Does X exist?

Posted on by Warren Tang

1.
I have never physically been to France.

I have read a lot about it. Many things have occurred there. I have met French people. I have friends who have been there. But I have no direct evidence of the existence of France other than the things I read, hear, the maps I see, the people I meet. As far as I am concerned the existence of France could be a conspiracy of the entire world for my benefit.

But why would the world conspire to make me believe its existence? For what reason? Sure, I can go and check. It isn’t that hard. The “French” I have met, if they are not French, surely came from somewhere else. Perhaps they are a people of compulsion to lie collectively. Why?

2.
It doesn’t need to be France. It could be some other place. There are many places I have not been to. But I can go there and check. Korea, for example, is a short plane’s ride. Finances and time willing I can go (it is within my means).

The act of checking and the the ease of such checks surely tells us about the nature of reality and the nature of secondary sources. I have no reason not to believe someone that they come from France, or have been to France. Many a time I have experienced something they have not. Pretty much my life before I came to Japan is a mystery to my children and wife. I tell them about it. They believe it. There is no good reason to lie about it. It is mundane as mundane can be.

3.
The question of God’s existence is a little different.

No amount of wanting to check will bring me to God. God is not anywhere (though it is claimed God is everywhere). I cannot find God except with in thought and name. That is not to deny God’s existence, but rather to say what I know of God.

I know God as thoughts and name as much as I know France as thoughts and name. While I can check France’s existence I cannot check for God’s. Fundamentally France and God are different. One is a concept of a place. The other is a concept of a concept. I’ll let you decide which is which.

But still we talk of God as much as we talk of France, if not more. No amount of talk will allow me to go check of God’s existence. Buying a plane ticket will.

4.
If I want to see God I am told go to a church. But when I get to the church I do not see God but only a church. If I want to know about God I am told go read the Bible. But when I read the Bible I do not know God but only the Bible.

5.
This is true of all other religions, philosophies, sciences. There is a difference between first-hand knowledge (experience) and second-hand knowledge (reading, hearsay). Check for yourself when possible. Be weary of indirect sources. Do not confuse the two.

Published by Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

47 thoughts on “Does X exist?”

  1. … or maybe it made so little sense that they had to except it because they felt it must have a really deep and profound meaning since they couldn’t understand it. lol

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  2. lol. Oh. Because I couldn’t remember who you are? Sorry. I was pretty sure it was you. Yeah I am stoked and kind of very surprised they excepted my paper. I edited it again and cleaned it up so now I think it is more clear.

    But it gives me hope because if a journal pier reviewed journal is excepting that paper, then other might except others that I write. I mean unless they were just giving me some charity or something. 🙃

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  3. Well mate I know I am a figment of your imagine but at least try to remember your idealised/phenomenalised online friends. They might get upset at a comment like that. 😂

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  6. I forget names, email addresses, and blogs associations. And there’s a few people that I associate with through this blog and through those identifiers. So over time I forget who is who lol. So are you the person who lives in Japan and I sent you a copy of towards a unitive theory of counseling?

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  9. Actually, as I’m sitting here trying to write an actual thought out reply. I’m realizing that it would pretty much be book length and that you would probably never read it. Lol

    I mean, I’ve written a couple books on it already so if you’re interested you could read those. And I just wrote a paper which I think you tried to read. Hey and actually, that paper got excepted to a journal of phenomenology!! Of course it’s in much better shape than I think the one that I gave you. (right? Wasn’t it you that gave the towards the unitive theory counseling?)

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  10. Have you’ve read The Philosophical Hack. The first part. ?

    The language games are the content. LW was only wrong in as much as he represents a particular philosophical moment: he thought that reduction was the only way to discern truth. Either/or. It is not the only way. It is a true way. But it is not the only true way. Yes. I agree with you.

    Hear that.
    Think about every argument that you would reply back to me. Sit with it. Realize the arguments that are coming to your mind right now as you read this.

    Even as you’re thinking about it right now.

    I agree with it.

    Now sit with that a minute.

    Sit with the fact that I agree with you.

    Feel it.

    Know it.

