gigi: I wonder how recent that catechism is in origin, honestly. I suspect it is fairly recent.
And I’m still not sure how transformed Jesus’ body was—he sits down for a meal in John 21:13.
But in any case, the “body-and-spirit unity” you mention is proof enough that Christianity has not always had the antagonistic attitude toward the flesh that jmullaney would have us believe with this talk of the “inherent sinful nature” of the “material world.”
One Cell: Don’t be too open-minded or anything! Faith in itself is not a bad thing.
Transendental state? Such a state may be entirely mundane. People’s brain goes into a different state after staring at the TV for half an hour. I wouldn’t say that is evidence of anything especially non-mundane.
And, sorry about the thread title. After writing the OP I was at a loss of what to name the thread so I finally picked something which had two meanings in the spirit of gnostic dualism.
Only if we devolve to only the ideos kosmos being real and nothing beyond that.
You called the perception of God a “problem,” you implied it is akin to other “simpler perceptual illusions” and you concluded some people “have experienced a perception which your mind has interpreted as ‘God’” and that you “think that [such an] interpretation is incorrect.”
This may not be an argument for #1 in my list above, but strongly implies you at least support #2 and concede the possibility of #1.
OK. Everyone here is reading this sentence. Tah-dah! Group hug?
But seriously, I didn’t mean to imply shared perception creates reality, but instead that reality is a shared perception, whether it is “more” real than that or not.
Perhaps you could explain to me better what the objective model is in a few sentences, just so we are on the same wavelength?
What means “no objective referent”?
If you are throwing out the existence of your own consciousness as evidence of something non-mundane, as no mundane explanation exists despite a complete explanation of all laws of external reality, then the claim of nothing beyond the mundane is in error.
But of course it is more satisfying, as there is no mundane explanation. A full knowledge of chemistry and physics gives no answers here and actually serve to negate the idea that man is conscious.
If you can’t explain the existence of such a tool, how can you use it to concretely explain anything else?
Yet. We do not have to call something “god” or “spirit” simply because we cannot explain it yet. Weren’t you the one always harangueing people about dismissing your “proof of god” as ridiculous before running your little “give-away-all-your-money-and-leave-your-family-for-six-weeks-experiment”? Yet here you call a material-based explanation of consciousness impossible while we are still in the middle of currently gathering evidence! You can give up and go running to a spiritual explanation everytime we admit we don’t know everything yet, if you like; I and many others will keep looking.
I can’t explain how my computer works. However, I am perfectly capable of using it to produce a documentary on bunnies. So, I cannot explain how something works, yet I can still use it. Even if no one understood how a computer worked, we could still figure out how to use it. We may not be able to predict the weather exactly, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know enough to come in out of the rain. Bad argument on your part, IMHO.
In addition, I do not think “uh, it’s spirit” is any more of a complete explanation for consciousness than “uh, it’s matter”. So I do not think you can claim to have a drop-dead explanation for consciousness any more than a materialist can, and would thus by your own rules have to drop any discussion forthwith. You cannot exactly how spirit expresses itself as consciousness, and simply say that it does somehow. A materialist can claim exactly the same. I would say the materialist theory has the better claim, actually, since affecting the physical brain clearly affects consciousness; hit yourself on the head hard enough and you will cease to be conscious for a while. Alter your brain chemistry and your consciousness is altered.
And:
Holy shit! We have a complete explanation of all laws of external reality!? When did that happen?
(and I’m borrowing your list for future referencing, by the way).
And I would like to muse upon comment de la Spiritus #1…
In astronomy there is a phenomenon called “parallax”. If the distance between your observation point and mine is so trivial in comparison with the distance between either of us and a third object that we are observing, we observe it to exist in the same place. If, on the other hand, the object we are observing is sufficiently close to us–such that its distance is much more comparable to the distance between us–it may well appear to be in a substantially different location to you than it does to me due to our different viewing angles.
The concept of differing degrees of parallax grafts nicely (if metaphorically) to the process by which we conceive of our world. There is much of life for which our experiences have very low parallax, so we readily agree on “what is” (or, to use some shopworn hippie jargon, “where it is at”). There is also, however, much of life concerning which “what is” seems to depend a lot on where WE are at: parallax all over the place. The latter situation frustrates many people whose overall concept of reality incorporates a no-parallax, no-bullshit, things-are-what-they-are “objectivity”, and for whom hippiesque statements about how we “make our reality” through subjective processes and so forth are anathema.
