• Jonathan AB
    33
    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.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    My philosophical views are mostly dualistJonathan AB

    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
    7.8k
    The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.Jonathan AB

    Sounds good.
  • S
    11.7k
    Matter is deadened MindRich

    That's stupid.

    matter is deadened lightRich

    That's just as stupid, if not more so.
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    Matter has become deadened MindRich

    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
    13k
    The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.Jonathan AB

    Correction - poetry, humor, competence, and courage.

    Sounds like you will be fun to have around.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Then that 'deadness' of the rock is still only an illusion because
    it is still a subset of my living mind.
    Jonathan AB

    The rock is not in your mind. It is a real quantum system wave pattern.
  • Cuthbert
    1.1k
    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
    3.3k
    Welcome to, .

    The most important answers being:Jonathan AB

    0b1yybfit5axhdnk.jpg
  • BC
    13.2k
    Matter is deadened Mind
    — Rich

    That's stupid.

    matter is deadened light
    — Rich

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

    Nice and direct.

    BTW Jonathan AB from SA, welcome to TPF.
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    And so monism yields back to a very real dualismJonathan AB

    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
    13k
    Ask me anything!
    Sadly I am deluded into thinking that I have all the answers.
    The most important answers being: poetry, humor, and courage.
    Jonathan AB

    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
    33
    competenceT Clark

    I could also add logic, and being indomitable.
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    The rock is not in your mind. It is a real quantum system wave pattern.Rich

    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
    33
    welcomeBitter Crank

    Hey there was nothing bitter or cranky in that comment!
    Have you been cured of your melancholy by by my wit already?
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    time for you to make some specific assertionsT Clark

    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
    3.2k
    Are you suggesting that thinking is an act of objective observation,
    and the object being 'thought of' always exists independently of the thinker?
    Jonathan AB

    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.
  • fdrake
    5.9k
    You'd have a lot to talk about with @Hachem! Scientifically minded scientific skepticism, only he was obsessed with optics.
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    The memory wave patterns when changing give the sense of duration or time.Rich

    But is the future real before we sense it?
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    I believe you. All those are obviously correct.René Descartes

    So you have seen my spacecraft design?
  • S
    11.7k
    Nice and direct.Bitter Crank

    :smirk:
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    You'd have a lot to talk about with Hachem! Scientifically minded scientific skepticism, only he was obsessed with opticsfdrake

    I'll keep a lookout for him, thanks.
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    Of course, I am a psychic.René Descartes

    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
    11.7k
    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.
    Jonathan AB

    Is this humour? :chin:
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    Is this humour?Sapientia

    If I get banned for saying it is not humor, then it is humor.
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    I think it will go beyond the speed of light.René Descartes

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

    faster-than-light-concept.jpg

    It should be a bit clearer to see the image, rather than the psychic impression.
    Unless, of course, you are one of THOSE beings.
  • Jonathan AB
    33
    Nice, just as I pictured it in my mind.René Descartes

    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))
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