Why I'm not an Atheist

[Big Moose]

There's no such thing as "before time", I don't know how else to put it.

 

[Shorts]

I only came here because I saw someone named "Big Moose", and I liked it..

 

[Holder of the Heel]

He should have come here sooner, saved us all the effort of debating about it.

 

[Vermanubis]

Most influential philosophers were formally educated in philosophy, except for perhaps the Greeks because they were the ones who invented the discipline.

It depends on what field we're talking about. Many traditional philosophers like Kant did get formal education, but ones like Russell didn't.

People do need formal educations in philosophy. People who pursue other careers and just want to read philosophy to stimulate their mind on the side don't need to, but professionak philosophers do. Philosophy has probably influenced western civilisation more than any other discipline, so it's important those that influence civilisation are educated.

I have no formal education in philosophy, nor does a professor of mine who's a published writer on philosophy of mind. I agree that it can be useful, but to say it's needed isn't entirely true.

And I think you're classifications of metaphysical and non physical are wrong. A non physical being can act within the physical world, such as a hypothetical angel or ghost for example. Non physical is a specific type of existence, contrasted against physical existence.

I think that non-physical should be ascribed to intuitive ideas of non-physical things, but in topics such as these, I think metaphysical is much better suited. By definition, metaphysical means something that emerges from the physical, so it's not "non" physical, it's just distinct from physicality.

Metaphysics is the study of the fundamental nature of reality. Every being is metaphysical in the sense that they all have metaphysical properties. Saying that a being is contingent or caused is a metaphysical property, Saying that that a being is metaphysically necessary and uncaused is another metaphyical property.

That's an eminent definition of metaphysics. At its very center, metaphysics is what I said above; its role as the study of reality is a subset of the definition of the property of operating parallel to physics. Kind of how "viscosity" is intuitively defined as something's thickness, when it's really defined as particle movement.

Also, even if your BT paradox is correct, it simply proves the existence of the non physical, not God. Even if it somehow proved God, if you're a Christian, it certainly doesn't prove any of the theological properties you would believe your God to have.

I said that the nature of metaphysics opens up various avenues for me to explore God in a realistic, albeit sometimes counterintuitive, idiom. Not that it entailed God necessarily.

Soz to pick on you, but I'd rather pick on someone who is clearly educated and can defend himself than a lot of other people here who aren't really educated in the topic (no offence to them).

It's okay lol. I actually kinda appreciate it.

to a monist, these are the same thing.

what part of the "experience" isn't explained by that process?

I'll answer that with another question: what allows the experience of green to arise from a conceptually two-dimensional system of binary circuitry? Logic gates yield truth values; linear functions; not experiential qualities and abstract visualizations. Recognizing the color green by quantitatively by its wavelength? Yes. Qualifying it perceptually? Binary systems can't do that too well unless there's an emergent "proper subset" that contains that system, but is a system borne of that system, which brings us to the meta- prefix: autology; self reference. A system borne of a system with varying degrees of synthetic truth definitions (which is a metaphysical concept: properties).

As with Alphicans and idealism, I'm not sure why you think dualism entails theism, Verm.

See what I said to Dre. I don't think that, I just think that dualism leaves a lot of gaping holes to be explored and that many of my conclusions derived from that exploration suggested God.

I've skimmed through most of this discussion, which is sadly greater than anything going on in the Proving Grounds and probably the Debate Hall as well, and I have to say, I see absolutely no reason to believe in a non-physical anything, it just doesn't make sense and adds bizarre complications to what is actually quite simple and plain, and instead of being an escapist answer to avoid complexity, it is really just acknowledging that the truth is actually rather simple in nature.

It's not that complex or obfuscating. I'll invoke David Hume and defy anyone here to define an apple without its properties. An apple is a metaphysical concept. An apple, as we refer to it, is a category which we use to define what emerges when the properties of what we know as an apple take form. An apple's properties exist physically, but the actual nature of being an apple in singular form is purely metaphysical and a bastion of human thought. An apple is a collection of well-defined properties that only take the form of an apple when we recognize and define it as such. Such categories are not physical things. As I said to Alphicans earlier as another demonstration of this concept, the number 5 is not a physical construct either, yet it has physical origins in the process of thought.

The truth only does what is necessary, and while mathematical truths and facts can be long and convoluted, their state and logical steps are all very sensible and simple in of themselves. Even saying "God exists and has made everything" doesn't make everything simpler than what evidence shows because what God does would have to make sense, since God would not be some absurd entity or else he wouldn't exist, and not to mention like I've said before, it tries to add all these huge complications to things that are actually simple.

I think you're trying to express and idea that you're not quite sure how to, because you're going in several different directions without much cohesion in that last part. D:

Something is physical when it is created from physical entities, and physical entities can be sensed, and mental images can be sensed. Even when imagining a tiger bouncing around your living room, you aren't projecting the tiger as a non-physical entity in the room subjectively as it moves about, it is actually a 2D image, that, because we understand 3-Dimensional images so well we no how to alter the 2D image to alter its appearance to simply appear as if it is moving, like showing its shoulder or moving it, dissipating the image when physical objects become forefront. (That is in response to a comment I believe I read earlier that I can't recall where it was, my apologies).

See what I said above about apples.

 

[john!]

I'll answer that with another question: what allows the experience of green to arise from a conceptually two-dimensional system of binary circuitry? Logic gates yield truth values; linear functions; not experiential qualities and abstract visualizations. Recognizing the color green by quantitatively by its wavelength? Yes. Qualifying it perceptually? Binary systems can't do that too well unless there's an emergent "proper subset" that contains that system, but is a system borne of that system, which brings us to the meta- prefix: autology; self reference. A system borne of a system with varying degrees of synthetic truth definitions (which is a metaphysical concept: properties).

...

It's not that complex or obfuscating. I'll invoke David Hume and defy anyone here to define an apple without its properties. An apple is a metaphysical concept. An apple, as we refer to it, is a category which we use to define what emerges when the properties of what we know as an apple take form. An apple's properties exist physically, but the actual nature of being an apple in singular form is purely metaphysical and a bastion of human thought. An apple is a collection of well-defined properties that only take the form of an apple when we recognize and define it as such. Such categories are not physical things. As I said to Alphicans earlier as another demonstration of this concept, the number 5 is not a physical construct either, yet it has physical origins in the process of thought.

maybe i should be more explicit with my understanding of how the brain processes information...

our brain can recognize size, shape, color, etc. using photoreceptor cells (as i was saying earlier) and other stimuli using auditory cells, sensory nerves, taste buds, etc. everything is relative; if i see something that is red, it excites the same neurons that are excited whenever i see anything else that is red. there is no absolute "definition" of the concept of red in our brains. same with the number 5: if i see five objects, then the neurons that are excited whenever i experience 5 of anything become excited. this is why you can't teach the number 5 or the color red to someone without using physical stimuli.

similarly, the concept of "apple" in our brains is nothing more than a collection of neurons which are excited when we experience an apple. these generally include size (as large as a fist), shape (roughly round), color (red or green), taste, smell, texture, or even the sound of an apple being eaten.

do not confuse "language" for "abstract concept". the word "apple" does not signify the abstract, intangible concept of an apple. language is a tool used to communicate ideas (which, again, are the excitements of specific neurons). when we read or hear the word "apple", our brains excite many of the same neurons that are excited when we actually experience an apple (which is why we can get a mental picture of an apple). the word itself is nothing more than a substitute, and we can only recognize it as a substitute for the fruit itself if we have previously associated it with the fruit.

 

[Vermanubis]

maybe i should be more explicit with my understanding of how the brain processes information...

our brain can recognize size, shape, color, etc. using photoreceptor cells (as i was saying earlier) and other stimuli using auditory cells, sensory nerves, taste buds, etc. everything is relative; if i see something that is red, it excites the same neurons that are excited whenever i see anything else that is red. there is no absolute "definition" of the concept of red in our brains. same with the number 5: if i see five objects, then the neurons that are excited whenever i experience 5 of anything become excited. this is why you can't teach the number 5 or the color red to someone without using physical stimuli.

I understand what you're saying, but the fact that metaphysical objects are borne of physical "stimuli" has been covered already and doesn't void the concept of metaphysics. Time is inexorably bound to space, but it's a completely distinct dimension. So bondage doesn't entail sameness. I'm also wondering what this has to do with answering my question about binary systems yielding experiential qualifications rather than quantification (which is by most logical conventions, impossible). I mean this in the best way possible, but these are topics that demand a lot of study and familiarity, so if you do choose to argue for the sake of arguing without familiarity with the topics discussed, this debate will go absolutely nowhere and devolve into a debate of terminological qualifications and repeated misunderstandings.

similarly, the concept of "apple" in our brains is nothing more than a collection of neurons which are excited when we experience an apple. these generally include size (as large as a fist), shape (roughly round), color (red or green), taste, smell, texture, or even the sound of an apple being eaten.

