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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: buttonion]
    #2274244 -

somewhere in r a heinlein's writings is a simple observation that goes something like this:
the dictionary has 28 definitions of the word "be" - every one of them false-to-fact !!!
:wink:


--------------------
old enough to know better
not old enough to care

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: buttonion]
    #2274716 -

Bravo buttonion! Excellent thread!

Although I made my initial post just to have fun with reasoning, I do agree with you.

On the other hand, the pragmatic theory of truth basically says that what is true is what works and what is consistent with the wider system of beliefs. There is not necessarily a real reality behind things according to this view. Whereas a realist might say ?this theory is or is getting us closer to what is actually going on? the pragmatist would say ?this theory is useful as means to our goals and consistent with other experience.?

I just wish that more and more scientists today would become aware and consider seriously the pragmatic theory of truth.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2274723 -

Software does not "exist" within the confines of our everyday human "physical" existence...but software does exist within the confines of a computer system.

No, it doesn?t exist in either of the two. Software exists only within the confines of cultural context. Software is essentially non existent for an alien culture, while it can exist independently of any computer system, when you run an algorithm in your mind.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: Ped]
    #2274769 -

Ped said:
The way we mistake our view of reality and the way things exist can be clearly expressed by illustrating the way we mistake our view of our territorial world. It is easy to relate to the illusions of borders. I intend to suggest that the illusion of boundries between conventional objects -- the illusion that objects exist independently and from their own side -- is not different from the illusion that borders truly exist between two nations. I also intend to suggest how these illusory views are the root of all our suffering.


This implies you don't believe space is real, since distinction between objects requires a physical seperation - a 'beginning' and an 'end' of the object(s) in question. I agree. Space is an illusion created by our minds to allow us to structurise the world we perceive, and in turn survive.

Quote:
Neither dolphins nor parrots as a whole have left such a scar on this earth.


Nor do those species have opposable thumbs with which to efficiently manipulate tools. This has more to do with their influence on the Earth (well, that and conceptual thought) than their ultimate value as a life form. Nevertheless, I agree humans aren't superior to any other species. In fact, for a species that is alledgedly intelligent, we're rather inferior if you consider our detrimental effect on wildlife.
Our disastrous effect on our own home planet is related to the inherent laziness of the human being. Because of this laziness, we've invented newer and better tools, and we've also given our individual power away, first to a representative (clan leader), later to a government. With the creation of nations, there's a reason for large scale wars. Combine this with our need for comfort (creating the complex production and distribution networks we have now) and you'll see how
it was inevitable we rid the Earth of its natural balance.
We've made grain crops dependent upon us through selection (selecting the tougher stems that don't allow the plant to lose any seeds we don't intend it to lose) ten thousand years ago, and now the whole natural world is dependant upon our whims/needs, call it what you will.

Quote:
We don't experience border crossings in this way, however. We tend to assign great importance to the fact that we have "left Canada" and "entered the USA", as though we had left a movie theater and arrived in the parking lot. We even insist upon capitalizing the names of countries and territories.

To us, the experience is quite vivid and quite real, but has no valid basis.


I've never felt much for governments, but the only reason I acknowledge territorial borders is practical and legal consideration. The validity lies in the practical ramifications. The borders are illusory, but you're still forced to take them into account for practical purposes. Just like there's no validity in inheritance of power through bloodline, but it still applies in the real world (if need be in the form of heirlooms and capital).

Quote:
By analyzing our experience, we can see that the boundries that divide our planet exist and function only in dependence upon our mind. By furthering our investigation, we can extend this analysis into every aspect of our lives.


The fact these concepts still exist must at least tittilise the mind to such a degree that it makes one wonder why. There can only be one answer: concepts have served our survival, and still do. I think it's safe to say most people realise their garage isn't radically different from their living room on a spatial level.
The distinction lies in function, and we need to assign a function to everything. The only things that lack function as such are concepts that don't need to correlate to external reality, like philosophy, religion and art.

Quote:
Where do "loud", and "bright" exist? Only in our mind.


So you view external stimuli as the mind's projection of received energy? A hologram created by the brain using neurological input?

Quote:
Profoundly understanding this, we would find ourselves incapable of behaving toward the earth and eachother in the way that we do now.


The truth has to be felt as well as known. Pure memorisation of your statements wouldn't do the trick, values cannot be transferred as easily as concepts can.

