It's about transcending the conceptual construct of self. — praxis

What does that even mean - thinking that you are more than what you are - a delusion of grandeur?

Observation is an instinct, it is the tool that living creatures use to interact with the world's changes and its multiple frames.
Observation has evolved through the centuries, we can name it also the source of wisdom, it is gradually gained, so if we go to the past, it is gradually getting lower form now to the time the first human has been born.
Imagine yourself you are the first human in earth and you know nothing about it, you are trying to learn how to move and you failed alot of times, then you understand the "secret of moving" and you don't fall, from that experience you think you will never fall, you are now moving from a place to another and then you see a a really big hole, you know nothing about gravity and from experience you think that there's no way to fall from your new way of walking, you try to walk on it then you fall, then you gain another experience and that is you can fall even if you discovered a new way to move, from this you understand that even if you understand something you can fail on it and this is all thanks to observation. — Jalal1002

The problem I see with this is that human beings from infants avoid cliffs. Ever heard of the visual cliff experiment?

This reminds me though of how we learn - how our knowledge evolves based on trial and error - similar to how natural selection works. Our knowledge evolves as we make new observations and test our theories constantly. We discard the failed knowledge and keep the good knowledge and expand on it - similar to natural selection. Learning is like natural selection selecting knowledge that is useful and promotes more efficient means of surviving.

It seems to me that the experience is awareness. At any point you are conscious, you are aware of something - you are experiencing something. What you are conscious/aware/experiencing is whatever your attention is focused on at the moment. It could be the words on this screen, the television show in the next room, or your own mental processes. We can even turn our awareness back on itself to be aware of being aware. How else can you say that you are aware of anything unless you are actually turning your awareness back on itself, kind of like a camera looking back at the monitor it is connected to. Saying that you are experiencing awareness, or that you are aware of your experience, is turning your awareness back on itself. It is an expression of knowledge - the knowledge of being aware of some thing.

Are you aware of your experience, or experiencing being aware? Does it make a difference? If not, then I would say that it would be simpler to say that you are aware of being aware.

Of course we measure time. Do the words "hour", "day", "year", have no meaning to you? These refer to units of time.

You can validate that unit of time by referring to a physical change, but this does not mean that the words refer to the physical change rather than the unit of time. And, in referring to those physical changes, you will see that each of those units of time is measured by those physical changes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure they mean something to me, just as inches, meters and light-years mean something to me. They are units of measurement. Hours, days, and years are all units of measurement, too, not units of time.
An hour is the change of position of the small hand of clock. Days and years are changes in the position of the Earth.

We measure change with time, yes, but as a said, any measuring tool must be itself measurable or else it is meaningless. So if we take time, and use it to measure change, as you suggest, we must also be able to measure time or else "time" is just a meaningless word. Then all of our measurements of change, since they are measured with time, are also meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, we can measure a meter by using inches and measure light-years by using kilometers. Again, all we are doing is comparing things of the same type (length, distance, or change). Measuring time is comparing different changes. You never measure time. You measure change.

I don't see how that is different than what I said.

Well, supernatural agency would probably be seen as random, but impossibility =/= randomness. But we could see that God's intervention, if he exists, in the natural world is "natural" but that probably isn't what we want to see here, since it threatens to break down the very distinction we were trying to make. Again, remember I said natural-ness makes the most sense when constraining our thought to a certain region. Like how agency is natural when we're talking about human civilization, but is not natural, at least when compared to the bigger cosmos at large. — darthbarracuda

It's the distinction between supernatural and natural (and artificial and natural) that I'm calling into question. When I think about it, it seems that either everything is natural, or supernatural (if there is such a thing as God and it's realm.). But to say that everything is supernatural doesn't make sense as supernatural requires the existence of the natural to make sense.

If there is a causal relationship between God and the world, then how can they be different realms (God and his creation)? So, I guess my point for all the God-believers is that there is no distinction between supernatural and the natural, and the point made for all the philosophers is that there is no distinction between artificial and natural, only intentionally made vs unintentionally made. Now that I think about it, if God created everything, then everything isn't man-made or bird-made, etc. It is all God-made.

If a supernatural being exists outside of time, it is eternal and has no "history". — darthbarracuda

I don't know what it means for something to exist outside of time. Does God change. Does he have thoughts that change? Does he create things? If so, then it seems that God exists in "time" as much as everything else.

