With Adam and Eve, in the garden. It’s so lyrical,that if i were god, i would repeat it, over and over, until Adamwould finally at last come to understand the beauty insimplicity.
lol The “we” is the “I” and the “you all”. together.
The “we” is usually determined by putting myself, yourself, he and she, them, those within a group of others.
Yet, their senses are functioning normally at least to the extent that, with the eye, electrical signals are sending reflected light images from the retina through the optic nerve to the brain. So, what element is missing that prevents a child’s experiencing (seeing) a piece of string? It is knowledge as you imply. Now, can a brain find out on its own without any outside agency to inform it of the knowledge needed to declare a string exists?
By hook or by crook, I will try to learn telepathy or miracle or do whatever is possible. I will first select a highly reliable, trustworthy and wise mentor who can teach me all these tricks. Then I will strive hard. I am told practice makes a man perfect. I will practice earnestly from now onward.
Yet, break down to the barest basics step by step what you just said. A string exists because you or I said so. After all the searching for reality the final core is: Because I said so.
Criteria is for research and the final results. You can argue about the research and results all you want. But, it all comes down to personal reality : because you said it exists.
BTW, If you have not ever hallucinated then you can not say its not at all real. It can be fully real to a person, it is experienced, remembered and be sensed by all senses. And while afterwards you know it was just a hallucination, there is a distinct reality that remains.
By knowing how long a piece of string it.
James S Saint
Unless I’m misunderstanding you here James, is it really that simple? Is it human intelligence which is reduced or is it that the knowledge – that the environment surrounding us is revealed to be more complex than we thought – becomes more enlarged? Wouldn’t that be gathering in more intelligence, than less?
I would be interested in you breaking down step by step what I said to show that the final criterium for the existence of a thing is the declaration that is so, because I don’t see it.
Personal reality matters, but it is the experience of the thing which gives us the ability to declare with certainty, at least to ourselves, that a thing exists, it is not the declaration in the first place which gives reality to a thing. For example, as I already gave, you cannot not declare the existence of some not concretely existing thing and by your declaration make it true.
The point I was making about hallucination was that there is an uncertainty of whether we’re not all hallucinating right now, just none of us know it to be so.
To put it in a shorter summation, I would say, we know that a thing exists (not merely as a concept) through our sense experiences. To answer, how can we know for certain our senses aren’t lying, I would say we can’t know for certain. We can device ways to test our senses, but utimately we will have to rely on them to even receive the results of our tests. You could assume that what others tell you is true, but it must remain an assumption and not true knowledge, which comes from first hand contact.
This is in regard to material objects. How we know an idea is true is a separate though related issue.
Senses tell us its real. Senses are connected to our brain, our brain is us. When our senses say its real , it is us saying its real because we said so. It is real because I said so. If you want a philosophical question ponder why it is important to you that others accept what is real to you or call it what you call it. Communication is too obvious, go deeper and wider.
Intelligence is the ability to resolve problems. With more intelligent people creating problems, the ability to resolve problems reduces exponentially.
The 1% need the 99% to be stupid so that the 1% can far more easily resolve their own problems by being relatively more intelligent.
There is a difference between intelligence as “the ability to resolve” and intelligence as “the data gathered”.
The common fund of knowledge (that is there for all to utilize) is indispensible for purposes of communication. This knowledge is put into us from childhood on. We don’t question it and it becomes our individual ‘minds.’ It’s as if we wear it or clothe ourselves with it. So when I look at a table we both use the same word to describe it. But what it really is, we don’t know.
Am I a crow, James? 
Our senses reveal to us the thing. The act of “saying” it is so comes after it is revealed to our senses. Saying something is a willful act, we choose to say or not say a thing. Sensing is a passive act, something we are subject to by the fact of having senses. It is the world being imposed upon us by our nature.
There are a number of reasons one could desire others to accept what we say is real. It would depend on various situations. If you are trying to refer this to the current discussion, I would say the reason it is taking place is part of an inquiry of testing what we believe to be true through reasoned discussion.
It is indispensable for communication but, what more??? It is self as a start.
The term ‘self’ would then be described as a continuity of constant utilization of knowledge in memory. How does one get from that ‘self’ to the knowledge of reality?
Kriswest,
When AP said this it made me realize something about your simplicity having to do with reality. This is the only reality I have, the world as it is today. So there’s the need to be wary of any ideas that may be in conflict with the way I come to terms with the reality of the world exactly the way it is. Other ‘realities’ as inventions of others or my own concocted notions may have no relationship with the reality of this world. As long as there is the seeking and wanting to understand that ‘reality’ (whatever it’s called) it would make it difficult to live in harmony with the things around.
AP said:
“Our senses reveal to us the thing. The act of “saying” it is so comes after it is revealed to our senses. Saying something is a willful act, we choose to say or not say a thing. Sensing is a passive act, something we are subject to by the fact of having senses. It is the world being imposed upon us by our nature.”
Senses are extensions of the brain. The brain uses them almost instantaneously. The before is moot. Passive is not possible. A plant is just a seed for life just as a seed is. Complex comes after the simple core, real is what the simple I says is real.
James’ response to me complimenting others:
Intelligence is a measure of one’s capacity to gather and manipulate information.
A complex environment encourages higher degrees of intelligence.
As I was the one using the word intelligent, it’s up to me to define what I mean. You can’t just put the word in quotes, misrepresent me, then act as though you’ve countered anything I’ve said.
Asshole move, James.
- Ben
While simultaneously thwarting it.
Bullshit. If you don’t define it, we have to assume that you are referring to a standard definition, of which there are several applicable - “Asshole move, Ben”.
Okay, I get what you’re saying. When you answered the question, How do we know that a piece of string exists? with “Because I said it exists”, the meaning you intend doesn’t come across. It begs the interpretation of colloquial speech, where the I is understood as a speaker making a declaration of what exists after having a sense perception. So when I said “before”, I meant the perception is before a declaration of the speaker, but it seems that in your terminology the mind is the “I”, and the “said” is the perception… But I’m not sure why you didn’t just say so to begin with. To say
clearly has another meaning you did not intend. Did you have a deeper purpose to putting the thought in those terms without explanation other than obscurantism?
Also, don’t you see a qualitative difference between the choice to speak, on the one hand, and the “choice” to possess the sense of touch, on the other? In the second case there is no choice. Having the sense of touch is something that is part of our nature as living beings, feeling is thrust upon us beyond our choice. It is in this sense that I meant we are passive, in the sense of ‘passive recipients’ of the content of sensory stimulus. In the first case, of choosing to speak or not, the act is volitional, in that sense it is active, as opposed to passive.