Supernatural epistemology?

[You]

If there were only one door I could agree with this analogy. But there appear to be a multitude of them with each door labeled as the one true door. Once some one passes through to the other side of any one of these doors they never come back to say that the door was right or wrong. It makes me think of the situation with Moses from Animal Farm (not the bible).

TheraminTrees did an analogy that I think represents the scenario better. I don’t agree with his analogy completly (more specifically I don’t agree that the “game” is impossible) but his words before that conclusion paint a picture that I think matches this scenario pretty well. The entirety of his analogy is below from his abridged version.

Thats ok if the door is dead. But if the door [or gate] speaks, if its alive like a person… both the door and the person are reciprocating a shared desire to meet and they both actively seek each other out.

 

[Spock]

God’s action in the world was not “unknowable” “inexplicable” “somehow” to them.

Of course it was. They were just as ignorant as everyone else, they just did not want to admit it. But, if they “knew” how the phrase “let there be light” is different from magic, they should have explained it in details. I am afraid, the usual “goddidit” is not an explanation.

However metaphysical analyses are “unknowable” “inexplicable” “somehow” to those who already maintain TS or PS—not exactly a posture of accommodation to the possibility of non-physical reality.

If that is the case, then explain the “how” part. An explanation can go to different lengths in detail. The best explanation also gives a method, how to emulate the action. The less satisfying one at least gives us understanding about the process, even if we are not able to imitate it, due to our lesser abilities. To say that God simply “wills” things into existence is just another meaningless phrase.

Perhaps I could have put my q more clearly. Do you see how someone [not necessarily you] espousing TS (=SM is sufficient for all statements “about facts,” i.e., statements that can be either true or false) and then claiming because of it there is no God would simply be rephrasing the atheist claim?

There is no atheist “claim”. The atheists simply do not believe in some god’s existence. Now, if the definition of a god explictly contains a contradiction (like the Christian God does), then the atheist can justly claim that such a being cannot exist. But that is not the topic of this thread.

Again, to take the SM, which ex professo does not and cannot involve God, and then use it to determine if there is a God is about as circular and self-confirming as it gets.

Nonsense. God could be proven empirically, if God would “want” it. God could interact with the physical universe in a detectable manner. It is only the believers’ claim that he does not - and of course they also claim that he used to do it. There is nothing inherently impossible about detecting God in an empirical fashion - IF God interferes with the actual, physical reality.

Again snide, crass caricature of prayer is not exactly a posture of accommodation to the possibility of non-physical reality.

Actually, it is the correct description of intercessory prayers. Look at the site itself, and see how many of those types of prayers are around. I have seen reports of “how God interfered and made sure that the person got home even though the gas in his car was too low to get home” - and such “claims” are all over the place. Before you wish to dismiss my picture as as a “crass caricature”, you should read some of the sub-forums and see for yourself, what is a caricature and what is not.

To believers God doesn’t usually interfere with the natural flow of events: He works within them. Read Aquinas’ analysis of secondary causality. If someone were praying for help and a friend from out of town they hadn’t seen for years dropped by unexpectedly and it was just what they needed, they wouldn’t in the least think it happened by miraculous means.

So, if you can point to a “miracle”, it was God’s explicit interference. If there was no miracle, then God was working behind the scenes. How convenient. There was a Dilbert cartoon where Dogbert was accused of such reasoning, and so he said: “I prefer to think about it as having no loose ends”. Wanting to have your cake and eat it, too, is an age-old human desire - but so far no one was able to perform this particular “miracle”.

However, would a documented miracle (in RC terminology) really count as any evidence to you? Say a person goes to Lourdes, France with late stage degenerative bone cancer. X-rays prove it. They come out of the water and it is gone. This is then documented by the International Medical Association of Lourdes run only by doctors, who critically evaluate purported cures and document inexplicable ones. There are actually many documented cure at Lourdes. Would you even count that as evidence? All the SM can say is that it is inexplicable. What would that mean for PS? Probably just an unknown natural cause.

There is only one miraculous case I know about: A priest is traveling home by train, and when he gets to the border, the guards ask him if he has any alcoholic beverage to declare. He says he only carries a bottle of water from Lourdes. The border guard opens the bottle, sniffs at the content and says: “But this is cognac!”. Whereupon the priest exclaims: “Hosanna! A miracle happened!”.

