What does natural mean? And what is a natural explanation?
It seems to me explanations are mental constructs. Mental constructs are immaterial.
Therefor there are only mental explanations, not material explanations.
Is the theory of gravity natural? If we called it a supernatural theory, would it change anything about the basic theory? If we say gravity is physical or non-physical would it change anything about the basic theory?
Is time natural or supernatural?
Is math natural, unnatural, supernatural?
I'm thinking. All that matters is if a theory or modal makes sense and works. While 'natural' doesn't add anything. And 'supernatural' adds even less, giving an unnecessary mystical air.
Experiment.
How do we test if what we are observing is natural, unnatural, or supernatural? Hold something, such as a leaf. And ask yourself...is this a natural object or a supernatural object?
It seems to me 'natural' is a negative term. It means: Not-magical. Or, not brought about intentionally.
Otherwise, its meaningless, because everything has a nature.
The question is not 'Is this natural', but 'What is this thing's true nature' or 'What is this things essential nature, if it has one?'
Discuss?
Therefor there are only mental explanations, not material explanations.
Is the theory of gravity natural? If we called it a supernatural theory, would it change anything about the basic theory? If we say gravity is physical or non-physical would it change anything about the basic theory?
Is time natural or supernatural?
Is math natural, unnatural, supernatural?
I'm thinking. All that matters is if a theory or modal makes sense and works. While 'natural' doesn't add anything. And 'supernatural' adds even less, giving an unnecessary mystical air.
Experiment.
How do we test if what we are observing is natural, unnatural, or supernatural? Hold something, such as a leaf. And ask yourself...is this a natural object or a supernatural object?
It seems to me 'natural' is a negative term. It means: Not-magical. Or, not brought about intentionally.
Otherwise, its meaningless, because everything has a nature.
The question is not 'Is this natural', but 'What is this thing's true nature' or 'What is this things essential nature, if it has one?'
Discuss?
Comments (52)
The opposite of "natural" is "artificial".
Why isn't the mental natural? The mind is a part of nature.
The mental being immaterial is questionable. It arises out of brains, which are physical systems. Physical stuff is at bottom, quite insubstantial. But we still call it physical. And physical stuff is natural stuff.
Artificial things are modifications of things found in nature. Therefore, artificial things are natural things too, only that we intervened in bringing them about. But not by using some process outside of nature.
Natural explanations are those explanations that give some insight into how the world works via theoretical constructions. But far from everything can be explained theoretically, despite talk of "political theory" or "economic theory". That's another story.
Natural denotes, at minimum, not imaginary (or abstract).
Quoting Manuel
:up:
Are dams artificial (in the sense of not naturally occurring) because beavers make them, rather than rivers?
Is there a difference in naturalness vs unnaturalness between beavers making dams and humans making dams?
Quoting Manuel
"Nature" is a pretty abstract term. I am not convinced the mind is part of the so called material world.
Quoting Manuel
Brains being physical and/or being the source of minds is, to me, questionable. I believe intelligence produces the appearance of so called matter, rather than the reverse.
Quoting 180 Proof
There is abstract vs concrete, actual vs possible... but 'natural' I think means something else. Nature may or may not be abstract or concrete.
Quoting Joshs
So what would that make anything which is immeasurable, un-calculatable, or non-mathematizable?
I'm not sure what I said makes sense. I guess I think that both the abstract and the concrete are abstractions. But that probably sound nonsensical too.
Sure. But mind is too. Unless you assert that consciousness is only mind or exhausts the mental. If there is more to mind than experience, then mind is a broad term too.
Quoting Yohan
Produces the appearance of matter as opposed to what other appearance? It's not as if there is mind in one ontological basket and matter in another.
That is a serious flaw we continue to have regarding our intuitions: that of thinking we know what "physical stuff" encapsulates or even "mental stuff" for that matter.
Yeah.
I don't even understand what an alternative to "natural" means. By "natural" I mean belonging to nature,
not meaning reducing everything to science, just to avoid that misunderstanding.
Imagine this scenario: You are a conscious robot who spent his whole life on a technologically sophisticated "planetoid" with no organic life. The technologies are capable of self-replication and evolution. You have no idea who created you or the planetoid. For you and the robots, this planetoid may seem natural, rather than artificial.
Eventually, you find planet earth. You observe humans and plants etc. You conclude that the humans and plants must have been created by conscious robots, because it seems inconceivable to you that technology could have naturally(unconsciously) produced these kind of things.