    Is there a rebuttal coming up in your mind right now? Are your thoughts going to, but…?

    Then remember: I agree with you. I’m not just saying that. I’m not just saying it for some hypothetical sense of argumentation.

    I absolutely concur and agree with your whole assessment right now.
    And I’m not just saying that.

    Notice what might be going on with you. Is it difficult to believe that no matter what you’re thinking about right now so far as the arguments you’ve put forth in your blog, that I have read that we’ve discussed.

    Why?

    Whatever the answer you come up with, whether it be yes or no. That is, whether you believe I absolutely agree with whatever you’re going to say right at this moment. Or whether you don’t.

    I agree. I understand it. I see the truth value in it. I relate to it. I think about things in the same way.

    — And …

    Not. But.

    Not things come out me trying to prove you wrong.
    I am not disagreeing with you. Everything that is a rising within you, the words that you are reading at this moment, that you are comprehending as me having written them, say: they affirm your truth . but not only that, they affirm The truth. From there anything that you say is content, contingent content that from your truth is spinning around as if it’s not discourse . What is happening is that

    that process that you just witnessed right now, has two irreducible truth situations.

    No more, no less.

    *

    OK so I’m not gonna answer any more of your replies at this juncturebecause we just keep going back-and-forth and we’re maybe not really getting anywhere.

    Because I’m not telling you anything about what I believe is true. Lol

    I’m going to write my answers to your replies in kind of a more kind of comprehensive thought out way.

    And maybe we can get into a more substantial discussion in that way.

    👍🏾

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  11. Interesting you brought up Wittgenstein.

    LW had thought his Tractatus was the be-all-and-end-all of philosophy. In your sense he thought it was his Mode One. Packed everything up returned to life (smug) and slowly found it was wrong and proceeded to work on why was to become Philosophical Investigations (PI). So if LW could mis-take his Mode Two for a Mode One what is to say you or I cannot?

    I do not think there are Mode Ones. Everything is Mode Two, even claims of Mode One.

    Anyway, my take on TLP is that his mistake was in 1.1 (The world is the totality of facts, not of things). With PI he corrected this view and came up with language-games, which I consider the more important (and more correct) of his ideas.

    ***
    […truer…]. Let me point out the problem (my take, of course) with true from the language point of view. “True” is ‘absolute’ in it form. “Truer”, comparative, and “truest”, superlative. Are we talk about some which is true/truer/truest in logic? Because how is it possible to have comparatives and superlatives when logic dictates it is either true or not true? There is a problem with (natural) language and by extension a problem with logic.

    LW’s language-games addressed this problem and came up with a better answer and understanding.

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  12. And. I would add, it is not just ‘our’ meanings of things, but it is the meaning that things make themselves that we become privy to, if those things ‘want’ us to be invoked with them.

    This is the same situation that is reflected in our current racial conversation, what people are talking about so far is racial consciousness.

    The current existence of things is such that my intention is not central. What I think does not designate. But actually I open myself up to the possibility of other, and an opening myself up I begin to see myself as myself, instead of A “central thinking subject”. Less that everything stems from me and that I’m in a conversation with other people, and more that I open myself up to the possibility of that other things in the universe, some of which happened to be other human beings of different skin colors.

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  13. ….And, just to use Logio Philosophicus Wittgenstein as an example: at the beginning of it the first thing he says is “the world is everything that is the case”. And then one of the last things he said is basically anything that is not the case we pass over in silence.

    If everything is discursive, then there is nothing that exists outside of discourse. Mind is that discursive, perception is discursive, processes are discursive. Discourse begets nothing but more discourse because all that is the case is the world, as we find with the postmoderns later, as discourse.

    So we are either speaking of discourse itself, or we are speaking of the content of discourse. If we shift from one to the other and we think that discourse has content, then we generally are unable to see discourse as discourse. And constantly refer it to something that it is not, namely, consciousness, mind, perception, processes, etc.

    The issue is not which one is more true, because then we’re only dealing with content. The issue is what is the repercussions of having both conditions arise at the same time. Not in a causal relation.

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  14. I’m still going to forge a more in-depth response to what you have commented lately.