It should be noted, however, that parallax (of the literal optical variety) does not mean that objects don’t have real locations, but that the reality of location is relative. Similarly, the assertion that “objective reality” is in some sense a by-product of shared perception should not be taken to mean that “reality is whatever we conceive it to be”, but instead should be understood to mean that reality inheres in relationships, not in things.
There are things for which we do NOT have a shared perception, the God arguments/experience being the exemplary Exhibit #1 of this phenomenon. Parallax. Given sufficient understanding of each others’ experiences, we might at some point ARRIVE at a shared perception, much as those famous blind men might some day develop a coherent and shared sense of “elephant” if the one touching the trunk talks and listens to the one touching the right foot and they both talk and listen to the ones touching the tusk and the tail and so on.
An epistemology in which meaning is considered to reside in the relationship between observer and observed–neither classically objective nor solipsistically subjective–is solidly grounded in the only ground we can walk on; it is how we experience, how we really do know the things we know, and the only way we ever can know them. The believer of classical external objective meaning is forever trapped in the impossibility of being a phenomenologist and “getting back to the things in themselves”, is never able to bracket aside all those horrid subjectivities and the distortions of perception, the bias of one’s relationship to the thing, the interfering presence of one’s self in the perceiving process. But this interaction is the reality itself. Things don’t “mean” except insofar as they have meaning “to” a subject with which they interact.
Gaudere: As a Tucsonan, I can’t help but give a shout-out to UA Prof David Chalmers, who would point out that science will never truly be able to “explain” consciousness, as our scientific system is based on empirical testing, and consciousness is by definition a non-empirical phenomenon.
Yes, as you point out, there is a connection between the material of the brain and the experience of consciousness. Yes, we can, to some extent, empirically demonstrate that connection via hammer-whacking or drug administration. But what it is like to experience any given state of consciousness remains unseen—if I give both you and jmullaney two hits of acid, I will be able to concretely measure the similar increases in heart rate, dilation of pupils, etc., but by no means will I be able to determine the similarity of the subjective experience you both will have felt. Dreams fall into the same category—REM will indicate that you ARE dreaming, and maybe even whether you’re having a good or bad dream, but your subjective experience within that dream cannot be determined.
And if it doesn’t work for drugs and dreams (the extremes of conscious subjectivity), it’s hard to see how it would work even for more “normal” states—the actual mechanism of “experience” is what remains a mystery here.
Chalmers would maintain (and I agree with him, for what it’s worth) that science, by its very definition, is and forever will be at as much of a loss to explain consciousness as it is to explain what happened before the Big Bang. Beyond the realm of the empirical, science just isn’t a very useful tool.
None of this is to be read as any endorsement of “spirit,” however, with all the dualism and afterlife-weirdness that term entails…
That does not follow. You stated that the argument was built upon sand because the evidence: a difference in reported perceptions, could support a flaw in either direction. If such is your standard, then your conviction that your experience of god is valid while others lack of experience is inaccurate falls to the same blade.
Personally, I think your initial objection was absurd since I at no time used the difference in perceptions to suport the idea that my perceptions were necessarily correct. I had hoped that pointing out the symmetry to your faith would help you see this. It seems my hope was in vain.
No. I called the experience of god a perceptual problem.
Yes, as a perceptual problem it has elements akin to other perceptual problems.
Yes, I think that my perception is correct.
The above does not add up to an argument that God(s) cannot exist. If you think that it does, you are mistaken.
What I support and what the observation of perceptual differences argues for are two different things. I do not base my answer to the question “does God exist” upon the fact that some humans report experiencing God while others do not. That information, while accurate, is not sufficient to draw any conclusions about the existence of God. Muslims call God “Allah”. My observing that fact should not be taken as an argument that calling God “Jahweh” must be incorrect.
For the record, I have no belief that God exists. I am confident that God does not exist, but that confidence is not absolute. Of course, no human knowledge can be absolute.
reality is a shared perception. I am at a loss to parse that statement into a meaningful expression about the nature of the Universe. Please develop it further. What is being perceived? Who is sharing? How do we know that sharing occurs? etc.
The objective model states that an objective referent exists which is causally related to our perceptions and measurements. Since our perceptions and our measurements are presently dependent upon material interactions, the objective model is often closely associated with materialism. The objective model is not dependent upon an absolute reference frame or an arbitrarily precise ability to measure/perceive.
