So now you suddenly dismiss an authoritative source?

So now you suddenly dismiss an authoritative source? — Noble Dust

Authoritative? In what way?

Mystically.

Okay then, you made it...

If I see a response worth responding to, I’ll respond to it.

I see. My mistake. It's not always easy to tell which authors are mystically endowed with such anagogic knowledge. If they'd only leave their mystic auras switched on all the time like they used to in the old images, but I suppose even seers have to save energy these days.

Beginners have far-sight.

If I see a response worth responding to, I’ll respond to it. — Wayfarer

I know, that was the point of my question. I'm wondering why you post in a discussion forum if the qualification for having a discussion is agreeing with you about the main point under discussion. Surely art or oration would be a better medium for your approach.

"Things worth responding to" is a slightly different concept from "Things I agree with".

"Things worth responding to" is a slightly different concept from "Things I agree with". — Olivier5

Yeah. It was the overlap in this particular case which interested me.

Oh sure it did :rofl:

I think the recent activity in this thread should be the model of Sundays final. Even I would watch it if everyone kept moving the goalposts.

Of course. Why would you doubt that? I'd be interested to hear the thought process of someone who holds the belief that "If you don't get it, there's no point in discussing it", who nonetheless thinks a discussion forum is the ideal platform on which to express that view. It seems contradictory to me, but i'm sure it seems consistent in some way to @Wayfarer, hence the question. I'm not going to feign a objective, third-party indifference, it really annoys me. But that doesn't render my interest disingenuous.

Woah, "Sunday's final" as in a massive free for all? Sounds American I've ever heard it.

I'd be interested to hear from someone with that view as well.

Assuming there is such an overlap.

Assuming there is such an overlap. — Olivier5

Of course.

In other words, you are making a lot of wild guesses about other people's motives.

Do you respond to each and every post, or do you make choices, like Wayfarer?

In other words, you are making a lot of wild guesses about other people's motives. — Olivier5

An assumption is not the same as a wild guess, and nowhere have I assumed motives, it's motives I'm enquiring about.

Do you respond to each and every post, or do you make choices, like Wayfarer? — Olivier5

No, I don't respond to each and every post, and yes I do make choices like Wayfarer. What has that to do with the very specific question of taking agreement about the matter under discussion to be a prerequisite for discussing that matter?

Okay then, you should be able to understand that such a strategy is perfectly rational. No need for motive questioning.

Okay then, you should be able to understand that such a strategy is perfectly rational. — Olivier5

What strategy? I don't see how my deciding which posts to respond to by any criteria makes all criteria equally rational.

So you think there's no essential ontological difference between beings and devices? — Wayfarer

Not an ontological difference, no; not a difference in the kind of stuff they're made out of. (I'm ignoring for our purposes here your peculiar use of "beings" as something more specific than "things that exist", since devices of course are things that exist and so "beings" in the usual sense).

The other point is, cameras are built and operated by humans. They have no ability to decide or intend, nor is there anything about them that is even analogous to those abilities, which are intrinsic to human beings. How can that not count as an ontological difference? — Wayfarer

Those are important functional differences between humans and cameras, but there's no reason why that functional difference has to entail they're made of different kinds of stuff. There's also a huge functional difference between a rock and a camera, or further still between air and a camera, but there's no debate about them having to be made of stuff that's metaphysically, ontologically dissimilar to accommodate those differences.

And I didn’t ask, can you can recognise the ontological distinction being made in the passage quoted? — Wayfarer

That's the distinction between form and substance. The question at hand is whether there are irreconcilably different kinds of substances (i.e. stuff that's not just a different form of some other stuff), or at least irreconcilably different kinds of properties of those substances; not a question of whether there's a difference between something having a form (or function, as above) and being made of a certain kind of stuff.

But within the analogy, the person taking the photo/video is ontologically different from both the image and the camera. — Noble Dust

That's the claim in question here. The argument offered in support of it was that an observer isn't present in the stuff they're observing. But a camera isn't present in the images it records, yet it's uncontroversially made of the same kind of stuff, so why can't an observer be made of the same kind of stuff they're observing?

:up:

Nope, supernaturalism was what I objected to. Dualism, at least my garden variety, is a natural, common sensical philosophy. It's not really about demons and fairies. — Olivier5

Supernaturalism just is transcendentalism about ontology: the claim that there are aspects of reality that are beyond empirical observation. Demons and fairies as usually conceived, if they existed at all, would be empirically observable and so natural, not supernatural. You're confusing "supernatural" with "paranormal".

