Idealist Logic
[U]Part 1[/u]
[I]Thought experiment![/I]
There is a rock, but no one is there to perceive it, because we all died an hour previously.
Is there a rock? Yes or no?
Yes, a rock is an object, and the existence of objects don't depend on us being around perceiving them.
It is not the case that to be is to be perceived. To be is to be, and that's that.
Some people, however, believe that there isn't a rock, because that would be a contradiction. But there isn't a contradiction unless you go by an idealist premise, an idealist premise which is demonstrably false, as it leads to absurdity, as per the above scenario.
[U]Part 2[/u]
The word "rock" means [i]the solid mineral material forming part of the surface of the Earth and other similar planets, exposed on the surface or underlying the soil[/I], in my language, which is based on the English language, and which you can simply refer to as English or my language. However, no one is there to understand what this word means, because we all died an hour previously.
Does the word "rock" mean anything? Does it mean what it means in English?
Yes, it means something, it means what it means in English, because "rock" is a word, and words have a set meaning, and once set, this does not depend on us being around to interpret or understand the meaning.
Some people believe otherwise. They consider that to be impossible, as it would be a contradiction. But that's just because they're going by a false premise resembling the idealist premise from Part 1.
It is not the case that for linguistic meaning to be, it must be interpreted or understood by someone at the time. It means what it means, and that's that.
I am a realist regarding both the existence of objects and the meaning of words. I am consistent. Where do you stand and why? Is your position logical, like mine, or, when put to the test, will it be exposed as illogical, i.e. unsound?
[I]Thought experiment![/I]
There is a rock, but no one is there to perceive it, because we all died an hour previously.
Is there a rock? Yes or no?
Yes, a rock is an object, and the existence of objects don't depend on us being around perceiving them.
It is not the case that to be is to be perceived. To be is to be, and that's that.
Some people, however, believe that there isn't a rock, because that would be a contradiction. But there isn't a contradiction unless you go by an idealist premise, an idealist premise which is demonstrably false, as it leads to absurdity, as per the above scenario.
[U]Part 2[/u]
The word "rock" means [i]the solid mineral material forming part of the surface of the Earth and other similar planets, exposed on the surface or underlying the soil[/I], in my language, which is based on the English language, and which you can simply refer to as English or my language. However, no one is there to understand what this word means, because we all died an hour previously.
Does the word "rock" mean anything? Does it mean what it means in English?
Yes, it means something, it means what it means in English, because "rock" is a word, and words have a set meaning, and once set, this does not depend on us being around to interpret or understand the meaning.
Some people believe otherwise. They consider that to be impossible, as it would be a contradiction. But that's just because they're going by a false premise resembling the idealist premise from Part 1.
It is not the case that for linguistic meaning to be, it must be interpreted or understood by someone at the time. It means what it means, and that's that.
I am a realist regarding both the existence of objects and the meaning of words. I am consistent. Where do you stand and why? Is your position logical, like mine, or, when put to the test, will it be exposed as illogical, i.e. unsound?
Comments (633)
That's a definition, not a meaning. They're not the same thing. Objectively, the definition is just marks on paper, or activated pixels on a computer screen (or whatever particular thing we might be referring to). Meaning is a mental activity, a way that we think about things like marks on paper, sounds that other people make, and so on.
"Definition" is a handy term for the marks on paper, the text strings, etc.
I'm a realist on things like rocks. I'm an antirealist on things like meaning.
There are things that at least creatures with brains do, mental things--"mental" being a property of those brains functioning in particular ways, where those phenomena only occur in brains functioning in those ways (or perhaps in some other materials functioning in particular ways, too--but we're not aware of any mental activity outside of brains yet). Not everything is just a brain functioning mentally, but some things are. Not everything that brains do when they're functioning mentally is identical to some other phenomenon in the world, either (which is what some people who seem to want to insist everything is objective seem to believe). If we (and other creatures with similar brains) were to disappear, those sorts of phenomena would disappear. Just like if planets were to disappear, then phenomena unique to planets--like plate tectonics, for example--would disappear.
So the object continues to exist without mind but the image is gone.
The contradiction is believing that their are external minds, but not external rocks when we basically have the same access or information to both. Idealism inexorably leads to solipsism. Solipsism is basically direct realism as the mind IS reality. So idealism defeats itself and realism has the final word.
Quoting S
Archeologists are able to determine what long dead civilizations meant with their words, so the words still carry meaning through time - just like everything else. It is this meaning that scientists are getting at - the meaning of the scribbles on this vase, or the meaning of the vase itself. Just like everything else, it takes time and observation to come up with a consistent explanation of what some phenomenon means, or is caused by. With the necessary tools, like a Rosetta Stone or a microscope, scientists can get at reality and it's meaning. Meaning is the relationship between cause and effect.
That's indirect realism.
Of course it's a definition. It's also a meaning. I just publicly expressed through our shared language what the meaning is.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I didn't say that they're the same thing. When I say that the definition I gave gives us the meaning, I'm not saying that the definition I gave gives us the definition. Even if we were to use the words interchangeably in some cases, what I'm saying is informative, like that water is H20.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Your first sentence seems irrelevant to my argument, in that even if true, it doesn't seem to refute anything in my argument.
Your second sentence I disagree with, because it leads to absurdity, as I demonstrated, so you have the burden of getting yourself out of that pickle.
Over to you.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Sure.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's the same logic, so it seems inconsistent.
Quoting Terrapin Station
This seems to be where some people go off track. It's like saying, "But I need eyes to see!". Yes, you do. So what? The rock is there, even if you can't see it. I accept that we rely on various mental or perceptual functions for various things, like seeing and understanding, and obviously we would need to be there to begin with in order to see the rock or understand what the word "rock" means. But that is not relevant to my position, and it is only relevant to those who go by idealist logic [i]because of[/I] that idealist logic, [i]which ought to be rejected[/I].
Right, and meaning is another one of those things.
We simply disagree on whether meaning is one of those things. So your challenge would be to point to the objective properties that are meaning.
:up: :ok:
Quoting Harry Hindu
So you'd say that there's nothing in the world that doesn't "do" meaning?
Like bacteria deal with meaning all the time in your view?
I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase?
Incorrect. I accept that we rely on various mental or perceptual functions for various things, like seeing and understanding, and obviously we would need to be there to begin with in order to see the rock[/I] or [i]in order to understand what the word "rock" means[/I], but we [i]only need to be there, doing those things, [i]for these ends[/I], and these ends are [i]clearly irrelevant[/I]. Meaning does [i]not[/I] depend on understanding. That's your burden of proof, in addition to your burden of trying to escape my reduction to the absurd with the scenario where we died an hour previously.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It isn't.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I've already ruled out the alternative with a reduction to the absurd, so your challenge is to sort that out.
As for the above, meaning is objective. Whatever "properties" meaning has, they are such that it is objective. I don't need to get into specifics, I've demonstrated that this is how it must be.
Well, do you have an idea of what I'm saying if I say that "Joe utilizes meaning"?
"Meaning depends on understanding" is not a view I hold.
Quoting S
No idea what you're talking about there. So I guess you can't point to the objective properites that are meaning? How surprising.
Employs it in any manner. However you want to think of it.
Do you think that people do not use meaning in some manner?
Then pay closer attention. I told you that I was talking about the hypothetical scenario and what I conclude from it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You are being evasive and you seem to be confused about how the burden of proof works.
Over to you.
Still no idea. You could spell it out (or at least reference what you're talking about so I can look at it again), or I can just not worry about it.
Quoting S
LOL
Right, and planets are objective things that exist independently of not just minds, but everything else. Your mind is external to mine and is therefore as real as a planet and it's unique phenomena. If plate tectonics are an objective feature of reality, then meaning (by your own definition, not the definition I use) would be an objective feature of the reality too.
My definition makes meaning objective without contradiction
Again, I use the word "subjective" to refer to brains functioning in mental ways. (Well, or anything functioning in a mental way, but so far there's only good evidence of brains being able to do this.)
"Real" I usually try to avoid unless the context is clear, because there are technical ways that it's been used in philosophy historically that are very confusing to common, modern usage. So I avoid it unless it's pretty clear that a conversation is using the term in a particular way.
Meaning is not an objective feature by my definition, because objective refers to the complement of brains functioning in mental ways.
Don't worry about it then. I've already spelt it out. If you're going to be so hasty and careless, then that doesn't bode well for how the rest of the discussion will go.
But if you want to use your brain and do this properly, then show me that you can and get back to me.
Cool.
This is an impossible scenario. Who determines the point in time of an hour past when we all died, if we all died? That's the problem with scenarios like this. You want to remove all human presence, yet still presupposed the means for designating a particular place at a particular time, and ask "what's there?". But who would do that designating?
And "subjective" would be an objective feature of reality being a function of minds, which are an objective feature of reality. How is that I am able to be aware of your mind and your meanings without using my senses in some way?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Why would it matter how many brains? We don't make that same distinction when it comes to planets and how they function.
We've already had this discussion and it didn't end well.
This means I win by default, as feigning ignorance or not trying anywhere near as hard enough on your end is not an excuse.
LOL (quite literally)
Minds are a non-mind feature of reality?
That doesn't answer the question. Is there a rock or isn't there?
I knew I wouldn't be the only one to take a sensible position on this. A little faith in humanity has been restored.
Per how I use the terms, how I define them, it's what you said.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, and I said:
Quoting Harry Hindu
and you didn't answer.
Right, I didn't answer because I wanted you to just address that first part and not skip it.
Re "Why would it matter how many brains?" I don't understand what you're asking. I didn't say anything about quantity of anything. So from where are you getting the idea that "it matters how many brains" in anyone's view?
That is a common tactic of his, but at least he is trying to defend his definitions with me at the moment.
Your definition isn't relevant here. The question here is whether it is objective by my definition.
Re the things that I'm an antirealist on, re the stupid "burden of proof" convention, you're not arguing that we don't think things like meanings, are you?
Harry brought up my views in posts directed at me.
I have no idea what your definition of "objective" even is.
What? Where are you getting anything like that from? Could you answer what/why you're asking re "it matters how many brains"?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm not quite clear on your distinction here.
Ah, my favourite inadvertent comedian has showed up. Figuring out how much time has past and what is there and designating this or that and other human activities are completely irrelevant. If you can, in a logical manner, demonstrate the supposed relevance, then we can take it from there.
Mind/not mind
Right, and we went over this in the previous thread where we discussed this. I thought you had something different for this discussion. You are making the case that minds are special in some way that deserve this kind of distinction. Why don't we use terms to make distinctions between planets and non-planets, specifically?
It's relevant because your hypothetical scenario assumes the capacity to designate a particular time and a particular place when there are no human beings.
So, let's start from the beginning. All human beings die. What next?
I'm not making the case that anything is "special" . . . the distinction comes up often especially in philosophy, though.
We could make a distinction for planets/not-planets, too. If people talked about planet versus not-planet things a lot, I'm sure we'd have a variety of synonyms for that.
We do all the time. Whenever you talk about something that isn't a planet you'd be referring to that property of reality that is non-planet.
Frustrating, isn't it? People skipping important things. So, on that note, are you going to address my argument against your position yet? Or are you still pretending that you have no idea what I'm talking about, and you're powerless to do anything about it? :lol:
Specifically as "non-planet," not that it just happens to be that.
Whether something is mental or not is an evergreen topic in philosophy.
What would be the motivation for not either exerting the massive amount of energy it would take to point to the post or to simply copy/pasting it?
To teach you a lesson about [I]quid pro quo[/I].
Yes you are. You are saying that mind's deserve a special term that distinguishes their uniqueness from everything else. Planets are just as unique as minds. Everything has special properties that distinguishes it from other things, yet you are only focused on the uniqueness of minds.
Philosophy, like your definitions, is often an anthropomorphic endeavor.
All it teaches me is that you don't care enough to not do the same stupid thing everyone does in conversations like this. You don't care about actually discussing it. You only care about "winning."
I'll type the same shit over and over, I'll reexplain things every way I can think of doing so as long as someone seems interested in a conversation.
You don't care enough about it to even post a link to a post you're claiming to want to talk about. You've got to play a stupid game about it.
If you even just give me three or four words from a phrase in the post you're talking about, I can search for it.
What does that even mean? We think them up, we set them, then they no longer depend on someone thinking about them. They simply mean what they do. Why would someone need to be there thinking about what a word means for it to mean what it does? The meaning has already been set.
No, I'm explicitly NOT saying this. It's nothing about "deserving" anything. And I didn't invent the terms. There's nothing special about it. It's just a fact that there are minds and things that aren't minds (and a fact that philosophers talk about all the time in various guises).
I'm not saying anything about comparative uniqueness whatsoever.
Of course you don't. You won't do if you don't pay sufficient attention. Why not take this as a lesson? You would benefit from it.
"We think them up"--okay, so you're not saying that meanings don't occur in minds.
So what am I supposed to be "proving." You already agree that meanings occur in minds. That's my view.
We just disagree whether meanings occur outside of minds. So I simply asked what you accept as evidence that they occur outside of minds, a la pointing me (even if indirectly) to any non-mental meaning properties.
I've had to tell Harry what my definitions are about 50 times, and I'm still not sure he gets it. I'll gladly tell him again, in as many different ways as I can think of telling him, because I'm interested in him understanding it and having a conversation about it. I couldn't care less about anyone "winning."
You imply it with the application of your terms and the fact that you don't have alternate terms that refer to planet/non-planet, star/non-star, rock/non-rock, human/non-human, etc. etc. ad infinitum distinctions.
You might be reading that into it, but I can only keep repeating that I don't at all believe that there's anything "special" about it or anything to say about comparative uniqueness or anything like that. You don't have to believe me, but I'll keep telling you. ;-)
I use lots of synonyms/synonymous phrases for things like logical entailment (implication, following, etc.) versus irrelevance (non sequitur, doesn't follow, arbitrary, etc.) ,because that's a common topic in philosophy, too. Things we talk about all the time tend to have a lot of synonyms or synonymous phrases.
And part of the reason for that is via trying to both clarify and explain something to others. We frequently have to put things in other words for that. Other words can't be the same words. ;-).
No it doesn't, but you're welcome to make that argument.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That's not the beginning. To find the beginning, all you have to do is go back and check the opening post. But since some people are finding such tasks so difficult, I will go out of my way for you and make it easier, so I hope you're grateful.
The beginning of Part 1:
The beginning of Part 2:
We start from the situation as it is now, where there are rocks, and where the word "rock" has a particular meaning.
Then we all die.
Then I draw logical consequences from reasonable premises and definitions, and you...?
Nothing "happens next". There are still rocks, and words still mean what they do.
What happened to this subthread, by the way:
"Employs it in any manner. However you want to think of it.
"Do you think that people do not use meaning in some manner?"
If you were interested in me knowing what you're referring to, we could just point to it in some way.
Then you have more patience than me. My patience has limits, as it should do, as per Aristotle's golden mean. Excessive patience creates a fool.
I don't like being manipulated into an unfair one-sided relationship, which is what I suspect you of trying to do here.
Yeah, I basically have an endless amount of patience, which was beneficial when I taught, which I did for a number of years.
Thinking of conversations as manipulations probably doesn't help get things rolling well.
If you're talking about your comments in the first post of the thread, by the way (why couldn't you just say that if so?), it wasn't at all clear to me from the start what you had in mind re "absurdity." But I don't like to pick apart everything in a long post that anyone writes--neither the person I'd be responding to or I enjoy that, so I didn't bother with it.
I'm not an antirealist on things like rocks, but I don't believe there's any way to "prove" that idealism is wrong. It's just a matter of whether we have good reasons to believe one thing versus another.
And you caved in when those you were teaching were trying it on, I suppose? Not demonstrating enough effort, and wanting an easy ride? No? Then don't try that shit with me. If I think you're better than that, then I expect better than that from you.
If anyone ever didn't seem to understand something, ever asked for an explanation, clarification, etc I explained things again, and in other words, trying different approaches, etc. That doesn't mean it always worked, but it was my job to try, not to chastise them for not understanding something (more quickly, in whatever words I initially chose).
If I would have had any teachers who wouldn't have done that when I requested it, I would have immediately gone to their superiors and complained. .
Yeah, well, I would've made a better teacher than you, unorthodox or otherwise. My school would be composed of elite students. The very best. Those who consistently show a willingness to put the effort in, and if and when they don't put the effort in, then they learn the hard way.
My opening post wasn't that long, and it was succinct. Much more succinct than the kind of content which others around here are capable of producing. I also gave pretty clear references.
I take it that you now understand, if you genuinely didn't understand before, and maybe you've even learnt a lesson about putting more effort in in future, putting that brain of yours to use. So we can now move on, yes?
So you were talking about your initial post in this thread. What, exactly, is supposed to be absurd about the idealist stance in (1)?
The first part that wasn't clear to me in that section was "Some people, however, believe that there isn't a rock, because that would be a contradiction." What (claimed) contradiction are you referring to?
And then you say "an idealist premise which is demonstrably false, as it leads to absurdity,"--I didn't see you specify any absurdity prior to that. You just stated the basic realist view. It's not an absurdity to not believe the realist view. They could likewise simply state the idealist view and then say that the realist view is an absurdity because it's not the idealist view.
With both parts I employ a reduction to the absurd. You can pick one or the other or both.
Quoting Terrapin Station
By their logic, there can be no rock, because there is no one there to perceive it. I made the idealist premise clear: to be is to be perceived. I gave that word for word in my opening post.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Sure. It's absurd because it is very compelling that there would be a rock, as my hypothetical scenario shows. Is there a more compelling case for idealism of which you're aware? How can an idealist beat my argument?
They're only contradicting the realist view. Which of couse they'll be the first to admit.
And the realist account isn't compelling to idealists--or they wouldn't be idealists in the first place. So "This is compelling to me" doesn't make an alternate view absurd.
"Absurdity" in a philosophical context would normally refer to a reductio ad absurdum, where you assume the opposing argument and then show (via consequences that follow formally) that it leads to an absurd conclusion--but that only works where the person holding the opposing argument would agree that the conclusion is absurd, or more formally, where the conclusion winds up contradicting one of the logically derived, earlier consequences of the premises, an earlier consequence which they do accept (so that then, to accept the conclusion, which would need to be valid, they'd need to accept a contradiction). An idealist about the existence of rocks isn't going to think that "rocks are only in our minds" (or anything like that) is absurd. (Just like as an antirealist on meaning, I obviously don't think "meaning is ony in our minds" is absurd.)
That's an odd way of speaking, as though of an event, rather than what's the case. What would be the case in the hypothetical scenario is that "rock" means what it does. That it relied (past-tense) on someone or other setting the meaning, which relied (past-tense) on their mind, is completely irrelevant to my point.
Quoting Terrapin Station
See the above.
Quoting Terrapin Station
My reduction to the absurd demonstrates objective meaning, so you must deal with that. That's all my argument is intended to demonstrate. Once again, I do not have to go into specifics about properties and whatnot. That's not a burden I have. Once again, I am not going to allow you to lead me down the garden path.
You might as well say, "My view is that P. I'm right, and that's that."
Talk about pedantry. I'm allowed a little stylistic freedom, and I'm going to take advantage of that, and that's that!
You set forth your view in a number of claims. The claims weren't an argument (nothing followed from anything else). You didn't state a reductio ad absurdum. You simply claimed that believing other than you do is a "contradiction" and an absurdity.
You agree that meanings are present in minds. That's the case when we "think them up" as you said. It's the case when we "perceive" them (in your view), and so on. I'm saying that meanings are present in minds, too.
But you're saying something additional. You're saying that meanings are also present in other things. I'm not claiming anything additional.
The burden of proof convention, if you care about that, applies to the person claiming something additional.
Assume P is true.
From this assumption, deduce that Q is true.
Also, deduce that Q is false.
Thus, P implies both Q and not Q (a contradiction, which is necessarily false).
Therefore, P itself must be false.
I accept that, except I'm not merely saying that it is compelling to me. That's a poor way to interpret my argument. Obviously it is compelling to me. It is also compelling to many others, but perhaps not all. This needs an explanation. And my thinking is that the idealist is doing something wrong. Maybe I wouldn't find it as compelling if I believed that [i]to be[/I] is [i]to be perceived[/I], but why would I believe that, and why wouldn't I believe that the logical consequence of there being no rocks in an hours time when we all go extinct is a far greater absurdity than rejecting the idealist premise?
Quoting Terrapin Station
What you're pointing out is trivial. People can always bite the bullet with a reduction to the absurd. That might mean that they're consistent, but that isn't all that matters. Not by a long shot!
it's irrelevant how many people something is compelling to. Appealing to that is the argumentum ad populum fallacy. And the person who is claiming something different has no need to explain a common alternate belief unless they're interested in some sort of psychology/sociology project. Alternate views aren't made true by explaining how a belief that's wrong got popular (or made false by failing to explain that).
The point is that you didn't set forth an argument, and you didn't at all estbalish a reductio ad absurdum--an argument is necessary for that.
That idealism or antirealism on something is unusual may very well be the case, but that has no implications for its truth or falsity.
True.
Quoting Terrapin Station
False.
Quoting Terrapin Station
False.
Quoting Terrapin Station
False (misrepresentation in light of "simply").
Quoting Terrapin Station
Possibly false. I wouldn't word it that way, and I have not agreed to wording it that way.
Quoting Terrapin Station
We think them up, yes. It doesn't follow that they're actually present in our minds, as though they have an actual location. Some of our language is metaphorical. The sun doesn't literally rise in the morning. What I'm saying isn't literally going over your head in a physical trajectory.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I get that you're saying that meanings are present in minds, and that you're attributing that to me also.
Quoting Terrapin Station
False. You know my position on location. We went over this in the other discussion. You seem to be suggesting something that I consider to be a category error.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, and I've already given an argument from the very beginning for objective meaning, which is the additional claim, so I've met that burden. The burden of proof, if you care about that as I do, is now without a doubt on the person who makes claims contrary to my argument. If you reject my argument, then you have the burden.
I find you predictable, and your skill at identifying fallacies needs some development. You have misunderstood or else deliberately misrepresented my point.
It is not a complete coincidence that most people believe that Earth is not flat. Most people believe that Earth is not flat because there is good reason to. This is a correlation which could be studied, and results discovered. I predict that the results would indicate that most people reject the theories which they know, based on the currently available evidence, have the least going for them, like flat Earth theory and idealism. Of course, I am not at all suggesting that anomalies are impossible, and I am not at all suggesting that a theory is true just because many or most people believe it.
Now, if you're done with wasting both of our time with your shoddy analysis, perhaps we can move on.
Quoting Terrapin Station
False.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Beside the point. I think that the idealist [i]is getting something wrong[/I].
We could call this a premise, okay.
Followed by two questions . . . Which is fine, but of course questions are not logical entailments.
That doesn't follow from anything above, it's just another claim.
[Quote]and the existence of objects don't depend on us being around perceiving them.[/quote]
Again, this doesn't follow from anything above it. It's just another claim.
Doesn't follow from anything above. Another claim.
[Quote]To be is to be[/quote]
Doesn't follow. And it doesn't actually exclude "to be is to be perceived."
The stylistic gesture we mentioned earlier.
[Quote]Some people, however, believe that there isn't a rock[/quote]
Doesn't follow from anything above (it's probably not supposed to, but I'm just making sure we know that).
Doesn't follow from anything above. Also, they don't believe that there isn't any real rock because of any contradiction, by the way. It's rather just that their belief contradicts your belief.
[Quote]But there isn't a contradiction unless you go by an idealist premise,[/quote]
This doesn't follow from anything above, and as a claim, it also doesn't make much sense. Again, the only contradiction is that their belief is the negation of yours.
There were no demonstrations above, no argument--nothing followed from anything else. It was just a series of claims.
[Quote] as it leads to absurdity, as per the above scenario.[/quote]
But you showed no absurdity at all.
So you don't believe that your mind has a location, either?
Do you reject the premise or claim that a rock is an object? Do you reject the claim that there would be a rock in the scenario? Which premise or claim do you reject, if any, and why?
The issue isn't rejecting premises. The issue is that you didn't present an argument. In an argument, there need to be premises and conclusions that follow from them. No statement in your post follows from any other statement in your post. Hence it's not an argument.
Reductio ad absurdum is a type of argument. You can't have a reductio if you aren't presenting an argument.
That doesn't make it the case that you presented an argument, however, or that you presented a reductio ad absurdum.
Lol. You don't even understand what an appropriate argument is in the context. An argument of the kind that can be presented in an opening post on this forum is not of the kind which can consist in an infinite regress of premises and supporting arguments for those premises, and then supporting arguments for the premises within the supporting arguments, and so on and so forth to infinity. There's not enough space for that in an opening post. It would be far too long.
So yes, there are premises unsupported in the opening post which would require further discussion. Yes, there are background assumptions. That's what the discussion part is for.
So you don't agree that arguments require that some statements follow from other statements?
That doesn't follow from what I said, so it's an inappropriate question. I do agree, and if you would like to request a valid argument for one of my premises in my argument in the opening post, then you should simply make that request instead of going off on a ludicrous tirade.
You're saying that some of the statements in your initial post followed from other statements, but you just didn't fill out the details that show how they follow?
Wait a minute. The specific object that I was talking about is a rock. So if you're talking about what I'm talking about, then you're saying that the rock continues to exist. So we agree. We're both realists.
And if you're not talking about what I'm talking about, then you need to explain why you changed the subject.
Yes, I assumed that people would be intelligent enough to figure it out or to request my reasoning. The opening post was, to a large extent, to set out the positions and some of the key premises involved, and to present a thought experiment, which I am using as part of my argument. Not absolutely everything was explicit.
Okay. Could you detail the reductio argument, at least?
Part 1 is the problematic idealism of Descartes, which allows the empirical reality of physical objects, such as rocks. Part 2 is the dogmatic idealism of Berkeley, which allows for nothing but that which arises out of mind alone, such as rocks and meanings. Both have been sufficiently refuted by German Idealism of the late 18th century. But such philosophical refutation is not thereby unqualified support for realism in and of itself.
Is the rock still there is the same as is the light stay on in the fridge when the door is closed. There’s no reason to suppose it does, given the mechanics of the system, but no way to directly, or without some kind of material support, make a non-contradictory affirmation of truth about the light. With respect to the tautological analytic “to be is to be”, while it may well be sufficient to deflect a contradiction, it does nothing to provide an existential truth, for its predicate conceptions are always empty, equivalent to saying, “all rocks are”.
To list a set of properties or conditions conceived as belonging to an object does not confer meaning to it, but only the means to identify it, and the more conceptions and conditions the greater the precision of the identity. It follows that another intelligence, if it assigns conceptions and conditions at all, may still identify some common object but under its own correspondence system.
It seems to me, that in the event that some intelligence formulating a rational system goes defunct in totality, anything to do with that intelligence immediately becomes irrelevant. In the event of an intelligence going defunct in totality, then for that defunct intelligence to proffer scenarios with respect to itself, is irrational.
OK, I'll produce the argument. In order that "there is a rock" is true, it is required that a place in space and time be designated, where the rock is located. And that's what you say in the op, in your opening line "there is a rock".
So, then you remove that human capacity to designate a particular place in space and time, by saying all humans are gone. And so "an hour" is meaningless because there is no one to interpret "an hour", or to measure that hour. So your scenario is a meaningless impossibility, due to contradiction. You posit the capacity to determine an hour later, when there are no humans and "an hour" is meaningless.
Quoting S
No, your premise #1 assumes already, that "there is a rock", after the humans are gone, then proceeds to ask if there is a rock, so it's just begging the question. Of course there is a rock, the premise dictates it. But what I am trying to show you is that your premise is contradictory, so it's nonsense.
Part 1 begins with a thought experiment:
I find one answer considerably more compelling than the other, and that's the affirmative. I suspect that this is the same for most others, which could either be a complete coincidence, which seems implausible, or it could be that there's more going on here. I further suspect that, when they aren't wearing their idealist hat, the idealists also find the affirmative considerably more compelling.
This is surely evidence of something, and a basis to present an explanation.
My thinking is that the only reason why idealists fight against this, is because their idealist logic for which they're committed holds them back. The issue then becomes, which is more absurd: rocks that suddenly cease to exist along with us, or the idealist premise which links the one and the other together?
Is a world with rocks, but no humans, just a figment of my imagination, and not a real possibility? I don't think so. Isn't that what the world was like before we existed? I think so. Isn't that what it would be like again if we all went extinct in an hour? I think so.
It's then about what explanation works best, given the above. How about that rocks are mind-independent objects?
My reasoning for Part 2 is very similar.
Okay, that's an interesting input from you. However, what about the big questions? Are you going to directly answer them?
Would there be a rock? And would the word "rock" mean what it does?
Your "argument" begins with a false premise that I have already rejected. I am asking you to support that premise, not to beg the question. Why is a human activity, such as designation presumably is, supposedly required at the time, in the scenario, by humans, in order for there to be a rock? Please don't go around in circles. I don't want a repeat of your reasoning following the assumption of your key premise, I want you to try to justify your key premise.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
More thoughtless begging the question. You are merely reasoning from your own assumptions. That's not a valid response to what I'm seeking from you, but it's you after all, so it is what I have come to expect.
For example, you say that "an hour" is meaningless because there is no one there to interpret what that means. This is precisely the link that I'm questioning. Your argument is therefore fallacious.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Oh the irony. Let me clarify: that was a thought experiment. You and I are both capable of thinking about the scenario of there being a rock, but no people, in spite of the false idealist premise which you adhere to.
Man, you’re asking for answers I think would be impossible to give. I’m a reductive epistemologist, insofar as there should still be a rock without intelligent observers, following Einstein’s metaphysical rationale, because sentience is not a necessary condition for existence. More than that, re: is there still a rock, I am not equipped to know with any certainty whatsoever. Best I could do is......probably, and.....why would I care?
At the same time I classify myself as a transcendental idealist insofar as my reason is absolutely paramount, and while I am permitted by it to speculate all I want, I have to beware of contradicting myself. If I am the intelligence that assigns meaning, and then allow meaning to obtain without me assigning it, I have right then contradicted myself. As for the question on meaning then, I must say meaning would not hold outside the intelligence that assigned it originally.
I maintain not that you are irrational, but the argument requires irrational answers if such answers claim a measure of affirmative truth.
I don't quite follow your argument about meaning. Can you explain it in a way that I can better understand?
Quoting Mww
I don't get why not. You assign meaning, then for some reason, that meaning is dependent on whether you live or die? If we agree on the meaning of the word "rock", we record that meaning by writing it down, but then we die, why wouldn't it retain the meaning, in our language, that we agreed upon and set?
How do you explain hieroglyphics and the like in light of a "no" to Part 2?
Well, yes, as it’s your first premise.
But the idealist will say that the first premise and the second premise cannot both be true, so your hypothetical scenario can never obtain.
Well, yes, but that was intended as a thought experiment, as I've just explained to Metaphysician Undercover. And there's more to my argument than that, as I've just explained to Terrapin Station.
So you have some catching up to do, buddy.
Quoting S
All you’re saying here is that you find realism more intuitive than idealism, but that’s not an argument and says nothing about logic.
Okay, well then how about this: [i]I'm right, and that's that![/I]
Seriously though, you guys need to learn to detect arguments that don't necessarily fit what you're expecting to see. What I'm doing is sharing what seems more plausible to me, and either suggesting or explicitly asking whether anyone can do any better. Is there a better explanation for what I've mentioned or not? Silence is not a better explanation than what I've said or suggested. It's no explanation at all!
How does idealism explain the stuff I've brought up, and how do the explanations compare? What about all of the evidence in support of rocks prexisting us? And which is more absurd: rocks that suddenly cease to exist along with us, or the idealist premise which links the one and the other together?
Where are the answers from the idealist camp? Let's see if they can fare any better.
How can you guys say that this is not an argument? It is clearly a challenge at the very least!
So it isn't an argument. You're just describing what realists believe and stating your support of it.