Not sure where you're going with this. To restate, I'll invoke Hume's thought experiment: imagine an apple without its properties. You can't. To use a more concrete analogy in set theory (in case it's unclear what set theory is: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/set-theory/), the improper and proper subsets of a set are demonstrably different, despite being comprised of the exact same elements. If there exists a set (1, 2, 3), then the improper subset is (1) (1,2) (1,2,3) and the null set. The proper subset, however, is the improper subset plus the set of all subsets. The set in its entirety is different from its parts, as demonstrated by the nature of improper and proper subsets. The set can't exist without its parts, but is undeniable different. This principle applies to Hume's position of metaphysics/categories.

This kind of subject is necessary when going this deep into a topic, so please keep strictly to topic of the set theoretic demonstration of properties.

In a separate vein of thought, consider if an apple would exist if humans did not. The properties of an apple would exist, but would the apple exist as an apple? There would be no minds to ascribe an arbitrary categorization to said collection of properties, so it would no longer be an apple, rather, a meaningless collection of atoms. That categorization; that conceptualization of an apple as a singular, emergent form from smaller subsystems; is metaphysical. You cannot touch an apple, because an "apple" doesn't physically exist; only its properties do in otherwise meaningless cohesion.

do not confuse "language" for "abstract concept". the word "apple" does not signify the abstract, intangible concept of an apple. language is a tool used to communicate ideas (which, again, are the excitements of specific neurons). when we read or hear the word "apple", our brains excite many of the same neurons that are excited when we actually experience an apple (which is why we can get a mental picture of an apple). the word itself is nothing more than a substitute, and we can only recognize it as a substitute for the fruit itself if we have previously associated it with the fruit.

Again, not sure where this is going; you're going in a buncha different directions. I'll bite and say that a word is an abstract concept. Symbols are metaphysical; meaning is metaphysical, for that matter. In a physical universe, there is no reason that something strictly physical cannot exist independent on thought, so were we to see a sudden extinction and the realm of the mind was no more, numbers, symbols and categories would cease to exist. Also, that explains why we can mentally picture the apple, but it doesn't at all explain the nature of that visualization. Again, the experience resulting from neuronal stimulation is of concern; not the process.

the word "apple" does not signify the abstract, intangible concept of an apple

...? That doesn't really make sense. If the word apple doesn't signify our conception of an apple, then what does it do? Grill steaks and chop liver? Also, all focal points written in bold; please focus on the bolded parts.

 

[john!]

I understand what you're saying, but the fact that metaphysical objects are borne of physical "stimuli" has been covered already and doesn't void the concept of metaphysics. Time is inexorably bound to space, but it's a completely distinct dimension. So bondage doesn't entail sameness. I'm also wondering what this has to do with answering my question about binary systems yielding experiential qualifications rather than quantification (which is by most logical conventions, impossible). I mean this in the best way possible, but these are topics that demand a lot of study and familiarity, so if you do choose to argue for the sake of arguing without familiarity with the topics discussed, this debate will go absolutely nowhere and devolve into a debate of terminological qualifications and repeated misunderstandings.

you view the brain as acting like low-level electronic circuitry, right? when you said that perceptions can't be transmitted within this circuitry, i decided to break down exactly what a "perception" or "idea" was in neurological terms, so that it could be seen that they could be transmitted in an electronic manner through the brain's circuitry and retained through chemical changes, just as a computer operates on data using electrical signals and magnets. the two are functionally similar.

Not sure where you're going with this. To restate, I'll invoke Hume's thought experiment: imagine an apple without its properties. You can't. To use a more concrete analogy in set theory (in case it's unclear what set theory is: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/set-theory/), the improper and proper subsets of a set are demonstrably different, despite being comprised of the exact same elements. If there exists a set (1, 2, 3), then the improper subset is (1) (1,2) (1,2,3) and the null set. The proper subset, however, is the improper subset plus the set of all subsets. The set in its entirety is different from its parts, as demonstrated by the nature of improper and proper subsets. The set can't exist without its parts, but is undeniable different. This principle applies to Hume's position of metaphysics/categories.

This kind of subject is necessary when going this deep into a topic, so please keep strictly to topic of the set theoretic demonstration of properties.

i have no education in set theory, so i won't respond to that part, except to say that the concept of a set (which is distinct from the parts of that set) seems (again) to be just an idea, like all mathematics. of course, in a realm of ideas, if you create a new idea, then it will have something more than the sum of its properties, that "more" being the idea itself. that doesn't mean that it transcends the reality of how our brains process information.

furthermore, doesn't hume's thought experiment prove my point- namely, that an object or idea is the sum of its parts? if the concept of an apple is a collection of other concepts, then it stands to reason that we won't be able to picture an apple without its properties, which our brain uses to define an apple.

In a separate vein of thought, consider if an apple would exist if humans did not. The properties of an apple would exist, but would the apple exist as an apple? There would be no minds to ascribe an arbitrary categorization to said collection of properties, so it would no longer be an apple, rather, a meaningless collection of atoms. That categorization; that conceptualization of an apple as a singular, emergent form from smaller subsystems; is metaphysical. You cannot touch an apple, because an "apple" doesn't exist; only its properties do in otherwise meaningless cohesion.

this is true (replacing "metaphysical" with "psychological") and i don't understand how it contradicts what i said. human brains draw the connections between the properties of an apple which allows them to identify it as an apple. when we give it this meaning, nothing about the apple itself changes; it gains no extra metaphysical property. all it does is change chemicals in our brains.

Again, not sure where this is going; you're going in a buncha different directions. I'll bite and say that a word is an abstract concept. Symbols are metaphysical; meaning is metaphysical, for that matter. In a physical universe, there is no reason that something strictly physical cannot exist independent on thought, so were we to see a sudden extinction and the realm of the mind was no more, numbers, symbols and categories would cease to exist. Also, that explains why we can mentally picture the apple, but it doesn't at all explain the nature of that visualization. Again, the experience resulting from neuronal stimulation is of concern; not the process.

i do believe that the concepts of number, symbol, and category (which i argue exist physically and entirely in the brain of an organism) would disappear if there was total extinction.

the neuronal stimulation is the experience. it's not that our minds are reaching to some metaphysical realm and extracting the idea of an "apple". the idea exists only in the minds of all organisms which have experienced an apple, and is experienced through the same neuronal stimulation that occurs when we experience an apple through our external senses. the visualization of an apple would differ greatly between someone who only saw red apples, someone who only saw green apples, someone who only saw drawings of apples, and a worm which lived inside an apple. there is no metaphysical realm from which we all get the idea of "apple"; each conception of "apple" is entirely within an individual.

...? That doesn't really make sense. If the word apple doesn't signify our conception of an apple, then what does it do? Grill steaks and chop liver? Also, all focal points written in bold; please focus on the bolded parts.

conceptions are physical. that's been my entire point...

i said "abstract, intangible concept" for a reason. i was contrasting it with my idea of a "concept" which was completely physical.

 

[Theftz22]

See what I said to Dre. I don't think that, I just think that dualism leaves a lot of gaping holes to be explored and that many of my conclusions derived from that exploration suggested God.

That's rather vague. If it adds anything, I feel perfectly comfortable as both a property dualist and an atheist.

 

[Alphicans]

As an aside, that really isn't really necessary to answer, but maybe something to consider:

Verm, if you think that the conceptualization and "experience" of concepts goes on in some sort of metaphysical realm, do you then believe animals other than humans have this duality? It's pretty clear animals have this conceptualization, as they can learn about objects, faces, colours etc. through similar means as us. Like even the "lowest" of animals have been shown to be able to do this. Humans pride themselves to the only rational creatures on this earth, and I know some attest that to our duality. Of course you don't need to go there, but you do need to consider explanations as to why animals might have a less developed metaphysical realm than us. If that isn't where the discrepancy is, then your only choice is to go to the brain aspect of animals. I think if you go there you might as well shoot yourself in the foot, unless I am missing something.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Verm, you are incredibly smart, but notwithstanding I do think everyone else has a point. It is rather confusing when you say that when we attribute something a mental name that it becomes metaphysical. The name is mental, the apple is physical, and that about sums it up, it not only is solved right there, but it is far simpler. Your definition of metaphysical you stated up above is incorrect, as is because you decided to make ideas only based upon non-physical entities, which unfortunately is not how we think. We draw upon physical entities and senses, both involving 100% physical things, to imagine objects, traits, and even measurements such as numbers. Basically, how everyone defined metaphysics up above to my knowledge is correct, and numbers and such are not a part of reality, especially when you point out yourself that if humans were dead numbers would cease to exist... as an idea. Because our minds would be gone to think of the idea, our death itself wouldn't alter reality, it'd stay the same just as how it was before we ever got here.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Congratulations, every user with more than 4 posts in this thread now has full-fledged posting rights in the Debate Hall!

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I definitely like that idea, we need a storm of new debaters in the hall! XD

 

[Veetaak]

if you don't believe that "the universe was created by some other means than god", and you don't believe that "the universe was created by a god", then how can you explain the existence of the universe?