Any case that wishes to be documented properly must be documented by a bunch of skeptics, especially those whose job is to detect flim-flammary, namely stage magicians. How many of those can you point to?

Definitions are important though. If you’re doing scientific research for God as viewed by Christians, then it is for a personal, free, infinitely intelligent and powerful God. For one to approach Him like an impersonal natural phenomena or force and look for a God law or God effect that can be predicted and controlled is ludicrous for the defniition of the Christian God. . . actually it is what magic attempts to do.

Even if God is “personal”, he is also supposed to be an objective “fact”.

 

[Spock]

Alright, cool. We’ll turn things around then.

Before I do, you’ll remember I said that I would talk about an intrinsic method of TESTING for God and the immateriality of the human soul. So far you have dropped responding squarely to the question of whether the method is valid or not and why. The discussion re the soul is progressing.

So far you did not say anything about your purported method, so there was nothing to reflect on. Just cut to the chase. Spell it out in detail how can the propostion: “humans have an immortal soul” be decided if it evaluates to “true” or “false”. If it can be decided by reason alone, then show me, how? If faith is needed, just tell me.

As for the rest here’s how I would lay it out for you.

(1) I already described how religious experience in my life within the tradition of theistic humanism together with traditional methods of verification has led me to a perception or intuition of the ontological status of God.

Bully for you. But, rememebr, your personal experience is only yours. As an objective evidence it is meaningless.

(2) I note further that this tradition also includes the philosophical thought at the origin of the western philosophical/intellectual tradition: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Boethius, Augustine, Aquinas, and the like. I like the company I keep. All were explicit theists and their theism was often an object of explicit reflection in their thought as any reading of their actual texts will make abundantly clear.

If you wish to call on these so-called authorities to substantiate your position, then don’t be shy, and say it.

(3) Within that philosophical tradition I affirm the metaphysics and epistemology of the Aristotle and Aquinas as well as their natural philosophy, which while existentially within a theistic tradition, contains a properly philosophical method although it is not scientism or physicalism.

What you accept is of no relevance. Get to the details, using your own words.

(4) Historically, natural philosophy in the Aristotelian tradition and what Aristotle calls “more physical branches of mathematics” (optics, harmonics) provided the real foundation for the sciences including the exact sciences due to their institutionalization in the universities and intellectual ferment of the High Middle Ages.

What is the relevance? Aristotele also believed that the brain is simply a cooling device for the blood.

(5) Employing the SM in its refined and perfected form today in the interest of gaining empirical, physical, mechanistic, atomistic, explanations relying on efficient causality with implications for technology is, as you have noted, perfectly compatible with this theistic tradition.

Irrelevant to the question. But if you wish to employ this method, be my guest.

(6) Why, then, is it more reasonable for one to abandon this tradition (with special but not exclusive reference to its metaphysics and epistemology) to adopt PS as you do and maintain reality=physical reality?
Critiques of 1-5 basd on scientism or physicalism require a justification of both first.

Just say what you have to say. I am here, willing to listen. If you say that the proposition “humans have an immortal soul” evaluates to “true” status, because some “so called authorities declare it”, then say it. If you wish to say that it is “true” because of some “divine revelation”, go ahead, and say that. If you can employ some objective, verifiable method, then do that. Just stop beating around the bush.

 

[Spock]

If one were to open the cranium and look at the brain of a perceiving, remembering, thinking patient, they would not see a single thing going through that patient’s mind–not an image, feeling, thought, or sense of self.

Is this some kind of a joke? If you could “look” at the sequence of zeros and ones in a computer, you could not figure out if that sequence would represent a picture to be dispalyed, or a sound to be played, or something else. Would that “substantiate” that the computer has an “immaterial soul”? You know, I am still hoping to conduct a meaningful conversation with you, but seeing such sub-logical posts, my hope is rapidly fading.

A search of one’s mind will never give a direct experience of one’s own brain cells or their electro-chemical processes and multi-level networking.

“Never” is a long time. And it does not have to be “direct”. When I say “two” and a German says “zwei”, the status of our neural network is not same, and no one should think that they “should be” the same to have mutual comprehension.

How do objective, publically-observable neuronal events or the brain as a whole produce/become inner, first-person conscious mental experience(s)? In other words, how does what happens in the brain become what happens in your mind?

It does not “become”, it is.