You stated: The “objective model” of which Spiritus speaks, however, does not exist.
Since the model exists in exactly the way that any other human model exists, it made no sense for you to say that your model existed while the objective model did not. Therefore, I assumed you had really meant to say that the objective model was wrong, i.e. “objective referents do not exist”.
Now, many people have taken this position over time, but you simultaneously were arguing that a consensual reality does exist. I remain intrigued to see how you can develop such a consensus, and be certain that it is “real”, without objective referents. Of course, somewhere along the way you will need to clearly and unambiguously explain what you mean by koinos cosmos exists.
As Guadere pointed out, this statement fails on many levels: Failure to find a complete, mundane explanation does not imply a non-mundane explanation. Unless, of course, you are arguing that reality is fully determined by the extent of human knowledge at any given moment.
We do not, in fact, have a complete explanation of all laws of external reality. If we felt we did have complete explanation of all laws of reality, and still had no explanation for consciousness, it would still not be proof that consciousness had a non-mundane cause. (Though it might well be compelling.)
Perhaps I should have stated that it is no more intellectually satisfying. You are certainly free to find satisfaction where you may.
If “matter does it”, without a detailed presentation of how is a fatal weakness in your intellectual world, then “spirit does it” should be judgd by a consistent standard.
Things do not cease to exist simply because I cannot explain them. If consciousness exists, then I can use it. Men used magnets long before they could explain electrmagnetism.
AHunter3
If you can give me a rigorous explanation of what “we make our reality” means then I will tell you whether I find it anathema. In general, I object to fuzzy thinking, which I often find lurking behind such vague expressions as “we make our reality”.
Similarly, I would ask for an example to illustrate the “much of life” for which you say “what is” depends upon “where we are at”. If you are simply talking about the perceptual differences between reference frames, then I feel obliged to point out that relativity does not negate the objective referent. “Objective” in that phrase should be read as “external and measureable” not “absolute”.
Not quite.
Parallax has no consequences for the location of an object. It has consequences for the perceived location of an object relative to other objects. It is a “line of sight” phenomenon, not a “location in space” phenomenon.
Please explain how one gets relationships without things to relate.
Ah – but you have shifted the playing field. Now you speak of meaning. Before we spoke of reality. I do not deny that meaning is informed by, perhaps even determined by, individual and shared perceptions. That has no bearing upon the existence of external referents.
BickByro
This is a misleading argument. The extent to which consciousness is a non-empirical phenomenon applies equally to all measurements and perception which are made/recorded by a conscious mind. If Professor Chalmers wants to argue that empiricism cannot “explain” anything, then he can certainly do so. He would be far from the first. It is inconsistent, though, to use the subjective nature of perception to disqualify consciousness without disqualifying all else that is perceived.
No more than you will be able to determine whether the perception of light at a frequency of 430 GHz is the same in your perception as in mine. Nevertheless, we call it red and are comfortable that the frequency “explains” the perception.
[quote]
science, by its very definition, is and forever will be at as much of a loss to explain consciousness as it is to explain what happened before the Big Bang. Beyond the realm of the empirical, science just isn’t a very useful tool.
[/qoute]
Your final sentence is correct. It has not been demonstrated, however, that consciousness is beyond the reach of empiricism in any manner that does not apply equally to all phenomenology.
Obviously, my summation of Chalmer’s argument is a severely abbreviated one, and I can’t guarantee I’m going to explain his theory sufficiently just by memory…
But I think you’re overstating the case with the “all things are as non-empirical as consciousness” claim.
Let’s start with the fact that not all “measurements… are made/recorded by a conscious mind.” If my hypothetical team of scientists fires a particle through an accelerator, our computer will display the results too all of us, and presumably the results could be duplicated by another team with similar equipment. That is the essence of empirical science.
Now I agree that the members of my hypothetical team all observe the data as individuals, but it’s important to note that the original measurements are not made from our subjective viewpoints; they are made by a computer that could care less whether any of us happened to be in the room (except, perhaps, to turn it on).
Chalmers isn’t talking about the “I see red but you see blue but you say it’s red also” cliche, and neither am I, so I’m not going to even entertain the notion that the scientists look at the display and all see different numbers. Let’s assume they see the same numbers, reached via the empirical tests performed by the accelerator/computer.