    But staying with the idea of two routes, as addressing your statement “it is not possible to fully understand everything”

    In the model that I’m talking about here I would say that on one hand, I fully understand everything. Everything that I encounter makes total sense to me and informs me to that sense about what I am going to do next. Totally. There is nothing outside of that condition through which I am able to know act and mediate those with decision. In that condition right there I am understanding everything at all times.

    Then there is the condition that happens within that condition, which I tend to say is or indicates the way that the mind functions to establish reality. And this is to posit some thing that is outside of my ability to know at that moment. This kind of knowledge, this kind of understanding of ontology places things in the context of what we call “the central thinker“. The central thinker understands itself as something that arises in the universe with an ability to step outside of the universe and analyze particular things of the universe. The central finger tends to view itself, I understand it’s self reflexively and automatically as if it’s the only thing that thinks, which is to say within its concordant species, for example, human beings think butt and have consciousness but fences don’t. In this way there are things outside of knowledge that I can go in the world and test about to find out new things. In this particular way it is not possible to understand everything.

    These two situations are not arguable. Which is to say, the only way that we can argue about them is to assume the latter example. Which is to say, in as much as someone may not understand the former example, they will want to posit an argument about it to say that they don’t believe that that is true. And yet by doing so they have exemplified for me the condition in which I exist which is the total inclusion of everything that is possible. Which is to say, that my interactions with things inform me to the totality of everything that is possible to know; yet, in this totality where I know everything, that totality appears in such a way that I don’t know everything.

    There is no argument that can be made to say one is more true than the other, for the reasons I keep repeating.

    The experience that you may have that is different than mine, is inconsequential to the actuality of things occurring. Because as soon as he would inform me to those things of yourself that I might not know, it is confirmed to me that I know everything that I can possibly know about you. At every instance, every word you speak to me confirms to me that I am knowing everything that I can possibly know of your experience that may not be my own experience.

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  15. What you are describing sounds like what I would call “slippages”.

    What we say is forever slipping. We never get perfect synchronisation. But we try.

    Our meanings are never perfect copies of each other. In fact, if they were, they would be identical. They would be one, not two.

    This goes with dialogues between people and within people. We are slipping in every direction in relation to everything simultaneously. It is a complex situation.

    So we must deal it somehow by saying we will just from here to there without falling.

    And that is the best we can do.

    I do see you want to deal with the world. And you do deal with it in your way (as I also do). Furthermore, we both have arrived at this junction from different starting points and different routes. You and I have seen different things. I am asking you about what you saw on the way so that I may retrace or even go down that path.

    It is hoped that you would want to know and see the same things I have seen, that they may give some idea of what I have experienced and that you may experience the same but really it will always be just something similar, never identical.

    Yes, it is not possible to fully understand everything. 1,000 tourists go to Hawaii. 1,000 experiences of the place. 1,000 had brought with them 1,000 different (psychological) baggages. 1,000 of them will take away 1,000 different gifts. Complex. Yet they share “Hawaii” somehow.

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  16. Again, I will respond more thoroughly to all the things you’ve brought up in these past few comments.

    But your example of football is a good one.

    Maybe the B part of it would be that there is indeed football. I start talking to you about football we enter into a conversation we find out some things about football whatever it is. Football itself becomes an object around which we establish ourselves. We are ultimately determined and what this football is. And there is an implicit assumption between us that indeed there is some thing, some actual thing, some object as I say, that is “football”.

    The A part of it Then would be when we actually sit down and talk about which football are we actually talking about. When we sit down and we dismiss ourselves from the fact that there is football that is assumed common this thing that we deal with casually, actually common, when we don’t actually sit there and define terms. The A part is the actual lived experience however you wanna put it.

    The issue that I’m bringing up Is that the assumption, the implicit assumption is that A is the truth. That A Entirely The only way. That B only occurs due to A. This, I think, is the argument that you’re giving me actually in our discussion here . You’re basically saying to me that, yeah I understand The potential’s of B But ultimately they are encompassed and determined byA

    I am saying that once we embody B not as a result, and not vice versa, not be as opposed to a, not trying to reduce a to B. — Because that’s what a does.

