Or did he not prove the 'I' exist part? — Kranky

You are being cranky, Kranky.

Descartes proved the existence of his being via experiencing his own thought. He reasoned that thoughts can only be generated by thinkers. No thinker, no thought. But the thought existed. So he, the thinker, must exist.

His proof applies only to himself, and it can be transplanted, but each thinker can only prove his or her own existence by applying this proof.

If you need more explanation, then I am sorry, there is a threshold of understanding that you don't pass. Not my judgment; you are displaying strong signs of it.

According to proof theory, Descartes' views do not constitute "proof" in any fashion:

In any area of mathematics defined by its assumptions or axioms, a proof is an argument establishing a theorem of that area via accepted rules of inference starting from those axioms and from other previously established theorems. — alcontali

This applies to math, don't it? Yet you said in "any fashion".

Math is not all fashions. Math is math fashion.

Your dispute is invalid, because you quoted a restrctive definition for math proofs, and you mistakenly and arbitrarily, but at any rate invalidly applied this criteria of proof to apply to all other proofs. This is invalid extension of the restrictions and of the necessities for a valid proof in other areas of human thought but math.

Okay, I'll prove you wrong.

It is true you can't eat shit. In an other world, shit would taste good, and it would be nutritious.

Everything else being equal, that would be a better world.

And it is possible to imagine such a world where shit not only tastes good, but it's nutritious, too.

So that would be a better world, and it would be possible.

QED. I proved you wrong.

And it warn't hard at all to do it.

@Wallows, you've been taking lessons from @Bartricks.

There's no evidence of this at all. Again, gut feelings isn't political analysis. — Xtrix

This is true... it's also true that political analysis is not gut feelings.

You wouldn't believe what most voters consider important when they make a choice on the ballots.

Some always vote for red-haired candidates.

Some always vote for the female candidates.

Some vote for the wife beater candidate.

Some, for the racist ones.

Some, for whoever their wives tells them to.

Some, randomly. (There are those as well.)

And the list is approaching infinite length.

NYT Endorses Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar — 180 Proof

Four years ago they endorsed Hilary Clinton. For a good paper, they are apt to make unpopular choices. Maybe they are paid off. I dunno.

At best the point isnt one that usually needs to be made. At worst, this is wrong. Both life and consciousness most certainly do exist. — frank

I think you jumped over some of the text your very own self quoted.

Mayr does not deny the existence of mind, life, soul, etc. He merely says they are not entities by themselves, they are dependent on other things.

As N0S4ATOO point it out, too, processes exist but can't be treated as objects.

Car factories put together cars. The factory takes in raw materials, and puts those together to make a car. No raw materials, no cars. No putting together, no cars. So both raw materials and putting together exist, otherwise there would be no cars.

However, the putting together is a process, not a thing. This is very clear so far isn't it.

So mind, which we each experience, and consiousness, and life, are processes. When the person dies, presumably his mind, consciousness and life stops, because those processes are dependent on the body, as they are functions, or processes, in the body.

You, @Frank and @Wayfarer agree, that mind is not something material. So if it's not made of matter, what is it made of? There is nothing to make things out of in this world, but matter.

So is it a process? By process of elimination, yes, mind is a process. So is life.

I don't see any problem with that.

Oh, one more thing: the nature of process, as an existing thing without it being matter, but its existence hinging upon other things:

I went jogging. Does jogging exist? Yes, because if it did not exist, I would not happen around the block, and I would not happen to lose so much weight at once.

But can I put jogging on the mantle, or can I hang it in the closet? No.

There you go. One of the, if not the central, questions of modern philosophy solved for you, @Wayfarer. All you have to do is to get rid of the thousands of years of distilled dogma that some educators poisoned your mind (i.e. brain processes) with.

I suspect Mayr's complaint is that, in line with Darwinian materialism. — Wayfarer

I agree. I think Mayr's complaint is about Christianity. It is about calling Providence a thing, an entity, and actually existing thing.

Or calling the soul a thing. It is reified, inasmuch as "souls will burn in hellfire for ever and ever" while souls have typically no parts made of matter, especially made in China. And if it's not made in China, it's not made anywhere.

Things that are not made of matter can't burn, because burning is nothing but combining with oxygen, which is material.

Therefore why would life and consciousness be problematic? — frank

It is not a problem for me. Yes, sometimes I am behind the rent, and sometimes I wonder why people argue with Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum, but by-and-large, I am friends with life and consciousness.

