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(1) You have not demonstrated that the future exists; you have said that the future exists.
(2) What does it mean for an cosmonaut to travel into the future? Could he tell me who will win the lottery if he stayed in orbit long enough? Did the cosmonaut experience something which had not yet happened? Relativity deals with 'time travel' as a issue of perspective, not cartoon style time travel. If the experience of time is relative to one's perspective (velocity for example), there is no absolute Time through which one could travel. Rather, people just experience their own experiences (or could if travelling fast enough) at different rates. Bringing this back to earth; that experience is still present experience. No one could experience their own future; that is NONSENSE, once again. By NONSENSE, I mean that that statement has no meaning. It is like this; 'the dog is waved yellow'. That has a subject and a verb, but it dosen't mean anything.
(3) If you are to claim that A causes B, you have to know how A causes B. More importantly, there has to be the possibility of A causing B. Science asserts that every effect has a cause. Science only deals in physical things. Equations and quantitative analyses are innaplicable to the feeling of warmth, e.g. Science can only deal in molecules, atoms, photons, electrons, etc.
You assert that the cause of consciousness is the physical brain. I ask you to explain how this might occur even hypothetically, using empirical science. In other words, explain the causation with reference only to physical objects. O, you can't? That is because the last item on the would-be causal chain is not a physical thing. Science only accounts for physical things.
(4) If you think I have read too much Descartes, you have read too little. I'm not advocating cartesian dualism. I am opposing the purely physical/objective/empiric world-view with a purely subjective/individual/existential world-view.
I like how out of all this you couldnt even answer the simple questions I asked and yet you want me to answer all your questions? Especially questions that cannot be answered because no one knows like: how does consciousness arises from the brain? I dont know but you dont either! No one knows thats the point, but the evidence shows that a mind requires a brain. Wheres your evidence it doesnt? Oh that's right, there isnt any...
Seriously, Descartes is introduction to philosophy, especially to philosophy of mind and is laughable on most of his truth claims. You should search a little harder than just reading Meditations and choosing that as an answer. If you want me to continue this then you'll have to answer some of my questions so this "debate" isnt so lopsided.
Unfortunately, I prolly wont be around till tomorrow to reply but try and answer my questions, try and show some evidence, and try to avoid absolute certainty. Because if your whole argument is based around me not being able to disprove yours (because its impossible) then lets all just believe in the flying spaghetti monster and the celestial teapot while we're at it. You have to show something.... anything! or am I asking for too much?
AH-HA! ... another anthropocentrist!!!
If your pecptions only exist, then where do they come from?
Exactly. That cannot be known.
If the brain and consciousness arent related then why does damage to your brain cause damage to your consciousness?
If I hit you in the head and knock you unconscious how can that be if the mind and brain are seperate?
Why does stimulating certain parts of the brain effect your mind, your sensations, your percpetions?
Why do drugs effect your perceptions if its all biochemical interactions?
I have used sensations and perceptions interchangeably throughout this thread. For the purposes of this argument, sensation is synonymous with perception. The underlined statement of yours makes no sense then. It is like saying, "the force of gravity is derived from gravity."
...perceptions are derived from sensory information (aka senses)
Perceptions and sensations are synonymous...
If sensation and perception are synonymous, and we both agree they are, then what does your first statement mean? Let's change "perceptions are derived from senses" to "sensations are derived from sensations."
Let me make another brief point that you just keep ignoring. I keep telling you I am not claiming that there is no external world. I am saying that, I don't know if there is, neither do you, and there is no way to know with certainty.
You bring up the fact that activities in the brain have been viewed to correspond to certain experiences, sensations or states or mind. You think that is proof that an external world exists. It is not. Why? Because, in bringing up a relationship betwen the physical brain and the mind, already you have assumed that there is a physical brain that exists outside the mind! Can't you see how that logic is self-validating?
Until someone proves it..
Now, if you find some flaw in the argument I have just made here, present a logical, clear counter-argument, which does not begin with "it's a known consensus that..." Just because you say that something is a 'known consensus' does not make it so. Also, there have been many 'known consenses' that were wrong. For example, a majority of intellectuals thought the world was flat eight hundred years ago; in fact it is not.
Just out of curiosity, how old are you?
wrong wrong wrong! ...Im not sure why you dont understand this is elementary stuff...You must have a problem with reading comprehension.
If sensation and perception are synonymous, and we both agree they are, then what does your first statement mean? Let's change "perceptions are derived from senses" to "sensations are derived from sensations."
Just a quick thought, from reading the OP, I'll contribute more later on completely separate thread, but... analogically speaking, reality works as a syntax of infinity, inevitably. And then we go about saying there is this 'present', as if it is separated from the past and the future completely. Well objectively ofcourse! But subjectively the present is the past which is the future in the sense they all are mutual on one another. I mean, taken subjectively (reality) in which you have the syntax of infinity, how is there room for the present? The present, which we say precedes the future and is after the past implies there be a middle. Well where is the room for a middle? Back to speaking analogically, in order for a "presentness" to be coined as this subsistence which one pathetically attempts to say doesn't exist, or otherwise, only the present exists; there has to be lets term a set of numbers the universe can be, and lets make the universe an odd set of numbers...
Well with an odd set of numbers there is that middle. From 1-3, 2 is the middle. And this implies a closed system in which the syntax of infinity cannot apply to a presentness, therefore reality cannot portray a present, if the present is to be a part of the system itself... you know, a part of the sequence of a set of values 1-3. (2 is part of the sequence sort-to-speak).
But we perceive, and this requires a fixation of time, or a 'presentness' for lack of a better word. And in our reality, there are only two options left. One I see as idealistic, and the other is materialistic which for that reason I prefer but I still hate, because I hate the concept.
So the first, is that, maybe the present is not a part of the sequence, but emergent from it. That you have a sequence 1-3, but none of those values imply the present; rather, the present is emergent on the whole realization of the sequence itself. (realization may not be the right word). There is a dilemma with this though. It implies an idealistic feature (IMO) that something can be created from nothing, or rather, that nothing can be created from something. So this sillyness is automatically tossed aside.
The other idea is that which fits with reality. You have a sequence of an even amount of numbers (implying infinity, that's all that is important) and there is no middle, but a part of the sequence is considered the present. Except the sequence is not a sequence, not an algorithm; it just is.. for simplicity purposes. That is to say, there is no order or intention, or cause in an absolute manner. It is all relative.
So where does the present fit? It could be a superposition, who knows. You wanted metaphysics. Awareness will probably someday be explained via a phenomenon that occurs in the brain. An autopoeitic, self realizing system is just a discourse on some idealistic frenzy which reasons very well, but is illogical.
I got a question. How the heck, do you have this syntactically infinite system, that really isn't, that seems to as it resolves further and further up the macro perception, able to realize itself, and continue to do so in a fractal manner, so that you have disorder then order then disorder then order and so on.... And since this fractal spatiality relies on the syntax, why would the mind do this, this redundance, this infinity. In what way can this parallel absolute objectivity?