>The very fact that you got your answer that way should, of course, suggest
>to you that your definition may be rigged.
No. You're observing exactly what I pointed out at the end of my post. It's
hard to eliminate human alterior motivations from supposed debate. I am
interested only in the truth. I'm not a great fan of the way humans conduct
themselves, and would like to improve the situation by making at least some
proportion of human debate purely reasonable.
>Here's another definition, which might rig the answers in my favor:
>Something exists if it can have causal effects on something else which
>exists. This definition would be incomplete without a few starting
>points, so I'll give a couple: I exist. You exist.
It seems to me that your definition is just a more objective version of
mine. I stated mine in terms of human perception. You eliminate such
subjectivity by using "have causal effects on" rather than "perceive through
my senses". Obviously, entities must have a causal effect on your sensors to
be presented to your "self" as a perception.
>Anyway, the stronger point is that we can keep on cooking up definitions,
>each of which will yield some conclusion on the qualia question, but we
>have no way of determining which of these definitions we ought to use.
Yes we do. Debate. The establishment of definitions MUST be the first stage.
Otherwise everything following the ambiguous starting point will be unsound.
So given your comments above, what do you think debate is? Just a game, a
pointless pastime? Of course not. It's an opportunity to show off, get some
more brasso for your golden hats. To reap the calming, warm sensation of
self respect from the feedback of others, impressed by your use of esoteric
vocabulary and poetic rhetoric. Is anyone on this list or elsewhere
interested in producing conclusions from debate, to perhaps make our
existence more bearable? Probably not. I'm leaving this ostentatious,
puerile human reality for good if I don't find soon just ONE other person so
mewhere who isn't solely concerned with enhancing their social status to
reap the associated short term sensory benefits. So hands up anyone that
sees what I'm saying !
BTW, I realise I'll get flamed for this, what with the pursuit of
self-glorification being such a major consideration in humans. Well, I would
have been flamed had I not written these final sentences - you don't get
brasso for being perceived as predictable !!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:04:06 MDT