How do we determine if we and our world are 'natural' or artificial?
Yeah, sure. We can also be the dream of God, or the tears of a cosmic turtle or anything else. You've stipulated that there's no organic life, contrary to what we now know.
There may be places in which non-organic life exists. This just complicates things uneasily. I think it is more simple and straightforward to acknowledge that we are part of nature.
Anything else could be the case, but we are just adding unnecessary complications.
Just checking - is your position that everything that is the case is natural?
Yes.
Quoting Yohan
No.
Quoting Manuel
Since I offered one of those, I'll bite: I think there's a difference between, say, a mountain pass carved out by a glacier and an anthill or a bird's nest. The latter are not things that "happened" but things an organism "did" or "made". We're at least moving along a spectrum toward artificial here.
I'd want to be able to distinguish between the tracks beavers might leave in the mud along the shore and the dam they built across the stream. Those are both effects of the presence of beavers, but they don't look like the same sort of thing to me at all.
Roughly speaking, I'm focusing on the process rather than the material (which is always natural) or the agent (likewise). As you move toward the artificial, there's an opportunity for design.
Essentially yes.
I think I get your point or the gist of it. It might send you down the "wrong picture" of the world to think in terms of natural vs. artificial. I think speaking of complexity and sophistication make is somewhat easier.
So we can say a mountain pass is much less complex than a beaver. A beaver's damn is more complex than a mountain, but less than a beaver, as this creature consists of billions of particles plus all the relevant biological stuff, which is quite complex in itself.
But the question is what does natural mean. So I am trying to strip the concept of anything that is not necessary. So far, I not seeing the exact difference between natural and artificial. On the one hand, everyone seems to be saying everything is natural. On the other, there seems to be a consensus that, somehow, some things are more or less natural than other things.
This leads to intent. A beaver made the dam intentionally. The mountain was formed, perhaps without intention. The more sophisticated something is, the more likely we are to think that thing may possess the quality of having intent.
It would make it the phenomenologically experienced
Quoting Joshs
So a computer is natural, because it is measururable, calculable, mathematizable? And my personal experience of the computer is not natural?
It gets tricky, quickly.
We don't know if the beaver builds a dam with intent, maybe it does is automatically, the way a baby turtle races to the ocean as soon as its born.
A cell is way more sophisticated and complex than a particle. Would we say the cell has intent? Most would not.
My experience of the computer within the natural
attitude makes the computer appear to me via a description that incorporates measurement and calculation . If I shift my attitude toward a fundamental phenomenological thinking, I can expose my naturalistic account as a derivative abstraction. It is not as if the empirical description simply vanishes, but its condition of possibility in subjective processes is revealed. That is to say, the objective world, along with all the technological
objects that belong to it, is shown to be the product of an intersubjective construction based on a correlation of many subjective experiences. Understanding my experience of ther world most fundamentally, I don’t see enduring objects with measurable qualities , I see a flowing stream of constantly changing events.
:up:
Not bad at all. And fits in with almost any field of enquiry, which is promising.
Quoting Manuel
We don't have to fall for this, treating "intention" as a super-concept like "belief". The only reason to say a beaver made the dam "intentionally" would be to rebut a suggestion that the beaver had made it accidentally or inadvertently or mistakenly, something like that.
I sometimes think of organisms as entities that do the non-obvious thing: some bit of the environment impinges on them, all sorts of stuff happens inside the organism and it responds to that impinging in a way an ethologist might predict but not a physicist. Sometimes when a homo sapiens makes sounds with its mouth another home sapiens will fire a gun at them or at someone else. That's non-obvious.
One simple way to distinguish the beaver dam from the beaver tracks is that the beaver tracks arise in an obvious way, just the physics of a beaver-weight body resting on beaver-foot-shaped appendages in the mud. You can't say the same about the beaver producing a dam.
That.
This cosmological view is further driven by various religious impressions passed down through history.
Note: if something can be tested it is isn’t ‘supernatural’. We’ve no idea what gravity is we just take note of a phenomenon and go about trying to find a pattern to explain what we observe.
Mathematics is undoubtedly tied into physical phenomenon because we test, measure and observe mathematical patterns everywhere (eg. golden ratio).
Unnatural is when there's a deviation from the baseline state, from the normal, it's unusual, that is to say there's an inconsistency. This doesn't necessarily mean some law of nature has been violated, outliers are a common feature in data or so I reckon. Necrophilia is unnatural.
