Now, I can truly die.

[bilbous]

So if I believe that we are nothing  but grey blobs whose world picture is informed by mental leakage from adjacent grey blobs it must be true? After all none of you blobs can see reality for what it is, only me. Therefor if I assure you you are nothing but grey blobs you must believe me although you will never see for yourself.

Actually I am quite happy to live in this artificial construct which is the world as it appears to be. Endless ranks of grey blobs in a void would be a most boring thing to see if any had eyes to see it with.

[Ithorius]

Well as much as I enjoyed this small debate I can say for sure theres no way I can convience you that believing isn't everything, as much as you can conveince me it is.

none the less, power to the grey blobs!

[emeraldfool]

So if I believe that we are nothing  but grey blobs whose world picture is informed by mental leakage from adjacent grey blobs it must be true? After all none of you blobs can see reality for what it is, only me. Therefor if I assure you you are nothing but grey blobs you must believe me although you will never see for yourself.

Actually I am quite happy to live in this artificial construct which is the world as it appears to be. Endless ranks of grey blobs in a void would be a most boring thing to see if any had eyes to see it with.

Exactly. If you believed I was a grey blob, truly believed, then I would be a grey blob in your eyes. To me, I wouldn't be, because I don't believe I'm a grey blob, but you are the one who is right, because you are the only person you can really be sure exists, and so your reality is the correct one.

Well as much as I enjoyed this small debate I can say for sure theres no way I can convience you that believing isn't everything, as much as you can conveince me it is.

none the less, power to the grey blobs!

Right. Because that's what you believe. And since, for all you know, I'm a figment of your imagination, there's no reason for you to believe what I believe.

[Ithorius]

So if I believe that we are nothing  but grey blobs whose world picture is informed by mental leakage from adjacent grey blobs it must be true? After all none of you blobs can see reality for what it is, only me. Therefor if I assure you you are nothing but grey blobs you must believe me although you will never see for yourself.

Actually I am quite happy to live in this artificial construct which is the world as it appears to be. Endless ranks of grey blobs in a void would be a most boring thing to see if any had eyes to see it with.

Exactly. If you believed I was a grey blob, truly believed, then I would be a grey blob in your eyes. To me, I wouldn't be, because I don't believe I'm a grey blob, but you are the one who is right, because you are the only person you can really be sure exists, and so your reality is the correct one.

Yeah see, thats not fact, 'round here we like to call that.... A view point

Theres something called a modify button... don't double post.

[emeraldfool]

So if I believe that we are nothing  but grey blobs whose world picture is informed by mental leakage from adjacent grey blobs it must be true? After all none of you blobs can see reality for what it is, only me. Therefor if I assure you you are nothing but grey blobs you must believe me although you will never see for yourself.

Actually I am quite happy to live in this artificial construct which is the world as it appears to be. Endless ranks of grey blobs in a void would be a most boring thing to see if any had eyes to see it with.

Exactly. If you believed I was a grey blob, truly believed, then I would be a grey blob in your eyes. To me, I wouldn't be, because I don't believe I'm a grey blob, but you are the one who is right, because you are the only person you can really be sure exists, and so your reality is the correct one.

Yeah see, thats not fact, 'round here we like to call that.... A view point

Theres something called a modify button... don't double post.

And here I thought 'double-posting' was accidentally hitting the post button twice and posting the same thing twice...


Anyway, a view point implies that you aren't necessarily right. I'm saying that all of reality is yours, and so you can color it or shape it with how you perceive/believe it to be. View point means 6 billion realities exist that conflict with each other. That's not possible. 1 reality exists. Yours.

[bilbous]

So that guy locked up in the insane asylum really is Napoleon, Jesus, Mohammed or whoever else he thinks he is?

Now I don't really believe in grey blobs but I could expand it to counter any objection you can think of and cannot be proven wrong. I am not going to try to do that but if I wanted to do so perhaps I could found the next great world religion by freely stealing concepts from all the older ones and applying them to my base scenario just as they did with the religions before them. I likely do not have the force of personality to accomplish such a grandiose task.


As far as 6 billion realities goes that is not true, there is one reality and nobody perceives it accurately

[emeraldfool]

So that guy locked up in the insane asylum really is Napoleon, Jesus, Mohammed or whoever else he thinks he is?

If you think he is, sure. If you think he isn't, then he isn't.

Now I don't really believe in grey blobs but I could expand it to counter any objection you can think of and cannot be proven wrong. I am not going to try to do that but if I wanted to do so perhaps I could found the next great world religion by freely stealing concepts from all the older ones and applying them to my base scenario just as they did with the religions before them. I likely do not have the force of personality to accomplish such a grandiose task.

What's your point? That's how Scientology was started

As far as 6 billion realities goes that is not true, there is one reality and nobody perceives it accurately

And how do you know that?

[bilbous]

1. I don't think he is but he believes it completely, who am I to argue.

2. Why do you single out Scientology?

3. Isn't sophistry fun?

[hitancrias]

I do agree with emeraldfool in this discussion. But it's actually a definition problem. If you believe in one absolute "true world" in which we all live and of which we all see different parts, Ithorius and Bilbous are completely right. If I think the world is flat, it still isn't flat in the "true world".

