The Nominalist Method of Determining What Is

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Hi LesMis - long time, no words!

You said: "...deep conversation is a mine-field for anyone who cares about reality"

How could such conversation ever recognize what reality actually is? Words are just more of the same stuff we can observe without uttering a word or thinking a thought. At best a "deep conversation" may point to what reality is. But to recognize what reality is would necessarily require going beyond all points-of-view, attention itself, for reality clearly is beyond any individual's limited point-of-view.

What is real? Is it what you can see, hear, taste and touch?
Or is it seeing, hearing and tasting and touching that is real?
Can anything appear to exist without being known?
What is it that is knowing that there are words being read?

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
What is real? Is it what you can see, hear, taste and touch?
Or is it seeing, hearing and tasting and touching that is real?
Can anything appear to exist without being known?
What is it that is knowing that there are words being read?

Scenario: You and I and a sightless person (let's call her Pepper) are lying in a patch of long green grass. You and I and Pepper touch the grass and agree on it's texture, shape and temperature, but only you and I can see the grass as being the color of green, Pepper cannot imagine or even visualize green-ness, therefore green-ness cannot be known, therefore it is not a reality for her, but green-ness is a reality for you and I.

6.363 The procedure of induction consists in accepting as true the simplest law that can be reconciled with our experiences. And -

According to Wittgenstein's logical-atomistic metaphysical system, objects each have a "nature," which is their capacity to combine with other objects. When combined, objects form "states of affairs." A state of affairs that obtains is a "fact." Facts make up the entirety of the world. Facts are logically independent of one another, as are states of affairs. That is, one state of affair's (or fact's) existence does not allow us to infer whether another state of affairs (or fact) exists or does not exist.

From the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: InTheLight
Are you saying that 'green' does not appear to exist for a blind person? If so then I would have to agree.
When walking in a park at night can green be seen by a sighted person?
Can that which appears to be known, be true and real, if it is not consistent?

There may be an idea in mind (abstract world) that green is green but it is not always green but the mind has built a picture in mind of a tree - if the leaves are green then they are even green at night when they look grey?

There is no way of perceiving what the unsighted person experiences as reality, just the same as it is impossible for a unsighted person to see green.

I would say that ultimate reality is something that never changes and is always the same, whether a person is deaf or blind, there will be awareness. Can any sensation appear outside awareness?

a reply to: lostgirl

Actually, don't you think it would be more accurate to say, "The evidence for what happens to" our bodies "after death is staggering"?

To which, it seems to me it follows that - while it is true that we have absolutely nothing on which to base the assumption that "we are something other than our body", neither do we have any way at all to prove the opposite to be true.

While I'm not a proponent of the cliche "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", I have to admit that it certainly seems to be a truism when it comes to the question of whether there is any part of a human being's consciousness which exists (or can exist) once the body dies.

When I ponder over this particular question, I find myself considering the fact that physicists now posit that entire universes 'could' exist separate from our own...Therefore, can we really (with absolute certainty) rule out the possibility that our 'minds' (in some form) 'could' exist separate from our brains/bodies?

Regarding Physics:
I found it amusing that in the first book I read by Dr. Brian Greene, "The Fabric of the Cosmos", he expresses that he finds multiple/parallel universes to be somewhat unlikely; yet his subsequent book (10 years later), "The Hidden Reality", is entirely written on the subject of 'what kinds of' (and why) multiple/parallel universes 'are' most likely to exist.

I'm sorry if I've taken the thread off on an irrelevant tangent.

No I enjoy your thinking here. Thanks for contributing.

But once again, in your questions I am left to deal with ambiguous things and substances. “Consciousness” or “awareness”, for instance. When people use this word, nothing but the human body comes to my mind upon thinking about it. But they always invoke some sort of strange substance like “perception” or “sensation”. These words describe the body. They can describe nothing else. If you ask what they are talking about, what the word is pointing to, they make up some little analogy or metaphor, unable to even point to what in reality they are talking about. The same goes with the “mind” or “soul”, which I believe are severe errors of western philosophy and religion.

In the case of “absence of evidence”, in this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence, for we have observed every area of the body and have found none of these mystical substances. Finding no money in your pocket is good evidence you have no money in your pocket. The same goes with “souls” and “awareness”, which are nothing but empty words void of reality.

a reply to: artistpoet

Thank you for sharing.

a reply to: bb23108

How could such conversation ever recognize what reality actually is? Words are just more of the same stuff we can observe without uttering a word or thinking a thought.

Words are used to describe what is. They do no aid in recognizing. If anything they hinder recognizing.

a reply to: InTheLight

From the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicu

Have you read that book? Spoiler alert: At the end he completely refutes everything he wrote in it.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: InTheLight

From the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicu

Have you read that book? Spoiler alert: At the end he completely refutes everything he wrote in it.

I know that, but I don't refute everything he wrote.

a reply to: InTheLight

I know that, but I don't refute everything he wrote.

What's your favorite part of it?

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: InTheLight

I know that, but I don't refute everything he wrote.

What's your favorite part of it?

6.363 The procedure of induction consists in accepting as true the simplest law that can be reconciled with our experiences.

However, his and many others' words touch on how I choose a path (a reasoning, a learned known, an intuition, a self-evident universal truth) to accepting my experiences along with comparing others' experiences (through the sharing of words and descriptions), that which can then be accepted as another universal reality, outside the physical body-only reality.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: InTheLight
Are you saying that 'green' does not appear to exist for a blind person? If so then I would have to agree.
When walking in a park at night can green be seen by a sighted person?
Can that which appears to be known, be true and real, if it is not consistent?

