1Z
<snip>
> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 3:19 AM
> > >> > Brent Meeker
> > >> It wouldn't make any difference: if solipsism were true, people would
> > behave exactly as they do behave,
> > >> most of them not giving the idea that there is no external world any
> > consideration at all, the rest deciding
> > >> that although it is a theoretical possibility, there is no practical
> > purpose served by worrying about it.
> > >
> > > Their explanation, if they have any, as to why they behave
> > > as they do would be peppered with "as ifs". Solipisism is
> > > for people who prefer certainty to understanding.
> > >
> >
> > COLIN HALES:
> > Yay!.... someone 'got' my little dialogue!
> >
> > The point is that scientists are actually ALL tacit solipsists.
>
> My point was that scientists *do* prefer understanding
> to certainty, and therefore are *not* solipsists. I can't think of
> anything I have said, or that you have said, that leads
> to the conclusion that scientists ingenreal are solpsitsts.
> (I'm still wiating for an example of an instrumetalist
> ornithologist...)
>
I disagree and can show empirical proof that we scientists only THINK we are
not being solipsistic.
We ARE actually -methodologically- solipsistic because consciousness
(phenomenal consciousness itself) = [seeing itself] is not accepted as
evidence of anything. We only accept the 'contents' of phenomenal
consciousness' = [that which is seen] as scientific evidence. We think that
predicting 'seeing' will come from the act of analysing that which is
seen... this is logically fallacious. Like observing the behaviour of
monalisa within the painting and then using that behaviour to divine canvas,
paint and an artist: silly/illogical.
This behaviour is 'as-if' we are solipsists - that we do not believe mind
(other minds) exist. We are being inconsistent in an extremely fundamental
way. This is a complex and subtle point - a cultural blind of enormous
implication.
As for an example of an instrumentalist ornithologists? Hmmm... perhaps ask
the utilitarianist nominalist paleontologists. They may know! :-)
>
> > The only
> > way a solipsist can exist is to outwardly agree with the massive
> > confabulation they appear to inhabit whilst inwardly maintaining the
> only
> > 'real truth'.
>
> It isn't a real truth. if it were, it wouldn't matter
> how they behave.
>
> > There's no external reality...It's not real!...so being
> > duplicitous is OK.
> >
> > But to go on being a tacit solipsist affirmed by inaction: not admitting
> > consciouness itself of actually caused by something...is equivalent to
> an
> > inward belief of Bishop Berkeley-esque magical intervention on a massive
> > scale without actually realising it. The whole delusion is maintained by
> a
> > belief in an 'objective-view' that makes it seem like we're directly
> > accessing an external world when we are not - it's all mediated by MIND,
>
> What are "we", if we are neither mind nor world ?
Your words assume that mind is not part of/distinct from/intrinsically apart
from the world. This is a linguistic trap.
WE are inside a universe of stuff, WE are made of stuff with
perceptions(appearances) of stuff constructed by stuff behaviour. When WE
look as atoms WE are seeing stuff behave atomly. Other stuff in our heads
paints atoms to look like that. Does that make sense?
There is no objective view in this. Only appearances. We are NOT directly
accessing the external world. We never have and we never will.
>
> > which we deny by not admitting it to be evidence of anything.... and
> > around we go.... the whole picture is self consistent and inherently
> > deluded and ultimately not honest. This is the state of science.... the
> > last 2 paragraphs of the latest version of my little monologue are as
> > follows:
> >
> > where:
> > CASE (a) world: Virtual solipsist world. In this world I accept my mind
> as
> > conclusive proof supporting continued fervent adherence to the belief in
> a
> > magical fabricator.
> >
> > CASE (b) world: In this world I let a real external world be responsible
> > for all phenomenal mirrors. Concsiousness is held as proof of a
> separately
> > described underlying natural world, totally compatible with normally
> > traditional empirical science of appearances _within_ consciousness.
>
> Or we are just conscious OF things ,and they are NOT "within"
> consciousness.
>
> > ============================
> > "If I am right to be a solipsist scientist I live in the universe of the
> > magical fabricator, forced to play a pretend life 'as-if' there is a
> real
> > external world with fictitious scientific colleagues, all doing the same
> > thing. What is the reality of my life as a scientist telling me? I look
> > around myself and what do I see universal evidence of? The world I
> > actually live in is world (a). This evidence acts in support of my
> > solipsism. No scientist anywhere has, for any reason other than
> > accidentally, ever looked at systems producing worlds with scientists in
> > them complete with minds inside it, built of it. The world I actually
> live
> > in is the world of the 'as-if' ficticious objective view where scientist
> > believe without justification that they are literally describing the
> > natural world, and not how it appears to them. Indeed when someone tries
> > to describe an underlying world they the scientific world snaps back,
> > declares the attempt irrelevant, empirically unsupportable and therefore
> > unscientific metaphysics....consistent with an implicit outward
> > methodological denial of mind.
