It Smells like Pussy in here...I Think

Redarmy11:

Yet would not we still have access to our new conception of rose? That is, would not what we replaced "rose" with to speak of roses, would accord to what we previously knew of roses?

A good question: If it is so convincing, where is it not?

Theoryofrelativity:

Very true. But can one have a quality of life based on false premises?

Consider dreams, for instance. Why do we find them unsatisfying in some sense? Because they are not real.

superluminal:

Considering it is held that sensory objects stem from a specific substance, and yet we never have access to the substance itself, only to the sensory object, and we judge the object based on its sensory data, it would seem to me that we could not.

Here's a question for everyone: What would be left of an apple if we took away its "redness" its "juicyness" it's "hard flesh" it's "apple smell"? If, in fact, we took away everything sensory about it - including our perception of its mass. Would we have an apple still there somewhere?

 

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It is not a cat if your definition of 'cat' doesn't include a "facsimile" of a cat. You say yourself that it is fundamentally nonfeline. No matter what features this thing may have, if it's not a cat, it's not a cat.

But if you expand your definition appropriately, then it can be a cat.

 

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Yo Athelman, you know how to end this thread like a mutha. So let me just say, in the words of Jimmy Buffet, one of my idols and a pretty well off fellow, "rude slate this big crate, you buy, I sell, we split, big take". You read?

Not sure what happened to Jimmy Buffet though. He might be in jail now.

 

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Athelwulf:

Yet a redefinition of cat doesn't get at the crux of the matter. You can redefine cat to mean anything, but supposing the object is actually distinct from what a cat is, does not that imply that the two things are different?

But then again, what would happen if we stripped something of all its properties. Would we have anything left?

 

I think Water has the best take on it.

One of the pre-requisits of good observation is never assume that you know in absolutum what you are looking at. The doubt required is not so much the doubting of your senses but the doubting of your interpretation and depth of insight into what it is you are sensing. {acknowledging the limitations of your own depth of experience and skill in interpretation due to that lack of experience}

Once you assume an arrogant position of knowing the truth you allow pre-conception to distort that truth. By nature we apply definition to what we observe and this is really handy but also a tendancy to self delude exists, simply because the definitions we are comfortable with may not actually prove to be correct or appropriate.
Better to state that: This thing appears to be a cat, than to state that this thing is a cat regardless of how certain you are. Allowing for the falability of interpretation of sensory data is essential in avoiding a state where-by we delude ourselves with our own arrogance and ego. {Also avoiding an obstacle to the learning process}

Those that have experienced such mistakes due to a lack of experience and therefore wisdom gained by such experience would only ever say that the thing is that thing and what our interpretation of that thing is, is not necessarilly valid howver the thing exists independant of definition.

The art of seeing the truth without applying intellectual definition or preconception is not easy....{re- Buddhistic thought}

Subjectiviely the thing is a cat - by our definition, yet objectively the thing is undeterminable with out applying reduction. The thing is only available to be observed objectively when free of intellectual consideration. [ or as objective as possible ]

Any ways, just some thoughts

 

Quantum Quack:

Whereas there is a certain virtue in professed ignorance, there is nonetheless a tremendous problem in this view as well. For in so doing we reduce all knowledge of the senses to uncertainty, which raises the paradox of how sensory things could be built upon necessary truths yet nonetheless produce a poverty of knowledge on the empirical level. It similarly brings us to a skepticism that does not seem to be valid, in doubting our senses.

But here is a question that has yet to be addressed and as I have mentioned several times over, seemingly is at the core of this (and actually addresses the ignorance thing either way): ARe there such things as substances which are not properties of objects, yet create them, and would remain without them?

 

Great to have you back, by the way.

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Enjoy Brazil?

 

ha...am still in the thick of it in Brazil. Just managed to get a good internet connection....another 20 days to go.....

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The problem with kowledge in this context is that by virtue of the fact that we are constantly learning and evolving all current knowledge must be held with such skepticism. Example: Yesterday they learned that the gas used in refidgerators and airconditioning was harmless to the environment, today they learn that this is not so. Re: ozone layer degradation.

Knowledge in the main is already obsolete when learned of as the truth is, in regards the big issues, yet to be found. And when found will over turn much of what we consider to be true knowledge currently.

Therfore one can conclude that we really don´t know much at all that will stand the test of eternity. And as it takes eternity to actually test that truth the truth can not ever be ascertained as absolute, because there is no point in eternity that one can say that eternity has been experienced. [time paradox]

I am not sure that what I have writen above is intelligable, many concepts have been introduced without thorough explanation...oh well!!

 

Quantum Quack:

Glad to see you here anyway, though!

I am not so sure. Technically, metaphysics has always been open to us for the "big big questions", and it does not seem that many things that are interacting with us at present are that far from being explained at least so far as they reflect on us. That is to say, where I doubt that science will ever end, it will increasingly become less and less important to our world.

Unless the object of knowledge is necessarily true. If its very quality of such things to be provable without recourse to infinites. Math provides a nice analogue (but a butchered one in many respects...) of hwo things can be proven without a necessitation of eternal time.

But again, this is mostly in regards to necessary truths which are not sensory objects. But then again, if necessary truth underscores all things...

 

This is a really difficult question to answer, in a way that is full and complete to the reader.
The answer is contigent on context. Are we talking in absolutes or are we talking about the illusion of reality from within reality?

