Now... I appreciate all of your replies. And, like I mentioned in the OP, I've dealt with practically all of them before this.
What will follow are all my standard rebuttals to all objections presented so far by all posters. I will do my best to tackle them all... so this might be a long post.
Alright... let's dig in...
Originally Posted by Beeyahoi
First off, it isn't impossible to imagine the concept of your consciousness not existing. If this were so, you wouldn't be talking about it.
That's true. However... I'm not referring to the concept of your consciousness not existing... as if that was what I was using in my argument, we wouldn't arrive at a very useful premise, right?
I'm talking about imagining the actuality of your consciousness not existing. That is what I need to be talking about in my argument anyways to get a useful conclusion.
Originally Posted by Eonn
just becoz u can't imagine your consciousness not existing doesn't mean its impossible for you to cease to exist
Umm... I have an argument. The structure of the argument is valid. The first premise has enough inductive justification for the argument to be considered a cogent inductive argument.
Originally Posted by Tornado Joe
BUT, still 'impossible'? If there is such a thing as clairvoyance, remote viewing, etc - then maybe they could have foreseen it all. If you are in favor of this afterlife argument, then you are also delving a bit into this realm of paranormal occurances, which contradict your impossibility point as well.
You are correct when you point out that a great majority of things cannot be said to be impossible to imagine. You get hung up on "time" though... you think that the "aborigines" had to imagine telephones for telephones to be possible to imagine.
I don't put a restriction on time in my first premise. If something can be imagined at any point in time, then it is possible to imagine.
However, like I mentioned in my OP, I can make the claim that at least some things are impossible to imagine... those would be the result of a deductive argument, as demonstrated in my OP.
Originally Posted by Photolysis
by whom, what intellectual capacity must they require? A rock can not imagine it's own existence so therefore it doesn't exist, for example
I can imagine the rock existing.
Here is something important to realize:
If at least one being, at any possible time, can imagine something, then it is possible to imagine.
Since I can imagine the rock existing... it is possible to imagine the rock existing.
Originally Posted by Photolysis
then have to draw an arbitrary line in the sand in the spectrum of imaginative potential.
No... I don't.
Originally Posted by Photolysis
If you skip this human bit and say "an idea unimaginable by anyone" then you make a massive assumption about the cognitive capablitities of any species that might have superior intellect and/or creativity.
Nope... I don't run into that problem. The reason for that is if I have a deductive argument showing that it is impossible for any possible being to imagine my consciousness not existing(which I conveniently have in my OP), then I'm not assuming anything about any other beings. My argument shows, deductively, that it is impossible for anything(including yourself) to imagine your consciousness not existing.
That's all I really need for my argument.
Originally Posted by Photolysis
Conversely you can look at the inverse to see the statement is nonsensical
"If an event is possible to imagine, then it is possible to happen".
That statement is not logically equivalent to my premise. The actual contrapositive would be:
If an event is possible to happen, then it is possible to imagine.
Google "contrapositive" to find out how to form those types of logically equivalent statements.
Originally Posted by Photolysis
Futhermore, I can actually begin to imagine what my own non-existence would be like: identical to the time before I was born. Therefore I have disproven the idea using the author's own (twisted) logic.
"Begin" to imagine?
All you are doing is equating it with something... and hence only imagining the concept, not the actuality.
Originally Posted by Xei
In fact Godel's work is absolutely central to understanding why your argument is wrong. Just because you cannot formally disprove the axiom, it does not mean that the axiom is correct.
Ah... the claim of "unfalsifiability."
Consider X, which is a cause that can be shown(in concept) to necessarily cause effect Y.
Y can only be imagined as a concept... and can be conceptually understood to necessarily happen due to cause X happening.
But... we can know enough about the concept of Y to know that the actuality of Y is impossible to imagine. Hence, we have something that can happen(if X happens) that is impossible to imagine. That means it is falsifiable... just in a way that is not readily apparent. There are many times more than just one way to falsify premises.
Originally Posted by Xei
This man cannot imagine music. However, music exists. So, the axiom is wrong.
Just because one man cannot imagine something at the current time doesn't mean that it is impossible to imagine it. If at least one person can imagine something, it is then possible to imagine.
Originally Posted by RedfishBluefish
So naturally all example cases we have only apply for the imagined event "my consciousness exists, and event X". Therefore the event X which contradicts "my consciousness exists" is a exceptional case, and so the inductive axiom is unlikely to apply to it.
If, like you already mentioned, everything we imagine must include "my consciousness exists," then it is logically impossible that it would include "my consciousness does not exist" as well. That would go against the Law of Noncontradiction... a fundamental Law of Logic.
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
You don't think there are parts of reality that are beyond human conceptualization?
My argument doesn't say that something must only be impossible for humans to imagine... but that it must be impossible period. Therefore, I'm not making the claim that reality is bound to only humanity's imaginative ability.
Originally Posted by really
I don't really understand this. How is consciousness related to pure subjectivity?
That's just my definition for "consciousness." I'm simply giving a name, a placeholder, for "a set of subjective experiences." I could have just as easily picked "X" instead of "consciousness."
Originally Posted by really
Even if an event was impossible to happen, we may be able to imagine it.
Right... but that doesn't contradict my premise. An "if/then" statement is only false when the "if" part is true and the "then" part is false. Your example in that quote is the "if" part being false and the "then" part being true, which, in logic, means that the whole premise still evaluates as true.
Originally Posted by really
It is impossible for anything that exists to cease to exist.
I am imaging my car ceasing to exist right now. A rocket comes crashing down on top of it... and then... no more car. The car doesn't exist... only pieces of a car. The car that was once there, defined by a certain tolerances and expectations of what a car "is" is no more.
Originally Posted by blade5x
So how were your 14 billion years before being born?
I forgot.
Originally Posted by juroara
the moment you think of something it exists in your mind, as a thought.
Imagining the actuality of something is different from imagining the concept of something. I agree that to imagine the actuality of something not existing, you at least have to imagine the concept... but in no way is it impossible to imagine something not existing.
I can do it with my car fairly easily.
There... hopefully I have posted my answers to all objections so far. I didn't feel it necessary to answer some things, as they appeared to be answers to other posters. So, if I have skipped something which you think would be interesting to see an answer to, then by all means post it again and point it out quite conspicuously.
Thanks for all your responses!
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