Supernatural is an instance of breaking the laws of nature and the immediate reaction is to ascribe the supernatural event to some kind of being (god/demons/angels/spirits/etc.) Rising from the dead is supernatural.
1. Natural: We get it. :meh:
2. Unnatural: We don't quite get it. :confused:
3. Supernatural: We don't get it at all! :scream:
It's about statistics:
1. All objects fall (natural)
2. Most people aren't necrophiliacs, a few are (unnatural)
3. No one ressurects, Jesus did (supernatural)
I think you lost consistency of definition of 'nature' at this last point.
Per your definition of nature, the the supernatural would mean breaking the laws of normality. I don't think normality has laws...other than like you said, when we experience something enough times, it seems normal.
So the categories could be: normal, un-normal, and super-normal.
Supernormal would very inconsistent with the norm.
Is that right?
The laws of nature, all together, their constancy and how they orchestrate all phenomena constitutes normality. Ergo, an abnormality would/should refer to:
1. The unnatural (outliers), stuff that you rarely see but do see. Nothing wrong here, variations, extreme cases imcluded, are part of the game. (Rarely see)
2. The supernatural (impossible things), stuff that you never see but, once in a blue moon, do see. Something's wrong - quite literally an an impossible event has occurred - and we need to go back to the drawing board and do an overhaul of what we know, more accurately, what we think we know. (Never see)
The bottom line is that these - miracles, the supernatural - are inconsistencies or contradictions that involve what is known (empirical/rational) and what is observed (empirical/rational). In other words, those who have a tendency to believe miraculous stories (theists being an index case) are, at the end of the day, paradox hunters. This, if one gives it some thought, is an eagerness, a burning desire to be proven wrong - to be told, in the most shocking way possible that one's got it all wrong, that one's not even not understood. Reminds me of physicist Wolfgang Pauli's scathing remark, "you're not even wrong!"
Last I checked, scientists seem to make a big deal about how their days in the lab are spent trying to disprove theories and that they take pride in having demolished the cherished theories of their colleagues and predecessors.
In summary, religious people and scientists both are on a quest for miracles. They should be friends but they're
actually foes. This is itself a paradox. Go figure!
:nerd:
Making up shit (i.e. believing) is a lot easier and safer than rigorously observing, experimentally testing and peer reviewing (i.e. knowing).
Maybe that's true for 'religious scientists' ... In the main, however, scientific practices are driven by (re)search for interesting, unsolved problems (more difficult and greater scope, the better) and not impossible-to-solve, inexplicable "miracles". C'mon, Fool. :roll:
[i]-"It seems to me explanations are mental constructs. Mental constructs are immaterial.
Therefor there are only mental explanations, not material explanations."[/i]
-That is a really weird syllogism. Mental constructs are the product of mental properties.
Mental properties are properties of matter. Mental properties might not have physical qualities but they are properties of the physical world(matter).
-"Is the theory of gravity natural? If we called it a supernatural theory, would it change anything about the basic theory? If we say gravity is physical or non-physical would it change anything about the basic theory?"
-Now you have a fundamental misconception on what is natural and what supernatural.
Properties of matter are all Natural Phenomena(Mental or physical or Energetic).
Definitions:
Natural(phenomenon) is any observable measurable event that occurs without the intervention of an thinking agent and without breaking established laws of nature.
Supernatural is the claim (because we haven't verified such type of event yet) suggesting that a specific event has occurred due to the innervation of a thinking agent or by breaking certain established laws of nature.
So, descriptive frameworks of Human beings are not Supernatural events.
-"Is time natural or supernatural?"
-The physical phenomenon of events and processes NOT happening All at once and on a different pace (time) is by definition a Natural phenomenon. The scale that humans use to quantify the above phenomenon is by definition part of nature.
-"Is math natural, unnatural, supernatural?"
-All human languages of logic are part of nature.
-"All that matters is if a theory or modal makes sense and works. While 'natural' doesn't add anything. And 'supernatural' adds even less, giving an unnecessary mystical air."
-Theories describe Natural processes. By knowing what theories work and the Verified Established Paradigm of Science we are able to distinguish a Natural from a Supernatural claim.
[i]-"Experiment.
How do we test if what we are observing is natural, unnatural, or supernatural? Hold something, such as a leaf. And ask yourself...is this a natural object or a supernatural object?"[/i]
-As I said we need to know the current verified paradigm of science and the process by which an object came to be.
So when an "object" owes its existence to a process that is verified by science's paradigm...that is a natural object.
