₦airaland Forum

plaetton: ^^^^
We have developed a system .
I think it is called, ehhm ehhm .... emperical science.
Yeah!
It is a trusted system that helps us in obtaining real objective, measurable and reliable truth about reality

And the system relies entirely on that which is observed and seen: the same faculty of observation and sight which you say is not to be trusted as objective, since everything we see is subjective - this being the very ground on which you comically refuse to give your thoughts on simple images.

I have no time for this meaningless nonsense.

plaetton: My point, and I repeat it for the third time, is that no matter what the individual thoughts or inferences from the visual images, they cannot be relevant to the issue of the existence or non-existence of god in the universe.
I hope you got it this time.

As such, you say that we should not discuss objective reality based on anything that we see!

This is comical.

What then may we base any objective diacussion on. What we hear? What we smell? What we reason -- from what? Do not all our reasonings derive from what we sense with our senses. Does not all science derive from what we see and observe.

My friend, I think, with all due respect, that your comments are ill thought and would be better suited to a comedy session.

For they render all inquiry into everything meaningless. As I said, your comments may be said as a response to everything - even as a response to your own existence. They imply that even if I meet you in person, I cannot objectively know that you exist.

As I said, wasteful, and with due respect, utterly unserious and meaningless tittle tattle unworthy of any serious minded discussion.

plaetton: I have no idea what you are talking about.
I might be wrong, but I am sensing a tinge of personal animosity towards my viewpoints,rather than the healthy objective robust arguments that I have grown to expect from you, Deepsight.

Animosity? This can only be in your imagination. That i express my view that your response was meaningless does not connote any personal animosity. I really wonder where you would get that from.

I have detailed my reasons for saying so in several posts above. I neednt repeat myself. Address yourself to the points raised in rebuttal of yours. And no, your attempt above does not suffice. Its a complete non starter.

You need to show why a discussion cannot be had based on that which we see - simply on the grounds that all that we see is subjective. This principle really means that nothing can ever be discussed.

Finally, even if your thoughts are subjective, in my OP, it is exactly such subjective thoughts that I invite. So whats the problem giving your thoughts on an image?

plaetton: Mr Troll, you make me proud. Please keep on Trolling.

I seem to recall you deploying similar escapist and laughable techniques when I opened the thread on questions about evolution.

Well, well, I can only say I am getting used to you.

End of the day, there appears scant difference between the techniques of religious fanatics and the technbiques of atheoistic fanatics.

"And the animals looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, but it had become impossible to tell the difference."

- George Orwell, Concluding Line in Animal Farm.

Mr Troll: Really? Lol. I'm not gonna do this with you. . .

This statement is a trick, and an old tired one at that.

Feign shock and surprise over the fact that someone else is supposedly ignorant of an issue in order to avoid having to address it.

Please find a better trick.

Mr Troll: Yo man, this question has been trashed severally in other threads and i have no wish to start here all over again.

The simple fact is that we really don't know. If you say God did it, good for you but the scientific community will not stop trying to find out because of the God Of The Gaps.

I am not aware that this question has been addressed at any time anywhere by anyone. . . . .

Can you refer me?

Mr Troll: No! You misunderstand!!

GOD!!! did it. Case closed. We can stop wondering now and go back to sleep.

But really and truly, the questions remain - - - >

Deep Sight: At some point in the history of the earth in its solar system, all the matter that existed were lifeless matter - such as the rock, as an example. There would be solid, liquid and gaseous matter, but all lifeless matter all the same. Somehow, over time, this lifeless matter is said to have combined, grown, evolved and coalesced in such a manner as to produce, not just life, but also the highest form of life known, the human brain.

Uyi Iredia: That's what's called the hard problem of consciousness: how does one go from neurns moving to conscious experience ?

Deep Sight: Very good question indeed. Again I could also ask what particular interest the moving neurons have in the phenomenon of consciousness.

Any particular motivation for their "co-operation" towards achieving the state of a conscious united being?

Uyi Iredia: That's what's called the hard problem of consciousness: how does one go from neurns moving to conscious experience ?

Very good question indeed. Again I could also ask what particular interest the moving neurons have in the phenomenon of consciousness.

Any particular motivation for their "co-operation" towards achieving the state of a conscious united being?

This again, should be dwelt upon.

wiegraf: WTF is going on here? Carry your filthy sane discussions elsewhere...

Lol. Long time wiegraf. I have missed your incomparable randomness.

Uyi Iredia: In addition, given Mr Troll's post, I'd say the stone and the brain captures 'the hard problem of consciousness'.

Elaborate on the hard problem of consciousness please. Do you mean to say that conssciousness cannot be the product of matter alone?

