humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 23, 10:08 am, Jim Klein wrote:

> "What is dependent on consciousness is their identity..."

> It doesn't matter what the rest of the sentence is; it's false.

Then you have taken the absurd position that consciousness is nothing
at all. And, in fact, you contradict yourself just a few lines down.

> It's mildly fair to say, "In this universe, every object that is a
> referent has as its nature being a referent," as far as
> describing a relationship between the object and its extant
> identifier. And if you go all the way with that, then any
> object that is a referent "can't" exist as a non-referent.

And there you go contradicting yourself.

> But that's about "can't" and possibility and necessity and all
> of that...it's NOT about the object itself.

That's right. The corona is part of the Sun so long as we consider it
part of the Sun. If we stop considering it part of the Sun, it stops
being part of the Sun. So being part of the Sun is NOT about the
corona itself, by your rules.

> If you stick to your approach through and through, then
> there's nothing to say about anything, since everything
> amounts only to its identification, and nothing has
> identity except the universe, or existence, itself.

That may well be true. Absent consciousness, the universe does not
have any properties that can only be assigned by a consciousness. That
means, certainly, that there are no referents. So the question becomes
what properties are dependent on consciousness -- what properties are
really about how we consider things due to our cognitive requirements.

> Plus, it
> would create extraordinary problems establishing just
> what identification is, in view of the fact that no objects
> have any identity save for that identification.

Except that's not what I said, that's your straw man again.

> So you can either declare, "Existence exists," and I'll
> agree and you can go away, never to speak again
> about any OBJECTive attributes of an object. Or you
> can concede that objects exist, separate and apart
> from their identification, and come up with some new
> falsehoods to write about!

Again, that's your ridiculous straw man. The Sun's corona can exist,
even if it doesn't have the property of being part of the Sun.

DS