Further relevant data is provided by research into neuroplasticity, a term for the phenomena that conscious choices can alter brain structure and function. This shows a bi-directional causality in the relationship between brain and mind. That is, not only can one affect conscious experience and functioning by changes in the brain, one can also affect brain structure and functioning by conscious changes in activity.

Sure. Why is this a problem? The hardware-software analogy is “crude”, because the running software usually does not modify the hardware it runs on. But it certainly can do it - as some malicious programs (viruses) do, when they jerk the read-write head on the hard drives around, thus destroying the hardware. As a matter of fact, there are self-modifying programs, where the process actively changes itself. If you would know about E.F. Codd, or von Neumann and their ideas about cellular automata, you would see an enormous similarity to the neural networks. In that environment the “hardware” and the “software” constantly interact. But that fact does not make the software “supernatural”.

The conviction that the mind as we know it is the soul (immaterial life principle, form of the body) in operation squares perfectly with all of the information and doesn’t in the least harm the legitimate aims and methods of neurological research even its goal to reach a complete scientific account of brain activity in its correlation with mental acts.

It does not “contradict”, it is simply a useless hypothesis. When Napoleon asked Laplace why he never mentions God in his book about the movements of celestial bodies, he answered: “Sire, I have no need for that hypothesis”. No matter how hard you try, so far there is no problem for which the “God-hypothesis” would be a “promising solution”. It is still the admission, that there is no solution which would be reproducible by us, or which would tell us the “how” of the process.

 

[Spock]

Again as per Hume the reception of raw sense impressions on sense organs of itself does not contain the judgement that a particular thing exists. I agree and argue that it is an act of the intellect to judge that a thing or property exists.

It is a necessary, unavoidable conclusion. There is no special intellectual endeavor needed to decide that a chair exists, when you just stabbed your toe into it. Or when your eye blinks rapidly because a small flying object approaches it. It is totally automatic, and no intellectual process is involved.

Two problems.
(1) You assert that epistemology is a method; there are no true or false statements in epistemology: they are either useful or not; they either work or not; they are justified because they work; and above. Yet you assert all of these epistemological statements as true!

In this case you are playing with the words. They are only “true” because they work.

Detailing a series of steps in a procedure is not a true or false statement; but saying these steps are justified because they work is.

But the justification is not an a-priori one, it is a-posteriori - because it fulfills the “duck principle” or the “pudding test”.

(2) You agreed that methods of verification must be suitable to their object. The fact that reality=physical reality in your view means that the SM is appropriate and sufficient.

Absolutely, for me it is. And that is why I am going out of my way to see if you can substantiante the existence of some non-physical (and non-conceptual) reality. I am ready to see if you can bring up some objective method to prove it or at least give some evidence which is worth to ponder. I am still waiting.

((2) A proposition, “statement” in Leibnitz’ terminology, is a sentence that can be either true or false.

Already unacceptably restrictive. A sentence can be undecidable, too. Or be fully nonsensical. Or it can be a subjective opinion. It is great if a sentence can be decided to be either true or false, but such a restriction is not justified. (Oh, by the way, I think his name was Leibniz).

(6) Strictly speaking, a rule [call it X] in the game of chess is not a proposition. It is simply a contingent, factual state of affairs that a decision is expressed.

I already expressed my disagreement.

E.g., if I leave for work and my room is messy (really messy) and come home and it is cleaned up and put in order =C]. That demands an explanation. What needs explained here is “why is it the case that C?” Not “why is it the case that C had to be rather than C*, or C**, or C***, . . .?” When I find out that my brother came over to visit and couldn’t stand the mess and so cleaned up my room, I can sufficiently explain the state of affairs C.

Sure, but you artificially restricted the concept of “proposition” to fit your needs.

 

[inocente]

Yesterday, when I was driving home in a most difficult situation that I am suffering, I thought to listen to my Bible tape and it started on Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

Paul is using hyperbola, but isn’t he saying that faith is feeling, emotion? I read him as saying it’s not to be found in miracles or evidence (a stumbling block to those who want signs) and it’s not to be found in rational arguments (foolishness to those who want wisdom).

 

[Abba]

Paul is using hyperbola, but isn’t he saying that faith is feeling, emotion? I read him as saying it’s not to be found in miracles or evidence (a stumbling block to those who want signs) and it’s not to be found in rational arguments (foolishness to those who want wisdom).

