Originally posted by amannion
No really, you were teasing? Well, golly shucks, I never would've guessed. Must be my 'down under'-ness showing through.
You wrote - On the other hand, it's clear to me that, whereas anything intelligible to a mind is the product of a mind, the universe which I perceive is too incoherent to be the direct and deliberate product of a mind. - and I ly little pseudo-man, you must be right of course, since I am your creation, aren't I?
I believe that I stated quite clearly what I meant by "too incoherent to be the direct and deliberate product of a mind". I did so by following this statement immediately with a sentence expounding it: "It's more like a dream, containing a number of irrational and defective elements (something, somewhere went terribly wrong) while also reflecting to a limited degree the proper values of the dreaming mind."
That's quite a broad statement, but clear enough as far as it goes. It says nothing about the modes or methods involved. Since you seem to be washed out to sea by any form of expression which does not involve a concrete description, I will provide an instance (by no means comprehensive)
illustrating the phrase "too incoherent to be the direct and deliberate product of mind".
For example, say that I write a computer program to draw a picture of a kitty-cat. Now, would you say that the picture of the kitty-cat is a product of my mind? What happens if I screw-up the programming, or the data-file becomes corrupted, or a chip malfunctions, and the kitty-cat is still an intelligible picture but doesn't look like a proper kitty-cat? Wouldn't you still say that the picture is a product of a mind, but too incoherent to be the
direct and
deliberate product of a mind?
I really do not think you understand the concept of morality. On the one hand, you say that you're "not suggesting that morals need proceed from outside anyone"; but on the other hand, you then immediately ask me "how I generate a set of morals" with respect to my interactions with pseudo-sentients. What difference does the object of the interaction have, in this case, with the question of the source of morality? On the other hand, if you're asking what my ethical stance is towards pseudo-sentients (as opposed to how these ethics are derived) that's an entirely different question, isn't it?
As for your being my creation, yes, in a broad sense, and no, in another sense. If I am asleep and I have a dream in which someone behaves in an obnoxious fashion, then even though it might be said that they are (broadly) a product of my sleeping mind, it cannot be said that they are behaving as I wish, or that they are the direct and deliberate product of my mind.
I suggest that my universe, though not a sleeping dream in the conventional sense, is the product of an altered, impaired state of consciousness. I suggest that events demonstrate that I am at the center of my universe, and that this would only make sense provided that universe were a product of my mind in some sense. I do not believe that I am interacting with sentient, independent beings.
I will not at this point go into detail about the kinds of events I am referring to: however, the fact is that I began as a mechanistic materialist, and consequently I required a great deal of convincing before rejecting the hypotheses that I was mistaken or else simply mentally ill; and that before arriving at the apparently egomaniacal and grossly delusional philosophy known as solipsism, I entertained a series of successively more unconventional hypotheses, none of which, however, was sufficient to explain the totality of what I have experienced.