Consciousness itself is far less empirical; the “results” cannot be “duplicated” in another “lab” (sorry for all the quotes, but it’s the best way I can explain this). Even within one individual, a repeated stimulus does not always yield an identical conscious experience, to say nothing of results between different individuals.
But even IF a repeated stimulus caused an identical conscious experience each time, how would/could scientific, empirical methods ever measure what that experience consists of? Saying “well, this neuron received an electrical charge” tells us absolutely NOTHING about why we feel things, why we aren’t just consciousness-less robots (‘zombies’ is Chalmers’ pet term) responding to these electrical charges without giving them a second (or even a first) thought.
It doesn’t really matter whether the experiment is conducted and the readings displayed without conscious intervention. Until the results are interpreted through a conscious mind no “empiricism” has taken place. Gathering data is not empiricism.
Science measures the frequency of electromagnetic waves. How does this convey the reality of light? You sem to be expecting science to manufacture a “description” of consciousness which somehow “embodies” the experience of consciousness. But that is a false standard. We do not expect the scientific explanations for other events to somehow embody the character of those events. If I say red spectrum light has a frequency of 430 thousand GHz, then I mean that if I expose you to light at that frequency you will see red. Similarly, IF the experiences of consciousness can be reliably described by appropriately specific stimuli, then it will mean that if I expose you to those stimuli then you will experience X.
Now, if you consider “red” to be subject to empirical explanation, then you have no reason to necessarily exclude consciousness.
I wonder if Chalmers has read Crick?
To me, the question of consciousness is wide open. It might be reducible to purely material stimuli. It might not. It might be purely material yet non-deterministic. It might not. I see no reason to declare any of those possibilities certainly true or certainly false.
I’m sitting here in front of my monitor. I have no way of knowning if you are real or not. However, I feel by posting this, I may get a reply. But, I have know way of knowing from whom… maybe…
OK. I hit the bottom of the thread and I think on some level I have mentally readied myself to post to this thread.
I’m not sure if this actually belongs in this thread, but it is my justification of Gnosticism or at least the brand of Universalism or optimistic agnosticism that I tend to follow (at the moment, on my road to becoming a cynical atheist scientist).
The message of <religion> is supposed to be universal. The prophets/savior/founder of <religion> was put on earth to convey a universal message of love/redemption/explanation.
So why do we need all the overhead associated? We have uncountable interpretations of Christianity, battling sects of Islam, and of course a Jewish history of disagreement which started even before Moses came down from Mount Sinai.
I am not talking about the external inconsistencies between these religions. I am talking about the seemingly irreconcilable internal logical inconsistencies present in all major religions, and the amount of hand waving that humans have been forced through to justify this.
It ranges from biblical literalists denying evolution to rabbis arguing over length of days during Genesis to Muslim clerics determining that 1500 year old statues are somehow insulting to Islam this week to endless debates over the nature of the Trinity. etc, ad nauseum.
I have lots of contact with an Orthodox Jew who claims that Judaism is not based on faith, but rather on a logical agreement with history and the world. The amount of logical Talmudic loop-de-loops that he pulls to carry this off is truly incredible. All major religions now have thousands of years of this hand waving, which in some cases actually makes up a majority of the liturgy.
Surely a true God would have given us a creed to live by that is logical enough for our little brains to follow? Surely a true God could have foreseen the questions we would have asked and given clear unambigious answers to them in advance? It seems that much of modern Judeo-Christian religion is based around us not asking questions – from the Tree of Knowledge onward.
I know I am reading into God’s vision for mankind, and I am not really qualified to do so. But, if God is truly good, is not trying to fool us, and is concerned with our salvation, surely he would have given us an unambigious path to follow?
So what is truly universal? IMHO, what unites us is the human condition. The universal truth that many religions place near their core is “Do unto others.” Too bad religions don’t stop at that.
What unites us is our presence in an observable universe. It doesn’t matter if everything that is observable is a facade put up by a God. We all observe it. We can debate until the cows come home whether the feeling of the presence of God is the truth or not. The fact of the matter is not everyone detects the presence of God, and even those that do perceive God perceive God (or Gods) in different ways (fear, mercy, love, anger, awe, etc.)
We strive for universalities. We have them under our noses. It doesn’t matter what the universe really is. We all live in the current observable one. If God exists, the only works he has left us with is the observable universe. So study (and love) of the universe, and all in it, should be the ultimate worship. As some Gnostics believed, true knowledge of the Universe (and therefore knowledge of God) comes from knowing one’s place in and relationship to the Universe. Very Eastern.