Descartes did not presuppose the existence of "I". He experienced his thought and that gave rise to the inescapable, irrefutable truth, that he exists; because thoughts can only be thought by thinkers, and if there is no thinker, there is definitely no thought. So the thinker exists, because the thought exists.

This is the biggest thing in the history of all thought. An empirical thing can be proven to be an a priori truth, taking experience (empirical evidence) into consideration.

A philosophical x-over hit, to borrow the term from popular music critics.

The proof is only meaningless to those who can't think. Literally. And I daresay, also figuratively.

OK.

god is believed to be beyond time, space and matter — TheMadFool

Please note: time is a part of our world. Space is a part of our world. Matter is in our world. Being beyond them, means not in the same place as these three things are in. Why would you object to something that is not in our world being in a different world? I think you are wrong in this argument, very much so. Illogical, and you proved it yourself. Just read your own words, and reflect over them for five minutes.

I can't parse the title to make sense. The best I can come up with "Much like one is put into a packet boat when drunk".

Line 1: If I try some thing, it is not living, it is dead material. Therefore can it be immortal? Sure, they all are, only living things can die. And free? Of what? Price? Moral freedom of a thing? I can't conceptualize that, esp. of things that you can try. For instance, I try opening a lock. Is this immortal or mortal? Is it free or not free? The concepts can not be applied to things, is my objection.
Line 2: elsewhere we are. So we are not in a packet boat? Where are we?
Line 2: "as sitting in a..." needs an explanatory clause. "As we grow older, we become wiser." "As the sun set in the west, so does the moon rise in the east." There is no such conclusion in this sentence. This is disturbing me, this un-English structure.
Lines 2,3, and 4: semantics dictate that we are waiting for someone; the syntax says sunlight is waiting for someone to come.
Lines 4 and 5: hopefully we'll be enlightened why harsh words are spoken, between whom, (who precisely it is who is sitting elsewhere, and whom are they waiting for -- all mysteries at this point, but I am sure an explanation follows) and why;
Line 5: I wish there will be a good reason for being, an integral working part, in the poem for the sun light as it breaks through the leafs and makes its presence known.

------------

Sorry to be so negative-sounding. My words are sincere. I don't know whether you wanted meritful words from a literary critic, or from a philosopher.

There is such a thing as a poetic licence, and as such, very bad English is allowed in poetry. I understand that and I accept that.

There may be personal references, and / or references that are explained later. I only go by what is in front of me. In fact, the OP asked her readers to do that. "I calls them as I sees them", and I understand that my current objections may be defused at a later point.

Navel-gazing, time wasted. — NOS4A2

They may be right (it's up to the philosophers to decide that), but oh, how sweet this navel-gazing is.

Isn't god supposed to be not of matter, and in a different plane of existence? Or something that is everywhere at all times? These would indicate that god lives in a different world from ours, and in deed the world could be a creation or a simulation, both allowing a god-creator in existence, in a different world.

In fact, there are theologies (please don't ask me to name them) which insist that the physical world is but part of god's mind and thought, nothing else.

If we assume that the universe goes back to infinite past (which assumption I am happy with), and we assume that god did not create organisms, then they must have generated by no design and by matter forming by itself.

I say this because there are KNOWN instances of matter in the world when no organisms lived in our common current sense of the concept. So in the infinite chain of events of matter moving, there are times of creation and times of complete annihilation.

Where does god go when nobody believes in him? He, after all, is a matter of belief, not a matter of matter.

Those ranking philosophers! I was once near one, and the rank smell almost knocked me out.

Continental philosophers generally take less frequent baths than their American Analyitic counterparts.

And females hardly ever enter the profession for this very reason.

Physical over-cleanliness and fifi and boobie and primness and such have never been part of my life.

Loftiness is much more apt to stick to a philosopher than cleanliness.

What happens when a double agent becomes a triple agent? — Wallows

Oh, that's easy: the litmus paper turns blue.

(I realize this was a stupid answer I have given, but hey, it's 2:06 in the a.m. hours here just now.)

The first thing that pops to mind is that simulated reality must be started and created by an intelligent being, so the two are contingent upon each other.

But a little reflection can tell you that simulated reality can be started and created without a design by an intelligent being, and without a design at all. A machine, spontaneously generated, from a fortunate but seemingly random process of organization of appropriate materials into appropriate parts, could conceivably organize itself into a being capable of simulating reality.

