I never said what in specific is practical or not practical. But I think we can agree that there is a practical aspect to life, and this aspect should not be neglected. Duh. Actually, something can be rational only *in regards to* something. This is where it does get juicy. As this something in regards to which something else is rational is not a matter of fact. No. You are being extreme again. It is. Experience shows it. As I said in the hiccups thread though, there is a popular misunderstanding about free will. People certainly don't like to speak out loud that they are (like) robots or gods -- but this doesn't stop them from thinking and behaving that way. Esp. claims about what is utlimately rational and what not imply that the one making those claims assumes omniscience. Omnipotence has proven to be impossible for one man to carry out, but, man, do some people feel good saying that "science has conquered nature", or, more frequently, that "nature should be tamed". And omnipresence: humans just feel bad if they can't be everywhere. As if Titan really, really waited for us. On the other hand, roboticism is implied when people wish that others would blindly obey them, and not make "problems and complications". And so on. Being human is extremely hard, and especially undefined. Because there is a convention about what is scientifically appropriate and what not. It is axiomatized. Scorn this for being arbitrary or circular, but not that anyone can do anything about it. But then nobody "knows better", and nothing can be either accepted or rejected. Which is a status quo position. Do you like that? It is how "it happened". It wasn't really our doing. The end of the world is not here yet. So we can't make final claims. Some strategies are more feasible, more pragmatic than others, in this world. If you want to get to the other end of the town, you can take the straight road through it, and this, in comparison to the road that goes around the whole town, is more pragmatic. What is bothering you, it seems to me, is not so much what is pragmatic and what not -- but the question "Why be pragmatic?" Yes, technically. But I do not experience myself as neurons! Information is processed on many levels, and we are not consciously aware of all of them. Usually, we are aware of the verbal level. I've pointed out some problems with causality earlier in this thread. To assume that there is an objectively provable causality at all, is iffy. So? This doesn't change the fact that I either see or don't see your point. And you are still an extremist. And please, your language full of negativism is bothersome. Watch your tongue when speaking to a lady. Which means that you are not in a closed system! Why would it drive you mad? But this is how it went! You can't stop progress. That's true. The fights are only about how much, what exactly comes prepackaged. Not really. Children are not capable of such abstractions, they are not capable of such speciation. To them, there is only one mother in the world etc.; at first, they know only one object for each word. If a male child has an older brother, and you ask the child if he has a brother, the child will say yes. But if you ask the child if his brother has a brother, the child will say no. Common nouns at first function as proper names. But to say this, by "language", we must mean "verbal spoken language". Not directly, but by strategies. See the hiccups thread. I still think Peter Russell's description is in place: Intelligence is -- the ability to create instinctive knowledge on the basis of previous experiences; -- the ability to recognize common elements in situations that seemingly have nothing in common; -- the ability to use such knowledge in new situations. I think this is a *practical* definition. I don't think so. There must be a point where there is no awareness of that loop. For as soon as there is awareness of that loop, accepting novelties is stopped. It must be that we start out with a given that we have no doubts about. It is all about how we understand "I" again. The trickeries that are possible in a self-referential system. Alright. It better be good.
Ok Ok. Is this 'practical' aspect to life not arbitrarily defined? You are implying a chain. What was the first rational thing rational in regards to then? Not itself? Is that not circular? I prefer to call it being practical. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So what do you mean when you say free will? Ask these people for me: Why has science conquered nature? Why should nature be tamed? Being human is not having a double standard. That is a rewording of your 'it is practical/economical'. It doesn't make science any less circular to pretend it's not. That's why people should stop being hypocrites. Can you say 'strawman' 10 times really fast? At least we can agree on something. An argument from ignorance is no excuse for presuppositionalism. The answer to that is circular. Why is something pragmatic? The answer to that too is circular. This is what I spoke of. Arbitrarily define pragmatic and then go around claiming something is 'practical'. Don't sound so evasive. Either it is or it isn't. 'Technichally' skirts the question. Again an argument from ignorance. That does not change your knowledge of being influenced by neurons. Then why do we assume it? And don't say it is 'practical' without giving me a non-circular reason for your considering it so. What is the "I' you are referring to? Positivism and presuppositionalism are bothersome to a gentleman too. And to think you call me an extremist? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sorry, didn't mean to sound rude ma'am. EDIT: Haha, looked over my post and it is indeed very negative. Can't blame me for not being complacent though; not my fault. So I am jumping from one circle to another. Still in a circle aren't I? I don't know. It just doesn't satisfy me and that's all I know. But they know eventually. "You can't stop progress". That is not the same as consciously doing it. Aww. You were doing so fine until you used the p- word. Why is that the description of intelligence? Try not to be circular. I am not sure this is any different from what I said but. What would that given be? I am not so sure we are self-referential. I think we have created a self to refer to.