Or Are we talking about a point of view from the creator of the "matrix" or are we talking about those perspectives of existence within the "matrix" or in Buddhist terms: within Samsara or outside Samsara

 

Quantum Quack:

Well really, both. For if we assume that there are such essential substances beneath the veil of appearances, then it stands to reason that both we and the "Matrix creator" are working with them, only the Matrix creator understands them, whereas we do not.

 

Do you think that truth is contigent upon utility?

Examples:
1] Is a cup a cup because it performs like a cup.

2] The truth is that gravity acts in and on an object in a certain way in a certain place and if all things remain equal [ which they can not] shall continue to act in such a way, [ transient truth vs eternal truth ]

3] Light is deemed to be independent of the reflector yet this is unproved and unprovable. yet because our theories on light seem to show excellent utility of that theory we consider that theory to be truth yet may prove in the future to be a false confidence.

 

well in some ways it can be addressed by stating that for those within the matrix or Samsara being outside the Matrix or Samsara can only be held in abstraction [ imagination] yet for that which is outside the Matrix or Samsara it can only be held as a reality and is no longer an abstraction.

Thus we can only imagine being "God" and not actually be "God". In normal terms....yet, it could be argued that it is this sense of duality that generates the skism in the first place. [ refering to Wesmorris´s excellent thread the taoist trap from way back]

 

Not the case

Before I had my kids I prefered being asleep to being awake. I enjoyed lucid dreams and was able to do things and go places I could not while awake. I had more control and more of everything really. Much better than the humdrum of reality. Not everyday you get to visit mars, have fabulous naughtiness with Jude Law, eat lots of cream cakes (without getting fat) change your sex, your age, your appearance, etc.

I now quite enjoy being awake.

BUT if I was offered (assuming no kids reliant me on etc) a virtual reality where the quality of 'life' was far better than reality, would I choose it?

Well many already do do they not. They use drugs to alter their perception of reality on a regular basis.

Our reality only IS a perception in any case, determined and limited by 5 senses.

Thus if it is everything it appears to be yet it is not, it really does not matter. As that is how it is in any case. A matter of perception and experience of that object etc.

 

atoms 'create' objects? If you blew the object apart, the object would cease to exist but the atoms would remain, dissasembled no doubt but they are not destroyed.

meanwhile



colours appear to be attached to objects, yet they are not.

they do not exist, only appear to exist due to our biology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color

"Color or colour (see spelling differences) is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, yellow, white, etc. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light energy versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects, materials, light sources, etc., based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra.

Typically, only features of the composition of light that are detectable by humans (wavelength spectrum from 400 nm to 700 nm, roughly) are included, thereby objectively relating the psychological phenomenon of color to its physical specification"

"Color of objects
Surfaces appear to have the color of the light leaving them in the direction of the eye. Since the composition of this light may depend on the orientation of the surface and lighting conditions, the perceived color of an object also depends on these factors. However, some generalizations can be drawn.

Light arriving at an opaque surface is either reflected "specularly" (that is, in the manner of a mirror), scattered (that is, reflected with diffuse scattering), or absorbed – or some combination of these.

Opaque objects that do not reflect specularly (which tend to have rough surfaces) have their color determined by which wavelengths of light they scatter more and which they scatter less (with the light that is not scattered being absorbed). If objects scatter all wavelengths, they appear white. If they absorb all wavelengths, they appear black."

"The exact nature of color perception beyond the processing already described, and indeed the status of color as a feature of the perceived world or rather as a feature of our perception of the world, is a matter of complex and continuing philosophical dispute (see qualia)."

SO Does it matter that what we see is not we get? Or do we just accept it as it appears, would you rather be deprived of colour and instead experience a grey world?

 

so is an object still red when the lights are switched off?

 

in reality no, in pitch black no, but with some light...

"Color constancy
There is an interesting phenomenon which occurs when an artist uses a limited color palette: the eye tends to compensate by seeing any grey or neutral color as the color which is missing from the color wheel. E.g.: in a limited palette consisting of red, yellow, black and white, a mixture of yellow and black will appear as a variety of green, a mixture of red and black will appear as a variety of purple, and pure grey will appear bluish.

The trichromatric theory discussed above is strictly true only if the whole scene seen by the eye is of one and the same color, which of course is unrealistic. In reality, the brain compares the various colors in a scene, in order to eliminate the effects of the illumination. If a scene is illuminated with one light, and then with another, as long as the difference between the light sources stays within a reasonable range, the colors of the scene will nevertheless appear constant to us. This was studied by Edwin Land in the 1970s and led to his retinex theory of color constancy."

 

Actually TOR Your post is an very good example of how we can assume we know truth when it may be proved later that we were in error.

For example I have many misgivings concerning light theory and atomic theory there fore I would automatically qualify any comment on these subjects with vaguaries like "seems to be, possibly or maybe´s"

The reason this is important to me is that by assuming that the truth on these matters is known only locks one within the matrix due to our strong belief in what may prove to be a fraud. Learning is blocked by the complacency that over self confidence can generate.

Light theory is contigent on the photons independance of the reflector or in philosophical terms the observation being independant of the observer.

Neither position has been proved or is provable ultimately, however one view will lead to the future where as the other may lead to stasis.

 

I might add that most religious theories are also is contingent on God being independant of his creation, which is argueably quite absurd.

to me it´s a bit like saying that a reflection in a mirror is independent of the source of that reflection. A contradiction in terms me t´inks