On a more cynical note, I firmly believe that religion was originally intended as a mechanism to address questions which are unaddressable. It was discovered that conformity of belief was also a powerful uniter of people. As humanity has developed, we have developed technologies to address some of these unaddressable questions (why does the sun move, how did life arise). Religion still remains, for much of the same reason that nationalism remains – it is a powerful uniter. It behooves the religious to adapt religion, so the hand waving has increased as the internal inconsistencies of a book 2000-5000 years old begin to grate against our modernizing world. We debate about what “day” means in the first chapter of Genesis, etc.
On a more cynical note, I firmly believe that religion was originally intended as a mechanism to address questions which are unaddressable.
Please keep in mind that religion is not philosophical but terse and dogmatic and therefore purely “cynical,” even murderously so. (No offense to the ancient Cynics and Cyreniacs, who were not “cynical”).
Somebody questioned how-to-know what exists:
(A) Make a list of things you consider to exist (example: A cure for cancer).
(B) Make a list of things you wish/hope to exist (A cure for cancer).
(D) Make any timely functional list you want: Shopping, laundry, people to meet, or things to acquire, fix, groom or maintain, etc. (A cure for cancer).
Examine lists to compare. Anything on all four lists better exist or you are in a deep crisis of denial. Anything on three lists should exist, not to worry, yet. Anything on two lists should be ignored or forgotten, as painful as it may be. Anything on merely one list cannot be important enough to worry about. Anything not on any list doesn’t deserve to exist.
Couldn’t y’all just take a color blindness test? Then you’d know if each of you was, indeed, seeing colors identically. (Or you’d determine that one or both of you is color-blind.)
If color-blindness tests don’t demonstrate that there is an objective reality, I don’t know what does.
So you are not important enough for me to worry about? You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself!
I replied: Only if we devolve to only the ideos kosmos being real and nothing beyond that.
Yes, but in much the same way I could argue that Disney Land does not exist, having never been there and only heard reports. I’ve been to Disney World and as such the idea that Disney Land exists seems plausible, but I have no way of knowing. I could extend the argument and conclude that anything I do not myself observe does not exist, that is to say: only the “ideos kosmos” is real.
But, I’m wrong. You can certaintly believe in the koinos kosmos and not believe everything you hear.
I erred.
Of course human knowledge can be absolute, unless the universe is bereft of reason.
Surely you have run across the idea before that other people are real, conscious beings just like yourself before? I dare say you may occasionally act as if under such an assumpton.
But how can the map of reality differ from that which we observe? Why is there any reason to believe the relationship is merely causal?
What Gaudere said (“Failure to find a complete, mundane explanation does not imply a non-mundane explanation”) is incorrect, when that which is postulated can have no explanation within the same logical framework as everything else in the mundane and would force us to change the very definition of the word.
There is and can be no explanation in and of itself as to a matter based explanation. It is not merely the lack of one. It is the impossibility of one.
I think you put what I was trying to say better yourself:
No. A color-blindness test determines that a person can differentiate between varying light wavelengths. But if the color I perceive as red is what you perceive as green and the color you perceive as red is what I perceive as green, we would not be able to tell. Ever, so far as I can reason, without brain/mind-switching of some sort. If both people have been aquainted with a certain range of wavelengths as being named “red”, they could correctly identify “red” with perfect equanimity, even if they actually perceived radically different colors–they would just never know, since you cannot see through another person’s perceptions. We can say that 430kGhz is called red, and every person calls it red, but we don’t know what color they actually see. And in fact people do argue about what color a thing is at times; if you’ve owned a teal car you will hear it called “blue”, “green”, “green-blue” and “blue-green”. The different responses may be due to having a different mental range of wavelengths that is defined as the varying colors, or the persons may actually be perceiving the colors differently.
jmullaney
You have not yet established that consciousness cannot logically exist in all non-spiritual philosophies, simply that neither the spiritual nor the empirical can completely explain the mechanics of consciousness yet. (Nor must we necessarily assert that the empirical world must follow our laws of logic, for that matter.) Spiritus has made a good point when he said, “if ‘matter does it’, without a detailed presentation of how is a fatal weakness in your intellectual world, then ‘spirit does it’ should be judgd by a consistent standard,” and your response was simply stating that “matter does it” is impossible, which may satisfy you but hardly constitutes proof.
