conscious of all the mental events taking place in your mind. The self perception would be invisible or unknowable by all your outward perceptions. It can only be intuited via mediation or self introspection. In that sense, it is transcendental in nature.

But am I directly perceiving light that exists outside in the world, or am I directly perceiving a process happening inside my brain? — RussellA

I don't think it is  a good idea to bring the brain into Epistemology.  Brain is, of course, the essential organ for perception, thoughts, and all the mental events to exist and function in the mind.  But it is in the realm of Biology and Neurology. 

In Neurology and Biology books, they enthusiastically and excitingly talk about how the senses bring in the external data into the retina, and how they get  converted into electrical signals, and get fed into brain cells with all the colourful photos and diagrams and graphs in the illustrations.  But that's where the story stops. 

They all go mute, or say the hard problem explaining where the brain state and the perception binds must go back to 200 - 300 years of time of Kant or Hume.  So it is not very fruitful to bring the brain into the epistemological discussion yet until the sciences made some real progress on explaining the hard problems.

If you think your perceived images of the light exist only in your mind, and that is the real existence of the light, then you are an idealist.

If you say that your perceived image of the light is the actual existence in the external world, then you are a realist. 

What are you?

I think having all these different perceptions in the mind is evidence for the existence of self, but perceptions, sensations and feelings are not the self itself.

I feel that self is a special perception (apperception of Kant's term), that looks inwards into the mind, whereas all the standard perceptions look outwards into the external world. The mind has two sides, i.e. the inside (self) and outside (perceptions for the external world).

Because the self can only look inwards into the mind, it is invisible to the other perceptions. I am not 100% certain of Kant's idea of self, as I have not read it yet.  I did read the definition of Kant's apperception, and borrowed the idea to make up my own thoughts on the self. Could be wrong, but will keep on reading to further clarify and discuss. :)

IE, rather than certain ideas/concepts/mental objects pre-existing the self, these ideas/concepts/mental objects are the self. — RussellA

This idea is absurd in that, if all these ideas/concepts/mental objects are the self, then you end up having 1000s of different selfs.

I used to hang out on Twitters with the like-minded people years ago, but now it is totally transformed into a gigantic marketing arena with the new ownership and new name "X". I abandoned the sinking ship X, and just watch youtube these days.

Few year ago, I used to distrust information from Wiki or any online source, and the people who copy & paste the contents from the online sources into the forum posts. But now, I am more open minded on online information sources for their accuracy and quality.

I still tend to pass the copy and pasted contents from online sources in the posts unless it is vitally relevant to the points or topic.

I am assuming that for this exercise the self and the idea of the self are different, and the exercise is concerned with the idea of the self. — Daniel

How are they different?

It would be helpful, if you could clarify, whether your idea of self is purely mental, or physical in nature, or combinations of both.  In other words, is the self made of purely perceptions, feelings and sensations? Or is it a combination of body, brain and mental states? Or maybe could it be just functions of brain (There is no mental existence, but only the biological neural state of brain)?

I go by the concept that the idea of self is identical to self consciousness.  It seems to be a reasonably widely accepted opinion on the topic.  I was looking at "A Companion To Metaphysics" Edited by JG Kim and E. Sosa (1995, Blackwell Companion to Philosophy).  When searched for self or idea of self, it refers to Self Consciousness.

Idea or concept of self is a type of intuition or Apperception (in Kant's terms), that looks into the Mind.  It is embedded or based on all mental perception, feelings, sensations, and bodily and speech  acts too.

By that, I mean,  one cannot be unsure of one's own thoughts, feelings and sensations in one's own mind and body for them as one's own mental events (because it is, by necessity impossible, for one to have the mental events without the self).

But also when one says, "It is raining outside.", what actually it means is, "I perceive that it is raining outside."  "Philosophy is an interesting subject." means that "I think Philosophy is an interesting subject."  "Shall we meet for dinner?" is "I would like to ask you, if we shall meet for dinner. What do you think?" 

"Shut the bloody door!" would be "I ask/tell/order you to shut the bloody door."
There are implied "I"s in every sentence one utters.