There may be an idea in mind (abstract world) that green is green but it is not always green but the mind has built a picture in mind of a tree - if the leaves are green then they are even green at night when they look grey?

There is no way of perceiving what the unsighted person experiences as reality, just the same as it is impossible for a unsighted person to see green.

I would say that ultimate reality is something that never changes and is always the same, whether a person is deaf or blind, there will be awareness. Can any sensation appear outside awareness?

I thought you might enjoy these words.

Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village of Bengal. 'Can you tell me,' I asked them, 'wherein lies the special features of your religion?' One of them hesitated for a moment and answered, It is difficult to define that.' The other said, 'No, it is quite simple. We hold that we have first of all to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher, and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme Soul, within us.' 'Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the people of the world?' I asked. 'Whoever feels thirsty will of himself come to the river,' was his reply. 'But then, do you find it so? Are they coming?' The man gave a gentle smile, and with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or anxiety, he said, 'They must come, one and all.'

Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal. Man is indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food and clothing. He is out to find himself. Man's history is the history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realization of his immortal self - his soul. Through the rise and fall of empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from epoch to epoch towards the fullest realization of his soul, - the soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds he accomplishes, the theories he builds, the soul whose onward course is never checked by death or dissolution. Man's mistakes and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite. Man has gone through and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity. All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him, which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its exhaustless riches by renunciation. Yes, they are coming, the pilgrims, one and all - coming to their true inheritance of the world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one central Truth which is all-comprehensive.

en.wikisource.org...:_The_Realisation_of_Life

Does a thirst exist without awareness?

LesMis, you said: "... I am left to deal with ambiguous things and substances. “Consciousness” or “awareness”, for instance. When people use this word, nothing but the human body comes to my mind upon thinking about it."

Right, awareness is apparently associated with the body-mind. The body-mind, through the mechanism of attention, creates a constantly changing point-of-view relative to everything that appears to it.

However, is that point-of-view reality? One could say it is that body-mind's reality in that moment, but is it actually reality?

Let's say we are all sitting in a room. We all agree that the room exists, but each of us sees it from a different point-of-view. Given we all agree that the room exists, then what does the room actually look like in reality? The room certainly exists beyond yours or my limited point-of-view, but what does it actually appear like in reality?

With these limited body-minds, we cannot even know what the simplest room looks like in reality, let alone what reality is.

a reply to: InTheLight

I like the first few propositions he makes. It's logically sound, but also shows how are descriptions are just that: descriptions.

However, his and many others' words touch on how I choose a path (a reasoning, a learned known, an intuition, a self-evident universal truth) to accepting my experiences along with comparing others' experiences (through the sharing of words and descriptions), that which can then be accepted as another universal reality, outside the physical body-only reality.

I don't mind this sort of perspectivism as all. If anything it is healthy, and people should have faith in themselves before another. But just know that if you ever wish to communicate your views sufficiently, and without too much dissent from your listeners, a careful consideration of word choice, clarity, logic, reason and evidence are necessary so that those who do not share your experience can understand and imagine your viewpoint.

Speakers of a spiritual persuasion usually appeal to the emotions of their listeners, which in my opinion is dangerous, as was the case with J.J. Rousseau influencing Robespierre, which led to the French Revolution.

If those of a spiritual sort were to utilize rhetoric, as Martin Luther King did (no one could refute Letters from a Birmingham Jail), large spiritual movements and changing of paradigms are possible.

a reply to: bb23108

Let's say we are all sitting in a room. We all agree that the room exists, but each of us sees it from a different point-of-view. Given we all agree that the room exists, then what does the room actually look like in reality? The room certainly exists beyond yours or my limited point-of-view, but what does it actually appear like in reality?

The room looks like nothing if no one is there to see it. The way something appears is dependent on a relationship between the bodies and their environment. "A point of view" is the point from which the body views. Without that body, that point of view, nothing is appearing.

With these limited body-minds, we cannot even know what the simplest room looks like in reality, let alone what reality is.

The body is quite sufficient at describing what it sees. However reality looks like nothing if nothing is looking at it. It looks different to bats and owls because bats and owls have different bodies.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: bb23108


The room looks like nothing if no one is there to see it. The way something appears is dependent on a relationship between the bodies and their environment. "A point of view" is the point from which the body views. Without that body, that point of view, nothing is appearing
.

But you do agree that the room exists regardless of one's point-of-view, right? Or are you arguing a form of solipsism?

If you agree that the room exists in reality but that nothing is appearing apart from a point-of-view, then what does that tell you about reality and anything that arises?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

are you ignoring my posts?

a reply to: bb23108

But you do agree that the room exists regardless of one's point-of-view, right? Or are you arguing a form of solipsism?

If you agree that the room exists in reality but that nothing is appearing apart from a point-of-view, then what does that tell you about reality and anything that arises?

Yes the room exists. No solipsism.

I’m not sure what you mean about things arising. When I look at a rock, the rock doesn’t “arise” in my vision, my vision simply faces towards the rock. The rock doesn’t move. It is my head and eyes and body that moves.

When you say that “nothing is appearing”, that only means I am not there to witness what is there. It isn’t on the onus of reality to appear or not, the onus is on me to look.

a reply to: TzarChasm

are you ignoring my posts?

Never. I read every reply. I just do not answer them all.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: TzarChasm

are you ignoring my posts?

Never. I read every reply. I just do not answer them all.

i thought mine were worth answering, considering they were direct questions. help me navigate the minefield, sergeant.