The question to be asked is whether using certain terms are useful. Is it useful to refer to human manufactured products as artificial? If we call plastics natural, does that help with noting that plastics are source of major pollution in the oceans?

Of course ontologically speaking, everything humans make is natural, as in it's all part of the universe. But we use artificial to distinguish stuff we make from stuff that nature produces for a lot of reasons. And we do the same for hypothetical alien civilizations. SETI is searching for artificial signals. Calling them natural won't help with distinguishing radio signals or heat signatures produced by alien technologies.

Or take archaeology. How do we know some artifact was human produced? Does calling that natural help with making distinctions between clothing and animal hide?

And if we wanted to, we could call spider webs or beaver/bird nests artificial. They don't undergo biological evolution, and are the products of organisms that do, like us. And those sorts of things wouldn't spontaneously emerge without spiders, beavers or birds to build them. — Marchesk

This is a good post and sums up the other points that have been made on the artificial vs. natural distinction. It seems that most people are saying that just because something is artificial doesn't mean that it isn't natural, which is fine with me. As long as the distinction isn't one of natural vs. unnatural, but rather intentional vs. unintentional, I think we can all agree.

With that being said though, why not dispense with the term, "artificial" as it does imply (for many people) a distinction between humans and nature. You made a good point on the usefulness of the term, but we could use other terms to be even more accurate, and therefore more useful. For instance, an "artificial" signal from space could be man-made or alien-made - a distinction that is useful and doesn't use the term, "artificial". We could use the same wording with Earth-based lifeforms, as this nest is bird-made, not man-made. This word-use seems more apt and omits the implication that most others have when hearing or seeing the term, "artificial".

I think where I disagree is with your definition of time. Time can exist without any measurement, that is, we can imagine a universe in which there is no intelligent life; and as such, we know that there would be no measuring of time, and yet time would still exist, and as the primary property of time, change would also exist. Moreover, for us to be able to measure change, change would have to exist prior to the measuring. Change doesn't co-exist with the measurement, that is, you wouldn't say that you have no change until you measure it - of course not, we observe the change, and then we produce an arbitrary form of measurement to account for change within our everyday lives. — Sam26

No, change can exist without measurement. Time is simply another change. Measurements are comparisons of the same type of thing. We measure length by comparing it to the length of a ruler. We measure change by comparing it to the change of another system. Yes, time is arbitrary. Change isn't. That is the difference.

Sure, we can experience length and width and depth without measuring it, yet we still measure things by comparison (this thing feels longer than that thing). To use Aristotle's understanding of time, which is outdated (and Aristotle was wrong on so many other things) is laughable. We've had scientists come along and provide a better explanation of time since then (does Einstein ring a bell?). We measure change by comparing one change to another. We don't measure time. We measure change. Time is the measurement of change.

We now know that time is relative. More accurately, change is relative. Time is what we call the measurement of change. Asking things like, "How much time has passed?" is asking for a measurement of change. You're basically asking "How much did the position of the clocks' hands change during the change I experienced?"

Gross Domestic Product measures very crudely production, not existing resources. It's basically a very flawed measure (invented By Keynes, if I remember correctly). The flaws of the GDP as a measure of prosperity are evident from the fact that World GDP rose quite spectacularly during WW2, during the greatest slaughter and destruction seen ever during the history of mankind.

And btw you are talking about GDP per capita. — ssu

Mmmmkay, I wonder how production isn't related to resources as you can't produce anything without resources.

Why don't you do a Google search for, "If all the resources of the world were divided equally how much would everyone get?" I just did and the answer that popped up was $9000. So I guess I stand corrected, but this correction actually makes my point even more. When Googling the GDP of the world, you get $16,000 which is more because it includes resources (property and commodities), not just cash, which the prior search yields.

And what you are otherwise saying could be said in another way: if income would be divided equally, not only would be the incentives for studying/learning for a more demanding job be squashed, but also the process would simply wreck totally the price mechanism for the supply and demand of the workforce. Not only would this be a huge hindrance to the functioning of the economy, but would likely create a black market and rampant corruption (for those jobs and services in high demand where people are willing to pay far more for the services than the average pay). — ssu

Uh, you seem to be making my argument AGAINST making everyone get paid equally for different work, the only problem with this example is how can anyone pay more for goods and services on a black market when they make the same as everyone else?