Hello inocente,

Thank you for your question. Mind you I am no scripture scholar nor apologist, I am mostly self taught. Paul is not saying that faith is a feeling or emotion - at all. Perhaps, someone more eloquent than me can expand on this. My faith does not depend on how I feel. Let me tell you I feel really bad right now, but, my faith is strengthened.

In regards to not seeking God in miracles and signs - yes. But, this is not a denial of miracles and signs nor of spiritual experiences. We cannot forbid God to do as he wills, right? Remember what happened when Paul was on his way to Damascus? That was quite an extraordinary event that changed his life. How is that for signs and miracles? But, we are not to seek them especially due to a need for proof. As for the third part of your question, yes, that is exactly what Paul is saying and so has Our Lord Jesus said. But, faith is logical and rational and a rational and logical understanding of faith may lead some to take the leap.

Hope this helps,

Abba

 

[Shike]

This is the first I saw of this claim shike, are there any others?

Its illogical to try and prove a God exists using a group of statements , man cannot corner God the creator of mans imperfect reason, with man reason

I can’t understand your objection to Aquinas’ 1st way. You’ll need to be a bit more precise and clear. It may help to look at the version I posted at the bottom of post #60 and explicitly state what premise number you disagree with and why (and it might help if you follow my posts so I don’t have to readdress objections that I’ve already answered).

 

[Spock]

Far from sound. Standard criticisms include:

A motion may not have a cause, as he assumes. Radioactive decay requires no interaction and the timing appears to be impossible to predict.

He argues that potentiality can only be converted to actuality by an actuality, using heat as an example, “Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it.” Fail, he forgot such things as friction.

He says the motion sequence can’t go on to infinity but does nothing to show it can’t - his first mover could be moved by an earlier mover and so on.

But the most glaring fault is he ends with “Therefore it is necessary to arrive at the first mover, moved by no other; and this all understand to be God”. That’s the first time he mentions God, and he may as well have written “and this all understand to be an invisible pink unicorn” since he’s done nothing to show his first mover is God.

It’s the same with all his Ways, you’d have to want to be in his choir to be convinced. But a man of his caliber would surely have known they weren’t proofs, and his purpose was instead to provide ways of defining God for those who already believe.

Thank you for taking the time to explain it in detail. I did not have the patience to do it. Unfortunately it is certain that someone, sometime will bring the very same “argument” up, and will refuse to accept your correct criticism.

 

[You]

He argues that potentiality can only be converted to actuality by an actuality, using heat as an example, “Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it.” Fail, he forgot such things as friction.

Is’nt friction hot, or am I missing something?

 

[Shike]

Far from sound. Standard criticisms include:

A motion may not have a cause, as he assumes. Radioactive decay requires no interaction and the timing appears to be impossible to predict.

Stochastic behavior does not mean something is uncaused. Furthermore, there are at least a number of external conditions that are necessary for the atom to undergo decay. This is enough to dismiss this as a proper objection.

He argues that potentiality can only be converted to actuality by an actuality, using heat as an example, “Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it.” Fail, he forgot such things as friction.

It was just one example illustrating the principles in use. In fact, the principles themselves have no problem being illustrated from an example of friction. Objects becoming hot due to friction are still actualized from potentially being hot to actually being hot.

He says the motion sequence can’t go on to infinity but does nothing to show it can’t - his first mover could be moved by an earlier mover and so on.

He has no problem with causal chains ordered per accidens stretching into infinity, only with causal chains ordered per se stretching back into infinity because it is a logical contradiction. If his first mover could be moved by an earlier mover than it would not be the first mover. Aquinas is talking about a first mover ordered hierarchically and not in time.

But the most glaring fault is he ends with “Therefore it is necessary to arrive at the first mover, moved by no other; and this all understand to be God”. That’s the first time he mentions God, and he may as well have written “and this all understand to be an invisible pink unicorn” since he’s done nothing to show his first mover is God.

It is a nominal definition of what we mean when we say the word God. Aquinas goes on to prove that a being exists who has many of the attributes we would ascribe to such a being: omnipotence, omniscience, omni-benevolence, wholly unique, ect. Basically, this objection fails to look at the whole picture.

It’s the same with all his Ways, you’d have to want to be in his choir to be convinced. But a man of his caliber would surely have known they weren’t proofs, and his purpose was instead to provide ways of defining God for those who already believe.

He took his arguments as strict demonstrations. Therefore it would be impossible for the conclusion to be false while the premises are true.