Gendanken, oops. was looking at my previous note to you and realized it was rife with undefined terms and speculative statements. Hopefully you were not offended at my statements happening at this time and on this thread. I happened to feel as if I were in touch with the "something other" you spoke of in your post, love for humanity, amazement everywhere, a sense of pure existence. Then you spoke of "pure thought". I realize now that when I tried to concretize my thoughts into words, they may have disappeared. I read in your posts an appreciation of science and language that I share, but when I tried to communicate, my words had neither the testability of science, nor the musicality of a shakespeare, or even the less impressive musicality of a mortal practitioner of language like (insert name of any other writer here). Oh well, my poetry has always been quite bad anyway. SOUTHSTAR says, I understand how you so quickly dismiss my statement after you put an animal's ability to learn into the realm of advanced learning. I am merely suggesting that we consider the possibility that unless the dog has a view that it is in control of its environment somehow, it will not make the connection that it can control it, therefore will not manipulate it to create more and more complex stimuli for itself. This creation of stimuli, not waiting for a new one to show up every two weeks or so, may be necessary for the development of advanced learning. This creation of stimuli may be the basis for our intelligence. The organism itself is enlisted into the task of helping itself "evolve". Without that, the dog may be stuck with the lower capability for learning which animals exhibit - forever. It may be cursed, or blessed, to remain one of the families of animals that just gets by with other methods. Parasitic behavior, for example. Your examples here show that advanced learning is not necessary for other creatures. But humans exist. You don't get to decide which species are necessary or unnecessary, evolution does. How can you say there is no need for our type of consciousness, if it exists? Just by pointing out that other animals survive without it? Sharp teeth aren't necessary for a lion, because cockroaches do just fine without?
No. If there was a point of nonconsciousness then quite obviously, the dog's brain could have assumed control of the environment without the dog at any time being conscious of the control. Same as the above example. The intelligent brain can create stimuli. There need not be conscious perception of the stimuli for it to be created. Animals, if there was no consciousness, would be advanced learning robots. No self awareness needed. Just because there is no consciousness around to percieve a need to learn simply does not mean learning will not transpire. It is a non sequitur. This is a strawman but. You did not read the context of the statement and what I was responding to. invert claimed consciousness "emerged". And I was saying that it is impossible for consciousness to have evolved from nonconsciousness. It is simply impossible. You will see this from the bottom articles and excerpt. There is and could have been NO need whatsoever for it. It is also perhaps helpful to see this article on explaining the evolution of consciousness: http://homepages.uc.edu/~polgertw/Polger-SSPP1997.pdf Professors Owen Flanagan and Thomas Polger have observed from the possibility of zombies to remind us, ‘There are as yet no credible stories about why subjects of experience emerged, why they might have won — or should have been expected to win — an evolutionary battle against very intelligent zombie-like information-sensitive organisms’ (1995, 321) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies There appears to be an oversight in the evolutionary theory. As you will see below, the claims that consciousness is necessary for learning, thinking, and concepts are baseless ad hoc patches. See this article and the following sections: http://members.shaw.ca/competitivenessofnations/Anno Jaynes Bicameral Mind2.htm Consciousness Not Necessary for Concepts, Consciousness Not Necessary for Learning, Consciousness Not Necessary for Thinking, Consciousness Not Necessary for Reason I especially want to emphasize this excerpt: This is a conclusion that is extremely crucial in our dialogues. Consciousness is superfluous to life. I suppose my own attempts at explaing it failed quite miserably but those articles make very important points to be covered again later when I show why the free-will assumption is circular, presuppositional hogwash based merely on arguments from ignorance.