Does it stem from religious beliefs, or is it a fact? — Galuchat

It stems from religious beliefs which I don't share, so I don't believe it is fact. But others do, and I was hoping to get at the distinction between the two as it seems related to the supernatural/natural distinction.

Human beings are natural organisms which are categorically different from all other natural organisms by virtue of possessing the faculty of language acquisition, production, and use.

Unique to the Animal Kingdom, the faculty of language in the genus Homo evolved from a strictly communication function to include a verbal modelling function. With this new functionality came new potential. Homo sapiens accurately models its environment, adding to its knowledge base to an extent not possible in Homo erectus or Homo habilis (due to less brain capacity), and enabling the development of technology which radically changes its environment. Changes in environment cause new adaptations, and the cycle repeats itself.

It is the development and implementation of technology which provides criterial evidence that humanity is categorically different from the rest of nature. So, the natural/artificial distinction is a reasonable one. It is also a useful one in that it enables humanity to measure, mitigate, and otherwise manage, the impact of that technology on its environment. — Galuchat

Sure human beings are different than other organisms. But so is every organism different from other organisms. We each have special abilities that aid our survival and procreation. Other animals can devastate their environment and cause other species to become extinct. The environment itself changes and can drastically alter the environment that was before and can cause species to go extinct. Such is the way of natural selection. So I still don't see the distinction you are trying to make between the artificial and the natural.

There also seems to be the important element of agency that differentiates the natural from the non-natural (the supernatural or the artificial). By this I mean intentional action, or more generally, teleological systems, which are contentious as they may be only a feature of mental states, or legitimate states of non-mental systems (or perhaps a mix, or an elimination of one, or whatever). — darthbarracuda

So stars, rocks, water, etc. aren't natural? This seems to be the same thing Apo said. I don't think that minds are a necessary requirement for some thing to be natural.

In a theological sense, the "supernatural" would be something that has qualities or powers that could never be that of the "natural" world around us, which is the collection of "material objects". It can do the impossible - or at least, do what we normally, usually see as impossible. We can then, presumably, specify (if we are inclined) by reference to a metaphysical system, perhaps Aristotle's, in which natural, material objects have potency and actuality, whereas a supernatural entity is pure actuality. But this also might just be a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Someone get Carnap in here. Or maybe Wittgenstein. — darthbarracuda

To say that the supernatural can do the impossible is to say that it can be random, which you attributed earlier to being natural. Did the natural world stem from the supernatural world? Which existed prior? If the supernatural world existed prior to the natural world, then you could say that is existed for a long time and is historic, which then makes it fall under your definition of "natural". You seem to be inconsistent in your descriptions. I'll wait for you to think more clearly about what it is you want to say and read your adjusted post.

The difference between artificial and natural isn't so hard to determine, either. The first human-made artefacts (that we know of, anyway) were flint tools - ax- and arrow heads. It was obvious that they couldn't have been generated by natural causes, i.e. water, lava flows, glacial movement, and so on. Then as technology progressed, humans began to devise substances (such as bronze) and artefacts that you would never find in the absence of humans. If in the future we discovered another life-bearing planet, I daresay it wouldn't be hard to tell if there were advanced tool-using species on it; such activities leave traces. — Wayfarer

But human beings are natural things themselves. It makes no sense to call the things that they create, "artificial".

As I have already pointed out to Apo, iron and other heavy elements didn't exist prior to the stars making them by pressing lighter elements together in their centers and then ejecting those elements out into the universe when they explode. If the new material that stars create isn't artificial, then why are the new materials that humans make artificial?

Naturalism opposes itself to the supernatural in that it claims all four causes of being are immanent, not transcendent. So it lays heavy emphasis on lawful self-organisation.

The artificial would then be creations within the natural world that are not the product of holistic self-organisation. Their existence would be the result of causes transcendent to them - particular formal and final causes.

So the machines humans make are artificial in that sense. They are not organisms but are engineered. Cars and laptops can't spontaneously self-organise or grow, develop and replicate. They are artificial in being designed to be completely constrained, with no internal degrees of freedom and thus no autopoietic possibilities for change or adaptation.

