Count Lucanor:
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
When I use the phrase "mind-independent things" I am referring to the consciousness-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception, not others' minds. I admit I have no evidence of the existence of others' minds, as the minds of other people are, to me, transcribed into the substance of my consciousness, but given that the concept of others' minds hold that others' are essentially first-person subjective experiences, what I ultimately mean is that I believe the only thing that exists is first-person subjective experience in the form only of persons. Perhaps I should create a phrase that separates non-consciousness doppelgangers of the content of visual perception, conceptually composed of something that is not/is other than first-person subjective experience, and first-person subjective experience qua first-person subjective experience or first-person subjective experience in the form of persons.
You should be aware that when you use the phrase "content of visual perception", you are necessarily referring to the outcome of a set of processes carried out by things that are exterior to your mind. A pure mental entity, which is what you say is all there is, certainly wouldn't need an eye to see, nor have an object of visual perception to stimulate that eye and create a concept of what it sees. Being just a mind, it would create the concepts right away, without mediation of perceptual organs. If you were consistent with your mind doctrine, these things couldn't make sense.
There are no non-person objects exterior to the mind (or there are probably no non-person objects exterior to the mind, and if there were, if they are not themselves composed of first-person subjective experience, they cannot rationally have anything to do with the existence, appearance, behavior, etc. of non-person objects composed of first-person subjective experience). Given that we are first-person subjective experiences and the only thing that is ever experienced is one's first-person subjective experience (the concept of death negatively revealing that objects of perception are constructs made up of one's first-person subjective experience as these disappear during sleep and death), there is no evidence of the existence of exterior-to-the-mind eyes, brains, and the mechanic-visual process. Indeed, the mechanical visual process itself is entirely fictional, as it is merely an imagined process, the parts that may be observed in neuroscientific/medical context merely percepts made up of the first-person subjective experience of the observers. Indeed, the entire process of vision, despite being purely imaginary (as there is no evidence of the existence of exterior-to-the-mind doppelgangers of eyes, brains, and biology) is merely a God-implanted
reductio ad absurdum to instigate reason in the direction of panpsychism.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
Given that I am a first-person subjective experience composed materially of first-person subjective experience...
This is not a valid premise, it's circular: "given that this is a rock composed materially of rock..."
The premise may be circular, but in it's content it is the most obvious fact about the nature of existence. Regardless of whether or not it is circular to say 'this rock is composed materially of rock' the fact remains that existence only appears and manifests in the form of 'rock' (first-person subjective experience) in the form of a subjectively experiencing first-person subject of experience 'composed materially of rock' (composed materially of first-person subjective experience). As existence only manifests as subjective experience, we have evidence only of the existence of subjective experience.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
...given the very existence of first-person subjective experience itself as it appears in the form of myself, I have justified knowledge or justified true belief of the existence of other first-person subjective experiences
But where's the logical connection? You have first-person subjective experience. How does it justify the objective existence of other subjective experiences?
The objective existence of other subjective experiences is justified by the existence of my own subjective experience. This is not to say that the existence of my subjective experience indicates or reveals the objective existence of other subjective experiences, as I can only experience my own experience (I can believe my experience is actually the experience of another person, but this is goes into the schema of Type-2 Solipsism). Given that I won the lottery of existence as opposed to non-existence, the existence of other subjective experiences is justified in that despite the fact that I cannot experience them, it is reasonable to think that existence did not do a "one off" and halt production of others after the existence of myself.
That is, given the fact that
I exist, and that I happen to exist in such a way that I am a first-person POV subjective experience, it is not obviously or logically false that other beings would not also be first-person POV subjective experiences; this
absence of the logical necessity of the non-existence of others is justification for belief in the objective existence of others.
What's more interesting, if you accept the existence of other first-person subjective experiences, they immediately become third-person subjective experiences, which will see you in their first-person subjective experiences.
Well, they will only see my body in their first-person subjective experience, hear sounds coming from that body, see the body move in a meaningful way that indicates communication, etc. They will certainly not see my first-person subjective experience, as it is not
their first-person subjective experience, and a person can only experience one's own experience (that is not to say that there cannot be an isomorphism or mimicry of
content of experience between persons, as a relative-perspective version of isomorphic experience forms the concept of consensus reality).
And of course other people would be third-person subjective experiences, as they are not my first-person subjective experience. What matters is that if other people objectively exist, they are probably also first-person point of view subjects of experience composed of subjective experience. I don't think anyone can rationally think that something that is not experience can experience, or that something not composed of subjective experience can subjectively experience.
How do you accomodate that third-person experience in your whole schema?