Quoting S
I'm not sure if this counts as an explanation:
"Is a world with rocks, but no humans, just a figment of my imagination, and not a real possibility? I don't think so. Isn't that what the world was like before we existed? I think so. Isn't that what it would be like again if we all went extinct in an hour? I think so."
Or would you accept this as the idealist's explanation?
"Is a world with rocks, but no humans, just a figment of my imagination, and not a real possibility? I think so. Isn't that what the world was like before we existed? I don't think so. Isn't that what it would be like again if we all went extinct in an hour? I don't think so."
Anyway, this looks like a good argument also. So there you go, have at it, people.
I would explain hieroglyphics by saying the author of them, even if a different culture, is still the same kind of intelligence as I am now. They rationalize in their way as I in mine, merely with distinct conventions. It follows that I should decipher their writing, hence their meanings, given enough information. With an entirely separate kind of rationality, that information would not be available.
What say you?
My goodness. I had this with Terrapin already. With each step, we can dig a little deeper. Now, obviously I am in support of it for a reason. As a whole, it is indeed an argument, but not absolutely everything is going to be explicit for all of you Aspies to immediately see.
Quoting Michael
It's a rhetorical point, and an indication of my thinking which can be further examined. If you want to go further, then you just have to say so. I'm not going to spend ages presenting a complete presentation of my thinking with all of the workings out. It's going to be a step by step thing. That's what this discussion is for!
Now, do you, or do you not agree with me in what I said there? If so, then why bother going deeper? I want to be given a good reason for doing that. I don't want to feel like I'm reinventing the wheel.
Not really. Just as the realist will say that our sense experiences are a response to stimulation by material things, and so evidence of external-world rocks, the idealist will say that our sense experiences are a response to stimulation by mental things, and so evidence of other minds.
The idealist will say that using sense experiences as evidence of material things is as mistaken as using sense experiences as evidence of magic or supernatural things. I don't see any contradiction or inevitable solipsism in this.
Quoting S
I'm not really interested in playing a game like that. If you have an actual argument in favour of realism or against idealism then I'd like to read it, but I shouldn't have to coax it out of you. You posted the discussion, so I would assume you'd have something more meaningful to say other than "I believe in realism".
I'm really not interested if you're not interested in cooperating. If you're not interested, then you can stop engaging. What we have here is my take vs. alternatives, and a challenge to the alternatives. I've given my argument, at least enough of it to work with, and we can either take it step by step and make progress, or you can throw your toys out of the pram. It's no skin off my back.
Shall we continue or not? Which part of my argument do you genuinely reject and why? Where do you actually stand on the topic? I'm not interested in playing a shallow game of devil's advocate. Why should I humour you?
Any questions, requests, or criticisms about [i]my[/I] answers, fire away. I can elaborate upon request. That's the kind of back and forth you get with discussion, not that I should have to explain that.
I say that, with respect, that seems to miss the point. Talk of information and the ability to decipher information is relevant to epistemology, right? As in, given the information available to us, what can we know about what this means? But how is it relevant in the strictly metaphysical context of whether or not it is the case that [i]this[/I] hieroglyph means [i]that[/I]? At the later stage, isn't it the case that the meaning is predetermined by the appropriate language rule? The further question, in the context of realism vs. idealism, is why that would, at this later stage, require there to exist beings like us?
Consider a situation in which there are no human beings to distinguish one period of time, from another period of time. All time would exist together in an endless time period. Since a "rock", as we understand it, has a particular duration of time, there could be no rock existing for this endless time period, hence your question is meaningless. In order that there is a rock, it is necessary that someone individuates a time period in which there is a rock. Otherwise there is just an endless time period during which no particular things could have individual existence.
Quoting S
OK, then explain to me how one time period, "an hour" for example is distinguished from the rest of time, without a human mind doing that distinguishing.
Quoting S
I thought about it, and as I explained, it's contradictory, impossible nonsense. you just seem to have difficulty understanding this fact.
You haven't given an argument. You've just said that you believe that rocks continue to exist when not being seen.
Irrational denial that my argument is an argument is not itself a valid argument. That's what you're doing. Therefore, you're not presenting a valid argument.
How's that for an argument?
I believe what you mention I believe for a reason. That reason is part of my argument. You can ignore my argument or refuse to engage it or deceive yourself into believing that my argument isn't an argument. But how is that my problem and not yours?
I suspect that this will continue to be the case if we continue our exchange: you reply, and just a few sentences in, you've already asserted something I find controversial and do not accept, which requires further justification from you, and then it will be the same problem over again.
You seem to be assuming something along the lines that time is how time is measured. I do not agree with that. And I think that it's true to say that hours would pass, even if no one measured the passing of time, and even if no one [i]existed[/I] to measure the passing of time. Time is objective in that sense.
It's your problem because it is, and because it's valid, whereas the above is not a valid argument.
And remember, regarding my argument, just because you don't see (can't be bothered to investigate?) implicit premises which tie an argument together as a whole, that doesn't mean that it is invalid.
Half of it is epistemological, yes, in that there is present to our conscious attention a method known to be an artifact of communication with its intrinsic information. It is still required that the information, which would be supposed as concepts given in pictographic representation, would have to correspond to current concepts but with quite distinct representations, while attempting to retain the meaning of the original.
So, yes, meaning, re: the OP, is predetermined by the original English language rule, and may eventually be translatable to a non-English language, which is rather obvious, of course, as long as such translation uses the same perception/conception correspondence system, which is a product of mental exercise, hence rational, hence of idealistic theory.
But for the other half we’re right back where we started: if humans disappear, the information remains but is untranslatable by an intelligence that may not know how English attains to its meanings. In other words, we can translate ancient Egyptian into English, French, Swahili....whatever, because both are developed by humans, but both English and Egyptian meanings would be inaccessible to some rationality that doesn’t use a perception/conception correspondence system for its meanings. It follows logically that that of which the meaning is unknowable is therefore meaningless, which is the same as having no meaning, which is the same as concluding the transfer of information becomes impossible.
Am I properly addressing your concern?
Someone presents an argument. The argument is complex, and not explicitly presented in its entirety. I'm not interested in finding out the rest of the argument - the part which isn't immediately clear to me. Therefore, it's not an argument. (Therefore, it's not my problem!).
Sort of, but I see a problem with this part, and I disagree with it. I think that what you're saying could be simplified. You bring up a hypothetical scenario of an alien unlike humans in that this alien couldn't possibly understand the meaning. Okay, fine. But then you illogically jump to the conclusion that there is no meaning, when there is, and you've even acknowledged it. That there is meaning is not the same as that there is no meaning, except in an irrelevant practical sense of, "It can't be understood, so there may as well be no meaning!", but that's a different sense, not the sense that I'm talking about.
The question is meaningless, because "Exist" and "Real" aren't metaphysically defined.
We tend to believe in our metaphysicses too devoutly.
Michael Ossipoff
8 Tu (South-Solstice WeekDate Calendar)
...Tuesday of the 8th week of the calendar-year that started with the Monday that started closest to the South-Solstice.
Ok, then I would answer the second question as the first: the meaning, in the sense I assume you are talking about, would be retained, because there is nothing given sufficient to remove it, but that meaning must remain unknowable.
Going beyond this, we must inevitably be presented with the paradox of retaining meaning that has no meaning, which is inescapable whenever humans disappear but human meaning is sometime thereafter presented as being in question. To ask if a thing retains its meaning presupposes an event where the question is examined but makes no allowance for who is asking.
Getting closer?
Rocks don't exist though. They're just a certain configuration of atoms. Which also don't exist, because they're a certain configuration of protons, neutrons and electrons. Which also don't exist...
So far as our current understanding goes, distinct objects are an illusion. If everything is merely collapsed quantum waveforms, it seems a small step to idealism. Without the observer, whatever appears to us as collapsed waveforms vanishes, leaving no rocks behind. This doesn't seem all that absurd.
Quoting S
If the word "rock" was all that remained from the English language, and any related languages, how would it mean anything? Where would it's meaning reside?
It's not a question of whether time would pass, it's a question of who would determine that an hour had past. So in your example, all people would die, and time would continue to pass. Who would say "now it's been an hour since the last person died, is there a rock"? You are assuming that there would be such a point in time, and that it makes sense to ask if there'd be a rock at that point in time. But there would be no such point in time, because a point in time is what human beings determine, so the question makes no sense.
Firstly, I didn't even use those words. Secondly, I don't believe that you didn't understand what I meant. And thirdly, even if you didn't understand what I meant, it doesn't follow that what I said was meaningless.
Easy refutation. Next!
Okay, fine by me.
Quoting Mww
I'm not that bothered about this supposed paradox, if you can even call it that. It's easily resolved, because there are two different senses of "meaning" going on there. It has meaning in the first sense, which is my sense, but not in the second sense. I think that it would be much clearer to use a different word for the second sense, such as understanding. It has meaning, but it is not understood. Don't you agree?
I don't agree that to ask if a thing retains its meaning presupposes an event where the question is examined, let alone moving on to who is asking what it means. A thing retains its meaning by default. Something would have to change for that to cease being the case, like if the language changes, which is to say that the language [I]rules[/I] change.
:rofl:
Okay, you win first place for the most inventive disagreement. Philosophy people crack me up sometimes.
Quoting Echarmion
Well, I agree with the science, but not the philosophical conclusions you draw from it.
Quoting Echarmion
Reside? And I didn't say that it was [i]all[/I] that remained. How could it have a meaning with no other words? Maybe it could. I'm not sure at present. Interesting thought, but I don't see the relevance to my argument.
If you mean to ask why there would be meaning, then I say because of the continued application of the language rule. Why would it cease to apply?
No it's not though! No one would, obviously. No one exists in the scenario. But that doesn't matter, because the question is beside the point to begin with.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I have a feeling that you're just not going to understand the problem of irrelevance here.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
In short, you believe that time is subjective. Good for you, but I don't. You can't just assume something I reject to argue against me. That won't work. You'll have to argue that time is subjective first.
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You asked if there is a rock. “There is” can be translated as “There exists”. But, if necessary, I’ll amend what I said to: “Exist”, “There is…” and “Real” aren’t metaphysically-defined.
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Well, you’re right that, in a loose sense of the words, I knew what you meant.
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However I don’t know what you mean by “There is…”
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And, truth told, neither do you.
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I like to quote Dunning (of Dunning & Kruger) when he admonished us that we should be a lot less free and loose with our claims, because there’s a tendency for what we say to overshoot what we can support..
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A metaphysical or ontological question or statement is meaningless if it uses one or more terms that aren’t metaphysically or ontologically defined.
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Michael Ossipoff
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8 Tu
Yes you do, and it's selfexplanatory.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Poppycock. You know the meaning of "there" and you know the meaning of "is" and you know the meaning of "there is", as in "there is a rock". Are you seriously going to pretend otherwise? Obviously, if you know the meaning, then there is a meaning there, otherwise you couldn't know it.
What you're doing amounts to a performative contradiction and is therefore self-defeating. We start from the fact that you understand what I'm saying, and then the rest of your argument collapses, since it leads to absurdity.
Ok, I get it. Shoot an object into space, it goes on and on and on, ad infinitum, never interrupted, never examined. The meaning of it and all it’s parts conforms to the conceptions of its creators.
What’s the point? The end game?
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. There [I]was[/I] a point, in a practical sense, when we were alive. But there isn't in the scenario, because we're all dead.
Again, I'm not concerned here with what's practical. Just with what's the case, or what would be the case if such-and-such.
Then I revert to epistemic ignorance, with respect to what would be the case for objective reality or continuance of meaning if all humans were to disappear.
Okay, but why?
That's not true, because your premise state distinctly "we all died an hour previously". So you imply that someone has measured an hour after everyone has died, and you posit this point in time. Clearly, there is no such point in time unless someone measures it and designates "this is the point in time one hour after everyone died". But everyone is dead and there is no one to measure that time, so there is no such point in time, and your question is nonsensical.
Quoting S
No I don't believe that time is subjective, I told you that already, time would continue to pass after all the people died. But the measurement of time is carried out by human beings, and therefore requires human existence. So it doesn't make any sense to talk about what may or may not exist an hour after all humans died, because "an hour" is a measurement, and there would be no such measurement without any human beings. Therefore there would be no such thing as "an hour" after all human beings died. An hour is a measurement. You seem to have difficulty comprehending this fact. But it's like talking about what temperature it will be when there are no human beings. That's nonsense, because "temperature" is a measurement, just like "an hour" is a measurement, and without human beings, there would be no measurements.
No, that doesn't follow from my premises, it follows from yours. That's begging the question until you first argue in support of your premises. How many times? I'm not going to keep going around in circles. This is your last chance. Your illogical ramblings are not my problem. You can assert that there needs to be someone there to measure time, and that an hour is a measurement, and so on, a million-and-one times, but that doesn't do anything at all, logically. These are premises I never accepted, and still do not accept. Anything that follows from them is completely irrelevant. My argument stands unless you can present a proper challenge.
I made this clear from the very start, but you aren't giving me anything new. You aren't giving me what's required. You're just repeating the same problem.
You confuse my logical rejection of your argument for a lack of comprehension. It is you who lacks comprehension. Massively so. I am not being illogical. My argument is valid, and obviously I'm arguing that it is also sound. Your demonstrations that some part of my argument doesn't follow only show that some part of my argument doesn't follow from premises that I've made crystal clear that I don't accept, so your demonstrations can do nothing whatsoever at least until a further argument from you is provided. There's almost always some logical fallacy in your replies to virtually any comment on any topic in philosophy whatsoever on both this forum and the old one. In this case, it is begging the question, and it is the fallacy of drawing irrelevant conclusions.
I really hope that you grasp it this time and don't repeat the same mistake.
And you're being pedantic, too. When you assert things like, "An hour is a measurement!", and, "There needs to be someone there to measure the hours that pass!", I'm going to call that subjective time, for short, whether you like it or not, unless you give me another more suitable name for that position. You simply assume subjective time, point out a few logical consequences, then erroneously think that you've refuted my argument. You need to go back and study Logic 101. Why do some people here rely on others so much to teach them the very basics in philosophy? That's immoral. Teach yourself! I'm getting fed up of those here who keep trying to run before they can even walk. It's actually worse than that with you, because you seem largely unteachable. You just rationalise your errors and repeat them instead of learning and developing. It really is a real pity when you see someone making the same basic logical errors you recall them making in discussions many years ago.
If I understand you correctly, you do not accept my claim that "an hour" is a measurement, just like one degree Celsius is a measurement, and a metre is a measurement. OK, then that explains our difference on this issue.
I still need to answer your earlier post by the way, but re this one, if no statement follows from any other, it's not an argument. We covered that already. Arguments have premises and conclusions that follow from the premises. So for something to be an argument, it's a requirement that at least some statement in the set of claims follows from at least one other statement in the set of claims.
I personally don't care if someone forwards an argument per se or not. But if you claim to, and if you're claiming something like a reductio, then I'll point out if you've not actually forwarded an argument. (I'll also often do that when someone points out that I'm not forwarding an argument--even though I never claimed to--as if I should be forwarding an argument, but they didn't forward an argument, either).
Yes, of course they are not measurements. They are units of measurement. Something doesn't have to be measured to be such that it conforms within a specific range within a standard of measurement. The contrary is easily lead to absurdity, since, for example, if you and I went camping in the woods and collected a load of firewood, then under your bad logic, the sticks and branches and twigs and so on that we want to use for making the fire wouldn't be of various lengths in centimetres. That would be impossible, because they would need to be measured first. But it's not impossible. If a stick happens to be a metre in length, then it happens to be a metre in length, and that's that. We would only need to measure it to [i]find out[/I] what it's length is. That's epistemology! We're not doing epistemology!
Do you understand the difference between epistemology and metaphysics? I'm not sure you do. Either that, or you just draw an irrational link between the one and the other.
Your suggestion is clearly ludicrous, as any logically minded person can see. You're making the fundamental error of idealism, which is to confuse what's necessary to [i]acquire information[/I] about the way things are, with what's necessary for things [i]to be[/I] the way that they are.
Like language, systems of measurement are based on rules. The rule is that an hour has passed if a certain period of time has passed. If that certain period of time has passed, then an hour has passed. From that, it does not follow that anyone needs to be standing around measuring the time. It doesn't even follow that anyone needs to exist!
Again, the key point is that rules do not cease to apply just because no one is around, doing something or other.
I do wonder whether it's even possible for me to break through to you logically and get you to change your mind, or whether you are irretrievably stuck in your way of thinking.
Remember....I’m a reductionist. Your parameters are all humans have disappeared. I am human so I’ve disappeared. If I’ve disappeared, even if I exist someplace else, I really can’t say anything with certainty about where I disappeared from. It makes sense to think of things a certain way, that rocks still exist and meanings maintain, but consistency is not the same as certainty.
I understand that already. But you don't seem to understand hidden premises. There are virtually always hidden premises in any argument. In light of these hidden premises, my argument is valid. But it would just mean more work for me to present the entire argument, hidden premises and all. I agreed to go through it step by step [i]wherever you see a genuine problem[/I] and to make explicit logical links [i]where necessary[/I], but I'm not willing to present the entire argument in a formal manner without good enough reason to do so. I think that members of this forum such as yourself and Michael are more than capable of figuring this shit out already without my assistance, so give me a reason.
Validity is easy, at least for someone like me. Do you not think that I'm capable of moulding my argument here into a full, formal, valid argument? Soundness is the real issue. You should be thinking about that instead. That means you should be thinking about whether my premises are true or false.
Again, not all arguments are formal, and not all arguments are going to look how you expect them to look. There's this thing called subtlety, and this other thing called informality. Ironically, I feel like I'm talking to an Aspie. Are you trying to knock me off of my thrown? Is this a coop d'etat?
Quoting Michael
You said that idealists use senses as well, so I still don't see a distinction. You're still using your sense experiences as evidence of "mental" things.
And what I'll keep telling you and you keep ignoring is that you are making a distinction that you don't make with all the other things in the universe.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, so meaning is a tool, which is a non-mental thing, right?
What is the difference between "meaning" and "subjective" to you?
I make locational distinctions all the time, for all sorts of things. For example, I might say, "we need to put this in the refrigerator," or "we don't need to put this in the refrigerator." Or I might say, "You can get that sound from a Roland Jazz-Chorus (amplifier)," so you need to use (plug into) that if you want that sound. Etc.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Wait, so you don't think that people are aware of meanings?
Of course I do. People are aware of cause and effect, and therefore aware of meanings. I'm the one saying that meaning exists in AND outside of minds. You say meaning only exists in minds.
You skipped this question:
What is the difference between "meaning" and "subjective" to you?
So I don't know the word "icebox"?
Yes, I skipped it on purpose. One thing at a time, so neither one of us skips anything.
Again, one thing at a time. What do you want to start with?
No. How about you take the time to absorb what I asked and have said and then you take the time to write a response.
You skipped "Wait, so you don't think that people are aware of meanings?" For example
So one thing at a time.
That was in a post I just made where you just addressed part if it.
I have two points. My first point is that, obviously, you can think about, talk about, etc., the thought experiment [i]now[/I]. That this wouldn't be possible [I]in[/I] the thought experiment is irrelevant. And my second point is one I've already made, but which apparently needs repeating, namely that certainty isn't necessary.
Sure. I'm reasonable enough to acknowledge that I haven't presented a [i]fully explicit[/I] argument. I am reasonable enough to cooperate [i]where necessary[/I]. The question is whether [i]you[/I] are reasonable enough to do likewise. And the same goes for Michael.
I'm interested in a [i]genuine[/I] discussion. I'm not interested in a mere test as per devil's advocate, or a mere test of my ability to construct a valid argument, of which I am perfectly capable.
Sure, if I'm claiming to present an argument and I haven't.
Sure, but if you've made relevant claims, which you no doubt have, then they carry a burden.
Something "carries a burden" if and insofar as someone thinks about it that way, I suppose.
Right, tell me another one. It's that attitude which makes quantum mechanics such a mystery to some. The fact is that an act of measurement is required in order that something has a measurement. To simply assume that your sticks have a measurement, as you do, does not actually give your sticks a measurement, so you have just made a false assumption, that's all. Nothing has actually measured your sticks so obviously they do not have a measurement. Clearly nothing has a measurement without having been measured
Quoting S
Sure, carry on with your vicious circle. An hour is a certain period of time, and that certain period of time is an hour. Okee dokee bro.
I hadn't noticed that comment, but I don't agree that a system of measurement exists when we do not exist. Neither do rules. Clocks exist, but clocks are not the same thing as a "system of measurement."
A system of measurement is an abstract idea, which also doesn't amount to anything without a semantic component, and nothing abstract exists without minds thinking abstractly.
“The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” tacitly presupposes a third party observer outside the parameters of the thought experiment constructed from moving trains and stationary platforms. So it is possible to view your experiment from both inside as participant and outside as mere observer. It seems to me, therefore, to say one perspective is irrelevant defeats the experiment.
But I will admit to stamping your experiment with my thought, so we have, like, one of those toys where the head goes on upside down and a foot faces backwards....Mr. Potatohead on acid.
I don’t understand the problem. An atheist might say that it is incorrect to infer the existence of God or the afterlife or ghosts from some kind of personal experience (e.g. “revelation” or “light at the end of the tunnel” or “unexplained noises in the attic”) but that it is correct to infer the existence of mind-independent rocks from some kind of personal experience, whereas the idealist might say that it is incorrect to infer the existence of mind-independent rocks from some kind of personal experience but that it is correct to infer the existence of other minds from some kind of personal experience.
One can believe that we experience things other than oneself without believing that any of those things are the type of thing that the materialist/realists believe in (e.g bunches of atoms) or the type of thing that supernaturalists believe in (e.g magic or ghosts).
You're mixing apples and oranges. We don't experience god like we do rocks. We don't experience minds like we do rocks either. We experience rocks directly and infer gods and minds from the behavior of the things we experience. The religious point to the experience of rocks as evidence of gods. Idealists point to the experience of bodies as evidence of minds. That is different than using the experience of rocks as evidence for rocks.
That's your view as a direct realist but the idealist disagrees. The idealist will say that sense data occurs and that you incorrectly believe that this sense data counts as direct perception of some external-world material thing (and the indirect realist will agree at least on this point, though accept that the occurrence of sense data is a response to stimulation by some external-world material thing).
But just as the realist can infer the existence of other minds from the things they experience, so too can the idealist. The only difference is that the realist infers the existence of other minds from what they believe to be the direct perception of some material body, whereas the idealist infers the existence of other minds from the occurrence of certain kinds of sense data. I don't see why this latter view entails solipsism.
One can think it valid to infer the existence of other minds from experience without believing that experience is the direct perception of an external world of material things (and so without believing that there exists an external world of material things).
One can believe that (many) minds exist, that sense-data exists, but that that's it; that there isn't also some external world of material things like atoms. One can be an idealist without being a solipsist.
Knock down argument! You win.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is hilarious, because you probably don't realise that, when analysed, that will be found to say either nothing of any relevance, like a tautology which completely misses the point, or something obviously mistaken. And of course, you don't provide any argument at all in support of this, as expected. Well, except the above "argument", of course, which is clearly just a bare assertion.
The burden is on you here, not me. You need to demonstrate a contradiction if that's what you're suggesting - and no, not by begging the question or making a number of bare assertions, as obviously that's fallacious. Given that it's you, however, this is probably asking the impossible.
I don't know what you'd reasonably expect of [i]me[/I] here. My position is internally consistent, so I don't have any problem with the contradiction you suggest, but you probably won't understand that.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Oh man.
What I said is that [i]the rule[/I] is that an hour has passed if a certain period of time has passed. Then I said that [i]if[/I] that certain period of time has passed, [i]then[/I] an hour has passed.
That is not a viscous circle.
It would be wise to study the basics of logic before attempting to make assessments in public relating to logic. Regarding the above quote, I recommend looking up what a straw man is.
See what I mean about your replies almost always committing a fallacy? No, [i]you[/I] probably don't. Other people probably do though.
Metaphysician Undercover, do you ever wonder whether you're hopelessly out of your depth here on this forum?
An hour is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 [x 3,600] periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom" (at a temperature of 0 K).
This is a situation that can't be resolved to any degree of satisfaction.
The only way to confirm existence of things is by observation and mental perception.
How can a realist prove objects exist independently of observation then?
Also how can an idealist prove objects exist only in the mind?
it's a catch 22 situation and I see no way out of it.
That doesn't come as much of a surprise. Okay, so you've told me your position. I don't accept it, of course. You can attempt to argue in support of it if you want to.
Why do you think it defeats the experiment? From my point of view, it's irrelevant to point out that you wouldn't be able to think about anything or see anything and so on in the thought experiment, because I agree with that, but it doesn't logically lead to any relevant conclusion. It might be different for you if you're going by some hidden premise that I don't accept. If so, what's that premise, and why should I believe that it's true?
And obviously I'm not asking you to imagine what it would be like to think about something or see something and so on if you didn't exist. That should go without saying, but I'm wondering out loud whether you're making this kind of mistake here.
Quoting Mww
Wtf? :chin:
I think the only "argument" we need is that there's no empirical evidence of, and otherwise no good reason to believe, that there are any real (that is extramental) abstracts. And not only that, but the idea of extramental abstracts can't even be made coherent. (Since nonphysical existents can't be made coherent; the notion of existents without any location can't be made coherent, etc.)
It can for me. If it can't for you, maybe you're setting the bar too high.
Quoting TheMadFool
Obviously I don't agree if that rules out my claim, although I'm not sure it actually does. To clarify, the claim is that [i]there would[/I] exist a rock.
Anyway, feel free to present an argument for your above claim. Otherwise I'm doing nothing wrong by rejecting it.
Quoting TheMadFool
There's no contradiction there. Not under my position of realism. So why wouldn't objects exist independently of observation?
Quoting TheMadFool
That's their problem.
Quoting TheMadFool
If you hold my position, then there's a way out. Or rather, there's nothing to get yourself out of to begin with. This is a problem of your own making.
Ok
How does one prove that objects exist when not being perceived? In a very crude sense we'd need eyes in the back of our heads. See, we still need eyes.
I'm going to try to avoid playing this category game with you, but if you categorise my claim in that way, then yes there is a good reason, as per my argument.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Of course it can, if that's what you're calling what I've implied. It is so under my position. Do you think that you can demonstrate an internal contradiction for my position? If so, go ahead. Without a contradiction, it's logically possible. There's no contradiction.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's a bare assertion. Do you have an argument relevant to my position?
Again, why wouldn't they? There's no contradiction. I can't do this for you, you know? This is down to you. In this situation, I'm right by default unless you can demonstrate a contradiction.
Obviously you are going by a hidden premise that you've not argued in support of. I don't accept this hidden premise. You'll have to give me a good enough reason for me to accept it.
To be is to be perceived? Um, no.
A realist must prove that a stone exists even when it's not being perceived by any mind. Can you do that? Please explain to me how this can be done?
That's tantamount to proving that a stone exists, and simply pointing out that the assumptions of idealism are unwarranted. You doubt that a stone exists? Or you doubt that the assumptions of idealism are unwarranted? If the latter, then show me why the assumptions of idealism are warranted.
Try to understand that what you're expecting of me is unreasonable.
(Chuckles to self)
Ehhhhh......Mr. Potatohead. That’s just me being really confused. It’s your experiment, so the onus is on me to grasp the intent of it, what’s supposed to be demonstrated by it. After I give my understanding the best I can, if you don’t come back with “THAT’S what I’m talking about, Willis!!!!” Then I got nothing.
I hate it when I got nothing.
I'm saying that a system of measurement and rules are abstracts. If you want to argue that they're not abstracts, that's fine, but I'd just ask what particular, concrete thing(s) they are then.
Re coherence, I'm not talking about contradictions. I'm talking about not being able to make any sense out of it whatsoever. We'd need to be able to make sense out of it to claim a contradiction. We can't get a proposition and its negation out of something we can make no sense of.
Sorry to disappoint you, but a tautology provides the most reliable premise. That's why it's as you've admitted, a "knock down argument".
Quoting S
Quoting S
Measurement is "1. the act or an instance measuring. 2, an amount determined by measuring."
I've demonstrated the contradiction. You claim that a thing could have a measurement without an act of measuring. This is what you said: "If a stick happens to be a metre in length, then it happens to be a metre in length, and that's that." To say that the stick has a measurement without being measured, clearly contradicts accepted definitions of "measurement". Now the burden is obviously on you, to provide a new, and acceptable definition of "measurement" which supports your position. You can't just assume that there is such a definition, and base your argument on that, using words in this nonsensical way. To say that a stick has a measurement without being measured is just a meaningless, nonsensical use of words. That's all.
Quoting S
I don't wonder about that, I recognize it as a fact every day. This stuff is so incredibly shallow.
I never claimed to be a direct realist or indirect realist. I'm only showing what they would claim and how it really isn't any different than what the idealist is claiming. Does an idealist have direct access to their own mind, which is part of reality, and then indirect access to other minds? Would an idealist call the access to their minds and others, "real", as in the access is an actual property of reality and the knowledge the idealist has on this is completely and totally accurate?
Quoting Michael
Then the idealist needs to explain what they mean by "sense data", "perception", and "experience", if they don't mean what everyone else means when they use those terms. How does one explain "sense data" without using non-mental things like senses and objects that exist external to the mind.
What does the idealist mean with their use of "other" as in "other minds", if not external, or apart from your mind? What is it that separates your mind from others? What is the medium in which all these minds exist, if not some external world? Aren't you confusing anti-realism with idealism?
Firstly, I wouldn't even need to argue that they're not abstracts, if that's what I thought, if you're only making a claim without any supporting argument. A claim without any supporting argument can simply be dismissed.
Secondly, I don't really care what you call them. And, like I said before, I would rather avoid going down that route of whether they're abstracts or not. For starters, it isn't even clear to me what's meant by that. They are what they are. We don't need to call them anything extra.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Okay, then you should have just said it that way to begin with instead of using philosophy jargon. It's clearer and more easily understood that way. Now, you're going to have to be way more specific here and go into further detail about that, because it makes sense to me. It should make sense to anyone who speaks English. What exactly is your problem?
If it's the location thing, then it's just your weird view about that which is the problem. Unlike you, I recognise that it's a category error, remember?
I was using "argue" informally there. I just meant "If you want to say that they're not abstracts."
Re "they are what they are," that's what I'm getting at--exactly what they are ontologically. Are you claiming that systems of measurement and rules are ontic simples?
Quoting S
I don't know how to be more specific about something not making any sense. If it makes sense to you, that's fine, but what am I supposed to do with that?
S's question asks whether there would be a rock an hour after all the people died. My objection was that "an hour" is a measurement which can only be carried out by a human being. So the assumption of "an hour after all the people died", is nonsensical, or even contradictory because "an hour" only exists as a product of measurement.
Assuming your definition of "an hour", then unless there is someone to count those periods of radiation, and determine whether there is that designated rock at this precise moment, the question is completely nonsensical. The question assumes that a comparison can be made between those periods of radiation, and the existence of a rock, without anyone to do the comparison. S does not recognize that question as meaningless nonsense.
Great, more philosophy jargon. Please translate that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If you can't explain what it is about it which doesn't make sense to you, then your claim can simply be dismissed as unwarranted. I'm speaking in English in a way that makes sense, and in a way that other people can understand. I'm not saying anything like "fribgfh cgjjdfk hjkkfdf vhh" or "hat the field flying at to was".
Learn to sarcasm. And learn to read what I said properly: "...like a tautology which completely misses the point...".
Ironically, you're missing the point about missing the point! :rofl:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Ah, just as I suspected. You don't understand why what you're doing is fallacious. Maybe one day you'll learn why, but I'm done trying.
I doubt both.
If you ask my opinion I'd prefer to be a realist but there seems no way of proving realism. I'd have to demonstrate that a stone exists even in the absence of anyone perceiving it. That is impossible because existence is proven by being perceived; at least that's the gold standard. People put it succinctly as [I]''seeing is believing''[/i]. If then someone asks you to believe without seeing then that's self-refuting no?
