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

Clip from the science fiction comedy film Dark Star.

The Dark Star's mission to destroy unstable planets goes arwy when a computer malfunction results in failure to drop an armed bomb. The crew tries desperately to reason with the bomb to persuade it not to explode. To convince the bomb that the order to detonate was false, it becomes necessary to delve into philosophy.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• phenomenology
• solipsism
• existentialism
• reality
• perception
• consciousness
• philosophy
• sci-fi
• dark
• star

[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?

[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]

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?

[wgaule]

A solipsistic bomb!

[RobynHarris]

@Tapecutter59

Live Fast

Surf Hard

Die Young

Leave an Aerosolized Corpse.

[dmatej79]

Hello bomb! :-D

[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

[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]

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]

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.