Cars used to be more natural. They rusted pretty easily. But now they are so plastic that that freedom has been taken away.

Thus it is easy to define the artificial. It lacks four cause self-organisation. It lacks a dynamical dependence on its context. It lacks holism in being crafted.

Like all dichotomies, the difference between the artificial and the natural would only be relative. It would define a spectrum of possibilities. So there would be borderline cases.

A bird's nest is a clear borderline case. And more on the side of the artificial than the natural when it comes to fancy constructions made of mud, woven with chambers, or decorated with collected shiny objects. A more natural nest would be perhaps bent foliage - just nature momentarily flattened into a bowl.

So naturalism vs supernaturalism is an absolute claim. You can't have a little bit of transcendence anymore than you can be a little bit pregnant.

But natural vs artificial is a relative claim. Even laptops and cars are still prone to natural processes like entropification. We can build them, but nature can still express its more general desires and find ways to erode them, like cosmic rays, or floods, or earthquakes, or whatever. — apokrisis

What exactly is self-organizing? What exactly organizes itself based on it's own properties and without help from something else? Human beings and other organisms don't self-organize. If they did, then they could exist in any environment, but they don't.

What about the stars, rocks, water, air? Do any of those things self-organize? Are they not natural? What about fire?

I really can't see your distinction between cars that rust and cars that don't be natural vs. artificial. Plastic may not have been around prior to humans but neither was iron around prior to stars creating it in their centers and exploding spilling out their contents to the universe. Natural things have created new materials, so I fail to see how that makes the things we make artificial.

Again, I think that the word, "artificial" is antiquated as it stems from our old knowledge that we are specially made and separate from nature.

Experiencing change is experiencing time - that's what it means to experience time. That's why I said earlier that change is analytic to time - you can't separate the two. — Sam26

I thought we both agreed that you can experience change without experiencing time. Change is change. Time is a measurement of change. You can experience change, but how much time has passed? As I said, you can get lost in your thoughts. Your thoughts change from one moment to another but you don't know how much time has passed until you look at the clock to measure how much time you have been lost in your thoughts.

But you didn't add to what I said because you seem to imply that we can have experiences of time, when I said that we don't experience time. We experience change.

I feel so lost right now.I don't know what is the purpose of it all. smile all you want but this how i am feeling right now.

LOST.....

Modern scientists say that there is probably no grand meaning to life. "You decide your own meaning", it's said. but isn't that meaningless in itself because the presumption is that:

a.) there is no meaning of life

and

b.) you decide the meaning of life.

So let's say I take up service for humanitarian causes as the meaning of life(this is the only thing I've found to be relatively meaningful than other stuff) , but by the logic of point a.) even that is meaningless. No matter what I do, but in the grand scheme of things,it's all going down. So why bother?

Then, my friends, like an innocent primary school kid asks his teachers, I ask you what is the meaning then?

P.S. : I'm sorry if you find this question stupid or if I couldn't articulate my thoughts properly. I'm new to
this.Will need some time. — krishnamurti

I don't see how it is meaningless to say that you have the freedom to define your own meaning. It seems to me that you find it necessary for someone, or something, else to define your meaning. Who, or what, has that right, or power, over you? Why would you just give that power away and say that it's meaningless?

You say, "in the grand scheme of things, it's all going down". So what? You exist in the grand scheme of things. You are part of the grand scheme of things. The grand scheme of things wouldn't be the same without you.

I never said you can't experience change without a measurement. You can experience change, but unless you measure it, then you can't say how much time has passed.

To say, "Time moves slowly" is actually saying that there hasn't been much change happening. Time seems to move slowly when we experience less change, as opposed to more change. This is why it seems like a long time has passed when we experience a lot of change at once, and why it seems like almost no time has passed when we experience little change.

Because our minds function at different levels at different times (when we are sleepy, drugged, aging, etc.) we can't use our minds as measuring sticks of other change. This is why we use consistent, repetitive change as measuring sticks, like the rotation of the Earth.

Fact: The GDP of the world is $16,100. This means that if all the resources of the world were divided equally for every citizen of the world, they'd only get $16,100, and most of that isn't even cold hard cash, but is tied up in property and commodities.