Off-topic:
Suffering cannot ever be extermined in my opinion unless we learn not to grow up. This may come across as a blunt statement, but please allow me to explain.
To grow up in this context, is to abandon playfulness, to abandon fantasy as a tool and a form of entertainment, to concentrate on the material and, finally, to become rigid in ones beliefs.
Imagine what the world would be like if we lived our lives on a need-to-do basis, if we abandoned all bullshit like a market economy, and focused on what we need to survive, nothing more. If we taught our children how to be content instead of teaching them to 'do better' than we ourselves have. If we taught them fundamental values and not how to manipulate others into thinking your child, as an individual, is superior and worhty of more power than the other.

The world we have now is impossible to totally grasp. None but a selected few (probably around one hundred people would be my guess) know what's causing world events, who's causing them. In my ever so humble opinion, the madness should stop and everyone should review what's really important in their lives.

This doesn't go to say you should quit your job and slack around all day. To extinguish suffering requires mental effort as well as labour. The mental exercise, as indicated beforehand, is to learn to be content. The physical effort should be concentrated on what you really need. This is different for every individual, although most people could really live without a cell phone that can act as a camera, personal agenda, notebook, game console and whatnot. The key is to stop the maddening grind as a cog in the corporate machine.


--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: raytrace]
    #2274810 -

raytrace said:
Software does not "exist" within the confines of our everyday human "physical" existence...but software does exist within the confines of a computer system.

No, it doesn?t exist in either of the two. Software exists only within the confines of cultural context. Software is essentially non existent for an alien culture, while it can exist independently of any computer system, when you run an algorithm in your mind.


Well in that case, the "software" would exist within the confines of the mind system (alien or otherwise).

Saying "Software exists only within the confines of cultural context" makes no sense unless you take computers themselves to be a cultural context :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2274819 -

heh computers aren't just cultural context - they're going to help us save our asses


--------------------
Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: Strumpling]
    #2274854 -

No, they are definately not a cultural context :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2274863 -

Of course they are. If an alien culture arrives here by means of astral travel, and sees <insert company name here> <insert program name here> work on a <insert manifacturer here> computer, they'll have no idea what's causing the images. So basically, they'll have no idea what computers or software are. They'll just see a frame with changing images.


--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2274873 -

You're confusing content with programming!

The words on this page are content...the "code" used to display the page is programming. Any alien race which manages to travel to the Earth (through whatever means) will probably have come accross their own version of the concept of programming.

If I look at an Italian program, I won't understand a word of it...but that doesn't make it not a program :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2274890 -

Well in that case, the "software" would exist within the confines of the mind system (alien or otherwise).

yes, it would exist within the mind, but only in one that is orientated with our culture.


Saying "Software exists only within the confines of cultural context" makes no sense unless you take computers themselves to be a cultural context

The devices we call "computers" need cultural context themselves to be...well computers. An alien that had no previous contact with human culture will presumambly use a PC as something to stare at while getting high (not to imply that humans don't do that)

In order for a process to be computation you need someone that interprets it in an appropriate way. Nobody prevents me to use a waving flag to compute, but I first have to define a set of principles that when applied on the movement of the flag decipher desirable meaning. So, a waving flag might be a computer for an alien race but it is not a computer for me or in general.

By extend, software exists only culturally. Is it clear?

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2274892 -

exactly, Trendal - let's bring this one home:

Regardless of whether or not an alien race came down and checked out our computers, the computers are still there, and so is the software. If all people were to vanish, the computers would still be here, and so would the software, it just wouldn't be useful for any other animals here (in fact its probably pretty ugly..).

Kind of like how DNA seems to contain "software" that shows life what to do! We barely have ANY clue how it does this, but its still there in the DNA code - its just not easy to understand. There could be software running all around us (like in the matrix for instance?) without us knowing it. But it would still be there, and it wouldn't just be cultural, because even if the whole culture died, it would remain..


--------------------
Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: raytrace]
    #2274904 -

"By extend, software exists only culturally. Is it clear?"

It is no clear to me at all..... It doesn't matter how usefull or understood the programming (software) is - its still there, and it would still exist no matter what interacted with it in what ways.

The computer could be used improperly by an alien, sure, but the programming, the software, would still be there - I don't see what you mean.


--------------------
Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: raytrace]
    #2274918 -

By extend, software exists only culturally. Is it clear?

Nope, still not any more clear...

The devices we call "computers" need cultural context themselves to be...well computers.

Not exactly...they require conscious knowledge of them to be considered "computers". This is different than cultural context. As Strumpling said, the computer would still be there and would still do it's thing if our culture ceased to exist. If another culture came upon it and didn't know what it was...it wouldn't magically start doing something different! It would continue doing what it is programmed to do - whatever that may be.

Now this new culture could, in time, figure out what the computer is, what it does, and what it can be used for.

Have they changed into our culture?