    Yet once we embody B as the basic condition, then both a and B exist in equity and complementality. Because I am not reducing a to the condition of B, but I recognize that such reduction is always a. And yet a is not encompassing everything that is knowable or arguable.

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  17. I am going to read your replies, your considerate replies, and I am actually going to try and address some significant things that you’ve brought up.

    But it’s gonna take a minute. 👍🏾

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  18. There is a reason why I am so careful with terminology. It has to do with how language makes for categorical mistakes.

    What you call “truths” I would consider not truths because it is phenomenal. The “truth” of the schizophrenia patient would not help them to come out of the illness. That is why I would use reality for the physical world only. Even though the basis of the illness is ultimately physical (of the brain). I would want to mix up the mind with reality.

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  20. “It doesn’t matter what word id used matter, mind, etc.” Really?! It does, because it comes down to the nature of the exists. While I do know you do not mean looseness of definition the difference between mind and matter ultimately leads to how you live your life.

    Again, I do not believe you are making light of language, I do not think you have looked at 1) the consequences of language use as process and 2) significance of language on thought.

    … God exists, no God exists …

    There you go again. please give me your perception, your processes, God, no God. Metaphorical, yes, perhaps. Actual, no, perhaps. As you might say, “it doesn’t matter”.

    Perhaps you will call it “inclusion”. It may be a matter of agreeing to the rules of the game. I don’t know. I DON”T KNOW. Let’s just say this is why there exists Canadian and American Football, not just A football.

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  21. I have a funny feeling that we are not using the term “truth” in the same way. In fact, I am sure of it.

    I find language problematic. And I am saying that unabashedly.

    I will also say I have no problem with privileging. I am doing not so much as a choice but as a consequence of reality. There is no other way to put it, say it. We can only ever live with taking a privileging stance. The problem is which stance to take. The Modern way of doing was pretend one is not privileging anything, that one is neutral. The Postmodern way is to say no more pretence and to take a stance. I will take a stance but I will not pretend it is neutral because there is no such thing.

    To say, “take of granted” is rather condescending. That is to say, I haven’t thought about it or thought it through. I have taken other opposing positions before. They do not seem to get to the heart of the matter (pun unintended but later intended).

    I have no qualms about your “sitting in chairs” analogy, because me, chair and the act of sitting are far more straightforward than anything to do with philosophy.

    Not only are the terms and concepts of philosophy moving targets they are not actual targets. Or else they we are shooting at different targets all while believing we are aim at the same thing.

    I like the second route and the first route. All the same, what you seem to mean by different truths is incompatibility. But if you are saying that God is part of reality I would agree INSOMUCH as that we must deal with it in terms of its physical manifestations as mental phenomena. I cannot see it would be easy to balance this as a counsellor. But as philosophical sparing partners we are not dealing with fragile people who are traumatised. We are healthy beings (like professional athletes) who want to reach the highest understanding (whatever that is). And variety is is important, as with anything else.

    So, yes, both are realities (I wouldn’t call them ‘truths’). Nonetheless it does not make them equal. For if they were equal then we might as well leave the terrorists be or throw human rights out the window. I don’t think this is what you mean.

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  22. “In order to have a “mind” one has to have matter. Truthfully also”. Exactly. It doesn’t matter what word id used matter, mind, etc. ) or what argument I want to make about what terms I am organizing, the very method assumes a criterion of truth is available. But we never get to it through that argumentative reductive method. We just rely upon it. That is why the big issues have been transcendence, immanence , and nihilism. Because those are the basic definitional end products of any of this kind of method. Either were involved in an assumption that there’s something outside of the situation that gets to choose an act freely or whatever, or we have to say that I’m eminently involved in whatever is occurring and determined in my way with no choice. Or I have to say that neither of these problems really get to what was going on and I’m left with no answer at all except to reify one of those two ways .

    That philosophical situation defines a particular space of truth. Because anyway you want to go leads to one of those three things, and indeed all of those three things imply each other.