An excellent question. I use the example of a fiction writer imagining fictional characters and their feelings, thoughts, and actions to illustrate how Pantheopsychism "works", and admittedly solipsism taking this form runs into trouble without the added fiction of what I call
"sub-dimensionalism" or
"sub-dimensional consciousness".
A fiction writer imagines fictional characters doing this or that, thinking this or that, feeling this or that, but the characters are mental "figurines" made up of the mental "clay" of the writer. It is the writer contorting his or her thought-experience into the form of other people. These "individuals" are not objectively existing subjective experiences existing exterior to the writer's mind, but are simulacrum of the writer's thoughts[/i]. At the end of the day, the characters have no objective existence but are essentially the writer toying with his or her own consciousness to contort it into the form of "another's" consciousness, when in actuality it is just his or her consciousness appearing in the form of someone other than the indigenous consciousness.
"The God that calls things that are not as though they were."
-Romans 4:17
Fictional characters being only a fiction writer morphing his or her consciousness into the form of the imagined-in-the-moment fictional character poses an inextricable problem for Pantheopsychism without the added fiction of Sub-dimensional consciousness.
(Not exactly inextricable: one could imagine that for a past, present, and future eternity we are "morphings" of God's consciousness as God, who has all the time in the world, imagines the birth, life experiences, and death of every human that shall ever exist in single-file order: this solves the seeming problem of simultaneity and multiplicity of other consciousnesses. Oneself, or what one experiences as "oneself" is actually the Christian God contorted into the form of oneself and one's experiences from birth to death. I certainly do not adhere to this view, but hold it as a hidden ace in the sleeve, despite it's psychological unlikelihood [ergo, the "unlikelihood" is "in one's head" in the form of one's lack of belief in it's objective existence, despite the fact that it can in principle objectively exist]). There is in fact a version of this single-file mental contortion-ism in Pantheopsychism, but there's no need to explain it here.)
Sub-dimensional consciousness is the idea that the substance of the first-person subjective experience of the sub-conscious mind of the fiction writer, independent of the thought making up the writer's working memory, forms an independently experiencing doppelganger of the thought-character that experiences a doppelganger of the experience of the thought-character (which is essentially the author or writer pretending to be the character in his or her thoughts) or may have thoughts that deviate from the narrative of the writer, governed and controlled by the writer's subconscious. Thus, just as in the concept of the process of perception there are percepts and distal objects, in the concept of Sub-dimensional consciousness there is the fictional character that is a formation of the thought of the writer (the distal object) and the sub-conscious doppelganger of the character, existing in the writer's subconscious, that may infallibly or alternately mimic the conscious narrative (the percept).
The psychiatric assesment you made of the Christian god's mind does not solve the problem, because if it is an anomaly that must be "corrected", what is then the normal state?
I've stated in other forums that in terms' of God's psychiatric state there is a
comorbidity of Dissociative and Schizoid Personality disorder (i.e. the narcissistic fantasy element of Schizoid personality, which is a natural property of solipsism as God must imagine other beings in order for these others to exist and for God to be able to interact with them).
Schizoid fantasy
A pathological reliance on fantasizing and preoccupation with inner experience is often part of the schizoid withdrawal from the world. Fantasy thus becomes a core component of the self in exile, though fantasizing in schizoid individuals is far more complicated than a means of facilitating withdrawal.
Fantasy is also a relationship with the world and with others by proxy. It is a substitute relationship, but a relationship nonetheless, characterized by idealized, defensive and compensatory mechanisms. This is self-contained and free from the dangers and anxieties associated with emotional connection to real persons and situations. Klein explains it as "an expression of the self struggling to connect to objects, albeit internal objects (emphasis mine). Fantasy permits schizoid patients to feel connected, and yet still free from the imprisonment in relationships. In short, in fantasy one can be attached (to internal objects) and still be free." This aspect of schizoid pathology has been generously elaborated in works by R. D. Laing, Donald Winnicott, and Ralph Klein.
-Wikipedia, Schizoid Personality Disorder
I submit that in the case of God these are not "disorders" but a natural state that is not an anomaly (as no other gods without the condition exist) and is not something that must, or can, be "corrected".
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
Other minds exist (in a sense--see my concession to your charge of solipsism below), as they are inferred (using myself as evidence driving the induction) to consist of the same thing I am: first-person subjective experience.
You cannot use induction to infer the existence of other entities outside of your mind. I mean, you could use it to justify your belief, but by doing so you automatically have granted the rest of us the same justification, based on induction, to our beliefs in mind-independent stuff like bridges, skyscrapers, brains and other bodies.
