3RU7AL

A person with 10 heads. I can't show you something that doesn't exist of course, but we can imagine something that doesn't physically exist, if you just take everything to exist, it's a pretty useless term

Exist means to occur, either physically or metaphysically.

False knowledge does not exist.

Star Trek fictional universe have yet to find an answer to the soul.

Well for one, it distinguishes us from complicated sorting machines and gives the human a special innate dignity.

Why doesthat matter?   It's because those experiences happen in brains and unless they can be implemrnted in a machine somethig very oddis going on in brains - undermining physicalism.

Passing a test is not the same as actually experiencing subjective feelings.

Should a person who lies while taking a lie detector test and passes anyway be considered to be telling the truth?

My view is 'there is no god' is a 'scientfic fact', not a 'mathematical fact', meaning that its not proven or provable by abstract logic but there is evidence [?] against the existence ofgod, and nothing that forces rejection of it [rejection of the unspecified evidence against (a deistic) god?].

Man is created in God's image. 

This is the basis of human rights.

Someone in 1845 could say, factually, "there are only seven planets in our solar system".

If it is a fact that only 7 planets existed in 1845, how could an 8th one be discovered?  It must have existed all along, waiting to be discovered.

I wouldsay the existence of Neptune is independent of our knowledge about it.  What the someone in 1845 should have saidis 'there are only 7 known planets' - that is factually true.   That there are only 7 is factually incorrect, albeit the error is not known.

If I wanted to say something about our knowlege then I wouldn't say 'neptune came intoexistence in 1846' - that sentence gives a completely incorrect picture of a planet popping into existence at that time.

Your "imaginary friend" example is a little too generous for my taste.

I'd say that the "imaginary friend" may possibly "exist" beyond my epistemological limits, but since it is neither scientifically verifiable nor a logical necessity, it would not qualify as "real" or "actual" or "existent" in any practical or factual sense.

Let's use then an imaginary force (same idea, but a little more down to earth). Imagine all humans always lived their lives on planet x, which although having about the same mass as earth, spins about 17 times faster (ignoring all the practical issues of living on such a planet). They may well come up with a fundamental force that repels (let's say for good measure every object in the universe spun like this). This is a "fictitious" force in physics, in the same way as centripetal force is a fictitious force. My point is, the force is scientifically verifiable. Just like centripetal force is. And so would be the child's imaginary friend with a good definition of imaginary friend. 

I think I am confused about what you mean by something and nothing again. But maybe we should revisit existence itself: I tend to go by: A thing is said to exist if change in the universe can be traced back to it. 

I believe in epistemological limits.  Something can be said to "exist" if it is scientifically verifiable and or a logical necessity.

the scientifically verifiable part of this I believe is equivalent to what I said.

My question then to you is "does logic exist." That is, is logic a logical necessity or is it scientifically verifiable.

I believe this gets circular since science uses a particular logical system (or rather, particular logical systems since it changes depending on domain). And saying logic is logically necessary is clearly circular.

My point here I guess is that the logical system used has little justification and even by using the classical Aristotlean logical system like non-contradiction etc. you get weird stuff in physics likes Schrodinger's cat etc. that seem to say, hey, you need a different system. 

Why do pieces necessitate a whole? And what are these pieces that can be objectively delineated?

The pieces are what you know.  Do you know "everything"?  If not, then you can logically deduce that you know "part of" "everything".

This seems weird to me. Is, in your opinion, knowledge part of "everything"? (Then You get into the whole how do I know that I know that I know that I know...)

Is knowledge certainly true? or is it just probable? If it is not certainly true, how could we say that knowledge is part of reality? 

I either think I know everything or don't know anything, personally if knowledge is certainly true. If knowledge is just probabilistic, I have no idea what I know. 

It often strikes me when I look at a brightly coloured object.  For example, right now I'm looking a bright blue carrier bag.

The question asked is whether neptune existed in 1845, purely for the purpose of clarifying the intuitive meaning of 'exist'.

Computers can do a lot of things brains can do - I don't think I have questioned that.  It is the specific issue of subjecte experience/qualia -- what Chalmers calls the 'hard problem of consciousness'  where things get murky!

I thought this was a debate about whether or not 3RU7AL is a robot.

I note that elsewhere you wrote

Qualia blows a huge hole right through the heart of science.

I think that's overstating things abit, but it seemswe agree there is a big problem reconciling science, physicalism and qualia.   

While you might get away with a theological argument in the religion forum, in the philosophy section its against the unwriiten rules to inoke any form of magic, miracle or divine influence - here we seek mechanisms and algorithms!  [LINK]

Notice:"pretty"Which means that you are not sure... the main point is to stop obesity, most of pro's main points are about obesity.

If you don't lke the sun as an example, consider Neptune which was discovered in 1846.  Did it exist in 1845?   I have no problem saying it did.

Of course its to decrease obesity... one of the main points of the tax is to decrease obesity, I mainly focusing on how that WON'T WORK.

I doubt any robot ever built has had experiences at all.

not sure I follow - or rather i am sure I don't follow!

Do you think experiences happen in brains?

Therefore it should be possible to build a machine that has subjective experiences.

I absolutely hate the idea of a Junk Food Tax.

What is being discussed here is, I think, physicalism. I think the actor being a racist always comes down to a certain action. Either you say someone is a racist based on how they treat other people or based on how they think (or a combination, but you get the point), but either way, whether your preferred definition is the thoughts or the treatment, it's all action in the physical world. Either neurons firing in a certain way or certain muscular movements in their mouth to form vibrations in the air that are designated as a slur, it's all action and, in principle discoverable as long as you define your terms well. Even if they are just pretending, pretending is an action that could be, in theory, read from their brain. 