When a statement claims that an object or an advance property manifests in reality independent of a natural mechanism or the intervention of a hypothetical thinking agent ...that is a Supernatural claim!
-"It seems to me 'natural' is a negative term. It means: Not-magical. Or, not brought about intentionally.Otherwise, its meaningless, because everything has a nature."
-OF course it isn't meaningless. Humans always tried to explain the world around them by cutting corners and most of their explanations included agency, intention and purpose since they themselves are agents with intention and purpose. This approached was challenged only by Natural PHilosophy (Modern science). This is the first time we as a species Systematically studied and tried to understand Natural processes with objective methods. That enabled the run away success of our Epistemology for more than 500 years.
Still today, we have to "fight" with lazy intellectual attempts to introduce principles that are unfounded and in conflict with verified laws .
From the Scientific view, the supernatural resembles a huge bin where lazy intellectuals "through in" any phenomenon with an unknown ontology.
But again. Science(Methodological Naturalism) doesn't exclude the supernatural from being an actual realm. It only excludes it from its Frameworks because we currently don't have any tools or methods to verify and investigate that type of ontology.
The moment we verify our first event with a supernatural ontology Science's philosophical backbone will change from Methodological Naturalism to Methodological Supernaturalism.
-"The question is not 'Is this natural', but 'What is this thing's true nature' or 'What is this things essential nature, if it has one?'"
_-I think my above definitions and Science's current paradigm provide an excellent explanation of what is natural...and what is not.
Miracles are, what they really are, basically inconsistencies (events like the resurrection of Jesus) with respect to an accepted model a reality (the dead stay dead). In other words, we have a well-tested theory that is challenged by phenomena the religiously-inclined call miracles.
The meat and potatoes of science are theories and true to Karl Popper's claims scientists, at least those who have a media presence like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss et al, make it a point to let us know that they're interested in disproving established theories. Disproving scientfic theories is essentially a search for counterexamples, inconsistencies between theory and observation.
In that both religious people and scientisits are on the look out for inconsistencies, miracles in the case of the former and disconfirming evidence in the latter, they're very much like each other.
We can make the reasoning involved explicit thus:
Religion
Theory: No god
Observation: Miracles (clashes with no god theory)
Revision of theory: Yes god
Science
Theory: Yes ether (medium for light)
Observation: No ether drag (conflicts with ether theory)
Revision of theory: No ether
There was this Triad: God, Man, Nature. They made sense together, because God created Man 'in His image'. This gives Man an 'unnatural aspect' - no one would have put it that way, but you are atheistic scum so it doesn't matter. So the existence of God is what keeps Man and Nature separate and distinct.
And as we can see in the thread, without God, no one can tell the difference between a bird's nest and The Empire State building.
Suppose a miracle occurs in the next 24 hours. What would be the reaction of the religious establishment and the scientific community? :chin:
It maybe true that for the religious, miracles are more common phenomena than for the irreligious but these miracles aren't of the same kind as those allegedly performed by Christ.
The miracles I'm referring to are the Jesus-level miracles in a manner of speaking. Miracles are, as per one of the most vocal critics of religion, the late Christopher Hitchens, suspensions/violations of the laws of nature. If such were to occur, scientists would need to rethink/review/discard their theories which are wholly predicated on the laws of nature being/remaining unmolested.
Is this a metaphysical claim, or an empirical claim? Deductive or inductive? Can you provide a syllogism or a way in which I can empirically test this claim?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
How do we logically deduce or induce such a thing exists? Or empirically verify that what we observe and measure exists independently of our observation of it?
Additionally, can we observe and measure the mind? If not, what does that mean about the mind? Can we observe and measure truth? If not, what does that mean about truth? It seems to me there are many things we cannot directly observe and measure. I would go so far as to say the observable, and quantifiable aspects of life make up a fraction of life.Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Then we should be able to observe and measure logic?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Theory: a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. There can be metaphysical theories, ethical theories, economic theories etc. Theories are not the sole tool of the physics.Quoting Nickolasgaspar
My question was how does one (including a methodological naturalist) verify ontological truth?
Is ontology any way related to matter? How is it in the domain of methodological naturalism to tell us what the nature of what is observed is? It seems to tell us how the observed appears to us, or what it appears to be doing. I don't see how observing the observed has any means of telling us that what we observe has ultimate existence independent of us.
-"Is this a metaphysical claim, or an empirical claim?"