I can use induction to infer the existence of
first-person subjective experience outside my mind. Given that existence only appears in the form of first-person subjective experience, I don't think one can rationally justify belief in bridges, skyscrapers, brains, and other bodies
made up of something other than first-person subjective experience.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
An interesting idea, but given that according to the Bible God is "The God that calls things that are not, as though they were" (Romans 4:17)
If you feel justified to believe in the existence of a book that is independent of your own mind, which your mind and body discover in the exterior world and passively receive the information encoded in it, why shouldn't the rest of us be justified in believing there are real, mind-independent bridges, skyscrapers and brains?
The book is made up of my consciousness, which I believe derives only from more consciousness in the exterior world in the form of an exterior Person imagining the book, and transmitting the idea of the book to His sub-conscious and the sub-dimensional persons within the Person, the book and its content mimicked in the subconscious doppelganger of the conscious idea.
One can be justified in believing there are real, mind-independent bridges, skyscrapers, and brains...but these exterior existences only logically exist if by "mind-independent" they are "exterior to a subject's mind", they are composed of first-person subjective experience, and exist only in the form of an idea in the mind of an exterior person.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
HE 'calls things that are not' ('given that as you said he is the only agent with actual objective existence), 'as though they were', in which He pretends we have objective existence despite the fact we are only ideas within His mind.
This would just confirm your acceptance of the notion that you and me and this conversation are not really happening as things and events carried out by free will agents, they are mere illusions in god's mind.
True. After all, He is "the God that call things that are not, as though they were."
By the way, there would be no justified reason to believe that the Christian god narrative is for real...
Maybe in the cold light of day it doesn't
need to be real? That is, I believe there isn't a valid value-judgment (although one is "free" to "choose" to feel it is a "bad", "good", or "neutral" thing) in the possibility that we are not real? If true, it's simply the way things are.
...it could be an entertaining deceptive game in the mind of the overarching entity.
An entertaining deceptive narrative when the overarching entity is fully awake (the first or "birth" personality). Not so entertaining to the entity when the entity is non-lucidly dreaming of experiencing every negative experience of every human that shall ever exist (the second personality: "The Crucified Man") or lucidly dreaming (the third-personality) in a bid to revert the second and third personality to the first to dissipate the horror experienced by the second and His subconscious/sub-dimensional doppelgangers.
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
Can you prove that skyscrapers exist as real material objects, given you can only demonstrate (and this only to yourself) your first-person subjective experience of skyscrapers but not skyscrapers in the absence of your experience of them? Remember, 'real material objects' are distal objects: objects as they are in the absence of anyone's experience of them. We can only experience percepts, we cannot experience distal objects and only have quasi-religious faith that distal objects exist.
The fact that you base all your premises and conclusions on religious faith, does not compel the rest of us, not sharing your faith-based beliefs, to submit to such premises and conclusions.
True. When I was younger and dumber, I banged my head against the wall in the futile attempt to command such submission (as many Christians do to this day). But I realized that the most one can do is to simply present one's idea in a forum that invites the sharing of ideas, and argue (if one can) it's logical and metaphysical possibility.
It is true that you will remain entitled to your faith, but since your faith cannot demonstrate anything, it certainly does not demonstrate that objective existence is false. In fact, I'm in a better position than you, since I do not need to doubt all the things exterior to my mind, including my own perceptual organs and other people, because I can certainly use inductive reasoning to consider the evidence (a justifiable method, according to you). And I can use other people's experiences, which will be real experiences independent of mine, to validate the existence of other objects that are also independent of their minds.
It is reasonable to assume that the existence of anything that is other than/that is not subjective experience is false. The only evidence you have for the existence of anything exterior to your mind is your first-person subjective experience, as you do not experience things that are not your first-person subjective experience and something that is not first-person subjective experience cannot logically have anything to do with the existence of first-person subjective experience because, well,
it is not first-person subjective experience. Other people's experiences, real experiences independent of yours and mine, still experience only first-person subjective experience---
not that which is not first-person subjective experience (which cannot be experienced). Thus the only objects that can be "validated" as independent of one's mind are only objects composed of the subjective experience of others, not objects composed of something other than subjective experience, as this substance that may not exist.
As Hume states (ironically in a context meant to "disprove" the existence of God):
"Why torture your brain to justify the course of nature upon suppositions,
which, for aught you know, may be entirely imaginary, and of which there
are to be found no traces in the course of nature?"
phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
"Guns a' blazing" is my motto (ugh, I said this). No need to hide the "shame".
I meant the shame of those who disguise their theism in nuanced idealist doctrines.
I see.
PG
We are currently living within the mind of Jesus Christ as he is currently being crucified. One may think there is no God, or if one believes in God, one thinks one lives outside the mind of Christ in a post-crucifixion present.
In other news...