Mr Troll: Yes, you're generally correct but then they had education and a basic knowledge on how to think and probe, do good research and come up with new facts. THIS they were taught.

Note that we did(or at least I) not say that no objective truth can be gotten from any subject. I only said that what we call objective truth are what the larger society has agreed on, probably because a vast majority(not everyone) see it the same way.
So, your post in red is a strawman. At least concerning what i have been stating.

By the way, i do not see Plaetton's response as escapist especially if you are agreeing with it. Simply saying and insisting it is so does not make it so

It is not escapist to say that you cannot have a philosophical discussion on an image of a stone, because we all see the stone subjectively and "every mind interpretes every image in different ways"?

The same principle should halt all scientific inquiry and all reasoned discussions.

Deep Sight: The simple fact that we come up with new ideas, which we were not taught, debunks this.

Was Charles Darwin taught evolution in school? Was Albert Einstein taught the theory of relativity in school?

By themselves, they could observe, reason, experiment, and decipher a truth previously unknown, no?

I rest my case on the bold words above: it is possible to observe your environment and decipher a truth therein.

Otherwise there should exist nothing like science.

Mr Troll: Actually he is right, albeit in the most fundamental way for all you know Deepsight is what you have been taught right from childhood up till this moment etc.

I will say two things here: firstly you will notice that I never said that he is wrong! I said that it is an escapist, meaningless and empty response: and it most certainly is - because it can be said in response to any statement that has even been made since the dawn of time and any statement that will ever be made till eternity.

Secondly I say that it is not true that all I know are the things I have been taught. Certainly not. Because there are many things I know which I was not taught. Things which I saw and observed myself. In this regard, I have to go further to say that even those who taught us, did not derive the teaching from the air. They either got it from experience or observation or it was taught to them by others who had experience and observation. Again, if all we know is what we have been taught, then there world be no developments in science and the world: because we would be static at what we have been taught. Rather we probe and observe and experience and develop new ideas and frontiers every day, beyond the scope of what we had been taught.

It is therefore simply untrue that all we know is what we have been taught or conditioned to see.

The simple fact that we come up with new ideas, which we were not taught, debunks this.

Was Charles Darwin taught evolution in school? Was Albert Einstein taught the theory of relativity in school?

By themselves, they could observe, reason, experiment, and decipher a truth previously unknown, no?

Of what good would it have been to any of their efforts, if someone had stopped them, asking them not to waste their energies, in light of the fact that everything which they observe is subjective only, and not objective truth?

In order to resolve this seeming contradiction in our statement, i say that what we consider objective truth is what the larger society as a whole has agreed upon despite what our individual minds may imagine. For example, a TV is a TV because the society has agreed to call it that.

And this shows up the complete escapism inherent in Plaetton's post, because there is not one image in my OP that we all are ignorant of. We can discuss the stone, because we have all agreed that it is a stone. We even have detailed common understanding of what it is - solid matter. Our common understanding even extends to its microscopic composition.

In light of this, it is very escapist and cowardly to avert the discussion by stating that we all see it subjectively and as such no objective truth may be known or inferred about it ! ! !

Mr Troll: Ok. Interesting. Didn't see it from that perspective.
Technically, the eye does not see. It is the brain that sees. The eye is simply a conduit for light waves. . .

Yes indeed, we know this. And yet the point remains the same: that in that coagulation of matter, there is something there that needs to see. That needs those receptors to see an outside world.

This connection you have shown is not limited to humans alone, i hope you know that and whatever the need is to see, it definitely is not limited to humans and their larger brains alone.

Of course, it extends to the generality of creatures: and the question still remains the same.

We should therefore discuss - the need to see - and what is seeing, and who is seeing, and things that see.

Mr Troll: No. I disagree. Objective truths need not come from our mind. Physical evidence and proof will suffice. THAT is why we need schools, to dispel our erroneous preconceived notions through the shining light of irrefutable evidence and solid proofs.

That is actually contrary to what Plaetton has alluded to.

His words -

"In other words, a person's reality can be accessed, interfered with, influenced and deliberately reshaped.

Social evolution and it's modern adjunct form, social engineering, depends largely on the ability of one or a few to influence and shape the reality of the many through a variety of psychological re-inforcement mechanisms such as religion, political ideology, military conquest or economic hegemony.

My point in all this is that mind does not have any absolute truths of it's own except that which it has been conditioned to see."

- - - > Suggest therefore that it is actually these schools, and the other "psycological reinforcement mechanisms" which he mentioned, that now influence the mind into thinking this or that. See the bold above - he said, "no absolute truths except that which it has been conditioned to see."