I just glanced through the thread and then I saw this LOL

Don't expect everyone to know everything

 

[Vermanubis]

you view the brain as acting like low-level electronic circuitry, right? when you said that perceptions can't be transmitted within this circuitry, i decided to break down exactly what a "perception" or "idea" was in neurological terms, so that it could be seen that they could be transmitted in an electronic manner through the brain's circuitry and retained through chemical changes, just as a computer operates on data using electrical signals and magnets. the two are functionally similar.

This could also be considered a reply to what Alph asked me about animals. When animals think or recognize a face/object, I believe that is a fine example of two-dimensional reaction-stimulus phenomenon. You can see an object and recall it from memory, but that doesn't mean you're visualizing or defining the object. Again, it's not what causes these "images" that concerns us; it's the image itself. I cannot emphasize the importance of this one question that everyone has yet to answer: is the "image" in your head touchable? If something is physical, it is inarguable touchable. If you visualize a woman, can you physically touch the image of that woman in your head? Can you touch categorical definitions? You absolutely cannot.

i have no education in set theory, so i won't respond to that part, except to say that the concept of a set (which is distinct from the parts of that set) seems (again) to be just an idea, like all mathematics. of course, in a realm of ideas, if you create a new idea, then it will have something more than the sum of its properties, that "more" being the idea itself. that doesn't mean that it transcends the reality of how our brains process information.

You're too hung up on the mechanical process of the brain. I'm not saying that <thinking> is some magical process; I'm saying that the <thought manifest> is a synthetic, metaphysical object. Again, the idea is that new systems can emerge from a subsystem and become something entirely different upon the opening of said system. A new property necessitates a new purpose and a new purpose necessitates a new definition, which is a synthetic construct that does not exist independent of the mind.

furthermore, doesn't hume's thought experiment prove my point- namely, that an object or idea is the sum of its parts? if the concept of an apple is a collection of other concepts, then it stands to reason that we won't be able to picture an apple without its properties, which our brain uses to define an apple.

No. That's the exact opposite of what he states. The point of the thought experiment is that while an "apple" is contingent upon its parts, the apple in singular form has a totally different purpose and definition than the thousands of other systems that comprise it.

this is true (replacing "metaphysical" with "psychological") and i don't understand how it contradicts what i said. human brains draw the connections between the properties of an apple which allows them to identify it as an apple. when we give it this meaning, nothing about the apple itself changes; it gains no extra metaphysical property. all it does is change chemicals in our brains.

It contradicts what you said because while the process of recognizing the apple may be chemical, the idea of the apple is not. Acknowledging the apple and being aware of it is a mechanical process; the realization, however, is not. Our brain processing things is all well and good, but that's not the focal point and is restating what we've all agreed on about the thought <process> being physical. The <idea/concept> of an apple is a metaphysical object; not the process of thinking about it, or acknowledging its metaphysical properties. The definition itself is metaphysical.

i do believe that the concepts of number, symbol, and category (which i argue exist physically and entirely in the brain of an organism) would disappear if there was total extinction.

That's a flagrant contradiction. Why would they phase into nonexistence in our absence if they're physical existent? If the idea of a number is a physical construct, why can't it exist in nature independent of us? How exactly is a number physical? The brain <thinking> of the number isn't a satisfactory answer. For something to be physical, it is, by definition, touchable. Unequivocally, how does one touch a number, an idea, or something which they're dreaming about? <--- That's the part I'm most interested in hearing you answer. No chemical stimulus stuff; we've already been over that. Chemical stimuli don't account for the actual abstraction of a pure number independent of a physical analog.

the neuronal stimulation is the experience. it's not that our minds are reaching to some metaphysical realm and extracting the idea of an "apple". the idea exists only in the minds of all organisms which have experienced an apple, and is experienced through the same neuronal stimulation that occurs when we experience an apple through our external senses. the visualization of an apple would differ greatly between someone who only saw red apples, someone who only saw green apples, someone who only saw drawings of apples, and a worm which lived inside an apple. there is no metaphysical realm from which we all get the idea of "apple"; each conception of "apple" is entirely within an individual.

See above.

conceptions are physical. that's been my entire point...

Touch someone else's idea then. Whoever's closest to you, touch their idea. Touch your idea. Fondle a number. If the images in your dreams are physical, then what separates them from reality? What separates concepts from reality? This topic goes deeper and deeper into these holes. If they're physical, then what separates them from reality? They share the same dimensions and same properties, so what makes what goes on in our heads special? Why aren't our thoughts reality? Why would you call someone who has a relationship with an imaginary woman or man crazy? After all, that idea is physical in a vein no different from the hand we wave in front of our face.

i said "abstract, intangible concept" for a reason. i was contrasting it with my idea of a "concept" which was completely physical.[/QUOTE]

That's rather vague. If it adds anything, I feel perfectly comfortable as both a property dualist and an atheist.

I can understand that. I know it's vague, but my belief system is far more involved than I could really go into here. I was just saying that the notion of metaphysical properties is what ignited my curiosity and led me down a path.

As an aside, that really isn't really necessary to answer, but maybe something to consider:

Verm, if you think that the conceptualization and "experience" of concepts goes on in some sort of metaphysical realm, do you then believe animals other than humans have this duality? It's pretty clear animals have this conceptualization, as they can learn about objects, faces, colours etc. through similar means as us. Like even the "lowest" of animals have been shown to be able to do this. Humans pride themselves to the only rational creatures on this earth, and I know some attest that to our duality. Of course you don't need to go there, but you do need to consider explanations as to why animals might have a less developed metaphysical realm than us. If that isn't where the discrepancy is, then your only choice is to go to the brain aspect of animals. I think if you go there you might as well shoot yourself in the foot, unless I am missing something.

See first paragraph I said to John.

Verm, you are incredibly smart, but notwithstanding I do think everyone else has a point. It is rather confusing when you say that when we attribute something a mental name that it becomes metaphysical. The name is mental, the apple is physical, and that about sums it up, it not only is solved right there, but it is far simpler. Your definition of metaphysical you stated up above is incorrect, as is because you decided to make ideas only based upon non-physical entities, which unfortunately is not how we think. We draw upon physical entities and senses, both involving 100% physical things, to imagine objects, traits, and even measurements such as numbers. Basically, how everyone defined metaphysics up above to my knowledge is correct, and numbers and such are not a part of reality, especially when you point out yourself that if humans were dead numbers would cease to exist... as an idea. Because our minds would be gone to think of the idea, our death itself wouldn't alter reality, it'd stay the same just as how it was before we ever got here.

My definition of metaphysical is actually the exact technical definition. The word is colloquially understood as the study of reality (because, as I asked John, what separates thoughts from "reality" if both are physical?), but it means phenomena that are emergent from the physical, but not on the same level of physicality. To use a pervasive analogy, time is to thought as space is to the brain. Time cannot exist without space, but it operates on an entirely separate plane. Time itself is metaphysical, as it is an idea which results <from> physicalities; not a physicality itself; you can't touch time. For the rest, see my above responses to other people. I appreciate the compliment, by the way lol.

 

[B.A.M.]

@Vermanubis: And we didnt converse about these things when we met Verm? For shame.

And yeah lol numbers are mental constructs I hope we all can agree with that lol. / trivial postingjustbecauseisawpostfromverm

 

[Vermanubis]

@Vermanubis: And we didnt converse about these things when we met Verm? For shame.

And yeah lol numbers are mental constructs I hope we all can agree with that lol. / trivial postingjustbecauseisawpostfromverm

LOL

I know, dude! That's what I was saying when I saw your FB!

japanpose

 

[Holder of the Heel]

This could also be considered a reply to what Alph asked me about animals. When animals think or recognize a face/object, I believe that is a fine example of two-dimensional reaction-stimulus phenomenon. You can see an object and recall it from memory, but that doesn't mean you're visualizing or defining the object. Again, it's not what causes these "images" that concerns us; it's the image itself. I cannot emphasize the importance of this one question that everyone has yet to answer: is the "image" in your head touchable? If something is physical, it is inarguable touchable. If you visualize a woman, can you physically touch the image of that woman in your head? Can you touch categorical definitions? You absolutely cannot.

Categorical definitions do not exist. And something is physical if if it follows the rules of physics, which is everything. Now, as everyone has been saying, the mental process is caused physically but felt personally and mentally, it isn't being sensed, it is being activated by the physical portions of the brain that activate memory into imagination. That does not mean it isn't physical, nor is it metaphysical, it is simply mental, and unless you combine brains in some manner that links you up physical, you can't draw upon the brain activity that vaguely draws the outline of imagines in that person's mind.

My definition of metaphysical is actually the exact technical definition. The word is colloquially understood as the study of reality (because, as I asked John, what separates thoughts from "reality" if both are physical?), but it means phenomena that are emergent from the physical, but not on the same level of physicality. To use a pervasive analogy, time is to thought as space is to the brain. Time cannot exist without space, but it operates on an entirely separate plane. Time itself is metaphysical, as it is an idea which results <from> physicalities; not a physicality itself; you can't touch time. For the rest, see my above responses to other people. I appreciate the compliment, by the way lol.

