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Buster_Brown
L'une


Registered: 09/17/11
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: Rahz]
#23960091 - 12/27/16 09:59 AM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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Rahz said: Just to touch on an earlier point, perhaps best not to exaggerate the ability to change. Acceptance could be a more valuable strategy. Idealizing mind over matter will more likely end in Cartesian anxiety. Acceptance seems more likely to result in moderation, which in and of itself might negate the more troublesome aspects of dualistic perception.
Our adaptability could prove equal to the challenge.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,539
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it's a neat little origami of philosophical formality. well maybe it folds that way, or maybe we are still trying to crease something that is already too thick.
a Cartesian distinction between mind and body/sense starts off clearly, but quickly transforms such that mental processes become objectified or body like: if the creases are the mind part, insubstantial and one dimensional components, then the body is wrapped by the flat planar parts of the origami figure, bridging between the crease lines and giving strength and effects to the overall thing-ness.
the only violence I can see is in the rapid reversal of roles in subject and object as the origami interdependence of mind and body are evaluated.
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,230
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Quote:
Buster_Brown said:
Quote:
Rahz said: Just to touch on an earlier point, perhaps best not to exaggerate the ability to change. Acceptance could be a more valuable strategy. Idealizing mind over matter will more likely end in Cartesian anxiety. Acceptance seems more likely to result in moderation, which in and of itself might negate the more troublesome aspects of dualistic perception.
Our adaptability could prove equal to the challenge.
True, but part of adaptability is the ability to accept things about ourselves that aren't ideal. Acceptance in many situations may increase the likelihood of change as opposed to only seeing the negative aspect of a thing and fighting it and wanting to "conquer" it. That in itself could be considered a type of Cartesian violence.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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Kurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
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It may be true in cognitive science that Cartesianism is seemingly just a straight forward sensibility. We are seamlessly just going back and forth, between laying out a genuine subject matter of investigation (which is the mind) and the formal difference of a subject's perceptions (to sensed objects) which as a relation just "articulates" this subject, which we can turn back and forth from effectively.
When cartesianism or cognitivism is a more broadly projected attitude to our world, without implied organic basis of a subject as subject matter as its basis to fall back on, the empirical basis is arguably more arbitrary and projectional. Rather than just eliciting an organic or natural phenomenon, implicitly, things are defined as the "object" more than as "subject" that would show itself to the naturalist. I think people look right through this because the language is so implicit to us, in scientific attitudes, or that people are tired of "idealist" objections to objectification.
So turn back from the fold to the crease that is set in there. Where the body is res extensa in Descartes, we can see it as it the "extended" spatiotemporal dimensions to the mind's eye. Then, this is generalized or extrapolated as physical existence. Physicality itself is found as the table or "matrix" of extended linear dimensions, of calculable or determinable realities in which objects are found. Nature can become then the sum totality of dimensions and entities, and facts about them, found contained within this term.
The being or way of being of things in "extention" is an essential containing, or enframing. The rocket built to go to the moon and gather geological specimens by the dreamer, or engineer doing his job, demonstrates and contains to it, the laws of astrophysics and laws of thermodynamics, that suffice to get it there. The science is not grounded in any implicit relation, (as if hyperbolically what we were describing as science was strictly intended to go and get those entities on the moon, to reveal nature as it is). This vehicle is itself the setting upon, and the way of bringing and challenging a nature forward, in many implicit dimensions and possibilities of itself. We see science shift (as effeciently enough) more incidentally in the extentional object, than in subject matters, although they will be parsed into appropriate fields after the empirical objectification.
In this relationship, there is no implied organic net to fall back into though (like the subject of mind) and what we discover is without implied guidence of nature. Mainly this practically sorts itself out. The subject to object relation takes over the subject matters, though which become more arbitrary. My view, is in this moment, Cartesianism looks to enframe and impose a more mechanical reality, or invention as body than nature itself tends to actually have in itself. If the idea goes back to Descartes it is sensible to assume that we deal with the world in mechanics...
