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Hello Fellows

Jonathan AB February 03, 2018 at 16:21 12225 views 33 comments
I am guessing this the place for introductions, so I am wondering how one defines oneself,
and thus I already realize that I am something of a compulsive analyst.

I Did Hons in Phil and Psych last century, but mostly work as a computer programmer.
I live on the Wild Coast of South Africa where the war against apartheid defined my early
character as being unafraid of ethical confrontation.

My philosophical views are mostly dualist with solid devotion to both physics and spirituality,
though when pushed, yes, I fall on the side the physical world being illusion, and consciousness
being the foundation of all being. But I cannot deny that the All-consciousness is hell-bent on trying
to pretend that the Universe is dualist. (So I sometimes play along).

Ask me anything!
Sadly I am deluded into thinking that I have all the answers.
The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.

Comments (33)

Rich February 03, 2018 at 17:59 #149419
Quoting Jonathan AB
My philosophical views are mostly dualist


One can take a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical position that Mind (consciousness) and Matter are the same just moving in different directions. Mind is creating (organizing against entropy using stored energy) while Matter has become deadened Mind (that is unable to organize, and this decaying).

Bergson took this position that Matter is deadened Mind as did Peirce. It avoids lots of problems and paradoxes that challenges dualism. Interestingly, the noted architect Louis I. Kahn spoke that matter is deadened light.
Noble Dust February 03, 2018 at 18:04 #149423
Quoting Jonathan AB
The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.


Sounds good.
S February 03, 2018 at 18:38 #149427
Quoting Rich
Matter is deadened Mind


That's stupid.

Quoting Rich
matter is deadened light


That's just as stupid, if not more so.
Jonathan AB February 16, 2018 at 10:58 #153587
Quoting Rich
Matter has become deadened Mind


I imagine a dead and lifeless rock.

Then that 'deadness' of the rock is still only an illusion because
it is still a subset of my living mind. And yet, the very capacity
for thinking of a 'dead' illusion - suggests that 'deadness' is a
very real phenomena - how would it be possible to imagine something
that does not exist - unless it had at least the potential to exist?

And so monism yields back to a very real dualism.

T Clark February 16, 2018 at 12:53 #153602
Quoting Jonathan AB
The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.


Correction - poetry, humor, competence, and courage.

Sounds like you will be fun to have around.
Rich February 16, 2018 at 12:59 #153603
Quoting Jonathan AB
Then that 'deadness' of the rock is still only an illusion because
it is still a subset of my living mind.


The rock is not in your mind. It is a real quantum system wave pattern.
Cuthbert February 16, 2018 at 13:32 #153611
Welcome, because the most important questions are: What kind of stuff did Shelley write? What makes you able to laugh? What did Dorothy's lion lack?
jorndoe February 17, 2018 at 03:06 #153888
Welcome to, Reply to Jonathan AB.

Quoting Jonathan AB
The most important answers being:


User image
BC February 17, 2018 at 04:59 #153907
Quoting Sapientia
Matter is deadened Mind
— Rich

That's stupid.

matter is deadened light
— Rich

That's just as stupid, if not more so.


Nice and direct.

BTW Jonathan AB from SA, welcome to TPF.
mcdoodle February 17, 2018 at 05:57 #153933
Quoting Jonathan AB
And so monism yields back to a very real dualism


I wonder where the binary thing about dualism comes from though. For me worlds are plural not dual. Nelson Goodman proposed what to me is a plausible way of accepting this while being analytical. Each world you propose needs to hold together on its own terms, or at least that is my version of Goodman. 'Imagine a world where...' So for instance, a scientised world holds together holistically; a Wittgensteinian world where we're only engaged in language-games holds together; a world confected by Rauschenberg Picasso and Cindy Sherman could hold together, if you entered into their visions sufficiently...and so on.

I don't get the 'two'-ness and indeed I'm Wittgensteinian on that. We're just being bewitched by language there. We speak, say, of 'sharp-tongued' people, and we don't mean they have sharp physical tongues. So how does one know that any given 'physical' description is 'really physical'. If only that one example holds up, how are we distinguishing this supposed binary difference between 'mental' and 'physical'?
T Clark February 17, 2018 at 12:27 #154030
Quoting Jonathan AB
Ask me anything!
Sadly I am deluded into thinking that I have all the answers.
The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.


Well now. Everyone has been very welcoming and pleasant. Now it's time for you to make some specific assertions so we can start ridiculing you and treating you with scorn.
Jonathan AB February 17, 2018 at 19:19 #154107
Quoting T Clark
competence


I could also add logic, and being indomitable.
Jonathan AB February 17, 2018 at 19:22 #154108
Quoting Rich
The rock is not in your mind. It is a real quantum system wave pattern.