    So, we can call that parameter, that thing there, that we can look back into history and we can look at what people are doing and relying upon in their daily activities as philosophers in whatever, and we can say we know what that is. We’ve seen this method many times and we know exactly what it produces, we know how it produces things, we know what it is involved with, we know pretty much everything about it. Because of this surety, I call that a route. A particular way of retreating from what is actually occurring, but also a particular path forward into being human in the world. it also exists By the bear fact that we have to stay consistent with what we mean by existence in as much as I can say an Adam exists, or a flower exists, I can very well say that perception exists, processes exist, gravity exists, mind exists, thoughts exist, God exists, no God exists and so on.. .

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  23. Also: if I say that everything is mind. What am I talking about? Am I talking about everything else or am I talking about mind?

    Anything I would say to argue either one ultimately relies upon an assumption of truth of the matter. It doesn’t rely upon the argument that I’m making. The argument itself relies upon a fundamental truth that is allowing some sort of statement of truth to be made about whether one is more true than the other.

    But the argument itself is founded in nothing because we can never find mind and we can never find perception, or any of these “things” that are supposed has some sort of fundamental truth that we were arguing towards..

    Hence, the only way that we can say anything or make any argument it’s rely on some sort of privilege that I have. Some sort of privilege that you have in your assumption that thinking it’s self or cognition or consciousness or conception or whatever you wanna call it, processes, whatever you wanna call it doesn’t really matters— The assumption is that I have some sort of access that has nothing to do with the words in arguments that I making. Unless I say that I am ultimately only those things. But if I am only those things then how am I able to say anything that “mind”, perception or again, any of those terms, are fundamentally the case?

    Any argument that I’m making functions in this way. It is based on nothing because any argument that I would make either assumes that I’m fully invested and fully manifested by the argument itself, or that I’m something separate from the argument that is creating the argument. Something separate that is not being disclosed, which is to say, nothing but the word that I want to use to say it is the fundamental thing of all things, mind, perception consciousness whatever.

    This conundrum, this paradox, is nihilism. This is the basis of the problem

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  24. Yes. Your reductive method for the discerning of what is sensible for an ontological organization of stuff,things, ideas, whatever….is based on one particular truth. It it’s root is a fundamental assumption of what criterion allows things to arise within the organization (universe: Lyotard).

    AND:

    Your saying, For example, that you “do not give privilege” is it self based in a privileged, the very notion that is coming up to you as sensible is based upon a privilege that you are assuming grants truth. This view upon the situation, the view that is viewing you, this one that I just noticed here, that your ability to say that you are not privileging something is indeed based upon an assumption of privilege, has as its basis of truth, it’s measure or criterion, a different manner of organization of the universe.

    The conclusion that you have come to based on the evidence, is evidence that is relying upon a basis of truth that you just take for granted. That is one route that is indeed true. It is indeed true in its truth. There is no argument that can be made which would discount it or be able to discredit it, to thereby posit some other way to do it. It is a true manner of discerning reality.

    Then, the noticing that and do you that is what is occurring, is another route. Another a different form of reasoning which does not negate what it’s talking about, it does not describe it, I.e the first route, in order to say that it is wrong or incorrect or invalid or not true, as though I’m coming up with a better way something that is more true than this other thing that I’m talking about.

    This second route merely describes the situation as it is.

    There is a tree. Just because I described the tree does not meaning that I’m saying that the tree should exist in any other way than it is.

    What I could call the first route, which I call the conventional route, is particularly philosophical in the sense that if I describe a tree, the usual way of conventional philosophy takes what I’m saying as if I’m suggesting something is wrong with the tree and should be corrected.

    In the same way, if I describe a situation of philosophy. Philosophers generally do not take that situation of philosophy that is being described as indeed a description, but indeed they take it as an argument, as if I’m saying that something about what I’m describing means that it is wrong or that it needs to be corrected.

    ythis ‘second route’ that I’m talking about does not negate or argue that the first route is incorrect by it’s describing it. But typically and regularly the philosophy which is oriented in the first route will take comments that are essentially what I’m describing as description, as if indeed it is an argument which is negating.