So, if it is Worset's intent to have everyone get paid equally, then he is arguing for the paramedic to make less than half of what he is making now in order for the rich to be just as poor as the paramedic.

If Worset is arguing for the paramedic to get paid more than he already is, which is already more than twice the amount they should get if everything were divided equally, which means that the paramedic's salary is already making someone else poorer as it stands right now, then raising the salary of the paramedic will just make the poorer more poor, as that raise has to come from somewhere, which Worset will probably argue that it should come out of the rich man's pockets, then what about those jobs that the rich man has created in his business, which will be eliminated, thereby hurting the poor even more?

As usual, the "good" intentions of liberals end up being not so good when you actually think about the consequences of their ideas.

Whatever time may be, it seems to involve duration and simultaneity, neither of which are arbitrary ramblings, but would have to be accounted for by (or included in) any theory of time:

duration: it takes time to get to work in the morning
simultaneity: we get to work about the same time in the morning, as agreed prior — jorndoe

What about time simply being a measurement of change? That is what "duration" is - a measurement of change using other simultaneous change to compare it to. The time, or duration, it takes to get to work is the amount of change that happens on the face of a clock, simultaneously. The little hand moves from the 8 to the 9 (about 1 hour) while you are driving to work and sitting in traffic. You can't measure change, if the other change (the measuring stick) isn't happening simultaneously with the change you are measuring.

I could word it in different ways but I think you can sum it up to me wanting to have humanity on the same page. Is it possible to have a planet focused on an underlined goal? Is there a point of no return? In the obvious chaos of the universe, even an educated mass population would be conflicted on the morality of making large scale decisions. Are we accessing these deplorable thoughts now to further ourselves to the eventual point of indestructibility as a species? Or is that just how we justify it? At what point are we in the green? When are we safe? When are we one people? — Unstable

So you're asking why can't we all be like the Borg?

I could say the same thing about Leon Wieseltier.

If I’m stating a fact, I’m speaking in signs.

And yes, I can mean to speak of the facts of the world. That is the realism in the indirectness. — apokrisis

To say that there is "indirectness" is to imply that there could be "directness". What would it be like to have "direct" awareness or knowledge, as opposed to "indirect" awareness or knowledge?

Say some being has direct awareness of everything, and I only have indirect awareness of everything, (which, BTW, leads to an infinite regress, as how can I access anything, including the signs, if I'm always indirectly getting at it all? I must be able to get directly at something, which is the signs themselves). If we both end up stating the same facts, then what is the difference? If we end up getting at the SAME facts anyway, whether it's "indirect" or "direct", then what is the difference? And don't we have "direct" access to the "signs" themselves? The "signs" are just as real as everything else.

I defined indirect in saying that we see signs and not facts. I defined indirect as a triadic interpretive process rather than a dyadic observational one. — apokrisis

Aren't you stating a fact that we see signs? How did you get at that fact if not through signs? How else can one get at facts?

Money is just a medium of exchange. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Why would we need a medium of exchange if everyone had access to everything they need? If everyone contributed to society in some way by providing a good or service, then they should be able to have whatever it is that they want. Nothing will be in short supply because there would be no costs to making goods (medicine) or performing those services (doctor care). The only "cost" would be your contribution to society in providing a good or service. The only thing that would limit supply would be the amount of resources to make those goods and people to perform those services, but that should be less of a problem than it is now.

Not only will we eliminate money, but the incentive to make money rather than do a good job. I don't want a doctor working on me who is thinking that I owe him for his 8 years in college, his malpractice insurance, or to pay for his new yacht. I want a doctor who is a doctor because that is what he wants to be and he likes being a doctor and helping others. I want teachers who are there because that is their life's passion, not because they get certain benefits, like paid retirement. Removing money from our society will remove a lot of the bad reasons someone chooses to do what they do. Think about how it will change the politicians, too.

Over the years I have referred on many occasions to a 2006 review by Leon Wieseltier, then Literary Editor of the New Republic, of Daniel Dennett’s book Breaking the Spell, in the New York Times, under the headline The God Genome.

THE question of the place of science in human life is not a scientific question. It is a philosophical question. Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so. For a sorry instance of present-day scientism, it would be hard to improve on Daniel C. Dennett's book. "Breaking the Spell" is a work of considerable historical interest, because it is a merry anthology of contemporary superstitions.