Now idealism. How am I to prove everything is in the mind? I'd have to show that objects cease to exist when not perceived. This is exactly where realism hit rough weather.
So, we can't prove either realism or idealism. We can only make an educated guess on the issue and I would prefer realism because idealism seems more complex. Occam's razor?
Ontic simple = basically it doesn't reduce to something else ontologically. An ontic simple is an "elementary particle" of sorts for ontology in general.
Quoting S
For example, the idea of existents that have no location makes no sense in my view. Everything extant has some (set of) location(s). If the idea of existents with no locations makes sense to you, okay, you say it does, but I can't do anything with it unless you'd be able to explain how any existent could obtain without having a location.
What the idealist is taking issue with, is the notion that an [i]unconceived[/I] object is conceivable. Consequently, your question cannot be constructed in any way acceptable to the idealist, since the idealist will interpret the question as being self-refuting.
The idealist is rebelling against the realist's understanding of an object's existence as transcending the entire space of perceptual and conceptual constructs, as opposed to merely transcending acts of perception.
The realist's central task is therefore to establish whether an idealist is naming objects in terms of particular acts of conception or perception. The realist cannot find such naming conventions useful, for the realist's chief interest is in making experimentally testable speculative inferences about the future and he consequently demands that names convey speculative implications.
In contrast, the idealist whose only concern is to dismiss the idea of mind-independent entities as being incoherent, isn't interested in predicting the future. His use of names therefore does not coincide with the realist's use of names.
Is conception a la idealism a correlative fact in your view, or is it what objects are?
In other words, are you saying that one might be an idealist who allows mind-independent objects, whether they're perceived or not, as long as we correlatively conceive of them, too?
Or is the conception what the objects are? (And then we'd have to figure out how it would make sense posit an unperceived conception, and whether the conception has to be present-to-mind for that or not.)
Actually, you don't seem to have tried very hard, just asserting over and over, that the burden is on me to prove that what you are saying is nonsense. But in reality the burden is on you to demonstrate how your so called thought experiment makes any sense at all. and that you are not just asking us to imagine an impossible scenario. I've shown you why it is an impossible scenario and you seem to have no rebuttal for that, only more nonsense, claiming that something could have a measurement without being measured.
My failure to understand why what I am doing is fallacious is a product of your inability to explain why what I am doing is fallacious. And your inability to explain why what I am doing is fallacious is due to the fact that it is not fallacious. Oh well, so be it.
If the alternative to my position which you describe above logically leads to consequences which are far more absurd, which it does, then you should reject or at least revise the premise or premises which lead there.
Quoting TheMadFool
That objects cease to exist when not perceived is implausible. Why would any reasonable person believe that?
Quoting TheMadFool
We can prove realism, just not in accordance with a standard which sets the bar impossibly high, which is unreasonable to begin with. So it's down to you.
To me it always seemed like when toddlers believe that they and/or other things disappear when they cover their eyes or hide under a blanket.
It seems like insofar as that belief goes, some people don't move past it. They get stuck in that stage in that regard.
Okay. I still don't care whether it's that or something else. This seems like a diversion.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, in your view.
Quoting Terrapin Station
This is that same unreasonable request. There's no internal contradiction, so it's possible in my model. That's explanation enough. You'd have to argue that it's impossible without begging the question.
Again, I'm not saying that anything is a contradiction. I'm saying I can't make any sense of it. If you don't care to try to explain it so that I could make any sense out of it, then we're just stuck. It's not going to make sense to me, and you aren't going to bother to try to explain it.
Re the other part, that's what I'm talking about in all of this--what things are ontologically. If you're not interested in that, then again, a conversation probably just won't get started.
It only doesn't make sense to you because of your assumption that everything must have a location. That's not my assumption, and you haven't justified it. So it's not my problem, it's yours. You're the one who isn't making sense whenever you make your location category error.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's not so much that I'm not interested, it's that it's a separate issue, and off topic here.
I'm just trying to clarify your definitions here: if not-P is inconceivable to S, is P an "assumption" on S's part? In other words, for any claim where we can't conceive of an alternative, are we making an assumption?
Then the idealist is simply wrong. One can demonstrably conceive of an unconceived object. I can, at least. Why should I believe that anyone else is so different from me in this respect?
I can also predict where this is going to go, and that the idealist will make an error in his or her reasoning here. "But [i]you're[/I] conceiving of it!". Yes. Yes I am.
In general I understand George Berkeley and his philosophy of subjective idealism as being a precursor to twentieth century Phenomenalism. For I can only make sense of Berkeley's arguments for Idealism when they are interpreted as grammatical statements that identifies the very meaning of "X exists" with the empirical conditions under which "X" is asserted.
I understand Berkeley's notion of 'ideas' as not referring to conceptual, metaphysical or psychological entities, but much more weakly as referring to acts of observing or thinking.
Of course, looking at an actual object called "X" is not comparable to thinking about "X" when there are no objects present with the same name.
The idealist, who is not concerned with the correlation of thought, language and perception might as well rename his mental image of "X" with the letter "Y" and reserve the use of "X" for exclusive referring to an actually present object named "X". By doing so, he could then forbid the construction of the question "Does X exist when unperceived?" as being nonsensical, in being in violation of his rule for using "X".
He is then free to say "Y exists when unperceived", for it is understood, by definition, as only referring to a thought.
.
One. More. Time.
You must either demonstrate an [i]internal[/I] contradiction or you must argue in support of your key premises. Why the hell should I care if you're committed to a certain definition and to certain premises which I am not committed to? I simply do not care, unless and until you give me a reason to. You cannot just assert that this is how it is or that I'm not making sense or some shit. You keep going about this in the wrong way - in a way that is fallacious. But if you can demonstrate otherwise, then that would be worth my time. However, I've given you plenty of opportunities, and you keep on failing, so I don't have high hopes.
This is genuinely very funny. But what's interesting is that you don't mean it to be. Do you know that there actually exist driverless cars now? Imagine if a driverless car was set on a course to travel from Manchester to Exeter, and then we all died before it reached its destination. It wouldn't continue to travel in miles per hour? It wouldn't be going, say, 30 miles per hour in an easterly direction? Even if the speedometer displayed "30mph", and even if the needle on the compass was pointing towards "E"? What about the windshield? Would it not be 1.5m2, even though it was made to that specification? What about the clock? When enough time has passed that the time displayed changes from "18:00" to "19:00", would an hour not have passed?
You're either talking dumb or you're thinking dumb or both.
The nature of sense-data (or "qualia") is a difficult subject for both the idealist and the realist (e.g. the "hard problem of consciousness"). And, yes, both sides of the argument should provide a full account of it if they want to defend their position. But that's a separate issue to your claim that idealism entails solipsism, which is the claim I'm addressing. My point is just that one can claim that only mental phenomena exists without having to believe that only one's own mental phenomena exists, and that one can claim that there is direct (or indirect) evidence of other minds without having to believe that there is direct (or indirect) evidence of something like the material things the realist believes in.
Without assuming what you do about location, then I don't understand what the problem is. There isn't one as far as I can tell. That assumption seems to be the only thing causing a problem. It's just like someone saying something like, "I don't understand how there can be a sheep in a field without that field having been painted blue in its entirety". The obvious problem here is the assumption that there can't be a sheep in a field without that field having been painted blue in its entirety. Now, would this be your problem or theirs?
The idealist would have to explain what kind of evidence would be evidence of other minds, but not also evidence of material things. I would suspect special pleading.
They can argue that we have evidence of things other than one's self (as the realist does) but also that the notion of material things is incoherent, whereas things like consciousness and sense-data are immediately apparent, and so therefore these other things must also be consciousness and/or sense-data.
Okay. So they can made a bad argument which leaves a lot of stuff that wouldn't make sense.
It was only a suspicion. I could not at that time think of a way in which they would go about that without letting material objects slip in, but that's because I have a bad habit of thinking about things reasonably. You've since explained that they'd settle for a bad argument which leads to further problems of an overwhelming nature. Well, you didn't explain all of that, but I'm connecting the dots.
If someone thinks it's not conceivable that there's a sheep in a field without it being painted blue, I wouldn't say that they're making an assumption.
But it [i]is[/I] conceivable, just like it's conceivable that it would continue to be the case that planets exist, even if we all died in an hours time, [i]without[/I] the addition of nonsensically wondering where what's the case is located. That's as nonsensical as wondering what speed angry tastes like. Tell me, Terrapin! I cannot conceive of angry without it having a speed that tastes a certain way.
I already said that in my view it's not conceivable. That you think it is doesn't help me.
Right, which is why I already pointed out in the same post (because I predicted that you'd make that argument and tried to head you off) that you seemed to have overlooked:
Quoting Harry Hindu
It would help if you take into consideration the entire post when responding so I don't have to repeat myself.
The only objective absurdity I can think of is a logical contradiction and neither realism nor idealism have any contradictions.
How is idealism more absurd than realism?
I don't see how this is relevant. A number printed by a machine is not a measurement. A number needs to be interpreted according to standards before it's a measurement. That's why speedometers need to be properly calibrated. The speedometer reading might be frozen at 30 mph for all eternity, it's really irrelevant to the question of whether an hour is actually being measured.
Quoting S
The windshield was measured, and therefore has a measurement. But what I am asserting is nonsense is the supposed hour of time which passes with no one to measure that hour. The clock doesn't measure the hour, for the same reason I explained with the speedometer above. The clock will show some numbers, but those numbers are meaningless without interpretation.
For your "thought experiment' to make sense, someone needs to be able to determine the point of time which marks an hour, and see if there's a rock at that point in time. Otherwise there is nothing to distinguish one point in time from another, or one period of time from all the rest of time.. And with no one to make such distinctions there is no sense in talking about the existence of rocks. There is simply no temporal perspective.
The problem with your scenario is that you are projecting to a future time. This is like saying "noon tomorrow". But any point in time only exists in so far as a human being indicates that point. So if all human beings die tonight, there will be no "noon" tomorrow because there will be no one around to apprehend a particular point in the passing time, as "noon". If you represent "noon tomorrow" as a particular relationship between the earth and sun, and assume that the relationship between these rocks will occur without human existence, then you are just begging the question, and this leaves your scenario as pointless.
So your scenario is meaningless nonsense any way you look at it. Either you are completely wrong by way of contradiction, as I argue, or else you are making some unjustified assumptions which amount to nothing more than begging the question.
What would we use to support a conclusion and/or belief statement either way?
Well, we observe all sorts of people dying everyday. Time passes on. Things continue to evolve.
What's the ground for doubting it? Always... it is always...
Logical possibility alone based upon more inherently inadequate notions/conceptions than one can shake a stick at.
How would you help the sheep-and-blue-field guy?
Because it leads to rocks which suddenly cease to exist the very nanosecond that we all would. Because it can't plausibly explain the world, because it can't explain the world before and after we existed. Did rocks and everything else like them just suddenly spring into existence the very nanosecond that we did?
Do you find that convincing? Or, like me, do you find it way more convincing that that there's something wrong with the premises which lead us here?
Ironically, all of [I]that[/I] is irrelevant, and this is going exactly as I predicted. Okay, then by your definition, they don't have a measurement. So what? I don't care if you want to speak dumb. You'd have to make an additional argument that I should speak dumb. Importantly, this still doesn't mean that the car wouldn't be travelling at 30mph in an easterly direction, that the windshield wouldn't have an area of 1.5m2, and that an hour hadn't passed. And your point about a faulty speedometer obviously violates the thought experiment. You think I meant a faulty speedometer? No. Don't assume a faulty speedometer. Assume a working speedometer.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Okay, but you still have the gigantic problem of explaining innumerable things in nature of various sizes, for example in terms of height in metres, which have yet to be measured. It's like you don't even understand the purpose of measurement. The purpose of measurement is to [i]find out[/I] what specifications something is. The problem here is your frequent misuse of a term such as "determine". No, not determine, [i]find out[/I]. The specifications are [i]predetermined[/I], otherwise there would be nothing to find out, and that obviously wouldn't make any sense. They're objective. It's already of a particular size, say, a specific height in metres. We only measure it to [i]find out[/I] the specifics.
The rest of your post completely misses the point yet again, because you fail to realise that you're begging the question by assuming premises I don't accept, and then drawing conclusions from these premises. The problem with that is your premises, and what you're doing in relation to them. It has zero effect on my argument. If you want to validly argue against me, then you cannot beg the question. If you want to be unreasonable, then please continue doing what you're doing.
You do this with such frequency, it's as though you're a robot who has been programmed to behave in this way, even when it is explained and strongly discouraged. Please try your hardest to understand the error in doing that, and that it only wastes both of our time.
Yes, i believe you. And i would even argue that it is obligatory when following the logic of idealism for the idealist to accept any realist claims to the contrary of allegedly "conceiving of an unconceived object", as contradictory as that might sound. For the idealist can always interpret the realist's statements in a way that satisfies idealistic logic.
For example, when a realist is asked to explain himself, he might say "When I say that I am conceiving of an unconceived object, I have this particular image in mind". All that the idealist can say in response is "I wish you wouldn't name that experience "unconceived"!"
The issue you're dealing with is your innate realism. Yours is the so-called 'argumentum ad lapidium' used by Johnson against Berkeley, who said of Berkeley's idealist arguments, 'I refute it thus!' whilst kicking a stone.
What you're not allowing for, is that the very notion of 'existence' is what is at issue.
From a naive realist viewpoint, of course the Universe is populated with all manner of things that nobody has ever seen yet. The alternative appears absurd, not to say monstrously egotistical.
But the question you're dealing with is the question of the nature of knowledge itself. How do we know about stones (and quasars and the rest) ? Why, it's through a combination of the reception of sensory data, with our reasoning capacity. That is the very substance of knowledge itself. We are sensory and intellectual beings, and our knowledge is derived from the combination of those capacities - capacities which are themselves dependent on the abilities of the knowing subject - the very factor which the so-called 'objective sciences' always want to leave out.
Now the Kantian form of idealism argues that in some fundamental respect, knowledge of anything whatever is inextricably bound up with the apparatus of the understanding. Even those things which apparently, and empirically, exist independently of us, are only known to us, by virtue of the organs of knowledge and the capacity of reason, about which Kant says
Now, lest you dismiss this all as philosophical claptrap, do take the time to peruse this article which asks a very similar question to that posed in the OP, as considered through the perspective of the hardest of hard sciences, to whit, physics. And it is precisely this issue which has been thrown into sharp relief by the so-called 'observer problem' in physics.
Try in various ways to explain how alternatives make sense to me, via various ways of characterizing, detailing what I'm talking about, what properties I'm referring to/how those properties can obtain, what it amounts to for them to obtain, etc.
That the car is moving at 30mph is a judgement. Do you understand this? And a judgement requires a decision. Without any human beings, who makes that judgement?
Here, you have made that judgement, you have stipulated the speedometer reads 30mph. When I explained to you that the reading on the speedometer doesn't necessitate that the car is moving at 30mph, then you simply stipulated that the speedometer is working. Do you not see how this is begging the question? Your thought experiment asks whether such things as rocks, cars, and speedometers exist after there are no humans, yet to defend your position, you simply stipulate that they are there. How can we properly carry out your thought experiment with such manipulative interference?
That's why the whole thought experiment is nonsense. Unless you quit begging the question, the thought experiment is meaningless. If you quit begging the question, you get the result you do not want, that it's senseless to talk about the existence of things without any perceivers.
Quoting S
The "specifics", what we "find out" about things, is the properties which we attribute to things. This is what we assign to the thing in measurement. it has such and such size, speed, etc.. Since the properties, or attributes, are what we assign to the thing, give to the thing in our descriptions, it makes no sense at all to say that the thing has those properties without being given to them by us.
I already stated the accepted definitions of "measurement", which clearly indicate that a thing must have been measured in order to have a measurement, but you simply ignore this, going off in your own fantasy land, where size is somehow something which exists in the object, and when we measure the object, its size magically jumps from the object to exist as something in our minds.
Quoting S
My premises are accepted definitions. Your mode of argument has been to dismiss my definition of :"measurement", which states that a thing must be measured to have a measurement, and instead of offering an alternative definition, you just go off talking nonsense, as if a thing does have a measurement without being measured. The fact that you can say "a thing has a measurement without having been measured", in no way means that this is true.
Quoting S
I agree, my practise of adhering to accepted definitions has zero effect on your argument. Your argument is all nonsense, and you continue to talk nonsense, refusing to acknowledge that you are.
My action of "assuming premises" which you do not accept, is simply a matter of adhering to conventional definitions for interpretation of the terms used in your own premises. And, by the way, adhering to accepted definitions when interpreting premises, when no alternative definitions are proposed, is not a case of "begging the question".
Okay, but then that's kind of trivial, at least in a sense, isn't it? Because they're not engaging the argument, or rather the claim, on its own terms.
Um, no. Not quite. In fact, that's a pretty absurd comparison. He simply kicked a rock, whereas I presented a logical argument in the form of a reduction to the absurd. Well, I didn't present the argument in full straight away, but that's at least where the opening post is leading.
They both involved a rock, of course, but you'd still have a long way to go to justify your comparison.
If you want to know my reasoning behind a part of my argument, then just make that request to me.
Quoting Wayfarer
You're talking about empiricism, right? You're not the first person to bring that up. [B]TheMadFool[/b] brought it up before you, and I gave reason to doubt taking empiricism to such extremes, because of the logical consequences. Again, this is where my reduction to the absurd is relevant. If we assume empiricism is required for all knowledge, including that regarding what would happen if such-and-such, then where does that lead? I've argued that it leads somewhere which, even if not absurd in the strict logical sense, is absurd in that it ends up committed to strongly counterintuitive claims which can't be explained well, or perhaps even at all. Like stuff about rocks, and all of the other things like rocks, and in fact the world itself. What about the world before we existed? How plausible is it that there was no world before us, and would be no world after us? Or if you're a Kantian, then there are similiar questions, like why silence is justified instead of going with the best explanation. How does that compare with what realism has to say?
Quoting Wayfarer
It's arguable whether Kantian idealism is even idealism. It has some things in common with both idealism and realism. Parts of it are fundamentally realist.
Anyway, moving on.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sorry, but I'm not going to read the article, although I'm sure that it's interesting and of relevance, and I don't mind adding it to my "to do" list, amongst a whole bunch of other things of more immediate concern. But I would rather engage in discussion with you directly, and at present, than to delay engagement in order to read some article that you've linked to. I can read stuff like that in my own time, and whenever I feel like it. There's loads of material out there on this topic.
I gave a point earlier in response to this - again, in reply to TheMadFool. What is it exactly that you're talking about here? I am talking about a rock. Say, this rock I'm holding in my hand right now. I'm then reasoning about what would happen to it. To begin with, are you talking about the same thing as me? The rock?
Is there another way to say “I can conceive an unconceived object”?
Kantian idealism isn’t the idealism of Berkeley or Descartes, but it is a necessary dualism which retains a strictly mental, re: subjectivist idealism, parameter, annexed directly with an empirical realism. Which was the foundation of my comments on the experiment. I’m sure you’re aware of all that.
Okay, how can I help you without committing what I consider to be a category error? If I can't, then we're stuck, aren't we?
I'm finding it difficult. I'm not even sure where to begin. Do you understand what it means to for something to be the the case? Do we share that basic understanding, despite our differences? It's a fact that there are planets, [I]if there are planets[/I]. Yes? And do we both share an understanding of what it means for there to be planets? We're both realists here, right? So it means something along the lines that there are objects fitting the description of a planet out there in space, and the realist would say that this would be the case even if we were all dead.
What next? What else can I say without implicitly committing a category error? For that reason, I can't talk about location, and talk of properties in this context doesn't seem to make sense either.
Oh dear. We fundamentally disagree on so much. I predicted from the very beginning that I would keep discovering this from just one or two sentences into each reply of yours. It feels kind of like an infinite regress of fundamental disagreements, and we just get deeper or kind of go around in circles.
It feels kind of like if, say, I took that one sentence above - the very first sentence of your last reply - and, say, asked what a car is, you'd say something which is [i]way[/I] different to what I'd say. To me, your answers are as absurd as saying that a car is a type of fruit or something. It's like we're from two different planets or speak two different languages which only look similar on the surface. Your world seems crazy to me.
As I said, you're basically using the same argument as Johnson against Berkeley, but then denying that you're doing so.
Quoting S
Right - but this is an exercise in philosophy, and philosophy questions what we normally take for granted. Whereas, you're arguing on the basis of its very taken-for-grantedness - 'why should I not take the reality of 'the rock' (world, universe, whatever) for granted?' And there is no answer to that, other than to say that questioning the taken-for-granted nature of common experience is what philosophy does.
This is true. Kant was a scientist as well as philosopher. (Actually, a polymath, in the sense that is hardly possible today.)
Quoting S
Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107
That's a really bad reply. It doesn't even [i]try[/I] to explain anything or take onboard what I said in reply to you the first time you said that.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's more words than you needed. You could have just said, "I'm not going to bother to engage your argument. I'm instead simply going to accuse you of taking things for granted and ignore most of what you've actually said".
Less words would have been better, and your own words, and taking one thing at a time, instead of paragraph after paragraph of text. Slow down, please.
Do you want an exchange, or do you want to quote lengthy passages from books at me?
Now, reading only the first paragraph, it suggests that, for a Kantian, time is one of the forms of our sensibility. Now, I'm not a Kantian, and it has been a long time since I've looked into stuff like this. So, a) I'm not going to have as a premise that time is one of the forms of our sensibility, b) I'm not even sure what that means, c) I don't know enough about the demonstration referenced, and d) I am seeking more of a simplified discussion, starting from easier, basic stuff, in plain language, and then building from there. I don't really want to just jump straight into Kant, with all of his complicated arguments and philosophical jargon.
I have some layman's idea that this is basically about time being subjective, although people might get funny if you call it that.
Huh? Sorry, but you've lost me again. I'm not sure what you want. Do you want me to clarify how I would interpret the meaning of that?
Quoting Mww
Yes, I understand that it's not the idealism of Berkeley or Descartes. Whether or not it's a "necessary dualism" is open to debate. We could go into further detail about that if you want to. You lead the way. But can we not jump right into the deep end like Wayfarer has just done? I much prefer your general style of reply. You're usually quite succinct and logical. That's something I can work with.
The problems of philosophy are deep problems. They've been argued about for millenia. I appreciate that you're actually trying to engage with them, but you're making it difficult. You're starting from an attitude of common-sense realism - there's no point disputing that, because it is self-evident. Then you're saying 'so why shouldn't I simply maintain that view?' It's very close to a chip on the shoulder, ameliorated by the fact that I think you have a genuine interest in the question, almost in spite of yourself.
I referred to Kant, because my view is that in terms of the subject of philosophy, Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' is the key book of the age. Yes, it's difficult, contentious, and the cause of many arguments, but it's a hard problem, and Kant's analysis of it is pivotal - even now, even after all the subsequent discoveries (and contrary to what a lot of people here think).
The article I linked to makes a point about 'the role of the observer' in physics. Now I bring that up for a very specific reason. Common-sense realism would generally like to leave the whole issue of the role of the observer out of the picture. As far as common-sense realism is concerned, the world simply is the way it is, whether anyone's there or not. But 20th century physics encountered problems which throws that whole assumption into question. That was the 'observer problem' or 'the measurement problem', which is still an open question. (And which is why many of the popular scientific books on the question have references to 'the nature of reality' in their title or sub-title or abstract.)
Now I don't want to steer the thread in the direction of discussion of quantum physics, either, other than to observe that it is a very profound issue which has baffled very many great minds. At the very least, I think an attitude of bafflement, rather than complacency, is a better place to be, for a philosopher. I think we ought not to have the sense that the world isn't a mystery (sorry for the double negative). The philosopher's task is to 'wonder at what most think ordinary'. Not 'to wonder why anyone would do that'.
That works....interpret the meaning of it. You said you could conceive an unconceivable object. I’ve been wondering ever since how I would do that. It might be so simple I just looked right over the top of it....dunno.
I certainly don’t mind talking necessary dualisms, but this conceiving business has got to get fixed first, know what I mean, Vern?
I am both willing and interested to go over this, in our own words, in a step-by-step manner. But you say so much and go too fast for me.
Here's what I suggest. Pick a relatively simple starting point. Share a few thoughts, but nothing too lengthy or complex. Ask a question, or maybe two, but not too many all at once. Then we see how we get on.
Maybe for once, try something new, something a little different. Maybe try out the style of myself, or Terrapin Station, or Banno, instead of your usual style. Short and sweet, step-by-step.
Okay. First of all, I can see why the statement might appear on the surface to be contradictory: conceived-unconceived. But I don't think that it actually is a contradiction if interpreted properly.
I'm saying that I can conceive of a hypothetical scenario whereby there exists an unconceived object. That scenario is not [i]this[/I] scenario (where I exist, and I'm talking to you, and thinking about stuff, and so on) nor [I]any other[/I] scenario. What's [i]outside of[/I] the hypothetical scenario is not applicable. I'm not in it. No one is. If no one exists, then no one can conceive of the object. And there you have it. There's your unconceived object. Demonstrably we can think about this. We're thinking about it now. What's the problem?
The confusion in thinking that there's a contradiction seems to stem from some odd way of thinking about it where you're thinking about [i]me[/I] and what [I]I'm[/I] doing, instead of the hypothetical scenario. It's like looking at the finger instead of the moon.
OK. You’re just saying there is a condition where there are possible objects yet unthought. If that’s right, then I can say, sure, there’s millions of things I haven’t thought yet. And right now, this minute, every damn one of them is immersed in a hypothetical scenario. Still, again, if that’s right, I can’t call any of those things a rock, for to formally name an object presupposes its conception.
Finger/moon.....funny. I know for a fact my finger isn’t green cheese.
Per part one: Everything in any universe exists independent of humanity or even a mind to create or appreciate it.
Per part two: "Rock" as a sound or any other way delineated or detected is information attempting to be transmitted. The sound or word has meaning and existence as long as their is a least one conscious being left to understand it.
I'm way ahead of you. I knew this from your nonsensical op. But it sure took a lot of insistence on my part, repeating over and over again that your op is nonsensical, before you came to respect this fact. What were you thinking, that you could convert me to seeing things your way? I never thought I'd convert you. It's obvious that people like you are just so wrapped up in your nonsense, that you completely reject reason.
Okay. But it's also true that there were unconceived objects before beings like us even existed. That's not a hypothetical scenario.
Quoting Mww
Under your model it might do. Under mine it doesn't. That's why my model is superior.
Quoting Mww
Are you sure? How do you know that it isn't green cheese when you're not looking?
What are you referring to as the meaning, then? The information? But that's already there. What do you mean by "transmission"? Whether there's a person there to "receive" or interpret it is a matter relating to understanding, yes? So we could say that it has meaning, but the meaning is not understood. Why shouldn't we talk about it in this way?
Indeed you are, if "ahead of" means "behind", which it may well do in your topsy turvy world.
Of course it's not nonsense [i]on its own terms[/I]. It's only so as a consequence of you begging the question once again. You simply assume your own understanding instead of mine. You're stuck in your own little world. I've tried to help you out of it, but you seem truly stuck. Ask yourself, for example, whether I accept that hours passing is a temporal perspective to begin with. Do I accept that premise: yes or no? If no, then the logical consequences of accepting it along with my other premises simply does not apply to my position. That would be a non-identical position, even if you successfully refute it. Do you understand that?
Given that begging the question is fallacious, what else have you got? Ah, that's right, just assert that it's nonsense without argument, which is also a fallacy, or revert back to begging the question again. Repeat to infinity, or until I stop trying to get through to you.
Can you not see how inappropriate it is to ask me questions like, "What would maintain the human temporal perspective when there is no human beings?"? It's inappropriate because that doesn't follow from my position. If you throw in one or more of your own premises that I don't accept, then it is not my argument. Doing that is to commit a fallacy of irrelevance. Do you understand that? Are you able to stop yourself from doing this? Or are you stuck? I think that it would help for you to think real hard about what premises you're assuming when you criticise my argument. Think real hard about whether I accept them, or whether they're your own premises which I never accepted to begin with.
THE INFORMATION (VIEWER) UNIVERSE
Each/any 4 dimensional universe is self defining and self contained. Rather like a constantly progressing simulation has been noted. All the information about the universe and its process are available to any consciousness that has the ability to detect, identify and use it.
Life, all life's, primary purpose is to identify, use, and transmit this information. Transmission methods are not required to be conscious, for example...DNA.
Ever increasing complexity in life forms in order to better manage information is the result. If allowed to develop- consciousness of some type will always emerge. There does not seem to be a limit on what kind of consciousness that can emerge, only that it is more effective than not conscious or purely reactive. Even the stimuli response in its most basic form is simply a way to detect information available in the universe and use it.
In order to use information it has to be detected/identified. To become knowledge it must recorded and moved through time.
To be transmitted, the receiving consciousness' must understand the form of transmission.
As long there is at least one consciousness left that understands or could understand what the word/sound or whatever contains as information about the universe then the identifier exists as a self contained portion of information.
Perhaps an example to demonstrate would be from the digital world. All the information is available in bit form. Bytes and any other groupings of bit information still contain or can be identified to contain this original bit information.
At least from my point of view. :)
I'm just trying to understand which of my premises you disagree with, and why you think it's a matter of begging the question. Then we might be able to discuss our differences on that particular issue. Is it my premise that the human temporal perspective is very specific, and unique to the human being, or is it my premise that "an hour" is a measurement of time dependent on the human temporal perspective, or both? And, please give me some indication of the fault or faults you see in the premise or premises which you disagree with.
You haven't yet told me exactly what it is that you disagree with, and what it is that I am claiming which you think is "begging the question".
I see idealism has a lot to explain and it's similar to the situation where a person tells one lie and has to invent many other lies to make the first lie believable. In the end the story is just one big lie.
However, to be fair, I'd be careful with absurdity because it's, with the exception of a logical contradiction, subjective and so may vary with people. The topic we're discussing itself is an open question. It seems reasonable, therefore, to be agnostic about it while of course choosing one that one likes/prefers.
I call your superior model and raise you a superior theory.
I know, because I’ve tasted my thumb. In the interest of science, I assure you. Which doesn’t tell me jack about the moon, I agree.
I think I've already made that very clear, if we assume a usual context, but that this is an unusual context, because it seems to me that, with you, I have to put [i]way more effort[/I] into making things clear than I do with others. I think that it's more the case that your "clarity receptors" are the problem here, like a windshield in need of a good wipe.
At least this latest reply from you strikes me as a sign of progress compared to what has preceded it.
Anyway, moving on, I certainly do reject your premise that "an hour" is a measurement of time dependent on the human temporal perspective. Our disagreement here isn't just a matter of logic, it's a matter of semantics. You use some of your key terms in a manner different to how I use those same terms. For example, what you've called a judgement, I would call a fact. And what you've called a measurement also seems to imply, by definition, a subject. So if that's the case, then obviously I can't reasonably adhere to that definition, either. Please tell me you find this as obvious as I do. If you do, then that would at least be a step towards fully understanding the problem with what you've been doing.
I told you ages ago that I wouldn't even speak in the ways that you do, but in different ways. Do you remember ages ago when I mentioned [i]units[/I] of measurement? An hour is a [i]unit[/I] of measurement. I wouldn't even say that an hour is a measurement. You seem to overlook important details like this. Or it just comes across as sophism, where it looks like you're deliberately trying to exploit ambiguity or beg the question by including your conclusion in the definition of your terms. These are examples of the kind of things which I think that you've been assuming as part of your attempted refutation, and given what I've just explained (and what I have in fact been trying to explain for a long time now), that's why I think that you've been begging the question in your criticism. You have a burden to first argue in support of these things before moving on to my argument, but instead, I think that you've just been assuming them, and then jumping ahead to my argument. I think that you need to stop, slow down, and reverse your tracks back to where this problem is stemming from. Ideally, I think that you should have done that a long, long time ago instead of charging full steam ahead.