Aww, lovely! You know what came out? "Monster". I will come back later this week, I have to study ... too ...
I'm not sure you understand TS. Try reading my post again. The point is not to explain creativity or to advocate determinism or whatnot. Please stop taking what I say out of context.
You don't get it. It is impossible to explain creativity without free will. That's why I'm asking. It is not out of context in any way. As I said before, behaviorism was proven wrong thanks to an experiment that demonstrated that creativity implies free will.
If you argue from the noetic basis of a realist who is after objective reality and who has seen that objective reality cannot be attained, grasped, put fingers on, then bloody, yes, yes, then everything is arbitrary anyway. But this position doesn't bring us anywhere, it is paralyzing. Hence constructivism and systems theory. ___________________ (here's room for you to write that h- word, so dear to you!) Not a chain: but the aligning of two systems. As you noted later: There is an explanation for the emergence of the sense of self: The sense of self emerged at the same time as the sense of other (and the self when it refers to itself, treats the self as an other). They can exist only if they are both there, at the same time. According to this explanation, a *dialogue* is primary, not a monologue. I've started working on it in the hiccups thread, and will continue there. Not that I can really ask them and get a sensible answer. It is the anthropocentric view on nature that considers it something inferior to humans. This is a bold statement. Considering that humans are rational agents (the term "rational agent" is to be understood as Game theory has it), having "double standards" is inavoidable. If I know something that is to my survival advantage, and I know that I have gained this information or skill in a manner other people could as well, it is in my interest to keep this to myself and not tell others about it -- except those I chose to cooperate with. This way, double standards are inavoidable. How, pray tell, are we to stop being "hypocrites"? Thank you! This is the best laugh I've had in a long time! While I see how you can come to this conclusion, I don't se how self-referentiality and circularity could be avoided. The "technically" implies that there is a longer explanation to it. I could also say that "I am a chemical soup", or that "I am the descendant of amoebas" -- such statements are true, but what can we do with them? Your new theory should better be grand, really g.r.a.n.d. . (You mean I should say "it is 'practical' without giving you a *circular* reason for my considering it so"?) We say that "a caused b" to *describe/name* a certain connection between phenomena a and b. It is how learning (= essentially Pavlovian conditioning) makes sense to us. We *describe/name* a certain relationship between phenomena as "causality". The human brain is capable of abstraction, so it is able to extract "general rules" of causality. We then, also per conditioning, think about new phenomena in terms of these general rules -- this is how we "assume there is causality"; we are essentially trained, conditioned into it. I'm afraid I cannot give you an answer to this, here (I envision 20 pages of explanation). Namely, we tend to understand concepts or words intuitively, as prototypes, and we expand/shrink them as we go. They only make sense in return, yet we are able to start with them. A wonderful example are grammar terms: Open up a grammar, see the words "subject", "verb", "subjunctive" etc. Even though you have to read quite a chunk of grammar theory to understand what these terms mean, you can start reading that theory and talk about it without actually knowing what exactly they mean. This is how we *set up* a system. I have special licenses. Because I said so. You may be in a circle, but you are not in a closed system. Happy is the man who clearly and firmly gets to know things only with the heart and doesn't have to ponder them with his reason, as in his reason, he has everlasting and repeating doubts and he can never get to the bottom of things. A man's judgements made by reason are not so much wrong, as they are misleading. With time certain knowledge can *become* instinctive, it is not conscious anymore. Yet we have learned that knowledge consciously. P as pumpkin. Or pokey. Good question -- why the above is the description of intelligence. It relfects a certain alignment of the system of experiential knowledge and the system of theoretical/methodological knowledge in a manner that this alignment seems feasible and (relatively) consistent. Instinct? This is the problem of how to explain evolution and speciation at the same time. It is actually a general methodological problem regarding scientific explanation. How do we get from state 1 to state 2, if each state per se is to be regarded as stabile? Either it is not a state, or it is not stable, or we need to redefine "state" and "stable". It seems useful though to adhere to the holistic explosion explanation: change happens and piles up, but it doesn't show until a critical extent is reached, and then also a visible change happens.
