The mind is always looking for the definitive answer, the one that applies to everyone equally. The fact of the matter is that each person walks a path making their own prints and one can fool themselves to think anothers steps are the same as their own.

I think recognising Truth in communication often lends itself to personalities, and their opinions. Opinions based on feelings of being accomodated in relationship to the way one wants to see things. If you don't feel accomodated then you can always look to someone who is going to feed your personal points of reference.

Being communcative or recognising the message of Truth takes more than the ability to re-use the past to figure out the present.
In your case I haven't sensed a real interest in what I have to say, so if you decide to change your mind about me then you might hear something of value. Until then I'm not about accomodating anyone because they like to get their way.

I just call em like I see em. Pseudo-intellectualism needs to be identified and addressed before it has a chance to turn into an epidemic. My suggestion to be more communicative was made in light of the fact that communication implicitly requires the presence of something to communicate.

I do agree that I am totally uninterested in your perspective, and as such there is no reason why I would require accomodations of any kind. My motivation for personalizing the dialog was simply based on the desire to be crystal clear with the readers of these forums that I do not endorse or in any way condone the type of mumbo jumbo being issued from your virtual presence.

As before, please feel free to have the final word.

Ditto

Tho the point of reference may not be the same.

BTW, Tech, I like your style, so far. Meanwhile, I checked your profile. Please, define for us: What, for you, is "reality"?

Joesus, "outpicturing" is not a word and I'm not sure what word you were thinking of. Maybe you mean "outcome"? And if so, then "death" does not require resistance since it may come without it.

I meant out-picturing, projecting, the manifesting of thought into form.
Death follows resistence to change and fluidity, stress in the mind and body.

Man, this topic is awesome!

Technologist, I dig your vibe...


Truly legendary.


You mocking me, boy?

Okay, okay, so that was a bit trippy. But I really think it is true.


Heheh, nice pun.

Do you imply my intelligence is self-limiting? Yeesh, that's uncool. Okay, please hit me with the details, because intellectual integrity is very important to me.


I wonder whether that was a statement of respect or resignation. As far as I'm aware, my philosophy/worldview/metaphysic/morality is intact and satisfactory. Being content is an important part of it... (just because it's nicer for oneself and others to be content than upset) but not at the expense of intellectual integrity! So if there are truths that would upset me I would prefer to hear them. Please, hit me. I'm totally keen.


Hello! Am I a religious type? *laughs*

I suppose I might be.

Well, even with extreme longevity there will still be death eventually, when entropy really starts to max out. All compounded things are impermanent - it's inescapable, unless, as in Isaac Asimov's The Last Question, one of our creations (or our creations' creations' creations etc.) will find a way to reverse overall entropy.

And even supposing eternal living was possible, it remains a subject of secular debate whether perpetual life without death would really be desirable.

Afterlifes and heaven/hell aren't really my bag, baby... you'll have to ask a monotheist about that.

That's bleak, code buttons... I don't think that about Buddhist philosophy, so I'm sorry to see that you do. I think that the range of possible human experiences ought to be as wide as possible. What do you think is limited, and how and why? I'll do my best to put you at ease (if I can).

Thank you for the kind words Lindsay. Whitehead and James, both of whom you mention in your profile, are influencial in my conception of Reality - as I am a process philosopher with anti-realist proclivities.

Reality is a constantly changing something which possesses, at least from our/my vantage point, the appearance of directionality.

[LT, I will try to address your comments when time permits]

You're right, that was bleak! But it worked at getting back your attention to BM. Hee hee! Actually, I don't much know about Buddhist phylosophy to make a statement like that. So, actually, disregard the statement. What I was really trying to imply is that your views on death seem to be too constricting, too self-defeating. As opposed to my views on death and life in general which tend to gyrate around transhumanism and preservation of life by any means necessary. Perhaps I'm wrong about your opinions. But that's just what I deducted from your earlier post.

In answering the question more definitively, Reality to me is a fleeting series of mental intentional states. Some would take this to mean that I am solipsistic in my interpretation of reality, but that would be missing the whole point of pragmatic truth. Put differently, an honest appraisal of one's confidence levels will necessarily lead to the conclusion that nothing meaningful can be stated regarding the actual status of any "objective" reality. Reality could thus be defined as the totality of all possible mental configuration ranging qualitatively from perfect (or near perfect) harmony to massive contradiction, and quantitatively from one mental relation to a boundless number of mental relations approaching a limit of infinity.*

It is also interesting to note that the limitations of human mental configurations, along with our ever so precious "identities", appear to prevent us from exploring the vastness of "all that is possible". This may yet change however if it turns out that radical, currently inconceivable, ontologies are in fact attainable.