Quoting S
Yes I remember this. Then you went on to talk about rules, and Terrapin explained that rules are human conventions. So I thought you dismissed this line of thought. These are two different ways of using "hour". I interpreted "an hour" in your thought experiment as something measured, that's what you were insisting, "an hour" in relation to passing time, is something objective.' Now you claim to have used "an hour" as a unit of measurement. This means it is a standard, a convention for the act of measuring. After all the people die, how does "an hour", as a standard for measuring, relate to physical existence? It's just as nonsensical this way, as it is the other way.
Are you familiar with relativity theory. The meaning of "an hour" relative to physical existence is dependent on one's frame of reference. As a unit of measurement, "an hour" must be within the context of a frame of reference to have any meaning.
Then I would have explained why I consider that to be an irrelevant point. Can you think of why I might consider that point to be irrelevant? Or do I have to explain it?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why on earth would you assume that I interpret stuff like that in a manner implying subjective dependency? This is the very problem.
I don't do that. I call an hour a unit of measurement, because that's what it is, and I don't interpret stuff like that in your manner which would obviously lead me to contradiction. That's obvious, surely. I mean, come on. Really?
If it's a standard, I claim that it's an objective standard. And that's perfectly consistent with my position, and with my usage of language.
And [i]don't even think[/I] about misinterpreting "standard" as a judgement or anything of that sort. Ask if you're not sure of something, don't just assume, or at least try to apply the very minimum requirements of being charitable in your assumptions. Don't assume that I'm a bloody idiot whose saying something which is an obvious contradiction, like that something which requires a subject doesn't require a subject.
With all due respect, I think you have a lot to learn about logic, and you should be grateful for the effort I'm putting in and my patience.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I'm familiar to an extent. I suspect, however, that you're going to misapply the science in this context. Now, where does it say in relativity theory that the frame of reference must be a subject?
You keep insisting that it's irrelevant, but your thought experiment references "an hour" after all human beings have died. So it's very relevant. We need to know how "an hour" fits into this scenario of no living human beings.
Quoting S
How does "a standard" which is used in the practise of measurement figure into your scenario of no living human beings? Your thought experiment scenario describes the existence of a standard, "an hour" after all humans are dead. How is that standard meaningful if there are no humans to use it in the act of measuring.
You didn't answer my question. I guess this means that you couldn't figure it out, and that I must explain it to you.
The reason I consider the point that rules are human conventions to be irrelevant is because it is of no logical relevance to my argument. I have accepted that humans [i]set[/I] language rules. This misses the point, because I argue that there's no justified reason for believing that the rules would cease [i]to apply[/I]. They are a human convention only in some sense along the lines that humans come up with them.
This is where you send us around in circles by saying something in reply which begs the question, such as, "But of course they wouldn't apply, because no one would be there to interpret the meaning!", and maybe ask me a stupid question like, "Who would determine what it means?".
What do you want to know about my position regarding how an hour could pass that I haven't already said? Why should I repeat myself over and over again at your request? Why didn't you pay sufficient attention the first, second, and third time that I've explained it?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's currently used, obviously, because there exist people to use it. Would there exist people in the thought experiment? No. So would it be used? No. Would it apply? Yes. Why wouldn't it? Cue the never ending circle of you begging the question again without realising the error in what you're doing.
Would there be linguistic meaning? Yes. Would the meaning be understood? No, there wouldn't be anyone there to understand the meaning. Would the meaning be meaningful to anyone? No, there wouldn't be anyone there to find the meaning meaningful. Why would it be otherwise? Cue the never ending circle of you begging the question again without realising the error in what you're doing.
Notice how you exploit the ambiguity in your terms, and intentionally word what you say in a way which begs the question, just like a sophist would do. Are you a sophist? You certainly seem to act like one.
That's where you go into nonsense. People apply standards of measurement in their acts of measurement. The rules do not apply themselves. So "an hour", as a standard of measurement cannot apply itself, and measure an hour, after all the people are dead.
If you think that this is a matter of "begging", then I can show you endless numbers of cases where human beings apply standards of measurement in the act of measuring. Can you show me one case where a standard of measurement applies itself in an act of measurement? If not, then I suggest you drop the charge of "begging the question", and accept as reality that "an hour after all the people died" is meaningless nonsense.
Quoting S
I want you to explain how a standard of measurement applies without someone applying it. To me, that's quite obviously nonsensical.
Quoting S
This is contradictory. To apply a rule is to use a rule. But if you mean by "it would apply", that the particular rule is applicable, or relevant, then we need someone to actually apply the rule, after all the people are dead, to measure the hour period, or else we simply have an applicable rule with no one to apply it.
Quoting S
Now you appear to be catching on. After all the people are dead, there is still a standard of measurement, "an hour". "An hour" has meaning as a standard of measurement, and even after all people are dead, it has meaning. But with all the people dead there is no one to understand that meaning, or to apply the standard of measurement. Now, let's ask the question, "would there be a specific rock 'an hour' after all people are dead?"
Do you agree that this specific rock would exist at some times after all the people are dead, and at other times after all the people are dead, it would not exist? So, after all the people are dead, if it is to be either true or false that the specific rock exists "an hour" after all the people are dead, then some one must interpret, "an hour", and measure "an hour" after all the people are dead. Therefore it is a nonsensical question, because the rock exists at sometimes and other times it does not exist, and there is no one to interpret "an hour", and to measure "an hour", to see how this relates to the existence of the rock. The rock may or may not exist "an hour" after all the people are dead, and it is meaningless nonsense to ask such a question. To presuppose that the question may be answered is to presuppose something impossible, something contradictory, that "an hour" can be interpreted and measured when there is no one to interpret and measure.
Yes, they do, and that's obviously irrelevant, but you fail to see that. It's probably obvious to those who aren't wearing blinkers, and aren't unreasonable. Before you ask why it's irrelevant, first ask yourself: are there people in the scenario?
You're missing the point for about the millionth time now. The question is not whether people apply standards, which they do, but whether the standards would apply, which they would. People apply standards [i]for a purpose[/I], like finding out the length of a wall. That's completely irrelevant with regards to what I'm talking about. If the length of the wall is two metres, then the length of the wall is two metres. You said earlier that a tautology is the strongest form of argument, so there you have it. Whether anyone has measured the wall to find out that it's two metres in length is completely irrelevant. Once again, this is your fundamental idealist error of confusing epistemology and metaphysics. What you are stuck talking about are requirements for knowledge, not requirements for what's the case, and you consistently fail to realise this.
If you can't even pick up something as simple as that, then why should I continue?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am tired of this sophism. Your wording is wrong. We don't ask whether plants grow themselves in nature. They simply grow in nature. And the rules would likewise simply apply, not apply themselves. You're suggesting the requirement of a subject in your wording, and that's not proper philosophy, that's sophism, and it's inherently unreasonable. I've exposed it for what it is. I'm not going to keep doing that with no end in sight.
The hour doesn't need to be measured for it to pass. You don't need to be constantly staring at a clock like a complete moron for an hour to have passed. No one does. We don't even need to exist. If we were to die now, not only hours, but years would pass. Hundreds of years. What? You think that God is there with a stopwatch or something? I hate to break it to you, but that's a load of baloney.
I am curious what influences you to produce this sort of sophism. Do you get it from a book? The internet? Or do you create it yourself?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I've done so already. An argument from repetition is an informal fallacy. It's not reasonable to ask me to do something I've already done, let alone done [i]multiple times[/I]. If it's a tactic of yours to get me to give up through nausea, then that's immoral, and it is what a sophist would do.
Not understanding is one thing, but when I've already given you an explanation, then you should go back to that explanation before expecting me to simply repeat it just because you want me to. And I shall now leave you to think on that.
Correct, but "length" is a measurement, and a thing only has a measurement if it's been measured. To say that it has a measurement without having been measured is contradictory.
Quoting S
Oh no, here you go again. The wall's "length" of "two metres" is what we say about it, what we've determined it to be through measurement, two metres. Don't you see that it would be nonsensical to say that the wall is two metres if it hasn't been measured to be two metres? The wall is two metres if the wall is two metres, correct and tautological. But the wall is only two metres if it's been measured to be two metres, because "two metres" is a measurement.
We've been through this already, a thing only has a measurement if it's been measured. The wall is two metres if it's been measured to be two metres. To say "the wall is two metres" when it hasn't been measured to be two metres is meaningless nonsense. In what instance would you ever state that a thing has measurement X, when it has not been measured to actually be X? Your statements clearly are nonsensical. After everyone is dead, there is no one to measure "an hour". That a standard of measurement "would apply", if there were someone to apply it, does not mean that a standard of measurement has been applied, and an hour has been measured.
Quoting S
We've been through this too. Time passes. An hour is a measured period of time. It's nonsense to say that an hour has passed without somehow measuring an hour to have passed. When I explained this to you, you started claiming that you used "an hour" in a different way, to refer to a standard, a "unit of measurement" rather than a measured period of time. Now you appear to be attempting to create ambiguity, saying that the "hour" is the thing passed, not the standard of measurement by which the period of time is measured. Equivocation is a fallacy.
It's not nonsensical in the context in which I'm saying it, which is not the usual context. In saying it in the usual context, it wouldn't make sense for me to say that, because it would suggest that I had knowledge of its length, when I hadn't measured it to find out that knowledge. In my context, on the other hand, I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I'm not suggesting anything about knowledge that I've acquired through measuring. I'm just saying that it would necessarily be of a certain length - for example, that it would be two metres in length. I'm not suggesting that I actually know the wall to be that specific length, just that it would have a specific length, and that that specific length could be two metres. It could be an unknown truth.
You must learn to stop misinterpreting what's being said!
So you’re a realist. I’m sorry, does it hurt? They got remedies for that these days, ya know. (Grin)
So what kind of realist are you? Scientific realist? Metaphysical realist?
Describe the world in your own words.
It hurts each time someone repeatedly fails to grasp a perfectly reasonable argument that I've made in support of realism, but I'm thinking that maybe I like the pain. Either that or I'm a perfectly reasonable fool.
Quoting Mww
I'm not sure what you'd call my sort of realism, and I don't particularly care. Metaphysical realism? Does it matter what we call it? We could just call it my kind of realism.
Quoting Mww
There's a whole bunch of stuff: rocks, planets, trees, people, computers, electrons, space. There's also stuff like judgements, feelings, thoughts, concepts, numbers, and language, which seem of a different category. But whatever there is, all of it, that's the world. And if you removed some of the stuff, like people, judgements, feelings, and thoughts, then all that's left: that would be the world. There would still be planets, for example. There's no good reason to believe that they'd suddenly cease to exist along with people, judgements, thoughts, and feelings.
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Translation:
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“I can’t define it.”
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Nonsense.
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It’s common-knowledge that English has word-combinations whose meaning isn’t given by the meanings of their parts.
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1. You point to a cabinet whose contents are unknown, and say “Is a rock there?”
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2. Or you say “Is there the rock that I referred to, after everyone dies?”. (“Exists that rock?”)
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Those are two entirely different kinds of question, and “There is…” is being used entirely differently, with a different meaning. (..an unknown or absent meaning, in #2)
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As you meant it when you asked if there still is that rock after everyone has died, “There is” means “Exists”.
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“Exists that rock, after everyone has died?” accurately translates your question.
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It’s a matter of whether or not you can define “Exist”.
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Saying that there is a certain thing, in its own context, is a truism. And it doesn’t say anything about its objective existence or reality.
(And what meaning it has isn't shared by the "There is" in your question.)
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For instance an inter-referring system of abstract facts are inter-related (…as a truism, just by the facts themselves and their being about eachother). And that’s so, without reference to any outside reality or frame-of-reference, and without any claim of objective existence or real-ness for that system, whatever that would mean.
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There is this physical world, in its own context, and in the context of your life.
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That use of “There is” is different from your use of it in your question. You’re asking about some supposed objective existence, and you can’t define it.
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No.
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I don’t agree that I’m “pretending”. But yes, I’m saying that it isn’t self-explanatory.
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Did I say that I know the meaning?
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But neither do you.
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Philosophy gets into so much muddle and befuddlement, when we say things whose meaning we don’t know.
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We start from the fact that I don’t know what you mean, and neither do you.
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…unless you can tell me what you mean by “Exist”. …for something to “exist”, objectively (without limiting that existence to a particular context).
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Michael Ossipoff
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8 Su
I went over this. Your reply is nonresponsive and doesn't progress the discussion. Whether I can or can't, defining it isn't necessary if we understand the meaning, which we do. Saying otherwise is a performative contradiction. Thus, your claim has been refuted.
You know what a game is, even if you can't successfully define it. Are you familiar with Wittgenstein at all?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
And you're going to pretend that you don't understand what is being asked there?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
And you're going to pretend that you don't understand what is being asked there?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
The part about existence is no different in either. They're just two different scenarios, two different contexts, and you understand what's being asked in both cases, so there shouldn't be a problem. If there is, then it's of your own making.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
It doesn't make a difference if you use "is" or "exists", as they have the same meaning per my usage here.
And nope, it's just a matter of whether what I'm saying is understandable, but it is, so we can move on from that.
OK, try this thought experiment. You and I are walking in the woods, and we come across a rock.
You say "that rock has a measurement".
I say, "no it doesn't have a measurement because it hasn't been measured.
You insist, "yes it must have a measurement, regardless of whether or not it has been measured".
So I cite for you the conventional definitions of "measurement", all of which require an act of measuring. And I explain to you that what you are insisting on is nonsense.
Then you say "I am not using 'measurement' in the 'usual context', and in my context, it does make sense".
But your context is the purpose of supporting a metaphysical position.
So you give "measurement" a very special meaning, within a special context, which is the purpose of supporting your metaphysical position, which turns out to be untenable without that special meaning of "measurement". The only thing which supports your metaphysical position is assuming that very special meaning of "measurement", and the only reason to assume that special meaning is to support your metaphysical position. Who is the one being unreasonable?
Just seeing how people think. No pressure, no biggie.
What is color?
Ooh, that's a toughie. You. Your fake conversation between us misrepresents what I'd say. Straight away, I wouldn't even say, "That rock has a measurement". I would say something along the lines of what I have been saying throughout the discussion, not what you've been so desperately trying to get me to say, or what you've simply been imagining me to say. I would say that the rock is of a certain length, and that that length could be 10cm, but that without measuring it, we won't know whether it's 10cm, even if it is.
There's nothing unreasonable about that. There's nothing unreasonable about such an unknown truth. You either don't see this or you just can't bear to accept it.
This is not correct. A thing has length if it is measurable, it is measurable if it has length. It need not be measured to have length, In fact it must have length (i.e. be measurable) in order to be measured.
Thank God. Perhaps hearing it from someone else will help.
I wouldn't hold my breath when it comes to MU. :grin:
Colour is visible light. Different colours are different ranges of wavelengths.
Oh well. Fuck it. Some of it has been hilarious, like missing the point about missing the point. That's still cracking me up now. :lol:
This is insane. It serves only as an example of very bad logic: a test for someone to analyse, identify the errors, and write up an explanation. Besides that, it is of no value.
Thanks for all of these tests, I suppose. I remain as sharp as ever.
So would a realist say some EMR has the property of 450nm, along with the property of 630THz, and the property “blue”?
The rock is not "of a certain length" until the length has been ascertained. To say that it is, is contradiction plain and simple. If you really believe that it is "of a certain length", then tell me who is certain of the length? If there is no one who is certain of the length, then clearly the rock cannot be a certain length. What are you supposing here, that the rock is certain of its own length? If not, how is the length of the rock certain?
Quoting Janus
No, the length is the measurement. The object is measured, and the measurement is the length, 10cm, or whatever. Whether or not an object is measurable is irrelevant to its actual length. What is relevant to its length is actual measurement. You are simply making stuff up. Welcome to the S group, fabricators of fictitious fantasies.
Quoting S
It's interesting, and very telling how you can go on and on about how such and such is bad logic, but you can never point out what is wrong with the logic. I'll tell you what's wrong with the logic. You do not like the conclusion therefore it must be bad logic. Things which you do not like are "bad".
If what you claim were true, then we could not be wrong in any of our measurements. The fact that multiple measurements can be taken completely independently and without any knowledge of prior measurements, and yet will unfailingly be found to agree with one another with a very small margin of error (given that all the measurements are correct, of course!) proves the point.
It is not @S or me who is "fabricating fantasies"; in fact that's one of the most egregious examples of projection I have come across. Leaves me wondering if this is wilful intellectual dishonesty or rank stupidity. Be ashamed, be very ashamed!
I wouldn't say that last part. That it has the property of being 450nm and 630THz means that it's blue.
Nope, not by my logic, plain and simple. By your logic, plain and simple. Your logic is bad logic which I reject. This is one of your fundamental errors: confusing your logic for mine. And it should be obvious to anyone with even a very basic understanding of logic what you're doing wrong here, yet, let me guess: you want me to explain the problem to you? That first sentence of yours in the quote above: do you know what we call that when it is part of an argument? That's right: a premise! And [i]whose[/I] premise is it? Is it yours? Is it mine? Is it a premise that we both agree on? Bearing this in mind, [i]whose[/I] logic leads to contradiction? Does my logic [i]internally[/I] lead to contradiction? Yes or no?
Let me know if you've figured it out.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Very funny. I'm guessing that you don't see why that's a funny question to ask me, and you'll expect me to explain it to you, like you expect me to explain [i]everything[/I], no matter how simple or obvious it is to anyone with half a brain. Nah. I don't think so. Try to figure it out for yourself. It is not good that you need to be spoon fed everything, like a little baby.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Wow. Just... wow. This is astounding.
Ok. So if some properties are measured, some meaning follows necessarily from those measurements, but the meaning itself is not a measurement. If that is true, then how can we tell whether the meaning belongs to the measurement or to the EMR? Just like if we measure the sides of a four-sided geometric figure and the measurements provide the same units means the figure is a square, does “square” reside in the figure or the equal measures?
What? A square is a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles. So if there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. Regarding the meaning, that's covered by the aforementioned. The first sentence empresses the meaning. Why would measurement even come into this? That seems irrelevant to me. The first two sentences are sufficient for determining whether or not there's a square, which would be a relevant line of inquiry. If a relevant line of inquiry was something like, "How can we know what length the sides of the square are?", then measurement would be relevant.
I don't see how that proves your point. It just indicates that the numerous people measuring the same object use the same standards, and therefore come up with the same measurement of that object. Are you familiar with length contraction in relativity theory. Length is dependent on the frame of reference. If relativity theory is true, it proves my point, length is a product of the measurement.
Quoting Janus
This is what you said:
Quoting Janus
That's clearly a fabrication. One cannot equate length with measurability. That's complete nonsense. You just made that up, and spouted it out, rudely interrupting our discussion, as if you were interjecting with a fact. Shame on you!
Quoting S
You've demonstrated your logic. You reject conventional definitions, fabricate definitions, and even change them, as required, to support your metaphysics. And, you reject my logic as "bad" because it produces conclusion which are inconsistent with your metaphysics.
Quoting S
Producing your own type of logic is called "rationalizing", and this is actually a form of being unreasonable.
Quoting S
Right, you do not agree with my premises because they are based in conventional definitions. You reject conventional definitions, (such as the one quoted, that for something to be certain it must be ascertained), and fabricate your own definitions, as you go, because this is the only way you can support your incorrect metaphysics. Conventional definitions do not support your incorrect metaphysics, and that's why your metaphysics is incorrect.
Quoting S
I've got it figured out now. You have a particular metaphysical perspective. Normal, conventional usage of words does not support your metaphysical perspective. Conventional definitions produce premises which prove your metaphysics to be incorrect. So you've created your own way of using words, what you call your own "context", which is not the normal, conventional way of using words, it's your newly fabricated way, which supports your incorrect metaphysics. And someone like me, who adheres to conventional definitions to prove your metaphysics wrong, you say is a "sophist".
Quoting S
When someone uses a word, in a new, unconventional way, I ask for an explanation, because I want to understand what is "meant" by that word, the purpose for using that word in the context that it was used. In a situation like this discussion, where you are trying to support a metaphysical position, if you fail to explain to me why you are using that word, in that unconventional way, I will simply conclude that you've changed the definition of that word for the purpose of supporting your metaphysical position. If you must deviate from accepted definitions, and fabricate new definitions as we proceed in discussion, to support your metaphysics, then I conclude your metaphysics is an untenable fabrication of your own imagination, and therefore incorrect.
Before science there were humans that perceived blue things. Before geometry there were humans that perceived equi-sided formations. Even if we can say truthfully the scientific or geometric properties resided in the objects before we knew of them, we can truthfully only say so after The discovery of it. Blue things were blue long before wavelengths and frequencies were determinable, or even practically necessary. Square things were square long before geometers determined what it means to be square.
Because these things were perceived beforehand, the specific properties for these things are not required for them to be understood. That is the same as saying the real parts of these things are not required for the understanding of them, for the knowing of them for what they are merely by means of their appearance. A gal who wants a shade of blue for the nursery doesn’t give a crap about the frequency of it, and the guy setting tile in the hallway doesn’t give a crap about the fact of four equal angles, but both of them know what they want from each of those things, have an expectation from these things because of their appearance and NOT from their respective properties.
There is no suspicion in claiming to be a realist, the negation of which is absurd, but the denial of idealism which necessarily accompanies it, is highly suspicious. As long as an otherwise normally functioning human thinks, he is an idealist of some kind. Simply knowing something about blue and squares and all the rest, that cannot be derived, nor does not need to be derived, from its physical properties presupposes a source of knowledge having nothing to do with the empirical realism, that being merely the occassion.
Agree.
Quoting Mww
No, because that erroneously rules out speaking unconfirmed truths. If I knew enough to make a prediction or a guess about the properties of blue objects or geometric shapes, then I could speak unconfirmed truths about them. For example, if I knew that the colour blue consists in visible light from within a certain range of wavelength, and I knew that we could measure wavelengths in nanometres, then I could make a complete guess and say that the colour blue has a range of between 450 and 495 nanometres, and if I said that, then I would be speaking a truth prior to the discovery of that fact.
But if I didn't know enough to make a prediction or guess of that sort, then yes, I wouldn't be able to truthfully say stuff like that. But so what? How is that supposedly relevant?
Unconfirmed truths are important in this context, because that, in combination with other things, enables me to reasonably say that there would exist a rock if we all died, and, in my argument with you-know-who, that it could be the case that there's a rock that's 10cm in length, despite it not having been measured.
So you've fallen prey to his kind of illogic, have you? I thought that you were better than that.
Quoting Mww
This is a misuse of "determine", another error which Metaphysician Undercover has made prior to you making it. If you want to say it right, then you should use "discover" instead. The properties of a thing are what determines what it is. If a segment of visible light has the properties required for being blue, then it's blue. If a shape has the properties required for being a square, then it's a square. That's what determines. If I don't know that, then I haven't discovered it. And if I want to discover it, and I think I know how, then that's what I'll have to do in order to find out.
Quoting Mww
To what extent?! Obviously lacking knowledge of subsequent discoveries means that they didn't understand them to the extent that we do.
Quoting Mww
That's a load of rubbish. If I only knew of the appearance of the colour blue, then I would only have an incomplete understanding. I wouldn't understand that the colour blue is visible light within a certain range of wavelength.
Quoting Mww
But I don't give a crap about knowledge for limited practical purposes in this context. I've explained the irrelevance of this before, yet here you are bringing it up again, as though it were otherwise. This discussion is about knowledge and truth. It is not confined to your agenda of what's practical! If you want to talk about what's practical, then create a separate discussion! This isn't something that's going to change over time for no apparent reason, so please try to remember the appropriate context.
Quoting Mww
What? That's a load of nonsense. I'm not an idealist. And knowing something about things like the colour blue, like how it appears, without knowing the science, is completely irrelevant. Okay, people can know some stuff about some stuff without knowing everything about that stuff. Okay, people can know enough for practical purposes. I never denied that, but I certainly deny the relevance of you bringing that up in this context.
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???!!! :D
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Yes, defining our terms is necessary. Without that, philosophy becomes meaningless, muddled gibberish.
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If you can’t define it, then you don’t know its meaning, and that supports my claim that it doesn’t have one.
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No, you don’t. If you knew its meaning, you’d be able to state it.
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It’s obvious, clear, and well-defined what’s being asked there.
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And you're going to pretend that you don't understand what is being asked there?
[/quote]
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No. I’m not going to pretend that.
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But, though I don’t pretend it, I’m truthfully saying it.
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I don’t understand what’s being said there, and neither do you. You don’t know what you mean. That’s why you can’t say what you mean.
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They’re two entirely different questions:
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In #1, you’re asking if there’s a rock in the place that you’re pointing to. Either the cabinet contains a rock or it doesn’t, and we all know what that means.
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In #2, you’re asking if a certain particular rock still exists (…objectively (no context specified), whatever that’s supposed to mean.)
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No, I don’t, and neither do you. …in the case of question #2.
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Yes, in your OP question, “There is” means “Exists”.
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What you’re saying (what you’re asking in your OP question) is meaningless.
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…and, not having a meaning, it also doesn’t have an understandable meaning.
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 M
You continue to conflate length with measurement. Is an anaconda longer than a maggot? Of course it is, and you don't need to measure them to see that.
Does the "length contraction" that accords with Relativity theory occur regardless of whether it is measured? If it didn't then how would it ever be discovered?
So until I define every term in this sentence, you have no idea what I'm saying. I might as well just be banging my head on the keyboard.
Ghjnnbvcgjkk vggjj ghnnmmnfvb
Yeah, that's real convincing.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Yet almost everyone else understood it. How peculiar.
You have GOT to be the WORST epistemological realist EVER!!!
There are some unconfirmed truths; but these are necessary truths, the contradictions of which are impossible. To say Quoting S.....has no greater power than mere conjecture, a contingent possibility, because no conditions are given to sustain any prediction. Because of the technical difficulty intrinsic to color, simply observing one of them enables no predictions whatsoever about their physical properties. You couldn’t even ascertain the fact color is EMR, much less predict anything about the behavior of it from the observation of rainbows. Even saying if you knew enough is catastrophically inept, because it raises the question....how much is enough. If you knew x and y and from those predicted z, z remains no more than reasonable expectation until some other condition is satisfied, as in, experiment or accident. A caveman sees green grass and predicts it is fresh, but only because he has seen brown grass that deer never eat. Just because he knows the grass is green at night, does not allow him to predict the sun is partly responsible for fresh grass. Faraday might have the unconfirmed hypothetical for electric lines, but without the rational appeal to a very specific experiment, he would have had no reason to suppose them. And even then, he got it wrong by requiring a medium.
Quoting S
Yeah, so what? That’s what every theoretical physicist says, but I betcha a Benjamin he never calls it a “truth” before it is proven to be one. After the fact he can say such and such is true, thus beforehand it was an unconfirmed truth, which is exactly the opposite of what you say.
Unconfirmed truth is a contradiction in terms. No truth is unconfirmed and that which is either rationally or empirically unconfirmed cannot be a truth. That which is true now and will be under congruent circumstance is a necessary truth empirically, or a logical truth rationally. Substantiated hypotheticals can lead to reasonable predictions, but truths absolutely must meet the criteria of knowledge.
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I didn’t say “determine”; I said determinable. Under certain conditions there are things completely undeterminable, and those conditions have to do with human inability.
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This discussion was about realism and possible counter-arguments with respect to it. Knowledge and truth may enter into it but they are qualifiers for what they are. You brought truth here, apparently without understanding what it is.
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A worthy epistemological realist would be quick to realize the limited practical purpose is the sole paradigm from which he can work. The total of practical exercise is indeed very far larger than the arena available to a human, but the totality is quite irrelevant. Hell, we haven’t even got ourselves off this planet yet. But the deeper you go into realism the more you need some kind of idealism, because you’re bound by reason itself to reduce to conditions not met with realism alone.
This thread is called a THOUGHT experiment for a reason.
What? You just now realized that my objection to your thought experiment is based in semantics? Right from the beginning, I objected to your use of "an hour", saying that it was meaningless nonsense in that context. How could it take you this long to see that?
Quoting Janus
Length is a type of measurement, just like width, height, temperature, etc.. In the case of this op, the measurement referred to is "an hour". I said such a measurement would be impossible with no people. S tried to justify the use of "an hour" by claiming that it was not a measurement, but a unit of measurement. I said that a unit of measurement is useless without someone to apply it. S claimed that the unit of measurement "would apply" regardless of whether there are people to apply it, (as if it would apply itself, and measure and hour by itself, or something like that).
Quoting Janus
That one thing is longer than another is an act of comparison which doesn't tell you the length of either one. Therefore this example is not relevant. It is not the correct type of measurement required to give you the length, and because it is not such, it doesn't provide the length of anything.
Quoting Janus
Your question doesn't make sense. Length contraction is a feature of measuring the same object from different frames of reference. It doesn't make sense to ask whether it occurs regardless of measurement, because it is a feature of measurement.
Using common meaning, wouldn't an unconfirmed truth just be any prediction that was "always" (relative to humans) true in the past. "The sun will rise tomorrow." It is possible that statement is "not true" but for the sake of everyone's sanity we can take the shortcut and just assume it will continue to be true. I get that science and philosophy regularly delve beyond the apparent, but "unconfirmed truth" will only seem a contradiction in terms to the types that like to over-analyze language (which I do sometimes).
To the layman, if I say "it is an unconfirmed truth that when I let go of this pencil it will fall to the floor" (I am holding my arm out to my side holding a pencil), most would say "true" as opposed to "false". Yes, I get it is far more complicated than just true or false, but that is only a problem for Philosophy (and occasionally science), it does not mean that language loses its common meaning.
And just to make the point for S, even if "unconfirmed truth" is a contradiction in terms, we all know what he meant, and calling it a contradiction of terms does not refute the more general point he was making.
After 10 pages, I am not sure I 100% agree with @S, but I don't think that I have any trouble understanding his points.
I would vie for the title of "worst epistemological realist" but I can't even figure out what the idealist position is; it seems to range from, "well there is more than just objective facts {mind has an influence}" to "without an observer, nothing exists". I view the former as certainly true, but as discussions move toward the latter option, I feel like we have left practicality behind along with reality and I lose interest.
Holy Jesus
Quoting ZhouBoTong
To that I simply would say: "how do you know; you haven't been there"?
Oh look, a [i]non sequitur[/I].
Yes, understood and agreed, in principle. Nonetheless, if we were herein engaged in common meanings, we would be writing newspaper articles instead of delving into metaphysical particulars.
The dropped pencil argument is straight out of Hume’s claim of epistemological knowledge given from mere habit or convention. The pencil will fall to the floor because it has always fallen to the floor, but that says nothing whatsoever about why such should be the case, and if sufficient reason should be given, that serves as argument the pencil will never do anything BUT fall to the floor. But sufficient reason is not proof, sufficient reason here being gravity, or the mass of the pencil, but that doesn’t say what gravity is or why it acts on objects the way it does.
Even the rabid subjective idealist grants the existence of real things, even if those things are said to be real in a categorically unsubstantiated way. No rational agent can deny the existence of real objects; if he does he cannot explain his own body as a spacetime object without immediately contradicting himself.
I think the antagonist approach in this multi-logue is, not so much that without observers nothing exists, but rather, the idea that because existence in general can only be examined, understood, cognized and known from a human perspective, without all that nothing can be said about it with the same certainty and logical consistency as the original expositions gave to it. So it isn’t so much about the negation of existence as it is about the negation of the observer with respect to existence. It’s the same error as defining a word and using the word being defined in the definition.
Do you know what non-sequitur means, or do you just use any words in any random way that pleases you? A simple statement of observation cannot be a non-sequitur, because non-sequitur refers to a conclusion drawn from previous statements. If you think that my observation is false, then say so, and explain why. But why use fancy words which you don't even know the meaning of?
It's demonstrated by logic. That's what logic is good for, telling us about things we haven't experienced. But people like S refuse the logic by finding a way to reject the premises. That way, is to reject conventional definitions of terms, and fabricate new definitions for the purpose of supporting faulty metaphysics.