-Its a description. Matter that "organizes" in to structures displays mental, energetic or physical properties. So I guess it falls in to the category of empirical observations
-"Deductive or inductive? "
-Well it is an ascertainment based of objective facts product of a Systematic Methodology, not a logical conclusion that struggled between two or more possible ontologies. We don't have verified competing ontologies that forces us to have a justified logical dilemma. We only have one available realm that we can investigate and many possible mechanisms and types of emergence.
-" Can you provide a syllogism or a way in which I can empirically test this claim?"
-Well Science has proven the Necessary and Sufficient role of the responsible causal mechanism(brain functions). There is a constant stream of publications of empirical studies that verify the role of matter and the brain specifically, in the emergence of mental properties. On the other hand we don't have any other type of non material mechanism verified or available to be evaluated plus our current understanding doesn't leave any room for non material explanations to be acknowledged either Necessary or Sufficient on its own.
To empirically test our current Working Hypothesis will mean to find a condition under which it is falsified. So theverification of mind properties manifesting independent of a functioning biological brain would be an weak indication of a non material causal mechanism. An other would be the complete deprivation of the brain from any metabolic molecule, while still being able to detect, identify and verify specific mental properties.
-"How do we logically deduce or induce such a thing exists? "
-Well that is a description and any opposite conclusion should also be able to point to descriptions based on Objective observations!
Causality by any agency or mechanism that defies natural rules needs to be demonstrated not assumed at equal terms. Any suggestion of a causal agent/mechanism needs to be demonstrated as possible (one objectively verified example needed) and only then it can be accepted it as probable and included in our competing hypotheses.
-" Or empirically verify that what we observe and measure exists independently of our observation of it?"
-As I stated before we study the Necessary and Sufficient role of a proposed mechanism to be the causing a specific phenomenon/property. Both of those qualities are evaluated by Systematic empirical methodologies by relevant disciplines of science, not independent philosophical endeavors.
We need the latest verified epistemology and facts to beconsidered for our philosophy to be credible and relevant. Unfortunately, expect from some few cases, academic philosophy tends to ignore the second most important step of the Philosophical procedure(defined by Aristotle) and that is the objective evaluation and expansion of our available epistemology(science).
-"Additionally, can we observe and measure the mind?"
-FIrst of all the term "Mind" is an abstract concept that represents all the mental properties of our brain functions. So by definition we don't observe and measure any abstract concept!
i.e. we don't measure "constipation" or "photosynthesis", or "mitosis" or" digestion" . Those are labels (abstract concepts) of the quality produced by the properties of a specific system and its functions!
What we observe measure and quantify are the individual low level biological mechanisms responsible for the emergence of any high level feature of a system....that we call with the label of an abstract concept.
i.e. we can quantify constipation(one parameter) by measuring the volume of water absorption by the bowels.
Anil Seth has a great lecture on how we quantify mind properties like a conscious state.
Marcel Just, the D.O. Hebb University Professor of Psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences has published a paper on a technology that allows us to not only quantify brain patterns responsible for specific mental properties but also identify their quality (decode the content of conscious thoughts) in high accuracy (+85%).
So we observe and measure processes that our abstract concepts represent.
-"If not, what does that mean about truth?
-"Truth" is an evaluation term. We use it to evaluate statements and claims that are in agreement with current available facts. So if a hypothetical cause of a specific abstract concepts is supported by facts then the framework is true.
-"It seems to me there are many things we cannot directly observe and measure."
-that sounds possible...but do you have a specific example?
-"I would go so far as to say the observable, and quantifiable aspects of life make up a fraction of life."
-It depends on what aspects you are referring to and whether they are intrinsically quantifiable or its just an observer's irrational demand to quantify them(i.e. we can argue that abstract concept are part of our life but it is irrational to demand any quantification attempt on them)!
-"Then we should be able to observe and measure logic?"
-Again, logic is an abstract concept that refers to a list of rules for Logical reasoning. So we don't observe the abstract concept of logic, but we can observe the logical rules used by someone's attempts to reason. So yes we can evaluate/measure how logical or fallacious one's reasoning is by using those rules.
-"Theory: a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained. There can be metaphysical theories, ethical theories, economic theories etc. Theories are not the sole tool of the physics"
-I am referring to scientific theories..they are defined differently. Scientific theories are descriptive frameworks that include Objective verified observations(facts/evidence), law-like generalizations and mathematical formulations.