Agreed with every word of this savage review which triggered a fierce response from Dennett. — Wayfarer

First of all, the question of the place of science in human life is a scientific question because you use evidence, observations and falsification in order to determine the answer to that question.

If the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions is a superstition, then ANY view of some method of determining all truths will also be a superstition. If you can't falsify any claim about the world and our place in it, then what good is the claim? What makes it better than any other claim that can't be falsified?

I'm pretty sure feelings are never part of a body that is not a subject. Paintings don't have feelings, and neither do corpses (former subjects). On the other hand, properties like 'heaviness' can be part of paintings, subjects, or corpses. — Samuel Lacrampe

Corpses aren't alive and therefore all the bodily processes have ceased, which includes the nervous system and how it feels. You're still getting hung up on there being a "subject". There is simply a body that is alive, or not - a body that feels a particular way, or not.

Then what makes statement A literally true, and statement B not literally true, if not the type of property described? — Samuel Lacrampe

Because you are attributing a property to something that just doesn't have it. Paintings don't have feelings. Organisms that are alive do. It isn't literally true that the painting has the feeling of beauty. You do. So what you really mean is, "I have the feeling of beauty when looking at this painting." when you say, "the painting is beautiful." Didn't we already go over this?

Again, feeling or sensing x is not the same as being x or having x. — Samuel Lacrampe

This isn'y my position, so you are attacking a straw-man. "Being" and "having" are not the same verbs with the same meaning. Having something is part of your being - like having feelings. That doesn't mean that you are being your feelings. You are being a body having a particular feeling at this moment.

Another way to look at it: objective properties are in the object, independent of subjects or other objects. If the painting is rectangular, it remains rectangular even when no subjects are present. Conversely, subjective properties, while in the subject, are dependant on objects. If I feel beauty about the painting, then the feeling of beauty is dependant on the painting being observed. I may not feel beauty in another painting, even though I, the subject, am the same in both cases. — Samuel Lacrampe

I just don't get why you can't get away from using those terms. I don't know what a subject is, if not an object that has particular qualities, like feelings. When I talk about your feelings, I'm talking about your body having a particular feeling at this moment.

Meaning is related to causation, but it is not absent thought/belief. In other words, when there is no thought/belief there can be no meaning. Meaning is attributed. — creativesoul

So, if there wasn't anyone looking at the tree rings, then the tree rings don't mean the age of the tree? What you are saying is that there isn't any cause and effect relationship independent of a mind. What you are arguing for is solipsism.

I understand your perplexity. The dualism of body and mind - the idea that these are separable - goes back to Descartes. He depicted the human as a composite of the physical, res extensia, which has size but no intelligence, and the mental, res cogitans, which is intelligent but has no extension.This can be depicted as body and mind, physical and mental, body and spirit, and so on. — Wayfarer

My position isn't dualism. It wasn't me that was saying the mind and body are separable. It was MU. I was asking those questions of MU to get at how a mind can exist independent of a body, as if the mind isn't caused by the body and it's interaction with it's environment.

My point was that the mind and body are made of the same substance, whether you want to call that substance "physical", "mental", or something else, it doesn't really matter in the end. Both idealists and physicalists are saying the same thing but don't seem to realize it - that the mind and body interact, and if they interact they must be of the same substance, the same reality of cause and effect.

I have noticed that you often refer to the 'cause and effect' relationship between objects and perception - that objects cause perceptions - and that your view is very similar to what is described in the above passage. And it is the common-sense view which I think many people would naturally accept. Part of this view, is that the fundamental constituents of being, are the physical elements which comprise objects, namely atoms. In this view, everything, including the mind itself, is ultimately atoms and can be ultimately explained in terms of physics. Evolution itself can be understood in similarly physical terms, although in that case higher-level factors are said to supervene on the physical, so as to give rise to living organisms and eventually the evolved intelligence of h. sapiens even though these might seem not to be purely physical. However, the only real entities are physical entities.

So that is the view of the 'neo-darwinist materialism' which Thomas Nagel is setting out to criticize. But it might be helpful to spell all of this out so it is clear what is being criticized by this book, and on what grounds. — Wayfarer

To say that everything is composed of atoms is off the mark. Atoms themselves are the interaction of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons are the interaction of quarks, and who knows what quarks are the interaction of. It seems that science doesn't describe objects at all, as there isn't anything object to point to - only interactions, or processes. If everything is a process, which includes cause and effect, then there really isn't any substance at all, only processes, or another term we could use is, information.