Quote:
I specifically paused to show that, if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to use speech, or other signs composed by themselves, as we do to express our thoughts to others. For one could easily conceive of a machine that is made in such a way that it utters words, and even that it would utter some words in response to physical actions that cause a change in its organs—for example, if someone touched it in a particular place, it would ask what one wishes to say to it, or if it were touched somewhere else, it would cry out that it was being hurt, and so on. But it could not arrange words in different ways to reply to the meaning of everything that is said in its presence, as even the most unintelligent human beings can do. The second means is that, even if they did many things as well as or, possibly, better than anyone of us, they would infallibly fail in others. Thus one would discover that they did not act on the basis of knowledge, but merely as a result of the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need a specific disposition for every particular action.
Renes Descartes; Discourse on Method
Usually these attitudes of situating and working with a machine are well disclaimed, or considered "pragmatically" (hardly in any philosophical sense, but in utilities). The tendency to project seems obvious, even though it is immediately containing. For instance, the current apologetics for Descartes in contemporary philosophy of the mind, seem to be saying that animals are not less like machines than Descartes anthroprocentrically supposed, but that (at least by analogy) we are ourselves are more like computational functions and machines. Maybe that will even things out and this would be a good thing.
To say there is violence to the conventionality of Cartesianism is not necessarily to say it is wholly wrong, too. It works well for cognitivists to describe the mind in organic "functions", for instance. The usefulness of analogies to computer hardware, an input output structure, (sensation response), is clear. In being able to go back and forth in the analogy (like in the way that in a thought experiment, whether a computer can pass a turing test or not is a general premise itself, which is taken to say alot about our views of mind, whatever our views are, or stand to be in this respect) there is a practically effective way to study the mind body relation. This does not describe the full bloom of cartesianism though, or the cognitivism of modern life, and culture, where the implications of empirical studies are different. They are implicitly containing differently.
I do not think it is just a sociological interpretation, to say we live in a highly effecient, engineered reality, a highly attuned power structure. Probably it would be difficult to say there is an overt violence in conventional modern existence as such, without seeming nihilistic, but I would like to raise the question, what is engrained in what Descartes' categories?
The irony is, as modern or radical as he was in this technical departure, he was actually a creationist, in many of his arguments; and not just his view of body or nature, and animals. The "hard" question of mind and body essentially reflects this, because when Descartes argues to the existence of the mind by a straight line of doubt, (to the one indubitable proposition of mind when all else can be doubted) the only way he gets the world back from solipsistic skepticism, and aligns the senses with a real world, is to invoke god, a benevolent author who explicitly would not deceive the senses. When we live in much different world today, with different appeals to authority, and yet the way we make this connection, from Descartes on, is more arbitrated in power and force, I would say than anything else previously.
The simplist way to put it, (aside from my argument to interpretation) is body in Descartes, res extensa, is situated (in respect to mind, res cogitans) as something simultaneously projectional and containing nature.
Edited by Kurt (12/27/16 07:57 PM)
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: sudly]
#23961252 - 12/27/16 07:35 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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sudly said: I don't think one comes to knowledge through consciousness alone
I think you are right, but an idealist philosopher would disagree and you have no logical argument that could refute this hypothetical idealist philosopher. This is why we still talk about Decarte.
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sudly said: Again, most people don't seem to see any difference between consciousness and sentience.
Could you explain it please?
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: Kurt]
#23961270 - 12/27/16 07:46 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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Kurt said: Blig bling, posturing about death anxiety and then suggesting we have a metaphysical anxiety attack about your conception of the existence of god is faux pas.
Do not argue devils advocate for bad arguments from now on. How about that as a strategy? It might be good to come to actual grounds of argument, rather than just projecting personalities out of the blue.
Wow, seems I've touched a nerve with you Kurt. It's ok. I'm used to it. Most people don't like being told that their raison d'être is simply a coping mechanism.