There are many confusions with regards to Aquinas’ five ways because:

• Philosophical terminology has evolved since the time of Aquinas, so often times words with contemporary meanings are read into his arguments, thus giving a rendering that Aquinas did not intend and thus giving a totally different argument than what Aquinas gave.
• People reading Aquinas who do not have any familiarity with the work of Aristotle.
• People failing to see that what Aquinas presents in the Summa Theologiae is merely a summary of five ways, ways that are often defended at length and in detail elsewhere.
• People not even reading the arguments and instead relying on objections made by others.

Really, all the objections you provide are the kind of things I see every day and all can be dismissed once the arguments are understood. I invite you to read Aquinas: a beginner’s guide by Edward Feser to get up to speed with many of the common objections to Aquinas’ five ways and the misunderstandings that they are based upon.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

]

It is a necessary, unavoidable conclusion. There is no special intellectual endeavor needed to decide that a chair exists, when you just stabbed your toe into it. Or when your eye blinks rapidly because a small flying object approaches it. It is totally automatic, and no intellectual process is involved.

That kind of stimuli never makes it to the brain, it’s handled in the spinal chord for faster reflex time. Photons stimulating rods and cones is just information, sensory information needs to translated to form a concept of a chair, or it’s mental image.
http://images.ookaboo.com/photo/s/Kerosene_in_mason_jar_s.jpg
One person may translate this data as a glass half full, another may translate it as a glass half empty, another may translate it as a 3 cups of liquid, another may translate it as fuel in a container, another as kerosene. When one claims they are making an empirical observation it is a rational claim.

 

[Shike]

Just say what you have to say. I am here, willing to listen.

Except that you are not because your epistemology denies the legitimacy of metaphysics.

*Two problems.
(1) You assert that epistemology is a method; there are no true or false statements in epistemology: they are either useful or not; they either work or not; they are justified because they work; and above. Yet you assert all of these epistemological statements as true!
*

In this case you are playing with the words. They are only “true” because they work.

You are missing the point. True or false, “The scientific method works”?

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Of that there is no doubt whatsoever because the highest form of all knowledge is love…

exactly…abba has it all comprehended perfectly. You can’t reason to someone else the dynamics of a friend and prove the dynamic essence in their effect, to someone else…the individual needs to be experienced in order to believe the personality or whatever actually exists.

How the heck can man draw a picture of God on a flat piece of paper and show it to someone else? Even if he tries…theres still no color…where color equals experience.

There was a theologian, I forget his name…a well published proffeser. It was found out that the prof in private…did not believe a God existed…can u believe it???

Then guess what happened?

He completely changed his mind later in life…guess why?

He got sick or something? No… nice try though

His wife passed on and he said that there is just NO WAY, this womens essence ceased to exist

theres no escaping with 1 mind.or one thought… in attempts to demonstrate the realitys of
…self and soul…we are bound in unity…by something

Oh…heres one I like. Man needs food, water, friends, and they are all here. Man needs meaning doesn’t he???
Then why do people suggest that man and meaning are not possible?
Man has obviously expressed what meaning is through this non-ending God idea.
I don’t think a really good God believer cares or thinks about this life after death spiritual future and gives it to God…Giving it to God is the whole idea. It provides meaning in more than one way. So…why would this meaning, like water, food, friends …not be a truth?

The only way the truth for meaning gets snuffed out is in focussing on the error of man and viewing man as non-worthy Man with communication is bumbarded with the negative…Its a social abstact initiative to …get off the fence ( opinion)

 

[Spock]

Except that you are not because your epistemology denies the legitimacy of metaphysics.

Metaphysics is STILL not a method to decide if a claim is true or false. How many times does this needed to point out?

To repeat:
Metaphysics deals with the question: “what exists?”
Epistemology deals with the method: “how do we know it?”
Ethics is a normative proposition: “how should we behave?”
These are the basic definitions. No matter if you don’t “like” them, you cannot change them.

Metaphysics is legitimate, but not as a method to decide if a proposition is true or not. You can utter a metaphysical statement: “God exists, and everything else is his creation”. This would be legitimate a metaphysical proposition. But to decide if it is a true propostion or not, you must to go over to epistemology, and devise of method to decide its veracity.