Southstar: Yes. But what about you? Just asking. Cole Grey: Going to keep this in paragraph form without the pesky quotes you so malign to disturb your precious reading. Sevi? Sevi. I've found it: Now call me pretentious or narrow or Wrong but in my little world this kind of rapture- the kind you've just confessed to- is impossible without what I mean by language. And don’t give me cant about Buddhists destroying their mind in order to feel it- for one, I doubt they do and for two, they only attain this feeling as a contrast of temporarily lacking something they have. If a monk had nothing to rid his mind of, he’d never romance the not having it. Third- it seems to me that those to whom a word is no different than the ink it was written in live in sewage when kingdoms are there to be had. I always have problems with people thinking words are just labels for things.. FAR FROM IT. Gulliver wrote of fat scholars on Lagado who thought the same thing. So they destroyed language by shutting up and carrying the things they wanted to talk about instead.. So imagine it- a bunch of philosophers and scientists carrying bundles of stuff around and showing each other by pointing just what they mean with an orange. Or either of them coming on to a woman not with the ambiguous charms of language but by pointing to a drying condom instead. Now imagine going around with a backpack full of all the things you’ll be pointing to for your conversation without language. Some think people can know what you mean anyway or want by reading your eyes or your ears, because they’ve bought into the ‘actions speak louder than words’ bullshit coined by an idiot as thoughtless as they are.. As if you could read a woman’s desire by which direction she crosses her legs. SO! To think words just mean the table I talk about or the person I name is ludicrous. If 9 in 10 people only examined their language they’d find themselves examining their thoughts- and 9 in 10 of them would find a thoughtless imbecile behind all of them if they were honest. They don’t of course- its much easier replacing every hole in their brain with fancy words or long sentences if they care, or just leaving it alone if they don’t. The first are boring professors and the second the kind of people who always end sentences with ‘....or something” or ‘…and stuff.” Or cut them off with a "Well, you know?" But to think of the person who sees in each word a Pandora’s box, let him write a book and each page is a journey. Maybe now you see where I’m coming from. I don’t think your dog is comatose, but his ‘thinking’ is the same as a chimps. They like to show us that chimps are smart because they can use a stick through the cage to grab a banana out of their reach. But they never show you that this literal moron can only do this if the stick and banana are simultaneously in view. Meaning that if you put the stick behind him, he forgets what he’s learned. He cannot connect- and keep- them both in his mind. To do so requires all the mathematical rapture- the strength- of the thing Keller discovered. (and by the way, I know you don't trust as much since I'm not a scientist)
Jesus Christ and this stigma! Why must everyone think everything I say has to do with religion and God? I think it is the brain that wills, it is the brain that acts, it is the brain that thinks. All we do is experience, or be conscious of, the will, the action, the thinking. But not to give away too much of that.. I am now looking at this from a naturalist point as best as I can.
Please tell us all why it is impossible to explain creativity without free will. Note: Do NOT employ an argument from ignorance, or a circular argument.
I quote you for all to see. You are the one who made the claim. That is quite stupid of you to ask me to prove your claim. Idiocy. Now why don't you try to justify your statement.
Southstar: *chuckle* Geez- allright, allright. I concede. I only asked the question, is all. I admire your gusto and motivation, not to mention the wherewithal of your mind so I was only asking. I, too, know the enthusiasm of discovery and wholly empathize with that obsession you yourself show in your theory. I addressed this in my last thread, but apparently you didn't see it (die)(kidding). At any rate, carry on. You're not the only one obsessed by the brain. Last- You're wasting your time. He's not interested.
