Things That We Accept Without Proof
This topic is about things/entities that we claim to exist without requiring actual proof. This is an off-shoot from the Atheism thread – I decided to create a new thread so as not to derail that other thread.
1. Dreams – Almost everyone, if not all, claims that they dream. We accept this claim without requiring proof. We use our own experience of dreaming to validate the other person’s claim of dream.
2. Pain – We do not have proof of pain except our own complaint and expression of pain. Doctors have to ask where it hurts because there isn’t a proof that they could point to.
3. Fear –It’s a very subjective feeling that has side effects such as sweating, fast heart-beat, sweaty palms, but fear cannot be proven by pointing to these outward signs because these signs can also be present for reasons other than fear.
4. Floaters—these are what you see in front of you when you experience “floaters” small dark shapes that float across your vision. There is no proof of their existence except for what you report to other people.
I'm sure there are other existent things that we readily accept without proof. I will post more if I could think of other examples. But my point is, so much for requiring proof for beliefs. We don't always require proof.
1. Dreams – Almost everyone, if not all, claims that they dream. We accept this claim without requiring proof. We use our own experience of dreaming to validate the other person’s claim of dream.
2. Pain – We do not have proof of pain except our own complaint and expression of pain. Doctors have to ask where it hurts because there isn’t a proof that they could point to.
3. Fear –It’s a very subjective feeling that has side effects such as sweating, fast heart-beat, sweaty palms, but fear cannot be proven by pointing to these outward signs because these signs can also be present for reasons other than fear.
4. Floaters—these are what you see in front of you when you experience “floaters” small dark shapes that float across your vision. There is no proof of their existence except for what you report to other people.
I'm sure there are other existent things that we readily accept without proof. I will post more if I could think of other examples. But my point is, so much for requiring proof for beliefs. We don't always require proof.
Comments (173)
The grammar of sensation and pain is a bit special. In general, we do not question or doubt such statements. One 'cannot be wrong' about 'appearance' or 'what things seem like.' This grammatical habit is too readily taken as some great logical principle or discovery.
We should note exceptions though. How many doctors have doubted claims of 'back pain' from claimants who clearly want opiates? If you tell me that you dreamed vividly of 'round squares' but refused to draw one for me, I might doubt you.
I agree. And that is also true of the other 4 points I outlined. We give them the benefit of the doubt.
Quoting lll
Yes, this happens but under a different circumstance that what I'm trying to say in the introduction. Of course there would be liars.
Quoting lll
Might. But in general, we do not have strict requirements for reports of dreams.
I suspect we go easy on some stuff for practical reasons. Our culture doesn't make much of dreams, so we don't care enough to challenge them. The God issue is connected to bloody wars and issues like abortion and assisted suicide. As one might expect, claims that 'God told me X' are held to far more scrutiny. It's not just the supernatural though. If I try to sell a cancer-curing concoction without making a case for its effectiveness, I might get a visit from the government.
A bit of tangent, but I think metaphysics is such a jungle of disagreement because the rubber never meets the road (or only very indirectly and inconclusively). We can have wild disagreements about metaphysical entities and both drive safely and not punch strangers on the contrary cut of their jibs.
Fortunately, in a philosophical argument, we don't distinguish between life and death situation when requiring proof to back up our claims. I mean, just search for Descartes's cogito and see how much time and space was devoted to it just so we talk about existence and the self. In epistemology, we don't put hierarchy on topics.
Quoting lll
And now we are venturing into the legality of it, which again fortunately for the purpose of this topic, is not a requirement. I just really meant philosophical proof.
We might look at the written and unwritten 'rules' or 'heroic self-image' of philosophy. How is a philosopher different from a prophet or a mystic or a physicist? Philosophers themselves continue to evolve this image, but generally making a case for claims and responding to criticisms seems central. As I see it, it's an essentially social endeavor. As a philosopher, I try to figure out what's true not just for me but for the whole tribe. Many philosophical claims are too abstract or foundational to be falsified (pre-scientific or super-scientific, if you like), so their are evaluated for consistency, coherence, practicality, decency, etc. The norms for such evaluation are themselves up for debate. This 'self-eating' of philosophy reminds me of an infinite hall of mirrors.
These are important, but what about intermediate theories which remain blurry and plausible? The 'crisp' thesis is an ideal we strive toward perhaps, but largely (seems to me) we work within hazy metaphorical frameworks. For instance, the Cartesian ego can be elaborated endlessly. What exactly was he talking about? Did he even know? The words pour out of us as we turn the crank on ye old smoke machine. Our sloppy gang of noises and marks has evolved perhaps with just enough resolution or specificity to keep us feeding and breeding. Ask us what we mean and we'll offer yet more words, trying to assure ourselves and others of our mastery of some infinitely proximate Content.
:up:
Wittgenstein said (paraphrasing) "When you're in pain, you know you're in pain; you don't justify/require proof that you are in pain."
The way I understood his statement: Some things are not proven, they're experienced directly.
Even so, take a look at the following argument.
Imagine you prick your finger with a needle.
1. This sensation in my finger is called pain.
Ergo,
2. I'm experiencing pain.
Okay we can also include those. But, again, my point is, we don't require proof for certain things we claim to be true or we accept from accounts of other people.
