[MD] Uncertainty

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 25 Sep 2009 at 0:14, ARLO J BENSINGER JR wrote:

> [Platt]
> I take it then that your believe existence depends on human perception.
> 
> [Arlo]
> What we perceive to be "existence" depends on our "perception".

Then my cat, UTOE, depends on someone's perceiving him for his 
existence?    
 
> [Platt]
> I live in a reality where if Penn State player breaks a leg in a football game,
> it's reality, not an analogy. 
> 
> [Arlo]
> Never go to the theatre, Platt... and never wish an actor/actress to do well...
> In any case, like any symbolic system, "break a leg" is an analogy for the
> "experience", albeit in in this case not a very profound one. 

I think if you broke your leg you would not treat the experience as an 
analogy but rather as a directive to seek medical assistance as quickly 
as possible. The pain will be quite palpable even if the words "I'm in 
pain" don't hurt. It's the menu-food example cited in Lila. .  

> [Platt]
> My reality is also one where death is permanent and real.
> 
> [Arlo]
> "Death" is an absence, it is the "absence of a thing". This is why saying
> "death is permanent" is akin to a mathematical description of randomness.
> Anyway, I live in a world where (as profoundly described by Pirsig) "Chris got
> his ticket after all"... 

Death is the end of life. I'm sure you'll consider the death of a loved one 
as something other than an analogy.  

> [Platt]
> Your answer then is a permanent, "No."
> 
> [Arlo]
> A stable "no".

Word games?

> But, again, "conceptualization" is, by definition, the encoding
> of "experience" into "symbols" (be the sounds, shapes, words, colors,
> movements, etc.) This is, again, you playing silly linguistic games. Like
> saying, "is red a color? yes? so red is permanently a color." it is so long as
> its defined as such....
> 
> Again, any statement anyone can make can be looped onto itself.

How is that statement looped?

 >Like Godel
> showed us, the more complex and descriptive the statement, the greater the
> paradox from the resulting recursion. You can go with statement with very
> little explanatory power, that won't give you much recursion, or you can accept
> statements of great explanatory power and laugh at the inevitable recursive
> paradoxes (and drink tea with the Zen Masters and postmodern thinkers, such as
> Pirsig).

Well, it's fun to fool around with language, like our friend Lewis Carroll 
did. The finger pointing at the moon (language) is an endless source of 
philosophical interest. But landing there is another order of reality 
altogether.

> [Platt]
> So I take it you think time began with the first human and will end with the
> last? Is that your position?  
> 
> [Arlo]
> Just like the "law of gravity", probably. "... the separation between past,
> present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one." (Einstein)

In that case, the present is real and permanent (timeless).. 

> By the way, I wouldn't say "time began with the first human", I'd say "the
> concept of "time" drawn from human perception began when such a perception
> among humans attained value." 

I'll buy that.