Nope- you made the claim. You claimed that there is no free will. Than I asked how do you explain creativity without free will. It is your responsability to defend your claim that free will doesn't exist. Translation: "blha blah blah blah blah blah..." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Huahua! What a joke! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Ok! Fine! I will repost the post that was ignored! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It was in the ninth page..... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You cited in a later post, which I hadn't read. What makes them unconscious if I'm very well aware about them going on in my head? Also, if someone makes me angry, I may spend the rest of the day rehearsing that thought and getting more and more angry. On the other hand, if I have enough experience, wisdom and self-control, I might be able to willfully block those thoughts. Also, a lot of what you are saying has to do with behaviorism. Behaviorism is a psychological philosophy that was mostly developed by BF Skinner (PageWise). The basic principle behind behaviorism is the fact that we are much like objects that interact with the environment. Skinner was only interested in how we take input from our environment and how we react to it. He basically negated all the "explanatory fictions" of other psychologists such as "ego" and "id". The obvious consequence of behaviorism and the concept of "conditioning" is that we have no free will. (What is Behaviorism?) The problem arises when you need to explain things such as creativity. An experiment with a monkey, a banana and a stick produced results that Skinner simply couldn't predict. A banana was given to a monkey. Then, the money was put on chains and a banana was put far away from the moneky. The monkey couldn't reach it. A couple of sticks were given to the monkey. At first, he tried to reach the banana with one stick. But the stick was too small. So after a while, he learnt all by himself, with no conditioning, that if he would attach those two sticks together, he would be able to catch it. And he did. This cannot be explained with behaviorism, and in your case, it cannot be considered a lack of free will. We must have a process that oers on in our heads that defines those things. Those of us that can do it, are better of than those that don't have enough knowledge to do it. Behaviorism can explain impulses and the most basic things, but it cannot explain things like creativity, language and higher cognitive processes. "First, Skinner's radical behaviourism apart, the behaviourist's were beginning to move away from seeing all behaviour as caused by environmental events, and towards an acceptance of there being 'things within an organism' that played a role too. A number of these factors are discussed in Chapter 5 of the text. One of these needs emphasizing. From both the schools of Hull and Tolman, psychologists began to conceive of there being internal processes within an organism that 'mediate' the link between environmental stimulus and the organism's overt response. A stimulus could provoke an internal response which then acted as the stimuls that elicited overt behaviour." (Lock) “ This is a bit iffy because I need to go into more detail about thoughts before making any assertion. ” Well, than do it! “ You can read the Godel thread, I talk about non-verbal understanding a little bit there. ” Non-verbal understanding is quite possible, but it doesn't prove that free will does not exist. “ Every one knows trying to define something, especially thought, is absurd, and the reason why words can be hindrance is also discussed in the Godel thread. ” I have already shown that semantics are subjective. (Guedes) That implies that it is actually something created in our heads. You cannot have subjective semantics without a subjective point of view, and that's where free will actually starts. There is an entire process of cognitive development that happens within us doing our childhood. If you want to disprove free will, you have to do it from the very source, when at the age of 2 or 3 children starts differentiating themselves from the environment and start correlating information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ References PageWise. BF Skinner and Behaviorism. 2002. 11 Jan. 2005. < http://nh.essortment.com/bfskinner_rgjj.htm > Lock, A.J. From Behaviorism to Cognitivism. 11. Jan. 2005. < http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/lect12/lect1200.htm > What is Behaviorism? 2001. 11 Jan. 2005. < http://www.a-i.com/show_tree.asp?id=55&level=3&root=26 > Guedes, Nelson. Objective Semantics. 15 Nov. 2004. 11 Jan. 2005. < http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=42478 >
Dammit I can't be spected to read everything. Thanks for the complement. I'll go back to check it either later on tonight or tomorrow. This week has been terrible for sleep and I haven't had much time for anything. The theory is coming all right, just don't have the time to polish it up and type it. So I noticed. You have obviously read NOTHING at all I have said in this post. I will ask you for the umpteenth time. Since you claim free will, tell me how you think without employing an argument from ignorance. ..You do think, don't you? Speak kindly of yourself.
