Is Everything Really Just One Thing?

[the_truth]

"But just because humans find it necessary that plurality exists"

I find it necessary because I am not omnipotent, there is no way can understand absolutely everything. Instead I categorize occurances so that I can understand more complex occurances with my level of intelligence. I don't actually believe that the plurals that I create are actually 1 body, though I do give them properties and assume that they can be created, destroyed and reorganized so they have different properties etc etc etc... I know fully well that it exists as a definition of what it is and nothing else.

I do not find it necessary because if I didn't use it I would go insane. I accept that I am not omnipotent.

I'm not!

Neither are you!


People believe they have free will because they sit there and think to themselves 'I do not have the will power to boil my hand to the bone, whilst being fully conscious of the pain and able to simply pull my hand out. However I do have the will to throw a pencil across the room.'. You can't willingly ignore something because it doesn't suit you, if you know it is true you must acknowledge it, it is impossible to do otherwise.

I'm not sure why you believe otherwise, are you a member of a political group? You have to be lying or mislead or something. I cannot recall any time in my life when I have done this. Sometimes I am bored and can't be botherred to find out why something works and just do it anyway, but only becasue I have seen other people do a certain action succesfully. Sometimes I have lied or been mislead, when somone plays a practical joke on me or I just tell someone sometihng so they stop botherring me. Though in each case I have reacted to what I believe to be true and not contrary to what I believe to be true.

You are either lying or have been mislead. I think you are communist or something because communists believe they have the level of intelligence to manage an entire country, often disallowing firms to micro-manage themselves. They believe quasi-omnipotence is attainable and not restricted to the IQ of a single person.

Or maybe I have been mislead? By mislead I mean mislead by a mixture of both other people and my own observations, I'm open, but stubborn.

 

[kcballer21]

"But just because humans find it necessary that plurality exists"

I find it necessary because I am not omnipotent, there is no way can understand absolutely everything. Instead I categorize occurances so that I can understand more complex occurances with my level of intelligence. I don't actually believe that the plurals that I create are actually 1 body, though I do give them properties and assume that they can be created, destroyed and reorganized so they have different properties etc etc etc... I know fully well that it exists as a definition of what it is and nothing else.
I do not find it necessary because if I didn't use it I would go insane. I accept that I am not omnipotent.
I'm not!
Neither are you!

I believe that my position is one that reflects how ignorant of reality I surely must be, I believe I am pretty much the opposite of omnipotence. To me it would be just as legitimate to state that there is just "the existent" as it would be to state there is a plurality, at least judging by the seeming impossibility to provide absolute proof either way (especially since one of the positions argues that proof itself can't exist).

People believe they have free will because they sit there and think to themselves 'I do not have the will power to boil my hand to the bone, whilst being fully conscious of the pain and able to simply pull my hand out. However I do have the will to throw a pencil across the room.

Come on, I'm not going to sit here and start from scratch on the whole free will argument, but I could say you are claiming to be omnipotent by asserting without doubt that it was your free will that led to the throwing of the pencil. Could it have been a predetermined action? I find it easy to admit that it could have been predetermined, so why should I be so quick to say that it's not? Because of common sense?

You are either lying or have been mislead. I think you are communist or something because communists believe they have the level of intelligence to manage an entire country

Do you consider it an insult to call someone a communist? Anyway, no I'm not a communist. I honestly don't believe that I understand the point of your post. Now, that's either an admission of my less than perfect intelligence or.....
I understand you may be bothered by a somewhat non-scholarly person telling you that it just might be that you don't exist, so if you want someone smarter than myself to better explain the position (that I hold to be a possibility), look up Peter Unger.

 

[the_truth]

People believe in free will because if we didn't have free will it would be depressing?

I can understand if a person did not believe in free will because it has been proved to them that if there was a supercomputer powerful enough it could predict every thought and action they are bound to undertake or some other reasonable explanation.

