what defines life - Page 5

wittgensteins:

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How so? Because perception is polymorphous? Well frankly, no, and more pointedly, you deny so yourself a little further on in the course of your adumbrations

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Your realist pre-assumptions are slightly mistaken. Perhaps I'll reinterate the following: when our experiences, instincts, traits and tasks interact with another individual conscious perception, then sychronization inevitably takes place...the concious system is never completely in sync with one another. It is shared and common amongst all, thus making it seem universal, but it is never identical, because there is perceptual difference.

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provides a universal reference point

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no. It provides a similar reference point. A reference point is relative. It can't possibly be universal, because perception differs. Meaning of life and perceptual reality have no absolute reference point. Attempt to deconstruct your reality of life. This instantaneously requires perceptual thought provoked opinions. For example- to deconstruct a books meaning between each person will produce different assessments. Implying that there is no absolute true reading of a text and no text apart from its reading.

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Yet if this is the case, consciousness is not the solution but the problem to the enigma of life, precisely because of the way that it escapes any kind of stable definition.

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Who's problem? Depending an individuals definition of what a problem entitles. Yet it seems that this concept provokes problems for yourself because you require a "stable" [ perhaps in other words "universal"] definition or answer. Where is the reason for the intentionally requiring an absolute universal explination. Perhaps a common symptom of plain feeble curiousity.

The fundamental problem of perception is how we come to apprehend the objects and events in reality. Perception is selective. Meaning and value of human perceptual behaviours of reality have no absolute reference to truth. It is relative. Human social diversity concedes different perceptual systems. Context of an individual or shapes their reality of life. The perception of life is partially socially constructed. The concept of universal determinism is an empty abstraction. If truth must account for all the facts, and if accounting for all the facts results in inconsistency; only the most empty abstractions can be true. If we knew all the facts, one individual's "truth" would be inconsistent with another's. All perception is relative. If there was only one universal perception then there would certainly be only one rational course of reality open to us. Which is clearly not apparent. One's individual cognitive bias prevents us from observing something objectively with our own senses. A notational bias will apply to whatever we can allegedly measure without implementing our senses.

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the free will of each person - is what makes life so rich and abounding in potentialities.

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No this is not what I meant at all. In fact where have you preconceived that 'free will' should take part in this concept.

the concious system is never completely in sync with one another. It is shared and common amongst all, thus making it seem universal, but it is never identical, because there is perceptual difference".

To provide a universal reference point would not be to make consciousness, as it were, homogenous - after all, each person is pent up in the frail bark of his principium individuationis - but to provide certain shared characteristics. That's why they're called reference points. And a reference point cannot be relative... or it seems likely to be a less than adroit reference point.

"Yet it seems that this concept provokes problems for yourself because you require a "stable" [ perhaps in other words "universal"] definition or answer".

Nope, I was dismantling your ideas [i]reductio ad absurdum. I simply took to their logical conclusions the fledgling strands of argument and revealed them to be at variance
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"If we knew all the facts, one individual's "truth" would be inconsistent with another's".

Pure, undiluted dogma, acccpeted on the authority of messrs Foucault, Derrida and co no doubt. In this case, you're not a Phenomenologist at all, but a post-structuralist.

"The concept of universal determinism is an empty abstraction".

Ah, but in your eyes there's no such thing as an abstraction is there? All thought is "shaped by context". Such abstractions make claims to universality the kind of which you stridently deny. Therein lies evidence that your feverishly espoused relativism is little more than boorish pat. You'll probably say that this abstraction is empty precisely because it is an abstraction, so it is worth pointing out that a lot of people share this abstraction, and that this constitutes a point at which the myriad of supposedly incommensurable viewpoints can intersect, hitherto providing... yep, you guessed it... a universal reference point.

Sorry but I cannot help but be amused at your seemingly overrated, vague misconstrued remarks. Just my perception though. Wonder why you wish to take such a presumptuous inclination.

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To provide a universal reference point would not be to make consciousness, as it were, homogenous - after all, each person is pent up in the frail bark of his principium individuationis - but to provide certain shared characteristics. That's why they're called reference points. And a reference point cannot be relative... or it seems likely to be a less than adroit reference point

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care to elaborate? and explain why you think a reference point is not elucidated as relative. 'reference' alludes to the concept of the act of refering. Referring depends on the significance in a specified contextual relation. A reference designates a connection to something else. The object to which the reference points is the referent. Therefore it is seemingly obvious that a reference is a relative concept.

So tell me, do you require stable universal absolutes. Or are you just trying to make an illfated conclusion in the attempt to developing statements using proof by contradiction in itself. It is rather conspicuous my friend.

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Pure, undiluted dogma, acccpeted on the authority of messrs Foucault, Derrida and co no doubt. In this case, you're not a Phenomenologist at all, but a post-structuralist

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No constructive reply in consideration of what has been said. Perhaps postmodern relativist is a more compatible "label" if you wish.

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Ah, but in your eyes there's no such thing as an abstraction is there? All thought is "shaped by context". Such abstractions make claims to universality the kind of which you stridently deny. Therein lies evidence that your feverishly espoused relativism is little more than boorish pat. You'll probably say that this abstraction is empty precisely because it is an abstraction, so it is worth pointing out that a lot of people share this abstraction, and that this constitutes a point at which the myriad of supposedly incommensurable viewpoints can intersect, hitherto providing... yep, you guessed it... a universal reference point.

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wrong. There is productive difference between a relativist that accepts individual absolutes and a determinist claiming universal absolutes. Individual absolute truth refers to that 'truth' only exists within yourself. Your individual absolute is part of this 'many'. Meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference to truth. Your perception is a human construction. Whatever beliefs we hold they are provisional.
Plato, "The way things appear to me, in that way they exist for me; and the way things appears to you, in that way they exist for you"
Perception is embedded by our contextual environment.There is no separate or objective truth apart from how each individual happens to see things. I cannot help to think that your thoughts are structured on a linear foundation, yet to understand that perception and truth is dynamic is to take a broader, more open and holistic philosophy. Yet Wittgenstein was a linguistic relativist, hmmm....but thats another story.