I apologize for any glaring "uneducatedness" of metaphysics (it interests me and intend to at least take classes on it eventually, but for now I have mere intuition) but the way I see it is that it isn't physical but merely caused by the physical, but that doesn't by default make it metaphysical, the mental draws upon what is sensed and thus physical (for all things ruled by physics can be sensed). There are several categories that it can fall under, not just metaphysical.

 

[Dre89]

Verm I wouldn't define physical is simply untouchable.

For example hunger is physical in that the desire can be explained by physical processes in the body, but you can't touch someone's hunger.

 

[Vermanubis]

Categorical definitions do not exist. And something is physical if if it follows the rules of physics, which is everything. Now, as everyone has been saying, the mental process is caused physically but felt personally and mentally, it isn't being sensed, it is being activated by the physical portions of the brain that activate memory into imagination. That does not mean it isn't physical, nor is it metaphysical, it is simply mental, and unless you combine brains in some manner that links you up physical, you can't draw upon the brain activity that vaguely draws the outline of imagines in that person's mind.

I'll answer this with the question I posed to John: If the images in your dreams are physical, then what separates them from reality? What separates concepts from reality? This topic goes deeper and deeper into these holes. If they're physical, then what separates them from reality? They share the same dimensions and same properties, so what makes what goes on in our heads special? Why aren't our thoughts reality? Why would you call someone who has a relationship with an imaginary woman or man crazy? After all, that idea is physical in a vein no different from the hand we wave in front of our face.

I apologize for any glaring "uneducatedness" of metaphysics (it interests me and intend to at least take classes on it eventually, but for now I have mere intuition) but the way I see it is that it isn't physical but merely caused by the physical, but that doesn't by default make it metaphysical, the mental draws upon what is sensed and thus physical (for all things ruled by physics can be sensed). There are several categories that it can fall under, not just metaphysical.

See above. I feel that analogy is gonna be far more comprehensible and elegant than any further explanations I can give or rephrase.

Verm I wouldn't define physical is simply untouchable.

For example hunger is physical in that the desire can be explained by physical processes in the body, but you can't touch someone's hunger.

Hunger is one of those synthetic categories. In nature, hunger doesn't exist as a recognizable phenomenon; it's just a meaningless event. The metaphysical categorization of it is what gives it meaning and hermetically seals it in conceptual cellophane. Hunger is just a fortuitously recognizable sequence of events that's given form and structure by the metaphysical categorization of it as hunger. For something to be be physical, it has to be touchable; two bodies interacting or exchanging energy. So yeah, the idea of hunger isn't physical. The process of hunger is, but hunger itself isn't.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

They are biochemical reactions that react to our recollections that call upon specific pieces of data in our brain that gives us outlines of these previously sensed data. The eyes are not what sees, but the part of the brain that recognizes the images. These being used when you excite your imagination as well, it doesn't seem confusing to me. You don't actually see anything, you just get recollected traits. That is it.

If this does not work, then let us look at it more in a logical way. Even under the premise that imagination isn't physical, and in your proposition you succeed to prove that it is also not mental, the conclusion doesn't run as: Imagination is metaphysical. Nor does it run as: Imagination is non-physical. Neither of those are the result.

 

[Vermanubis]

They are biochemical reactions that react to our recollections that call upon specific pieces of data in our brain that gives us outlines of these previously sensed data. The eyes are not what sees, but the part of the brain that recognizes the images. These being used when you excite your imagination as well, it doesn't seem confusing to me. You don't actually see anything, you just get recollect traits. That is it.

Id this does not work, then let us look at it more in a logical way. Even under the premise that imagination isn't physical, and in your proposition you succeed to prove that it is also not mental, the conclusion doesn't run as: Imagination is metaphysical. Nor does it run as: Imagination is non-physical. Neither of those are the result.

That still doesn't answer the question of what separates reality from imagination. The biochemical conjecture is well and good, but it's been covered and beaten into the ground. We're not concerned with the processes of thought. We're concerned with the perceived manifestation of thought. You obviously are not physically seeing something when you imagine, but you are perceiving sight; what separates which is real and which isn't? The actual process of touching someone and dreaming about touching them are the exact same chemical processes; so why delineate? Why is a man who talks to his imaginary friend considered crazy? Clearly he's perceiving something. What's the difference between actually seeing someone, and dreaming about seeing someone? Rather, why is one considered "real" and the other not?

To use time as an example again, time is not space, but it exists because of space. It weaves in between the cracks, so to speak. Time is a result of space, just as thought is the result of thinking. Time is the gelatinous placenta that envelopes space to move in three dimensions; thought is the same to give form to otherwise meaningless events and arrangements of physical objects. Thinking about categories does not equate to the metaphysical concept of categorization itself.

 

[Mekos]

Check this out.
Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is GOD good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student :Yes

Professor: So who created evil ?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

(Student had no answer.)

Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?

Student : No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?

Student : No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smell your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?

Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theatre became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

P.S.

I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends /colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?

Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.

By the way, that student was EINSTEIN

 

[Dre89]

Oh not this argument again lol.

This is like the Taylor Swift of arguments for Christianity.

Firstly, quoting Einstein means nothing because Einstein wasn't educated in the topic. Plus he didn't believe in the same kind of God that religious people do who try justify a good God existing with evil. He was basically a deist, and that's even stretching it.


Good and evil are not analogous to heat and cold, or light and dark. For the latter two, the existence of the opposing concepts is actually a good, they exist in harmony.

Evil does not need to exist. The world benefits from darkness and cold, it doesn't benefit from evil. In an ideal Earth, cold and dark still exist, but evil don't.

Evil has a completely different role to cold an dark.

Secondly, this argument commits the bias fallacy. Even if the analogy works, all it does is show that a good God and evil existing together is logically possible. It's also logically possible that an elephant could charge into my room any second, but that's still irrational to believe, because I have no reason to believe it would actually happen.

So for this argument to have any merit, you have to show not only that a good God existing with evil is logically conceivable, but why it is reasonable to believe that it's true. Basically, you have to show that for the neutral, it's unreasonable to believe otherwise.

This is basically impossible though for a number of reasons. No neutral looks at the world and thinks it's designed by a good God. This is evidenced by the fact that theists themselves were asking themselves this question before atheists were writing critiques about it. Theists themselves didn't think the world appeared to be deisgned by a good God.

Let's not also forget the fact that Christians believe that the world has become corrupted and evil because of the Fall of humanity. So they expect someone to believe that a supposedly corrupt and evil world was designed by a good God.

This why religious people who try to justify their beliefs rationally after already being a believer always feel they do a sufficient job. They only show that their beliefs are logically conceivable, not more reasonable to believe than the other alternatives for the neutral, because they themselves aren't neutrals.

And someone please try to use faith as a justification, I dare you. Religious faith commits like three known logical fallacies at once.

 

[Theftz22]

Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theatre became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

That's nonsense. Cold is the absence of heat, and the absence of heat really exists. Therefore cold exists.

 

[Chuee]

Mekos, you're a cool guy.
BUT I ABSOLUTELY HATE SEEING THIS ****

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

I can't even go on how terrible this statement is. First off we HAVE seen organisms undergo evolutionary processes, but even so you don't need to firsthand observe something to prove it's true. Evolution has mounds of evidence without having to see organisms undergo it to show that it happened and happens.

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

We know that a brain is in every human and without it the professor talking, moving, etc would be impossible therefore we can conclude he has one.

By the way, that student was EINSTEIN

No, it probably wasn't. And if it was, he would have laughed at himself if he ever recalled saying something that stupid. He completely rejected the existence of any personal God, and was more than likely either a deist, agnostic, or atheist.

Oh, and on the Evil being absence of God
1. People of God have done wicked things (ex. Hitler)
2. People without God have done good things
3. Doesn't account for things such as disease, natural disasters, etc

 

[Dre89]

No offence to Mekos, but honestly intelligent religious people cringe when they see arguments like that. They feel it makes their religion look like it's just for Taylor Swift fans and housewives. Then they have to deal with all the atheists who think this is the height of religious justification.

People can believe what they want, I don't think any sceptics here are trying to force changes in people's beliefs. What we're criticising are arguments that are trying to rationally justify religion.

And no, faith doesn't justify religion. Faith isn't separate from reason. When faith is used as justification for belief, it is a method of knowledge, making it fall under epistemology and informal logic, both of which are measured by reason. Saying that faith isn't a question of reason is itself two logical fallacies. It's like saying biology isn't one of the sciences. Religion is irrational simply because it commits several logical fallacies, even at the academic level. Of course lots of academic theists will disagree with that but I will accept any challenge to my claim.

 

[hunger!]

i'll answer this with the question i posed to john: If the images in your dreams are physical, then what separates them from reality? What separates concepts from reality? This topic goes deeper and deeper into these holes. If they're physical, then what separates them from reality? They share the same dimensions and same properties, so what makes what goes on in our heads special? Why aren't our thoughts reality? Why would you call someone who has a relationship with an imaginary woman or man crazy? After all, that idea is physical in a vein no different from the hand we wave in front of our face.