Science doesn't really use "suppositions" but a basic acknowledgement of our epistemic and methodical limitations within a realm with specific characteristics and properties.
-"My question was how does one (including a methodological naturalist) verify ontological truth?"
-well that is really straight forward. We evaluate whether our candidate description agrees with observable facts and the logical implications(induction) that sprang from those facts.
-"Is ontology any way related to matter?"
-Ontology is a specific philosophical and scientific study of what exists and how. Since we have verified matter's existence and observe it , we can study its ontology!
-" How is it in the domain of methodological naturalism to tell us what the nature of what is observed is?"
-MN provides the principles (to science) that keeps our descriptions within our methods of observations and investigation. MN can only inform us for the ontology of ''things'' that we already have verified their existence. MN doesn't deal with Meta Ontological affairs and neither should philosophy.
Meta Ontology is a field that should only interest Pseudo Philosophy since any conclusion doesn't originate form an epistemological foundation and the suggested ideas are beyond any means of evaluation.
-"It seems to tell us how the observed appears to us, or what it appears to be doing."
-IT tries to describe all the observable underlying mechanisms that display a sufficient and necessary role for the emergence of a phenomenon/entity/process.
-"I don't see how observing the observed has any means of telling us that what we observe has ultimate existence independent of us. "
-Correct it doesn't address red herrings like "Ultimate" or ''Absolute" concepts. Again that is the job of Pseudo Philosophy, not philosophy or science.
ITs not honest to assume anything Ultimate beyond the level of our Cataleptic Impressions and the Reality we register not to mention claiming specific details about the nature of a meta ontological speculation.
Even if we do assume we need to speculate about the "Ultimate".... that can only qualify as a "what if" late night conversation after a couple of beers..in a bar.... or an idea in a script of a SciFi movie, not the content of a serious academic discussion.
The Philosophical procedure is well defined and so are its goals. Speculating based on unverified ideals without any means of evaluation doesn't server them or us as intellectual interlocutors!
As an artist (in real life) I can contribute really well is an "what if" conversation,since I daily exercise my imagination ...but I will never pretend to be having a philosophical discussion on such auxiliary assumptions !
I hope I made my points clear.
Never mind. To me you are just making assertions based on a belief in science. For me, I don't even know if I am awake or dreaming, yet alone if there are other minds, and yet alone that any of these minds have verified the existence of "matter".
So we can quit this discussion, I think, unless you want to question foundational assumptions.
Thanks
-"Never mind. To me you are just making assertions based on a belief in science."
-on a belief in science??? what belief is that?
My "assertions" are Pragmatic Necessities that everyone needs to accept and act in relation to their Limitations and Regularities or else we endanger our existence. Even you bother to get up, earn money, answer my comments.....because its a Necessity that you need to play along. Our Cataleptic Impressions and everything that is verified objectively is all that we have to work with sir!
-" For me, I don't even know if I am awake or dreaming,"
-Well you sound like you are misusing the word "know". If you stated that you can not provide an absolute proof I would be with you on that.....but knowledge is based on the available facts within our Raw Impressions...so yes you know that you are awaken and you act according to that condition.
-"yet alone if there are other minds"
-What do you mean....do you act on a faith based belief when you respond to a comment, kiss your wife, enjoy listening to your children, watch your favorite players on tv.
I would only point out that worldviews have value ONLY when people "act" as if they believe in them.(practice what you preach...or what you doubt).
-"and yet alone that any of these minds have verified the existence of "matter"."
-We can both easily verify the existence of matter objectively...right this moment lets stand up and try run through the wall of our rooms. The objective experience we will share will be an objective empirical verification of a specific property of matter (electromagnetic cohesion of molecules).
-"So we can quit this discussion, I think, unless you want to question foundational assumptions."
-What are those foundational assumptions...do you mean to make an argument based on a begging the question fallacy.
So you are here talking with others while rejecting that we all share some kind of reality with a limited access to it??????? So why on earth are you in a philosophical forum?
Are you here because reality is so harsh on you and you need to reinforce some kind of an echo chamber of a magical realm?
How on earth can we question "foundational assumptions" without data or methods that can inform us about alternative assumptions? Are we going to play the game...here is how I want reality to be?
Are you asking from other people..who question their existence to pseudo philosophize with you ?
I don't get what you are asking.
I don't need to assume reality is physical. I only have to assume it is consistent.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Sure pragmatically the world has effects on us. It is real in at least a pragmatic sense. But for me, the ultimate goal of philosophy is to arrive at absolute certainty. Otherwise, I will always be riddled with a sense of doubt. Never totally sure about anything. Who wants to live like that?