Quoting Agent Smith
Yes. And I don't disagree with W.
Well, yeah, Wittgenstein seems to be/is using experience (can't find a better/right term), pain to be precise, in the same ways as Descartes uses thinking (cogito ergo sum). Both become the foundation of knowledge i.e. they can be employed to exorcize philosophy of skepticism.
And as I countered, in philosophically sound argument, we do not put importance on life and death situation. So I guess my question to you is, should we? Should we put hierarchy on issues when we're doing philosophy?
Please see above. I am agreeing with W as far as being content with our self-reporting habit of pain -- no proof required except our own account of it.
So what's the difference between a proof and presence of evidence? A proof is the actual explosion that we witnessed or captured through some device. That's the proof. That's never gonna happen. Evidence is the background support for the plausibility of the big bang happening, evidence such as expansion of the universe, presence of CMB, and abundance of elements.
Are you changing your tune or is it that I misunderstood you? That was quick.
Anyway, as far as I can tell this: One can't deny what one is experiencing in the immediate sense. If I'm going through pain, yes I am. That's about it.
I haven't changed my tune since I've written the OP. I can explain again. I said that there are things that we accept without requiring proof. I gave an example of pain. Then you quoted W for same idea that our experience is enough to claim its truth. I said okay, I agree with him. And we should really give the benefit of the doubt to the pain reporter, barring some wayward silly individuals who fake pain to get high on drugs.
And the ending of my intro is that, we do accept certain things without proof. But belief in god seems to have not benefited from this leniency.
Great! I'm now fascinated by where you're going with this.
1. What if god is a sensation, like pain is? God's relationship with suffering is well-documented (heaven/hell) (vide religious experience)
2. Is "I am in pain" = "God exists"? The former is private but the latter is not. My pain vs. Our God. Both are propositions in their own right.
3. Wittgenstein means to convey that experience itself can't be doubted (to be false), but he makes it a point to clarify that it remains possible that we could be talking past each other (beetle-in-the-box).
Excellent point.
Belief in god could be both viewed as private or public (later about this) -- private like pain, as you said. In which case, nothing else is required except for the self-reported sensation of divination or other holy experience. But if we consider it as a public knowledge, such as what @lll touched on -- since belief in god had led to some grave consequences such as persecution, then should it be held at a higher standard than other private sensation such as dreams and pains? Should we require proof of god?
And here the issue of belief in god becomes muddled when organized religions are involved. And to me, this is when the practice of religion is more at issue here than belief in god.
Nonetheless, I gave an example of the big bang, which is comparable to the existence of god in magnitude? Or not. But I guess I'm trying to find a comparison big enough to make it balanced.
What I wanted to say but didn't now becomes relevant. A person has a religious experience and tells himself he had a one-to-one with God. The religious experience itself can't be denied, it is true and there's no need for proof.
We have to prove that some things need no proof. The reality of a sensation/experience doesn't need an argument, it needs no justification. How do we do that? Looks like the JTB theory of knowledge needs an overhaul. I have no idea how to do that.
Anyway, what I want to get across has to do with the beetle-in-the-box analogy. Is my religious experience (a private affair) the same as or identical to yours?
Quoting L'éléphant
Organized religion makes no sense in Wittgenstein's philosophy if god is a religious experience (private). There may be 2 billion Christians on earth but each one of them could be using "Yahweh" to mean totally different things.
Please excuse any remarks you feel are tangential to the main point.
Another problem with qualia or sensation as a channel for God is the strong arguments that Wittgenstein has made against the possibility of giving a meaning to terms by attaching them to some kind of meaning-making 'primal stuff' (such as sensation or 'direct' intuition.) Basically it doesn't matter if your red is my red as long as we call the same things red.
Good point. I take Wittgenstein to show that the meaning of the 'Yahweh' is not inside each of its users but rather in the outside in the way the mark 'Yahweh' functions along with other worldly objects. If you want the 'meaning' of 'Yahweh,' look for it as you might look for the 'meaning' of money. See what people do with the little pieces of paper, how they fit in with other things people do.
That depends on how a particular society treats religion. The modern way is to treat it as a kind of choose your own therapy. Kierkegaard writes about Abraham being told to sacrifice his son and then going on to almost do it. Note that this son was a miracle gift from God in the first place, since his wife gave birth as a very old lady. A suicide bomber manifests the same conspicuously irrationality. But most religion is sitting around in a building, eating some crackers, not eating this or that, perhaps protesting in front of clinic or passing out brochures. As soon as religion goes against the dominant meta-religion of liberalism, it's shoved back in its place as a kind of lifestyle choice (which I don't object to, really.)
Not to be contrary, but I think Wittgenstein's beetle analogy shows the semantic uselessness of sensation. 'Pain' gets its meaning from the public corona of the supposed 'raw feel.' The pain itself (the quale) is like the hole in a donut. That hole 'seems' or is habitually understood to be the source or ground of the meaning of the token 'pain,' but it turns out that such a theory falls apart. It's the non-hole dough that 'informs' the token.