> >
> > But if I am wrong to be a solipsist, then the evidence paints a very odd
> > picture of science. In this bizarre world, 'objective' scientists
> > outwardly all act 'as-if' an external world exists yet scientists are
> > actually virtual solipsists outwardly acting 'as-if' there is no such
> > thing as mind whilst being totally reliant on their mind to do science
> and
> > also unaware that is the case. And, like me, being in methodological
> > denial of their own mind, are tacitly affirming belief in a magical
> > fabricator through a cultural omission of paying due attention to
> > reviewing their own scientific evidence system. Scientists in this world
> > will go on forever correlating appearances within their denied
> phenomenal
> > mirrors and never get to do science on phenomenal mirrors. Which one to
> > choose? Perhaps I'll stay where the fictitious money is... in the land
> of
> > the virtual magical fabricator...and keep quiet."
> > ======================
> >
> > I'm done with yet another paper. This ..place... I have reached in
> > depicting science I have reached from so many different perspectives now
> > it's almost mundane... So many I don't know where to submit them any
> more!
> > .....each different approach results in the same basic conclusion....
> > science is structurally flawed and never questions itself - there's
> never
> > any science done on science - since when did we earn the right to be one
> > corner of the natural world immune from scientific method? Is this a
> club
> > or a professional discipline? The current state of science - complete
> > failure to solve the physics of phenomenal consciousness
>
> Why should it have a phsyics ? Is there a physics of stock markets
> ?
> Surely consicousness is a high-level phenomenon.
>
[A glass of water] is a high level phenomenon of [water atoms]
[consciousness] is a high level phenomenon of [what?]
You can't have a high level phenomenon of a collection of "something"
without a "something". This belief is called 'magical emergentism'. In
consciousness studies you can claim [what?] to be something seen with
consciousness. The point is that the [what?] above will not be viewable with
consciousness.
That does not mean we can't be scientific about it. What it means is that
the permission to examine potential [what?] is a behaviour currently
prohibited by science because of the virtual solipsism I speak of. To speak
of the [what?] is to speak of something that creates SEEING but is not SEEN
directly. The correctly chosen [What?] will enable seeing that makes the
seen look like it does, so 'seeing' is actually viable indirect evidence.
If scientists are being virtual-solipsists by failing to accept seeing as
evidence of something then seeing will never be explained. Do you 'see' how
this blind works? Think of it like this:
a) study New York traffic from Alpha-Centauri
b) devise a very predictive 'LAW OF TRAFFIC'. It seems, when you make an
observation (see) of something it travels at a certain speed. This becomes
the 'LAW OF TRAFFICS' (we know it is mediated by local traffic regulations).
This is a behaviour you can 'see' from alpha-centauri as an
alpha-centaurian.
c) Now use the LAW OF TRAFFICS as a definition/construction primitive of
cars.
This does not make sense.
If CARS are what is used to see things (on alpha-centauri!) and you only
accept direct observation as scientific evidence you'll never get to explore
something that can be cars and therefore never get to explore seeing. What
you have is 'speed limits'. You'll all talk with each other as if you live
in a universe literally constructed of 'speed limits' (The LAW OF TRAFFICS)
when it's actually made of cars.
Generalise it and apply it to human? Take any law of physics. The universe
is NOT made of a law of physics. It's made of something that behaves 'as-if'
it does when we LOOK at it and devise a rule to predict it. This does not
mean the universe is made of the rules we devise. None of the rules will
explain LOOKing. The logic is the same.
That is what I am talking about and that is the effect of science's 'as-if'
solipsism. An underlying structure (eschewed as metaphysics) is responsible
for 'Seeing'. Despite this amazing evidence provider being actually demanded
by science to provide scientific evidence, the underlying structure is
regarded as devoid of evidence. This happens when the underlying structure
is more directly 'evidenced' by the act of acquiring scientific evidence
than whatever it is supplying as 'that which is seen'.
This is yet another version of the solipsism - acting as if MIND does not
exist. I have been in and around this in so many ways.... it always comes
out the same....
Cheers
Colin Hales
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Received on Tue Sep 26 2006 - 21:47:45 PDT