When inside the car and the car moves, do you not move with the car? A radio is inside the car and can be removed. Does that make the radio not part of the car? Do you even think before typing and submitting a post, or are you simply trying to pull my leg? — Harry Hindu

OK, so when you are inside your car you believe that you are part of your car. I don't, so we have a difference of opinion on that. — Metaphysician Undercover

There were several questions above that you avoided. I'm trying to get at WHY you think that your mind isn't part of your body. You simply saying that we disagree doesn't answer my questions or improve my understanding of your position.

I know what we are disagreeing about, it's stated right above. You think that because a mind is inside a body it is part of a body. I do not. You don't see a difference between a mind and a body. I do. So we disagree. — Metaphysician Undercover

I never said that I don't see a difference between a mind and a body. The mind is not the body. It is a process of the body.

When I first engaged you in conversation, it was because I didn't agree with your claim that if the mind and the body are two distinct things, they couldn't interact. Is that why you claim that you a part of your car when you are inside it, because you believe that if you were not part of your car, you wouldn't be able to interact with it? — Metaphysician Undercover

There were more questions that you ignored, yet Wayfarer quoted them and took a stab at trying to answer. Go figure. If you can't answer questions, MU, then don't bother striking up a philosophical conversation with me. I'll continue this once you have answered my questions.

Deception requires intent. We cannot intend to deceive ourselves. There is no such thing as self-deception.

You're chasing a chimera... — creativesoul

Sure we do. What are delusions if not intended beliefs that are meant to cover up the truth that is so depressing?

I agree with you, that there is merit in calling the world of feelings the 'inner reality', because while it is part of objective reality, feelings are always in a subject, and never in an object that is not a subject like a painting. — Samuel Lacrampe

Really? I thought feelings are always part of a body, not a subject. I think that is the reason why you can't escape using the word, "subjective".

We are on the same page that even feelings are part of objective reality about the subject. Where we disagree however, is that the term 'subjective' becomes obsolete as a result. This is not true. Consider once again the following statements:

A: "This painting is rectangular."
B: "This painting is beautiful."

First, there is clearly a difference between these two types of statements. A is literally true, while B is not, as you also pointed out earlier. This alone is enough to use the terms 'objective' and 'subjective' to differentiate between the two types of statements. But there is more. — Samuel Lacrampe

What is so difficult about this? By saying that the sentence isn't literally true, is saying that you mean something else when you say it - something objective, not subjective!

In statement A, the property 'rectangular' is directly linked to the object 'the painting'. Therefore 'rectangular' is clearly an objective property of the painting. In statement B, the property 'beautiful' is not directly linked to the object 'the painting'. Therefore 'beauty' is not an objective property of the painting. But is it an objective property of the subject? I claim that it is not. If it was, then it would mean that the subject is objectively beautiful. But the subject is not beautiful; the subject only experiences the feeling of beauty when observing the object. Feeling x is not the same thing as being x. The painting is really rectangular. Neither the painting nor the subject is beautiful. Therefore the property 'beauty' is subjective. — Samuel Lacrampe

Give me a break! Did we not agree that beauty is a feeling?! Doesn't that mean that the person has the feeling of beauty?! Again, when you utter the sentence, "The painting is beautiful." you are talking about your feelings toward the painting. If you mean that "I am beautiful." then you'd be committing the same mistake as saying the painting is beautiful. You'd wouldn't mean it literally! So no, you aren't being a feeling. You are a person that currently has the feeling of beauty - a property of a person.

Being inside a body means to be part of that body? Since when? Does being inside a box mean that you are part of the box? How about a car, or a house, does being inside one of these mean that you are part of it? — Metaphysician Undercover

When inside the car and the car moves, do you not move with the car? A radio is inside the car and can be removed. Does that make the radio not part of the car? Do you even think before typing and submitting a post, or are you simply trying to pull my leg?

