Phenomenology - How do you know you or anything else exists?

[dmatej79]

Hello bomb! :-D

[Tapecutter59]

Great movie, in the final sceen after the bomb explodes the guy in the spacesuit survives. He uses a piece of space junk as a surfboard and surfs toward the planet where he is sure to burn up in the atmosphere. Now that's a philosophy!

[theinquisitor]

Yep, why suffocate to death in a spacesuit when you can go out in style?

[RobynHarris]

@Tapecutter59

Live Fast

Surf Hard

Die Young

Leave an Aerosolized Corpse.

[ThePhilosorpheus]

it´s also mere interpretation of a phenomenon to say my perception is caused by electrical impulses, and it´s a very primitive interpretation.

what difference would it really make if we could actually know whether our perception of the "external world" is "true"?

[theinquisitor]

I agree that it's just an interpretation, but I don't know what you mean by primitive. The theories we develop about the external world allow us to make predictions that are then confirmed by later observations.

Even if we can't know the "true" nature of the external world, we can at least make accurate predictions about what experiences it is likely to deliver to our minds in the future based on past experiences.

I think that's as close as we are likely to get to reality.

[ThePhilosorpheus]

What I mean by primitive is: for example, when we study the human brain and we see that while the subject moves his arm, a certain neuronal conexion arises and certain electrical impulses are activated, we´re just making an association that can´t be used to actually explain the phenomenon of the moving arm; we cannot say from that that the decision to move an arm originates in the brain, etc.

it´s maybe a poor example but I think its general enought.

[ThePhilosorpheus]

I believe we can know reality in it´s entirety - if our language is developed enought to signify all of it properly. the greatest mistake we can possibly make is to think of our own minds as something different from nature, when it works according to the same laws as everything else. We´re just supposed to discover ourselves and we will know all of nature

[theinquisitor]

Isn't it trivially true that the decision to move an arm does originate in the brain? If you're not supposing the existence of anything outside of nature, like a supernatural soul, then what else could be the originator of such decisions other than the brain?

There are of course less proximate causes. The decision to move could be motivated by a stimulus response which pushes the causal chain back further.

But I'm not sure what you're getting at. Could you perhaps clarify your position?

[ThePhilosorpheus]

well, first, supposing there is a soul I don´t see why it should be "supernatural" or "outside of nature", since for a thing to exist it must be part of nature. second, with or without soul, the brain is one of the least known things in the world.

[ThePhilosorpheus]

we can explain why the hands of a clock move by the functioning of the gears, etc, but that doesn´t explain what a clock is. all of our explanations for mental phenomenon are associations, there is nearly no real intellectual work involved - that I call a primitive interpretation.

[ThePhilosorpheus]

Like a child that sees that water moves and assumes that it is alive because it can´t see or touch the cause of it´s movement.

[ThePhilosorpheus]

and (sorry for not tucking it all into one single answer) I didn´t say it isn´t true that the decision originates in the brain, I said that the mere association is a very primitive interpretation that doesn´t explain the phenomenon, but only describes it

[BanjoSiren]

Wonderful, wonderful movie. There's a vid going around on facebook that takes 20 minutes to make the points Doolittle made in 5.

[karbonista]

my philosophy prof showed this in class the other day to demonstrate why phenomenology is evil

[theinquisitor]

Interesting. I guess I can see where he's coming from, but isn't it just a logical deduction from the known facts about our limited perception? Isn't it true that we can't be absolutely certain that our perception is real?

I think what it shows is that we shouldn't rely on absolutes. Certainty is not required to make decisions. It's not worth taking the risk of blowing ourselves up and taking everyone with us, because of the probability of our perception being real, despite the uncertainty.

[karbonista]

He's being tongue-in-cheek when he says that. A better word is "pernicious". It's a valid perspective, but it leads to argument over things that are not important. A phenom'l and/or purely scientific view of philosophy tends to favor certain answers to fundamental philosophical questions that are no more or less valid than a purely idealist view. We know that answers to these questions can't be entirely phenom'l OR idealist, but we choose btw them as if they were mutually exclusive.

[sharethehouse]

thankyou! this clip helped me on a college assignment 5/5

[halidefox]

"You are false data." You KNOW bad things are coming when he says that.

[wgaule]

A solipsistic bomb!

[devote]

man this is funny...yah

[dawkinsfan41]

classic

[Katalyzt]

Interesting....