    I’m trying to use the analogy. If I say sit in the chair. You don’t assume that I’m telling you that anything is incorrect about you or sitting or about the chair.

    But if I say something in the context of philosophy, all of a sudden I am suggesting that something is incorrect about what I just said.

    The example is that every time that I’m telling you of this situation, you come back to me in disagreement. The issue here is that I am telling you that I agree with you and then I’m explaining to you why. But you are not comprehending, you are not viewing what I’m saying as agreeing with you. Rather, you are seeing the word and then you are hearing disagreement. You are seeing me as arguing against you. And that’s not what is happening here.

    I think in most of our conversations one of the first things I say is “yes”. Or, I agree with you 100%. But somehow you don’t believe me. Automatically whenever I say that and then I talk some more you see me not agreeing with you.

    I am describing that situation.

    At first I say I disagree with your differential. It that is because I agree with it, and I disagree with it. Lol.

    I am absolutely agree with what you say in your post, I fully acknowledge that indeed your reasoning has cents and I’m agreeing that the world that you’re analyzing to come to that argument isn’t do you do valid and true.

    Then, I am describing the situation where that occurs and how it occurs.

    Ok that was kind of long because I was voice dictating I apologize.

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  25. I do not see how rejecting perception and mind as things leads to meaninglessness (without value)? There is a step missing in the logic that does not seen apparent.

    Things that undergo processes of perception and mind I deem to exist as a quality, attribute or characteristic of things, not apart from it.

    Maurice Denis, as an explanation that later became the foundation of Cubism, Abstract Expressionism and other modern art movements, wrote, “Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order.”

    This to me is also a perfect explanation of physical reality. Reality has meaning only with perception, not before it. Meaning is not inherent or apparent. Meaning is projected.

    (Afterthought: I am not saying A and B. I am saying just A. What you call B is a process of A).

    You say “mind as thing”. I say “mind as process of thing”. What is common between us is thing.

    I feel that everything must be an illusion if mind is a process is a projection in itself. This thing called I most certainly think, feel and perceive. In your words, something is going on. But do not require the mind to be a thing for whatever is going on to go on.

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  26. Yeah that’s great that everything is just a passing illusion, but it really gives us no reason to do anything in the world at all. Part of my point is that indeed I sit down on a chair. And I drive my car. And rainbows appear. And I react to them. Whatever sort of reductionist idea I might have, ultimately allows me to “have faith” that there is some underlying reality, some metaphysical truth whereby I can explain away anything in front of me by the mere fact that I can use my reasoning to come up with an argument based upon criteria that really has no foundation in anything at all .

    it makes no sense. It’s pretty much the same thing as I might as well believe in Jesus Christ and condemn all non-Christians to death. There is no reason why I should believe in this ultimate transients either, because ultimately the rationale behind it is nothing at all.

    I’m saying that indeed if I hit you in the head with a stick you are going to get a concussion. So there’s a lot of truth going on there. Sure I can explain it away all I want to, but still you got to go sit in the hospital or you got a throw up or you have blurry vision.

    So ultimately I’m saying, yes, I agree with you, and there is no reduction that is effective for explaining the truth of the situation. The truth of the situation is that a and B, not A or B. It is both, it is a and B, and it is a or B. There is no amount of reasoning that can reduce either of those conditions to the other. If I reduce one to the other to say that it’s this and not that, ultimately I have just decided upon an Arbitraryreasoning that is based upon nothing.

    The bear fact that we are having this discussion bears witness that there is something going on. There is not nothing going on.

    Or, there is something going on and there is nothing going on.

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  27. I cannot take mind to exist either. This is where I agree with the Buddhists.

    A councillor I can see the problem of no-mind for you. What would be the target?

    I see an animate being. I do not see a mind. I see a thing producing something we call being alive. I see thinking. But I also see the end of life, perception, thinking when one dies. Just as I see the rainbow disappear when the conditions change.

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  28. Things exist. Perceptions derive from things but not all things have the process or quality of perception (inanimate objects). And not all things have permanent perception (before life and after death).

    I am glad you are asking these questions, my friend. They helping formulate my explanation.