You aren’t hearing me. You said of blue, the measurable properties x and y means it’s blue. That doesn’t make any sense at all to a guy who claims a thing is blue for no other reason whatsoever than he sees it as blue. I see an object as blue therefore that means it is a blue object no matter it’s properties. How could what I see as blue mean it’s red? Hence, while discoverable properties describe something, such discovery does not always lend itself to meaning.
What you’re saying by measurable properties x and y means it is blue, is actually x and y are the conditions under which some part of the visual spectrum of EMR must be identified as the same as the sensation of “blue” that is perceived by humans. That spectrum has the exact same conditions for blue but may not identify as blue to an animal lacking the similar receptor system as the human animal that labels that part of the visual spectrum “blue”.
(Example only; it is a categorical error to suppose anything with certainty regarding non-human animals.)
Quoting S
Do you see that the subject of your proposition is “shape”? That makes explicit some arbitrary extension in space is necessarily presupposed in order for the conceptions in the predicate to be thereafter associated to something as a means to identity it. It follows if the arbitrary shape is constituted by four equal sides and four equal angles contained in those sides, THEN it is labeled “square”. It is not always necessary to actually quantify anything to perceive a square, insofar as natural knowledge evolution accepts the general conception of “square” without recourse to rulers, but there are still conditions where it is required in order for the label “square” to be at the negation of the possibility of all other shapes, i.e., construction trades, very great or very small distances, etc., or to falsify an optical illusion.
From this, it is clear that a necessary truth such that any extended shape with its own identifying consistently attributed constituents must be a square. A necessary truth needs no confirmation, it will be the case whether confirmed or not. An unconfirmed truth suggests a possibility of falsification, which requires a means of identity to apodectically resolve.
:roll:
Quoting Mww
No, you're catastrophically inept if you can't recognise the reasonableness in my argument that rocks would exist, which is an unconfirmed truth. Are you some sort of logical positivist or something? Some buffoon who thinks something along the lines that all knowledge requires verification? You do realise that logical positivism has been refuted long ago, and is now widely recognised as untenable? I produced a reduction to the absurd to show why we should believe that the rock would exist, in spite of the lack of verification. The explanatory power is superior to alternative positions. Alternative positions fail massively to make sense of these scenarios.
Quoting Mww
This is a false analogy to the situation with the rock, because the caveman might not know enough to make that prediction at all, let alone reasonably, whereas I can and do.
Quoting Mww
Jesus, not your fallacy of irrelevance about certainty again. That's what your last sentence seems to be getting at. Am I suggesting that it's impossible that I could be wrong? In other words, am I suggesting that I have absolute certainty regarding my claim? No. I am a fallibilist.
Now, you seem to be so stuck in your extreme empiricism that you're forgetting about reason and logic. I'm not suggesting that we can perform an experiment, I'm saying that that's not necessary. It's necessary for confirmation, but it's not necessary for reasonable belief.
Quoting Mww
So that refutes your claim! :rofl:
Quoting Mww
I don't care. Even theoretical physicists can be unreasonable. There's a difference between doing science and doing philosophy, you know. Maybe they don't say that if they're doing science.
Quoting Mww
What? Um, no. That's not the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that, before confirmation, it's an unconfirmed truth. That's obviously what I'm saying.
Quoting Mww
No it isn't. If you're interpreting it that way, then you're interpreting it wrong. Unconfirmed truths make sense and are reasonable and are a matter of common sense. This can be demonstrated with examples.
If unconfirmed truths are incompatible with your position, then that's your problem as far as I'm concerned.
Quoting Mww
Good luck trying to justify that assertion! How could you??
Quoting Mww
The basis for believing these sort of propositions can, in some cases, be reasonable, and therefore justified. That's the case with the rock that would exist. And I've demonstrated that with my argument.
Quoting Mww
That's absurd. All truths must be known? I don't think so. Knowledge criteria is for knowledge, and truth criteria is for truth. Knowledge and truth are two different things, obviously. It makes no sense to say that they have the same criteria. You are going by false premises, mate. That's why you are reaching absurd conclusions and that's why you're running into problems with my position which accords better with what's sensible to believe.
Quoting Mww
I know what you said. It's the same with all of the variations of "determine", such as "determinable". That's what I meant. It's completely the wrong term. The right term is "discover", and all of the variations of "discover", such as "discoverable".
I've set out my usage. My usage makes way more sense.
Quoting Mww
That doesn't say anything at all really. I know what the topic is, thanks. I created this discussion.
And I don't care about your unsubstantiated opinions. Vague and unsupported remarks like those in the quote above can simply be dismissed.
Quoting Mww
Worthy? Lol. Your value judgement is subjective, and I don't share it.
The above quote is completely unsubstantiated. I stand by my pointing out the irrelevance of what's practical, and I stand by my pointing out the clear fact that I'm not an idealist.
Your question was clearly loaded. The question, "You just now realized that my objection to your thought experiment is based in semantics?", clearly suggests that that's what you think. But it doesn't logically follow from what I actually said. It was a dumb question. Either illogical or just a stupid assumption. Take your pick, it's lose-lose.
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No, I didn’t say that.
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No finite dictionary can noncircularly define any of its words.
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But of course many words, like “here”, “go”, “with” “and”, “on”, “this”, “up”, “hit”, etc., can be known from gesture or experience. And, based on such words, and on the dictionaries’ definitions of words in terms of other words, we usually know what other people mean.
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Problem: Without specified context, “Real” “Exist” and “There is” don’t have metaphysical definitions in terms of other words, and aren’t the sort of words that we know from daily experience or gestures.
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When a dictionary tries to define “Real” or “Exist” in terms of other words, without reference to a specified context, the circularity is blatant and doesn’t terminate in an experience-known word, and the definitions aren’t helpful.
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“Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time.
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“Everyone else” has previously heard, and recognizes, what you were asking, as a very familiar part of philosophical-talk.
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But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context.
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Anyway, I’m not interested in a census.
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 Tu
It's funny when they make self-defeating claims like that.
This one is funny too:
[quote=Mww]No truth is unconfirmed...[/quote]
Okay, so it's not the case that, [i]as I'm walking home, unbeknownst to me, I have left my keys at work[/I], unless and until that has been confirmed. I don't ever need to worry about that possibility, because I'll only ever have left them at work unless and until someone has confirmed that that's what I've done. It's not until someone finds my keys on my desk the next day that I had left them at work. It's not true that, after I had left work without my keys, [i]I had left my keys at work, on my desk.[/I]
How very peculiar. Or rather, how very ridiculous. And there are innumerable additional examples, just as absurd, if not more so. How about this:
Without confirmation, it isn't true that Earth spins on an axis. Cavemen didn't have confirmation of this truth. So it wasn't true at that time. But if it wasn't true at that time, then how are we even here right now? If the Earth didn't spin on an axis for all that time until it was confirmed, then it [i]couldn't[/I] have been confirmed, because everyone alive at that time would've died long before then, and we would've never been born. That's definitely absurd.
This is where [i]extreme[/I] empiricism leads, and this is why it should be rejected. It's [i]extremely[/I] unreasonable. These people [i]themselves[/I] have helped demonstrate just how unreasonable it is, by saying such things without realising the logical consequences of what they say.
But it very clearly isn't. However, it will lead to contradiction [i]for you[/I] if you do something [i]dumb[/I] like interpreting it as saying "untrue truth" or by committing to the [i]unjustifiable[/I] premise that what's unconfirmed isn't true.
Would the pencil drop to the floor? We don't know [i]for sure[/I], but certainty isn't necessary. Could it rise to the ceiling instead? Yes. However, if we're reasonable, then what we must consider is whether the consequences of it [i]not[/I] dropping to the floor would be more absurd than otherwise. If this alternative logically leads to seeming absurdity that can't be explained well or even at all, then it's not reasonable to believe the alternative. If the pencil dropping to the floor is the best prediction, and the best explanation of what would happen, given what we know, then it's reasonable to believe that that, all else being equal, would happen. You'd need a greater reason that something completely unexpected would happen instead, and certainly just because it [i]could[/I] rise to the ceiling instead, that doesn't mean that it [I]would[/I], nor would it mean that we haven't the foggiest either way, nor would it mean that what we already know isn't enough to reasonably believe what would most likely happen, namely that it would drop to the floor.
Your latest post is exactly what I’ve been saying about your thought experiment since pg 5. You demand acceptance the rock will still exist, but here you merely agree the pencil will fall to the floor because there’s no good reason for it not to. What’s the difference between you saying, “will the pencil drop to the floor? We don’t know for sure....”, and me saying, “will the rock still exist? I don’t know for sure....”. You say it, it's correct; I say it, it’s extreme empiricism.
I deleted my comment on your big long comment when I saw your comment to Janus. Homie don’ play no schoolyard gangsta games, first of all, plus you’ve completely misunderstood my entire argumentative domain. Where I’m coming from, in case you missed that too.
Here’s how this is going to play out. You’ll say all sorts of mean nasty ugly stuff about me and my pathetic inability to use reason and logic correctly, and I’ll just sit here and think.....oh. Ok. So be it.
Yes, I am. I am hearing your irrelevant nonsense loud and clear. When I asked, "What?", that wasn't because I didn't hear you, it's because you weren't making sense.
Quoting Mww
I have no reason to care about that. It is not of any relevance.
Quoting Mww
No, it just means that you see an object as blue. You're of course free to go by some silly unwarranted premise which leads to the above, but I reject it, and for good reason.
Quoting Mww
It's red if it has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres, and it's as simple as that. If you're seeing red as blue, then it must be an optical illusion or it must be that something is wrong with your perceptual system.
Quoting Mww
You mean that people commonly use colour words to describe the colour which they see something? Yes. So what? I'm not using it in that sense here, and for good reason. Your point about common usage is trivial and misses the point.
Quoting Mww
No, that's what [i]you're[/I] saying. I'm simply saying that something is blue if it has the required properties. And I've told you the required properties already.
Quoting Mww
Lol! That's completely and utterly irrelevant. Identifying as blue, and labeling "blue", do not make something blue, except in a stupid and trivial way. I could do that with the colour red, but that wouldn't make it blue, except in a stupid and trivial way. If I identify my cat as a grizzly bear, and label my cat a "grizzly bear", my cat doesn't actually become a grizzly bear. That's absolutely ridiculous. Yet it follows from your suggested logic.
That a deer might not identify blue as blue has no bearing whatsoever of what makes blue what it is, or whether something is blue.
Quoting Mww
Yes, I see that. Funnily enough, I have eyes. And a brain.
Funnily enough, I was talking about a shape. So, funnily enough, I used the word "shape". Funnily enough, if I had wanted to talk about something else, like a salamander, then I would have used a different word, like "salamander".
Quoting Mww
That is laughably and needlessly wordy and convoluted, and parts of it are simply wrong and illogical.
If there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. And a shape is the form of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture or material composition.
Quoting Mww
I was only talking about what it is that makes something a square because you seemed confused, and you seemed to have the wrong idea.
My argument about the unconfirmed truth that there would be a rock under the circumstances I've described stands.
It's obviously unconfirmed in the sense you seem to mean, because as things stand, we haven't all died, and even if we had, your sort of confirmation would seem to require someone there to confirm that the rock is there, despite everyone having died, which obviously wouldn't even be possible.
And it's obviously true given what we know, and given my reasonable argument.
Therefore, it's an unconfirmed truth.
(And can you please quit it with the opaque philosophy jargon. Can't you speak like a normal human being?)
Yes, and they just keep coming; when will the fun ever end? :rofl:
If you want to get technical, then yes, you didn't say that. It was logically implied when you said, "defining our terms is necessary". You even quoted yourself saying that.
That sentence, along with this one, with the exception of punctuation marks, is composed entirely of terms. Yet I haven't defined these terms I'm using, and nor do I need to, because you obviously understand what I'm saying. It would be a hilarious contradiction if you replied with, "No I don't". That would be reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
That is completely beside the point, because that's obviously not what I've done. I didn't just say, "Exist" or "There is" or "Real". I asked if there would be a rock in the situation that I described. You know what I asked. This is getting more and more ridiculous.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Right, and they shouldn't do, as that's a challenge that has no relevance in the context I set for this discussion.
Indeed. Which part of my post suggests that I disagree with that?
I was just making a general point based on what you said. In hindsight, that wasn't very clear at all. I didn't mean you personally, but rather an impersonal "you": better said as "one" or "someone" or "a person".
I wasn't disagreeing with you as such, I was emphasising that we don't even need an "even if", given that it clearly isn't.
That is certainly fair.
Quoting Mww
I am a little confused here. So knowledge that something will happen does not make it "true"? It also requires sufficient reason? I understand (I think) what you are saying in relation to science and in-depth philosophy in that we do not truly understand something until we completely understand it; but I am not sure that is exactly what S is trying to address.
Quoting Mww
But if there are no rational agents (S's hypothetical) then no real objects? I am not sure if this is your position, but it has certainly been argued in this thread. - ignore this, you answered below
Quoting Mww
Ok, so your position is (again, I think), if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything? because there will be no agents to do the speculating? Doesn't this reduce any and all speculation about the future to meaningless nonsense? "The sun will rise tomorrow." We don't even know if any of us will exist tomorrow, and if we don't, then no (known) rational agents, so...?
My philosophy is obviously very amateur-ish. So I am happy to be corrected (or guided in a different direction) on any of these thoughts.
Gotcha. Fair enough.
I have always been a bit worried about jumping into the middle of a thread (even if I read the whole thing) as misunderstandings can occur.
In any case, thanks for making the argument you are making. Not sure if I even knew the exact difference between realist and idealist before this thread (still a bit confused), but your side seemed to fit the universe that I think I exist in, better.
What's the key point that I've been saying about surety, otherwise known as certainty? For what feels like the zillionth time, we don't need certainty to obtain knowledge. Why isn't this sinking in? If it is, then what's the problem? That we don't know for sure is not relevant in the context where I'm not arguing that we know for sure, I'm just arguing that we know. We know that the rock would fall. I've only brought up not knowing for sure in juxtaposition to knowing, and my point remains that the former is comparatively insignificant.
Quoting Mww
Alright, alright. Fine. I'm sorry. Look, you're a much better person to have a discussion with than that undercover sophist who has been taking up so much of my time, but the more you reason like him, the less credible you seem to me, and the more annoyed I become. I want what you're saying to be reasonable and make sense, but if it seems like the opposite to me, then I get annoyed, and that seeps through. The more annoyed I get, the more hyperbolic and scathing my replies become. I'll try to restrain myself from making comments like that to or about you, and maybe try to tone it down a bit. But I get passionate because, from my perspective at least, you've made so much more sense elsewhere, yet here it seems like you've gone downhill fast.
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Incorrect. I explained the difference in the text that followed what you quoted from me above. You left out that part.
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I refer you to that part of my post. …the part that spoke of why we usually know what someone means, but why the terms “Real”, “Exist” and “There is” are different in that regard
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As I said above, I refer you to my previous post to this thread. …you know, the post that you think that you’re replying to.
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:D You really need to spend a bit more time checking what you’ve written before you post it.
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Yes, you asked if there would be that rock.
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Does it occur to you that your question about “Would there be…” used the interrogative conditional form of “There is…”?
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…and I reminded you of it directly above.
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(…though neither of us knows what you meant by it.)
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You got that part right. :D
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So, what you meant by what you said has no relevance to what you said :D
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 Tu
That something will happen is fine, one could say he knows something will happen, because it is impossible nothing will happen, barring extremes, which would make the whole thing moot anyway. But it cannot be said it is true that any particular something will happen without reasoning from induction, which is insufficient causality for knowledge, or, merely speculating, which has no claim to knowledge at all. It helps to have an idea of what one thinks knowledge actually is. This philosophical reasoning shouldn’t be confused with scientific causal necessity, as in that old, worn out, “I know the sun will rise tomorrow because it has always risen”, which is categorically false informal inductive reasoning, but rather that if the sun doesn’t rise in the morning the world is over anyway because natural law has been falsified. So if causal necessity of natural law holds the truth about the sun rising will also hold. Regardless, we won’t know the truth about the sun coming up until it isn’t dark anymore.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Who knows? Without rational agents, whose left to say anything about anything? Whether objects remain is certainly more than likely, because rational agency is not casual necessity for existence. It’s not a question of existence anyway, it’s a question of rationality. Correct reasoning. One cannot say with absolute certainty that which was left behind when observers are vacated remains in the same condition it was in when there were observers. The planet those rocks were on could have exploded vaporizing everything for light years around. That’s no more unlikely than having all observers just up and vanish.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yep. Notice the lack of philosobabble on my part. Pretty cool, ain’t I?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Nope. We humans speculate about the future all the time whether we’re included in it or not. One can speculate from reason, relating knowledge to possibility, or he can speculate from imagination, relating belief to illusion. Some speculation is fascinating and leads to great discoveries; some speculation is irrational and leads to absurdities
So, "the sun will rise tomorrow is an absurdity"? Isn't it more absurd to call that statement absurd? (I will be quick to admit this is not fascinating, nor will it lead to great discoveries; but if I went through life assuming it was true, what would be the problem?)
Aren't you (any sort of strong idealism) just pointing out that we all might be living in The Matrix (or any other related extreme)? I can agree that we might be, but to actually live like that was true is unlikely to be productive.
Quoting Mww
Maybe we need more philosobabble (but don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort :grin: )? Your statements seem to contradict. I get that you were being literal with "no rational agents so we can't begin to speculate" but there was a very strong implication in that statement that there are rational agents alive now who can speculate on life after rational agents; because as you said, Quoting Mww.
So aren't you saying we can speculate on a future with no rational agents, but it would be meaningless?
Well since we can't know for sure there will be rational agents tomorrow, it seems all future thought is just meaningless speculation?
Logic tells us a lot about the way that the world is. Consider mathematics for example. But I really don't know what you are insinuating with "logic alone". Logic doesn't tell us things, it must be applied, used. When we use logic it is not the logic which is informing us, we are informing ourselves. So we use logic to find out about things, especially concerning things where we haven't been. That's why it doesn't make sense to say that if you haven't been there, you cannot know about it. We can use logic to know about places where we haven't been.
Firstly, mathematics is not reducible to logic (Whitehead and Russell tried that).
Secondly, if you want to claim that mere logic tells us anything about the world, then provide an example.
Thirdly, when you say we can use logic to know about places we haven't been that would, if anything, only tell us what kinds of things we could possibly experience if we were there. It tells us about the forms our experiences could take, not about their content. And it cannot tell us anything about whether, as per the example, a rock is there when no one is around.
You said that we usually know what people mean when they use terms in context. I used terms in context. Therefore, what I meant is something which is usually understood. You're either an exception to your own rule or you're just pretending.
This discussion is testament to the understanding of what I asked. Most, if not all, other people understood what I meant. That's why we're having a discussion about it, instead of everyone just responding like, "What? I have no idea what you just asked", as though I was speaking in my own made up gibberish.
Look at how many people voted in the poll. Would you vote in a poll when you had no idea what it was asking?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
And...? What's this supposed problem you're having with understanding what I asked? Why shouldn't I believe that you're feigning ignorance, when that's what the evidence suggests?
Why shouldn't I believe that you're just dancing around the real issue about whether or not there would be a rock?
Are you purposefully ignoring me now? Can we be friends again? I'm sorry! :cry:
Even if that were so, it would only mean that it cannot knowingly be said to be true. It can still be said, and unknowingly be true.
There's an issue about what makes something knowledge, and what's reasonable. But there's a separate issue about what is or isn't true. And these issues seem to be getting a little muddled.
So, you think that I don't know that there wouldn't be a rock, and you think that I'm not being reasonable to believe that there would be a rock, rather than the alternative of there being no rock, even though the alternative leads to absurdity of a sort? If believing that there would be no rock is absurd, and believing that there would be a rock is the best explanation, then why shouldn't I believe that there would be a rock? Why wouldn't that be what's reasonable to believe? Just because the best explanation isn't absolutely guaranteed to be 100% correct, that's no reason not to believe it. If that were the case, then we wouldn't believe anything, which isn't even possible. Not everything is mere habit. Some of what we do and what we believe is reasonable.
Quoting Mww
I know. I know enough to know. I'm a rational agent.
If you think that I would need to actually be in the scenario, then that's where these problems of yours stem from.
Quoting Mww
:roll:
Quoting Mww
But there [i]are[/I] rational agents. And we [I]can[/I] speculate. And even if there were [i]no[/I] rational agents, we could still speculate. And what we speculate can [I]be true[/I] whether we're rational agents or otherwise. If you were to take everything that we've speculated to date, then how would you know that it contains not a shred of truth? How [I]could[/I] you know that?
Of course, there would be no rational agents in the scenario. There would be no one at all in the scenario. That's extremely obvious. But that doesn't matter.
Hurrah! Someone who gets the reasoning. :100:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I can accept these sort of possibilities. I never denied them. I don't think that they're a real problem.
Now this is [I]very[/I] interesting indeed! You get it right with a tool like logic, but wrong with a tool like a ruler!
We use a ruler to inform ourselves. We use a ruler to find out about things. Especially things we haven't measured.
The world is such that it is of certain ways, and we use logic to find out these certain ways. A rock is a certain length, and we use a ruler to find out this certain length.
The world is such that it has rocks, and we use logic to find out that rocks don't just suddenly to be there when we look away or when we die. The rock is such that it is 10cm long, and we use a ruler to find this out.
We don't use a ruler to set or "determine" the length. That's absurd. I'm not giving it a length, I'm just measuring it to find out what the length is. It's 10cm long, and I find that out by going up to it, putting my ruler up against it, observing that from end to end it goes from 0cm to 10cm, and that's that. If it wasn't 10cm long, then I couldn't possibly find that out!
You confuse length with measured length. Length is how long it is. If it's 10cm long, then that's how long it is. That's its length. It doesn't require that someone has measured it. Measured length, on the other hand, obviously requires that it has been measured. This is a perfect example of what I meant earlier when I said that you were making a tautology which misses the point. I do not doubt for a second that the measured length of a thing requires that the thing, at some point, be measured.
If you fail this test, then your position is untenable.[/b]
It is concerning that out of 11 people, there are so many idealists. Don't they realise that idealism is a load of bollocks? Why is it so popular (at least here, and judging by only a small and limited number of voters)?
Depends on your philosophical preference. It is usually considered irrational to claim a truth that is technically merely a possibility.
A.) To say an empirical event will occur implies irreversible factual causality. We have knowledge our sun is a star, stars are known to supernova, therefore......you get the picture.
B.) To say an event will occur implies the negation is impossible. If the negation is possible, the statement is false. The correct simple proposition is, the sun should rise tomorrow. Or, simple with qualifiers, all else being given, the sun will rise tomorrow.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
While it is more than likely a strong subjective idealist might claim, or at least argue in the affirmative for the Matrix scenario, or the philosophical zombie kinda thing, re: Nagel (1970) and Chalmers (1996), almost no one does anymore after Kant set the academic world on fire. Still, even now, we have no means to prove definitively we do not live in a Matrix or whatever, even if we can posit some strong arguments against it, re: Dennet (1999). My position is, it doesn’t matter. If we are, we always were, so nothing’s any different than we’ve already seen. If we suddenly discovered we were, that’s a whole different story.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
A’) Consider the rest of what I said: speculate from knowledge vs speculate from belief. We know from the past what it’s like out there without humans, so speculation about the future without humans can be reasonable. Simple: there will be a whole lot more buildings and a whole lot less forest.
B’) All future thought, that is, thinking in the future, is indeed meaningless to us in the present, yes.
As I said, THAT I will think tomorrow, all else being equal, is most probable, but it is impossible to claim as true WHAT I will think tomorrow.
The certainty fetish. There's therapy for that. :joke:
Accepted, with all due respect to your humility.
As I said, I really don't know what you would mean by "mere logic". Human beings use logic, as a tool like S says, so there's no such thing as logic telling us something, we tell ourselves something with the use of logic.
Quoting Janus
And I don't understand how you use "content" here. In such an experience, logic would be the "content". If you were at the place, your perceptions would form the content. In neither case would the supposed object being perceived, be the content of the experience.
Quoting S
You still do not seem to be grasping the reality of the temporal aspect of the world. The world is changing from one moment to the next. If the world is "a certain way", then it can only be that way for a moment in time, and at the next moment it will be another way. Due to the nature of passing time, and possibility, how the world will be at the next moment is always uncertain. So if the world was a certain way in the last moment, and how it will be in the next moment is uncertain, then at the present it is something between being in a certain way, and being in an uncertain way, or both, or some such thing. However, this is unacceptable according to the law of excluded middle. So to avoid this problem we ought not even talk about "the world" as if "it is of certain ways". Such talk only creates a situation in which the fundamental laws of logic are violated.
A’) It can still be said is the epitome of speculation. While it is true such speculation can be unknowingly true, because it is speculation, at the time of speculation, that which is being said has equal opportunity of being unknowingly false. If the speculation rests right there, at merely being said, it is impossible to determine which it is.
B’) It is NOT a separate issue. Unknowingly true makes explicit the truth is NOT known as such. It’s right there in the language. The only possible way to prevent an unknown from being false is to KNOW it is impossible for it to be false and the only way for it to be impossible to be false is for it to be.......well....known to be true.
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Quoting S
That’s perfectly agreeable, but it is not what you said.
Quoting S
To be is to be and that’s that, is what you said about rocks post-human. Rocks before means rocks after, without regard to any other conditions. Period. That’s that. I didn’t recognize the reasonableness of the argument because the reasoning is irrational, insofar as no room is allowed for explanatory or logical alternatives.
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Quoting S
You admit to being a rational agent but deny your idealism. There is no philosophy that allows that, except.......an extreme empiricist. But if you were an extreme empiricist, you wouldn’t know enough to know because you could not possibly explain certain aspects of human cognition by means of mere brain states. Not at this time in our intellectual development anyway. Which includes you and me and everybody else. So you could speculate about it and might even be unknowingly correct. We’ll just never know about it.
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Quoting S
You ARE in it, however indirectly. Hence my reference to “The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”. Einstein’s thought experiment, just like yours, presupposes a third party observer, separate from the participants in the experiment. Because the experiment had to come from somewhere, the experiment requires an observer outside a world, seeing that world with no observers of its own. You, as the presupposed third party, then demand the missing observers make a determination about the world they no longer inhabit, which is necessarily different than yours as the outside observer. Such requirement is irrational.
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Quoting S
Not in the experiment there aren’t; you got rids of us an hour ago. You’re still on the outside looking in, forcing your perspective on those not even there. There is no rational agent in it, but there absolutely must be a rational agent because of it.
Otherwise, in general, of course there are rational agents, and they do speculate.
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Quoting S
I know speculation contains not a shred of truth iff I know the speculation has been proven false.
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Quoting S
What we know about rocks historically can pertain to what we think of rocks in the future, but how we came to our knowledge historically cannot obtain in the future. In one word...experience. Even if we don’t experience rocks historically, we experience the remnants of their existence and deduce factual, that is to say, non-contradictory, information therefrom. If we’re not around, we have no experience, hence no knowledge can be given from experience we don’t have. Claiming we don’t know enough to claim facts about the future is not an untenable position.
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Quoting S
Might wanna re-think that.
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Quoting S
It’s not a matter of being popular; it’s a matter of being absolutely necessary. If you think, you’re a idealist of some kind, in some degree. It is not enough to claim intelligence is nothing but brain states without explaining how such is necessarily the case at the exclusion of any other possibility. Idealism DOES explain how, and not at the expense of empiricism but in conjunction with it, and even if it is wrong, empiricism in and of itself as yet has no means to refute it.
Either get used to it, or convince yourself you think about the world as it actually is.
Intervention?
S continues in refusing to recognize the true nature of temporal existence. Human beings are living at the present, and there is a fundamental difference between past and future which makes the present a real temporal perspective, and change a reality. But this fundamental difference, and the reality of change, denies the possibility of making the deductive conclusion that what has been in the past, will be in the future.
First, I was leaving the argument with that as the major premise to you because you brought it up, and second, I don’t think S is ready to accept the absolute ideality of time with respect to human experience.
Still, scientists nowadays are attributing to time a reality most philosophers are reluctant to admit. Hell, they’ve even made it a dimension, of all things. Can you believe it????
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We learn English in physical context. We don’t learn English from dictionaries. Something is being used, something is being pointed-to or picked up. Some action is done or demonstrated while being referred-to.
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Then, based on the words we know in that way, other words can be defined, by parents, teachers, or dictionary.
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No, you didn’t use “There is…” in physical context.
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…or specify any context.
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You didn’t say in what context you’re asking about the rock’s existence. You just said “Would there be that rock”. How can you call that “in context”??
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It’s that context-less usage whose meaning is undefined. …as if it means something to speak of some absolute existence.
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You didn’t answer my question about what “Exist”, “There is…”, and “Real” mean, when used unqualified, without specified context.
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By the way, if you’d said “Would that rock still be part of the physical world that it was part of before everyone died?”, then your question would mean something, and would have an answer: “Yes”. The rock would still be part of that physical world, and the existence of both would remain as undefined as it was before everyone died.
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I didn’t say that you made up the gibberish. I merely said that it’s gibberish.
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You keep falling back on, resorting to, a census.
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Since the time of the Greeks, Western philosophy (those “footnotes to Plato”) has gotten nowhere (in spite of a few exceptional comments from Faraday and Tegmark, who weren’t academic philosophers).
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People say things whose meaning they can’t specify, and then wonder why they’re confused.
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Wasn’t it Chalmers, who pointed out a lack of progress, and suggested that there’s no reason to believe that things will be any different in the coming centuries?
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And you’d just claimed that you didn’t use “There is…”.
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You used it.
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Your failure to define your terms that need defining in order to have a meaning.
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Words describing things that can be pointed-to in physical context have known meaning without verbal definition in terms of other words.
Unqualified “Exist”, “There is…”, and “Real” aren’t such words.
Because of your failure to define your terms.
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See above.
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 W
I wouldn't accept the absolute ideality of time either. But S claims that the measurement of time, "an hour" in the op, could occur without a human being to measure it.
Quoting Mww
Dimensions though, are just standards of measurement. The convention is to assume a line as one dimension, and then construct other dimensions with right angles. Time is added as a fourth dimension to account for movement within the three assumed spatial dimensions. But it is not necessary to use any particular number of dimensions, as an infinity of them can be conceived.
Quoting Mww
Even if the possibility is far north of 99.99%?
Outside of philosophy circles, it is usually considered irrational to say "the sun will rise tomorrow is merely a possibility." Most people upon being asked, "are you sure" would then respond with, "well, yeah, sure it's possible, but it's a bit ridiculous." Now obviously your opinion on the subject is far more informed and therefor carries more weight, but I think that your use of "irrational" seems biased. Don't the Christians think we are all irrational?
Depending on your philosophical preference, couldn't somebody view everything as mere possibility?
Even math, for example: 2 + 2 =4
Well then how come 2 kilograms + 2 grams does not equal 4 kilograms or 4 grams? Isn't that one possibility of how one could interpret 2+2=4?
Heck, I just spent a whole thread arguing that definitions can be counted as objective facts. So they would have argued that this Quoting Mww is subjective and can't be known for certain. Luckily, you don't have to convince me.
Quoting Mww
Not in common language? "I am going to the store tomorrow." " I will be there at 5pm." "See you later." Not once, not one single time, have I ever been corrected for one of these phrases, and not once did someone say I broke a promise (in case you want to say those count as promises not a statement that an event will occur). I am not saying you don't have a point, but I am very confused as to how it matters?
In relation to us all being in the matrix (or something) you said, Quoting Mww
THIS SEEMS IMPORTANT. What you stated above, I agree with. And I am fairly sure that @S has admitted that is fine also. So what are we all disagreeing about? We (I think we) acknowledge your position is possible, just meaningless. For me it seems similar to the free will argument. I find there are important implications attached to admitting it is possible we do not have free will. But, how often does it come up that we actually need to consider whether we acted out of free will or not?
