On Jan 31, 2:04 am, "thinker" notreal.com> wrote:

casey wrote:
I think we acquire working beliefs about what is true rather than what
is actually true. Think of the stroke victim that believes an arm
doesn't belong to them or Charles Bonnet patients that believe they can
see when they can't.

My reply
Beliefs that work are necessarily true to the extent that they work. No
one knows everything about anything. No one knows something about
everything. There are always unknowns. Everyone knows that. It's common
sense. Everyone also knows that what they see is not an exact replica of
what's there to be seen and what they do see may be distorted by the way
they look at it. So what?

To say that the lack of complete, and undistorted knowledge, should
raise doubts about what you see is silly. I would even say stupid,
because you know better. I see what I see, and I believe what I see.
Seeing is believing.

Because I sometimes see what I believe, or what I want to believe is no
cause to deny my belief of what I see. It is cause to determine how I
distorted or created what I see, and for what purpose or reason.

On Feb 3, 8:52 am, TRISEC...@webtv.net (Anthony G. Rubino) wrote:

Same reason you should believe your liver belongs to you.
I don't think a quadriplegic denies ownership of the limbs
they no longer control? I feel you just make a lot of
reasonable statements that are really irrelevant to the
point being made.

The placebo effect is a red herring to the point being made.

On Feb 1, 6:03 am, casey yahoo.com.au> wrote:

On Feb 3, 7:52 am, TRISEC...@webtv.net (Anthony G. Rubino) wrote:

BOfL.

May be common, but not accurate.

aka casey quoted Anthony G. Rubino:
Why should I, a stroke victim, believe that my arm, over which I have no
control belongs to me? I was able to use MY arms. If I can't use it, why
should I believe that I own it?

aka casey wrote:
Same reason you should believe your liver belongs to you. I don't think
a quadriplegic denies ownership of the limbs they no longer control? I
feel you just make a lot of reasonable statements that are really
irrelevant to the point being made.

My reply
The point being? The example presented originally presented denial of
ownership of an arm after brain damage as a result of programmed
response. Denial of self as you do claiming that you are no more than a
brain function is even stranger than just denying a useless part of
oneself. You deny being a unique person with a will of your own, yet
continue to use personal references. You don't see the relevance because
it is a possible response that a unique person with a will of his own
could make, which is precisely what you deny.
Is the second sentence of your response above a statement or a question?

On Feb 4, 7:06 pm, TRISEC...@webtv.net (Anthony G. Rubino) wrote:

Any machine with a functional self will use personal
references and each functional self would be unique
as a result of a unique history even if it had an
identical twin.

Of course I "will things" but your use of the word is
synonymous with being a soul. You try and understand
these experiences in mystical terms whereas I try
and understand them in terms of a brain process.

Rather than denigrate myself as a biological machine I
uplift what it means to be a machine.

On Feb 4, 7:20 pm, casey yahoo.com.au> wrote:

Oh good, so run through the specifics of the brain process which you
claim you have used to determine you had absolutely no choice over
your sexual preferences?

I mean, you are a thinker aren't you? Sooo this should be a push-over
for someone like you casey.

Michael Gordge