Thus he is saying that everything that one sees is just what one is conditioned to see and is no objective truth.

If I look at my television, and state that it is a television, I could equally be told that I only say that because that is what I have been conditioned to see. Someone else somewhere else may be conditioned to see it as a large picture frame. And this remains true. But in a discussion seeking to unravel the nature of the television, anyone can halt the discussion through Plaetton's statement. No objective truth about the television set can be known because we only see what we are conditioned to see.

And taken to the extreme, even where ten different people see the television set as a television set, it can be argued that each person has been conditioned to see the other nine people agreeing with him, and it may in fact not be the objective truth that they are agreeing with him.

As I said before, all existence collapses into meaninglessness.

Mr Troll: PICTURE OF THE ROCK AND THE BRAIN.

At the very fundamental level, they are both made of the same ingredients(atoms etc)

it seems quite incredulous that both may once have been the same thing in the distant past but whatever we may want to fantasize, there is simply no evidence to suggest that the rock may have evolved while the brain was designed(with what? Same materials i guess).

Nevertheless, the brain is a wonder, just as it a wonder that we share 70% of our DNA with a slug yet we are so vastly different. . .

Thanks for the comment. Very interesting.

As an aside, let me say that I purposely hunted for a picture of a brain which would show the connections to the eyeballs right in front of it.

You are indeed right in striking upon the similarity between the rock and the brain - both are matter, or are said to be composed of matter.

At some point in the history of the earth in its solar system, all the matter that existed were lifeless matter - such as the rock, as an example. There would be solid, liquid and gaseous matter, but all lifeless matter all the same. Somehow, over time, this lifeless matter is said to have combined, grown, evolved and coalesced in such a manner as to produce, not just life, but also the highest form of life known, the human brain.

Choosing to show the brain from that perspective showing the connection to the eyes, was because of the thought that there is, in that coagulation of matter which has become living, there is something there that has a need for sight. A need to see. A need to look around the world around it. It will be interesting to discuss this point and what that thing is. What is that thing. I think we can discuss this further.

Teacher: Here is the image of a naked adult female.

Student: We cannot discuss this matter because we all see the image subjectively.

Teacher: Tell me what you see.

Student: It does not matter because what I see is subjective to me and may not be objective truth.

Class over.

And I repeat: The above will equally serve as answer to EVERY THOUGHT, EVERY IDEA, EVERY OBSERVATION, EVERY DISCUSSION, EVERY DEBATE AND EVERY DISCOVERY THROUGHOUT HISTORY AND FOREVER INTO THE FUTURE.

If held fast and true, there should be no schools, no education, no discussions, no observations ever made by human beings. We should all remain quiet and mute: and simply do that which we wish to do to survive - or not - for everything is only a subjective reality in our individual minds.

Mr Troll: A thinking man. Evidently a more highly evolved specie from his ancestors. This evolutionary gift of a bigger brain has enabled him not only to manipulate his environment to suit himself but also furnish him with the ability of contemplating his ontological position in the context of the vast universe he finds himself in. . .blah blah blah.

The Pic will not show when you quote, so perhaps you should caption your comment such as "Picture of X'X'X" - then comment on it.

Thanks for the comment. Much appreciated. It seems that we agree in common that the image discloses thought. A thinking being, a being able to contemplate the abstract. This is an important plank in our thought development, I think.

Mr Troll: Nevertheless, you are building a strawman by asserting that because we think that this exercise is subjective, therefore no subject on earth can be discussed objectively.

No: absolutely I am not - go and read Plaetton's post again - and you will see that that is the very direct implication of his position.

That is effectively his position, not mine.

Mr Troll: I could comment on each of these pictures but i would do it coloured with my own particular world view.

Well it is your subjective views and thoughts that interest me.

For example, the stone and brain. . . The only objective thing there is that it is a picture of a rock and a drawing of a brain. Whatever else we would say about it can only come from our subjective worldview. I hope you get my point now. . .

We could start a thought development by wondering what the two pictures have in common.

Mr Troll: Exactly my point. Now you're trying to suggest to us. . .

O it is a given that everyone's view is a suggestion to others. Nevertheless LB had assumed that he had exactly my thoughts when he viewed those pictures. I was only saying to him, that in fact, he had not quite grasped my thoughts. Just showing him he was presuming when he says he has "seen through the BS"... BS it may be, but I am not sure that he has seen through it...

Logicboy03: lol....something to do with creationism (the pic of the rock) and god being the mind (pic of the brain)

Interesting. But that is not quite just what I had in mind. Does it not occur to you what both the rock and the brain share in common?

Logicboy03: Sorry, we saw through your BS with the rock and the brain.......

