14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Conrau KFirst of all, that "therefore" is a non-sequitur. Second, use of the term "another ego" continues to be inaccurate.
You are the source of your dreams (reality is a figment of your imagination); you do not, however, consciously engineer these dreams; therefore, an unconscious component of your mind is the source of your dreams. In your formulation of solipsism, this unconscious has the power to invent languages, construct the Western literary corpus, and produce a complex ...[text shortened]... is another ego.
Your unconscious sounds really smart. Can I speak to it from now on?
I experience those things (invented languages, literature, and a complex social order) in conventional sleeping dreams too. Does that imply the existence of "another ego"? No. You are using the word without respect to its accepted dictionary definitions.
I might also add that most of what you are referring to (the corpus of Western literature, the structure of foreign languages, and the complex social order) I have little detailed experience of. What actually exists for me is the suggestion of such detail -- just like in sleeping dreams. I have also said that a great deal of what I actually experience with respect to these things is quite clearly being made up as I go along -- as is also the case in sleeping dreams. That is to say, when I attempt to realize this supposed complexity, it appears not to exist, and in order to provide it certain inadequate (and often rather paltry) impromptu creations are manifested.
That said, I am absolutely certain that my mind is FAR more powerful than it currently seems. I have made enough progress to see both how far I have come and how far I have to go. And I have a notion that the manifestation of the universe represents both a disconnection and an inversion.
"To attain the grade of Magus he must accomplish Three Tasks; the renunciation of His enjoyment of the Infinite so that he may formulate Himself as the Finite; the acquisition of the practical secrets alike of initiating and governing His proposed new Universe, and the identification of himself with the impersonal idea of Love."
This is an inaccurate but suggestive fashion of expressing certain things. (The text is corrupted, which is no surprise under present circumstances.) And incidentally, my attitude toward the notion that "Love is all you need" can be found at the end of the last episode of The Prisoner.
14 Apr 08
2 edits
Originally posted by Conrau KI will not be interrogated by you, pseudo-sentient.
[b]I did NOT avoid the question. If your interpretation of amannion's question involves personal trivia about my payment of taxes or attitude toward state law, that is too bad.
No my interpretation was headed in the initial question "How do you behave and interact in the world?" This was what amannion was asking. For example, "Why bother res e. So I would not have any inhibitions against genocidal massacres. Is this true for you?[/b]
As for whether I have "an aversion to genocidal massacres" I have a moral aversion to both the reality and the appearance of injustice whether committed on an individual or mass scale. This, of course, was already obvious from my previous comments, and again, comments from you such as "If I were a solipsist, people who have zero moral value. So I would not have any inhibitions against genocidal massacres", though quite ungrammatical, appear to suggest that what you actually have "zero" of is any comprehension of how minds (including morals) work. I understand that the Japanese have a comic book called "Rapeman", but I find that repulsive despite the fact that the only thing being raped is ink on paper, because it is the IDEA of what it represents that is offensive.
Nevertheless, I do recognize the fact that what appears (in my universe) to be other human beings are not only non-human but also non-sentient, and furthermore quite pernicious. So, whereas I do not enjoy reading in the newspaper about genocidal massacres (which are strictly fictional anyway!) I would welcome a practical end to the devilish travesties of human beings on this planet (e.g., a particularly virulent and thorough pandemic, provided I myself was not affected). And as to apparent suffering going on around me, it would in large part be a matter of "chickens coming home to roost". You will reap what you have sown.
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14 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsFirst of all, that "therefore" is a non-sequitur. Second, use of the term "another ego" continues to be inaccurate.
First of all, that "therefore" is a non-sequitur. Second, use of the term "another ego" continues to be inaccurate.
I experience those things (invented languages, literature, and a complex social order) in conventional sleeping dreams too. Does that imply the existence of "another ego"? No. You are using the word without respect to its accepted at "Love is all you need" can be found at the end of the last episode of The Prisoner.
No. Here is my syllogism: these dreams are yours; they are either of the conscious or the unconscious; they are not of the conscious. By disjunctive inference, I can say "therefore, your dreams are from the unconscious." The "therefore" is valid.
I experience those things (invented languages, literature, and a complex social order) in conventional sleeping dreams too. Does that imply the existence of "another ego"? No. You are using the word without respect to its accepted dictionary definitions.
Incorrect analogy. As I understand dreams, they are simply a hodgepodge reformulation of memories: things I have already experienced, but due to neurological activity, are recalled in a disconnected jumbled-up sequences.
This is not the case for how you perceive the world. Your dreams are not reformulations of past conscious experiences. To you, both your sleeping dreams and your waking life are dreams - because there is no reality, all experiences are illusory. So your unconscious must construct these dreams; it is a creative process by which it makes experiences. It does not just re-present past experiences, but makes new ones. This is the act of a ego, a creative being. Your solipsism entails that you are two separate people.
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14 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsMy apologies. I meant "If I were a solipsist, people would have zero moral value.
I will not be interrogated by you, pseudo-sentient.