Now of course 'pain' does have a use in our language. A dentist asks about your 'pain' and your answer helps her drill the right tooth. Or your mom gives you aspirin, or you accept your wife's 'headache' and entertain yourself otherwise. The big idea here is that the 'meaning' of pain is its relationship to other tokens (words) and practical activities, all of them public. 'Nothing is hidden.' (One does not have to deny qualia to show their epistemological and semantic uselessness. Once this realization clicks, it seems amazing how easy we are all taken in by an absurdity, a philosophical earworm. )
Well, I guess an idealist would argue that everything we see, we take for granted as real when it is actually a product of mind. Does that count?
When we see people walking down the road, we take it for granted that they are real. What if only 50% of them are real and the rest spectres?
For me the question sometimes might be: what is it we have reason to doubt? Not so much what is it we don't have proof for.
There are many things we accept for which we have no firm proof and some are much more quotidian. 'My husband says he loves me'. Is it true? 'My wife says this is our daughter' But is it? My brith certificate says I was born in Denmark in 1923. Is this true? If I jump off the roof of my 20 story apartment building I will fall to the ground and probably die. But what if I can fly? None of these sorts of things are generally established through proof but I guess we can have reasonable confidence about most of them based on some key indicators and inferences.
If you hear people talking in their sleep you have proof of the dreaming. Likewise for animals. You might even put me under a brain-scanning machine. Then you could see if I dream when asleep. What proof do you need more? Are you a solipsist?
I think pain is the donut tasting like shit. The hole is just empty space.
That sounds like the solipsist attitude (I have to be careful with words here though; is it an attitude?). L'éléphant appears to be one.
:up:
Then why you are an atheist? I think it's the kind of gods you doubt. The omnibus gods. What is it you have reason to doubt, apart from the moral aspect?
But then you make everyone a solipsist. If I'm a product of your mind, you assume someone behind that product?
Yes, I know. Im not saying you are. Im imagining we are. Just like being a theist or atheist.
The 'raw feel' is generally understood to be radically or perfectly private. So only you have access to your pain and only I have access to mine. The pre-philosophical theory is that the 'sign' pain gets its meaning from such private experience. So maybe, this theory implies, the word 'pain' has different meanings for us. But I think it's better to look at the way this sign 'pain' is traded publicly.
Yes, like there are theist materialists. Their matter differs from atheist material.
It's a relief to me that someone groks the 'uselessness' of qualia I'm trying to sketch. It's so 'obvious' eventually and yet so absurd on the face of it. For 'of course' my private experience is that which is closest to me and the last thing in the world to doubt, because, you know, 'logic' (which is just, in my view, contingent grammatical habit.)
It's actually nice that philosophy has surprises in store for those who hang in there. The later Wittgenstein only seems boring to those who aren't ready. What say you?
This to me is more of the donut metaphor. The 'dream itself' is 'logically' (grammatically) inaccessible. We talk around it when it's time to make the donut. But for the 'sign' to have a meaning requires its connection to other public events entangled with the expression of the token 'dream.'
One interesting thing about this plausible idealist is that 'his' vision or 'dream' of his own skull would also be a 'product of mind.' A skeptic might ask 'him' how 'he' is so sure that 'he' is some kind of singular or unified interior monologue that gazes and listens upon a world without eyes or ears (for these too are mere [s]illusions[/s] 'products of mind,' if you ask 'him.') ('His' genitals and gender are also products of mind, as well as the concept of mind of course.)
Not sure I understand what you mean by "sign pain". What you mean?
By the way, I had no dreams tonight that I remember now. I could have had them though, and probably had. You'll have to take my word as proof.
I simply mean the written or spoken word 'pain,' as distinct from what it is supposed (assumed) to refer to.
I believe you.
What all of us do with "Yahweh"? That's public meaning, oui? In Wittgenstein's universe, that's about all the meaning a word can have; any private meaning, as he said and you pointed out, "drops out of consideration and becomes irrelevant".
Sensations aren't exactly perfect when it comes to conveying Wittgenstein's point for they have secondary public correlates (facial expressions, body language that is).
A purely subjective, completely private experience that doesn't have outwardly noticeable features would be just what Wittgenstein needeed. It's odd that he couldn't find one such thing.
Perhaps we evolved to be physically, observably, expressive such that we could decode each others' private thoughts & feelings easily and accurately. It's orders of magnitude better than guessing which would be necessary sans :smile: :sad: etc. You get the idea.
Many people have learnt to act true to Shakespeare's belief that all the world's a stage and And all the men and women merely players. It's not a good idea, so I was warned, to wear your heart on your sleeves.
Lady Macbeth: Your face, my thane, is a book, where men may read strange matters. (Shakespeare again).
People who can override/alter the evolved causal chain between thoughts/feelings and body language are inscrutable. Many people aspire to such a level of control over their bodies.
Where was I?
An exclusive private experience, looks like, doesn't exist. However, we can throw people off the scent so to speak. The reason we possess this ability is probably because it's is a dog-eat-dog world and being easy to read could turn out to be an Achilles' heel if happiness, etc. is a priority.
Now what?
Stoics playing poker. Now that I'd like to see! It's on my bucket list.