* Edit: And of course, like a knuckle head, I entirely forgot to mention phenomenal experience. I am not eliminitivistic and do make a distinction, but my whole framework could still be considered information theoretic.

I believe in the impermeance of life as in Buddhist thought, and also in reincarnation. Not in a direct way, but indirect as science has taught - the laws of conservation of energy.

If we die then time stops, because our perceptions are halted. Whether we are reborn into a new body, or whether we have to wait millions of years to become part of a new organism, its irrelevant. The first time we'll notice is when we have a conscious body to notice with. Therefore we will die and be reborn instantaneously from our own perceptions.

If all energy is from one source, the Big Bang, then we are just a temporary manifestation of that energy. We are like a leaf on a twig on a branch on The tree that underlies everything. Slightly philosophical i agree, but since we're talking about the ultimate philosophical arguement, I think its relevant.

We are the tips of the Universes energy, moving like a multidemensional waveform. Life manifesting at the peaks and ending in the troughs. This process underlies all creation, and not just religious creation. So when we die our biological peak is over, but the underlying cause of it all is still present and will manifest in other ways.

I have thought deeply on this subject from a long time and.. d.eath in itself seems like a very difficult thing to achieve. There are so many possibilities, to simply cease to exist seems completly out of balance with the universe. Nothing ceases to exist in this place, it may change state but never does it stop existing alltogether.

I think it would be very difficult to actually 'die', besides what happens in your dreams when you die? You wake up. Prehaps we only know dreams, so many possibilities are existant, I believe d.eath is simply the individual stopping from communicating with those in this reality. This end of communication would seem to be the most likely answer to what is .

I believe d.eath is simply moving from one reality to another.

Conservative, "pro-extensionist" gerontology:

Lecture Series -- Tom Kirkwood, Professor of Medicine and head of the Department of Gerontology at the University of Newcastle.

The End of Age
----------------------------------------------------------------

Radical, "pro-extensionist" gerontology:

Video Presentation - Aubrey de Grey PhD, a researcher at CIRCA, the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Aging

Aubrey de Grey - Defeating aging

BTW, Lindsay and LgKing are one and the same. I use the latter when I am using my son's 'puter.



Same here! But what do you have against pragmatism? Or do you have anything against it ? Wasn't William James one of the proponents of pragmatism?

In answer to my question: What is reality? you respond

I'm not ignoring anyone, just making a quicky post...

What do you do when you have everything money can buy? Answer - Try to buy things that money can't buy, yet.



Larry Ellison
Cofounder and CEO of Oracle
Net worth: $17 billion

'Death has never made any sense to me.. how can a person be there and then just vanish, just not be there? Death makes me very angry. Premature death makes me angrier still.'

Ellison is also founder of The Ellison Medical Foundation that supports two areas of research, aging and global infectious disease (aka, “the therapeutic imperative").
-------------------------------------------------------------



Peter Thiel
Founder of Paypal
Net worth: +$100 million

"Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I’m backing Dr. de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones.” -- Comments made by Thiel after he pledged $3.5 million to the M-Prize in September of this year.

to say that reality is just mental states overlooks the mathematical nature of reality. In short, mathematics is ontology (in the philosophical sense). In other words, whatever has being must be expressed in terms of a mathematical basis.

Lucid, propositional logic itself can be stated in mathematical terms, therefore your objection is purely semantical. As I've said previously, my frame work is information theoretic.

If you dig the philosophy of mathematics I've got a gem for you.

Models of Philosophy

Tech, I don't think I'm making purely a semantic objection. Your statement that "Reality to me is a fleeting series of mental intentional states" suggests some grounding in philosophy of mind, but a neglect of the mathematical basis of reality, in spite of your attempted justification that "propositional logic itself can be stated in mathematical terms". Thanks for the link; did you read the article? What did you think about it? I, myself, am having a hard time finding anything novel in the article (modeling in terms of dynamical control systems has been around for decades). And then there's the problem of identity, for which the author completely disregards the fact that identity can change and gives no account for multiple personality disorder, which according to the author's definition of identity, does not make such distinctions between different personalities.

Not to toot my own horn, but my having "some" grounding in philosophy of mind would be an understatement as it has been one of my main areas of focus for a number of years.

Regardless, I am still having a difficult time figuring out the point that you're attempting to make. One of the main problems with forum discussions is that individuals believe their opinion counts for something in and of itself when clearly it does not. An opinion is only as valuable as the logical arguments made in support of it. I have no problem with being proven wrong, and in fact I have been proven wrong on numerous occasions. However, in order to do this you are going to have to present an argument and not just your candid opinion. Otherwise what you are doing amounts to nothing more than handwaving (pun intended).