As for whether I have "an aversion to genocidal massacres" I have a moral aversion to both the reality and the appearance of injustice whether committed on an individual or mass scale. This, of course, was already obvious from my previous comments, and again, comments from you such as "[b]If I wer art be a matter of "chickens coming home to roost". You will reap what you have sown.[/b]
I do not understand your post and suspect you have once again evaded the question. Grammar aside: why should you respect the human rights for people whom you claim do not exist? What moral value can you ascribe to a person who does not exist?
Perhaps you do not like genocide. So here is another another question, why pay taxes to people who do not exist? Why post in argument to non-existent chess-players?
14 Apr 08
1 edit
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both your sleeping dreams and your waking life are dreams - because there is no reality, all experiences are illusory.
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Then your explanation is also illusory.
Concerning your explanation, there is no reality - a self negating argument.
14 Apr 08
3 edits
Originally posted by Conrau KExcuse me, but you continue to misuse the word "ego". Attempting to obfuscate with the terminology of formal logic will not change this, nor will it confuse me. Even if one wishes to adopt Freudian terminology (i.e., "the unconscious" ) it is inappropriate and inaccurate to refer to this as "another ego".
First of all, that "therefore" is a non-sequitur. Second, use of the term "another ego" continues to be inaccurate.
No; these dreams are yours. They are, however, not from the conscious. By disjunctive inference, I can say "therefore, your dreams are from the unconscious." The "therefore" is valid.
I experience those things (invented lang t of a ego, a creative being. Your solipsism entails that you are two separate people.
You do not understand dreams. Clearly, anyone who has had sleeping dreams KNOWS THROUGH PERSONAL EXPERIENCE that they are not merely a reformulation of things already experienced: though they can involve such elements, they need not and often do not.
Edit: I have had many dreams about things I never experienced, not only because I do not remember experiencing them but also because their character and details (relative to the structures and modes of this world) make it clear that they never COULD have happened here.
The rest of your comments merely demonstrate your ignorance and presumption. You say that X implies Y while indicating that you understand neither X nor Y as well as mistaking a particular relation between X and Y (among many possible) as logically necessary.
14 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by jaywillI wish you would specify who you are quoting here in bold type between the borders made of equals signs: clearly not me since I made no such statement.
[b]=======================================
both your sleeping dreams and your waking life are dreams - because there is no reality, all experiences are illusory.
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Then your explanation is also illusory.
Concerning your explanation, there is no reality - a self negating argument.[/b]
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Conrau KNow you are merely being redundant. All of this has been covered before.
My apologies. I meant "If I were a solipsist, people would have zero moral value.
I do not understand your post and suspect you have once again evaded the question. Grammar aside: why should you respect the human rights for people whom you claim do not exist? What moral value can you ascribe to a person who does not exist?
Perhaps you do not ...[text shortened]... , why pay taxes to people who do not exist? Why post in argument to non-existent chess-players?
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14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsExcuse me, but you continue to misuse the word "ego". Attempting to obfuscate with the terminology of formal logic will not change this, nor will it confuse me. Even if one wishes to adopt Freudian terminology (i.e., "the unconscious" ) it is inappropriate and inaccurate to refer to this as "another ego".
Excuse me, but you continue to misuse the word "ego". Attempting to obfuscate with the terminology of formal logic will not change this, nor will it confuse me. Even if one wishes to adopt Freudian terminology (i.e., "the unconscious" ) it is inappropriate and inaccurate to refer to this as "another ego".
You do not understand dreams. Clearly, an ...[text shortened]... taking a particular relation between X and Y (among many possible) as logically necessary.
Generally true. My unconscious is not an ego. Duh! My whole point is that your unconscious exhibits all the properties of an ego. Hence the manifest absurdity of your solipsism.
You do not understand dreams. Clearly, anyone who has had sleeping dreams KNOWS THROUGH PERSONAL EXPERIENCE that they are not merely a reformulation of things already experienced: though they can involve such elements, they need not and often do not.
Dreams do not produce anything new. They simply mesh together old experiences. A dream does not present new stuff. I may dream of fanciful unicorns, but these are simply a reformulation of the horse and a horn - something I have already seen. My dreams do not, for example, construct a world which has no precedent in the real world.
That is what your dreams must be. It must generate an illusion which has no antecedent. That is quite a God-like project, imagining something from nothing.
The rest of your comments merely demonstrate your ignorance and presumption. You say that X implies Y while indicating that you understand neither X nor Y as well as mistaking a particular relation between X and Y (among many possible) as logically necessary.
Please instantiate X and Y and demonstrate how such a conditional relationship is invalid i.e. find a counterexample.
14 Apr 08
3 edits
Originally posted by Conrau KYou have not demonstrated the existence of any such thing as "my unconscious". Nor have you demonstrated that experiencing a dream (whether sleeping or waking) indicates the existence of a separate ego.
[b]Excuse me, but you continue to misuse the word "ego". Attempting to obfuscate with the terminology of formal logic will not change this, nor will it confuse me. Even if one wishes to adopt Freudian terminology (i.e., "the unconscious" ) it is inappropriate and inaccurate to refer to this as "another ego".
