boagie,

To my question: do you mean that perception never involves anything but the physical? - I believe you are answering yes.

I am trying to be precise, so let me belabor this a bit more with some analogies.

A person looks through a window. Yes, the window is part of what they see in that it filters, reflects, and refracts light. But does that mean nothing else is involved? The light itself plays no part?

Or, a child is learning to write, and the teacher takes the child's hand to guide his motions. Is the child's hand all that is involved in the writing? Is the child unaware of what the teacher has done?

I do not deny that the physical is part of all human perception, but it does not completely define human perception. The light filters through, and we are aware of the teacher's presence. These are only analogies, not literal examples.

So, I ask again, does perception every involve anything non-physical - pick your word: metaphysical, transcendental, preternatural, ...?

Resha Caner,

The physical world is object in general, the window is object, the teacher is object, the light is object, of course biology is dependent upon object, as consciousness is dependent upon object. No there are no exceptions, perception is always as far as I can determine dependent upon ones biology, even the materials consciousness might play with in its leasure time, are memories of that obtained through biological experience, example, the creation of a more complex concept out of simplier ones. As I stated in an earlier thread, man is not a creature of action, man is a creature of reaction. The most recent breakthrough in biology states that our genes are rewritten on a fairly regular basis depending upon our perception of and belief about our environment, like all organisms we react to adapt, and all things which are not identified as the self, are objects. All experience, is biological experience, and all experience, all meaning, is to be found in the relation of object to our own biology.

How about the same needs?

Well the same basic needs but even needs can vary. And even basic needs are quantified in different proportions for different people.

Some people need medications that others don't in order to survive.

Fido,

As Holiday has pointed out physcially we can develop needs that the healthy are not subject to. Basically however if we are talking about healthy individuals their needs are very similar, food, shelter, water and community, that is to substain well being, after well being is forfeited however, it a whole new ball game. The needs of basically the same biology will have universal needs.

boagie,

would you really place community on a par with food and water? I'd place food and water on a par with oxygen - in that it's IMPOSSIBLE to survive without them - but it's possible to survive without community.

iconoclast.

iconoclast,

No of couse you are right, but community would come into it sooner or later, as a social animal one needs community to be healthy. Even in our large cities said to be communities, there are people that do not have anyone, do not have community, and it shows often as a lack of well being.

I would say; get real. You know we have the same needs, and it is people who are not getting needs met who are most in need of medication. Sure, we have let a lot of genetic problems getting out of hand. We wouldn't have done so if people did not let their reason over rule their cultural fear and loathing of illness, especially genetic illness. And part of that is money, that people want to keep it close, and keep their families small, and keep their communities wealthy rather that healthy. But our needs are the same. We all need food, and we all need justice, for example.

What makes a community a community is the common defense of rights. Most of us can see we do not have a community. No union, association, or club would be necessary if the government would join the people in the defense of rights, and we will never be a nation in any accurate sense of the word until the government make a point of defending our rights instead of attacking them. It is no wonder so many feel lonely. That is exactly how the powerful want them to feel, so they will be unable to stand up for themselves.

boagie, your answers often seem obfuscatory to me. I've heard your statements on "biology", "subject/object", etc., so you don't need to repeat them. It will prevent me digging through a paragraph just to get the single word I need.

I simply wanted to know if you see "biology" as part or all of perception. Based on the quote below, I'll conclude that you see it as all.



I on the other hand, see it as only part. Further, I would say that it is a window. Therefore, we receive the light filtered, but we do receive it. I conclude you interpret biology as an opaque barrier. The light heats up the barrier, and we can feel the heat, but it is only a translation, and we can never hope to see the light.

Those differences are what make it so difficult for me to answer you. If you will not accept the non-physical, I have no recourse but analogies based on the physical. Again, as an analogy, it is akin to a physicist who will not accept relativity, and expects physics to always be expressed within a Newtonian framework - and then feels satisfied he has proven Newton superior when no good example of relativity can be produced.

It really only leaves me one last question. How would you phrase your position on the non-physical: it doesn't exist, I don't know if it exists, it doesn't matter if it exists, it might exist but it's relative to a particular perception, ... ?

Resha Caner,


I find it difficult to understand why you would be confused over the way I have stated the issue, as to repetition, it is an old method of driving home a point. I stated in my response to you there were no acceptions to experience being biological, not really much there to be confused about, that would constitute ALL in most anyones book.