Damn hypocrisy, again I say! Saying it is paralyzing not to is a pretty lame excuse to wallow in hypocrisy, don't you think? It actually accentuates the hypocrisy and well, makes you a pretty big hypocrite. Pretending the arbitrariness isn't there doesn't make it go away. And since constructivism has to do with an 'art movement originating in Russia', I'm not exactly sure what to make of that. Just to make feel smug, I want you to admit that it is venomously hypocritical (sorry, I don't know any more negative adjectives for such hypocrisy), venomously hypocritical to pretend the arbitrariness is not there. What you have said when you say that "it is paralyzing" not to be arbitrary, you are being absurdly circular. You are in effect saying, it is practical to be practical. Since we agree that this is marvelously arbitrary, we must also note that you are in effect being arbitrarily arbitrary by saying it is practical to be practical. And so the vicious cycle begins anew and you continue to rehash the same rhetoric to defend circularity with an arbitrarily circular defense. Come now. Just admit it. Truth is absurd. Fact is absurd. Objectivity is absurd. Subjectivity is absurd. Ignorance is absurd. Knowledge is absurd. Life is absurd. Existence is absurd. We, are absurd. That isn't exactly what I was getting at. When I said "we" created a self, I wasn't referring to your free will description of the person. You really can't create a self, unless you want to describe how this is to be done without being circular.. I was speaking of the non-free will (note to TS: I did not say 'deterministic') definition of "me". This "me" and this "you" simply has no volition and does not actually refer to itself. It's a bit complicated, you see. It's actually very clever.. Since you haven't yet replied, I'll delete my post and rewrite for relevance. Why do they consider nature to be inferior to humans? Do people even realize that this too is absurd presuppositionalism based largely on arguments from ignorance? I am starting to see a trend here. The h-word pricks my finger tips as I type. So, lemme ask for the umpteenth time. Why tout rationalism? And don't say it is 'practical'.. ugh Ho ho ho! My laugh comes here too! This is a very clever disguise for the argument from ignorance you encoded into your very first statement. Since we don't know any other way, we might as well just keep on doing it, eh? So I ask again, if that is the case, why tout rationalism? The answer to your question, of course, is not to have double standards. Why is this the the best laugh you've had in a long time? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Which is the point of this thread. If you believe in free will, and I know you do, then you can sire thoughts. If you cannot sire thoughts, then you cannot veto them either. This is inescapable, as I warned invert. So, if you do have free will, there is obviously no reason why you can't avoid the self-referentiality and circularity since you are the one siring the thoughts. Of course, I don't choose to subscribe to such absurd presuppositionalism when even all its ad hoc defenses can't patch up these glaring holes. Thus, I am on my way out of hypocrisy by admitting that I am a perpetual hypocrite. How about you? Wow. The third time I've heard the argument from ignorance so far in this post alone. I should have a fit if I were to count all the ones in this thread alone. So what can you do with them? You can use them as a stepping stone to admitting you don't have free will; it is because of neurons that you think you have free will. Claiming ignorance or that you don't "see yourself as neurons" doesn't change the fact that you know better. Which is why I shall keep crying "Hypocrite!" I hope you mean grand as in good. It is so shockingly simple that I at times refuse to believe it is true. But I have compared the theory to some of the truly absurd presuppositionalist free will ad hocs in this thread, and I must say, quite smugly, that it has not been found wanting. Basically admitting you never had the free will you cling to. Again, as I have insisted all along, this is absurd presuppositionalism. The brain may be inferring a causal relationship, but in truth, how can we guarantee that it is simply not coincidence? Arguing from ignorance will not answer the question. Presuppositionalism will not answer the question. Arguing for practicality will not answer the question. And yet hypocrites continue to tout rationalism. What an absurdity of epic proportion! (I need to find a new negative word. 'Absurd' is getting banal now. Any ideas?) Why, it took me about a sentence to describe "I". Nay, one word did the trick. You see, once you start with this free will presuppositionalism, you are inevitably going to have to skirt Occam's razor and find all kinds of ad hoc defenses to patch up the chimerical. This leaves you with a conveniently ambiguous, pliable definition. Just like religion and everything else.. Only remember this, when you look into a mirror, you do not see yourself. You see a shell. You are part of the shell, but you are not the shell. This will be very important. