Apparently you don’t believe in logic. You’ve said nothing we aren’t familiar with, but that is then, this is now.
Why does that fundamental reality seem to fly right over your head?
You can whine all you want CC but the problem of Solipsism is inescapable.
Mass self-serving, self-inflicted, strategic rejection of Physical Reality, and the willful embrace of stupidity also seems inescapable once we turn people in tamed herds - but that doesn't mean that rational thinking people should embrace it. Or even accept it.
CC the logic is that eventually logic itself is based on things that aren’t “logical” that we just have to take as being such, in a sense much like faith. I cannot definitively know if other minds/people exist all I can do is believe.
I would rarely counsel anyone to believe based on simply deciding to believe (aka faith). But in just this one instance, I beg you, believe. Please believe that reality actually exists. Have faith in that one thing only. Believe and move on.
I have no choice. I do take solace though that the claim being advanced (in that I am the only one that exists and am the only mind) isn’t founded on evidence.
It was mostly that the problem of Solipsism is the result of the current method we have of looking at things. At least according to him materialism supports it.
So, where Rational Materialism can go from here? It is not hypocritical to say you do not have all the answers, but stubbornly deny any other possibility, because doesn’t fit your established Cosmology?
That's a naive as saying, if you don't know everything, you know nothing.
Comes off the tongue sounding cute as hell, but it’s meaningless bullshit.
You don’t have to be a successful structural engineer to understand that some designs simply are not going to work in this physical universe.
Most people when it come to God they imagine His Existence, or Non Existence as an idea to contemplate to accept, or reject according to our reasoning, rarely ever contemplate the idea that God it is not an idea to debate, but is our own Self!
This makes tons of sense after a few good hits of the chemical of your choice - but again, it's empty, offers absolutely nothing to a being of flesh and blood who lives with joys and struggles and dies. You can find a "oneness" if you look hard enough, but being one with something does not make you that something. Well except in our ever florid Mindscapes - all that is certainly possible but I thought this was about trying to get a handle on Physical Reality here.
The article finished with this beauty:
There is no existence save His existence. … This means that the existence of the beggar is His existence and the existence of the sick is His existence. Now, when this is admitted, it is acknowledged that all existence is His existence; and that the existence of all created things, both accidents and substances, is His existence; and when the secret of one particle of the atoms is clear, the secret of all created things, both outward and inward, is clear; and you do not see in this world or the next, anything except God.
both accidents and substances,
Like WTF is that? ny thoughts snowy?
and when the secret of one particle of the atoms is clear
That's downright cute and what physicist have sort of striven for, with impressive gain in understanding about the fabric of our existence.
When I read self-proclaimed profundities, it often takes me back to my twenties when I did a lot of cross-country hitchhiking and was exposed to dozens and dozens and dozens of different characters with their stories - and the closer I got to the Gulf Coast the more of it was about their varied hussles. Lots of predators of every stripe - one learns to look through the words and at the character delivering them, if you to learn what’s real or not.
It’s the sheltered souls who’ve never been forced to think on their feet for the prize of survival - who fall into this sort of bellybutton gazing. Not that there’s anything wrong with bellybutton gazing, but getting lost in it and forgetting about the reality unfolding around you, that is bad for the individual and the society they are a part of.
Not that there’s anything wrong with bellybutton gazing, but getting lost in it and forgetting about the reality unfolding around you, that is bad for the individual and the society they are a part of.
Good summary CC. I didn't expect anything from Xain, but I thought I'd ask. I'm not sure he even noticed the point where the blog switches from a review of philosophy to a description of God. That's the oldest bait and switch; philosophy can't solve it, science can't answer it, but I can because I have an unfalsifiable proposition, and my proof of it is that you can't disprove it.
Since Western Philosophy classify Ontology as part of Metaphysics, this immediately categorize Ontology as a waste of your time since Rational Materialism does not accept Metaphysics as valid, in other words it denies whatever may have to say a priory, with the reasoning that if the existence of Spirit is false, why bother with the rest?
Unfortunately for the Rational Materialist advances in Science, like Astronomy, with the Big Bang theory, Quantum Mechanics, with Quantum particles, and new Philosophical currents like Post-Modernism have taken us back to square one, and consequently to resuscitate an old witch like Ontology!
Ironically the materialistic view that there is nothing that can’t be explained beyond the Neurochemistry of our brains rather than destroy Solipsism, if not confirms it totally, give it a great weight! Since the only response to it, is to believe in the independent existence of the ‘other’ or accept by Faith, or common experience the reliability of our senses, when it is easy to demonstrate how frequent our senses can fool us!
In other words it make a good case for the postulates of Solipsism:
My most certain knowledge is the content of my own mind—my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc
Solipsism it is a Philosophical current were Consciousness it is exclusive to the individual, therefore beyond the self, everything can be held in doubt.
There is many variations on this idea, however, I do not intend to dwell in to it, for those unfamiliar with this concept, you can go to Wikipedia and look for Solipsism, after you are familiar with it, you can return to this page and follow my arguments.
There is nothing wrong with Solipsism, for many it seems a hard thing to swallow, since our concept of ‘Reality’ it is based in a Dialectical Universe, and a perception of otherness; a multiplicity of entities with no connection to our self, giving them autonomy, and therefore a separate ‘reality’ beyond our Consciousness, example: When you wake up in the morning it is possible to distinguish your surroundings as familiar, your cat, or your dog, family members, like your wife, or your parents, etc. You got to get ready to assume your identity, going to work, class, or if your day off to leisure activity, where is very likely you will retake your relationship to others you got some sort of familiarity, friends, classmates, business associates etc. In other words you assume your identity in a day, to day basis, for the sleepy head it may take some minutes to clear your head and realize ‘you are back, in to everyday Consciousness!
I don’t think you read far enough into it because the reality is that we can’t “prove” a physical universe all we can do is believe that such a case exists. I mean I am not a fan of the “god of the gaps” stuff that people post or “because you don’t know therefor X” but if science is based on our observations and our own observations are flawed then why put such great stock in it?
I just can’t seem to shake the sense that it’s more of us “wanting a physical explanation” for things when there are gaps in what we know (notwithstanding being unable to prove physical reality). Like in the case for altruism in the link about how there isn’t biological evidence for a gene for it, it seems like we are locked into a particular way of thinking.
It really doesn't matter what comes after that. You've just substituted another thing into your tired old pattern. Buddhism, Nihilism, no-self, no purpose, no meaning, God is dead, now you're on solipsism. It doesn't matter how many times we agree the universe is mysterious, you take that to mean something even though you can't make the logical connection from your evidence to your conclusion. You feel that way, we can't prove you shouldn't, we're all wrong, you're right. Yep, go be right.
snowcity said; I’m mostly getting at what the articles seem to suggest, the limitations of “materialist” science.
What on earth are you talking about? In which way is spiritualism less limiting than science?
You mean you can use your imagination at will and have the freedom to accept Pink Unicorns? Au contraire, it is the spiritualist perspective which is completely limited. It cannot even answer the most fundamental questions about the nature and functions of the spiritual world.
The limitations imposed by the “scientific method” are precisely designed to avoid or minimize malicious willful ignorance and the embrace of lies.
The common theme in spiritualism is illusion in this case Maya or the world as it appears to be instead of what it is. Senses are part of Maya in that we only receive what is being transmitted to them but not the whole picture and even what we get can be distorted and misled. I’m not sure what the story is trying to imply but looking at similar stuff on his page seems to suggest Maya or illusion is a recurring theme with Materialism being his bone of contention (in the altruism link).