Voltzmann Vacuum Cleaners? Boltzmann brain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain Boltzmann brain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain A Boltzmann brain is a hypothesized self aware entity which arises due to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos. The idea is named for the physicist Ludwig... View on en.wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain Preview by Yahoo
---In [email protected], <s3raphita@...> wrote : Re: "I do not understand how a vacuum cleaner would have an accidental existence, considering what it takes to bring one into existence. This seems to be an unsupported assumption taken as an axiom.": By "accidental" they don't always imply a chance event. They mean "contingent", ie "*not* necessary but dependent on something else". Vacuum cleaners had to be invented by someone. Re "Also defining something as having necessary existence does not prove that that existence is necessary. For example eye liner makeup could be defined as having necessary existence.": Eye-liner could indeed by *defined* as having necessary existence but no one would fall for it as it clearly doesn't. It's trickier with GOD as it does strike one as odd that God should just *happen* to exist. Surely any God that measures up to what the religious have thought of as the Perfect Being couldn't depend for His existing on a lucky break or on something outside Him? I agree it's a sneaky argument. It is amusing though that modern logic was developed in order to defuse the ontological argument so it clearly scared the shit out of Bertrand Russell & co. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : ---In [email protected], <s3raphita@...> wrote : Re "The only difference is I can use the vacuum to suck up dust, and the other Being just sits there doing nothing, useless. ": As someone once put it in a similar context "At least tables and chairs have the gumption to introduce themselves to us but where am I supposed to find these Platonic forms?" Re "But it [your vacuum cleaner] also has another property: being, it has existence.": According to Kant "existence" is *not* a property. Modern mathematicians and logicians agree and so use existential and universal quantifiers precisely in order to avoid using existence as a property. So they say things like "There exists something answering to the description x" and "For all x, x has such-and-such a property". Why do Kant and moderns go in for such convoluted expressions? Because if you make existence a property you leave yourself open to the ontological proof that God exists! Thus: "God has necessary existence (by definition)." [Unlike vacuum cleaners which only have accidental existence.] So God *must* exist in the same way that the angles of a triangle must sum to two right angles. I do not understand how a vacuum cleaner would have an accidental existence, considering what it takes to bring one into existence. This seems to be an unsupported assumption taken as an axiom. Also defining something as having necessary existence does not prove that that existence is necessary. For example eye liner makeup could be defined as having necessary existence, even though it clearly does not have this. It is possible to define 'things' that do not exist, giving them a virtual reality, that is, a pretend reality, such as unicorns, which seem to have a different sort of reality than a vacuum cleaner. I think Bertrand Russell's 'the present King of France' falls into this category. What jr_esq is saying is that only consciousness has true being. Vacuum cleaners are simply modifications in awareness and have no independent reality. The idea that there is some aspect of reality called 'consciousness which has true being', is just an idea, a thought in the mind, which is a modification of the mind. If, in fact such an idea refers to a true existence, it cannot be known without, (1) the experience of it, and (2) a thought about it, so its existence, to be known and appreciated, requires a modification of the mind and is therefore not independent, its existence cannot be established without dependence. A dualistic frame of mind cannot resolve the issue. A non-dual frame of mind would result in: 'vacuum cleaner' = absolute Being This however probably seems weird or insane to someone who divides the world apart from an otherworldly idea of being. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : This was not quite what I was getting at, but I will give it another shot. In my office on the floor here is a vacuum cleaner. It sucks up dust, etc. But it also has another property: being, it has existence. It has being and it sucks dust and collects it in a bag. Now this seemingly other being you are talking about with the capital 'B', Being. That would seem, by your reckoning, to be something else, some other kind of being. But what could the difference be? The main property of existence is that it is. So if 'Being' exists, and the 'vacuum cleaner' exists, they both have exactly the same essential property. The only difference is I can use the vacuum to suck up dust, and the other Being just sits there doing nothing, useless. So are these two existences, these two beings, really any different in their essential nature, except for utility? We are now talking vacuum cleaners, not Aristotle, Plato, not Aquinas, these three by all historical accounts did not know about vacuum cleaners. I can also stand outside, or inside, and look at what at certain times I call clouds, sky, earth, but in this case not have a single thought as to what they are. What I see has being, because it exists. And what I call 'I' too exists. So why do I have to do this transcending stuff to be or to experience being? And if I have a thought, the thought has a kind of existence too, and all the other things I have mentioned remain being as well while I am having the thought. And not one bit of it is metaphysical, and yet it is all being, all the same kind of being. ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, Without looking up the specific points made by Aristotle, Plato, and Aquinas, I would say the absolute is the same as Being, which is the prime mover in metaphysical analysis. But this point of view, although logical and intellectual, may not satisfy most people. I prefer to take Maharishi's explanation for Being which can be experienced by your own self or being. You too are existing since you have consciousness.As such, you are just a tiny drop in an ocean of Being. You can experience pure being by transcending thoughts. Pure being is experienced as bliss which is attained when the mind transcends thoughts. In TM, a mantra is used to transcend these thoughts. MMY stated that the bliss is gained at the juncture between the absolute and the relative in our mind. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, I using the word "absolute" as the the unified field, the consciousness beyond the human perceptions. John, you have been keeping this conversation going, especially with Curtis, who seems to be on a roll these past couple of days. This comment you made above got me thinking. Aside from quoting others on this point, if something is beyond human perception, how can you know it exists? If no perception, no information passes into the human nervous system and therefore no information about an 'absolute' could be directly processed by the nervous system, and therefore no direct knowledge of it could exist. This would lend credence to the idea that 'absolute' is imaginary; not real. If we assume others who told us this idea are like us, they too would have no direct knowledge of 'absolute'. And thus they too are simply proffering to us an imaginary concept. I have the opinion there is a way out of this dilemma, but I would like to see what your ideas are on this.
