humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 20, 10:51 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:

> > > However, I am trying to get David (and Jim) to
> > > see that the term "consciousness" is being used in an ambiguous way
> > > here, so the second issue might not be that hard to resolve.
>
> > In what manner is it ambiguous and what issue will be
> > resolved...objectivity?
>
> See if you can find a reply I made to a post of David's in which I first
> briefly take you to task for claiming that my view is that we do not
> know that the Earth is smaller than the Sun, and then go on to suggest a
> way to interpret what David is saying. If you can't find it, I'll try
> to try again.

I found it, but it gave me no clue as to any ambiguity about
consciousness, and I'm not sure what issue that would resolve.

All I got was you rewording David's sufficiently clear point that
it rests upon our own conceptualization, how we make the
concepts. David and I agree that humans make the concepts.

Where we disagree is that he thinks we make the referents too!


jk

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This way of expressing your point does not seem to be getting through
to
others. Let me suggest that what you mean to say is that without
conscious human beings there would not be the terms "Earth" and "Sun"
as
conscious humans have defined them. These terms - and others -
*could*
have been defined differently, and future discoveries might lead
conscious human beings to change the referents of these terms.

When conscious human beings are faced with a contradiction, there is
no
single way to resolve it, e.g., perhaps the idea of indivisible atoms
should give way, perhaps conscious human beings can keep the idea and
remove the contradictory experimental results in some other way. If
conscious human beings were omniscient, then they could resolve the
matter once and for all. But in fact all they can do is make a choice
that resolves the contradiction *for now*. Then they keep testing to
see if they have it right.

Now, simply take the word "conscious" out wherever it appears above.
It
really doesn't add anything.
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