Quoting Mww
Hasn't S been arguing the whole time that life after humans will be the same as life before?
Quoting Mww
I think I see our problem. I think every time you use the word "true", you mean something like "it can only be that way 100% of the time in any situation that anyone can conceive of" which I will think rarely occurs (I would say definitions and math is about it - language itself creates ambiguities, and even witnessed events go through an interpreting agent). However, when S or I (or most people out there that do not know the philosophical word idealist) use the word, we just mean "true enough for all practical purposes."
I guess, my question would be, what are the possible harms that could be caused by us summarizing the "truth" in this way?
And apologies to @S if I misrepresented your view in any way.
Say what???? You must be WAAAYY undercover not to accept the ideality of time. All the cool kids are doin’ it, doncha know. (Kidding.....it’s a tough pill to swallow)
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Is that what they’re calling it these days? Height, width, length, seconds, light years, dimensions? I’m too old-fashioned for that, I guess; to me dimensions are what make standards of measurement possible.
So you agree that it's reasonable to believe that there would be a rock, but you don't agree that we know this? If so, I think this is because you set the bar higher than I do for knowledge, and I think that you don't need to do so. It's reasonable to say that we know that there would be a rock. Knowledge doesn't require certainty or whatever super strict criteria you're setting. You're basically creating problems for yourself. TheMadFool was doing the same thing earlier.
I don't know why yourself and others don't think about this more practically, in terms of how we speak about knowledge, and what criteria work best in representing how we speak, and suchlike. The irony here is that you seemed to be trying to argue the merits of what's practical earlier, in a different context.
Quoting Mww
So it's not true that you'll think about what to have for dinner tomorrow, even if you interpret that statement in a practical way with implicit qualifications? Or you're merely saying that it's not true if you interpret it in a wrongheaded way that results in a falsehood? Which is it? The latter, I'm guessing.
I've had this same problem with @Moliere in the discussion on meta-ethics. Why interpret statements in a way that leads to falsehood? What's the point? That then clashes with how we think and speak. It results in an incongruity. Why create problems for yourself? Aren't we supposed to be solving them?
Quoting Mww
That's not what I mean here. You know, there's a really easy solution to this: don't interpret it like that. Do you see that it's what [I]you're[/I] doing that's the problem?
Sure they would. But considering the medium we’re using for our conversation, here and now.........
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Quoting ZhouBoTong
If I have a point, THAT is the matter. Whatever is said here matters to nothing but whatever else is said here. But I understand you to mean how does it matter in general, and of course, it doesn’t. Not to say there are not those who would claim if everybody thought his way there wouldn’t be any wars, deforestation or blue jeans with the knees ripped out. A car in every garage and a chicken in every pot. Jimmy Page would always be ranked #1.
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Quoting ZhouBoTong
Nothing wrong with saying that. However, all empirical knowledge absolutely depends on experience for it’s proof, so as soon as you put your mathematical claim to the test, by doing what the math calls for, experience will tell you the claim is false. Then it’s up to you to figure out why.
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Quoting ZhouBoTong
On the word “true”...correct. Gotta be a bottom line someplace, right?
On definitions...not. Math and logic alone, because only those are susceptible to proofs. You said it yourself....language creates ambiguities, and nobody wants their truths ambiguous.
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Quoting ZhouBoTong
Generally, there aren’t any. Everydayman thinks from a practical point of view. Philosophers and critical thinkers in general don’t. Even wannabe armchair philosophers like us......
Call "dimensions" "what make standards of measurement possible" if you like, but it's still ideal, just like the idea of "unity", or "unit" is what makes counting possible. Making time a dimension is what makes time ideal, this follows Kant. Space is ideal, time is not. I believe that such category mistakes are very destructive to metaphysics. But there is a monist approach which denies that such categories are based in anything real in the first place. To me, this produces incoherent, unintelligible metaphysics
If it seems [i]to you[/I] like I'm not grasping that, then you're completely misunderstanding. (Big surprise). You're preaching to the choir there.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
If this were coming from anyone else, I would think that they were playing a joke on me. You do realise that I was using "certain" there only to mean "particular"? The world is always a particular way at any given time. No amount of sophism is going to change that. It wouldn't even make sense to say that at a given time, the world is not a particular way, but only half-way between being a particular way.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This isn't the case. It only indicates that you're bad at logic. You'd just be wasting your time making irrelevant arguments again, which seems to be your thing. I really, really don't want to go through that torture with you again. Can't you demonstrate that your misunderstanding of my argument leads to contradiction elsewhere?
You may well call time a dimension but Kant does not follow; he calls it a pure intuition, one of two, the other space.
Dimension is not what makes time ideal. Thinking away every possible property belonging to an object, such that all that is left of it is the time of it......that’s what makes time ideal. Same for space. The two things that cannot be thought away. The reverse works just as well: before any object can be thought there must be a place for it to be thought in and a time of its being thought.
Agreed on monism, unequivocally.
Right, as an intuition, time for Kant is ideal, just like space. So uniting time with space, as a dimension, naturally follows from this act of classifying the two together. Notice that I classed space as ideal, and time as non-ideal.
Quoting Mww
Properties are ideal, they are how we describe our perceptions. If you think away all the properties of objects, until you are left with only one thing, time, then that is the thing which is non-ideal.
Quoting Mww
Space can be thought away though. That's what gives us imaginary things, and concepts in general, these are objects which have no spatial existence.
Reasonable to believe...certainly;
Set the bar higher.....ditto.
Problems for myself.....not from where I sit.
Reasonable to say we believe something about the rock is very far from reasonable to say we know something about the very same rock under the very same conditions. How do we tell which leads to fewer additional questions?
If knowledge doesn’t require certainty or at least very strict criteria, how do we trust our theoretical science? How do we know it’s dangerous to step into a lion’s cage at the zoo? Sometimes reasonable to believe is all we have and other times reasonable to believe might just get you killed.
When I think about dinner tomorrow I am thinking NOW about dinner tomorrow. The other context is thinking TOMORROW about dinner tomorrow, which is meaningless. That’s what you wanted us to do....think rocks TOMORROW (because we were deleted an hour earlier is the same as thinking about something an hour later) about rocks tomorrow (an hour later).
If I do interpret statements in a way that lead to a falsehood, the falsehood belongs to me or the statement. If the latter, the onus is on my co-conversant to rectify it, if the former the burden is to inform me of my misinterpretation and the onus is on me to rectify it. Six of one etc, etc, etc......
What I’m doing is a problem for the experiment, granted. That I’m over-analysizing, probably. But you did ask for opinions, after all. And yes, I know what opinions are like......
Anyway. Ever onward.
That's okay, it's not a problem for me anyway. We're talking about a truth that is unconfirmed by your standards, not necessarily an unknown truth. And I'm not merely speculating, I gave a reasonable argument in support of my claim.
This was just a digression.
Quoting Mww
It relates to what I said and it's important to interpret what I said with that in mind. Given that it's the best explanation, that's a good reason for believing the related claim over alternatives. This is how lots of people reason. It's how lots of people arrive at beliefs. And before you think about being annoying by bringing up a fallacy about what's popular, that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm just pointing out that it's common, and suggesting that there's a reason for that.
If you doubt these kind of arguments, you'd need a good reason to do so. What's the good reason to doubt them? They work well. They don't need to be perfect. Do you think that they need to be perfect or something? That wouldn't seem reasonable.
Quoting Mww
I did say that, yes. But that's not all I said, is it? It's true, and I said it to emphasise the difference between my realist position and Berkeleyan idealism where to be is to be perceived.
Quoting Mww
My reasoning is not irrational, and that's not an accurate representation of my argument. I assumed the alternative and showed that it lead to absurdity. And you haven't refuted my argument. To do that, you'd need to show that at least one of the alternatives is superior in terms of what I've argued about realism, for example that it is of greater explanatory power, makes more sense, is more reasonable...
You haven't done that.
Quoting Mww
You're funny. It's not "my" idealism. I reject idealism because it leads to absurdity. You know this already, or at least you should do.
Quoting Mww
Incorrect.
Quoting Mww
All this indicates is that you've set your standards too high. [I]That's it.[/I] You might [I]think[/I] that you're saying something more significant than that, but you're actually not.
Quoting Mww
Oh my days. No. No I'm not. I'm simply not in it. It's a scenario where no one exists, so it's impossible that I'm in it. That's a clear contradiction. Thinking about a scenario is not being in a scenario. Not by any reasonable understanding of what that means. You're free to be unreasonable here of course, but don't expect me to be.
You might think that I'm missing the point here, but I'm not. I'm rejecting what you're asserting because it's unreasonable.
You can't say that there's someone in the thought experiment without violating the thought experiment. That would be like squeezing a lemon over a piece litmus paper in an experiment to find out whether litmus paper is acidic. You would have just ruined the experiment, and your findings would be worthless.
You can set a different thought experiment with someone in it, but then you'd be talking about a different experiment and not my own. I wouldn't really care about your thought experiment. I'd rightly assess it to be irrelevant.
Quoting Mww
So, Einstein's experiment presupposes a perspective, does it? It presupposes an observer? That's nice. Therefore mine does too? Um, no. If his experiment does this, then good for him, but my thought experiment doesn't.
Saying anything that boils down to saying something like "A thought experiment requires someone to think it up" or "You can't think about something without thinking about something" is bloody obvious and beside the point.
This is one of idealism's most annoying errors. It's particularly annoying when the idealist just doesn't understand the error and persists in making it, erroneously believing that I'm the one making a mistake by implying a contradiction.
Quoting Mww
I've explained that this is both a) obvious, and b) beside the point I'm making here. Given a) & b), you should stop pointing this out.
Quoting Mww
Okay, so you accept that there could be unconfirmed truths. There's that at least. And I take it you accept that it's unjustifiable for you to say that there aren't any? If not, then please explain how you could possibly know that.
Quoting Mww
I see. So extreme empiricism fails in this regard. Of course, that's why it should be rejected. It's kind of funny that you don't seem to see that. You think you're arguing against me, but you're not, you're really arguing against yourself by showing that the assumptions of extreme empiricism lead to failures. If you can't rightly say that there'd be a rock, then you've fucked up. And given your assertions about experience in relation to this stuff, that seems to be where you're fucking up. Empiricism? Yes. Extreme empiricism? No.
Quoting Mww
Nope. (And if you're being pedantic with my wording, quit it).
Quoting Mww
Predictable. I hate it when people are predictably annoying like that. You don't need to point shit out that I never suggested, and am not stupid enough to suggest.
Quoting Mww
This just indicates that you're misusing the term by stretching the meaning beyond reason. Okie dokes then! You're free to do so, but I advise against it.
Quoting Mww
This is all bark and no bite. (And I warn you, if you act like a puppy, I might have an uncontrollable urge to give you a good kicking :lol: ). I dismiss it as unwarranted.
I'm not saying, arguing, or suggesting in any way whatsoever that the future will necessarily resemble the past. If you think that, then... [I]drum roll[/I]... you've misunderstood again!
Sorry, but I'm not going to open wide for a spoonful of bollocks. That's not how I operate.
I identified that problem long ago. To put it bluntly, whether it's truth or knowledge we're talking about, his criteria is fucked up, and he repeatedly assumes his fucked up criteria in his criticism. But we reject his fucked up criteria for a better, more practical, more sensible, more reflective of ordinary language, criteria.
Oh look, another misrepresentation. I claim no such thing. I claim that an hour would pass, not your nonsense-claim that a measurement of time would pass. For an hour not to pass, time would have to stop before an hour had passed, and I don't recall you making that argument. Instead, you make the argument of a sophist where you play around with semantics like a child with Play-Doh.
You could spend all day arguing against your own nonsense-claim, but it still would have absolutely zero impact on my claim. I reject your nonsense-claim, like you do. And I reject your additional nonsense-claim that your nonsense-claim is my claim. Your straw man is not my argument. Will you understand that? This discussion is strong evidence that you will not understand that, and that you'll press on regardless. Or you'll maybe have a temporary moment of recognition, but tumble head first right into another fallacy! You just can't seem to help yourself. I've never known anyone quite like you. You're pretty remarkable, and make for a fascinating case study.
Speaking of Play-Doh, have you noticed how little children tend to play around with it and mould crappy representations of stuff, then squish it when they're done? Apparently they find it satisfying, but if the adults are trying to have a serious conversion, and the little child keeps bothering them with their crappy little Play-Doh antics, then sometimes the appropriate action is to scold the child or to ignore it. And if that doesn't work, get the chainsaw.
Some people have actually inadvertently contributed to their own death by believing what's reasonable at the time. But there's a very important sense in which they didn't do anything wrong. You could say, "They shouldn't have done that", but, although true, it would nevertheless be an astoundingly ignorant thing to say, given that they were being reasonable in doing what they were doing. They just didn't know any better at the time.
Quoting Mww
I wanted you to presently think about a hypothetical scenario where we had all died an hour previously. I didn't want you to think at a time where that'd be impossible for you to do, like in the past or the future. You can only act in the present. I wanted you to presently think about what would've happened to rocks if we had all died an hour previously. I know that you're capable of doing this. I am capable of doing this, anyway. It's reasonable to believe that nothing extraordinary would happen. I also call that knowledge because I don't adhere to unreasonable criteria for knowledge like you do. Interpreted rightly, I'm not implying that it's impossible for something extraordinary to happen or anything of that sort. And as a result, I don't have the giant problem that you run into. How does it feel to have this giant problem where we don't know such an incomprehensibly huge amount, despite the really powerful sense of incongruity? Does it feel burdensome?
Quoting Mww
Well, just look at the results and think more practically about the situation. With your criteria, can you rightly say that we know what would happen to rocks if we all died? With my criteria, can I? Whose criteria is better? Give that some thought.
Interesting read, but I gotta tell ya, man......
“....All I hear is
Radio ga-ga
Radio goo-goo
Radio ga-ga....”
....not quite, but you get my drift, right?
Anyway. Leading on, re: pg 8. You reject idealism in any way shape or form, so do you reject subjectivity as well? If not, what is it?
That last point (bolded bit) would suggest that what you are saying DOES matter. If you know any good arguments in that direction I would be happy to look into them; but at first glance I can think of no way that idealism would necessarily lead to any of those things? - of course realism would not necessarily lead to those things either.
Quoting Mww
As a human adult, I don't know that I can even think, without language dominating the experience. Once objects have known labels, can we do anything but recognize them as such? Math can remove most of the ambiguous language, but not all, so therefor...?
I think some serious thinking needs to be done here. If definitions are not objective, how can proofs possibly be objective? Even math proofs will often include language (even with only symbols we will interpret as language, = means equals for example, so what if we disagree on the definition of equals?). If those definitions are subjective, then so are the proofs. I would also suggest that "experience" is about as subjective as it gets (can I ever have an identical experience to you?), so I am not sure how this follows: Quoting Mww, unless we begin to summarize meaning like I have been suggesting.
Quoting Mww
Really? So economics, politics, space travel, human longevity, curing cancer, etc do not require critical thinking? I am not sure if this is intended as an argument or a not so subtle insult, but it just comes across as haughty. I must have mis-read.
You mis-read.
We've been through this already. Time passes continuously. An hour is a measurement of time. You said it yourself, an hour is a unit of measurement. For there to be a point in time an hour after all human beings died, requires that someone measure and designate that point in time. Otherwise there is just continuous time without any human beings to determine specific points in time. So "an hour after all humans died" is nonsensical. Your op assumes such a point in time, and asks whether there would be a rock at this point in time. But despite your insistence, there are no such points in time. These points in time are human determinations.
Quoting S
This is very clearly false. For an hour to pass requires that someone measures an hour. Without anyone measuring, time could pass forever without any hours passing. You have reified "an hour", which you have already insisted is a unit of measurement. But time rather than "hours" is the real thing. So without humans, time passes, not hours. Regardless of your false representation of time as hours passing, there are no such hours passing, just time passing and human measurement of hours.
True. I do remember you saying that several pages ago, and I suppose your discussion of overly-high standards is continuing that. My stupid brain always thinks people just need to hear something in a different way and my view will suddenly make sense - whether it is my ego's fault or their biased thinking, I should have learned by now that it is unlikely to work.
Quoting S
This is the part of this discussion that has baffled me the most. They do not seem to even care if there ideas have explanatory power. It seems if they are right, and I KNEW IT, it would still change nothing about how I live...so, so what?
Mahna mahna
Do do, dododo
Mahna mahna
Do do, do do
Mahna mahna
Do do, dododo dododo dododo dododododo do do dodo do
No, and see my argument. (By the way, I find that kind of lazy and unhelpful reply [i]far[/I] more insulting than "mean, rude, etc.", comments).
It might not seem like it on the surface, but given this context, I think that that line might be an indication of his extreme empiricism. I am an empiricist. I am onboard with Hume that a huge amount of things require experience. How would I know stuff about rocks, like what they look like, if I hadn't acquired that knowledge through experience? How could I even engage the thought experiment if I had never undergone the experience of learning English? But there is some knowledge which doesn't require experience in every respect, for example, that I know that there would still be rocks in the scenario doesn't require that I am there to experience it, not that that would even be possible, since it would violate the thought experiment and result in an obvious contradiction.
This is the distinction between empiricism, of which I am an adherent, and extreme empiricism, of which @Mww is an adherent.
If you're not willing to engage the argument on its own terms, but instead misinterpret it and bring in your own premises, then what are you even doing here? Please go away.
Don't worry, it's not just you: we're all mad. Some of us are mad-mad, and the rest of us are mad for trying to get through to them. :lol:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yeah, tell me about it! That part has really been neglected. It does require a sort of meta-discussion, and a sort of thinking about how we're thinking. It's not actually difficult at all to [i]be right[/I] on one level, but be wrong on a meta-level about how you're thinking about the issue. It's really easy, for example, to say that knowledge requires certainty, and that we therefore don't know this, that, and the other; or that an hour is a measurement, and a measurement requires a subject, therefore I'm wrong; or that everything requires experience, and I'm not there to experience it, therefore I'm wrong.
Easy-peasy lemon-squeezie. But wrong on a whole 'nother level.
Set an alarm clock of some kind for an hour, kill off all the humans.......what does the alarm sound or look like?
If the alarm is not sensed, the indication for the duration of an hour is not intelligibly given. If there is no intelligible indication given for an hour, there is no reason to think there would be an intelligible indication given for the duration of a day. If not an hour or a day, then no intelligible division of time at all follows. If no division of time, then there would be no indication of time itself. Humans “tell” time; no humans, no time “telling”. No time “telling”, no temporal reference frame, time itself becomes nothing.
I’ll be damned. That paragraph right there, is a synopsis of what I and U.M have been saying for 6 pages. Rough around the edges, but that’s to be expected from one thinking like an idealist of some degree but refusing to admit to being one. Failure to grasp the understanding that EVERY rational human is just that. It is the dualistic, comparative nature of the intellectual beast. Get used to it.
This part hasn't been neglected. Go back and count the times I’ve said it doesn’t matter.
Correct; it is possible to be right on one level and wrong on another about the same thing. You’re doing it. Wrong on a whole ‘nuther level. The subjective level, where a priori knowledge lives, and resides over knowledge not given from direct experience. The a priori allows retention of knowledge of rocks after the experience of them, but not the existence of rocks without the experience of them, which is empirical knowledge. The a priori domain is the exact OPPOSITE of “extreme empiricism”.
The way things are going, the longer M.U. and I keep pissin’ you off, the closer you’re going to get to seeing we are right. But again......it doesn’t matter.
There aren't any rocks, and there have never been any rocks, outside of human minds. The history of rocks exists only in human minds, as a useful tool to predict the future.
If present rocks are human constructions, then certainly so are past rocks as well. This question does not strengthen your argument. That history is a construction of our minds seems far less controversial than the claim that the present is, as well.
Not rejecting subjectivity shows hope.
What argument? I haven’t seen subjectivity mentioned once in 12 pages.
I asked “what is blue” and got a bunch of scientific fluff. What will I get if I ask “what is subjectivity?”
Watch out for tomatoes!!!!! Talk like that’ll get you pummeled from the balcony. Look at me; I’m fairly dripping with ‘em. (Grin)
The terms of the discussion are specifically:
Quoting S
You have failed to explain how "we all died an hour previously" makes any sense at all. Who is going to determine this point in time an hour after we all died?
Quoting Mww
Right, you, or S more likely, is going to set the alarm clock the moment you die, and assume that you are the last to die.
Quoting Mww
Yes, this is what S refuses to acknowledge. Human beings "tell time", and "an hour" is a human being telling time. Not only would the ringing of the alarm not be sensed, but the alarm would not even be set. This whole talk of "an hour after all human beings died", is utter nonsense.
Yeah, well, the counter-argument’s going to be...it’s a hypothetical scenario and as such, POOF!!! All the humans are gone, so nobody is there to set a clock anyway. But if that’s true then what does an hour have to do with anything. The only way it could mean anything is from the perspective of a third party observer who CAN tell time.
The scenario would be exactly the same if it had been stated as, POOF!!! All humans are gone. Are there still rocks and do rocks have the same meaning? That would have saved exactly half the argument’s intrinsic irrationality.
Agreed, consciousness is inseparable from the objects of consciousness that we call the world. However, there are objects of consciousness that are not objects of the world, re: beauty, liberty, particular colors, shapes. That is to say, those conceptions understanding thinks for itself a priori. As such, there are interdependent modes of being, the empirical given as phenomena and the intellectual given as thought.
And no, we cannot reduce the world to mind alone.
Good call.
Look, it really isn't helpful to keep comparing me to an idealist. Yes, we have empiricism in common, but that's not what the realism-idealism debate hinges on, so it's not important at all in that context. Are we talking here about how I know what a rock looks like? No. Are we talking here about whether there would be a rock? Yes. I say that there would be a rock. I say that it's reasonable to believe that there would be a rock. And I say that I know enough to rightly say those things. All of this I have suitably qualified. Either you agree or you disagree. Which is it?
Quoting Mww
So we disagree then.
Regarding your last paragraph, I very much doubt that. For a start, you're not right. So that might make it a little difficult for me to somehow see that you're right.
I think that our disagreement is too fundamental. If your metaphysics doesn't even allow for the existence of rocks without someone being there at the time to experience them, then your metaphysics is fundamentally wrong. It begins with a false premise that no one here has actually bothered to support. On the other hand, we can reasonably reach the realist conclusion that there would be a rock, regardless. I have demonstrated that in this discussion.
Thank you. I needed a good laugh.
Half an irrational argument still leaves us with something irrational. S likes to veil behind semantic maneuvers, the simple fact that without anyone to establish a relationship between words like "rock" and "hour", and what those words refer to, the words really are meaningless. So regardless of the fact that you and I and everyone else have ideas of what a "rock" is and what an "hour" is, after we all die there is no such thing as what a "rock" is, or what an "hour" is, because what a "rock" is, and what an "hour" is, are ideas, and there would be no one who holds those ideas. Therefore it's irrational for S to speak about there being such a thing as what a rock is, and what an hour is, after everyone is dead.
Quoting S
I agree with half, disagree with the other half.
The two propositions are mutually exclusive, because only one or the other can be the case. The former is a statement of affirmation, the latter is a statement of possibility. Only one can be the case because the criteria for their respective determinations are categorically opposed, insofar as knowledge absolutely requires an object but belief only requires a possible object or no object at all.
If I was a rock in a world where humans had just disappeared, I would ask myself...how am I to be known? I can be remembered, sure, but what intelligence is there that knows of me now? And to be remembered is to be known as I was, not necessarily as I am. If I should be buried in an earthquake, the humans that were here wouldn’t know what happened to me, so why is that any different from not knowing about me if there wasn’t any earthquake to begin with?
Woe is me....without something that knows, I am unknown. Here in my world, or anywhere else.
—————————-
My metaphysics has no problem with allowing the existence of objects without experience of them. Just like you, I find it reasonable to think those rocks are going to be there all else being equal. I said as much way back in the beginning, sentience is not a requisite for existence. Dunno why you can’t get that through your head. My metaphysics does not allow empirical knowledge of conditions for which any experience whatsoever is impossible, re: the future, impossible or inconceivable objects, spiritual objects, supernatural objects. If you agree with all that, yet insist you know rocks will still be there, or it is in fact true rocks will be there, in the future, then your metaphysics is catastrophically wrong.
‘Tis a hollow laugh, my friend. “Rock” is nothing but a human-developed word contained in a human-developed language given to a human-developed concept given to a human-perceived real thing. “rock” is only rock because we say it is, and we say it is only in order to not confuse it with “bicycle”.
There are things outside the human mind; there are not rocks. This is true because “rock” presupposes the thing represented by “rock”, the thing must be antecedent to its conception.
All good. Half of irrational is still irrational.
Irrelevant: that's what it is. Why would I reject subjectivity? I don't outright reject it. That would be absurd. And you know that I'm a moral subjectivist, don't you? I just reject its supposed relevance in a particular context. Subjectivity: feelings, thoughts, tastes, opinions, preferences, beliefs, looks like, etc.
Do you think it matters to the rock how we feel about it? :grin:
And the colour blue [i]is[/I] what I described in scientific terms, not your related subjective fluff which I demonstrated leads to absurdity, thus refuting it. You didn't even address my refutation.
You must surely realise that that question is a loaded question. Do you acknowledge that?
Jesus. You guys are asking the wrong questions. How can you not see this?
Since there isn't a subject, there is no "who", and there is nobody for anything to "look like" or "sound like" to. It's a completely pointless road to go down to direct that stuff at me.
This is a terrible argument because it's composed of points I already accept, and therefore don't need to be made, and bare assertions.
First, the pointless points. Time won't be intelligible, you say? Yes. It won't be intelligible to anyone, because no one would exist. No one would be able to tell the time, you say? Yes, because no one would be there.
Second, the bare assertions. It doesn't make sense! There wouldn't be hours or days! Why? Because no one would be able to tell the time! Because no one would understand stuff about time! But have you demonstrated this supposed necessary dependency, or merely asserted it? Oh, you've merely asserted it. I see. And that's reasonable because...?
Necessary dependency, necessary dependency, wherefore art thou, necessary dependency?
You can't just assume some idealist principle like "to be" is "to be understood" and at the same time claim to be reasonable.
An hour passes if a certain amount of time passes. If this certain amount of time passes and there is no one there to understand that an hour has passed, has an hour passed? Yes. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it fall, does the falling tree make a noise? Yes. If we all died, would there still be rocks? Yes.
Yes, yes, yes. It's more reasonable, has greater explanatory power, is not counterintuitive. What's your alternative got going for it? Oh, really? Nothing at all?
Some people have asserted that some part of the scenario doesn't make sense. Yet it makes sense to me, and it makes sense to others. Funny that, ain't it?
How absurd! :rofl:
So, when I ask how many hours would pass in a year after we've all died, you think I'm asking how many human being telling times would pass? No wonder you think I'm talking nonsense! You interpret what I'm saying nonsensically! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Try taking your nonsense-tinted glasses off. It might make more sense! Hopefully they're not super-glued to your head! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Why on earth do you think that you need to remark that it wouldn't mean anything to anyone, as though I disagree? Of course! There wouldn't be anyone there for it to mean anything to! I reject the relevance of that, not the truth of that!
If at 18:00 we're all alive, and by 18:05 I had set an alarm for 20:00, and then we all die an hour later at 19:05, then the alarm would nevertheless go off at 20:00 (unless there was a malfunction with the clock or it was destroyed by an asteroid or something like that before an hour had passed) as any reasonable person would accept. Reasonable people don't interpret that as implying that it's absolutely certain and there are no possible alternatives. And reasonable people don't merely assume a wacky idealist premise or a wacky idealist interpretation of what I'm saying. They go by common sense realism. That's where reason leads.
Quoting S
A distinction without a discernible difference. As in, asking what the difference is between meaning and non-meaning where the circumstances under which meaning is instantiated are bracketed out is to posit an impossible dichotomy. Each requires the other in conditions in which one or other is said to be the case. It's like asking for a choice of heads or tails on a non-existent coin. In one sense, the word 'rock' cannot cease to mean rock because we all disappeared—our physical presence or absence doesn't seem to matter except indirectly when we choose to use the word. On the other hand, the difference between the word 'rock' meaning rock and not meaning rock does require our presence, so though 'rock' cannot cease to mean rock in our absence, it can also not be distinguished from non-rock, and seeing as this violates a condition of its meaning rock, we're left with the paradox of rock both meaning and not meaning rock, which can only be dissolved by realising that the scenario given is engineered such as to undermine the ground of its own solution, and it's meaningless to posit 'rock' as either meaning or not meaning rock under the circumstances given. Similarly, rocks can neither exist nor not exist under the first scenario's speculative conditions.
See 1:30. You are pre-enlightened Bart Simpson.
Weird.
Quoting Mww
Wow. That's a lot of words, and a really creative way of saying something I never disagreed with, namely that the rock would at the time be unknown. There wouldn't be anyone there at the time to know anything about anything. That was the condition I set in the hypothetical, remember? That no one would be there. If you were the rock, and no one existed, there wouldn't even be anyone to remember you. Nada. But obviously you'd exist, which is sufficient to prove realism.
Given that a "rock" is defined by the way it looks like, feels like, sounds like etc. how is anyone supposed to talk about rocks? Can you provide us with a definition of a rock that doesn't consist of subjective impressions?
Well, yeah, much of what you just said is really obvious and beside the point. You're indicating that you're talking about the word "rock" with your use of quotation marks. I know what a word is, and I know that the word "rock" is a word, and I know that it is part of a human-developed language, and I know that it is used to refer to a particular real object: a rock, and I know that we tend to use that word to refer to what we perceive to be a rock. I'm not actually an idiot, but it's good to know that you seem to think that I'm an idiot, since you're pointing all of this out to me.
The only important qualification to make here is that what we perceive to be a rock isn't necessarily a rock, but a rock is necessarily a rock, and we do not need to perceive a rock for there to be a rock.
You'll note that the dictionary definition of a rock I gave in the opening post doesn't in itself contain or imply anything about the supposed necessity of a subject. That's what the idealist erroneously smuggles in without any justification whatsoever for doing so.
If there's a [definition of a rock], then there's a rock. There's a [definition of a rock], so there's a rock. (Modus Ponens). Your additional idealist premise is unwarranted, and you don't even seem to be trying to support it. You just seem to be assuming it or suggesting it or asserting it without any supporting argument for it. And I'm expected to believe that doing that is reasonable because...?
This argument was never refuted because it was never presented.
There is EMR throughout the Universe, passing through or by any and all other objects in space. The EMR is indiscriminatory, insofar as it is precisely the same for any object of contact, and even without. Yet, as far as we know, only one species with a certain sensuous receptivity has the sensation of “blue”. Therefore, it is not a matter of frequency or wavelength alone that satisfies the sensation, they being merely the conditions required for the sensory apparatus to give the sensation. There would be no “blue” if eyes and the human optic system didn’t translate specific EMR physical properties as they do.
—————-
Yes, and I agree on moral subjectivism. Because the name itself makes it explicit, nobody can be a moral subjectivist without the employment of pure practical reason, no matter what moral theory or disposition is in play. Nobody can employ pure practical reason or construct a moral theory or have a moral disposition without being an idealist of at least the transcendental denomination. End of story.
Mic drop.
There is a subject smuggled in, by the very nature of the experiment, because someone is being asked if there are still rocks after what would be the observing subjects have been rendered dead!!!!!!
YOU are smuggling, and everyone else is trying to unsmuggle themselves by telling you there’s no one that capable of answering the question. And THAT is why the experiment is irrational. Or more correctly, that is why the experiment has only irrational answers if the answer is required to be affirmative in any way.
Mic drop
I'm glad that you agree with me on some important points. You agree with me that, in my sense, the word "rock" would still mean what it means. Yes?
The above quote, however, is a disagreement between us. I agree that (obviously) no one would be able to distinguish it from other things, because (obviously) no one would be there. But I see that as beside the point. Distinguishing particular things from other things is a subjective activity that isn't required for the word "rock" to have linguistic meaning. It has linguistic meaning if and only if the language rule applies. The language rule applies, therefore it has linguistic meaning.