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
That there are other minds is indeed based on faith, in my case.Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Example the assumption that the appearance of matter and the sensation of hardness proves there is mind independent matter.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I reject certainty of it, that is all. What better place to enquire about it further than on a philosophy forum? I can ask...why come to a philosophy forum if we aren't going to question such things. This isn't a science forum. I can go to a science forum if I want to learn about what popular science has to say.Quoting Nickolasgaspar
data or methods that can inform us about alternative assumptions? Not sure I get you. I mean I don't get you. Anything that can be questioned is probably not foundational. I can't question foundational axioms like the law of non-contradiction. However, I can question at least some of the general assumptions of naturalistic science.
I can live with that!
-"I don't need to assume reality is physical. I only have to assume it is consistent."
-well it depends what you mean by physical. Physical, in science is a label we apply on specific type of Impressions. We need to distinguish "mental" from "physical" impressions....and this is why we use this label.
i.e. You may dream or imagine to be rich, but in our reality you can only be what your physical impressions "dictate". So concepts like existence, emergence, manifestation are valid only within our physical impressions!
-"Sure pragmatically the world has effects on us. It is real in at least a pragmatic sense. But for me, the ultimate goal of philosophy is to arrive at absolute certainty. Otherwise, I will always be riddled with a sense of doubt. Never totally sure about anything. Who wants to live like that?"
-No that was never Philosophy's goal and it can never be. Those are idealistic goals, things to strive torwards but they are unattainable. Even in the most systematic and epistemically successful intellectual we conceived, science, Ultimate and Absolute knowledge or certainty are out of the question. This is why we can only verify/falsify claims in science but we can not Prove anything to be an ultimate truth claim.
Doubt is what drives our efforts to produce more credible methods of evaluation and improve our epistemology. We need to acknowledge our limitations in our empirical nature, logic and methods of investigation.
-"That there are other minds is indeed based on faith, in my case."
-That isn't possible. Faith is the belief that lacks objective empirical evidence. The fact that thinking agents are around you is a verifiable statement. You even act based on those facts...this is why we have this conversation. Sure you can not prove anything to be absolute...but you only have to prove it beyond any reasonable doubt....and the available evidence does that .
-"Example the assumption that the appearance of matter and the sensation of hardness proves there is mind independent matter."
-The existence of matter does not depend on minds. The label of the quality (hardness) does depends on minds to exist, but Hardness as a property has real world implications specially when two material structures happen to interact with each other(a diamond scratching a mirror). We as observers view those implications and we label that property...hardness.
-"I reject certainty of it, that is all. What better place to enquire about it further than on a philosophy forum? "
-Nobody talked about a meta ontological certainty. Again absolute certainty is like chasing windmills or red herrings. Certainty should always be adjusted to the standard of "beyond any reasonable doubt" and we don't have any...or better Pragmatic Necessity doesn't allow us to have that luxury.
You and I know that experiences like thinking a speeding car or a real speeding a car speeding towards us should be treated accordingly to their known ontology. We should not be alerted if we imagine a car running over us...and we should run if we see one racing towards us.
We even have institutions to protect those who are unable to distinguish those different types of impressions!
-"I can ask...why come to a philosophy forum if we aren't going to question such things."
-Because they are thousand of real philosophical questions that can be asked!
-"This isn't a science forum. "
-that is not an excuse. by saying this isn't a science forum you just stated "this isn't a Natural Philosophy's forum" .People forget that science's philosophical aspect is central to this philosophical category. Science is not what we do in the lab, but it is also our metaphysics on naturalistic principles when we try to understand what on earth those new data means to our verified epistemology.
-"I can go to a science forum if I want to learn about what popular science has to say."
-This is a common confusion. Everyone should be coming from a science forum BEFORE deciding to form and address ANY philosophical question! How one can ever be capable of doing meaningful metaphysics without using verified epistemology as his foundation.
Its like trying to hypothesize the trajectory of a pen I just threw....without knowing the planet and the acceleration of its gravity I am on!
Wise claims can only be produced from Knowledge claims. Philosophy is the intellectual endeavor of "producing wise claims in order to understand the world"....its not making up claims without knowing if the foundations of my hypotheses were epistemically correct.