If you, on the other hand, drop the idea of a "true world" and say that world is only what we see and hear about it, then the people really lived on a flat word, 1000 year ago. If you take it that way, everybody lives in a different world. If someone thinks he is Napoleon, then for him he really is. For all the other people, he's not, but truth is no democracy.

I think it's fair to drop the "true world" though. Someone who is blind lives in a different world, even if he lives on the same planet. Our senses are limited, so in a way we are all blind. Our world as we know it, is only what our brain in combination with our senses can derive from it. It will always be a derivative. That's why the concept of a "the true" world is rather useless, as we can never quantify it. I would be 100% empty.

If you say "the people back then lived on a round world, even if they thought they lived on a flat world, because now we know that the world is round, because we saw it with our satellites" you're pasting  personal knowledge on the "true world" and extrapolate it. The question is if that's valid. We can never constitute a perfect "true world" or even parts of it, when all we have is dirty info. Especially since we don't know in which way the info is blurred and shifted. I'd say it's fair to neglect the "true world" since we don't even know if it really exists.

This is not only a wacky philosophy; modern science doesn't use a "true world" theory either. It turns the idea of a true world on its head. In science, something is true as long as it describes the world as we see it in the best way. If a new theory describes the world better, we would consider the old theory to be false and the new one to be true. Scientific truth changes and starts with personal experience. Scientific truth accepts the fact that it's not perfect but that it's 'the best truth we have'. It is valid to consider science a way of approaching the "true world" though.

End of rant, I hope it made some sense

[Ithorius]

Now I don't really believe in grey blobs but I could expand it to counter any objection you can think of and cannot be proven wrong. I am not going to try to do that but if I wanted to do so perhaps I could found the next great world religion by freely stealing concepts from all the older ones and applying them to my base scenario just as they did with the religions before them. I likely do not have the force of personality to accomplish such a grandiose task.

What's your point? That's how Scientology was started

scientology is a joke religon... if anything.

[Sangwa]

Truth is this is life is short so enjoy it to the fullest. and no sangwa, the idea of life after death implies the host, not the paricite(sp) continues to live on, our bodies simpley break down and we cease to exist, why does everyone look for meaning in everything when its obvious somethings don't have a meaning, they're just 'THERE'.

Define host. If you do not consider the host to be what it consists of... Than... What is it? I can't quite grasp the meaning of you words. Parasite? I said that as an example. A parasite feeds off of you. It keeps part of yourself in it. In fact, it lives by turning your materia into its. So if we consider afterlife your materia living afterwards your old whole, then it could be considered a form of it. If don't consider it, then there is no chance such thing exists. Since your whole won't ever be the same again.
If you can't agree that you are not what you're made of, but simply a result of it that lives in the present... Then the you you were 5 years ago can not be considered the you you currently are. Therefore it isn't you, but someone else. Fun right?

And I said your mind gives you good answers, but that they might not come in words. So they're just there . I am not saying I know what the meaning of life is either. I am merely saying somewhere in our minds we ackowledge it and live on.

This topic is fun. And it's fun to realize things and then have a revelation and discard them all. Only to replace them again with new theories. Science just tells you you live. And you do so. So it's right. Why? Science has no such answers. And if you think for a while, you'll see nothing else does . As you can keep asking "Why?" until everything makes no sense.

*grins*
Bilbous, if you we all were something without sight then we wouldn't be grey.

"Now, I can truely die." Just now? Hah. I've known I can truely die for quite some time.

[zanzibar]

Abstract ideas are just that, abstract and have no basis in reality.

There are a number of sociological schools of thought that would disagree with you.  They would tend to argue that people give abstract representations realization through action, and therefore ideas and subjective definitions are given objective reality, but only to the extent that a particular audience grants.

scientology is a joke religon... if anything.

Scientology has over 100,000 members.  They don't see it as a joke.

[Farren Kutter]

If I raised a child in solitude and made him believe he could fly through the air unsupported by any machine or anything, just fly, and made him truly believe it because he had never heard anything to say other wise, would he be able to fly?

[Datruth]

This discussion has gone way off it's original point, i'd like to requote what zanzibar wrote:

"Love is suicide."

"To live is to die."

"Die before you die and be reborn in the light of god."

"One must me empty before one can be full."

Maybe, one day some of you will understand all of this  The rest of you never will and you will instead live normal lives.

Pray for longevity.

This is about realising the truth in life and dieing on the inside.

Bilbous is right, THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE TRUTHS, there is only what we have, our senses.

We could all be in the matrix, or his blob world as he put it.

You need some level of belief, that's rooted in facts and rationalization.

WE ALL AGREE life is to be lived, but with the INTENTION OF the future.

So if our future life get's in the way of this life, we make arrangements to fix it, so we can accomodate our next life.

NO ONE is saying don't have fun, HAVE FUN, but don't go crazy , THIS IS all temporary.

IT's been called a dream, that when awakened, you see the real life, it goes by fast.

Nothing in our life is Permanent, not even people, WHy trade this world for the next?

~~Datruth

[Xordan]

Nothing in our life is Permanent, not even people, WHy trade this world for the next?[/b][/u]
~~Datruth

For those of use who don't believe in a next life, then why waste this one preparing?