Does "I" Exist? Or, Just a Concept?

[Iacchus]

Or, did you mean "can we measure and quantify experiance"? Not yet. Maybe not ever. However, if I were to damage a part of my brain which contained memory, or regulated access to it, I would lose some or all of my experiances. Therefore, experiance has a physical storage medium. Without it, I would never learn anything, and would babble innanely, forever asking the same questions.

And if you break the cup which contains the water, what happens to the water?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

And if you break the cup which contains the water, what happens to the water?

Your, I'll be generous, analogy, does not fit. Experiance is not water. Experiance is data stored. Destroy the storage medium, and the information is gone. If I burn a photo, the image of the photo is lost. If I melt down your hard drive, the information it contains is gone. If your brain is destroyed, your experiances, thoughts and memories are gone. It's that simple.

 

[Mojo]

So, when we think, are we using our brain? ... Or, is our brain using us?

This is an essentially meaningless question. You might as well ask whether an egg is a chicken's way of making more chickens or a chicken is an egg's way of making more eggs. As I'm sure you will.

Why is it that most people don't even experience the sensation of brain?

Because the brain is what the consciousness is running on.

Illusions? How so? And what makes "you" any different than the illusions that you experience?

I was introducing the possibility that what I observe may be illusion to pre-empt you bringing it up. I don't entertain the possibility seriously. Nevertheless, even if the stimuli I observe were illusions, I would still know that my consciousness exists because of the fact that I am able to observe them.

Can a hermit crab experience itself outside of the new shell that it moves into?

It depends on whether a hermit crab is conscious.

Yes, and why do "you" feel compelled to make that choice?

Because my perceptions are the only evidence I have for anything beyond the existence of my own consciousness. Considering them to be illusions would be tantamount to assuming that the observable universe doesn't exist, with nothing else to put in its place. That would be a ridiculous position to take.

Which of course is the Universe that "you" feel compelled to believe in.

As far as I can tell, from the evidence of my own perceptions (which as I mentioned is the only evidence I have) it's the one that exists.

 

[Iacchus]

Are you saying that you don't experience the perception of thought?

And when I watch a program on TV, am I experiencing the TV set or, the program which is being broadcast across the air? There would be no point to watching it if I were merely contemplating the workings of the TV set would there?

Why are there people who are blind Iacchus?

Is it because of a biological issue or a spritual one?

What, do you mean blind in the physical sense or, in the sense that they don't understand? Obviously there is a difference.

Just because there are perceptions does not mean that they are valid.

Something is being perceived nonetheless ... and very much by "the perceiver." In which case either that which is perceived becomes invalid or, that which is perceiving becomes invalid. It's your choice.

Press the palm of your hands to your eyes Iacchus, do those lines and shape exist out side or inside you.

Both.

They do exist, but where are they?

The experience of these exist on the other side of the signal which is induced into my brain ... and commingles with "the self" that resides there.

You do know that hermit crabs leave thier shells don't you. They use the perceptions of thier apparant bodies.

Because that which is alive and "vital" is housed within.

Can you see through a wall Iacchus?

It is the one that apparently exists.

No, not with my physical eyes. But, I can see way beyond it and, into the next the galaxy with my understanding.

 

[thesyntaxera]

Yet there would be no need to put "me" and/or "you" into the picture if it was all seemless and part of the environment would there? Why do we have a sense of identity and the need to differentiate between anything then?

Or, let me ask you this. Are you capable of discerning between the cup you are drinking out of and the water you are drinking out of the cup? Obviously the two are related (i.e., the process of drinking) but, they're not one and the same.

I feel like I am jumping in with poor timing but, regardless...

Iacchus, there is much experimental evidence through the investigations into quantum mechanics to suggest an underlying oneness, at least at a fundamental level. The problem with this knowledge is that people like RAMTHA/jz knight take this information and twist it to mean something spirtual, or to explain philosphies of dharma..etc...

The best that can be said, is that there is an underlying randomness of probabilities, and some claim that it is the act of cognition or decision making that chooses the reality you experience out of the many potential alternate realities.

An explanatory analogy might go something like this:

There is a computer. The screen represents the continuous reality. The hardrive, is the quantum mess. It contains all the probablities scattered across it's surface in the form of electrically manipulated magnetized particles. The hard disk spins, and the computer searches the surface of the disk for the information it needs to create the continuous reality visible on the screen, the ram compiles it and the cpu processes it ultimately revealing the reality as seen.

The brain is the cpu and ram, and existence in it's entirety is the hardrive.

There is no way to prove the many worlds interpretation so your guess is as good as mine.

Perhaps you should read David Deutsch's book The Fabric of Reality. He is a well respected Quantum Computational theorist, and author, despite being an adamant proponent of many worlds.

Some of the more metaphysical quantum theorists claim that it is the electrical bonds between all particles that is the force behind existence, or god in other words, and that the self is irrellevant. To them there is no I, just matter, and the electrical bonds that hold it together.

In this model, the brain is essentially just a tool for concentrating electricity into thoughts, and this is supported by our knowledge of brain biochemistry, and how it is all regulated by EM radiation that translates possibly through magnetite to the rest of the body, ultimately triggering the bioelectric reactions that dictate the firing of neurotransmitters to create the sensations and feelings we have.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

No, not with my physical eyes. But, I can see way beyond it and, into the next the galaxy with my understanding.