See above. I feel that analogy is gonna be far more comprehensible and elegant than any further explanations i can give or rephrase.



Hunger is one of those synthetic categories. In nature, hunger doesn't exist as a recognizable phenomenon; it's just a meaningless event. The metaphysical categorization of it is what gives it meaning and hermetically seals it in conceptual cellophane. Hunger is just a fortuitously recognizable sequence of events that's given form and structure by the metaphysical categorization of it as hunger. For something to be be physical, it has to be touchable; two bodies interacting or exchanging energy. So yeah, the idea of hunger isn't physical. The process of hunger is, but hunger itself isn't.

oh my god name search just exploded!!!!! Lol verm <#

 

[Vermanubis]

oh my god name search just exploded!!!!! Lol verm <#

LOOOL

I have all these crazy troll ideas now! :0

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Not to mention, there is no such as the absence of God, since he is everywhere, and possibly everything if you believe in it like that. Funny how many fallacies could be found in such a confident "conversation".

That still doesn't answer the question of what separates reality from imagination. The biochemical conjecture is well and good, but it's been covered and beaten into the ground. We're not concerned with the processes of thought. We're concerned with the perceived manifestation of thought. You obviously are not physically seeing something when you imagine, but you are perceiving sight; what separates which is real and which isn't? The actual process of touching someone and dreaming about touching them are the exact same chemical processes; so why delineate? Why is a man who talks to his imaginary friend considered crazy? Clearly he's perceiving something. What's the difference between actually seeing someone, and dreaming about seeing someone? Rather, why is one considered "real" and the other not?

Imagination is happening in reality, its just that you aren't seeing the objects projected before your eyes from shear mind power, but that does not mean you aren't physically seeing something. Well of course you are, it isn't an illusion after all. Time for me to ask questions... how does the physical act somehow cause a non-physical entity to do something? Like you say, you aren't interested in the processes of thought which we have beaten to the ground as physical. Then how does the non-physical mind, which cannot be sensed on any level or else it would follow the realm of physics and be physical, cause something on the physical level and also be activated by something on the physical level like it is the link between the two that simply adds complexity to it. Non-physical things simply cannot exist, or if they do, we can unfortunately never come in contact with any of it an any sort of manner, not to mention having it inexplicably possessing our physical brains, its function somehow purely being the link between the process and result of imagination and nothing else, for surely the memory that makes us, and our decisions are all mapped in the physical respective areas in the brain, for those this non-physical entity would be completely useless.

Also, what you say about touching and dreaming about touching being the same chemical processes confuses me, since you aren't actually touching anything in your dream, so there aren't having any processes, but since you're dreaming you aren't entirely conscious of that fact. The same goes for the imaginary friend questions, that confuses me, but I'll simply take them literally and just answer. He is considered "crazy" because his brain is unhealthy and is causing him to see something that is mental, which controls what you see entirely. The imaginary friend is a mental construct that follows the rules of imaginary constructs in your mind, it is no different. A real person however would be sensed by others because of their senses equipped for it. The only one equipped for the imaginary friend is yourself since it is your own damaged brain causing the error. The imaginary friend is not physically where you see it, it is a 2D construct in your mind that gives the illusion of having an actual place in the 3D world like yourself.

To use time as an example again, time is not space, but it exists because of space. It weaves in between the cracks, so to speak. Time is a result of space, just as thought is the result of thinking. Time is the gelatinous placenta that envelopes space to move in three dimensions; thought is the same to give form to otherwise meaningless events and arrangements of physical objects. Thinking about categories does not equate to the metaphysical concept of categorization itself.

I'd amend your analogy, for time is to space is not as thought is to thinking. Thinking is the process of thoughts, space is not the process of time. Time cannot be defined by space, I believe this is what one would place the metaphysical term of supervenient. It cannot be reduced to or defined by that which it supervenes, but it cannot exist with the property of space without having it, thus being extrinsic and accidental. Although, then again, space doesn't allow time, it allows motion, which then allows time. Nevertheless, thoughts are not extrinsic and accidental of thinking, it is necessary since the very act of thinking implies thought, one also being the verb (thinking) predicated upon the noun (thoughts), so it is like saying {thoughts[thinking -> thoughts] -> thoughts} (or something like that, confused myself, but you get the idea) and is a little redundant. Space never implies motion, it is more like a mathematical statement like space + motion = time.

Speaking of redundant, that is insanely so, my apologies.

 

[Deleted member]

I have always been taught as a Protestant Christian with Jesus Christ being the right way and all other ways will lead you to hell. But over the past few years, that has been changing.

I haven't really been into religion much. Until six months ago, I went to church, did my prayers, did singing, all the stuff that Christians do, but I just didn't get into it. There's something to it that just doesn't work. I'm sure there is good intention to the church, but it may not be for me.

The fact that I haven't been to church for over half a year especially makes me question whenever or not if it is worth being part of a religion and being stuck by it's rules. And when recognizing that I have not touched my Bible since around that same time, I am leaning towards "No".

I think it has to do with me trying to be an individual and being myself. I don't need to follow my grandparents or parents philosophy; as long as how I live is productive to society and shows good intentions, that is all that should really matter.

 

[MuraRengan]

I've been away from this thread for far too long, considering I made it. I really wanted to talk about some things, but then I got very busy (and still am). I'll just start back at the beginning with something I'd like to respond to.

At any rate, just because science can't explain everything it, doesn't mean it eventually can't. I also don't understand believing we need "unscientific" things to explain things, why does God really have to be nonsensical? I am atheist, but why do people keep attributing magic to him? Why can't he logically do things because of what he is and his properties? Although, it'd be rather confusing to be able to attribute anything other than the ability to cause the Big Bang, things like omniscience or omnipotence or whatever, but just a thought.

I think you meant, just because science hasn't explained everything. And I disagree, I think it's fairly easy to see why exactly Science can't explain everything, and it directly ties in with why God has to be nonsensical:

Our existence is tied to a plane of reality that is bound by a sense of "first" and "second." It is how we identify time as "now" and "then", and how we identify space as "here" and "there." All of our understanding of everything ultimately boils down to some form of understanding first and second. One of these is cause and effect, which the scientific method is all about. Therefore, it is only logical that every "second" we approach scientifically has a "first" to its being. This is essentially cause and effect. However, even the firsts are subject to other firsts, and causes subject to other causes. This means that everything can be explained, and every explanation has an explanation. So it literally doesn't make sense for a thing to exist that cannot be explained.

However, this creates a problem: If everything can be explained, this means that, logically and scientifically speaking, there should an infinite amount of regressing basics to everything, an infinite amount of explanations to discover and understand. This is, in itself, does not make sense, because it lacks explanation for existence as it is. If there is an infinite amount of regressing basics to the world, how can these basics compound on each other to reach a specific point in any form of existence? I have explained this in the past through this paradox:

You have a recipe for a cake that requires an infinite amount of ingredients. Will the cake ever exist? No. However, you have another cake, but it was made from an infinite amount of ingredients. How is this possible?

Now replace cake with earth, matter, atoms, or any physical entity in those paradoxes and you'll see exactly what my point is.

Science and reason necessarily implies an infinite explanation to everything, but ultimately, infinite explanation leads all of existence to be nonsensical because it implies that not just one, but every traceable physical entity took an infinite amount of regressing basics to create. This is why science ultimately confounds itself. If you expect science to explain everything, you're looking at a never ending process. Using science to understand origins leads to several, very problematic infinity paradoxes that simply cannot be true.

Thus in our plane of existence, we see that science and reason has its limits, and that ultimately, in order to eliminate the problem of infinity (infinitely regressing time, infinitely proportionate space, infinitely regressing causes and effects) and make sense out of existence, a non-scientific approach much be proposed. We must assume, as science cannot, that something(s) in this realm are without scientific or reasonable explanation, and that they are subject to some other realm of understanding that is outside the jurisdiction of science and reason, so that we can clearly establish a "first" that is not also a "second". It is absolutely necessary to avoid infinity paradoxes. Therefore, the ultimate explanation it MUST be irrational, illogical, and unscientific, such that in understanding it we do not get trapped in regressing infinities.

We don't know whether or not we have reached a point in science where the things we've encountered can't be explained, but it's foolish to assume that science will be able to explain everything. Simply because we exist, we know that our origins must ultimately make sense, so this eliminates regressing infinities as a possibility, which eliminates science and reason as the sole necessary process of understanding. Therefore, something non-scientific must be the explanation for whatever the first thing that science and reason cannot explain.

 

[john!]

- if it turns out that there can be an effect without a cause, it just means that our current science is wrong. it doesn't mean that science cannot possibly explain the origin of the universe

- an infinite god, or a god which is above/beyond this universe, may be exempt from our universe's laws of causality

- how does your argument imply that the idea of god is nonsensical? if anything it implies that there needs to be some kind of divine being in order to be the "uncaused cause"

 

[Vermanubis]

Imagination is happening in reality, its just that you aren't seeing the objects projected before your eyes from shear mind power, but that does not mean you aren't physically seeing something. Well of course you are, it isn't an illusion after all.