In fact, just thinking about this alone seems to show up the wastefulness in this pre-emptive defence of subjectivity.

I wonder how you were able to recognize the rock as a rock and the brain as a brain.

Logicboy03: Sorry, we saw through your BS with the rock and the brain.......

Now tell me what thoughts came to your mind regarding that BS. What exactly do you think I was trying to say there.

Feel free to ignore and walk away, your answers here are only as usual.

Logicboy03: Yawn.


Take for instance, the first picture.

-could be interpeted as a man thinking
-or a man holding his mouth closed
-or a man shocked and therefore holding his mouth closed.

Every single option you provided is still based on the notion of thought - and still discloses a thinking being. That, as Joshthefirst noted, is one of the building blocks of thought that the image alludes to.

So you see, sometimes, you need to be careful of desperation to avoid thought - simply to preserve already held views. There is nothing in this thought development that needs to frighten you.

If you stick with Plaetton's take, there is no point in the existence of any school, as nothing can ever be known or taught objectively. As I said, it is a meaningless and purposeless - and also empty - treatise - even if found to be true!

Why don't you settle down this nice Sunday morning and simply provide your simple sincere thoughts on each image.

Cos this thread was actually meant to be a fun exercise. So even if you say its a subjective matter, it is actually okay, because it is your subjective views that I am interested in.

Logicboy03: Art (including pcitures) is subjective.


Simple, short answer

Save the drawing of the brain, and unless you wish to revert to photographs as works of art, a la the artistic photographer, the images I posted are not all necessarily works of art in the creative-artistic sense, and you know that.

For example:

I would hardly consider the image of the stone a work of art. I just googled "stone' and snatched up the first picture of a stone I saw. So its is not there in an artistic sense or for an artistic purpose.

It is rather there in a philosophic sense and for a philosophic purpose.

It seems Plaetton has succeeded in providing a lame plank for the escape of those who do not wish to think.

Everything is subjective, so there is no point in structured common thought development, therefore good night, all. Lol.

Logicboy03: Yawn.....

Pictures speak a thousand words but seriously, using pictures for a theistic worldview?

Theistic worldview? ? ?

I specifically said -

"What bearing do those thoughts have on the theistic - atheistic worldviews as contrasted."

Ehem,
1) God is invisible. Seriously, he got no image mann
2) God is beyond a thousand words and is limited when you use picture to represent him/her
3) No. 2 depicts the problem with God- how does one describe a limitless god with a limited mind?



You can ignore my ramblings if it doesnt make sense to you

I don't know why you have rushed to set out attributes of God. The pictures are there. All that is invited is your sincere and simple thoughts on each one. This is not only about the existence or non existence of God, but, as I said, also about learning the meaning of our lives.

^^^ In all fairness I think you are rather the one being emotional here. Nothing is stated in any picture, only contemplation is invited.

As I stated in my revert to Plaetton, his position, which you endorse, really means that nothing should ever be discussed, as nothing can ever be objectively known. Nothing whatsoever. It is a lame and very escapist response.

plaetton: My post is very relevant to the thread.

Not at all my friend. In reality, it is a most escapist, futile and nihilistic response. And it is a response that can be made to any and every statement or observation ever made in all history, and forever into the future.

Does it miss you that that post can be made as a response to anything anybody ever sees, hears, smells, observes, or rationalizes? Have you reflected on that?

My point , in case you missed it, was that whatever is mentally induced from an image or imagery cannot be trusted to contain all or any element of absolute truth.
Imagery can only instill or re-enforce archetypes.

As I said above it is only a meaningless escapist answer and I will show you why.

We are each trapped within our senses. You cannot see through my eyes nor I through yours. You will only ever see through your eyes. You will only ever observe or understand anything from the point of view of the same archetypes that you are used to and you know. What this immediately means, if to be taken seriously, fair and square, is that nobody can ever know anything whatsoever to be true. Indeed this will then be the final answer to every postulation, argument, or even scientific process. The adamant conclusion must be and will remain that since we only see from our points of view only, we can never know an objective truth: and therefore every single discussion and debate about anything and everything is thereby immediately futile, empty and meaningless, as no one can ever know anything.

Indeed, we cannot know for sure if nairaland exists at all or if it is a figment of one's imagination.

In the extreme, one cannot even know if one exists.

This type of argument, as I said, is meaningless to everyone, advances nothing, and even if true, will eternally remain purposeless and meaningless.

Secondly you have to realize it it also applies to everything even you have ever postulated or thought. They are ALL your subjective notions governed by visual archetypes that you have become governed by. You cannot know that the moon is not in reality a tea pot saucer any more than I can know that I am typing anything right now.