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Can't get rid of me and my circularity bashing that easily. Why did you say so? If I had free will, then I wouldn't be in a closed system for I could sire thoughts. Unfortunately, the thread title which embodies this, has been long forgotten in our petty squabbles. Never fear, she's a-coming (sooner or later - I hope). Is this the fourth or fifth time I have heard the argument from ignorance mingled with a plea for presuppositionalism? Ironically, this statement defending presuppositionalism itself presupposes and argues from ignorance. This is called inconsistency. This is called hypocrisy. It's the same as you saying: That is very convenient if someone doesn't want me to question so-called "axioms" but rather to join in on baseless presuppositionalism. But I don't want to. How do you come to the conclusion that "we" have learned that knowledge consciously? P as in piccadilly. Biscuits. Let's dissect that cleverly worded explanation: "the system of experiential knowledge" - Also known from the noetic basis of a realist as the presupposition of axioms. This is especially absurd and demonstrably circular as it is axiomatic to presuppose axioms. "the system of theoretical/methodological knowledge" - See above definition. "this alignment seems feasible and (relatively) consistent." - Anything that "seems" to be is presuppositionalism. Anything to do with relativism is presuppositionalism. Please see above definition. See above definition. In other words, we are in a dire need of an ad hoc definition in order to maintain our current circle. Which gives me a fancy idea that Sir Newton might like: A person in a circle tends to want to remain in the circle. I wonder which one of us that applies to the most.. If you insist. So what was the point of consciousness then?
Philosophical constructivism. Also "radical constructivism". Uh. I suppose I am still so calm that my evaluation of the human condition (which you call "hypocrisy") doesn't come across in a manner for you to understand that I do understand what you are saying, and that I do agree that what we are could be called "hypocrites". Apparently, you can't tell from my style how hopeless I find this whole thing with the human condition. And guess what is more absurd? That we fight this absurdity! Rage, rage against the dying of the light! The problematic concept here is *create*. I, too, think it is very clever! And you know what this trend is called? Megalomania and playing God. As a human saw that he can kill a bear, using weapons and tricks, human said "I am better, I am more!" and human said "Nature, I rule over you." As then human did a lot of things that made him feel powerful (or so human thought), human said he doesn't need God, and human killed God in his heart and called himself rational. (It is too bad that you can't see me or feel my anger as I write this.) Self-defense. Human *does* know that human is not omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. But it is an ugly truth, so human thinks, and so he pushes it away, finding scapegoats. Uh. This meta-talk is wearing me out! No no no. No. No! "If you believe in free will, then you can sire thoughts." is a non sequitur and Invert and I have been saying this all along. ! The concept of free will makes sense if we talk about it in terms of sociology, psychology and philosophy. But in terms of neurology, the concept of free will is nonsensical. Talking about free will in terms of neurology is the same as talking about the function of the spoon in terms of the chemical build-up of a spoon. The spoon has a function, and it also has a certain chemical build-up. But to try and make causal relationships between the function of the spoon and its chemical build-up is ... nonsensical. It can be done though; but just because it can be done does not mean that it is not nonsensical. Funny, how from false premises one can come to a true conclusion. I have done that long ago. But I did get bored of that negative h-word. Don't praise the day before the evening, alright? But smugness does do you good. Uh. Spoon ... its function to relation to its cemical build-up ... Despicable, abhorring, abominable, ignoble, enchagrining, imprecating, disgusting, English is full of them, and there was a site once with Shakespearian insults. No, this just shows that free will is often conceptualized in regards to determinism, as if the two were diametric opposites. I don't think theys are; I think theories just need to be more clear about what exactly they are talking about. Of course. I said, a couple of times, how all arguments are essentially arguments that are lead by the rule of the fist. There is a reason. I would just like to say once more that this is a non sequitur. Mu. I know that I have sat with books for hours, and I know that I was putting much thought into what I was reading and studying. Niiiiiiiiiiiice! It is axiomatic to presuppose axioms, yes. Superb. Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not "seems". 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play; But I have that within which passeth show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe. You do know that that apple fell off the tree on Isaac's head because the worm in it ate off the stem? Then I think "consciousness" is rife to be redefined and reconceptualized.