Quoting Baden
Wow. Did you just violate one or more of the three fundamental laws of logic? Seems so.
What I meant is that I logically demonstrated (ages ago) that your claim about the meaning of words leads to absurdity. Do you remember me bringing up my cat and optical illusions? That was when I gave a strong and reasonable basis for rejecting your claim. You never actually addressed that, come to think of it.
I doubt that anything you can muster up will be enough to recover from that.
Oh PluLEEEEESEE!!!! Not the falling tree again. Say it isn’t so, Mr. Bill!!!
Can you say......anthropic principle??? Carbon chauvinism run amok. (Bostrom, 2002)
I ran out of mics.
:up:
Quoting S
Quoting S
Mu.
How can you seriously believe that you're competent enough to argue against me when you're not even competent enough to hold a mic without constantly dropping it. Butter fingers!
Correction: pre-duped. Don't have a cow, man. I'm not gullible enough to fall for Lisa's faux-problem. Bart is struck by the faux-significance of a faux-problem! He is stupefied by it! He was wiser to mock it.
You’re getting closer and closer. YEA!!!!
What you listed as possible negation of the existence of the clock pertains in principle to the negation of the existence of the rocks. Because no one can prove none of those things did not happen, he cannot know the rocks, or clocks, are still there, because one of them might have happened.
Somebody gimme a damn mic!!!!!
I already have, you're just reading that into it. That's not the same as me failing to provide one without that. That's a very important difference.
Now, to reduce your suggestion to absurdity. When, if ever, is a rock not a rock? What about when something fits the definition of a rock, but doesn't look to me like a rock, or feel to me like a rock, or sound to me like a rock? Imagine I'm under an illusion. In this case, a rock is not a rock? :brow:
If a rock is what looks, feels, etc., to me like a rock, then there won't be a rock if I die. But there will be, meaning that the way we use language in that context, it makes sense to say that there will be. So that's a bad definition to use in this context.
ROFL. Excellent comeback.
You forgot to say "mic drop" or some other brilliantly witty remark related to mics.
Wait, I think I get the idea of it. That's what you're supposed to say after you've mad a really poor argument.
I’ll go look, because I can’t even remember what I had.....no wait, if I had breakfast this morning.
Better not be a wild goose chase.
Sigh. Why are you so excited? You are still stuck, it seems. Here is a challenge for you related to logical relevancy. Can you feedback to me what I've said multiple times about what you seem to be suggesting here, which once again seems to relate back to absolute certainty? And can you feedback to me what I've said about the proper and improper way to interpret what I'm saying? Do you see the problem?
You don't deserve a damn mic!
[B]Key point right here, guys. Please try not to overlook it.[/b]
Yep. First line of the OP.
Quoting S
Nike drop
(Right foot Nike and I want it back, dammit)
Wait, why the heck are you specifying [i]empirical[/I] knowledge?! That's doing it wrong. I'm not asking about empirical knowledge of the rock! I thought I made that clear, multiple times. Empiricism is a useful tool, but it is not suited for all jobs, and it is the wrong tool for this job. I'm just asking about whether we know that there'd be a rock.
As I've explained, my realism beats your extreme empiricism in a number of different ways. I have assumed the premise of extreme empiricism - the one about the necessity of experience in the scenario - and shown where it leads. It doesn't lead anywhere sensible. And my practical way of defining knowledge beats your impractical way of defining knowledge. Once again, I have shown this by pointing out the faults of where your way of defining knowledge leads: we can't know, but there's an incongruity there. The guy on the street would probably think that you're an idiot if you said that we don't know whether there'd be a rock. I think that the wrong thing to conclude from that situation would be that the guy on the street is unsophisticated, and the right thing to conclude from that situation would be that you're doing something wrong, like defining knowledge in a bad way, so that it clashes with common usage.
We both know you keep harping on my “extreme empiricism” because you refuse to accept the correctness of my idealism for this particular foray into the sublime. All you gotta do is acknowledge that the only way to know it is true those rocks are still there is to send us back to look.
I’m sure the rocks would be glad to see us. Well.....me anyway. You they’re probably quite unhappy with.
Why the heck would I accept something so unreasonable as the claim that we'd have to go and look? :rofl:
No, you're just setting yourself up for failure. Whichever way you look at it, there's a failure. If I accept your internal definitions and logic, then I clash with common sense and common language use. The guy on the street will think that I'm an idiot. And I don't think that I can deceive myself into believing that he'd simply be wrong. This situation, I believe, indicates that [I]you've[/I] gone wrong somewhere. But you might just rationalise that in some way: you're a clever philosophy-type and he's unsophisticated.
I grant the practical aspect for knowledge is more suitable for the man on the street, who would perhaps think me wacky for maintaining we cannot know about the rocks. But if I asked that man on the street if there were any frozen French fries left in the freezer case at the local Piggly Wiggly....what do you think he’d say? He being an honest man and all.
You grant it, but perhaps you don't realise how much of a problem it is not to conform with it. Philosophy-types can be exceptionally oblivious on a level, in spite of all of their clever tinkering around. There's that, and they also have a remarkable talent for rationalisation.
But all is not lost! For not all of them are like this to such a notable degree, thank heavens. The good ones are the ones who reason backwards from an incongruous conclusion like, "Rocks don't exist", or, "Rocks are in my mind", or, "The continued existence of rocks depends on whether I continue to exist", or, "We don't know whether there'd be a rock if we all died" to find out where one has gone wrong.
If only there were more like that!
Quoting Mww
But that's not the same: different probabilities. So it doesn't count. You would need a claim where it's reasonable enough to give an affirmative regarding knowledge of the situation. And for the love of god, please don't interpret "reasonable enough" or "knowledge" as requiring absolute certainty or that you'd need to be there experiencing the situation, because if you do, then you'll go wrong again straight off the bat. For this challenge, you need to remove your blinkers. It's important to be impartial here, as it is elsewhere, or you'll just keep on failing before you've even gotten off the ground.
No, you have not. Solid, mineral, Earth. All terms that refer to observations.
Quoting S
A rock is never not a rock.
Quoting S
No, in that case you are under an illusion. Your observations no longer conform to the observations of the majority of other observers, and so other observers will, by and large, conclude you are wrong.
Quoting S
There won't be any rocks for you, since you'll be dead. Presumably, there will still be rocks for other people. Unless you're crazy, and everyone is playing along and agreeing with you that sure, rocks exist, so as to not disturb you.
Ah, too bad. You failed my challenge! That was just part of a thought experiment. You brought up an irrelevancy implicitly relating to absolute certainty and possibility and the proper/improper way to interpret what I'm saying. I have tried to get you to see why it's an irrelevancy.
I don't need to prove anything with absolute certainty. I'm not suggesting that there are no other possibilities. This is your misunderstanding.
I can deal with this with a copy-and-paste: you're just reading that into it. That's not the same as me failing to provide one without that. That's a very important difference.
You need to understand that you kicking the can a little further down the road is not real progress.
Quoting Echarmion
Good, I'm glad you agree.
Quoting Echarmion
Can, road, kicking. Imagine the majority of observers are under an illusion.
Quoting Echarmion
No, you don't seem have properly read what I said. I began "if a rock is what it looks like (etc.) [I]to me[/I]..."
Either a rock is what it looks like to me or it isn't. If it is, then what a rock looks like to other people is beside the point.
You could say that a rock is what it looks like (etc.) to most people, or even to everyone, but that would still lead to absurdity through a thought experiment. If we were all under an illusion, or we all developed some sort of genetic mutation where we no longer saw rocks as rocks, then it follows that there would be no rocks. But a) that's strongly counterintuitive, and b) that's illogical if you go by a sensible definition of rocks, where rocks are rocks, not what they look like (etc.).
On common sense:
“......For the common understanding thus finds itself in a situation where not even the most learned can have the advantage of it. If it understands little or nothing about these transcendental conceptions, no one can boast of understanding any more; and although it may not express itself in so scholastically correct a manner as others, it can busy itself with reasoning and arguments without end, wandering among mere ideas, about which one can always be very eloquent, because we know nothing about them; while, in the observation and investigation of nature, it would be forced to remain dumb and to confess its utter ignorance. Thus indolence and vanity form of themselves strong recommendations of these principles. Besides, although it is a hard thing for a philosopher to assume a principle, of which he can give to himself no reasonable account, and still more to employ conceptions, the objective reality of which cannot be established, nothing is more usual with the common understanding. It wants something which will allow it to go to work with confidence. The difficulty of even comprehending a supposition does not disquiet it, because—not knowing what comprehending means—it never even thinks of the supposition it may be adopting as a principle; and regards as known that with which it has become familiar from constant use. And, at last, all speculative interests disappear before the practical interests which it holds dear; and it fancies that it understands and knows what its necessities and hopes incite it to assume or to believe. Thus the empiricism of transcendentally idealizing reason is robbed of all popularity; and, however prejudicial it may be to the highest practical principles, there is no fear that it will ever pass the limits of the schools, or acquire any favour or influence in society or with the multitude....”
You know, I never understood this fixation with language. I just figure those guys with PhD’s in philosophy had to do something different because Kant had already set the bar so high for epistemology and reason nobody could do any more with it. Maybe Schopenhauer, another transcendental idealist, and Russell, an empiricist with prominent a priori tendencies due to his math and logic distinction, who added stuff because of the major advances in the science of his day.
Common language is fine most of the time. Even technical language is fine as long the understanding remains consistent with the language being used. That is to say, a guy talking in the technical language of chemistry isn’t going to communicate too well with a guy using the technical language of astrophysics. Even so, where the terms overlap there shouldn’t be any language or understanding issues.
Bet you didn’t know Bohr answered Einstein’s “I can’t believe the moon doesn’t exist if no one is looking at it” with “try as you may you cannot prove it does.” Look it up.
Hand me my Nike, wodja?
[quote=Terrapin Station]Why isn't it a language if you don't understand it on the later occasion? Where is the requirement coming from that in order to be a language, you have to understand it in perpetuity?
Imagine that some virus strikes Earth that rapidly spreads and gives everyone a cognitive fog. A symptom of it is that there are many words in all natural languages that no one understands any longer.
Did we not have languages in that case?[/quote]
Languages that are not understood, whether due to a cognitive fog or because everyone is dead... :chin:
Wouldn't they still be meaningful in the sense that these languages would consist in rules about meaning? In a language, it would be the case that [i]this word[/I] means [i]such-and-such[/I], even if it wasn't understood. What even [i]is[/I] a language if not basically a set of language rules about symbols or sounds or whatever?
Many words in natural language that no one understands any longer... :chin:
And words would be things that mean something, right? At least in the strictly linguistic sense.
Remind me, why wouldn't the meaning be objective?
Actually, I did know that. It would depend on what exactly is meant by "proof" there. And there you have an example of the importance of language use in relation to philosophy straight away. If we don't first clear that up, then we risk talking past each other. Proof generally seems to be about sufficiency, but here again what exactly that means to me might differ from what exactly it means to you. Or we might agree on the standard and the results, but I might call that "knowledge", whereas you might not.
And you don't have to go very far from the importance of language use before you run into the importance of common language use. Common language use, after all, is our main way of communicating with each other. It is, or should be, in many cases, our intuitive guide for what works and what doesn't. What use would it be to come up with your own language for philosophy which fundamentally clashed with ordinary language use? How would that be a net benefit? It's like your sense of "knowledge": what good is it? It just seems to cause problems in communication. Guess what language most people speak: the common language! So you'd first have to explain your language, and then they'd just be left with a sort of, "Oh, okay then. Well, good for you, but that doesn't really seem right in terms of the bigger picture, and you can keep your special language, since it lacks a wide utility and seems to cause more problems than it solves".
You're just wrong, full stop.
Quoting S
Then, by definition, the majority of observers are mistaken about rocks, because that's what the word "illusion" means.
Quoting S
If a rock is what it looks like to you, and you die, a rock is still what it looked like to you. This is just running in circles with words.
Quoting S
Saying a rock is what it looks like to X is not an idealist position, it's a realist position. To an idealist, the rock is nothing in and of itself.
Quoting S
If we no longer see rocks as rock, there must still be rocks, because by the terms of that very sentence, rocks both are a thing in and of themselves and something that people see.
You're entangling yourself in your own word salad.
Quoting S
Of course it's counterintuitive if you say things that are contradictory. Your definition is not a definition, but a tautology.
That's a great argument you've got there. How long did it take you to come up with? Hours, I'm guessing.
Without an argument from you, I am clearly in a stronger position here, given that at face value it's clearly absurd to say that Earth is an observation. Earth is a planet. A planet is not an observation. The contrary can easily be lead to even more absurdity if we assume it to be true and apply logic.
Quoting Echarmion
But they can't be mistaken by your own definition of what a rock is, because the definition would fit. It can't be both. That's the problem. To avoid contradition, you would be forced into to either rejecting your ill-considered definition, or the far greater absurdity of accepting that such an illusory scenario would be impossible.
Your definition here would be that a rock is what looks, feels, etc., like a rock to these people. We have what looks, feels, etc., like a rock to these people. So that [i]would be[/I] a rock by your definition. The problem with that, is that, really, it could be anything. You might be imagining an actual rock when you do this, but really, it could be a glass of water, a cat, or a microwave, that looks, feels, etc., like a rock.
Quoting Echarmion
No, you're fallaciously moving the goalposts by switching from present-tense to past-tense. You can't do that. You need to be consistent. If a rock is what looks like a rock to me, then a rock is what looks like a rock to me, not what [i]looked[/I] like a rock to me. If I died, then nothing would look like a rock to me. Therefore, there wouldn't be a rock, by your own definition.
Quoting Echarmion
That's come out of nowhere, and doesn't address what I said. Why are you saying that in reply to what you quoted above it? It just looks like a red herring or missing the point.
Quoting Echarmion
I'm trying to make the point in a way that will get you to see sense. Your definition allows for a situation with "rocks" (in your sense), that aren't actually rocks (in my sense, which is the normal sense). So, we could take the dictionary definition I gave, and imagine a scenario where there's a rock by that definition, but so long as it doesn't look, feel, etc., like a rock, then it's not one by your definition.
I think that that's a problem. And I'm guessing that I'm not the only one. It removes the requirement that reality matches up with our language, and instead goes by a model whereby language matches up with mere appearance, which of course can be illusory, which causes problems for the model, as I've shown.
Quoting Echarmion
It's easier just to say that a rock is a rock, but what I really mean is that a rock is [i]a solid mineral material...[/I] (i.e. a rock).
(That's an analytic a priori statement, like all such definitions).
This contrasts with your "rock", which isn't really a rock, it's merely an appearance.
Rather than this way is half of irrational, I'd say the other way is doubly irrational.
Quoting S
It's just as nonsensical, to talk about years when there's no human beings, as it is to talk about hours, and as it is to talk about rocks. So this approach gets you nowhere. What "a year" is, is a human idea, and without human beings there are no such ideas. So without human beings there is no such thing as what a year is, nor is there what an hour is, nor what a rock is. And the op is nonsensical.
Except it isn't, because to do so demonstrably makes sense to other people, which shows that you're just interpreting it in a way that doesn't make sense.
"I'm unable to make sense of what you're saying because I'm not interpreting it right" is not a sensible criticism. It's not a criticism at all, it is an admission of failure. And although you won't admit this, you tacitly do this whenever you make comments like the quote above. It's self-defeating. All I have to do is point this out, and I've done that here in this comment, and once is enough, so even if you repeatedly make the same error, I would've already dealt with it. Whenever you make those comments, you can simply return here to this reply.
Q.E.D.
The argument has already been made. Until you put in some effort to actually understand it, you'll get nothing else from me.
Quoting S
Or maybe the problem is that you are using a term - "illusion" - that's already predetermining the answer. It only makes sense to speak of illusions if you consider rocks to have a definition independent of the observations in question. It's a form of begging the question.
Quoting S
Again this is a realist position. An idealist would say that a rock is the looks, feelings etc.
Quoting S
You're still assuming there are things like rocks, cats and microwaves that are things in and of themselves, and then someone comes along and looks at the things and sees a rock. But to an idealist, there are no cats or microwaves either. These words refer to collections of subjective observations. The sentence "I observe a rock, but it really is a cat" makes no sense from that position.
Quoting S
My point above applies here. The way you phrase your example presupposes that rocks are things in and of themselves, and that your observations conform to these objects.
Quoting S
If we imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to, we are already in realist territory, and so any conclusions from that are irrelevant to an idealist.
Quoting S
For appearance to be illusory, we'd need to be able to compare it to something, and conclude the two don't match. What are we comparing appearances to?
:rofl:
A bare assertion is not an argument, and it can rightly be dismissed. Make your argument, and then I will consider addressing it.
Quoting Echarmion
Can there be an illusion? Yes or no?
Quoting Echarmion
Again, that doesn't matter. Don't send us around in circles. I'm still disagreeing with you. Realists can disagree with each other, ya know.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, I know that. I'm making the case that that makes very little sense for anyone outside of their crazy little world. There are things like rocks, cats, and microwaves. The real things, that is, not mere appearance, which is something else entirely. My finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Quoting Echarmion
As can be seen, we were talking about [i]your[/I] definition there. You keep changing the subject. Don't do that. I like to stay on point.
Address my point first, then maybe I will address yours in return. [I]Quid pro quo[/I].
Quoting Echarmion
That would be a massive problem if you claim that you can't even imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to.
Quoting Echarmion
Hold on a minute. Don't you think that it's absurd that illusions are impossible? That needs to be accounted for.
No.
Quoting S
You are making, to use your own words, bare assertions.
Quoting S
And I say there aren't. What now? Are we done?
Quoting S
Sigh. If rocks are what you think rocks are, and you die, the nature of rocks doesn't change. They still have the same attributes which, were you alive, would conform to your thoughts about rocks.
Quoting S
I did not say that I can't imagine it.
Quoting S
No.
Quoting Echarmion
Then I didn't mean you, [i]personally[/I], did I? :roll:
I meant them. Those of the position we're talking about.
Even if it's down to bare assertion vs. bare assertion, it doesn't have to end there. One can consider what makes the most sense, what better conforms with our common language use, what has greater explanatory power, etc. Are you interested in that or not?
Well, first, I don't believe that languages consist of "rules about meaning" period. I don't know what a "rule about meaning" would even be. I don't believe it's possible to actually speak meanings, by the way --remember that meanings are different than definitions in my view. ("In a language, it would be the case that this word means such-and-such"--that's not a meaning, it's a definition. Also, definitions aren't rules. They're reports--journalism, basically, about conventional usage.)
But even aside from that, I wouldn't say that languages are about rules, period. There are conventions in languages, but those conventions aren't rules in the same sense sense of rules of a game, or laws, or rules that some business might have for its employees or patrons ( "no shirt, no shoes, no business") or anything like that. (Even though some folks prone to persnickettiness would like to treat the traditional conventions that they prefer as if they're rules.)
At any rate, on my view, x only has meaning insofar as S assigns meaning to x.
What I'm asking in what you're quoting is basically this (exaggerated for a moment to make this clearer): why isn't L (consisting of words/expressions x, y, z, grammar G, etc.) a language at time T1 if at T2, S doesn't understand anything about L? In other words, why does L need to be a language at T2, T3, T4 ad infinitum in order for L to be a language at T1? And if L is a language at T1, and it's a private language at T1, then a private language is possible. It would be irrelevant whether any L exists in perpetuity (or at least for the lifetime of the previous users of L, or whatever temporal claim someone would be trying to sneak in).
I actually asked with respect to not understanding particular words at T2 rather than the language wholesale (hence the above being an exaggeration), but that was the idea. The assumed "It needs to be the same over time" requirement is untenable--since no language is, and all of the skepticism points about memory etc. apply just as much to public language. Plus the temporal sameness requirement would have to be made explicit, anyway.
Languages are tools utilizing symbols (often but not necessarily sounds or marks) to represent objects, concepts, etc. They tend to change, to evolve over time. When they're public, conventions develop, but various conventions occur at the same time, and the conventions can be skirted very easily without any significant detriment to the usefulness of the tool.
Illusions such as optical illusions are theories about the world that conflict with other observations, and are therefore inconsistent (have poor predictive power). If you observe that something is blue, but also observe that other people tell you they observe it as red, your theory now has to account for these observations. One way to do that is to form the theory that your perception of colors is different from that of other people.
Quoting S
I don't understand what you are trying to tell me.
Quoting S
You are describing different arguments, are you not (argument from language, argument from predictive power etc.)? If you think the question can be solved with arguments, then we ought to argue. If it can not then arguing is pointless.
I’m back. I packed a lunch, got my walkin’ shoes on, went looking for cats and optical illusions. Didn’t find any.
The problem here though, is that I've asked you to explain what you mean, in a way that does make sense me, and you've failed to do that. You keep resorting to unconventional and improvised definitions of your terms, which indicates that what you are saying doesn't even make sense to yourself. If you have to improvise fabricated meanings of the words you use, in order to convince yourself that what you are saying makes sense, then it's quite clear that you do not even know what you are trying to say, yourself.
The use of fabricated, improvised, unconventional definitions of your terms indicates that there is a problem with what you are trying to say, the meaning you are trying to purvey, not with my interpretation of what you have said. It's evident that you cannot say what you want to say in a way that makes sense. And it's not just me, but other people have told you that in this thread as well. This is evidence that there is a problem with what you are saying, rather than a problem with my interpretation of it.
Quoting S
To insist "the problem is yours if you can't make sense of what I am saying", is pure selfishness. There is no point to even trying to communicate with an attitude like that.
Here's the problem, see if you can resolve the problem in a way that makes sense. How can there be such a thing as "what a rock is", or "what an hour is", if there are no human beings with those ideas? And if there is no such thing as 'what a rock is", when all the people are dead, it doesn't make sense to speak as if there is. If you admit to "Platonic Realism", under this ontology there is an Idea of "Rock", and an Idea of "Hour", independent of human existence, I will accept this as a reasonable explanation.
Very weird. What's a language without rules? I don't even think that that's possible. There are rules everywhere you look. Rules that this word means that, rules that this combination of letters is that word, rules about punctuation, etc., etc. What's linguistic meaning, then? What's the linguistic meaning of a word like "hat"? It's that it's a shaped covering for the head worn for warmth, as a fashion item, or as part of a uniform. I can demonstrably speak that meaning.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Just because you don't have to follow them, or that they're also convention, that doesn't mean that they're not rules. They're rules because they're what's required for you to play the language game properly.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Very weird. It's evidently not a continual thing. The act of assignment is a temporary act. Once the linguistic meaning has been assigned, the x has that meaning.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Why would a language depend on me understanding anything about it at the time? I can only ask you that in response. Necessary dependency, necessary dependency, wherefore art thou, necessary dependency? Without this assumed necessary dependency, it wouldn't make any sense to think that there'd be this change over time.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's not my reasoning. If L is a language at T1, then for it not to be a language at T2, something relevant would have to change. I accept the change, e.g. we cease to understand it at T2. But I reject that it would be a relevant change in the sense you suggest. No necessary dependency has been reasonably established. Instead it has just been assumed or asserted. So it would be unreasonable of me to think that a relevant change would occur over time. You expect me to be unreasonable?
Quoting Terrapin Station
This doesn't seem relevant. I'm just saying that a language would continue to have linguistic meaning over time, because linguistic meaning is objective. I don't see how it would be any different for a private language. A private language would be some language I made up which no one else knew the meaning of. I set the meaning, then it would cease to apply because...? Because of some irrational belief about subjective dependency which hasn't been reasonably supported, but instead merely assumed or asserted?
Quoting Terrapin Station
The linguistic meaning is as set, unless it has been changed. Why would it be otherwise? Because of the irrational belief about a necessary dependency on there being a subject understanding the language at the time?
You're just begging the question, then bizarrely expecting me to go along with it. How is it reasonable to expect me to make sense of a problem you've created by assuming something that I don't? I can only point out the error in you doing that.
Sure, languages are tools. Tools designed for communication. And they consist in rules. That's what makes communication through language possible.
Your account is incomplete.
I want to just do a small bit at a time, especially because some of this I already addressed. Even this little bit is a few different topics.
"Rules that this word means that"--again, this isn't meaning, it's definition. They're different. Definitions aren't rules. They're reports of common usage in some population.
Likewise, spelling, grammar, etc. present conventions. Conventions are different than rules.
I am specifying empirical knowledge because you are demanding knowledge of a physical object. Asking about whether there would be a rock must use empirical knowledge because you’re still asking about a physical object. Hence the dialectical conundrum, re: empirical knowledge a posteriori is not suited because there’s no direct experience, we’re all dead remember, and empirical knowledge a priori cannot give the answer you insist is correct.
You’ve asked a million times, and got back the same answer every time......it can’t be empirically known whether there would be a rock; reasonably believed, sure; known.....nope.
Obvious to the most casual idealist observer.
————————
Quoting S
Nobody does that. “Reasonable enough” and certainty are mutually exclusive, and “knowledge” is never absolute.
———————-
Quoting S
Riiiighhhttt. 1921 Solvay Conference?
———————
Quoting S
No. No it doesn’t. Proof has to do with necessity. That which is contingent cannot be a proof.
——————-
Quoting S
I call “knowledge” the condition, or the state, of the intellect. What do you call it?
The methodology for remedying the possibility of illusion has already been given.
On the modern idealist model, which is still in force philosophically:
“....We here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest. We may make the same experiment with regard to the intuition of objects. If the intuition must conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then easily conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge. Now as I cannot rest in the mere intuitions, but—if they are to become cognitions—must refer them, as representations, to something, as object, and must determine the latter by means of the former, here again there are two courses open to me. Either, first, I may assume that the conceptions, by which I effect this determination, conform to the object—and in this case I am reduced to the same perplexity as before; or secondly, I may assume that the objects, or, which is the same thing, that experience, in which alone as given objects they are cognized, conform to my conceptions—and then I am at no loss how to proceed....”
I’d be interested in how you think this model causes problems. Problems with what? What problems?
Okay, then I'll go back and explain. You said:
[I]"If we imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to, we are already in realist territory, and so any conclusions from that are irrelevant to an idealist."[/I]
That means that if you were an idealist, then you couldn't even reasonably imagine a scenario where there is a rock that a definition conforms to, because, if what you say is true, [i]that's realist territory[/I].
But if an idealist can't even do that, then that's a big problem. I can. Lots of other people can. It seems to make sense. The idealist is abnormal, and this requires an explanation. I think that the best explanation is that they're doing something wrong.
Quoting Echarmion
The question can be solved with arguments, yes. I've made them throughout the discussion and I'm not exactly in any rush to repeat them from scratch with you.
Okay, so in your language game, you call them something different. Those are your rules.
I'm getting back an answer to your misunderstanding of what I'm asking. That's the problem, and that's why I've asked you more than once.
I'm not asking about empirical knowledge, so don't tell me about empirical knowledge. It's not my fault if you apparently can't help but misinterpret the question. I've tried to warn you about misinterpretation and taking a blinkered approach.
Quoting Mww
You seem to suggest something along those lines frequently, and I'm not the only one to have remarked on that.
Quoting Mww
Whatever.
Quoting Mww
I call what we know "knowledge", and that can be things like how to ride a bike, what chocolate tastes like, and that there would be rocks.
Son of a... So you want [i]me[/I] to go back and get it, I suppose? Would you like me to construct a half-decent argument for your position whilst I'm at it? Is there anything else I can do for you, sire? A cold beer? A back massage?
I did not mean to imply that an idealist cannot imagine realist scenarios.
What I wanted to point out is this: you're constructing thought experiments to serve as arguments against idealism. If you begin those thought experiments with the phrase "let's say rocks are what most people think rocks are" then your thought experiment starts with a realist assumption.
So if, in the course of your thought experiment, you come across a contradiction or an absurdity, you have constructed an argument against realism. Which, presumably, is not what you intended.
If I’m misunderstanding over and over, why aren’t you telling me how? Your experiment is really simply worded, which implies simple responses. Now, I did find reference to “hidden premises” on my search for cats and optical illusions, but I’m going to ignore those because hidden premises amounts to a guessing game along the lines of Russell’s teacup, which doesn’t interest me.
Quoting S
WTF is the gawddamn question?????????
——————-
Your calling what we know “knowledge. “Knowledge” is what we know. “Thoughts” are what we think. “Feelings” are what we feel. “Experiences” are what we experience. “Anything” is any thing.
Yikes.
Yes, I have failed to get through to you. You've proven unbreachable. And you explain away your own failure in understanding by rationalising that I'm talking nonsense.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Believe me, I've tried. I've tried for fifteen pages. I kept on trying when many others would have long since given up. If you don't recognise or appreciate that, then it's you who has the bad attitude.
It's not a rule, just the result of analysis.
But a strength of my argument is that I'm not saying anything controversial on the face of it. If the idealist can't even handle a hypothetical scenario of a rock (as defined by the dictionary) after we've died, then that's a big failing for idealism. I'm not suggesting that they can't bite the bullet, I'm suggesting that it's wrong to. It's a failing if you have to go to such lengths in order to explain away something as simple and easily understandable as post-human rocks. Again, what would the guy on the street think? He'd get it straight away, wonder why you were making such a fuss, and think you peculiar. So idealism has to invent a whole new way of interpreting language just to account for it's wacky premise? Why should we speak their peculiar language? These problems stem back to the wacky idealist premise, do they not? Isn't that the real problem?
Okay, so in my language, it's a rule, and in your language it's just the result of an analysis, even though we're talking about the same thing. The two languages translate.
There's, for example, a term--"cat," say, and a definition, "a small domesticated carnivorous mammal with soft fur, a short snout, and retractable claws . . . "
Objectively, that's a set of ink marks on paper, or activated pixels on a screen (however it works, exactly, re computers), or sounds someone uttered, etc. It's handy to have a term that cleaves the difference between this and the mental activity we engage in to make an association between "cat" (the ink marks or sounds) and "a small domesticated carnivorous mammal" (other ink marks, sounds, etc.), as well as the mental activity of picturing and conceiving and so on.
So I don't know that we're talking about the same thing. There are different phenomena to pick out.
So we're playing the game where we pretend like I haven't told you how you're misunderstanding, are we? I don't like that game. I gave you the short version when I told you that I'm not asking for empirical knowledge. What don't you understand about that? I'm asking instead for what we could call metaphysical knowledge. I gave you an example of the distinction earlier, remember? Am I asking how we can know what a rock looks like? No. Am I asking whether there would be a rock? Yes.
Or, if you do understand what I'm asking, then do you have an answer that isn't either a bare assertion that I don't accept, or something that I've already been over which will send us back around in circles? You say that the opening post is simplistically worded, but we've had fifteen pages of discussion where I've explained myself in detail and multiple times, so that seems like a flimsy excuse. You should know by now that I'm asking whether there would be a rock, and addressing related questions like how I know that there would be a rock, and that I reach my conclusion through a reduction to the absurd, and through a practical use of the term "know", which doesn't exclude common sense stuff it makes sense to say that we know.
It's really bad that you're making me repeat all of this.
I see that you've said that you're specifying empirical knowledge because it's a physical object. And my assessment of why you're doing that is because you either a) go by a premise which doesn't miss the point, but is false and unsupported, where for me to know that there would be a physical object, I must be there to experience it; or b) you're going by a true premise which misses the point, where you point out something I've never denied, since I too am an empiricist, and I accept that I must have had some experience of rocks, or some experience related to rocks, in order to make meaningful claims about rocks. But that's clearly not relevant to my claim, although it might well be relevant to a different claim which I haven't made.
You have the nerve to make those remarks of yours about hidden premises in my argument, yet you surely must have hidden premises of your own here, because what you've given me just doesn't add up. It looks like you make a logical leap in order to reach a different conclusion to me here.
