[Ham] You cannot prove that except by your experience. If the color, shape, texture, mass, design, and operation of your computer are all properties of your experience, what evidence supports your assertion that the computer is independent of your perception? The only answer you can offer in defense of the TiT ontology is that your wife, a friend, or the manufacturer would vouch for your experience of it. But that's only because we all experience the same reality, and our knowledge of it derives from the same five senses.
Likewise, any mechanical "detector" that may be applied to support your assertion will be designed to measure or verify these very experiential properties. Marsha is right. [Krimel] First let me say that I work really hard at ignoring you but if you want some, here it is. I have no more reason to accept the independent existence or judgment of my wife, friends, or mechanical detectors than I do of the computer itself. I have said time and again that rather than constructing any elaborate rational artifice around my conviction that an external world and other minds exist, I take it as a matter of faith. If I am a brain in a vat or am being deceived by clever demons or am God playing hide and seek with myself then other people are just as much phantoms as inert objects so their opinions, shared are otherwise, offer no support for or against the existence of an external world. If anyone is uncomfortable with calling this "faith" then call it an assumption. A Gödelian axiom if you will. I have frequently called it a skip of faith as opposed to a leap of faith. While I can not "prove" this I would once again point to developmental psych and note that young children do not understand that objects continue to exist when they are out of sight. Here is an example but if you search Google videos for object permanence you can find lots more. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2179083343900460788&q=object+perman ance&ei=HiGKSOPbMpv0qgLh7920CA&hl=en [Ham] The existence of a thing depends on one's experience of it. Experience is the organization of sensory impressions by the central nervous system into objective entities, relative to the observer's perceived locus in time and space. With the aid of memory, the intellect then interprets these impressions as concrete objects and changing events, relative to a substantive whole called physical reality. The "substantive" or primary source of these finite impressions is Value. Thus, your computer is an intellectually configured pattern of value. [Krimel] My "awareness" of a thing depends on my experience of it but I consider it folly to think that my experience arise from nothing at all. I gave up such nonsense at about age 1. I have put such childish notions behind me. It is truly galling to have someone, who frequently refers to psychic powers and invents his own language to describe things, talk about the activation of the central nervous system. There is a robust science of sensation and perception that has made truly remarkable discoveries over the past 20 years or so. We know a lot these days about how the sensory systems work how memories are formed and how the brain integrates them into perception and experience. If you spent a bit more time looking into it and a lot less time making up terms I believe you might profit from the exercise. [Ham] If there is any "more profound restructuring to come," it will be the work of your intellect. What is really profund is the realization that all experience starts with value sensibility, and that without a being-aware (cognizant subject) there is no experience. In the absence of cognitive awareness, there is no agency to bring value into being, hence no existence, no universe. Ultimate reality is the antithesis of "emptiness". Essence is primary, absolute, and undivided. Anything else is secondary, transitive, and relational. [Krimel] So often it is like you almost "get it". All experience does indeed start with sensation. We transduce energy from the environment into neural impulses. "Values" I am afraid are mostly inherited. They are the emotional valances programmed into our genetic code and modified or made specific through experience. All of your talk about "ultimate" reality is just medieval hot air. It is your "assumption". It is your starting point and the position you defend. You have never once provided a rationale for anyone else buying into it other than it seems good to you. But please here is another chance for you to justify your conviction. While you are at it I have a whole list of other questions that you have failed to address. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