:)If you are trying to say the our senses are limited, that of course is very true, our senses enable us, but they also are in and of themselves limitations.Yours is a very strange postion, at least as far as you have been able to describe it. " We can never hope to see the light." Well I think you may be talking about ultimate reality as apposed to apparent reality, ultimate reality is indeed out of the reach of our perceptions, if it were not, it would be part of our apparent reality. "We recieve the light as through a widow, filtered." You seem to be inferring that I am unware that our perceptions are translations, nothing could be further from the truth, that, it might be said is the point, our understanding of our perceptions are the translations of the stimulus as it has been translated through the process of the understanding.


"It really only leaves me one last question. How would you phrase your position on the non-physical: it doesn't exist, I don't know if it exists, it doesn't matter if it exists, it might exist but it's relative to a particular perception, ... ? " quote

:)If you do not know that it exists how could you know that it is relative to a particular perception--it sounds like non-sense. This non- physical something you wish to entertain, in the absence of any understanding about it, is irrational. Philosophy can get very abstract and it soon loses crediablity if in the course of its dialogue if it does not touch the earth periodically to regain its orientation. If your non-material something, meaning it is not matter as we think of it, then it must be energy of another sort, its all energy my friend.

:)You seem to wish to shift the responsibility for not being able to communicate what you wish to me. I suggest you start by spending sometime with this immaterial something, and try to formulate a description that is any where in the neighbourhood of reasonable/understandable. As I stated earlier, if you have another way of experiencing and understanding which is not biological, then please do share it with us all.

Fido, you have a mind that seems to wander and muddy up issues. I think you may be a little too fond of the abstract.

Common defense of rights is not what makes a community, at least not in the sense that boagie is referring. Community is simply the amalgamation of "relationships" that is the context of most of your thoughts, with "form" not entering into the equation. This forum, for example, is a community with no collective or mutual defense of rights.

boagie,

If I have frustrated or offended you, I apologize. But, you don't seem the type who gets emotionally worked up over these discussions (or at least you take the time to calm down before posting). Likewise, I don't take any of this personally. So, unless the emoticons are an obligatory signature of yours, you can drop them. I'd prefer a discussion where we not worry about hurting each other's feelings.

But I won't apologize for being slow to understand. I'm not a professional philosopher, so I learn as I go in these discussions. I've learned some cool stuff about the philosophy of science from this site. As far as topics on "truth", "knowing", (ontology, epistemology), etc., I've learned bigger words, but the substance remains essentially unchanged - same old, same old.

So, I see our conversation to this point as an attempt to determine if we share any common ground. If we do, I haven't found it. Wouldn't you agree that makes the conversation difficult?

My attempt, then, is merely to understand your viewpoint. Aside from maybe putting me in a box you have already prepared, I can't discern that you've made an attempt to understand me. I say that because you make statements, but ask no questions (other than a flippant one about "enlightening" you). If I am slow, it may be my ability to perceive, or it may be your ability to express (and vice-versa). That is irrelevant as long as we are both patient.

Have you never come to what you think is an elegant summary of a concept, only to find that when you present it to others, they still don't understand? It's because they didn't accompany you in the struggle that brought you to that point. Such may be your use of "biology".

But, I think I do understand, and you said so yourself:



If I do, then your technique of repetition is pointless. If not, I ask you to try rephrasing. One definition of insanity is repeating the same action even though it continues to bring the same negative result.

Maybe I have gone too far the other way. I almost always try to rephrase a point when it appears misunderstanding remains, and hence, I do not, as you said,



But I do see how that might give an appearance of wandering aimlessly about. So, I'll back up and state a few things as plainly as I can.

I am, by trade, a mechanical engineer. I have a master's degree and have worked in industry for almost 20 years. Hence, my main interest at this site is the philosophy of science. But, I do occassionally find other discussions interesting. That's it. I don't have an agenda to prove anything to you (unless you're also interested in the philosophy of science).

But, in addition to that, I am a Christian. I've stated it before, and make no attempt to hide it. I believe in God. I believe in the inspiration of the Bible.

However, soon after acknowledging those stances, I often spend the next hundred posts trying to correct all the erroneous conclusions people make about me. So, it would be nice if we could keep this focused on the topic at hand, and there I end my digression.