Now that's an extraordinary claim. Please, send in your application for the JREF $1,000,000 promptly. I eagerly await the demonstration of this ability.

 

[thesyntaxera]

Now that's an extraordinary claim. Please, send in your application for the JREF $1,000,000 promptly. I eagerly await the demonstration of this ability.

Seems to me he is talking about a mental image he has. Visual thinking is a real thing, and would explain is ability to "see to another galaxy". There is nothing supernatural about metaphor.

it's called imagination.

 

[Iacchus]

Now that's an extraordinary claim. Please, send in your application for the JREF $1,000,000 promptly. I eagerly await the demonstration of this ability.

No, I am merely assessing that if I'm to be impressed by the wonders of the Universe, that that impression occurs within the Universe within me.

 

[Iacchus]

Seems to me he is talking about a mental image he has. Visual thinking is a real thing, and would explain is ability to "see to another galaxy". There is nothing supernatural about metaphor.

it's called imagination.

Yes, something like that. Thanks.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Iaachus, there is no division between inside and outside you, but skin and bones. Your imagination exists within the Universe as a whole. You are not in any way divorced from it.

 

[Iacchus]

Some of the more metaphysical quantum theorists claim that it is the electrical bonds between all particles that is the force behind existence, or god in other words, and that the self is irrellevant. To them there is no I, just matter, and the electrical bonds that hold it together.

Which is to say it's not possible to have faith in what one believes in then, correct? But then again, why ask why in the first place if, there was no point to asking it? Or, would you go so far as to say that this somehow makes scientists feel "special" about all the research that they do?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Which is to say it's not possible to have faith in what one believes in then, correct? But then again, why ask why in the first place if, there was no point to asking it? Or, would you go so far as to suggest that this somehow makes scientists feel "special" about all the research that they do?

A person can have faith in anything they please. If wishes were fishes, Iacchus the dolphin would never need to hunt. In the real world, scientists have earned a right to "feel 'special'", because they can cure cancer, generate electricity, build computers and invent the clapper, all with their research, which you feel you have a right to dismiss casually.

 

[Iacchus]

Iaachus, there is no division between inside and outside you, but skin and bones. Your imagination exists within the Universe as a whole. You are not in any way divorced from it.

Really? Then why do we find the need to differentiate? Why should anything exist at all for that matter?

 

[Iacchus]

A person can have faith in anything they please. If wishes were fishes, Iacchus the dolphin would never need to hunt. In the real world, scientists have earned a right to "feel 'special'", because they can cure cancer, generate electricity, build computers and invent the clapper, all with their research, which you feel you have a right to dismiss casually.

No, the point being, if they're so willing to dismiss "the self," then what right do they have to feel anything? Let alone feeling "special" about it.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Really? Then why do we find the need to differentiate? Why should anything exist at all for that matter?

Is your question meant to ask how things have arrisen, or what purpose things have? The divisions we make about things are cognitive tools for understanding them. The concept of self works just fine, since no one else has the same genetic make-up, or history. You don't remember when I slit my foot open on a marble step, I do. The thing which recolects that is me, and is different from you.

The cognitive division between self and others is empirical.

 

[Iacchus]

Is your question meant to ask how things have arrisen, or what purpose things have?

Without an inside and outside to anything, there would be nothing ... albeit everything originates from within. The external world that we see before us is merely the aftermath of this.

The divisions we make about things are cognitive tools for understanding them. The concept of self works just fine, since no one else has the same genetic make-up, or history. You don't remember when I slit my foot open on a marble step, I do. The thing which recolects that is me, and is different from you.

The cognitive division between self and others is empirical.

Yes, nobody that exists outside of you, albeit contained within their own internal environment, has the same recollection as you about this.

 

[Iacchus]

Is your question meant to ask how things have arrisen, or what purpose things have?

Yes, things do arise by means of purpose.

 

[Mercutio]

Without an inside and outside to anything, there would be nothing ... albeit everything originates from within. The external world that we see before us is merely the aftermath of this.

So, then, infants are not taking in an external world, but creating it? Iacchus, you will have to present your ideas to the thousands of developmental psychologists who, it seems, have it all backwards.

...unless you are just making [rule8] up yet again.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes, things do arise by means of purpose.

This is demonstrably untrue. Snowflakes form because it's cold. The snowflakes need no purposeful master to arrainge them into lattices. Darwinian thought has divorced us from your "Matter arrises from Mind" position. Your philosphy is centuries out of date.

Without an inside and outside to anything, there would be nothing ... albeit everything originates from within. The external world that we see before us is merely the aftermath of this.

There would be nothing? Hmm. My bones are destroyed and replaced over the course of seven years by naturally occuring cells in my body. The specific molecules that compose my body are constantly being replaced. I don't eat food, I rent it. In ten years, the material which currently makes up my body will no longer be in my body. However, the pattern, the data in my brain which composes myself will remain. I am a transient pattern, not an Ivory Tower, and neither is your self.

Yes, nobody that exists outside of you, albeit contained within their own internal environment, has the same recollection as you about this.

Finally, you agree about evidence.

 

[Iacchus]

So, then, infants are not taking in an external world, but creating it?

It's a reciprocal process. Babies would not be "taking it in" if there wasn't already something inside to stimulate.