I can understand if someone believes they do not have free will and they lie and state "I have free will." to avoid depression.

I can understand somone creating a fallacious argument which 'proves' free will exists and exposes it to somone with the intent of preventing this person from becomming depressed that he does not have free will.

However somone cannot actually believe something contrary to what they believe. It is contradictory. No matter how they feel they will react to what they believe. If someone feels that if it were proven that free will does not exist that they would depressed and then it was proven to them and they believed they did not have free will, they would be depressed, but still would not stop believing they did not have free will.


I believe you to be communist because marxists are always yammerring on about free will and materialism how we are all just molecules or a brain sitting in a head or an animal/machine a clean slate, how we are really not conscious at all how we deny everything they say to be right because we are scared. I used to be a quasi-marxist, I know how marxists think! If there's one thing I've learned about marxism it is how they condescend people, it's like something straight out of George Orwell's 1984!

They do exactly what you've done now. They say something like, we are all economic units and anyone who denies this is scared of the truth. Never minding that the idea of an economic unit is just a way of looking at something, they continue. They go on to say something like, people who believe different are stuck in their own little worlds, where science and their conscious lives are seperated, when in fact all they are just workers and that's all they are. Never minding the fact that as conscious human beings we are capable of realising that we are part of reality and that the molecules we see through our electron microscopes are as much a part of our reality as a ham sandwich.

Basically, they take scientific method, apply it to something and state this is your harsh reality and if you disagree you are denying reality, despite the fact that saying that it is harsh reality is merely a mirror image of the condescending image they are trying to portray.

Do you understand?

 

[kcballer21]

You just beat the crap out of that straw man.
Supercomputers have nothing to do with resolving the argument.

However somone cannot actually believe something contrary to what they believe. It is contradictory. No matter how they feel they will react to what they believe. If someone feels that if it were proven that free will does not exist that they would depressed and then it was proven to them and they believed they did not have free will, they would be depressed, but still would not stop believing they did not have free will.

point?

I believe you to be communist because marxists are always yammerring on about free will and materialism how we are all just molecules or a brain sitting in a head or an animal/machine a clean slate, how we are really not conscious at all how we deny everything they say to be right because we are scared. I used to be a quasi-marxist, I know how marxists think! If there's one thing I've learned about marxism it is how they condescend people, it's like something straight out of George Orwell's 1984!

Ok, once again, I am not a communist or marxist (ad hominem- you sound like rush limbaugh when he calls someone a liberal). But... if you feel better categorizing me that way then go ahead, do your worst.
If you feel my post did nothing for the argument against pluralism and free will, you may be right. But how does your post provide any points to the contrary? The most I got out of it was that you have a severe dislike for marxists.

Do you understand?

That's not condescending.

 

[the_truth]

No, this is condescending...
"you sound like rush limbaugh"


If you agree that a person cannot believe that free will exists and does not exist at the same time. Then you also agree that a person cannot choose to believe in something on the basis of how they can stop themselves from getting depressed and thus

"It reminds of the free will argument, in which I think many are persuaded to believe that there is free will largely because it would be depressing if there wasn't."

is wrong.


I am postulating that you came up with the above due to a certain value of Karl Marx. Which is the idea that if you stick something which suits you and something which suits the person you wish to believe the finnished product together, the finnished product will be willingly accepted by this person and he will agree to whatever idea you stuck to one of his values, without question. This was simply represented by George Orwell in the slogans of his famous big brother totalitarian government (war is peace, slavery is freedom etc..), though in the real world they are more subtle.

In your case you have just admitted that you agree that a person cannot believe that something exists and does not exist at the same time, but admit that you believe a person can choose not to believe in something depending on how much pain this belief will cause him, even though this would require a person to believe and not believe the same thing. This is because a marxist said to you something along the lines of "Marxists only believe in something if it can be proven, religious people do not do this because they disagree with marxism.".

I have to admit, the works of Karl Marx are genius, even if the word 'cunning' is more appropriate.