Are you suggesting that thinking is an act of objective observation,
and the object being 'thought of' always exists independently of the thinker?

Even if I imagine something nobody else had ever considered, then that
which is imagined is more real than that which is doing the imagining?
Jonathan AB February 17, 2018 at 19:26 #154111
Quoting Bitter Crank
welcome


Hey there was nothing bitter or cranky in that comment!
Have you been cured of your melancholy by by my wit already?
Jonathan AB February 17, 2018 at 19:32 #154112
Quoting T Clark
time for you to make some specific assertions


okidoki
Relativity is bogus,
the moon landings were faked,
the war on drugs is an atrocity of the proportions of the holocaust,
the medical insurance monopoly is a scam
most cancer can be cured by diet
motor-cars are evil
Jesus is the same archetype as Poseidon
I have discovered empirical evidence of alien intelligence
and
I have also designed a spacecraft which is the quickest route to the stars
and which most likely could reach a speed beyond the velocity of light

and I have a very big grin on my face because
all of those assertions are entirely serious
Rich February 17, 2018 at 20:20 #154121
Quoting Jonathan AB
Are you suggesting that thinking is an act of objective observation,
and the object being 'thought of' always exists independently of the thinker?


The object is a wave pattern. It is real.

The mind is a wave pattern. It to is real.

The mind can reconstruct the wave pattern of the object and create a memory wave pattern which is also real. The memory wave patterns when changing give the sense of duration or time.

Everything is equal real, some some are shared and some are not.
René Descartes February 17, 2018 at 22:00 #154144
[Delete] @Baden
fdrake February 17, 2018 at 22:21 #154154
You'd have a lot to talk about with @Hachem! Scientifically minded scientific skepticism, only he was obsessed with optics.
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 21:48 #163129
Quoting Rich
The memory wave patterns when changing give the sense of duration or time.


But is the future real before we sense it?
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 21:49 #163130
Quoting René Descartes
I believe you. All those are obviously correct.


So you have seen my spacecraft design?
S March 17, 2018 at 21:57 #163136
Quoting Bitter Crank
Nice and direct.


:smirk:
René Descartes March 17, 2018 at 22:04 #163141

[Delete] @Baden
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 22:14 #163151
Quoting fdrake
You'd have a lot to talk about with Hachem! Scientifically minded scientific skepticism, only he was obsessed with optics


I'll keep a lookout for him, thanks.
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 22:20 #163154
Quoting René Descartes
Of course, I am a psychic.


Me too.
I had a premonition - a really strong one about the boxing day tsunami,
about 9 months before it occurred. It was really odd - the first time I had tried to give
a reading for more than 10 years. Could not explain that with materialist psychology at all.

So you like my spaceship design, eh?
So how fast will a diamond spin before the centrifugal force rips it apart?
Assume a diamond 1meter x 10cm x 10cm.
(obviously artificial)

How close will that get to speed of light?
(or beyond that if you're not a relativist)
S March 17, 2018 at 22:34 #163163
Quoting Jonathan AB
Me too.
I had a premonition - a really strong one about the boxing day tsunami,
about 9 months before it occurred. It was really odd - the first time I had tried to give
a reading for more than 10 years. Could not explain that with materialist psychology at all.


Is this humour? :chin:
René Descartes March 17, 2018 at 22:46 #163174

[Delete] @Baden
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 22:52 #163178
Quoting Sapientia
Is this humour?


If I get banned for saying it is not humor, then it is humor.
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 22:54 #163181
Quoting René Descartes
I think it will go beyond the speed of light.


Fantastic!
You win the prize which is to check-out the design that will take
humanity to the stars:

User image

It should be a bit clearer to see the image, rather than the psychic impression.
Unless, of course, you are one of THOSE beings.
René Descartes March 17, 2018 at 22:57 #163182
[Delete] @Baden
Jonathan AB March 17, 2018 at 23:11 #163187
Quoting René Descartes
Nice, just as I pictured it in my mind.


Do you have a few billion dollars spare to help build it by any chance?
(Or even a few million to get started would be nice)
((or a publishing book-deal))
S March 17, 2018 at 23:12 #163190
Quoting Jonathan AB
If I get banned for saying it is not humor, then it is humor.


Well, if you're planning to bring to the table that kind of humour, then you're going to have stiff competition on your hands.

Did you know, for example, that everything is equal real? You see, some some are shared, and some are not.

I know, right? Mind = Blown.
Jonathan AB June 09, 2018 at 14:41 #186611
Reply to Sapientia

Boy did you miss the point. Its not really humor at all.
S June 09, 2018 at 18:23 #186650
Reply to Jonathan AB Okay. Thanks for setting the record straight. That's been totally playing on my mind over the last three months. :up: