1) Unfortunately, I am rarely satisfied when someone puts a name to something and then calls it mission accomplished. I realize that I am having an experience that is commonly called a dream. It can be named anything you want. You can call it an illusion if you want. What I would appreciate is if you can explain to me how dreams happen? I am very interested in this subject. How the mind goes from observing four dimensions into a state where there are no dimensions. Same mind, different states. How does this all happen? Which state of mind is real and which is not real? Same mind isn't it? Or is it?

2) Well, I am looking at some shadows right now. What I am wondering is if I see them, and you don't are they illusions or not?

Use the link that I gave you.

Not being in the same place at the same time, to see the same event, does not make the event an illusion. I've already explained to you what an illusion is, so please reread my previous posts?

You mean I have to find out what Buddha and the other guy believed the Cogito meant in order to find out what it means, or in order to find our what you mean? Very puzzling.

I think that Buddha (and the other guy) were born way before Descartes, so how could they know what the Cogito means, anyway, and when would they have talked about it. Very puzzling.

ps. If one is 'looking' at (or 'seeing') what is formulated from and in connection with content and activity in their visual field as a shadow, and if that can be demonstrated objectively by a second or third party to not be a shadow, and that demonstration can be replicated by others, then it is an illusion. It is an illusion because you have labelled it a shadow when it is not a shadow--since shadow has a specific definition.

There must be a reason that every spiritual tradition has a sacred symbol that is based on the circle.

I read the link. Let me summarize it for you as I understood it.

First it describes what every kid knows - that is that there is a common experience called dreams. It happens when someone is asleep.

Second, it then goes into many interpretations of what dreams represent.

None of this addresses my questions. However, reading it did waste some precious time of mine. I was watching the Legend of Wyatt Earp with Hugh O'Brian and couldn't finish the DVD because I was reading stuff that anyone who has dreams already knows.

Sorry. Unfortunately, my Consciousness is rarely satisfied with names, descriptions and definitions. I am more interested in How and Why. I will still have to go on wondering what is an illusion, because all I know is that I experience things that others do not - such as taking a shower in the morning, and have dreams right before that at night. That is what my Consciousness does. It is part of my life.

The Wikipedia definitions are ... well not very satisfying. What can I say? If you are satisfied, then there isn't much where else to go. Different people are satisfied by different things.

Rich

What does that mean? I'm not saying that another being is having the illusion that I exist. I'm saying that I may only exist as an abstraction of an actual reality. I don't believe, in the least bit, that I am an abstraction. I am a strong adherent to the principle of parsimony, but this argument stems from the problem of epistemic skepticism. That is why knowledge is a practical, provisional concept and not an absolute.

It sounds like you read little to none of the information in that link. It explains the phenomenon of dreaming at the neurological, and psychological levels. Be careful, you're almost crazy when you start to believe that dreams are real.

This is a waste of time. You ask me what something is, but when I described it to you, you brush it off by saying that your brain isn't satisfied with names, descriptions, and definitions. I'm sorry that I took you seriously.

But if there is an illusion, then must not someone be having the illusion (or hallucination which is really what you are talking about)? I really do not know what it means to say that "X exists as an abstraction of reality" (I have never heard the phrase before, and I really have no idea what it might mean) but if "X exists as an abstraction of reality" implies that "X exists" then, of course something exist, namely the one who has the illusion or the hallucination. It it does not imply that X exists, then, I am afraid that I don't have any idea of what you mean. Generally, the peculiar phrase, "A exists as B" just means that B exists. Unfortunately, I don't know what "an abstraction of reality" means, or would be, and I doubt very much that anyone else knows what it means, or would be. Just putting a few English words together does not guarantee that the result makes sense.

If X, which exists, is an abstraction, that is to say X is a sort of extract taken from the reality in order to be analyzed.

Abundantly clear? Does this mean your interpretation is the one to go by?

Frankly, the explanation given is akin to my telling my son, that "babies come from Mommy", when he asks me "Where do babies come from". And do you know what children then ask ...?

At some point, probably when students start figuring out how to get A's in school, the process of exploration and questioning just ceases in many people. They realize that questioning the professor is a bad policy. So, it appears they lose their inquisitive nature, and just become complacent and are easily satisfied by definitions (i.e. observing and naming things), and calling definitions "answers". But as for me, I'm still like that child asking the next question .....

Rich

You don't need my interpretation. You already have Descartes'. He wrote it. He was a man of considerable skill at articulating a train of logic, and he did so self-consciously and intentionally in the thought experiment that culminates in his cogito (although that specific phrase appears elsewhere).

So why are we trying to interpret what his cogito means in isolation of what he actually said it means?

Whether you find an explanation satisfactory seems to me to have nothing to do with the truth of the explanation.

Did he now?

Did he now? Suppose you tell me, or should I tell you? Who is right? Me or you. Or maybe the thousands of philosophers and philosophy students who have studied him and have come away with different ideas. Do you think that the the actions of the Church at that time might skew his writings just a little, so he didn't end up like Galileo? Or do you think that there was free thought and speech at that time - or at any time in our history, when someone could write anything he wanted? And even if he did? You can understand his words as written one hundred years ago, but you have no idea what I am saying. And I am here to tell you that you have NO idea what I am saying. Interesting isn't it?

To find certainty amidst enormous ambiguity. Humans are truly amazing.

Rich

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Yep. What counts is whether you think its true. Because, unlike me, you know what is true. I might as well just pack up my brain and let you do all the thinking for me, and you can tell me what's true and what's not true. Well, I am glad that burden is off my shoulders.

Rich

I am just as fallible as the next person. What count is what is true, not what anyone happens to think is true, but with the qualification that if the person is an expert or an authority on the subject matter. what such an authority or expert thinks is true concerning that subject matter counts more than what a non-authority or non-expert thinks about the matter.

He wrote what he wrote. Period.

It does him a disservice to take his one famous pithy quotation, ignore EVERYTHING else that he wrote that places that quote in the context of his philosophy, but assume we can figure out what he meant.

He wrote what he wrote. There's your data. Go searching through his writings for his ideas.

However, you cut it, eventually a person is going to have to decide something. And at that moment, it becomes subjective - unless you can decide things without people.

Rich

---------- Post added at 01:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------

I try to decide on the basis of objective evidence, and so, my decisions are objective. Evidence isn't personal.

Perhaps the problem arises from the different uses of the term 'exist'. I suspect that hue-man is not suggesting that abstractions don't exist, but that they are reducible, have no metaphysical existence. They exist, but not in way we usually think they do. This would also have to be true for the recipient of the abstraction.

richrf;71426 wrote:

However, you cut it, eventually a person is going to have to decide something. And at that moment, it becomes subjective - unless you can decide things without people.

Rich

---------- Post added at 01:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------

I try to decide on the basis of objective evidence, and so, my decisions are objective. Evidence isn't personal.

Can I ask you how you receive evidence in a non-personal manner?


Rich