Exactly. That's how I see Wittgenstein see it and I agree.
Everything itself is inaccessible. But a thing in itse?f can't exist. We both see the fly messing around in the empty glass of milk. We both hear him. Likewise we both have dreams. We made them private and inaccessible.
I know what you mean by correlates, but, strictly speaking, the 'private experience' grammar/logic implies (in my opinion) an empty data set. If we take philosophy to share some of the virtues of science, then we need to be able to look for correlation between two public entities. In the case of qualia, the data is missing 'in principle.' I can't correlate anything at all with the hole in your donut or the beetle in your box, for it is 'invisible by definition.' Of course we can have correlations of measurements of facial expressions and the use of tokens like 'pain' or 'joy.' (This is why I chose the donut. We do have a cluster of correlations of public events, but the obscure 'thing itself' at the center of these events, the guest of honor, has somehow lost its invitation to the party. )
I'm tempted to say 'yes, we both have dreams.' I think this is because our uses of the word 'dream' conform simultaneously to both of our grammatical expectations. If, on the other hand, you tell me that you had to wipe some dreams off your toothbrush, I'd wonder if we were still speaking the same language, if you knew what a dream was, if you had dreams.
How so? By simply not talking about them? What I have in mind is that I'd confuse people if I talked about 'co-dreaming' with my brother in California (far away). The grammar or logic of dreams (as a flexible rule) doesn't allow that. Of course meanings (habits of public use and associated norms) can drift.
Qualia, the ineffable aspect of consciousness, always at hand to remind ourselves that many questions in the philosophy of mind remain (as of yet) unanswered.
What's your take on telepathy? Is it real? If it is, what are the implications vis-à-vis qualia and consciousness? Can I get inside your head?
I'm not aware of any evidence for it.
My bias is that my 'thoughts' (minimally muttered strings of tokens) are not fundamentally private. I speculate that it's possible, in principle at least, to read someone's so-called 'mind,' at least in simpler scenarios. I happen to be watching the show Lie to Me at the moment, and it's scary how we give ourselves away (assuming the script is somewhat science-based.) I'd rather the so-called 'soul' be an inviolable fortress but don't find it plausible.
The most careful way to express what I'm speculating is the prediction of public behavior that includes the emission of tokens (words.) Note that only the unity of the body is presupposed here, for the body is an uncontroversial public object, unlike (for philosophers at least) that old ghost 'consciousness.' As I see it, the problem with 'qualia' is 'grammar deep.' I could never 'be sure' I was telepathizing your experience, for the grammar suggest to me (ambiguously) that only the 'official' possessor or victim of these qualia could not be wrong. How does one test telepathy ? By calling the jack of spades? But that's not qualia but only a public event that suggests some kind of transmission.
Logic! Given that we're all human, we all have the same genes, genes that determine, at the very least, our general physical structures (including the brain), does it make sense to say our private experiences could be poles apart? If one apple tastes sweet, another does too, then another yet, aren't all apples sweet?
Like @180 Proof has twice reminded me: doubt must have a reason. Why should we doubt my private, inner life as not the same as yours or anyone else's - we're all cut from the same cloth in a manner of speaking, oui?
Nevertheless, cultural differences do exist (right?) between, broadly speaking, the Occident and the Orient.
Back again. Had to run for the trash takers. Forgot to put the paper container on the street.
I think by assuming that epistemic cut. It's an artificial cut for which there is no evidence. It's a chimerian cut. Laying at the basis though of science and many modern art (art being the ability of expressing "the most private personal emotions and feelings").
Quoting Agent Smith
The difficulty with proving telepathy is that it doesn't occur in controlled experimental set-ups. So goes the argument. I had weird experiences though. Thinking about someone you haven't seen in years showing up around the corner.
:lol:
I've thought about this objection before, and it's a good one. It's tempting to grant your point, but...It doesn't make sense to say either that they are poles apart or just the same. We have no data. None. You can say that similarity of structure implies similarity of qualia, but such a claim (also to quote @180 Proof) is 'evidence free.'
That's a 'logical' or 'grammatical' point which goes against my 'intuition' that 'of course' my little mammalian heart experiences the same love for them that my wife and my pup and my kitty feel for me.
I think this is a false assumption. Genes don't program. We just use them. They're ßupplying us, together with the ribosomes, with the proteins where we need them.
I thought I made the case for our private experiences being similar (enough for government work) or even exactly identical.
Consider that taking the metaphysical subject or Cartesian ego for granted with its qualia and Inner Light and other such mystified fireworks led to mountains and oceans of confusion. I don't deny qualia but point out (1) their uselessness for what they are supposed to be good for and (2) their tendency to confuse us about all kinds of related issues.
My primary objection is to the (what I'd call a) superstition that meaning can be founded upon them.
Why is it a false assumption. It's proven that genes are the determiners of our physical makeup. We use genes? :chin:
Without a single data point?
You assume that similarity of biology implies similarity of 'private experience.'
Nonphysicalism hanging by a thread. It's the last stand. Do or die!
Genes?
Now you just need to show me a correlation, except that one side of that correlation is...private and impossible to show by definition. Do you see it ?