That's what three billion atheists and materialists spread around the world these days think, anyway, what the very life of an animated being we live actually is: a mind capable of feelings and thought, having been created by inanimate matter which had no brain, no purpose, no agenda, no nuffin'.

I would say the all-seeing eye sees everything no matter where and in which direction it is pointed at. By definition.

I know the winner has been chosen already. But I had to put in my answer.

You have a big home. I only rent a Bachelor. In NYC it would count as a Royal Suite. In Texas, it would count as a studio, or a closet, or a flea-hole in the wall. Both, without changing a square inch in its size.

What is mind? Is a good question; do you think your mind is solitary? — Qwex

No, but I think my mind is IN solitary. 66 years so far, and some more to come, as it is a life-sentence.

Difficult situation. Have you given any thought of relocating? Canada is a nice country.

I have the impression that most people don’t even know what philosophy is about. — Pfhorrest

You just described me. I don't have the answer to even one philosophical question. Many answers, yes, but not one, congruent, definitive answer.

I have six self-published books. They each individually and together as a group are very sad examples of what ought never to appear on printed pages.

I am not joking. If anything is worth reading, it's not self-published books. Jesus never did. Socrates never did.

I predict the collapse of civilization won't happen by global warming, or by a nuclear holocaust, or by a deadly disease.

Analytic philosophy is just industrialized thinking. Robots will do it better in a few years.
— Pneumenon

Perhaps the same will be said of mathematics. There's a crew working indirectly on that project on this very forum — jgill

Music composition, sex, and pan cake mixes are just around the corner, too. Robots will have a much better sex life than humans could ever dream of. "I have a wet dream" is my motto for the future Robotlings.

It’s literally one click to fix anything you break, and if you stick around to talk to the people who revert it, you’ll probably stand a good chance of making improvements. “Be bold” is literally the first step of the normal wiki process (followed by reversion and discussion if there are any problems with your bold moves). — Pfhorrest

I am fearless when it comes to words and standing behind what I say, (fistfights, streetfights, jail cells, and employee positions in a bank are a completely different matter), but I haven't the slightest clue what analytic philosophy means, and what continental philosophy means. I asked once, I think it was on this site, and I got a short answer: "(...two pages of incomprehensible lingo, peppered with 300000 pages of recommended reading...)" So I gave up on the idea of ever getting to know the meanings in the short time that's left for me on this globe.

I pass the torch to someone else. 3017Amen? or Qwibbjizz. Whoever.

I did a little searching around... I could find no reviews (peer reviews). Then I did a search for KTB Publishing, the publisher of this book. Guess what came back:

Ken Brumfield - Owner / Author - KTB Publishing LLC

Enough said. Sad enough.

Embrace the positive, discard the negative. What do you think? — Micah Ian Wright

Good idea. But why would I need to read a book about this? It's a simple enough idea even for me to understand and internalize. Reading a whole book to verify that concept I would consider a tremendous waste of time.

I am sorry, Zeleb G and Barry Z, but I am an old man with advanced case of inability to memorize trivia. I am still good at analysis and stuff, but not at memorizing rote knowledge. Please put me out of my misery: Which of the two of you is for god, and which is not? I am confused.

that in this case an argument for the most theistic God is a lot more probable. — Barry Z

An argument is probable, in the United States, but the case for it is meaningless.

"How does God put mind to matter? We don't know. We just know that he does." -- this is how I see theists would describe the answer to the problem. But it patently does not make sense to me. There is no God; not that we know. How do we know what he does when we don't know he exists and what his qualities are? The scirptures are mere fantasy, fairy tales of deep complexity. You can't rely on them for any knowledge of god.

I would ask you what is the value of knowing the age of the universe? This estimate has come about as a result of considerable scientific effort. — Barry Z

I'd say about $25.77, plus tax.

(This was sarcasm, and an attempt at humour. How do you put a value on something like that? And why exactly am I, and not you, for instance, tasked to answer that question? What sort of a puzzle is this? Are you trying to catch me on saying something stupid for an unanswerable question? Well I did say something stupid... that must be of SOME value to you, otherwise you woudn't have asked me to do it.)

And the truth about Trump's economic boom: — ssu

if you look at the same period of each of the three graphs, which period is filled in for Trump, the cute observer will notice that both during Bush and Obama there had been negative growths and during Trumps, no negative growth.