How about you stop dictating how people should or should not argue in a public forum designed specifically for arguing.
It's funny because I even went as far as telling you that I wasn't trying to be a dick, but it seems your hubris has gotten in the way of a straightforward and charitable argument.
Explain why death anxiety is simply a myth and not a genuine portion of reality and perhaps we can have a civil argument. Earlier you said that it is simply a way of coping with cynicism and I conceded this with the caveat that this does not refute the entire argument for death anxiety. If you are scientifically minded I can point you towards some empirically grounded studies of death anxiety, but I am more than happy to argue it from a purely philosophical perspective. Your move...
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961297 - 12/27/16 08:02 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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blingbling said:
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sudly said: I don't think one comes to knowledge through consciousness alone
I think you are right, but an idealist philosopher would disagree and you have no logical argument that could refute this hypothetical idealist philosopher. This is why we still talk about Decarte.
I would say that one can come to knowledge through a sense of morality, a conscience and overall sentience.
Quote:
sudly said: Again, most people don't seem to see any difference between consciousness and sentience.
Could you explain it please?
Consciousness is an awareness of elements external to ones self.
Quote:
Consciousness: the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.
Sentience is an internal awareness of individual perceptions made from an individuals conscience and sense of morality.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: sudly] 1
#23961331 - 12/27/16 08:21 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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I think separating consciousness and sentience is a mystification. All things that one is conscious of arise in consciousness whether they are dependent on external phenomena or not, and this includes morality. This is precisely the reason that idealism is a logical philosophical argument. Again, I'm not peddling idealism, I am just trying to point out its merits which you seem to be skipping over in your haste to ground sentience or consciousness in material reality.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961337 - 12/27/16 08:24 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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To me the separation of consciousness and sentience is the separation of body and mind.
Sensations arise from consciousness as nerve impulses which are then processed by sentience into perceptions
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,539
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: Kurt]
#23961344 - 12/27/16 08:27 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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the opposite of your quote for descartes thought experiment is true
Quote:
Kurt said: It may be true in cognitive science that Cartesianism is seemingly just a straight forward sensibility. We are seamlessly just going back and forth, between laying out a genuine subject matter of investigation (which is the mind) and the formal difference of a subject's perceptions (to sensed objects) which as a relation just "articulates" this subject, which we can turn back and forth from effectively.
When cartesianism or cognitivism is a more broadly projected attitude to our world, without implied organic basis of a subject as subject matter as its basis to fall back on, ... ... My view, is in this moment, Cartesianism looks to enframe and impose a more mechanical reality, or invention as body than nature itself tends to actually have in itself. If the idea goes back to Descartes it is sensible to assume that we deal with the world in mechanics...
Quote:
I specifically paused to show that, if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to use speech, or other signs composed by themselves, as we do to express our thoughts to others. For one could easily conceive of a machine that is made in such a way that it utters words, and even that it would utter some words in response to physical actions that cause a change in its organs—for example, if someone touched it in a particular place, it would ask what one wishes to say to it, or if it were touched somewhere else, it would cry out that it was being hurt, and so on. But it could not arrange words in different ways to reply to the meaning of everything that is said in its presence, as even the most unintelligent human beings can do. The second means is that, even if they did many things as well as or, possibly, better than anyone of us, they would infallibly fail in others. Thus one would discover that they did not act on the basis of knowledge, but merely as a result of the disposition of their organs. For whereas reason is a universal instrument that can be used in all kinds of situations, these organs need a specific disposition for every particular action.
Renes Descartes; Discourse on Method
...
natural speech from human looking machines are very near on the horizon.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: sudly] 1
#23961348 - 12/27/16 08:34 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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sudly said: To me the separation of consciousness and sentience is the separation of body and mind.