Yes, but what you wrote in the other thread in reply to Spiritus was:
I have applied Ockham’s razor and logic and found that in the realm of matter, when all else is cut away and reasoned out, consciousness is still left over.
In another thread jmullaney supposed that I might be a Gnostic. So, when this thread came up, I sort of felt compelled to read up on it. I can’t add much to the argument, aside from a fairly strong conviction that I am not a Gnostic.
I don’t think that the world of the spirit and the world of Newtonian physics are inherently divided. I think the division is in our perceptions. I don’t pray for experimental results. If I wanted results without experiment, I would just go for the results, either by prayer, or just make it up. Experimentally, either would have the same validity, which is: none at all. I don’t examine the scientific likelihood that God exists. I was not convinced of that by scientific proof, so it really doesn’t apply.
I don’t think I am God, or even part of God, or some separated essence of what God is. I am me. I just grew up here. Jesus did too. But there is this other thing, called miracles. Now, let me be perfectly clear, there are a lot more fakes, frauds, fools, and special effects than there are miracles. That doesn’t bother me, much. (Well, it pisses me off, when it is done to belittle and victimize the faith of the gullible, but that is a different issue.) If you can find a physical science explanation of what happened, what you have is not a miracle. It might have been a miracle, though, without your help. Or, it might not.
So, anyway, I am not a Gnostic. I am just another poor deluded fool, following a legend, and encouraging the foolish to continue to believe, even though there is no proof, and never can be. Or, perhaps I am the precious child of the Son of God, saved by His grace, for some eternal purpose beyond our understanding. Either way, I still have to obey the speed limits, and the law of gravity, while I am going about my own business.
The only real differences between me, and the most strident fundamentalist pulpit pounders are that I understand the concepts of symbolism, and metaphor, and I don’t think I have the authority to judge you on God’s behalf. I don’t have any evidence for the skeptics, but I think God loves them, even without any evidence.
Now the epistemology of my theological position is simple. But it provides no reason whatsoever for you to change your opinions. I believe it because Jesus told me he loved me, in person, in a way that I understood, and believed. It was a miracle, but you wouldn’t have noticed it if you had been standing next to me at the time. From your position (any you, by the way, not just jmullaney.) it is just a quirk of my nature, based on a delusion.
I think it would be absurd to try to prove anything about it to anyone. Pointless, too, since I am not God and have no authority to go around converting the heathens, anyway. Likewise it would be absurd to assume that my faith supplied me with a complete understanding of functional biology, geography, medicine, and mathematics, based on the written works contained in the King James Version of the Bible. Calculus is much harder than Christianity.
Now, when the question comes up, am I a Witness? Yes. I am a Christian. I shall not deny my Lord. But the point is that I am not a Christian because I am especially holy, or wise, or smart, or some other unique qualification. Neither are any of the many other idiots and fools who have been Christians before me. But I must be faithful, and the most real expression of my faith must be that I will live my life in a way that I believe my Lord would find pleasing.
Why that is so, when He will save me, even when I fail is another whole thread or six.
Since you did not mention it again, I assume you are now comfortable with the objective model and the idea of an objective referent. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about myself and your koinos cosmos, since you have again declined to present even a cursory explanation of how it is defined and how it functions without objective referents. You did say:
Indeed. The objective reality of other things is part of the objective model, which you have declared an illusion. I have asked how “reality is a shared perception” should be understood in a reality that lacked objective referents. Actually, I am curious as to how it would function in a world with objective referents, too, since they imply that reality exists independent of shared perception, but you have specifically denied such a thing in your world view, so I am trying to play by your rules.
How? Did not this discussion begin with the idea of perceptual illusions? Is a concrete example insufficient for you to allow the possibility?
As to your second sentence, I have no idea what you mean by “merely causal”. What relationship beyond causality would you like to discuss regarding reality and perception?
Gaudere’s statement is logically correct. Yours is not, even with the dependent clause (which you have by no means demonstrated to be true). The history of science is replete with examples of “changing our very definition of the world.”
This is a very strong claim. It will require more than your word for me o accept it as valid.
Excellent. Since you have already completed this logical exercise it should be little trouble for you to share the reasoning with us. If the logic is tight enough, I will accept your conclusion. Will you revise it if I can demonstrate that the logic is not rigorous?
Perhaps, but what I said does not support the argument you have been making.