That still does not answer the question. What is the difference between a dreamed image, and the actual physical analog? It's a simple question with a complex answer: why can't you touch what you dream? Why isn't a dream reality? If it isn't illusory, why do we call dreams or numbers "abstract" or "unreal"? By your argumentation, if a man copulates with a woman in his dreams, he actually had sex. There are existential qualifications to be made, and you're not succeeding in doing so to defend your position.

Time for me to ask questions... how does the physical act somehow cause a non-physical entity to do something? Like you say, you aren't interested in the processes of thought which we have beaten to the ground as physical. Then how does the non-physical mind, which cannot be sensed on any level or else it would follow the realm of physics and be physical, cause something on the physical level and also be activated by something on the physical level like it is the link between the two that simply adds complexity to it.

I apologize, but I really don't understand what you're trying to ask. As I said before, this topic requires highly specified terms and rigor, and you're sometimes tripping over your own words, making it very difficult to understand what you're trying to say.

Non-physical things simply cannot exist, or if they do, we can unfortunately never come in contact with any of it an any sort of manner, not to mention having it inexplicably possessing our physical brains, its function somehow purely being the link between the process and result of imagination and nothing else, for surely the memory that makes us, and our decisions are all mapped in the physical respective areas in the brain, for those this non-physical entity would be completely useless.

You're making a lot of very ardent claims, but providing zero analogies, demonstrations or otherwise outside of a dangerously intuitive understanding of the physical world. My question remains, as no one has succeeded in satisfactorily answering it: can you touch a number? Can you touch time? If you're going to answer, please focus on nothing but this question.

Also, what you say about touching and dreaming about touching being the same chemical processes confuses me, since you aren't actually touching anything in your dream, so there aren't having any processes, but since you're dreaming you aren't entirely conscious of that fact.

That's exactly right. You <aren't> touching anything in your dream. Does what you're touching in your dream constitute as real? Is the thing that you're dreaming about touching as physically real as touching an actual person? You're trying to rationalize something that you're clearly not sure how to, since you just conceded that you're not actually touching anything in your dream, which does necessarily entail, that you were touching something that was not physically real.

The same goes for the imaginary friend questions, that confuses me, but I'll simply take them literally and just answer. He is considered "crazy" because his brain is unhealthy and is causing him to see something that is mental, which controls what you see entirely.

So what's the difference between mental and physical? Why isn't the imaginary friend as real as a guy who's not "mental"? Seems an awful lot to me like that's exactly what I've been describing as metaphysical. What makes this "mental man" any less real than a physical man who "actually" exists? You've made the assertion, now you've gotta deal with the burden of making a profound existential qualification of how the imaginary friend is any less real than the a person we deem as real. Why is a brain that sees something that isn't actually there considered unhealthy? The imaginary friend isn't metaphysical, right? So he is necessarily physical and therefore real.

The imaginary friend is a mental construct that follows the rules of imaginary constructs in your mind, it is no different. A real person however would be sensed by others because of their senses equipped for it. The only one equipped for the imaginary friend is yourself since it is your own damaged brain causing the error. The imaginary friend is not physically where you see it, it is a 2D construct in your mind that gives the illusion of having an actual place in the 3D world like yourself.

You're arguing against your own point. What're these "mental constructs" that are any different from physical constructs? Why make the distinction between mental and physical? What're these nebulous "rules of imaginary constructs"? You're making distinctions between the physical and metaphysical without even realizing it. Invoking the law of conservation of mass, you can't create something from nothing. So by all good reason, strictly physical things should not be able to be manifested by the mind; the mind should operate the same way a computer does; binary logic gates; pure reaction. So if these dreams, numbers and images are physical, what are they made out of? Obviously chemicals spur them, but we're not seeing, in our mind's eye, electrons; we're seeing images. We're ascribing meaning to things that are otherwise meaningless events and collections of atoms. Is an apple an apple if we don't exist? Or is it just a collection of atoms?

I'd amend your analogy, for time is to space is not as thought is to thinking. Thinking is the process of thoughts, space is not the process of time. Time cannot be defined by space, I believe this is what one would place the metaphysical term of supervenient. It cannot be reduced to or defined by that which it supervenes, but it cannot exist with the property of space without having it, thus being extrinsic and accidental.

You misunderstood the analogy. Time is emergent; thought is emergent. That was the parallel drawn. Also, yes, time can be defined by space. In fact, it is exactly defined as such. Time is accepted as the movement of space. Time is contingent upon space and is intrinsic. Were time extrinsic to space, we'd be able to travel through time at will. However, all four dimensions are intrinsic and bound.

Although, then again, space doesn't allow time, it allows motion, which then allows time.

Time allows motion; it's the dimensional fabric in which space moves; not the other way around.

Nevertheless, thoughts are not extrinsic and accidental of thinking, it is necessary since the very act of thinking implies thought, one also being the verb (thinking) predicated upon the noun (thoughts), so it is like saying {thoughts[thinking -> thoughts] -> thoughts} (or something like that, confused myself, but you get the idea) and is a little redundant. Space never implies motion, it is more like a mathematical statement like space + motion = time.

Speaking of redundant, that is insanely so, my apologies.

While I appreciate the sentential calculus, I don't really see where you're going with this.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I think you meant, just because science hasn't explained everything. And I disagree, I think it's fairly easy to see why exactly Science can't explain everything, and it directly ties in with why God has to be nonsensical:

Our existence is tied to a plane of reality that is bound by a sense of "first" and "second." It is how we identify time as "now" and "then", and how we identify space as "here" and "there." All of our understanding of everything ultimately boils down to some form of understanding first and second. One of these is cause and effect, which the scientific method is all about. Therefore, it is only logical that every "second" we approach scientifically has a "first" to its being. This is essentially cause and effect. However, even the firsts are subject to other firsts, and causes subject to other causes. This means that everything can be explained, and every explanation has an explanation. So it literally doesn't make sense for a thing to exist that cannot be explained.

Before you continued beyond that last sentence, you should have realized what you just said previously about God actually being nonsensical. You cannot explain God, as you admit, and thus just as you say it, it doesn't make sense, and unfortunately, all things make sense. Things that we encounter that don't make sense usually are debunked because of scientific advancements. Again, like I've said in that same comment I believe, nothing in existence can exist while also being absurd logically speaking. There is no such thing as suspension of the laws we live by, because the thing that which suspends the laws would have to bear an explicable potentiality of suspending said laws while under those same laws. That statement doesn't commit the same fallacy, "Well if God doesn't exist, then you wouldn't be here to say otherwise!" in which where both dichotomies (either we were created by God or we were created otherwise) carry the same implication of God existing (as in, applying the rule that God created everything even on the "we were created otherwise" side, despite a different conclusion obviously being assumed). This is because the negative proposition doesn't assume a God existence, but the positive proposition that describes God as a part of the process must also assume the existence of everything the other believes with the only difference between the two are the fact that the theist believes God activated the creation, whereas the atheist assumes the universe was made necessarily from its own laws. What I basically mean is that since the universe isn't the ontological prior reality (thanks Dre.) that means God is, and he is now the primary necessary agent of existence, and thus he exists necessarily from the laws of existence (or otherwise one would have to say God doesn't exist if those rules didn't apply to him), which is why Okham Razor is a legitimate logical tool, since really adding God into the equation simply adds an unnecessary layer of explanations to the table since the dichotomy of properties for existence that are "Necessary God" and "Necessary Universe" are sub-contraries, since while one needs to be true, both can be since the first entails the second as well, since if God came before the universe he still prescribes to the rules of existence such as the second, and since he is a necessary construct, he wouldn't have anything like the will, since that would be an incidental property that would had to have been chosen and thus would make us have to assume God wasn't the earliest. That means, if he does not have a will, the universe is necessarily true as well since he necessarily had to make it.

TL;DR BELOW

To put it all incredibly brief, if God exists, he has to play by the rules of existence, he cannot supersede them. A suspension of existence is... nonexistence, and his very definition would be a negation of the metaphysical physical category of "existent". Therefore, nothing absurd can exist, and all things have to make sense. Hell, if things didn't have to, then why not just be like, "The universe's creation of itself was very nonsensical because it had to be." Why make it even more confusing by saying God did it? Because of course we have that stereotype that God does things that cannot be explained scientifically, which people don't know doesn't make sense, not to mention it implies the absence of evidence as evidence of absence, two fallacies you make here.

However, this creates a problem: If everything can be explained, this means that, logically and scientifically speaking, there should an infinite amount of regressing basics to everything, an infinite amount of explanations to discover and understand. This is, in itself, does not make sense, because it lacks explanation for existence as it is. If there is an infinite amount of regressing basics to the world, how can these basics compound on each other to reach a specific point in any form of existence? I have explained this in the past through this paradox:

You have a recipe for a cake that requires an infinite amount of ingredients. Will the cake ever exist? No. However, you have another cake, but it was made from an infinite amount of ingredients. How is this possible?

Now replace cake with earth, matter, atoms, or any physical entity in those paradoxes and you'll see exactly what my point is.