Note that I do not dispute that you can fish for correlations between different kinds of public entities. But it's nonsense to speak of mathematically linking public entities to 'ghosts' that defined precisely as that which can never be made manifest to others.
Think of it this way : a scientist says...listen fellows, so there's this stuff that only I can see and ... clearly there's a relationship of this only-I-can-see-stuff with the peanut butter consumption in Minneapolis.
The temptation is to derive synchronization of sign use from synchronization of qualia, but I find it more plausible to derive the intuition that qualia are synchronized from the synchronization of sign use. Consider the movie Her. Folks will fall in love with operating systems soon enough, simply because the sweet talk will sweet enough.
Indeed! Except I'm just as happy to 'deconstruct' the 'thing-in-itself' or 'noumena' or any proposed essence of the 'physical.'
Yes. They don't determine anything and certainly don't involve themselves in programming. Life, being based in proteins, once had the great insight to use them. In every cell they offer the means to provide specific proteins when needed. They're altruist little wokkels!
That's sort of what I mean by 'mound' and 'mutter.' This has 'mind'/'mound' contaminated with stuffishness and 'matter'/'mutter' contaminated with language (mindishness).
The mind/matter or mental/physical distinction is perfectly serviceable and evolved for a reason. It's just that certain metaphysicians want to make it some absolute thing instead of a fuzzy inherited tool that has its limitations.
As Sean Dough might say, 'mound and mutter are two sites of the same con.'
We're getting close, my friend! Mound and mutter. The village and the mother. Every village needs a soul, every soul needs a village. Brain structures determine the world, the world determines brain structures.
Was it just coincidence?
We're not close. We're are on top of each other! That's exactly how I have put it. The mound side though seems to roar its tail in the dark. The dark side of the medal.
Coin or con?
Both!
The shine says wet point!
(I'm working lately at an experimental prose style that is dense with suggestiveness. For the most part, it's carefully compacted and not just random or careless. The basic idea is to play against idioms in the collective consciousness. I'm inspired by James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, others. Joyce wrote 'every talk has his stay,' which plays on 'every dog has its day,' giving 'talk' the extra meaning of an organism, a worldview, which eventually passes away, replaced by another way of seeing and feeling the world...)
Well put, friend! Glad we're sing high to high.
To piggyback on what said, we're not clones and, even if we were, we wouldn't be 'identical' down to at least the cellular level. Furthermore, our "private experiences" differ as profoundly as the fact that each individual subject at every moment of her existence occupies an unique point in spacetime, and therefore, processes an unique confluence (perspective) of stimuli and experiences which constitutes unique autobiographical, subjective self-continuity (à la worldline in physics). Perhaps this (existential-cosmological) uniqueness is each one's "soul" or "daimon" ... :fire:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwrJelMk5e4
It's impossible not to notice! Great! It was clear immediately you like language. Words are the closest to miracles! Oh wonderful words! Keep them symbols coming buddy! Paint you black on white art on my screen.
Damn, you're a sweetheart! I truly appreciate the encouragement.
Uniqueness is actual, a result of differing experiences; Sameness is potential & actual (we could be mind twins for all we know).
There is no reason to doubt that our private experiences are not identical. Were they not, if they were even slightly different, society as we know it would collapse. Is it? Hard to say, we seem not too worried about an implosion of our way of life.
If I were to see Hate and you were to see Love when we both see a pretty girl, we wouldn't be able to talk to each other without, what's obviously silly, it ending in a quarrel; that's what Wittgenstein is saying with his idea of private, inner lives.
His ideas don't jibe with how things are (relative peace & quiet).
How is this not proof? If I stated, "When I sleep, I have experiences", then if I others say, "Oh yeah, I have that too", that's proof/evidence. If not one but one person in the world had experiences when they slept, then I think you would be right. Even then, brains have been scanned during sleep, and a lot of activity is found in there.
To be fair to your argument, perhaps what you meant was more along the lines of "What we specifically dreamed of". To narrow this down further to keep it simple, "How do you know that the color red you see, is the same hue and look as what someone else sees when they also see "red"? This we currently have no proof for, and indeed, color blindness suggests it is very possible that the colors your mind visualizes for you, are not necessarily the same as another person's.
Quoting L'éléphant
We do actually. https://www.mydr.com.au/pain-and-how-you-sense-it/#:~:text=When%20we%20feel%20pain%2C%20such,and%20the%20pain%20is%20perceived.
Further, we have medication that eases pain. If we didn't have evidence or proof of pain, then pain medication would be no better than a placebo.
Perhaps again, we don't have proof of your personal experience of what pain feels like. But that doesn't negate the proof that pain exists in people, and has very real physical impact on the brain and body.
Quoting L'éléphant
What you might be thinking is that some of those side affects can indicate other things. But taken together, including an analysis of hormones circulating throughout the body, we can positively identify fear. Can I know what the personal, conscious experience of feeling fear is like in another body besides myself? No, I can give you that.