What I said there was unclear, I apologize. I wasn't saying we exist in order to process these bits of data, but that processing these bits of data requires existence, so "we must exist if we are able to process these bits of data." That might have been a better rendition of what I meant. 

And since it has "pieces" there must be a "whole".

Why do pieces necessitate a whole? And what are these pieces that can be objectively delineated?

We don't know what exactly this "something" is, that is to say, it might be something entirely different than what it appears to be, but we can be absolutely certain that it is definitely not "nothingness".

I think I am confused about what you mean by something and nothing again. But maybe we should revisit existence itself: I tend to go by: A thing is said to exist if change in the universe can be traced back to it. 

I think this is logically identical to detectibility and quantum entanglement with a measuring device. Also, I don't think existence needs to be objective. If a kid believes in the existence of an imaginary friend and does something as a result, from the child's perspective, the imaginary friend may well exist, while for others it might be the child's belief in the imaginary friend that exists, but there is no objective way to compare.  

By hypothesis, the actor is not a racist but pretending to one.   The actor is ontologically non-racist - one issue is whether that fact is discoverable.   If what is discoverable is that he is a racist then that is a problem.

I'm not really sure what is being discussed!

We are butting up against the distinction between 'epistemology' and 'ontology'.  In the scenario, the ontological fact is that he is not a racist (he is specified as good hearted so that's a given), but that fact is not epistemologically accessible - ie we cannot know he is not racist, and indeed by using reason we would incorrectly infer that he was.

You're saying we process bits of data which means we exist to process these bits of data.

How do you know if I "experience blue" like you do?  How do you know if I "experience love" like you do?

Precisely!  You know such questions are not answerable given our present state of ignorance.  So how can you say there is no problem of qualia?  With most problems the dificulty is finding the answer but with matters of consciousness the difficuty is finding the right questions!

This seems circular to me still. You're saying we process bits of data which means we exist to process these bits of data. How does this consider the possibility that we aren't actually processing bits of data? Just because you feel like something is the case subjectively doesn't mean that's the case. Sometimes you need a different perspective. (From a person's perspective the world may well seem flat, and from your perspective you may well seem to process data and/or exist. None of this thought seems to point to a "whole" or existence without feeling they exist beforehand. 

Look at something blue.  It looks blue, doesn't it?   How do I program a computer to see it as blue?   Not as some encoding but as the subjective colour blue.

I'm not interested in anything functionally equivalent to seeing blue - I am interested in a computer seeing blue things as blue.  

Don't get too hung up on the "I".  It is merely a placeholder for "not nothingness".  Co-(together) gito-(agitate) ergo-(therefore) sum-(total).  In other-words, pieces, together, therefore, sum total.

I don't know if that's a fair interpretation of Descartes. But that is NOT what that Latin means. Yes, cogito comes from etymologically con-agito which means something like "to act in engangement with," "sum" has nothing to do with summus which means 'highest' from which the english word sum comes. And Descartes originally posited all of this stuff in French anyhow, so it was je pense donc je suis. Which kind of blows a whole in the idea that he was looking at the meaning of the etymology of cogito because it is completely different for penser in French. Which comes from a work meaning to hang or something like that. If you are making your own interpretation of Cogito ergo sum, sure, go for it, but that is almost assuredly not what Descartes meant, especially if you go into his explanation of how he gets there. 

How about "God", there is already a word for this.

My argument is that reductive physicalism is almost certainly correct,

...but we have no adequate theory to account for subjective experience. 

I cannot deny that pink things look pink - I wish i could! 

I feel that a theory of consciousness that glosses over the problem of qualia is unsatisfactory. 

It might be a good partial theory, but it leaves the door wide open to dualism.

No, I am not, but the word noumenon is certainly related to this word.

And it is precisely this relation that justifies my assertion that Kant used the word improperly. Connect the dots!

I spit at your justification for perverting language in order to make right a fool's sophistry.

Surely the point is there is no difference from a physics point of view.... so where does the difference originate?   One can alays deny there is a difference, but that strikes me as feigning blindnstress to avoid addressing a tricky question beause there is something intrisically different about breaking a manequin and killing a person.

Kant used the word noumenon incorrectly because he either didn't know Greek or he is some kind of forerunner to the new age hippie bullshit movement.

(Hypothesis #1) the external world is the product of mind

(Hypothesis #2) the external world is the product of [unknown/unknowable factors] [not necessarily] "mindlessness"

None of that changes that all brain function would seem to be physical. Unless u2 is more than physical it is simply u1 and the distinction is artificial.

Thought itself is noumenon.

When you equate God with noumenon, you are essentially equating God with the idea of God which is a fallacy.

The unresolved problem can be illustrated if you look at some coloured obect in the room - a pink pencil sharpener, anything.

It is almost fatuous to say when you look at it you experience pinkness.  It is a different experience from that you would get if it was a blue pencil sharpner.   To you, pink things look pink and blue things look blue.

It's really quite simple.  Is the noumenon a human?  Is the ultimate reality a human?

If not, then it can't have human characteristics.

Noumenon by nature is very human because noumenon exists in thought, and we certainly think.

Noumenon =/= The Ultimate Reality.

Certainly God is not man, but God became man. 

It is this God becoming creation that deifies all of creation, bringing it into unity with God. All of creation is united to God in the flesh of God's word.

That depends on what the obective is.  If the end point is to make a toy that appears to have subjective experience that might do,but it wouldn't explain how subjectivity actually arises in human brains.  I take it you do have subjective experiences?   You don't just utter descriptions of experiences you don't actally have?  

You must have read about p-zombies?