Although I really love your analogy, to couple with all the things I have said up above, saying that God's existence explains the inexplicable, you find yourself your own paradox. :D Since... if God did it, then doesn't it make it explicable? Well, no it isn't, otherwise you wouldn't be having such doubts. To put it probably more properly is to say this, "God made the universe" is the explanation that cannot be explained. It doesn't make sense, it negates itself immediately. Somehow you would have a logical statement that is at the same time illogical because of the assumed nonsensical nature of the very being.

Science and reason necessarily implies an infinite explanation to everything, but ultimately, infinite explanation leads all of existence to be nonsensical because it implies that not just one, but every traceable physical entity took an infinite amount of regressing basics to create. This is why science ultimately confounds itself. If you expect science to explain everything, you're looking at a never ending process. Using science to understand origins leads to several, very problematic infinity paradoxes that simply cannot be true.

I do not think you have seen the ceiling of science. If you have, you better go see the scientists of the world and explain them of your discovery, save them all the trouble of them searching for the truth. Haha I'm just playing, I'm not making fun, but do you see what I mean? We don't understand the Big Bang just yet, that doesn't entail it is inexplicable intrinsically, as in it is a property of it.

Thus in our plane of existence, we see that science and reason has its limits, and that ultimately, in order to eliminate the problem of infinity (infinitely regressing time, infinitely proportionate space, infinitely regressing causes and effects) and make sense out of existence, a non-scientific approach much be proposed. We must assume, as science cannot, that something(s) in this realm are without scientific or reasonable explanation, and that they are subject to some other realm of understanding that is outside the jurisdiction of science and reason, so that we can clearly establish a "first" that is not also a "second". It is absolutely necessary to avoid infinity paradoxes. Therefore, the ultimate explanation it MUST be irrational, illogical, and unscientific, such that in understanding it we do not get trapped in regressing infinities.

Primarily repeating myself here, but it is quaint to say, "An infinite paradox doesn't make sense... so we need something irrational, illogical, and unscientific to make it sensible!" The very definition of what you laid out defeats your own refutation.

Anyways, I am rather tired here, so someone please point out if I am not thinking straight at the current moment, thanks everyone. ^_^

 

[Alphicans]

Verm, how isn't seeing something physical? You mentioned that physical means two bodies interacting. Me seeing my imaginary friend is still interacting with the body. Being able to see something is a physical characteristic. How can a non-physical thing have a physical characteristic?

 

[Vermanubis]

Verm, how isn't seeing something physical? You mentioned that physical means two bodies interacting. Me seeing my imaginary friend is still interacting with the body. Being able to see something is a physical characteristic. How can a non-physical thing have a physical characteristic?

You're mistaking the physical process of thinking of the friend with the actual physical interaction of it. Instead of asking this question, the question still remains as to why you can't touch a number or an "apple." You can touch the properties of the apple, but not the conceptual wrapping of the apple itself.

To put it again, clearly: you dream. You see someone. You touch them in your dream. You are clearly seeing a synthesized image. Why is that synthesized image not considered real, and why, if you touched it, would you not go to your friends the next day and say that you "really" touched it, as opposed to touching it in a dream? The electrons enacting the dreaming process are physically interacting, but the image itself isn't.

It's a simple question with a colossal burden for anyone who stoically maintains that things like time, numbers and abstract ideas that don't exist in the external world are actually physical, touchable things.

If you can't tell me why a dreamed person or imaginary person is accredited less human status than a person such as you or me, then this debate's over. If that synthetic image cannot affect the physical world (don't confuse the image with the chemicals that created it, which can affect the physical world), then it's metaphysical. If you can't clearly distinguish why the BT paradox is possible in the mind, but not in the physical world, then this debate is over.

 

[john!]

an imaginary apple and a real apple stimulate the same neural pathways.

for the imaginary apple, the source of the stimulation is mental recollection from neurons in the brain.

for the real apple, the source of the stimulation is photoreceptor cells, taste buds, etc.

similarly, an imaginary person isn't "real" because there is not an actual person being experienced by the senses.

but they ARE "real" in the sense that their recollection and experience in the brain is entirely composed of physical processes.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

That still does not answer the question. What is the difference between a dreamed image, and the actual physical analog? It's a simple question with a complex answer: why can't you touch what you dream? Why isn't a dream reality? If it isn't illusory, why do we call dreams or numbers "abstract" or "unreal"? By your argumentation, if a man copulates with a woman in his dreams, he actually had sex. There are existential qualifications to be made, and you're not succeeding in doing so to defend your position.

It seems the majority of all of your post just doesn't entirely understand what I am saying, so I'll simply try to say it in a different way and hope you can see what I mean. You see, mental and physical aren't equivalent, although all mental constructs are physical and not all physical constructs are mental. Mental constructs are physical, though not sensed through physical senses, but are drawn upon that which is physical and is seen through that which is physical. Now numbers are non-physical, one cannot think of the substance of numbers, only their symbols or objects in substitution of their symbols. There aren't really any "ones" you can isolate. The sexual dreams and actual sexual acts are both physical, but only the former is mental, and thus is simply drawn through what is physical and is seen through that which is physical, never bouncing out of physicality in the process. What allows us to see entire bodies of humans in such a small space in our brains is that because things that we see, with our brain, leave their marks on our brains, and we ourselves, and our bodies, attribute meaning to them, and then the meaning draws out the sensed physical things we have attributed with said meaning and allow remembrance. This physically happens, since nothing non-physical was brought into the mix. We are feeling the senses we have acquired, not the actual things that caused them, since we don't sense the very "essence" of things, we sense the sense-datum they give off.

I apologize, but I really don't understand what you're trying to ask. As I said before, this topic requires highly specified terms and rigor, and you're sometimes tripping over your own words, making it very difficult to understand what you're trying to say.

No I wasn't, I was plainly asking how something non-physical can intertwine with the physical without it itself being physical. I'll leave it as plain as that.

Physical things as you say can be touched, and yet non-physical things have the double standard of touching without somehow being touched in the process. It also doesn't explain how it was created, if from the brain, it would require another awkward exchange between something untouchable and touchable.

You're making a lot of very ardent claims, but providing zero analogies, demonstrations or otherwise outside of a dangerously intuitive understanding of the physical world. My question remains, as no one has succeeded in satisfactorily answering it: can you touch a number? Can you touch time? If you're going to answer, please focus on nothing but this question.

The demonstrations are within the statements, and also coupled with the part prior to what you quoted. I was stating how non-physical things cannot mix with physical things in any way without being contradictory. A lot of the statements such as detailing how the mind has places for memory, "ethical decisions", emotion, were delineating how everything seems perfectly fine with assuming just the physical, the only thing proof you bring (at least I think) towards a non-physical mind being the problems you face when you think of imagination. That was my point, but I won't pretend that I have good rhetoric, which I apologize for. Again, philosophy is something I have only dabbled in for fun, so I am not particularly good, but because of that I don't want to be spineless and not try to construct something with someone... even if I make myself look foolish.

So what's the difference between mental and physical? Why isn't the imaginary friend as real as a guy who's not "mental"? Seems an awful lot to me like that's exactly what I've been describing as metaphysical. What makes this "mental man" any less real than a physical man who "actually" exists? You've made the assertion, now you've gotta deal with the burden of making a profound existential qualification of how the imaginary friend is any less real than the a person we deem as real. Why is a brain that sees something that isn't actually there considered unhealthy? The imaginary friend isn't metaphysical, right? So he is necessarily physical and therefore real.

A brain that does that is considered unhealthy considering it is not healthy. People who see things have deficiencies and disorders, which implies lacking of efficiency and order respectively, therefore that person is to be considered unhealthy. Now, like I've said, everything we see we inevitably see with our mind, so if we personally have something wrong with our brains, we will see things mentally, and yes mental things are physical, but as stated above, they aren't equivalent, mental being a particular. And since no one but yourself meets the prerequisites of your personal particularity, they cannot mentally envisage it as well, just as dreams.

Invoking the law of conservation of mass, you can't create something from nothing. So by all good reason, strictly physical things should not be able to be manifested by the mind;

Agreed, strictly physical things aren't, but mental things can be manifested, and as said up above, all mental things are contingent upon a sensed base, if we have nothing in our brain we have nothing to draw upon, our brain receives things and then tries to understand them, as a result we need that sense-datum. And with it, we are not creating anything, just as when we lose the memory of something, we can no longer convert it to our conscious (without anything actually being created).

You misunderstood the analogy. Time is emergent; thought is emergent. That was the parallel drawn. Also, yes, time can be defined by space. In fact, it is exactly defined as such. Time is accepted as the movement of space. Time is contingent upon space and is intrinsic. Were time extrinsic to space, we'd be able to travel through time at will. However, all four dimensions are intrinsic and bound.



Time allows motion; it's the dimensional fabric in which space moves; not the other way around.