Quoting Yohan
-Sorry for my sloppy language. I meant that you are making an assumption about the nature of an ultimate level of reality. I understand that we can not prove in an absolute degree and that includes our current narratives about reality....but what are your evidence that guided your conclusions and the details in them? At least the reality we have access we can objectively verify and identify regularities and limitations in every aspect of what we call physical.
What quality(objectivity, testability etc) governs your conclusions so that anyone can use to it to evaluate your evidence(if you have any) and arrive to the same conclusion?
If you doubt a reality that limits your daily life according to its specific rules...what one should do with a reality you propose that no one can verify, test or agree on. We have more than 4.300 religious dogmas and 160+ Spiritual worldviews..so agreement is an issue for any meta ontological narrative.
In order for an intellectual endeavor to philosophical, it really needs to be based (start) on accessible epistemology. Doubts and demands of absolute proofs fall in the category of Argument from ignorance fallacies.
i.e. You may dream or imagine to be rich, but in our reality you can only be what your physical impressions "dictate". So concepts like existence, emergence, manifestation are valid only within our physical impressions!"
Maybe when we die in this world we also wake up to a realer reality. Everything in this world is relative and transitory. Its practically real, just as our dreams are real enough when we are dreaming them. In dreams we can make a distinction between our thoughts, and our (apparent) sense impressions. But those are different layers of experience in the mind, levels of immersion!
"-No that was never Philosophy's goal and it can never be. Those are idealistic goals, things to strive torwards but they are unattainable. Even in the most systematic and epistemically successful intellectual we conceived, science, Ultimate and Absolute knowledge or certainty are out of the question. This is why we can only verify/falsify claims in science but we can not Prove anything to be an ultimate truth claim.
Doubt is what drives our efforts to produce more credible methods of evaluation and improve our epistemology. We need to acknowledge our limitations in our empirical nature, logic and methods of investigation."
I can be certain that I exist. Also, if there can be no certainty about anything, then that means we can't even be certain that our probability estimates are valid! We have to start at some kind of certainty, or else our root starting point may be nothing but a guess. For me I say, I don't know the probability of anything I experience being accurate, but the apparent consistency of experience is the best I have.
"-That isn't possible. Faith is the belief that lacks objective empirical evidence. The fact that thinking agents are around you is a verifiable statement. You even act based on those facts...this is why we have this conversation. Sure you can not prove anything to be absolute...but you only have to prove it beyond any reasonable doubt....and the available evidence does that."
There is a lack of objective empirical evidence that there are other thinking agents. All I have are correlations. Bodies act similar to me so I induce its likely they correlate with conscious experience. I think its a reasonable assumption, but I'm still not sure. There is at least a little faith. I didn't say its only faith.
"The existence of matter does not depend on minds. The label of the quality (hardness) does depends on minds to exist, but Hardness as a property has real world implications specially when two material structures happen to interact with each other(a diamond scratching a mirror). We as observers view those implications and we label that property...hardness."
How do we falsify the claim that there is something which does not depend on minds? I don't deny these apparent realities. I deny that they are necessarily more than appearances, however
consistent.
"You and I know that experiences like thinking a speeding car or a real speeding a car speeding towards us should be treated accordingly to their known ontology. We should not be alerted if we imagine a car running over us...and we should run if we see one racing towards us.
We even have institutions to protect those who are unable to distinguish those different types of impressions!"
Because our memory tells us getting hit by an apparent speeding car will hurt and possibly lead to death of the body. I also try to avoid having nightmares because nightmares are painful. Doesn't mean nightmares are real, except pragmatically real.
"-This is a common confusion. Everyone should be coming from a science forum BEFORE deciding to form and address ANY philosophical question! How one can ever be capable of doing meaningful metaphysics without using verified epistemology as his foundation."
Perhaps both science and philosophy will be lacking in some degree without the other.
Science can be shallow in the sense of just going by superficial appearance of how things appear without looking for essence.
Philosophy can be shallow in being empty speculation without proving or grounding with observation.
"Its like trying to hypothesize the trajectory of a pen I just threw....without knowing the planet and the acceleration of its gravity I am on!
Wise claims can only be produced from Knowledge claims. Philosophy is the intellectual endeavor of "producing wise claims in order to understand the world"....its not making up claims without knowing if the foundations of my hypotheses were epistemically correct."
And science without philosophy can be like trying to determine what reality is without first having a clear axiomatic definition of reality.
Pretty good discussion. Sorry for my way of quoting. My old computer and browser has started displaying the page in a different way where I don't see the buttons to make quotes. I don't have the patience to manually type in the quote commands.