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There are no material objects

Isn't is amusing that all 'mystics' are about as mystical as a pint of brown ale?
 
punshhh said:
unfortunately when delving into these topics tautologies keep cropping up.
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Do you really think that wandering around exclaiming, "Look! X = X!" has any utility at all? What significance could you possibly find in the fact that it's possible to repeat yourself? Do you honestly believe that "truth is what is true" communicates anything at all (outside offering a small clue into the way your mind works, and we already knew that)?
 
Elizabeth I said:
Do you really think that wandering around exclaiming, "Look! X = X!" has any utility at all? What significance could you possibly find in the fact that it's possible to repeat yourself? Do you honestly believe that "truth is what is true" communicates anything at all (outside offering a small clue into the way your mind works, and we already knew that)?
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Naive materialist.
 
Sideroxylon said:
Special pleading is a nice way of avoiding having to support a claim, isn't it.
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Nonsense, Did you miss the first part of my sentence,"when discussing ontologies", when a philosopher discusses ontologies, all forms of ontologies are on the table.

Start another thread to explain and support that claim if you like.
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I'll stick with the less esoteric ideas at this stage;)

At the very least you make bold claims without supporting them.
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Here we go again, I am apparently making claims left right and centre. I am suggesting philosophical scenarios here and there and hinting that there may be more to simple materialism than meets the eye.

Don't know but do like Otto Neurath's, “We are like sailors who must rebuild the ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials.”
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Nice quote, I was quoting myself before.
 
punshhh said:
You are discussing the use of the word truth in its use in language, which is a relative term and has no bearing on the truth of existence or ontologies.

Truth is a word., I'm addressing the truth of existence, its a different thing, or hadn't you realised?
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Yup that is three words.

Petard hoist!
 
punshhh said:
Talk about naive, you appear to be falling into your own trap of naive materialism.

I have already explained to you the difference between "truth" in the mind, or in common discourse. As apposed to "the truth of what actually exists", a phrase referring to what exists, rather than notions of what exists.

Are you going to accept this distinction or deny that anything exists?
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Now with fifty percent more words.
 
Elizabeth I said:
Do you really think that wandering around exclaiming, "Look! X = X!" has any utility at all? What significance could you possibly find in the fact that it's possible to repeat yourself? Do you honestly believe that "truth is what is true" communicates anything at all (outside offering a small clue into the way your mind works, and we already knew that)?
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You don't know how my mind works, I don't recall you cottoning on to much I have said. Unless you are referring to the chemical reactions in my brain as a basis for my thinking patterns. The patterns and arguments I am using are crafted to engage folk on this forum and bear little resemblance to how my thinking occurs in my own head.

Anyway how many truths are there, one?

I merely suggested two or perhaps three depending on context. In context they have different meanings.
 
punshhh said:
Here we go again, I am apparently making claims left right and centre. I am suggesting philosophical scenarios here and there and hinting that there may be more to simple materialism than meets the eye.
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And that you are doing. Your scenarios don't become philosophical until you attempt to support them through argument.
 
punshhh said:
Anyway how many truths are there, one?
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Want to see some truth? For a few months, try not paying your mortgage/light/cable bill. See where that gets you. On the street in the dark examining your navel lint with no TV, that's where.
 
punshhh said:
You don't know how my mind works, I don't recall you cottoning on to much I have said. Unless you are referring to the chemical reactions in my brain as a basis for my thinking patterns. The patterns and arguments I am using are crafted to engage folk on this forum and bear little resemblance to how my thinking occurs in my own head.

Anyway how many truths are there, one?

I merely suggested two or perhaps three depending on context. In context they have different meanings.
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You have presented nothing to cotton on to. All you are doing is playing a childish game of let's pretend. How many truths are there? There is a very long list. It is true that I am typing this now. It is true that I am in Flanders. It is true that the Earth is a planet. You do ask the daftest questions. How old are you?
 
dafydd said:
Punshhh seems to think that philosophy consists of asking a series of foolish questions.
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That really does seem to be the idea a lot of people have.

"I asked a bunch of indecipherable gibberish questions and no one could answer them! I must be a genius!"
 
punshhh said:
I respect your comments on most issues, but I do find you can go into a lot of detail in your explanations, which can be a head ache sometimes, especially when I'm pressed for time. I would appreciate it if we can try to be concise here.
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Just be it known that I do not go into detail out of habit, but rather, out of intent. If I don't feel a post would be valuable in at least some way, I don't post it. Were I to just opine to you, I wouldn't think that would be too valuable; anyone can opine at you just as well as I can.

So if by concise you mean that I should forgo the details, then as kindly as possible I decline your request.
Yes I'm well aware that a description is not a thing, it is a symbol for a thing.
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No, descriptions are not symbols. Any old string of characters is a set of symbols, even if it's not grammatically correct, or even readable. Only a small subset of those characters are descriptions.

What makes the description a description is that it's a model, not a symbol. In particular, descriptions are mind models that attempt to correlate mental invariants to external invariants. The measure of a description's accuracy is how well the mental models actually model the external entities.

That means there's a mapping from the model to the external entities, in the sense that everything the model predicts will change under a certain condition varies as the model says it does, and everything that remains the same varies as the model says it does. And that's it for models.
Ref my post to Syderoxylon, it is possible to know and experience things without the use of the thinking mind.
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That's kind of irrelevant. Even in your non-thinking mind, it's only a model. You cannot describe what the water "really is" because water isn't made of models. It's made of water. All you can do is form an accurate model of the water.

It's when you confuse the primitives that the non-thinking mind works with (like objects, ideas, and so on) with the extensions they refer to (like that cup of water) that you get the illusion that there is such a thing as an ontological description. It seems to me that you're referring to this illusion, which means you don't quite realize that your non-thinking mind is only working with models itself.
The true nature of water is what it is wether the water or anything else knows what it is or not. It is a part of what truly exists.
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If I have a cup of water, and I have all of the latest best books on ontology, and I put them side by side, then the true nature of the water is in the cup, not the books. I cannot get the true nature of water into my head by studying it, by contemplating it, by meditating, or by using my non-thinking mind.

The only reasonable way to get the water into my head is to drink it.
 
punshhh said:
The patterns and arguments I am using are crafted to engage folk on this forum and bear little resemblance to how my thinking occurs in my own head.
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The punshhh disclaimer - Excellent! :D

Best before Nov.2011. Contents may become meaningless in transit. Quality may disappoint. For entertainment purposes only. With care - risk of choking for the well-informed.
 
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