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  29. So processes don’t exist ? My point is not dualism. My point is reductive reasoning only reveals a particular kind of truth. Point thinking upon a particular trajectory. This particular kind of reasoning sees itself as the only kind of reasoning that is valid. But there is another reasoning that does not reduce to the same truth criterion. It is still reductive. But it’s basis is different.

    For do qualities exist? What is your criterion for existence? Something other than existence? Mind? Where does mind as a criterion gain its validity ? If we say that everything is in relative flux, like Deleuze and Guattari maybe, then upon what criterion does that find veracity ?

    I say that those kinds of reasoning actually do occur and function within a “envelope” of truth.

    Yet the observation which is able to see the absurdity of such “relative non-truth claims”. This is not adhering to the same criteria of that which it comments upon. Yet. It does. It does. And it doesn’t. Hence the move forward philosophically I see as gathering in the repercussions of this new situation.

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  30. They do not exist as thing. They are perceived qualities of things. Perception does not exist outside of a thing, a certain thing that perceives.

    I do not give privilege or priority to perception. That is the conclusion I have come to given the evidence. I do not see it as special but ordinary and mundane (as in that is just what things do).

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  33. Does perception is a process (action) of a thing. Perception does not exist independently of things.

    This is the point where we diverge. Processes do not exist in the same sense material things do.

    To state it clearly, I am not a philosophical idealist. And I am not a dualist.

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  35. Do universal truths exist or are they only perceived to exist?

    I would say the latter. Using your “analogy” of rainbows which is a phenomenon of light on air (both of which is matter). The qualities of light and air create rainbow. These are particulars. Light alone does not make a rainbow. Similarly air alone will not. Under certain circumstances and requires a certain direction (this in relation to the perceiver). The phenomenon occurs with or without a perceiver.

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  37. Difference. In the exact way that you describe right here, must be true as truth. To defer it off and to say that it is a product of mind, then denies the fact that there is any difference. When we look at what is actually occurring in what we are doing right here, I say that we have to admit that there are two fundamental truths that cannot reduce to one another. kind of like a rainbow. The only way I really understand the truth of the rainbow is to stand back from it at a distance. If I try to find a particular truth of the rainbow and I go to one end of it, the rainbow disappears. Just as an analogy. Lol. Maybe not the best analogy, but it has its use.

    We can’t say that the fundamental basis universal basis is mind and then go on to say that everything else is: yet the truth is, that everything arises in mind as discourse.

    We can and we can’t. It is and it isn’t. It is truthfully in the extent of that argument, and it isn’t in the truth extent of that argument. Both

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  39. Actually, I don’t agree there are fundamental truths.

    The knowledge to a blade of grass and to God ARE different. There is no way to God other than belief.

    The argument that we can know God presumes innate knowledge. The leap to God is a leap of faith. Not very scientific. Not very empirical.

    Again, I will argue that fundamentally idealism and pure rationalism (reason alone) are incorrect. The material supervenes upon idea and reason. That is, idea and reason exists insofar as a process of a thing, and is not independent of matter.

    The idea of the largest nugget in the world did not come from the actual real nugget discovered later. One is type (particular). The other is token (universal).

    A universal truth is that of mind, and does not exist Independently of mind. Universal truth in this sense is of the mind, a mind which is not independent of matter. Particular truth is of matter.

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  40. I’m saying that we don’t have a decision. Indeed I might look at a blade of grass and I find God. And what are you going to say to me to prove to me that it is at once not a blade of grass and or not God?

    Similarly, I could go look for the largest gold nugget in the world, and I might go find it, go actually find it someplace and go, wow, that really is factually the largest gold nugget in the world.

    Similarly, I might say, I wonder if Satan actually exists (Satan as the biblical antithesis of the biblical God) . And so I go looking for Satan. There is no amount of “mere idea” that one would be able to argue against me actually finding Satan somewhere in the world. There is nothing about some sort of rational idea of some universal truth that once I found Satan, that I did not find it or him.