Why would you say this? The mind and the nervous system are two distinct things. Unless you have a principle which makes them comparable, your comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. In the case of apples and oranges there is a common principle, they are both fruit. In the case of the mind and the nervous system we could say that they are both properties of life. But this does not make what is true of the nervous system also true of the mind, just like what is true of an apple is not necessarily true of an orange. Clearly your comparison is meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

What happens in an apple doesn't happen in the orange. Apples and oranges aren't a good comparison. When something happens in the mind, we can point to some event in the nervous system. The nerves in your arm are connected to your brain. This is why you feel, or aware, of the bee sting in your arm.

A mind doesn't do these things without a body. Obviously. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then I don't know what it is that we are disagreeing on here. What does a mind do without a body? Can it exist without a body? Can digestion exist without a body?

Perfect, then we we agree that meaning has to do with causation. A cause can be an intent, or some other cause, like the growth of a tree throughout the year causing tree rings. The tree rings mean the age of the tree, just as a spoken or written word is caused by the intent of the speaker or writer and mean what the speaker intends.

Consider the following Harry: When we teach a child the use of certain words we sometimes do it by using the ostensive definition model, that is, by pointing to an object and giving it a name. For example, I say cup, and I then point to the object associated with the the word cup. We may do this a number of times before the child starts to associate the word with the object. However, note that the way we are able to tell if the child has used the word correctly, is if they demonstrate the proper association - word/object. So do they use the word correctly in a particular context? For example, you tell them to get a cup, and they bring the cup. If they brought a pencil, then they would not have used the word correctly. One does not teach the meaning of the word cup first, one teaches the child how to use the word first, meaning comes later. — Sam26

When you say, "Bring me the cup." and all they learned was the action of pointing to the cup when the sound, "cup" is heard, then why don't they just point to the cup, when you say that command? Wouldn't they need to learn the meaning of "bring" and "me"? Doesn't that require different actions and different lessons? Again, what they would be learning is what the words refer to. "Bring" is an action, not an object, and "me" refers to the self speaking the words. Your words refer to an action, which is why the child would perform an action, not recite more words.

This would also be seen in primitive man, before the advent of writing. Primitive man may have a sound associated with a particular action, a grunt or some such noise. However, if you don't perform the correct action associated with the sound, then you don't understand how the word is used within a community of language users. It's the community who establishes the correct use of the words, that is, they have established implicit rules associated with the noises they make. Note that there are no dictionaries at this point, they don't come along until much later in history. Moreover, when someone decides to write down meanings, these meanings come from how words are used in a variety of ways and contexts. — Sam26

To say that an action has to be performed in concert with a spoken sound in order to teach someone what the word means, shows that words mean what it refers to, not it's use. The cup is a perfect example. If you teach child the meaning of "cup", you end up having to show them a cup, not just use the word in a sentence. This shows that the meaning of a word is what it is referring to, not how it is used. If you are showing a child how to use the word, you'd have to use every sentence that the word "cup" can be used in. If you want to show what the word means, you have to show them a cup.

Didn't you read my post? I said:

I would say that most likely we appear to be inside a body because we are. — Metaphysician Undercover


Further, I said that if the mind is inside a body, this does not lead to the conclusion that the mind is part of a body, nor does it lead to the conclusion that the mind is a process of the body.

Here's a question for you HH. What do you think it means "to be inside a body"? — Metaphysician Undercover

It means that it is part of my body and not yours or anyone else - just like your nervous system is part of your body and not part of mine.

Saying that the mind can exist apart from the body is like saying the nervous system can exist apart from the body, and goes against the medical knowledge that we have in that when parts of the brain are damaged, parts of the mind are missing or non-functional, like being able to speak your native language or recognize faces.

Now it's my turn to ask a question(s):
How does a mind see, hear and feel without eyes, ears and a nervous system? What is the point of having a body if a mind can do these things without one?

Exactly!

Witt doesn't say that. No one that I know of holds to that simplistic notion at face value.

Using words does both shows and attributes meaning. — creativesoul

It's not the use of words that is meaning, as the same string of words can mean different things. Meaning is tied to the cause of the words being spoken or written, which would be the intent of the speaker or writer.

If something is internal, how does that mean that it isn't part of the external world? How is it that someone's feelings can have an effect on you, if their feelings and yours aren't part of the same world?

That isn't an argument against anything I said. It seems that you can't answer simple questions.