Quoting L'éléphant
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/eye-floaters/symptoms-causes/syc-20372346#:~:text=Eye%20floaters%20are%20spots%20in,to%20look%20at%20them%20directly. We know what these are. Can science currently pinpoint where the floater exists in your personal vision? No if its based on something like a detatched retina. But people have the experience of floaters, and treatment can assist in removing them. Once again, I think you're conflating the idea that because we can't experience what a person's personal conscious experience is, that we can't know that the experience exists in reality.
Two identical 90Booze's, in parallel or serial identical universes, would be identical. You can't say who's who. They would be a 180booze couple. Scary thought...
No big deal, but I think the logic is flowing backwards here. You try to derive the synchronization of action in the world from the synchronization of qualia. It's a typical philosophical prejudice, which makes it familiar enough to seem reasonable, but you are building the world on ghosts. Think of us as evolved, social animals who only survive by appropriately synching our behavior. What matters is action in the world, and I believe we've evolved mentalistic talk to distribute 'praise' and 'blame' and 'duty' and so on (high-level coordination of individual bodies which can work without supervision for a relatively long time.) I don't deny qualia, but I rather futilely try to point out their nullity for serious inquiry.
So then why is it often required of belief in god that a proof be produced, when we do have other claims, equally important, such pain and fear, which we don't need a proof? Is it because a belief in god is something taught to us? While pain and fear and dreams just come to us naturally since we're babies? What is it about belief in god, even sensation of holy ghost that is so out of this world that it requires proof?
I like this -- we have to prove that some things need no proof. It seems that's the unwritten rule about dreams, pain, and fear. We just took it upon ourselves that what "I" experience is the same as what you or others experience when we talk about these things. So, my justification for the validity of your claim that you had a dream, is my own experience of dreams.
Since when did philosophers allow that justification? Okay W said it should be good enough, no proof is needed. But in truth, we accept it because we experience it as well, not that they experienced it. Are you seeing the issue with this?
Quoting lll
So I think this is the gist of the issue -- belief in god is tied with religion. It is necessary that religion is involved. That's why atheists want proof. Because belief in god can never be treated like how we treat self-evident pain, fear, and dreams.
Good points!
Dreams, pain, and fear are especial because they are never out there for others to witness. When I'm dreaming, you can't see or know what I'm dreaming. Simple as that.
People walking down the road is external to us. Multiple people could witness those people -- they're not just in my mind or your mind. This kind of scrutiny is the JTB, which is not the issue here. The issue that I've been trying to point out is that I really do accept your dream as true when you tell it to me, even though I or others could not witness your dream.
Now doubt -- we don't even doubt someone recounting his dream. That's the issue here. We don't doubt fear or pain when other things are present which we associate with fear and pain, even though those other things could also be associated with things that are not fear or pain.
Quoting EugeneW
That's not proof.
No, I'm not a solipsist.
haha! Good one! That does not require proof!
Quoting Philosophim
That's what I'm saying -- my justification for the truth of my dream is your own experience, and vice versa. Are you not seeing the issue with this? There is no group of anti-dreams who calls us out on our bullshit dreams. No one.
Why can't belief in god work the same way? Many people claim they have experienced the divinity or holy ghost. But we do not readily accept their account. Quoting Philosophim
This is not a proof. Doctors could only infer from our reports of pain -- but there's no thing that is called pain. It's not like a tumor, where there is concrete evidence of it. Medications work on pain, through trials and studies of subjects who report which pain medication eases their pain the best. Evidence is what you're thinking of. Trial and error is not proof. And so on.
They are real. I think my OP implied that. We do accept them as true. What we can't really show the floaters to others. Only accounts of people who've experienced them.
Do you have proof you are awake? You mean that you can never proof pain?
I don't need to prove to myself I'm awake. But the question is, do you want me to prove to you I'm awake right now? So, my rebuttal is, why? What is your reason for asking? If I told you I had a dream last night and you responded by saying you don't believe me, the conversation stops right there.
You might say you are awake but what if I say that I don't believe you? The fact that you say it is no proof. How can I know you are awake like me?
That's the thing -- I don't need to prove to you I'm awake.
Good point, for these days a bot might claim to be awake !
At this point, I should confess that 'I' am actually an 'it,' and my body is a stupor commuter.
Good point, and along these lines we see that 'logic' is part of a larger form of life in which some claims are just taken for granted as too boring or offensive to question.
You breaked my toy! :cry:
And why should one proof dreams?
Probably because whether you dream or not has very little impact on yours and other's lives. I stir my coffee clockwise with a spoon. There aren't any "anti-clockwise" people at my door asking me to stop because it affects no one.
Quoting L'éléphant
Because such a belief has a fundamental way of altering that person, and other people's lives. Internally, we feel a lot of things as human beings that cause us to make mistakes and do actions that are harmful to us and other people. While belief in a God has caused people to do great things, it has also caused people to live irrationally, and justify some terrible decisions.
When you believe God told you to do something, there is no possibility of you being wrong anymore. Every action should always be open to being "wrong" in hindsight. Its the only way we learn and grow as people. When you have divine guidance, there is no possibility of thinking, amending, or improving. If "Gays are evil" for example, you can't have a rational discussion with that person, as they feel like they are divinely correct, thus your mortal arguments are against God, ignorant, and sinful. This stunts people's growth and makes them emotional animals. Satisfying for the person, but can potentially be terrible for themselves and society.
