Could somebody kindly tell me/explain to me what "RITSIAR" means? I cannot find any explanation of this in the threads which mention it.
Sorry to be dumb, Kim On 27/07/2009, at 12:52 AM, David Nyman wrote: > > Thanks to everyone who responded to my initial sally on dreams and > machines. Naturally I have arrogated the right to plagiarise your > helpful comments in what follows, which is an aphoristic synthesis of > my understanding of the main points that have emerged thus far. I > hope this will be helpful for future discussion. > > THE APHORISMS > > We do not see the mind, we see *through* the mind. > > What we see through the mind - its contents - is mind-stuff: dreams. > > Hence dream content - i.e. whatever is capable of being present to us > - can't be our ontology - this would be circular (the eye can't see > itself). > > So the brain (i.e. what the eye can see) can't be the mind; but the > intuition remains that mind and brain might be correlated by some > inclusive conception that would constitute our ontology: Kant's great > insight stands. > > It is similarly obvious that 'identity' theories and the like are > non-sense: it would indeed be hard to think of two descriptions less > 'identical' than brain-descriptions and mind-descriptions: hence > again, any such identification could only be via some singular > correlative synthesis. > > Hence any claim that the mind is literally identical with, or > 'inside', the brain can be shown to be false by the simple - if messy > - expedient of a scalpel; or else can be unmasked as implicitly > dualistic: i.e. the claim is really that 'inside' and 'outside' are > not merely different descriptions, but different ontologies. > > By extension of our individual introspecting, a plurality of minds, > and the 'external world' that includes brains, can be conceived as > correlated in some way - to be elucidated - in a universal synthesis > or context: that context being our mutual ontology. > > Such a universal context, or in common terms 'what exists', cannot be > fully known (i.e. can't be exhausted by description) although - or > rather because - it constitutes what we are, and by extension what > *everything* is. > > Nonetheless we may seek a logic of dreaming so far as it goes, and > this will indeed be as far as anything goes in the way of knowledge > claims. > > Mathematics may be deployed as a dream-logic: but mathematical > physics, restricted to 'physical heuristics', prototypically gets > stuck at the level of describing the content and behaviour of dreams, > not their genesis. > > To go further and deeper we need an explicit mathematical > specification of dreamers and their dreams, and of generative > mechanisms by which dreamers and their dream contents can be > constructed. > > Such a schema will by its nature form an analysis of how we come to > believe that we and our world are real, and in what terms: i.e. how we > come to know a world in a present and personal manner. > > Consequently such a schema must subsume within its universe of > discourse: being, knowing, perceiving, acting and intending - as the > foundations of what it means to be real: i.e. it must be capable of > invoking the Cheshire Cat *to the life*, not merely leave its grin > hanging in the void. > > Moving beyond bare analysis and description, any move to universalise > and 'realise' the axioms of such a schema is to make a claim on > ontological finality. It has not been completely clear (to me) > whether COMP necessarily makes such a stipulation on realisation, in > the sense of a claim that its axioms *literally are* what is present > and personal (i.e. RITSIAR). > > However I'm coming to suspect that it does not in fact make such a > claim, although it allows any one of us to take this as a personal > leap of faith, specifically through the acid test of saying yes to the > doctor. > > COMP may turn out to be false in its specific predictions - i.e. > empirical tests > could rule out the possibility of our being finite machines; or > perhaps we can never be sure one way or the other. > > Nonetheless, the inescapable implication is that any alternative > schema must from the outset explicitly and fearlessly address the same > problem space or else run foul of the same intractable 0-1-3 person > ontological and epistemological issues. > > This has profound implications for virtually all current cosmological > TOEs: i.e. a view from nowhere turns out to be nobody's view. As has > been observed in other writings, our understanding remains profoundly > obscured and distorted unless we restore the personal to the view from > nowhere. Only then can we conceive why indeed there is somewhere > rather than nowhere. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---