All existence collapses in meaninglessness.

That is why such a response from you is just neither here nor there. It is a response that can be made to every statement in the world and will apply equally. If you state that you have a wife, I could state that that is just your subjective notion governed by the visual archetypes that govern you.

No one takes such a line of discussion seriously as far as serious existential discourse is concerned.

You are, in this regard, just like the man who states that since all things are subjective, we cannot know that he actually exists independent of our thoughts or imaginations. Of course the quick and sure fire response to such a man is that in the same vein, we cannot know that he actually just made that statement, and as such we can ignore it.

In the 1st picture above, I doubt of there is any body in whose subjective reality, the man pictured would appear to be laughing or smiling.
But then, we cannot know that, can we?

This is your line of argument, and it's absolute nonsense.

Please you don't really need to respond to this post, as the post might not really exist, it might be your imagination, or worse still, it is possible that it is actually a racoon that you are looking at, but on account of the visual archetypes governing you, you have subjectively viewed it as a post written by Deep Sight.

No?

So: kind sir, if you are content to play in a meaningless sandbox of such tittle-tattle, enjoy yourself. Those who wish to meditate on the strong thoughts inherent in the images, i think, would have spent their thoughts better.

plaetton: May I be permitted to say that unlike modern computer hardware, the mind did not evolve a firewall to protect it from outside interference, influence or access.

In fact, the borders of the mind are very porous, the substance of the mind is very malleable and extremely vulnerable to suggestions and alterations.
In other words, a person's reality can be accessed, interfered with, influenced and deliberately reshaped.

Looking at it from an evolutionary point of view, a dynamic and malleable mind, as opposed to a static mind, was a critically important and necessary factor in the social evolution of the earth's most senior primate, man.

Social evolution and it's modern adjunct form, social engineering, depends largely on the ability of one or a few to influence and shape the reality of the many through a variety of psychological re-inforcement mechanisms such as religion, political ideology, military conquest or economic hegemony.

My point in all this is that mind does not have any absolute truths of it's own except that which it has been conditioned to see.
Indeed, If the mind was naturally or divinely imbued with absolute truth, then all minds should be able to have the same interpretations of one image, one dream, one epiphany.
We know that it has never been so.
Every mind interprets one visual image, such as yours above, in many different ways.
Thus, everyone has his own inner truth.

Therefore, once again, subjective truth , no matter how elegant or sublime, whether it's about god, or whatever it may be, is simply unreliable in the real world.

This is true and correct, but I fail to see its relevance to this thread.

All of this could similarly be said on the question of whether anything around you actually exists at all or is all in your head: a mirage. A futile line of thinking, which, even where true, is meaningless for everyone, and profits no one anything.

I am simply interested in what may be deduced (in philosophic terms) from the pictures I posted.

Joshthefirst has taken a bite by saying, with respect to the first picture -

Joshthefirst: @ deepsight.
In the first image I see a man.
Meaning: The man looks deep in thought. He seems to be looking, to be analyzing, to be thinking. The looks of a man in deep thought, I percieve as I look deeply at this image, is unique. That look tells me this man is a being.

His last sentence in the quote above is a plank on which a great deal of thought can be built - particularly on the nature of being.

Joshthefirst: @ deepsight.
In the first image I see a man.
Meaning: The man looks deep in thought. He seems to be looking, to be analyzing, to be thinking. The looks of a man in deep thought, I percieve as I look deeply at this image, is unique. That look tells me this man is a being.

Thank you very much. Are there further thought developments that can arise from this recognition.

A creature that is able to ponder and that is intelligent. The look on this man's face, I think, is deeper than the look any other animal can have. This mans look is unique. This mans thought process is unique. This man is unique. He is dynamic. This man cannot be compared to any other animal


I conclude man is made to be something. He is much more than an animal. He is able to think and greatly influence his evironment. I Blame the ability of this man to be able to do things like think deeply and have speech and influence and "that look in his eyes" on the fact that something is within man. I call it spirit and/or soul. I call this an atribute of something divine, God-like. I conclude. This man is not like others. This man speaks and thinks. This man cannot have achieved speaking and thinking as a result of nothing. I realize that there must be a higher being who gave man some of these superior attributes since other animals do not have them.

I would be interested in Plaetton's take on this.

But please do go ahead to give me your take on the other images.

Thank you.

I will stop here for now. Please I request that the viewer takes each image at a time and takes a moment to reflect deeply on the image, the meaning of the image, what the image tells, and its implication on the existence or non-existence of God and the meaning of our lives (where there are two images in a post, they are meant to be reflected on together)

I request genuine and deep reflection and comments.

- - - >