    So I’m saying “yes, I go look for a blade of grass and indeed I go over the hill there and I find an actual blade of grass and I can say “yes, a blade of grass does indeed exist. As well, I can wonder if God exists and I can wander the planet and find no correlating object in the same sense as I’m eating here, as a blade of grass. Yes I agree with what you’re saying. That is one truth that we cannot escape. It is a universal truth within which your argument indeed holds water in the sense that you’re putting forth.

    Then the other truth is that I go looking for France, and the only way I’m going to find it is if indeed I have some sort of faith in what has been established as France. The same with the blade of grass. And the same with God. All of these instances require a sort of faith, a sort of implicit believe in the truth of it, in order for me to find it, if my understanding, my way of viewing the world, is not already situated in what is truth, what is universal, how indeed I go about determining what is true and Universal, etc.— There is nothing actual that I’m confirming my belief by, in a causal way.

    In this second true sense, me thinking that there is a biggest Gold nugget, and then going out and finding the biggest Gold nugget, is no difference so far is how the mind works to know things and establish the veracity of things for a reality, Then if I wonder if God exists and I go out and I find it in a mailbox. It doesn’t matter. I could find the largest piece of gold that is actually factually the largest piece of gold, and then turn my shoulder and find an even bigger one that in other peoples minds might not even be gold.

    So, yes one truth is that there is this universal truth, that we are referencing when we think something and then we go out and search for it, for example, a green trashcan, and then I walk down the street and find a green trashcan that is actually there. Whereas with God I can’t really do that, just exactly as you say that is indeed one functioning truth that indeed functions in the way that we are both understanding it right now.

    Yet the other truth, which if you really comprehend what we say when we say everything is discursive, is that there is no fundamental essential basic attachment of word to object.

    Anything, any argument that you would make necessarily falls in this polemical category that arises as existing truthfully at the same time, these two truths arise such that it is impossible to prove either one in reference to the other. The only way that I could prove one is more true is to already be established in one of those two truths, as indeed the one at universal truth

    How’s that ? .

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  42. It doesn’t matter whether or not we agree. Because the “agree to disagree” just confirms that there are two Fundamental truths operating. There is not a multiplicity of opinions As much as there is a thing that is France that exists. I can have an idea of France and I can go confirm that indeed France exists. That’s what you said on the post. I can have an idea of God, but there’s really nothing that I can encounter that will confirm to me the existence of God. That’s also what your post says.

    Can we agree that my synopsis right there is exactly what your post says?

    Maybe I’m summarizing it wrong.

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  43. I am not saying the church or a blade of grass confirms God. Just the opposite. While France can confirm existence of itself, God cannot. This is positing that requires questioning.

    If you are saying that we can have one standard for France and another for God then we must agree to disagree.

    The basis of your claim is for you to prove, not for me to just believe (faith).

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  44. But it is more than just deciding it is the case. France appears to confirm the existence of itself. Just as the blade of grass confirms the existence of God. Or heat, the sun. Or coincidence, spirits. Or carpet, happiness.

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  45. “Associate” is the word. I see only associations in Christianity, not God.

    “But I could just as well posit God, and then go out and look and then I find a blade of grass and I go, ha ha, there is God, God exist.”

    Exactly my point. God was posited. For we are positing machines. We are good at that. But also we are good at turning a blind eye to certain positing whiling rejecting others.

    My point is to check that perhaps you haven’t accidentally posited something that wasn’t there, then try to convince yourself and others that it is there.

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  46. I think if you are speaking of God as churches and religions purport, then perhaps your line of reasoning works.

    But I would submit that I could use the same term, God, and be speaking of what is regularly known as a blade of grass. I’m not sure at what point my checking into whether a piece of grass exists actually fines for me that the blade of grass is existing, For one. Indeed there is this thing that I have already associated with grass that I go out and I check up on and then I go oh, there’s grass, it exists. But I could just as well posit God, and then go out and look and then I find a blade of grass and I go, ha ha, there is God, God exist.

    So yes, your argument makes sense in a certain light, but really then the question becomes is there more than one light that we’re talking about, and then what philosophy is actually doing in the sense that we assume that there is this common light that supersedes all other ways that light can be shown into the situation.

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