Sensations arise from consciousness as nerve impulses which are then processed by sentience into perceptions 
Sensations of the body arise in consciousness just like the appearance of a thought, the colour red etc. You need an extra "leap of faith" (to quote Kierkegaard) to say that a body actually exists. You could be a brain in a vat somewhere which is programmed to believe it has a body. I'm not saying we should take this argument so seriously that we spend the rest of our days wondering whether we really have a body. All I'm saying is that it should be taken into account when we discuss these things from the perspective of philosophy.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961366 - 12/27/16 08:52 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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Sensations of the body can arise through consciousness but that doesn't say anything about how perceptions arise, especially since perceptions are formed through the processes of mental synthesis.
The only leap of faith is to think one doesn't have a body and I'm saying we shouldn't view that argument in any way as serious because you could be a turtle but you're not, you are a human being.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: sudly] 1
#23961383 - 12/27/16 09:05 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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If you are conscious of something whether it be a perception or a thought or whatever, it is a content of consciousness and to say anything more requires the caveat that it could be incorrect. For example perhaps I perceive the colour red, but in actual fact it was the colour purple. I see the colour red again and I can doubt whether it really is red, but I cannot doubt that I am conscious of something. Consciousness of something is the only thing which cannot be doubted. I can doubt everything except the fact that I am conscious enough to doubt. This is a kind of radical skepticism which there is no logical argument against.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,539
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961409 - 12/27/16 09:24 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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isn't that minimal absolutism?
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961421 - 12/27/16 09:32 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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For the tenth time on this forum, individual perception of colour can be different due to different colour rods and cones in our eyes but the wavelength of specific colours are always the same. E.g. A colour blind person sees colours differently because there is a physical abnormality in the cones and rods of their eyes.

You can doubt whatever you like but that doesn't mean nature is any less real or true.
Being conscious of the environment around you isn't the same as being aware of your own sense of morality.
I'm not doubting consciousness, I'm saying all life on Earth experiences consciousness but that only humans and trained service animals can express a sense of morality, a conscience and overall sentience.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
Posts: 2,987
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: isn't that minimal absolutism?
it could be called that. i thought it was called radical skepticism.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
Posts: 2,987
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: sudly]
#23961560 - 12/27/16 11:12 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
sudly said: For the tenth time on this forum, individual perception of colour can be different due to different colour rods and cones in our eyes but the wavelength of specific colours are always the same. E.g. A colour blind person sees colours differently because there is a physical abnormality in the cones and rods of their eyes.

You can doubt whatever you like but that doesn't mean nature is any less real or true.
Being conscious of the environment around you isn't the same as being aware of your own sense of morality.
I'm not doubting consciousness, I'm saying all life on Earth experiences consciousness but that only humans and trained service animals can express a sense of morality, a conscience and overall sentience.
your knowledge of cones and receptors is merely a content of consciousness and can therefor be doubted. whereas my assertion of the primacy of consciousness cannot be doubted, so goes the argument for idealism...
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961589 - 12/27/16 11:23 PM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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Anything can be doubted but that doesn't mean there is any merit to the doubts, I can doubt gravity, maths and science but that doesn't mean they aren't true, I can doubt the world is round but that doesn't mean it's true, I can doubt computers were made by man but that doesn't mean it's true.
I'm saying that consciousness is a pre-requisite to sentience and not the other way around so I don't even know what you're arguing against.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: sudly] 1
#23961638 - 12/28/16 12:02 AM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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No, everything except consciousness can be doubted. That was Decarte's point.
I'm just trying to get you to admit that idealism is logically consistent. I agree with almost everything you've said, I just think that you have skipped over some of the other arguments about consciousness without due course.
And its kinda fun to play the other side of the field for a while
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
Posts: 10,810
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Re: Cartesianism and Violence [Re: blingbling]
#23961668 - 12/28/16 12:23 AM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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My point is that doubt alone doesn't make things in nature untrue.
Idealism is a synonym for daydreaming? I can daydream about a talking cupboard and to me it may seem logically consistent but it's in no way rational in the real world.
If there's anything I've skipped over it'd be lovely for you to share what that is.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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