Just because another culture doesn't know what one of our words is for something, or our description of it, doesn't change what it is :wink:

I can call an orange an apple all I want...but it won't make it an apple except to me, and then only in the word I am using for it.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: Alan Stone]
    #2274919 -

>> Our disastrous effect on our own home planet is related to the inherent laziness of the human being. Because of this laziness, we've invented newer and better tools

Underneath such laziness, though, is our capacity to prioritize ourselves over others. We are only capable of prioritizing ourself over others because we perceive ourselves as islands of conciousness experiencing objects as though they were "waiting" for us to encounter them as they are. If we profoundly understand that distinctions between self and other, self and object, object and object have no inherent existence, we would find ourselves incapable of prioritizing ourselves over others, and therefore incapable of experiencing suffering, or causing others to experience suffering.

Laziness is dependent upon the ability to cherish one's self, and the ability to cherish one's self is dependent upon the ability to grasp at one's self, to perceive the self as seperate. Being that we have the ability to reverse these wrong views, it follows that laziness is not an inherent attribute of the human being.


>> So you view external stimuli as the mind's projection of received energy? A hologram created by the brain using neurological input?

Something similar to this, yes. "Loud" and "Bright" are opinions, but we do not experience "Loud" and "Bright" as though we had an opinion of them. If somebody drops a vase and we hear a sound that disturbs us, we think "That was a very loud sound." But if we're at a rock concert and dissatisfied with the quality of the audio, even sounds many times greater in volume than a fallen vase may be dissatisfactory, and we may think "The sound is much too quiet." We experience either of these circumstances as though that's how they actually were, ignoring the reality that either of these are phenomena dependent upon a circumstantial basis.

Conceptually, it is easy to understand that our entire experience is comprised of views and opinions pervaded by our predispositions, but downloading this understanding into every moment of our experience is very difficult and requires practice.


>> The truth has to be felt as well as known. Pure memorisation of your statements wouldn't do the trick, values cannot be transferred as easily as concepts can.

This is what was meant by the words "Profoundly understanding this".


--------------------


:poison: Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud :poison:
Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: Strumpling]
    #2274921 -

maybe...just maybe...we should take this discussion out of this thread. anyway, I need to go now, I will get back to this later.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: raytrace]
    #2274923 -

No need to, this still ties into "existence" :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2275691 -

- Post History Deleted Upon User's Request -

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: trendal]
    #2276070 -

(1)

Strumpling:
Kind of like how DNA seems to contain "software" that shows life what to do! We barely have ANY clue how it does this, but its still there in the DNA code - its just not easy to understand.
Yeah, we use that metaphor. But people refer to most of nature as doing some sort of computation. Does this means that software is all around? In that case there is no reason to exclusively refer to what is in front of you as a computer.


(2)

trendal:
they require conscious knowledge of them to be considered "computers"
Well, in this case this means being aware of the cultural significance that we have assigned to that process, which is to compute in a certain way.


(3)

this new culture could, in time, figure out what the computer is, ?
When you deal with the question what is a computer, inevitably you have to deal with the buttonion?s second proposition. What is a not a computer?

A computer is indistinguishable from any other physical process. Anything a computer does can be understood without giving the explanation that it computes.

Moreover, a good part of contemporary computer scientists consider that natural processes can be understood as performing computation.

(maybe now you can try to answer this in your head: What is the difference that will make this a computer and not something else?)


(4)

? what it does, and what it can be used for.
So, you are presented with a strange something. You don?t fucking have a clue what it is doing, why the hell does it have to occur to you that it computes?

Ok, so the alien might had this crazy dream: an aliengel reveals to him that this piece of jumbled materials actually computes. Great! From this point, all he has to do is equivalent to taking an arbitrary physical process who spits out some funny patterns, and think of it as computer by projecting on it some wildly complex assumptions.

Have they changed into our culture?
Our cultures do not have to match, they have to intersect in the particular point, which is quite improbable.


(5)

Just because another culture doesn't know what one of our words is for something, or our description of it, doesn't change what it is
Probably true, but perspective does change what things are.


I can call an orange an apple all I want...but it won't make it an apple except to me, and then only in the word I am using for it.
You can call anything a computer viewed from the right perspective, both oranges and apples will do

Is anything objectively a computer?

consider: Can information exist by itself? What is information without consciousness? Does information still exist if put in different context?

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: raytrace]
    #2276775 -

So, you are presented with a strange something. You don?t fucking have a clue what it is doing, why the hell does it have to occur to you that it computes?

I don't have to know that it "computes" for it to still compute! Just because I have no idea what it's doing...doesn't change what it's doing.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: *cough* EXISTENCE *hack* [Re: buttonion]
    #2276943 -

- Post History Deleted Upon User's Request -

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