Indeed, this difference is not about the map being magical or supernatural. — Olivier5

Then it's not about dualism in the usual philosophical sense under discussion here. If the map and the territory can be made of the same kind of stuff, and have only the ontologically same kind of properties, then the map-territory relation is not a dualist relationship in the usual philosophical sense, and calling that "dualism" is needlessly confusing.

I'm wondering why you post in a discussion forum if the qualification for having a discussion is agreeing with you about the main point under discussion. — Isaac

Again, it’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing, but seeing the point of the argument you’re taking issue with - which you're not. If the contention is that a camera is the equivalent of, or the same as, the human subject I don't see anything to debate, because it's a simple falsehood. Devices and beings are ontologically distinct. You don't murder a camera, and you can't repair a human being. Yesterday it was that the concept of pain was no different to pain. There's a pattern here, isn't there?

Go back to the first mention of the camera:

A camera does not film itself; you can't see the camera on film. Does that require that the camera be an ontologically different kind of thing than the things the camera is filming? — Pfhorrest

No it doesn't - but it's also not a valid objection, because it's only indirectly comparable. What I'm saying that we don't see is the way in which the mind, the subject, constructs or creates what we understand as the real world. We constantly interpret what we see to make our worldview. Heck even neuroscientists see that, although they don't always grasp the philosophical implications.

What the ontological (and epistemological) issue is, is that the mind doesn't see the role it plays in this world-construction. Seeing that is which is what critical philosophy is. Most people are naive realists, which sounds a pejorative, but it's really not, it simply means taking the world at face value, not questioning appearances. It's difficult to question the realist perspective but that is what is required.

(I'm ignoring for our purposes here your peculiar use of "beings" as something more specific than "things that exist", — Pfhorrest

Humans are beings, they are called 'human beings'. If you think that's peculiar, the problem is yours. And I do think that there are philosophical distinctions between the terms 'being', 'reality', and 'existence' - such distinctions are the stuff of metaphysics, which is different to the stuff that you think everything is made from.

Humans are beings, they are called 'human beings'. If you think that's peculiar, the problem is yours. — Wayfarer

That's not peculiar at all, but it also makes perfect sense if "being" is taken to mean "thing that exists", rather than... "transcendent subject of experience" or whatever you take it to mean.

You're obfuscating a very real, and very fundamental, distinction in philosophy, in fact even in ordinary discourse, between objects, objectivism, objective view, and subjects, subjects of experience, beings. But then, this is a consequence of your philosophical view, which has conditioned you to ignore this distinction.

If Elon Musk does succeed in going to Mars, would he expect to find anything there answering to the description of 'a being'?

Then it's not about dualism in the usual philosophical sense under discussion here. If the map and the territory can be made of the same kind of stuff, and have only the ontologically same kind of properties, then the map-territory relation is not a dualist relationship in the usual philosophical sense, and calling that "dualism" is needlessly confusing. — Pfhorrest

:100: :up: The map/territory – form/material – distinction is a fold (origami-like ... or wave-on-the-ocean movement) rather than a connecting (of separate - 'ontologically different' - domains).

Again, it’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing, but seeing the point of the argument you’re taking issue with - which you're not. If the contention is that a camera is the equivalent of, or the same as, the human subject I don't see anything to debate, because it's a simple falsehood. — Wayfarer

Are you just being evangelical here or can you genuinely not see the difference between something seeming to you to be the case and something actually being the case? You write as if you genuinely don't understand the concept of people disagreeing about some particular class of belief.

You write as if you genuinely don't understand the concept of people disagreeing about some particular class of belief. — Isaac

The two cases in question are: whether a camera is a being, and whether the concept of pain is painful. As regards the latter, I said that the assertion was so unreasonable as not to warrant a response. That is why I resist getting drawn into pointless arguments with you.

The other point you haven't addressed is the dualism of symbols on the one hand, and physical matter, on the other. That is an excellent starting point for this analysis, because it shows that your assertion that it's all the 'same stuff' doesn't hold up.

I don't see how my deciding which posts to respond to by any criteria makes all criteria equally rational. — Isaac

Motive questioning again...

So when people do not respond to your post, they are at fault, but when you don't respond to their posts, you are not at fault at all. Okay.

The two cases in question are: whether a camera is a being, and whether the concept of pain is painful. As regards the latter, I said that the assertion was so unreasonable as not to warrant a response. — Wayfarer

I see. So just a failure to understand the argument then. I thought it might be something more interesting. Or are you just deliberately straw-manning the opposing position to avoid the difficulty of addressing it?

No one has said anything like "cameras are beings" (in the sense you mean it), and no one has said that the concept of pain is painful.

If you don't understand the counter-arguments you're presented with, you can just seek clarity, you don't have to just throw in the towel.