Could it be the case there is something rather than nothing, because you perceived something rather than nothing? — Corvus

It's possible, but unless that thought occurs to me, there's no belief in that regard at all. There isn't a continuous belief, let alone object permanence. We can't cross that hurdle. That's why the question doesn't actually make sense.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to assume a continuous enduring substance at the time of perception, and my completely unreliable lay-understanding of physics suggests we don't really know what matter is, so I'm going with, there are properties in the universe like charge, mass etc, but no underlying identity that possesses those properties. Things certainly appear as we perceive them, of that there's no doubt, but I see don't the causal link between qualia and the 'real world' (apparently, that's a hard problem), so I can't argue that a 'real world' exists.

Saying 'real world' implies the 'other than myself'. In that sense me and the world are co-defining - me vs not me. That suggests there is no 'me' or 'a world' in any unitary sense, but 'both' are apparent in the same interaction.

This assumes perception is the inter-active cause of the world and vice versa, and consciousness is emergent in that sense, not from a prior existing universe, but in absolute immediacy. IOW, I don't pre-exist a world that I cause via perception, or vice versa.

The cause of the interaction remains a mystery, but cause inherently implies duration, which in turn implies a continuous substance.

And so on and so on...

How did you manage to perceive the unperceived cup first place, which caused your belief and memory on the unperceived cup? — Corvus

That I don't know. I don't know why there is something rather than nothing, but when I see the cup I no longer believe it because I know it in the qualitative sense. Hence, when I don't see the cup, I believe in it if I think of it. Since the knowledge I now recall was irrevocable to me when I saw it, I can only believe in it when I remember it. One can argue, What about hallucination? What about dreams? In that case it goes without saying that my perception was delusional and my belief is wrong, but provided the cup repeatedly affirms itself to me each time I have a coffee, I can only believe in it, but only while I remember it..

I believe in the unperceived cup each time I remember it in my mind. Absent the thought, the belief is absent.The error of assumption is regarding belief as a permanent object - let alone the cup.

In a philosophical sense, I think of "Symmetries" as logical relationships, which are the essence of Information. Existentially, those inter-relationships may well be fundamental to Reality in it's multiplicity. — Gnomon

Good philosophical sense. I was thinking about the minimum possible information and it seemed to me information is something that can be communicated AKA derived from a system.

We can assert something like 'here is a point'. We go ahead and define it 'has no parts' just to establish the simplest possible object. IOW we assert things, but we can't derive anything, and if it doesn't tell us something, it ain't information.

If we say there are two points, one relates to the other and vice versa. Then we have information.

Because each point is unitary and has no information in themselves, the minimum possible information is what they can tell us about each other.

In basic info theory the minimum is a bit. The query is, On or off? The answer is, If on then not off. Common logic: If p then not q

Using symmetry the query is, what information is fundamental to the (2 part) system? The answer is: A is to B as B is to A

Anyway, a bit nerdy, nothing to do with consciousness, off topic, but that's why I thought you make philosophical sense.

I'm sure there is bound to complex social issues involved, like socioeconomic determinants for example, and to really get to bottom of it in terms of good legislation will be a quagmire of buck passing that places blame somewhere other than governance - usually ends up being 'individual responsibility' in some way. Placing the person as the cause and locale of problems is the usual tactic to distract from the broader issues of 'gun-culture'. They say, 'Guns don't kill people. People do', basically, but we don't go on to consider, 'but why exactly do they kill each other'. One could say that people merely fill subject positions which are prescriptively availed by the social body, and we could inquire into how killers with guns are written into the social discourse.

I can't see what you wrote, but you said an armed society is wary and cautious, and indeed, the primary purpose of arms is 'security' - but what does that really mean? One need ask what is feared and why and what underlies this lived sense of personal insecurity. It's a deeply psychological question, because there are those who go about unarmed that, even realising they are in a dangerous world, indeed bulleting along on what amounts to speck of dust in the galaxy, who feel quite secure personally, and hence, have no inclination to arm themselves since there is no immediate real and present threat to their lives.

I merely conclude that people shooting each other is impolite, and there are much less harmful ways to be rude.

In the commercial industrial world, a full consideration of meat consumption and its personal and environmental circumstances, let alone the quality of life of farmed animals, would lead to concluding that a vegan lifestyle is for the best. Peter Singer convinced me of that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHzwqf_JkrA

Wow meow - even your post is art!

Indeed - a culture is a very intricate thing, and art is enmeshed with it, as the old question about art commenting on or constructing society suggests. Art is within the social mind, one might say. I think the artist wants to lose that sense of himself as an artist, and rather, merge with 'flux of creation'. I think this is represented by spray paint art buskers, where the spectacle of the art being created, in itself, is art - like another different form of dance.


The last poets are like that gold I mentioned in my last post. I can listen to that, and to me, it's the difference between a good restaurant meal and a big mac.

I don't understand DJ music, and it seems to me 'the band isn't there'. Its akin to taking a lot of other people's paintings and arranging them very cleverly, and I appreciate the skill and even the aspiration of DJ's to become musicians. Kiss, on the other, have a finger on the fret board with every nuance of sound.

Indeed rockers didn't typically like disco, and in my case, I stopped buying KISS albums when Dynasty came out. Queen did the same thing with their album Hot Space - which is still distinctly Queen - but rockers were outraged! Hahaha. Under Pressure, was the hit single.

