humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 4, 10:32 pm, TC wrote:

> > Besides, if it's tautological
> > that you're thinking, then it's just as tautological that you
> > exist.
>
> No. I can exist without thinking. I can't think without
> existing.

This is correct as written and it makes my point, not yours.

If you can't think without existing and it's certain that you
think, then it's certain that you exist.


> > > As to the nature of the existent that is doing the
> > > thinking there are many possibilities.
> > Including that maybe it's doing something other than
> > thinking, right?
>
> Maybe but I can't be certain.
>
> > But for some odd reason, you're
> > certain that it's thinking.
>
> Because it _is_ thinking. Get it?

An underline doesn't change the argument. The Himalayas
_do_ exist. Get it?


> > I say "odd" reason because for yet another odd reason,
> > you don't allow the same reason to let you reach certainty
> > for anything else.
>
> The same reason does not apply.
> Illusory thinking is nevertheless thinking.

I suppose, but non-thinking isn't thinking. Whatever the
referent of "thinking," how can you be certain that someone
or something that thinks it's thinking--or for that matter that
you think is thinking--is necessarily thinking?

The answer is as you say...because it _is_ thinking. But that
applies just as well to every other existent...they _are_. Get it?


> > You've got tons and tons of certainty going on, whether
> > you admit it or not. Every step you take and nearly every
> > other action you make, is built of certainty. We are
> > identifying machines, not complex bookies.
>
> That is the most convenient theory, one of the possibilites
> I don't reject as improbable.

Why in the world would you reject anything because it's
"improbable"? Surely you acknowledge that many
things a person judges as improbable are nonetheless true.


> > You don't eat and drink because you think that it's
> > "probably" necessary.
>
> I'll have to think about that.

Forget the thinking...just look. The last time you ate, did
you do an odds calculation of its necessity? Did you ever?

Yeah, I know...you might be doing it subconsciously, right?
Now you 've got one of the highest abstractions possible, the
rating of probabilities of future events based on knowledge of
past ones, going on wholly subconsciously. Seems like a
stretch to me, one that you would reject as improbable.


> > Nor do you put one foot in
> > front of the other because you're doing insanely
> > complex probability computations with each step.
>
> Those hundred million or so neurons are doing something.

Big deal...they're doing plenty in cats or apes too. Do you
have them likewise eating because they're bookies?


> > > > IOW why aren't you certain of things that you know
> > > > in the same way that you know that you think?
> > > The existence of thought and therefore a thinker of
> > > some nature is tautological.
> > But you can't be certain that thought exists, remember?
>
> I am thinking therefore thought exists.

But you can't be certain. Even tautologies can be false, right?
How would you know otherwise?


> > It's just "likely," according to your paradigm.
>
> No thought is different.

Why would one particular action referenced with one
particular concept, be so different from any other action
conceptualized with other concepts?

That seems strange, maybe even bizarre. But regardless
of that, and whatever your answer, you can't be certain.


> > And if you can be certain that something as ethereal as
> > thought exists, I don't know why you'd have a problem
> > with something as non-ethereal as, say, the Himalayas
> > or something like that.
>
> I could be the brain in a vat you mentioned.

You could be jello in a vat too, made to think it's
thinking even if it's not. Point being, you can't be
certain that you're thinking.


> > Why can't you be just as certain
> > that they exist, as you are of your own thought?
>
> Because I really think certainty is dangerous.
> Look at all the certain religious fanatics.

Oh, c'mon. That's /psychological/ certainty, not what
I call epistemological certainty. I agree that pc can be
very dangerous, but ec allows us to live.


> > > Nothing else is tautological in the same way.
> > You think you're saying, "I think, therefore I am." What
> > you're really saying is, "I am certain I am thinking,
> > therefore I am certain that I exist."
>
> I am thinking therefore I am thinking,
> If I'm not thinking I can't think that.

But you can't be certain. Maybe you can think that you're
thinking, even though you're not, through a process wholly
unknown to you.


> > I am just trying to point out to you that whatever method
> > is allowing you to achieve certainty on the point of
> > whether you're thinking or not, can be used to achieve
> > certainty with regard to other things as well.
>
> Nope. Doesn't work. You are fooling yourself if you think so.

Really? We're fooling ourselves that food and water are necessary
to live?


> > You seem to disagree, but I still don't know why. There is
> > nothing tautological in the identification of yourself as
> > thinking; the tautology comes after the identification.
>
> Thinking entails thinking.

So you're proposing. But you have no evidence of it except
via word formation, as opposed to identification. This, because
according to you, identification can't lead to certainty.

So according to you, it could be that thinking doesn't entail
thinking...it might entail cosmic rays hitting vats of jello. You
can't be certain, can you?


> > As all tautologies must.
>
> The concept of tautology is a thought.

Then other concepts are thoughts too. So whatever leads you
to conclude that one particular thought or concept can yield
certainty, ought to indicate that others can too.


> > Identification is /all/ an abstraction, at least in the
> > human form.
>
> There you go. Also all subject to doubt except
> the identification that one is thinking.

WHY THE EXCEPTION??? You can have no basis for it,
except outright stipulation.


> > As Ken likes to remind us, "Existence
> > is identity; consciousness is identification."
>
> Ken is wrong.

It's not Ken's; it's Rand's.


> > Both your
> > thinking and your identification of your thinking are
> > abstractions. So what?
>
> They are both thought. Thus part of the same
> tautology.

Again, so fucking what? You have no basis for knowing
anything about thinking, let alone tautologies. At least
not without some certainty, you don't.


> > If you can abstract thinking
> > with certainty, why can't you abstract a mountain range
> > with certainty?
>
> The brain in a vat thinking of a triangle is thinking of
> a triangle. The brain in a vat fed sense data of a mountain
> is not perceiving a mountain range.

How do you know these things? Why is the BIV thinking of
something such certain proof that it's thinking, but its
perception of something not certain proof that it's perceiving?


jk