I am NOT ON THE SIDE OF TRUMP. I am on the side of those who say that Americans are so fucking dumb, that they can't read and interpret properly even a simple two-dimensional chart. This is of course not a naturally acquired denseness, but the result of a public education policy of keeping the masses as stupid as they possibly can be.

The children of Florida, ages 8 to 11, join hands in a continuous line form north to south and from east to west in a single file across the panhandle, to create a virtual crucifix in order to protest the sea levels rising.

Panhandlers will be prosecuted on the Panhandle.

Ribbons of green, blue and red, the most customary colours of the seas and oceans, will be sold for a dollar at Walmart, and the proceeds will go to finance the task force that organizes protests against sea rise.

There will be rides, politicians giving speeches, a beauty contest, a few drug related gunshots, a Taylor Swift tribute concert, and a "Jackie Onassis" look-alike contest, with free glasses of grapefruit juice sold for a dollar to finance the task force that organizes protests against sear rise.

There will be a panel of lawyers, judges and a jury of twelve of its peers, to discuss the illegality and un-American tendencies of sea level rise. The House Ethics Committee and Senators from all over the landscape will be in attendance as observers.

CN, CBB, CTI, and CAIEASOIF{POASDFJTV will be interviewing sharks, manatees, tigersharks, nuclear submarines and other sea life on the potential collapse of their real estate market now that more underwater area will be available for housing, spousing and spawning.

So, he did not say that he pushed me into a corner, and I did not say that he did either. All is well. — Bartricks

Aw, shucks. I was again foiled by your superior argumenting skills. (S.)

I just think reasoning doesn't really work there. — Wittgenstein

Actually, reasoning works, but not to the extent of convincing the religious of the wrongness of their thinking. But reasoning still works for me, for you, for many others. Why abandon reason in the face of blind faith? You'd only further the cause of religiosity.

Maybe I shouldn't have put an "other" option. Philosophy polls probably shouldn't even have an "other" option, because every philosofan thinks they're a special snowflake with unique uncategorizable opinions. — Pfhorrest

My guess is that then you would get hardly any votes, but an equal number of responses to what this thread gets now.

I never regard religious topics worth debating in the context of philosophy. — Wittgenstein

I haven't been watching your responses, so to know I must ask you: what do you say when someone poses to you an argument that is deitic? that is, invokes god or spirituality? You just leave it unanswered?

In what fantasy world did you push me into a corner? — Bartricks

In what of your phantasies did he (he being 3017Amen) say he pushed you in a corner? He said "I realize you prefer ad hominem when pushed in a corner".

He did not say when HE pushed you in a corner. He said when you get pushed into a corner. Get with the program, man.

Deism is a valid, albeit useless belief. You can do nothing with it, except having it come to your mind. — god must be atheist

Let me put it to you why I said that, lest you mistakenly believe I'm mocking you. I am not mocking you nor deism.

But you really can't do too much with it, if anything at all.

Let's show this with the same example of how organisms developed.

We, scientific types, have thoughts that come to mind, that combine and analyze and synthesise processes and events and elements; we try to make some sense of it, with the basis of manipulating only physical stuff.

On the other hand, what if we pulled Deism or the image of god into this? "Well, god formed life. how did he do it? We are rejecting the possibility that matter formed itself, by random combination of elements and molecules, into organisms. We reject that, that did not happen. So there was a lot of elements on earth and in the universe. How did god make it into organisms? What processes did he use?"

The bible gives examples of those processes. We can't replicate those processes. Those are impossible.They are failed examples of how to create life.

So we don't know at all how God created organisms. Do we. No, we don't.

Now let's reverse our rejection of the possibility of the random process. We now accept it.

We have two explanations on our hands:
1. Random processes that are explicable, happening in the physical world.
2. God's work, of which we know nothing about, whatsoever.

Which is more useful, from the looks of it? I'd say 1. is by far and easily the winner over 2.

This is what I mean by the uselessness of Deism. It is not impossible; it is just simply useless for the purpose of man.

I think Deism comes to mind immediately — Barry Z

I would venture to say that to your mind Deism comes immediately, no matter what the topic of discussion or contention is.

I am not fighting to suppress your reaction to have Deism come to your mind. At all. I am just simply showing you alternative ways to explain what you can only explain with Deism.

Deism is a valid, albeit useless belief. You can do nothing with it, except having it come to your mind.