In the case of Hendrix, I would ask people who think it sounds ear splitting, if they can appreciate it a great art despite their personal tastes, because I think great art production is regardless of personal taste, and the person who can appreciate art for arts sake, as opposed to their own sake, is comparable to the discerning person as opposed to the gullible. For example, I think there is a certain naivety about Beliebers. A mass hysteria or swoon of celebrity, if you will, but indeed - so much happiness.

I was thinking of happiness as an example of the 'nondescript yet obvious' but I didn't know what to say about that.

I'm similar in that I enjoy are as an emotive/sensation experience, and I like stuff which I consider to be pretty terrible art, but I really think I can tell the difference. I think the technical skill is a practiced talent and there an underlying honesty to the art/ integrity of the artist, and I believe that when the artist is lost in the 'flux of creation' - that spontaneous self expression - magic happens.

I have this problem in philosophy where its like mud, and getting bogged in questions like what is culture. It is a subtle concept steeped in social emblems, but it's one that we're familiar with because we are all part of cultural paradigms with particular norms and acceptable behaviours. It's something we have a sense for because we are entwined with it. We know that shaking hands is an acceptable greeting behaviour, for example. It is dynamic but tends to have some form of inter-generational tradition. The 'hip hop' of my day was a street culture thing found its way into in disco (and I remember a Blondie (dang white girl; still a New Yorker, though) song rapping about men from mars eating cars), and rap was probably established as a popular music genre by the Grand Master Flash. The next generation carried on with break-dance and, no doubt, other cultural artifacts, but hell, I was into rock music, which is most certainly a blues derivative, and to this day, rockers shred.

The music, clothing and turns of phrase and other peculiarities create sub-cultures such as rockers and rappers of the early 80s, and there was some consensus between rockers of the day about which bands were really rocking, so we have this sheer knowledge, whether you like it of not, Ritchie Blackmore is spectacular, and despite anyone's personal taste, the man produces great art. Now, when I hear rap, I can hear the quality in the same way as I hear Ritchie Blackmore, and discern who's really off the wall and who's a mere poster boy. I don't like the genre, mainly because it just ain't rock and roll, and so much of it is production, it is only arguably music, but the rare exception is gold.

I understand people are precious about their personal taste, but if Hendrix is a great artist in anyone's book, and I don't know a soul who would deny that - then there is good art. It doesn't matter if one likes Hendrix music or not. There's the fact that his art is great. What makes it great is beyond technical skill. It conveys a form of truth, honesty, integrity and some sense of the soul. I don't like it enough to buy a Hendrix album, but I know it's the salt of the earth, and I recognise its fine artistry, not as an opinion or as a matter of authority, but as something undeniable.

"That seems to be a bit odd, but hey... look who's saying that (me).

Personal taste is more or less a 'slack manner' of a standard of measure, but is nonetheless a standard of measure.

Good and bad are simply asserted/assumed/attributed as a value after a standard of measure has been applied.

Indeed personal taste might not be the exclusive standard of measure (nor are all standards of measure personal tastes) when determining if art is 'art' or if art is 'good or bad', but indeed it could well be applied as a standard of measure to determine this notion."

I don't exactly agree. 'good taste' in art is related to culture, or 'being cultured', which a condition of culture, I suppose, but there is also an element of truth, sincerity and being genuine - this notion of being true to one's self and producing honest expressions - as opposed to appealing to popularity.

This blend of culture. Being of the culture requires being brought up in the culture, and being cultured is the ability to recognise both honesty and prowess of artistic expression. This is well demonstrated in hip hop culture where Azaelia Banks and Iggy Azalia represent the 'true artist' and the fake one - and despite personal taste, Banks is 'good art' because she is of the culture and others of the culture can tell her expressions are honest, or 'true to life', whereas Iggy is merely popular because she she can imitate hip hop well.

I saw a cool video on these two actually - worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KJRRSB_XA

Some say, and I argue against this, that hip hop has a long tradition going back to the blues (though I've never seen any hip-hopper shred on the guitar) - and I know hip hop was originally a 'party trick' that came out of New York street parties - an offshoot of DJing, really, and emerged in disco as a way to becoming the genre it became - but it is loosely connected to Black American culture none-the-less. There are fantastic white blues men, though, so due to the length of history, the art becomes 'American', and branches into various genres, which is great, but has been perverted, as all things are, into mere production, where popularity trumps truthfulness - hence the saying, 'sell out'.

Lets look at the dissection of natural philosophy. If it is of the soul it is religion - which is just symbol and ritual, so they don't have problems (not the type with solutions, anyway). That leaves us with philosophy and science. If we have a philosophical question that is answerable, which is to say, we can prove and demonstrate the answer - then it becomes science. Any question that can't be demonstratively proven remains philosophy. Hence, any philosophy that 'makes progress' (answers a question) is science, Science is progress in 'natural philosophy', and what we call 'philosophy' is necessarily the school of unanswered (and answerable) questions. Furthermore, it could be said, with the dissection of natural philosophy, that anything answered using math and experiment is a scientific question, and all other questions are philosophical (or religious).

Questions that can be answered are necessarily scientific, and questions that can't are philosophical. The dissection of natural philosophy requires that science is the progress while philosophy is that on which no progress has been made - because what we call 'progress', culturally, is answering questions.

What's good has nothing to do personal taste. Taste is required to discern between what's good and what's not, but even if it's not to personal taste it can still be recognised as good. Conversely, it can be recognised as bad, but still appealing to personal taste.