Generally speaking I always read the materials I provide on forums, except in cases like the Chalmers directory where doing so would take a life time. I didn't make any pretenses that the paper was particularly original. My main reason for believing it possesses some value is based on how it systematically approaches a wide range of philosophical topics using mathematical modeling. It is a good primer for anyone looking to take their philosophizing to the next level, but I apologize if it appeared I was underestimating your level of expertise.

In terms of some of the specifics, I don't believe that the author neglected what you consider to be "changing identity". Instead, what is taking place is a redefining of terms with identity being based, not on a single mental configuration, but on the temporal continuity of a series of mental configurations. It is also important to note that the author is not claiming to have solved the paradoxes inherent in identity theory.

Concerning MPD, I do not believe that this topic was addressed in the article, but I can't see why it would be very difficult to reconcile multiple personalities with the concept of identity. Each distinct personality could simply be viewed as an isolated identity with its own unique trajectory. This is a conclusion that became apparent years ago when identity theory gave way to/ was replaced by functionalism - due in large part to the former's inadequacies in addressing exactly these types of issues.

I don't see how you can strongly support any identity as a functionalist, when the deployment of a singularly functional system can give no more than an impression (as yet unresolved) of intelligence with no interpretation or understanding, whatever the "level" or congruence of mental activity you imagine. (Yep, that Chinese room again!) I think that the approach might have value in a developmental context, but is quite clunky otherwise and with many rebukes. It has a kind of reductionist's feel and approach - a hierarchy of supporting components to explain phenomena - but with an unawareness of something else going on (and I'm certainly not the one to say what).

ps Are there any novel angles on the topic (which was ... now is) or are regurgitation and portentousness the orders of the day always?

Tech, I am curious: If it is any of my business, what are you, theologically speaking? Do you accept what A.N. Whitehead says about God; that God is in the whole process of life and being, with us? Where are you located? And any other biographical info you care to share. I don't think that you have put anything in the Introduce Yourself thread, have you?

You might be wrong, or you might be right...

I don't see how my views are constricting or self-defeating. Perhaps you could clarify - what do they constrict, and how do they defeat themselves?

In my view death is a perfectly natural part of life. Death is not really the opposite of life - it's the opposite of birth.

To be sure, the fact of death is unpleasant. Terrifying, even. However, I think that this suffering is, at bottom, due to an ignorance. To the extent that we identify with our apparent selves, we fear death, which we think will be the cessation of that self. To the extent that we do not identify in this way, death has little meaning to us - it's nothing more than a change of that gross form into other forms, while the ground of the forms remains unperturbed.

The question then is whether that identification is valid or not. It is, of course, perfectly valid. If you like, you can see yourself as a product of evolution; an individual in a species, whose experience is defined by your genetic makeup, and who struggles to maintain reproductive fitness and pass on one's genes. There are also many other ways besides evolutionarily that you can understand 'yourself' - as a 'thinking thing', as a consumer, or any other way. Various interdependent conceptual pigeonholes, some more circumspect than others.

An alternative to those processes of identification is to look at the constituents of yourself (and everything), and notice that they are always divisible into constituents and that the constituents always constitute something which is a constituent of yet another thing, and so on in both directions. Now, where is the self in all of that? Why should it be the person, since the person is constituted by so many other things? The apparent individuality of our experience ought not to convince us of the validity of the individual person as the self - a human experience is not a uniquely special perspective on the universe, and the impression of a self that goes along with it is not a necessary truth.

Anyway, this is just an intellectual game, but it slightly nudges the idea of self-identification. If you meditate on it, an experiential wisdom begins to complement the purely intellectual wisdom regarding the absence of 'self'. Reflexive, experiential self-identification begins slowly to weaken. And as your ideas about the self change, so do your ideas about death. It becomes slightly less scary... and slowly it becomes less and less scary.

Please note that it's not in order to assuage the fear of death that we contemplate these things - it's a contemplative endeavour for truth. If that quest leads us to a place where death really is a terrible reality then all we have to do is try to work out ways to fear it less. But so far it doesn't seem to lead that way...

Please do let me know the specific ways in which you might think this is constricting or self-defeating.

Damm it, you're making me think now, Lao. So, you'll have to wait a little bit for reply.

I was just pointing out that mathematics is ontology and so you cannot address Reality without recourse to mathematics. If you need more convincing, read Alain Badiou's "Being and Event".