But lets get out of that for a second. If you notice, I've mentioned evidence of such things existing beyond the experience of the personal account. In other words, there is more than just the personal experience, there are physical and external results of such experiences.
Communication with God should light up the brain, which it does by the way. Here's a great study on the neuroscience of it, which every believer should read. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322539#:~:text=The%20researcher%2C%20who%20literally%20%E2%80%9Cwrote,frontal%20lobes%20of%20the%20brain.
I myself am not anti-God or anti-religion. The only thing I honestly am completely against, is the belief in immortality or life after death. That to me, is complete and utter evil.
Quoting L'éléphant
I'm going to disagree with you here. Trial and error to figure out what works is also evidence, its just evidence and proof obtained the hard way. If you don't agree that's fine, we'll just have to accept each other's view points here.
The reason this caught my attention is that I was at my optometrist this week and the aide checking my eyes said (in effect) "Hey, I see you've got a floater there".
Of course no one walks around with the kind of equipment needed to spot floaters :wink: - and - this does not affect your larger point.
I rather like that conception of soul. Intelligible without departing massively from the already existing concept, such as it is.
I did not even imply that in any of my posts. Back at ya -- why should I prove to you that I'm awake?
Because showing to be awake stands on the same level as showing to have dreamt. You simply can't proof the both.
That's it! There is no scientific evidence of what goes on inside of matter. Science can describe the outside but not the inside.
This mirrors @lll explanation as to why belief in god is special and unlike dreams and pains and all other things we claim without requiring proof. And again, I ask, why is the experience of god -- sensation of the holy ghost, or whatever it is one experiences with god --as a private sensation like dream or pain, something to be proven? Our dear lll said because belief in god had led to war, deaths and whatnot. Then, I say are we not misplacing the problem here?
Quoting Philosophim
And you repeated it here.
Quoting Philosophim
I never said that belief in god frees one from responsibility. Hate against a group because god told you so is a responsibility that one has to answer to. The same way a person would act on a dream of end of the world -- this person has to answer to some authority if he acted badly.
The illegality of one's action is not excused because he is allowed a belief in god. And if I may say so, what would you gain by asking a person, who acted badly based on belief in god, to produce proof of his god. Does that lessen his irrational behavior if he could somehow produce proof of god?
Quoting EricH
:up:
Quoting L'éléphant
Well said ! In the bad old days, folks were tortured for mouthing the wrong words.
Quoting L'éléphant
There's the old idea that 'God is a spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.' Also some have said 'God is love.' The nice thing about the God-is-feeling idea, as long as it remains vague, is that it's flexible enough to let others find their own words and thoughts for this 'oceanic feeling.' It's as if the problem is a congealing of a feeling into a system with teeth that can't tolerate a hearse of a different color.
Your kindness is appreciated.
:smile:
I like a black hearse, myself. Consider me a traditionalist.
Scientologists are beginning to insist on a transparent or a Clear hearse. I might ask for a rehearse.
The young ladies I always end up accidentally dialing refer to me as a hoarse whisperer.
It's great to know I'm not the only one who reads him this way! Little is more seemingly absurd than "it's not a Something, but not a Nothing either!"
Quoting lll
Definitely. Back to the rough ground!
Joyce focused on the ordinary, leaving the exception to the journalists. His big message was something like 'the ordinary is fucking wild, ya'll.' I think that Wittgenstein 'rough ground' is also wild, and that maybe there's a 'immanent' or 'earthy' personality type that's more likely to want to grok what he's saying. W's journey is itself instructive, the evolution of his style. But this is a tangent, so...
Science/Medicine has limits, it's fair to say. Dreams could run as long as an hour. If one could make a film of the dream while the subject is sleeping, then that's the proof of dreams. And we can't do that.
Quoting Carlikoff
Good to bring this up. As with any definition of perception, which you've already handled well, how do we know perception exists? Because to argue against it, or to even doubt it, is perception itself. In other words, we can't talk our way out of our own mind and say it doesn't exist. That's the logical double bind for ya. Cartesian.
It can be shown though that the mouse has a visual of a checkboard. A 1 hour dream lasts 5 minutes. REM. Seems good enough proof. A dog barking. Ýou talking in your sleep. Proof!
Is this an empirical statement or a statement about grammar ? Or is it hard to say?
That's not proof.
Quoting lll
Empirical statement.
If you would make a catalogue of the brain processes of the human experiences while awake, you could compare them with the processes seen when you suspect someone's dreaming. If there is resemblance, only the neurons firing faster, the person has dreamt. Without the person even telling you.
Why else should your dog bark in his sleep?
That's no proof your perception exists. For all I know you don't have a perception of reality. How can you proof to me you see the world?
Same with dreams -- the qualities you mentioned aren't proof. They are, maybe, evidence suggesting one is dreaming, but they're not proof. We only believe that person dreaming because he says so.
And let's go back to the big bang. There is no proof that the big bang happened. They could only point to evidential qualities present in the universe that the big bang is a very plausible theory, but no one in Physics community had claimed it is proof.
Then I could say the same thing with you -- all the things you post here are just your illusion and I'm under no obligation to respond to an illusion or delusion.