I suppose this is also where we defer, since I don't think of time as anything, it doesn't exist to me as a measurement, just as I don't accept numbers, being a measurement, existent. It is my opinion, but to me I feel that time is simply what can be considered "then" and "now", "then" and "now"s being made like other people have stated from a state of change, and change emerges from motion, so then that to me is the birth of "time". But anyways, this is off topic, and I apologize for not understanding the analogy.

 

[SypherPhoenix]

I don't really want to get into the current discussion, but Mura, FYI, I am a student of quantum physics and the stuff you're talking about with spacetime and energy falls exactly into my field.

I think you hold a few key misunderstandings (that you've actually had for quite some time now) and I'd like to clear some things up. PM me if you're interested in hearing what I have to say.


I'd respond here but I need a back-and-forth to convey information properly and I'm not sure if I care to explain stuff to anybody else posting here, lol.

 

[Vermanubis]

similarly, an imaginary person isn't "real" because there is not an actual person being experienced by the senses.

Thank you. You've unequivocally admitted that that which is being experienced is not an actual person. It appears as a person, yet isn't. That violates a fundamental law of existence for something to be something other than itself, or for something to be two things at once, under your premise that all things are physical. You've perpetrated a crime of the mind or of physical law, respectively. Therefore, you're not just experiencing a binary sequence of electrons; you're experiencing a person that's not actually real outside of that which is facilitating the experience.

"Not an actual person," is exactly what needed to be said. You've created a tautological enclosure, unless you want to challenge the fundamental law of existence that something can't be something other than itself.

It seems the majority of all of your post just doesn't entirely understand what I am saying, so I'll simply try to say it in a different way and hope you can see what I mean. You see, mental and physical aren't equivalent, although all mental constructs are physical and not all physical constructs are mental. Mental constructs are physical, though not sensed through physical senses, but are drawn upon that which is physical and is seen through that which is physical. Now numbers are non-physical, one cannot think of the substance of numbers, only their symbols or objects in substitution of their symbols. There aren't really any "ones" you can isolate. The sexual dreams and actual sexual acts are both physical, but only the former is mental, and thus is simply drawn through what is physical and is seen through that which is physical, never bouncing out of physicality in the process.

Again, never said it wasn't a physical process. It's the experienced qualia that is metaphysical. You need to understand what emergent means to successfully argue against my point, which I don't believe you do, as you've repeated the same mistake several times now. The thought manifest; the Platonic substance of a number, dream or subjective experience; emerges <from> the physical process. I can't repeat myself for eternity: categories, numbers and Platonic objects do not exist in nature. The synaptic messages that facilitate the thought of numbers can exist in nature, but can numbers themselves? No. This should be entirely self-evident that numbers indeed exist; we can conceive of them, so they exist in some way.

When it all comes down to it, I'm interested in only one thing: mathematical paradoxes. Why is a mathematical paradox, such as the Banach-Tarski paradox, possible mathematically, but impossible physically? How can a three-dimensional sphere be broken into finitely many pieces, and rebuild both it and an isomorphic copy of itself? The answer? I know it, but I have a feeling you'll have to capitulate your conceptions of metaphysics to reconcile that particular paradox. There's a clear disjunction between physical reality and metaphysical reality when a physically impossible feat can be transmigrated to the world of the mathematical and suddenly become possible. Again, why? Because metaphysical objects are not bound by physical laws or dimensions. Infinity is another example of something that is physically nonexistent, but mentally so. Infinity cannot be explained by chemical processes alone, because if it were stringently physical, it would require an infinitude of chemical reactions to conceive, which is not the case at all. If the idea/concept of infinity is just as physical as my hand, then that would necessitate an infinite amount of neuronal information to satisfy the premise of ideas being strictly physical. You can't generate more from less; it's impossible. Were such an idea physical, it would be bound by this physical law. So how does infinity exist in the mind and not extrinsically? I'm sorry, but the only types of people who would argue this are sophists, fools, or schizophrenics. If the laws of physics not applying to something does not exonerate it of its alleged status as purely physical, then it's clear why this debate is going in circles.

What allows us to see entire bodies of humans in such a small space in our brains is that because things that we see, with our brain, leave their marks on our brains, and we ourselves, and our bodies, attribute meaning to them, and then the meaning draws out the sensed physical things we have attributed with said meaning and allow remembrance. This physically happens, since nothing non-physical was brought into the mix. We are feeling the senses we have acquired, not the actual things that caused them, since we don't sense the very "essence" of things, we sense the sense-datum they give off.

See above.

No I wasn't, I was plainly asking how something non-physical can intertwine with the physical without it itself being physical. I'll leave it as plain as that.

It was difficult to find your point.

Physical things as you say can be touched, and yet non-physical things have the double standard of touching without somehow being touched in the process. It also doesn't explain how it was created, if from the brain, it would require another awkward exchange between something untouchable and touchable.

This is fallacious because you're invoking the law of excluded middle, which is an antiquated logical convention. Though one may not be able to fully explain how metaphysical objects operate, we can use a priori reasoning to discover that they do exist separately from the physical world.

And I never said they were non-physical; you shouldn't insist on using a term that's so ambiguous. Metaphysical is something contingent upon the physical to exist, but operates parallel to physicalities. It is not "non-physical," it is, shall we say, "differently" physical, in that which it's not physical in the most traditional sense of the word.

The demonstrations are within the statements, and also coupled with the part prior to what you quoted. I was stating how non-physical things cannot mix with physical things in any way without being contradictory. A lot of the statements such as detailing how the mind has places for memory, "ethical decisions", emotion, were delineating how everything seems perfectly fine with assuming just the physical, the only thing proof you bring (at least I think) towards a non-physical mind being the problems you face when you think of imagination. That was my point, but I won't pretend that I have good rhetoric, which I apologize for. Again, philosophy is something I have only dabbled in for fun, so I am not particularly good, but because of that I don't want to be spineless and not try to construct something with someone... even if I make myself look foolish.

I understand, everyone has to start somewhere. But also understand that there's a line to be drawn between arguing something you may not know as much about as you should to be debating it, and being spineless. If you argue just because you feel like conceding a point will make you spineless, then you'll become a fool, not a cur.

As for my proofs/analogies, I've provided ample mathematical, anecdotal and hypothetical analogies. See above about the mathematical paradoxes. There's only so much proof I can give for a self-evident concept. Not even Euclid's proofs in Elements, as basic and insultingly self-evident as they were, could sway an obstinate opponent of geometric validity.

A brain that does that is considered unhealthy considering it is not healthy. People who see things have deficiencies and disorders, which implies lacking of efficiency and order respectively, therefore that person is to be considered unhealthy. Now, like I've said, everything we see we inevitably see with our mind, so if we personally have something wrong with our brains, we will see things mentally, and yes mental things are physical, but as stated above, they aren't equivalent, mental being a particular. And since no one but yourself meets the prerequisites of your personal particularity, they cannot mentally envisage it as well, just as dreams.

Why are they not equivalent though? None of this amounts to anything more than answering a question that is yet unasked. The images we see and dream are not physical if we cannot directly touch them. Ideas can't be touched because an idea is a collective; it's synthetic. We can touch what the idea represents, but not the idea itself.

Agreed, strictly physical things aren't, but mental things can be manifested, and as said up above, all mental things are contingent upon a sensed base, if we have nothing in our brain we have nothing to draw upon, our brain receives things and then tries to understand them, as a result we need that sense-datum. And with it, we are not creating anything, just as when we lose the memory of something, we can no longer convert it to our conscious (without anything actually being created).

See above.

I suppose this is also where we defer, since I don't think of time as anything, it doesn't exist to me as a measurement, just as I don't accept numbers, being a measurement, existent. It is my opinion, but to me I feel that time is simply what can be considered "then" and "now", "then" and "now"s being made like other people have stated from a state of change, and change emerges from motion, so then that to me is the birth of "time". But anyways, this is off topic, and I apologize for not understanding the analogy.

You can conceive of numbers, therefore they exist. If you insist on maintaining that position, then you're violating probably the most fundamental law of existence, that if it can be conceived, it exists, by definition by maintaining that a conception of mathematical objects allows for denial of their existence. You can conceive of numbers, therefore they exist in some way. As stated above, numbers are an idea to categorize an otherwise meaningless sequence of events and properties. You now find yourself at a quandary, because your admission of numbers not existing violates the law of existence, otherwise known as "cogito ergo sum," and if you retract that statement, your only recourse is to concede that mathematical objects exist separately from pure physicality.

Please don't take this as an affront or to be rude at all, but you've committed several fallacies and contradictory points within the framework of the debate and your proposed points, such as that in the above paragraph. I say this with what you said about only dabbling in mind, that I don't believe this debate will go any further with your current level of familiarity on the topic at hand. I enjoyed the debate, but I don't think it'll go any further from here. I've given my analogies and proofs and spotted several contradictions and expounded on them as much as a man reasonably can, so the continuance of this will only be rephrasings and a battle of terminological qualifications. As I referenced with Euclid, even the most brilliant mathematicians can't convince a stalwart opponent who doesn't want to be convinced, even if it makes him look absurd (not to say that's the case with you, but you get the idea.)