Generally true. My unconscious is not ...[text shortened]... and demonstrate how such a conditional relationship is invalid i.e. find a counterexample.[/b]
Your assertion about dreams is simply false. First of all, unicorns ARE a thing of the waking world (a myth of that world), so dreaming about them would not represent something new, unless one had never heard of unicorns. Second, I often have dreams which are not about things I have experienced and which do not "simply mesh together old experiences". MY sleeping dreams DO sometimes construct worlds which have no precedence in the waking world. The fact that you are a dullard (even as an ostensible sentient) and actually non-sentient does not change this.
So again, explain to me why sleeping dreams indicate the existence of "another ego"? Again, you cannot, and are simply misusing language, and offering specious arguments, because you are a defective pseudo-sentient which refuses to simply admit error and ignorance.
The whole tenor of your remarks is one of speciousness, ignorance, and general incompetence. Stop your incessant jabbering or else say something worth replying to, lest I start ignoring you altogether.
Edit: P.S. Unless one is a newborn babe (and nobody remembers such experiences) everything one experiences in the waking world might, by means of your awkward and absurd cobbling together of general categories, represent something that has already been experienced. For example, Bach is just Wagner with the notes rearranged. Debussy is just Ravel with a twist. A tiger is just a big housecat. A grapefruit is just a big orange crossed with the color of a banana.
2nd Edit: Note also that, even with respect to relatively conventional sleeping dreams which involve fairly ordinary things (e.g., people doing and saying things that might conceivably occur in this world), those dreams (provided they involve people one has never met, doing or saying things one has never observed) are not "simply meshed together old experiences".
15 Apr 08
Originally posted by Conrau KFirst, I have not said that all experiences are illusions. I have merely said that my so-called waking life is not what it is commonly claimed to be. My experiences, regardless of their underlying ontological nature, are real experiences. But the conventional interpretations of those experiences are incorrect.
...To you, both your sleeping dreams and your waking life are dreams - because there is no reality, all experiences are illusory. So your unconscious must construct these dreams; it is a creative process by which it makes experiences. It does not just re-present past experiences, but makes new ones. This is the act of a ego, a creative being. Your solipsism entails that you are two separate people.
Second, in addition to the fact that you have not demonstrated that there is any such thing as "my unconscious", there is absolutely no reason to presume that such a hypothetical entity is responsible for what I experience -- much less any reason to presume that, should it even exist and be responsible, that it is "a separate ego".
I might, for example, be experiencing a comatose fugue. Or, I might be connected to some powerful supercomputer intended to simulate reality but which, through malfunction or improper planning, is not functioning properly. Or I might have set up some metaphysical arrangement myself ahead of time, which was then improperly implemented for unknown reasons. Or, I can postulate entire classes of metaphysical cause and effect, without reference to other beings, in which my experiences are a combined reflection of my own values and will and certain pathological influences, operating through unknown modes, whether or not combining pre-existing experiences with entirely new phenomena.
15 Apr 08
P.S. I am certain that free-will is a reality, regardless of its limitations. And I am not at all certain that those limitations are the result of external impositions: they might be the result of mistaken ideas. For example, someone who, for whatever reason, imagines that his creations are real, independent "other beings" and becomes so disconnected from himself and reality as to imagine the existence of oppositional "other wills" in his own universe might as a result have a mindset which PERMITS the manifestation of contrarian phenomena. One might even, as a "new being", creating the universe through some semi-autonomic metaphysical process in which (as a mind) one attempts to impose order on things, make such mistakes of interpretation, and therefore become lost in a delusion in which one is subject to the actions of hostile external forces.
I do not believe that "other sentient beings" would will to abuse me in the ways that the pseudo-beings abuse me (and seem to will to). I believe that free-will does not imply evil, but merely the ability to do as one wants -- and that no genuine sentient being would actually WANT to do evil, simply as a natural consequence of their own sentience.
15 Apr 08
2 edits
P.P.S. I strongly suspect that the error involved taking the idea of "other beings" too far. That is, it is one thing to create a simulation and to know that this is the case, but if one reaches a point where a simulation is not enough, one might be tempted to edit one's own memory and abilities to reduce one's self to "just another being" in a sea of other beings (actually, pseudo-beings of one's own creation, but after such an "editing" one would not realize that). One would have to forget one's past and the fact that the creation IS a creation, in order to truly immerse one's self in it and experience it as a "reality".
The process of this "editing" might in itself give rise to pathologies, but even if it did not I believe that it would eventually result in pathological manifestations due to the falsehoods intrinsic in the false premise. That is, one begins from an "edited" state which is based upon illusion and falsehood, and eventually reaches a state wherein false conclusions are "proven" from the false premises. Such conclusions might be implicit in the premises without the knowledge of a fallible creator, or even if foreseen might be presumed to be easily managed by such a creator when considered from the (considerably more lucid and powerful) pre-edited state.