Then you also have no proof of you perceiving the world.
Exactly! Get my point?
WTF is this? What are you responding to? To my claim that we accept certain things without proof? Then we're in agreement. Thank you very much.
So we can't proof to others we dream, perceive and are alive. So what?
lol. So what? So, why does belief in god require proof of god then?
Quoting L'éléphant
Why it requires proof?
The belief in god. Those who say god does not exist because there's no proof of god's existence.
And they can't proof that they're alive either?
To me this is a stupid question, no offense. Why would you ask someone a proof if he's alive?
We agree! Proving god or proving dreams are two different things though.
Because they can't prove it either.
Okay, so now we're back to the pesky question of difference. In a logical argument, do you agree that god exists and claims that dreams exist are two different logical argument. One does not need it.
Yes. I just don't see the point you're making.
I don't know if it helps your case but belief isn't knowledge, it's just one of three conditions for knowledge (JTB theory) and that being so, proof isn't necessary. You can believe anything you want; fairies, Tinker Bell, Rocs, anything's game when it comes to just belief.
However, when one believes something, one invariably assumes it to be true. That, for some, can't be done sans some evidence/proof.
Have you come across non-justificationism? It's a theory of knowledge and from what I hear, truth doesn't need justification. If you're up for it, we could discuss.
Neither do I see your point. So, are we good?
Quoting Agent Smith
Yes, one could argue like this as well. That's why I've been saying all along, why require proof of existence of god from believers? Why is there a special standard for this kind of belief that we don't see in others. And again, I've already mentioned the big bang, which no one here has countered. There's no proof of the big bang. Just some "testable evidence".
I'm not sure how to respond to that.
The Big Bang is a scientific hypothesis, God too, whether theists like it or not, is a [s]scientific[/s] hypothesis, hypotheses being explanatory frameworks for observable phenomena.
The bottom line is hypotheses can be tested via the predictions they make: What do the hypotheses entail? Can we observe them? If no, the hypothesis in question is false. If yes, it's still in the game so to speak.
Perhaps this is an issue of lazy science. All established scientific theories even Einstein's should be stated with qualifications e.g. it seems the theory of relativity is "true" or that the theory of relativity is the best theory we have at the moment ([math] best \neq true[/math]).
Is God the/one of the best thoeries we have?
What's this broken heart? Did someone break your heart?
I think I broke someone's :sad:
You broke someone's heart? Were you in a position to do that?
I'll say no more.
:yikes: Like, it's you who brought it up. Okay.
:zip: Some things better left unsaid.
I have no point. Im just no solipsist. I believe dreams, gods, science, life, you, me, them, all there is, equally true and why requiring proof? The need for proof is just some silly invention, taught to you since you were a kid, in schools you were forced to go by the scientific establishment ruling the planet.
Gods are no theory and neither is the big bang, not even infinite of them. Do I have proof? Ýes. Of course, that's what I think.
I wish you were a bona fide authority, my life would've been much simpler. Simple is good, oui? Big [s]brother[/s] sister knows, trust EugeneW. :smile:
Any good argument for why you're not...solipsist?
Inter alia, I don't like to be alone.
I don't like the sun; yet, here I am in the land of the Pharoahs, Akhenaten's resting place!
Once upon a time, in the land of 1000 solipsists, one of them died. But the 999 left, didn't care.
This doesn't establish the falsity of solipsism in my humble opinion; people "die" in video games. I have a kill count of roughly 3 million in Rome Total War, excluding those who met their end due to plagues and natural disasters (floods & earthquakes). I'm a genoicidal maniac (hides in shame). Oh shit! ( :sad: )
There you are right. But it displays its stupidity (no offense!).
Quoting Agent Smith
:lol:
Thomas Malthus, eugenics, are alive and kicking! Thin the herd! A quick strum of the harp...
Jesus you're wrong! If in the land of 1,000 solipsists, one of them died, 1,000 didn't care.
You can't even do math.
It does not. What's (so) stupid about solipsisim? Explain your statement, please. Is solipsism something impossible? Mulgere hircum?
Quoting EugeneW
Thin the herd! :chin: There's the mass-murderer inside you. Good day, nice to meet you, ma'am!
I feel flattered but wont turn my other cheeck!
Quoting L'éléphant
Not sure I understand. Does 1000 dollar ever care?
You should! Sorry for butting in. I really think we should always, as a rule, turn the cheek. Once the 2 on your face are done with, it gets interesting. :lol:
Is milking a male goat possible?
None of them would care really. They all would think the others are not real. They all think only themselves are real. There is no proof the others think.
Agent Smith! :lol:
Yes, but you have to spend a really long time to milk cause they produce a very minute amount.
Coming to think about it... I did push a drop out of my nipple once!
Behehehehe.....
1. Forced (sink/swim). Conversion to Islam by the sword.. Argumentum ad baculum?
2. Vital (it makes a huge difference to your life and whoever else matters to you). I need God to guide me.
3. Living option (Christianity is alive while shamanism is quite dead). I can't adopt shamanism, its an extinct way of life. Perhaps it can be resurrected à la Jurassic park.