Re: Against Physics

From: Rex Allen <rexallen314.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:47:04 -0400

On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 5:42 PM, David Nyman<david.nyman.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> 2009/8/16 Rex Allen <rexallen314.domain.name.hidden>:
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 9:11 PM, David Nyman<david.nyman.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>>
>>> Here's what I think is the problem with all this:
>>
>> Hmmmm.  I didn't see anything in your post that seemed like an actual
>> problem for my view.
>
> But weren't you were arguing that your view of explanation and meaning
> as 'uncaused', in some ultimate sense, rendered them pointless?  My
> rejoinder was that the point of departure for any existential
> encounter is always contextual - or situated - and our task is to
> explore ways of relating meaningfully to this situation

To find subjective meaning in the situation, sure. It's pointless,
but we have to do something to pass the time. And I mean "have to" in
the sense that we are compelled to...either by causes beyond ourselves
(e.g., as a side effect of electrons and quarks going about their
business), or just because that's what our conscious experience is of
and so we are tautologically dragged along behind it.

> ; hence to
> deplore the lack of an appeal to 'external' justification amounts to
> 'false consciousness'.  Do you agree?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I don't think so, but you lost me after the semi-colon.


>> As I think my "virtual-gas" example illustrated, meaning is
>> subjective, like conscious experience.  That shared property of
>> subjectivity is significant I think.
>>
>> What I think I can safely say is:  meaning is a facet of conscious
>> experience, not something that exists separately from (or independent
>> of) conscious experience.
>
> Well, meaning is a facet of our mutual situation, which is revealed in
> consciousness.

Mutual??? I'm looking around in my conscious experience and I don't
see YOUR conscious experience anywhere! What's this mutual stuff?
You presume too much David!

When it comes to conscious experience, you're on your own, buddy.

So I know my conscious experience exists. So clearly conscious
experience is possible. I don't know of any reason why other
conscious experiences can't exist, so I'm willing to believe that
another conscious experience exists which is qualitatively similar to
mine, though apparently different in content (since we aren't writing
the same emails and agreeing on every point).

But, I don't draw any further conclusions than that.

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Sun Aug 16 2009 - 18:47:04 PDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Feb 16 2018 - 13:20:16 PST