- - -

With respect to objective truth:

I thought I had clearly stated that I believe in absolute and objective truth.

I thought I had also clearly stated that such a belief requires said truth to reside in something outside human existence. For me that is God. Therefore, if we are to know it, there must be a way to transmit truth from outside to inside. For me that is a spiritual experience.

Once I make such a statement, the reply is always the same: prove it.

But as the saying goes: if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That expresses the essence of the point I have been trying to make. If all you consider is the physical nature of humanity, everything looks subjective.

Were I to agree to your restrictive assumptions, I would come to your same conclusion. But I don't agree with them.

Therefore, how can I even begin if you will not admit the possible existence of something non-physical? If you insist I remain purely within the physical nature of humanity, I can't "prove" anything outside of it.

As explained by Kuhn, when two philosophies are at cross purposes, logic will not work. The only recourse is persuasion. I could have attempted a historical case, which is the path many take. That didn't seem fitting to the subject at hand.

Instead, I tried to adopt a different "philosophical language" if one would want to call it that. I don't claim a fully developed approach, but I tried. I obviously failed.

It would be fun to continue trying, but that is up to you. And, as I indicated earlier, I think understanding goes beyond intellectual comprehension. It actually requires a shift where, if only for a moment, you actually believe the opposing view might be true. You feel it. But, that can be a scary thing, and few people are willing to take that step.

Caner (BTW, Caner is sufficient as a form of address)

Caner,

While I suppose I am as riddled with as many biases as the next guy, and I must admit when someone tells me they believe in jesus christ as the son of god, they slip a few notches down the pole of my estimation. Why did you find it necessary to introduce this here?

Let me ask you about the non-material being/object, you say you do not know if it exists, it does'nt matter if it exist but that it is related to a particular perception. This is rather mind boggling, it does not exist, as it is not material, and you cannot discribe it, of course because you have yet to percieve it, but you know or you do not know that it exists, whatever exists might mean in this context, you do see where you do not have a reasonable dialogue down to a science on this one. You have failed also to tell me, if you do at sometime experience this undefined something which is nothing, through what would you experience it through? No unless you can come up with something more intelligable I think we are through here. Good Luck through! Perhaps you will find someone of greater capacity to put this together for you.

No corrections. You make me recall something Wolfgang von Pauli (the Nobel Physicist) once said about some essay his student gave him. "It is not only not right, it is not even wrong".

That seems to be an epidemic around here.

Good. Now that we equally despise each other, there will be no pretense behind the discussion. (Aw, nuts. I suppose that statement needs mitigation by an emoticon, doesn't it? :bigsmile:)



Several reasons: 1) So that I won't be accused of a hidden agenda, and 2) to attempt to clarify earlier statements - to help you put me in the proper box.



OK, but it appears we have a misunderstanding, so let's clear that up first. I didn't say, "I don't know if God exists." I do know (see footnote).

I was asking your position on the existence of the non-physical, and providing a list of the various answers I have heard in the past. I could try repeating the question again, but having clarified the statement, I will give you a chance to restate your question first.

(Footnote: This, of course, could spark the challenge "how do you know?" The answer comes down to the same explanation as to why I believe in objective truth, so I'd rather not digress. But, if you choose to go that route, I'll link you to another thread from a few months back. We can review it, and pick up where it left off)

Resha Caner,

Actually I do not see any place for dialogue, either you have failed to make yourself understood, or I have failed to understand what you are talking about, or both, not really a bases of good dialogue. Besides there appears to be hostility in the air, also not good for dialogue. As I stated in an earlier post, I wish you luck in working this out, but I have not the remotest idea what you are talking about.

I'm sorry you feel that way. There was no hostility. I tried to inject some humor, but apparently that failed as well. My apologies that it came across as hostile.

I tend to be stubborn, so I'll say one last thing. An important step in my explanation of objective truth depends upon whether you accept the possiblity that something non-physical can exist. I say it can. You seem to say it can't. We both ask each other, "Why do you think that?"

That's about as far as we got.

If you choose to leave it there, I will respect your choice.

Caner,

Yes of course there is the non-physcial but that tends to be the product of the physcial, an idea or a concept is not physcial it is a product first of the brain and then the mind, the brain supplying the structure, the mind supplying the function of thought. I do not know if that is enough for you to work with?? Mainly because I do not know where you wish to go with this. Caner, do you consider energy to be non-physical?