One of your possible “methods” might be: “it is treated as an axiom, and its veracity is beyond questionable”. Of course no skeptic will accept it. Another one could be: “it is simply a matter of faith”. Or yet another one could be: “it is the result of a revelation”. Or maybe: “there are zillions of people who believe it, so it must be true”. Or: “I will toss a coin, if it shows heads, then the propositin is true, if it shows tails, it is false”. The possibilities are endless. At this link you can find a plethora of “proofs”.

The question today is still how to decide if the claim: “humans have immortal soul” is true or false. I cannot be more open than to invite everyone to share their best “method” to prove this claim. Your little “trick” to deny this is ridiculous.

You are missing the point. True or false, “The scientific method works”?

Certainly it does for the realm it is applicable.

 

[davidv]

Metaphysics is STILL not a method to decide if a claim is true or false. How many times does this needed to point out?

To repeat:
Metaphysics deals with the question: “what exists?”

Epistemology deals with the method: “how do we know it?”
Ethics is a normative proposition: “how should we behave?”
These are the basic definitions. No matter if you don’t “like” them, you cannot change them.

Metaphysics is legitimate, but not as a method to decide if a proposition is true or not. You can utter a metaphysical statement: “God exists, and everything else is his creation”. This would be legitimate a metaphysical proposition. But to decide if it is a true propostion or not, you must to go over to epistemology, and devise of method to decide its veracity.

One of your possible “methods” might be: “it is treated as an axiom, and its veracity is beyond questionable”. Of course no skeptic will accept it. Another one could be: “it is simply a matter of faith”. Or yet another one could be: “it is the result of a revelation”. Or maybe: “there are zillions of people who believe it, so it must be true”. Or: “I will toss a coin, if it shows heads, then the propositin is true, if it shows tails, it is false”. The possibilities are endless. At this link you can find a plethora of “proofs”.

The question today is still how to decide if the claim: “humans have immortal soul” is true or false. I cannot be more open than to invite everyone to share their best “method” to prove this claim. Your little “trick” to deny this is ridiculous.

Certainly it does for the realm it is applicable.

If “Metaphysics deals with the question: “what exists?””
and Does God exist? is a question about what exists,
therefore metaphyics can answer “Does God exist?”

Until the metaphics question is settled, any epistimologically or ethically related questions may be moot.

 

[Shike]

Metaphysics is STILL not a method to decide if a claim is true or false. How many times does this needed to point out?

Metaphysics can denote both the subject matter and the method for arriving at that subject matter. It is correct to say that someone does metaphysics.

If you want to be a bit more precise, metaphysics uses reasoning and argumentation to arrive at true conclusions about reality.

You seem to think that such a method only uses axioms that are absolutely cut off from the real world and therefore the conclusions, until verified by evidence, are suspect, and, even then, are probable at best. The reality is that metaphysics can use premises derived from the observable world and arrive at necessary conclusions. The soundness of the argument is the evidence in metaphysics.

In terms of epistemology there is no good reason why such argumentation and resulting certainty is impossible. Therefore, the best way to see if metaphysics ‘works’ is to try it out. So again, I await your critiques of Aquinas’ 1st way. But I doubt you have any new ones.

Truth cannot contradict truth. A sound logical argument is something you can really put your “trust” in.

No trick.

ciao,
Michael

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Well I gotta go to work…heres my 2 cents worth…

If I’m casted overboard and sitting on a dingy in the middle of the pacific and drown, the reality of my self is left un-negotiated if I have no immortal soul. If that is true , then the reality of unique self a non-repeatable event is the only thing known to man , nature ect which is left in a non-negotiated state. Realities change forms but never cease to be…So the tree, the cat, dog, stone whatever…are all realities which are negotiated , which leaves the individual unique self
vanishing . I would need to know about how something a growing, changing, maturing thing like self can not…be negotiated. Things that, grow mature ect don’t just magically dis-appear…they are negotiated into the soil…so theres something left …where is that something negotiated. It must be negotiated…so therefore , relative to our observance’s it is illogical that the unique individual self is poofed out of reality like a magic trick or something…

unless things are dis-apearing all the time i donno?..I’m dis-appearing now.…you guys won’t even know i exist…relative to you guys I will not…but relative to myself I am going to work and will be making some money…

 

[Shike]

Well I gotta go to work…heres my 2 cents worth…

I can’t say I understand the point or relevance of the comment. Please help.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

FurtherSuntime;8337911:

Well I gotta go to work…heres my 2 cents worth…

I can’t say I understand the point or relevance of the comment. Please help.

Likewise, to me it looks like a description of the law of conservation