Quoting Mww
All of that is true, you're just making my point seem less helpful by taking it out of context. I gave examples. I don't need to give you a definition beyond what I gave, and accompanied by enough examples for you to grasp my meaning. Giving any other sort of definition will risk opening up a can of worms, causing a needless and avoidable hindrance to the discussion.
There's a third thing you're missing out, which is the whole point I'm making here in the discussion related to Part 2. There's the set of ink marks on paper, or activated pixels on a screen: which is objective. And there's the mental activity of picturing and conceiving and so on: which is subjective. And there's also what a word means: which is objective. The meaning isn't objective in the sense that it never required any subject or subjects at any point previously, because it did: that's how it got a meaning in the first place. But it's objective in the sense that it doesn't need there to be any subject or subjects at the time, or all the time. It simply means what it does, and would continue to do so an hour later, even if we all suddlenly die in five minutes. Once the meaning has been set, it is retained, unless there's any reason for that to change, and no one here, yourself included, has been able to [i]reasonably[/I] provide such a reason. They've instead assumed or asserted a reason which is inadmissible. There's an unwarranted link that they make.
The meaning is the subjective stuff. Thinking about things associatively, the picturing and conceptions we perform, etc.
No, that's just the related mental activities. They are what they are, and meaning they are not. The meaning is what it means. The meaning of "boat" is not my thinking about it. The meaning of "boat" is a small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine. You miss the point by rightly saying that that's a definition, but the point is that it expresses the meaning. Obviously I can't give you the meaning without expressing it to you. That's how I give it to you.
Nope, that's the definition. The meaning is different.
Again, the definition is simply the text strings (which is what you've presented) or sound "string" etc. There's no meaning in that. The meaning occurs in you thinking about the text strings.
Text can't literally express anything. It's just ink marks or whatever. That's the whole point of noting that objectively, it's just ink marks. There's nothing else to it.
Predictable. Yes, it's the definition. That's how I express the meaning to you. How else could I possibly do that?
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, the meaning is what I just expressed to you. It's no different to that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Regarding "occurrence" in this context: you're talking weird again because of your weird views.
The definition is the words which convey the meaning. The meaning is what it means. What it means is a small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine.
Your error here is a finger/moon, use/mention, de dicto/de re kind of error.
You can't literally "express meaning to me." You can say and do things that I assign meaning to.
Quoting S
That's not what it means. There is no meaning in a text string qua a text string. We have to think about it in a particular manner in order for it to have meaning.
It's the same exact mistake that people make when they take moral or aesthetic utterances to be objective.
That's funny, because I [i]just did[/I] express meaning to you. I'm doing it now. That's how we're communicating successfully enough.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's what it means. You don't know what "boat" means? :brow:
Quoting Terrapin Station
The text is meaningful because it has meaning in the language. That's already established. We only have to do that mental stuff of which you speak in order to understand the meaning.
Ironically, you do not understand what it means to understand, as opposed to what it means to have meaning. You're muddling up the distinction.
No, it's funny that you're insisting this, because you didn't. I assign meaning to things like text strings. It's not somehow, mysteriously-in-some-manner-where-you-can't-possibly-pinpoint-the-properties delivered to me via lightwaves. It's a way that I think about it. Communication involves us both assigning meanings in a manner that makes sense to us.
Quoting S
Sure I do, and I can't tell you, because meaning is a mental activity. There's not a way to make a mental activity into lightwaves, etc.
Quoting S
What is "having meaning in the language"--text strings?
I've given you what understanding is functionally already. We had already talked about this.
You're making the mistake of overthinking what's simple and evidently true: that I'm expressing meaning to you through language.
People say that objective/factual morality is simple and evidently true. Do you agree?
Then how did you receive my meaning loud and clear, as evidenced by your reply? :lol:
You understood the meaning that I expressed to you.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You can't tell me what the word "boat" means? That's very funny. You might have just overtaken the guy who said that rocks don't exist.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Having meaning in the language is having a rule in the language that makes sense.
I didn't. I assigned meaning to it. I said something that was correlated to the meaning I assigned. You assigned meaning to that. We both did this in a way that made sense to us, that was consistent to us, etc.
The above is what (mutual) understanding is. Understanding doesn't involve literally sharing meanings.
Quoting S
Makes sense to whom? Rocks?
That's a false analogy. Moral objectivists and I absolutely agree that there's a right and a wrong. That's an appropriate analogy here. You're like a moral nihilist who denies this simple and evident truth.
That's a false accusation of a false analogy.
:rofl:
Are we in a Monty Python sketch?
Quoting Terrapin Station
That makes sense per the rules of the language. In English, "The don't why up on the change please you can", doesn't make sense.
That's a false accusation of a false accusation of a false analogy.
So making sense isn't to anyone in particular?
Depends what you mean. Not in my sense, no. I know what I mean, and I can guess what you'll mean because you're predictable. You'll probably set aside what I mean and go by your own subjectivist interpretation.
No idea what you're saying here.
What is "your sense of making sense" that isn't to a particular person?
I doubt whether your first sentence is sincere. You have no idea? Despite what I already said? You have no idea what it means to say that gibberish doesn't make sense in English?
I have no idea what you were saying in that particular post.
Things make sense or not to individuals.
That there's no one to interpret the dictionary definition of "rock", or the meaning of "rock" in any way,and therefore there is no such thing as "what a rock is", after we all die, is a statement of reality, fact, it is not a failing for idealism. Those who refuse to recognize the reality of this fact simply fail to understand.
Quoting S
Since there would be no such thing as "what a rock is", then it makes no sense whatsoever to ask if there would be a rock. Why is that difficult for you to understand?
Quoting S
You point to a rock, you say that's a rock, and voila, it's a rock. Now everyone dies, and time passes. As time passes the world changes, and the thing you pointed to no longer exists as the thing you pointed to because it changes along with the rest of the world. Why would you think that the thing you pointed to and called "rock" would still exist as the thing that you pointed to and called "rock"? Are you denying the reality of change?
This is a confusing example, because isn't it your position that ALL utterances are subjective? If definitions are subjective can anything be said that is NOT subjective?
So since religious people take certain claims to be objective, that is the "exact same" as someone claiming that words have consistent meaning?
I think I am missing your point?
Quoting Terrapin Station
But surely you do not do so arbitrarily. Otherwise language does not work.
This may help me understand your position:
Why should a student NOT be allowed to argue (and actually win / get credit) any wrong answer on a test, because that is what the question "meant" to them?
2 + 2 = 5? Well I interpreted = to mean equal plus 1. Why am I not allowed to do that?
In case you will make some "math is objective" argument...
If a 2nd grader had a vocabulary test and defined a "boat" as: something that glows in the sky and provides heat to the earth. The teacher might say, "it sounds like you are describing the sun." Huh, what's that? I call it a boat. If language and meaning are subjective why can't somebody do that?
I get that these are ridiculous examples, but if you can explain them from your viewpoint I think it will help. I am just trying to understand your position by taking it to logical extremes
It doesn't follow that time becomes "nothing", that conclusion is merely a dim reflection in the dark mirror of your prejudicial thinking. Time becomes untold is all. If time were "nothing" then what would there be to be told in the first place?
We can talk about language per se (a la utterances qua utterances, for example) or we can talk about what language is referring to, what it's about. "All utterances are subjective"--sounds like we're talking about utterances qua utterances. Above, though, we were talking about what we're referring to, what the utterances are about. If we say something about a river, we're not talking about something that is itself language, that depends on us to obtain, etc. That's only if we focus on the utterance as an utterance. "The river" is something we can say, but the river itself doesn't depend on us saying anything--it just depends on there being water in a channel, etc. Basically, this is the use/mention distinction. "The river" has two words, eight letters, two of the letter e, etc. The river, on the other hand, has no words or letters, but water, fish, etc.
In some cases, what we're referring to is something that doesn't obtain independently of us.
In other cases, what we're referring to does obtain independently of us.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
We weren't talking about whether words have "consistent meaning." The topic has been whether meaning obtains independently of us.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
No. I don't do so arbitrarily. That doesn't imply that the only alternative is to literally receive meaning from outside of me.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
If we're talking about something like grammar, say--something where there is nothing that's objectively correct or incorrect, what we're teaching are conventions. And it's objectively correct or incorrect that such and such is the convention. (For example, it's objectively correct that there's a convention to end a sentence with a period. It's not objectively correct that there's a convention to end a sentence with an open parentheses sign.)
If we're asking for definitions, we're asking for conventional definitions. And so on.
I think I am fine with all of that. I would say that any single experience I have is subjective, but it can be made more objective by comparing it to other people who have had similar experiences. Isn't that a major part of the scientific method? I can agree that experience is how we learn. Heck, I would even say that experience has taught me that the rock will still be there when humans are gone because when I leave a room and return, everything is still there (I get there could be some crazy supernatural or just plain weird stuff going on, but extraordinary claims blah, blah... it seems simplest to assume it all just stayed there vs thinking it disappears and re-appears every time I blink).
You all get in a lot of responses each day. I try to read everything, but apologize for any overlaps.
Re the way I use the terms, what makes something objective is that it occurs independently of us. Comparing, agreeing with others doesn't make something objective, and disagreeing, not comparing doesn't make something subjective.
Correct. Agreement does not make it objective. However, if objective is "something that occurs independently of us" (I am fine with that) then surely having agreement from outside "myself" implies my subjective experience is more likely to be objectively correct - right? Isn't that why scientists have to publish?
Isn't there pretty widespread agreement about, say, characteristics of Santa Claus or vampires? Or pretty widespread agreement about the Beatles being a good band?
Neither is any closer to being correct, especially not objectively so.
Relax your blood pressure, there, bub. Call it a course correction, aligning the stars. The question remains the same, and so do all my replies.
————————
Quoting S
Answer, yes. Bare assertion, no. That you don’t accept....ehhhh, looks that way.
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Quoting S
Logical leap, yep. Different conclusion, yep. Nothing wrong with a different conclusion, as long as it reached with valid premises.
What else you got? Time for another thought experiment?
Michael Ossipoff
9 Sa
Sounds like Rod Serling opening an Outer Limits episode.
No, Rod Serling opened episodes on Twilight-Zone, not Outer-Limits
He also wrote some of the episodes, but the best ones were by regular Sci-Fi writers.
But Serling was an excellent mood-creating talker.
Michael Ossipoff.
9 Sa
If you were to construct an argument for my position (no knowledge of the existence of future objects is possible) all it could ever be is half-decent, because you actually think “knowledge is what we know” is sufficient ground.
Tanquery. Rangpur if you got it. I hate beer.
Bummer. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted my memory.
Thanks
Your comment sounds like it reflects the outer limits of your ability to respond from the twilight zone of your prejudicial thinking. :joke:
HA!! Good one!!
I seem to recall (oh oh....memory trust again) you agree with S, there is a rock, in the future without observers. If so, what is the ground of your reason?
It is merely a logical one: there is no reason to believe that what is there depends on our perceptions; although obviously what we perceive to be there does in part. There is a logical difference between being perceptible and being perceived. Of course the rock is not perceived if no one is perceiving it; but it does not follow that it has thereby become imperceptible or non -existent.
??? Hence my use of "more" objective. So scientists publish the results of their studies to inform the rest of us about the objective facts they have discovered? Or do they publish so other scientists can attempt to duplicate? Why bother with duplication? Maybe it suggests evidence of "something that occurs independently of us"? That was my point. Clearly, we all know that facts are not determined by democracy.
Granted, of course. No one claims the unperceived simply ceases to exist. But is that tacit entitlement for an affirmative truth claim with respect to the physical reality of future objects? Is the logic that it wouldn’t disappear serve as truth that it would still exist?
Motivation is falsification of the OP thesis. A substantive falsification. My two questions set the premise.
So are you trading on the idea that existence is an equivocal notion?
Not existence, no; that which is, is. The equivocation arises from requisites for the when, the temporality, of truth statements with respect to existence.
That is the predication of my whole argument: if there can be no truth statements if humans are gone, then the truth statement “there are rocks when humans are gone” cannot be made. No truth value can be assigned to a truth statement impossible to make. There very well may be rocks, but no true statement can be made about that existential condition, which includes “there will be rocks”.
Maybe there will be rocks is not a consideration a truth statement admits.
Ok, no prob. It is true there are apt to be rocks in the future. No different in principle than believing there will be rocks in the future. No different in principle than having no reason to think there wouldn’t be rocks in the future, all else being equal. None of those are congruent with the truth statement in the OP. And, truth-apt statements can be false, which means the statement there are no rocks when all the humans are gone is truth-apt.
It seems to me that there might be a problem with his method. It's like he starts from, "It must be subjective!", and then tries to come up with an argument in support of that. It puts the cart before the horse.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Ooh, good point. :up:
The student would be marked down on that one, because he answered incorrectly, because he failed to understand the meaning. He thought it meant something else, or he deliberately went by his own idiosyncratic interpretation, and as a result answered incorrectly. There is an objective meaning, which is what it means in the public, shared language. He should have followed the rules of [i]that[/I] language.
:100:
Ironically, this was your type of error from earlier on, when I was stating the meaning of "boat", and in response, you were talking about a definition.
A small vessel for travelling over water, propelled by oars, sails, or an engine. That's not a definition. A small vessel isn't composed of words.
Yes! That's the right kind of thinking! (At least, I think so). It's different priorities, it seems. What's more of a priority? The question of whether you were there at the time to observe the room? No, it seems silly to even ask that, because we already know the answer and agree on it. The question of which explanation is best? Gold star!
Quoting ZhouBoTong
You have nothing to apologise for. If it weren't for the involvement of those such as yourself and @Janus, I would feel much more like I am in a madhouse! :lol:
Incorrect. It ended with me informing you that I was going to ignore you, because we reached a dead end whereby you kept asking me to do something which is demonstrably unnecessary - provide a definition - and thus a waste of my time, and I had already explained that. The meaning is understood by both of us, but the difference is that I don't pretend otherwise for the sake of pushing some rubbish argument.
Yeah, well, more than 15 pages of debate are indicative of how uncontroversial your position is.
Quoting S
But post-human rocks are not simple and easily understandable if you actually think about it. This is a bit like saying quantum physics "fails" because it goes to great lengths to explain away such simple and easily understandable concepts as discrete objects, or measurements that don't affect that which is measured.
Expain to me how this is not just an argument from ignorance?
Quoting S
The guy on the street doesn't understand a great many things outside of their personal expertise.
Quoting S
I find your language wacky as well.
Okay, I will bring you a glass of that gin you like. And I won't throw it in your face. Promise. :halo:
Correction: there would be a rock.
Like me, he goes by logic, as opposed to your irrational empiricism. Unlike you, he doesn't assume your unwarranted premise and then reason on full steam ahead until he reaches his predictable destination: a false conclusion. (Unless he is deliberately doing so as a reduction to the absurd). Soundness matters in logic.
Terrapin has trouble with that one. He tends to see the one as the other. I had that problem with him earlier, and I had to give him an explanation of the difference which might well have been too lengthy for him to handle without shutting off part way through.
If you let go off your needlessly strict criteria for justification, or your needlessly incongruous way of interpreting things like this, then yes! Drop the black-and-white thinking and the problem dissipates.
Why do you assume that it would have to be made at the time, after we're all dead, when there obviously wouldn't be anyone alive to make statements? Why couldn't it have been made beforehand? If you're having trouble picturing this, then imagine a statement written in my journal. I write the statement, then five minutes later, we all die. Then through some illogical magic you have up your sleeve, you conclude that the statement wouldn't be true or false according to what's the case. :brow:
I'm guessing that this illogical magic consists in a hidden idealist premise which is completely unwarranted. And this is the predication of your whole argument? :rofl:
All this means is that you choose to interpret truth-claims in a manner incongruent with how the opening post is supposed to be interpreted. And there's an easy solution to that.
Given these things, it is appropriate to say things like, "There would be rocks", and, "I know that there would be rocks". This can be tested by speaking to average people. Of course, it's inappropriate if you go by an unhelpful philosophy-language which average people rightly look upon as wrongheaded.
All you have to do to avoid the problems you're encountering is to suitably relax your criteria and talk like a normal person does.
The error you're making is that the only way to connect "boat" to the referent is to engage in the mental activity of associating the sound or text mark with the referent.
The key phrase I used was, "on the face of it". And that matters because it has to do with intuitiveness, common sense, our common language, what makes sense to us without assuming something bizarre like idealism, without having to come up with a convoluted explanation or an explanation which causes more problems than it solves.
Quoting Echarmion
Because it's not just simply about the truth of the matter, it's also - as it almost always is - about the language we use. That's part of what I meant earlier when I said something along the lines that I accept the science, but reject your related philosophical conclusions about it. You lack conformity with how a normal person normally talks. In that language, it sounds insane to say something like, "There are no rocks". Again, to me, that just indicates that you're doing something wrong.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, and the philosophy-type can be oblivious to the problems that come with not properly considering and appreciating how the guy on the street talks. They have a tendency to think that it's all simply a matter of sophistication or knowledge, thereby missing something important.
I am also a philosophy-type, but I'm the type who talks more sense. Even if I have more specialist knowledge than the guy on the street, me and him agree that you're doing something wrong.
Quoting Echarmion
Then you must find dictionaries wacky. You must find the way we ordinarily talk wacky. Very weird.
But that Idealism is "bizarre" is entirely your opinion. Perhaps it's worth pointing out the reason a lot of philosophy starting from the Renaissance has idealist tendencies? What we experience most directly is our thoughts. These are, in a sense, the most "real" thing to us. Hence, Descartes started with cogito. That our world starts with our thoughts is hardly bizarre, or unintuitive, is it?
Quoting S
That sentence doesn't even begin to make sense to me.
Quoting S
Technical language is required to talk about complex topics. Do you think lawyers are "doing something wrong" because they use words in a very peculiar and sometime highly unintuitive way?
Quoting S
And that something is?
Quoting S
Your humility is staggering.
No, that's a mental association. You need that for understanding. I'm talking about what the word "boat" means. You confuse the two. What the word means is already established in English.
Your subjectivism is getting in the way, causing problems.
How does that happen physically?
Quoting S
The fact that you won't analyze just what's going on ontologically is the problem here.
Weird question. People invented the language, made up the rules, agreed on them, started speaking it. "Let's use the symbol 'dog' to mean those furry things with four legs that bark".
All pretty obvious, seems to me.
Again, the problem is that you're refraining from this "weird question." That's leading you to untenable ontological stances about it.
Alright, so when you say, "let's use x to mean y," how, exactly, in terms of what's going on physically, does that create x meaning y? (If you think you need to start somewhere else in the process, feel free to start wherever you need to)
Has nothing to do with when the truth statement was made. Has only to do with when the truth statement applies. “Is there a rock? Yes.” makes explicit the truth statement applies to the present of rocks but is premised on the future of humans. In effect humans making a truth statement about a present of which they are not a member and of which, accordingly, they could in fact know nothing about.
Even an average philosopher should see the fallacy in that reasoning.
“...All this means is that you choose to interpret truth-claims in a manner incongruent with how the opening post is supposed to be interpreted...”
How in the bloody hell is it possible to misinterpret “Will there be rocks? Yes.” This truth statement is the conclusion of the Part 1 argument. If the conclusion is deemed false, then it is required to find the fault in the premises that ground the conclusion, which means they MUST be deemed incongruent with the originals. If they weren’t, the conclusion would hold. But it doesn’t So....
Yes, I could avoid the problems by relaxing my criteria. You, on the other hand, could avoid the irrationality by strengthening yours.
Apparently, average is good enough for you? I am truly disappointed.
Given your impression of what knowledge is, and how you characterize what blue is, I dare not ask what you think time is.
Also, given you must know how expensive that Rangpur gin is, why you’d even consider throwing it at me must have been derived from reasoning as irrational as is the reasoning behind this thought experiment.
I’ll have another, if you’d be so kind. In a glass this time.
No, it's not just my personal opinion based on whim and fancy. It has a solid basis, and that's why it is shared by most other people. You're just trying to trivialise this. How very superficial.
Quoting Echarmion
It is, given where it leads. The known world started with the Big Bang, not at our birth. And direct idealism is far from agreeable, again, given where it leads.
But I grant that it has [i]some[/I] degree of deceptive appeal.
Quoting Echarmion
It makes sense in proper context with the further explanation I gave. If it still doesn't make sense [I]to you[/I], then [i]do something[/I] about it. But if I have to needlessly repeat an explanation I've already given, then you'll face my wrath.
Quoting Echarmion
That's fine. Lawyers aren't philosophy enthusiasts. They don't have in common with philosophy enthusiasts the tendency to say absurd sounding things. So it's not the same. Lawyers qua lawyers don't say stuff like, "Rocks don't exist".
Quoting Echarmion
What I've explained. The language barrier.
Quoting Echarmion
Thank you for the compliment.
No, I'm not refraining from your weird question. I answered it in a way that might not be what you're looking for. Maybe it's wrong of you to be looking for a certain kind of answer to begin with. Maybe the question itself is the problem. Ever stop to consider that?
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's not something a physicist could find through science. He could only find related stuff. So you're thinking about it wrong, and asking the wrong questions as a result.
But, let me guess: this is somehow my fault?
First, we're not talking about whether physicists, specifically, would work on this.
But are you claiming that what's going on is somehow "beyond science"? Do you believe that somehow it's not the case that something is going on physically here? Are you saying that you believe there are nonphysical phenomena? Is something supernatural going on?
Then you worded it wrong before. So that was your fault, not mine. It would apply. You haven't provided a reasonable basis for a negation.
Quoting Mww
The fallacy in [I]your[/I] reply is a red herring. If you want to talk about a different question, namely the question of whether there [I]is[/I] a rock, then do so elsewhere. I've clarified that the question here is whether there [I]would be[/I] a rock. I clarified that many pages ago.
Welcome to the club. That's the history of the thread, in a nutshell.
Quoting S
Yes, you reject all reasonable premises which could explain what you are talking about, as non-progressive, and assert "there is a rock an hour after all people die", as the only reasonable premise. OK.
Quoting S
Whenever someone gets you to the point where your op might begin to appear unreasonable to you, you say, I'm going to ignore you because this does not progress the debate. Nice work.
Quoting Echarmion
The problem is that S refuses to think about.
Yes, I reject all premises you [i]erroneously believe[/I] to be reasonable, and go by my own premises, which [i]actually are[/I] reasonable.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Nice rationalisation. You're a master at it! You remind me of the fox in Aesop's fable:
Irrelevant.
The OP shows no edit, and even if it did, the logical response would be the same. “Is there a rock? Yes” has the same declarative value as “Would there be a rock? Yes”, therefore would justify identical responses.
Wiggling is permitted in average philosophy, apparently.
No, no, no. Not in terms of the content of truth-claims, I meant the way in which you go about interpreting them [i]as[/I] truth-claims, as in how you are assessing the truth-claims in terms of the truth-values, or in terms of what we know about the truth-values, like how we'd get to the one value or the other, which involves your preheld notions of things like what's required for a truth-claim to be justified.
Quoting Mww
Yes, and that would be sensible. You don't want to be sensible?
Quoting Mww
No, you seem to forget that it's only irrational if you go by a model that results in irrationality, which is what your model does for my claims. My model sensibly avoids that outcome.
Quoting Mww
My way keeps me grounded. It is practical. It is sensible. It makes more sense. It reduces the occurrence of language barriers.
Your way doesn't have these benefits. It just tries to be clever and special, but fails in terms of the bigger picture. It has more cons than pros.
Like knowledge, and like existence, time doesn't seem to require a definition for the purpose of this discussion, so long as you understand how I'm using it and related terms. Meaning is use. You know, or you [I]should[/I] know, how I use the relevant terminology. I have demonstrated my usage plenty of times in this discussion. You should already know what it means for an hour to pass. If not - if you get that wrong - I've explained multiple times where we differ, so just use that as a reference instead of turning to me with a dumfounded expression like you're helpless. Help yourself.
Quoting Mww
I would do it for the lulz. The lulz are priceless.
Quoting Mww
No, I wouldn't be so kind. Kindness is not my forté. But, if you like, I can bring you a puppy, and then give it a real good kicking whilst you watch in horror.
OK, I think I've satisfactorily proven my case. Yours is a metaphysics of extreme selfishness. It's reducible to solipsism: "I am the only authority".
Funny. Your question was put in terms of the physical. Who knows about that better than a physicist? That's why I specifically brought up a physicist.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I go where good sense leads me. I don't put the cart before the horse by assuming physicalism and then end up grasping at straws when I hit a bump in the road. There's a problem here, but like I said, it may well be a problem with what you assume or a problem with the way you put your question. Until that's ruled out, I don't accept that it's a problem on my end rather than on yours.
Do you think that archaeology deals with physical stuff? Do physicists know archaeology better than archaeologists? Does biology/medicine deal with physical stuff? There aren't many physicists I'd hire to take care of a cyst, say.
Quoting S
Do you think that there are some things that don't work some way in terms of what's going on ontologically?
Translation:
S. was unable to tell what he meant.
If you can't tell what you mean, maybe you don't know what you mean.
Michael Ossipoff
9 Su
I already know what [I]your[/I] response is. I'm bored of it. I've been over it. You'd have to add something new for this to be interesting. You erroneously respond that we don't know. This is because of your criteria. You might be internally consistent, but that's all your position has going for it. In the bigger picture, it's fundamentally flawed.
You’ve got the chutzpah to ask me that after killing off all my kind? For your own personal aggrandizement, no less? Kill us off cuz we’re destroying the world, cutting down 3 football fields worth of trees every minute, dumping 8 billion tons of plastic in waterways every year.. ....sure, we don’t deserve any better. But just to see if rocks would be here if we weren’t?
THAT is nonsense if you ask me.
I don't remember hiring a translator, but in any case, you're fired.
Yes, Mr. Fox. Whatever you say, Mr. Fox. Who wants sour grapes anyway? Right, Mr. Fox?
Physicists know best about physical stuff [i]as[/I] physical stuff, which is obviously what I meant. I wouldn't go to an archeologist to find out in detail about the physical properties of an object. You were asking about the physical in some other sense then, were you? Some sense where it would make more sense to ask an archeologist, or a biologist, or a physician? Or are you just trying to be a smart arse?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think that your question in terms of the physical seems inappropriate, because it contains a controversial assumption, and we should examine that controversial assumption, but your constant evasive manoeuvres - for which you've gained notoriety - make that difficult, if not impossible.
Your question in the quote above is too vague for me to answer, anyway. Look, I am sceptical beyond what I've said. If [I]you[/I] think that what I've said requires an additional explanation in terms of the physical, then that's for [I]you[/I] to justify. Is that understood? Unless I judge that supposed requirement to be justified, I am not obliged to humour you. Your burden isn't my burden.
Yes, the premise that what we say doesn't mean much if we can't tell what we mean.
How does S. expect anyone to "engage productively" with someone who can't say, and doesn't know, what he means?
Michael Ossipoff
9 Su
Thanks. The credibility of all proper logic and all physical theory is required to be at least internally consistent, so looks like I’m ok. If that’s all I’ve got it’s only because I haven’t taken either the logic or the theory any further.
Internal consistency is vital, but also a piece of cake. You'd need to take it further to impress me.
Nahhh. Waste of time for both of us. As a practical extreme realist, by your own admission you can’t go where the depths of logic and speculative philosophical theory would lead you, and I’m already there, so.....maybe some other time.
And to suggest that you're superior to [I]me[/I] in that regard... Have you been drinking that gin you like?
I am just going to point out how funny it is that you criticise me for being "superficial" while your position is that anything beyond the superficial is nonsense.
Quoting S
Well, it was worth a shot.
Quoting S
And if idealism still doesn't make sense to you, then you do something about that. Wow, winning arguments is so easy!
Quoting S
They aren't? How do you know I'm not a lawyer?
Quoting S
So, let me put that into your previous sentence:
Quoting S
Which I think means that if you know something, but don't use the words that S approves of, you don't know something, because you "missed the language barrier". Or something. I am sure this means something, since meaning is objective. I just have to find the atlas of meaning somewhere...
You should if you want to know the physical properties of, say, a particular piece of pottery relative to a particular culture. Those are physical properties (as indeed all properties are).
Quoting S
If you think what's going on ontologically is something nonphysical, or supernatural, or whatever, that's fine. Why can't we just plainly state your view about just what's going on ontologically, just how it works, etc.? It's difficult to address just what you think is going on ontologically, just how you think it works, if you won't tell us.
How did you reply again? Ah yes, I remember now: "that's entirely your opinion".
Quoting Echarmion
I have. I explored it further, and the results were as predicted.
Quoting Echarmion
There's a simple test for that. I could ask, "If you were to give someone an orange, how would you go about it?".
If you were to answer, "Here's an orange", then you're not a lawyer.
If you were to answer, "I'd tell him, 'I hereby give and convey to you all and singular, my estate and interests, rights, claim, title, claim and advantages of and in, said orange, together with all its rind, juice, pulp, and seeds, and all rights and advantages with full power to bite, cut, freeze and otherwise eat, the same, or give the same away with and without the pulp, juice, rind and seeds, anything herein before or hereinafter or in any deed, or deeds, instruments of whatever nature or kind whatsoever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding...", then you're a lawyer.
That joke is actually very relevant here. If someone were really to answer in that lawyerly way, then we'd rightly judge them to be doing something wrong. It's much better to go with, "Here's an orange".
Quoting Echarmion
The atlas of meaning! That's a funny name for a language rule. Or is that what you're calling a dictionary? I've simply been copy and pasting from an online dictionary for words I've used such as "rock" and "boat". You must already be familiar with the English language. Did you learn it from an atlas of meaning somewhere, or the usual way?
Fine, whatever. What was the point of this digression? Was it really worth it? I don't think that either an archeologist or a physicist would find what you are asking of me. What you're asking of me doesn't even seem to make sense, really. You certainly haven't even lifted a finger to convince me otherwise.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Let me simplify for you. We'll do it one thing at a time, which is a method of which you approve. First of all, do you understand what scepticism is?
Sure.
Good. So hopefully you'll also understand me when I say that I'm a sceptic beyond the kind of answers that I've already given you. And, with that in mind, hopefully you'll restrict yourself to asking me questions of a more sensible nature, given what I've just explained.
So are you a skeptic that there's something going on ontologically? Or do you mean that you think there's something going on ontologically, but you have no idea what, exactly?
It depends what exactly you mean. Do you even know yourself? There's physical stuff involved. That's for sure. But I am sceptical that that provides a complete picture. If you think otherwise, you'd have to actually try to convince me - if you cared enough about my thoughts on the matter, that is.
Of course, unsurprisingly, no attempt was made by @Mww to address or redress the logical error there!
Quoting S
Likewise! It'd be tragic if it wasn't so funny. :rofl:
Yes, but one of your remarks sounded like something that Rod Serling would say, so that's immaterial.
Quoting Janus
You can't possibly know that it would be tragic. You would have to travel to an alternate reality and directly experience the scenario in order to find out!
I meant the scenario that has been playing out in this thread. Which scenario are you referring to?
The scenario here in this thread is one where we've all died... of laughter... at the bad logic on display.
The scenario I was referring to in last my reply to you, which was intended to mock the aforementioned bad logic, was a scenario where it was in fact tragic, instead of the hilarity of this scenario here, which precludes what would otherwise make for a tragedy.
I'm not sure that it's possible for me to stop laughing at this stage. But it might help if they stopped producing hilariously bad logic.
Basically, the idea, very broadly--I'm not specifying my views, here, is (presumably) that were talking about things that exist or obtain somehow, and things that work via some set of (ontological) relations, perhaps interacting with each other. I was assuming that you would have a view of what's going on in this regard when it comes to meaning. So I was trying to poke/prod that out of you. If it's not something you've thought about much, so you don't really have a view on it, that's fine. It might be something worth thinking about though.
a) Missing the point about missing the point.
b) "You understand the meaning of what I'm saying right now", "No I don't".
c) Rocks don't exist. They never did.
d) How can an hour pass if no one is there to tell if an hour has passed?
But then there'd be nothing to care about either...
I might be able to go into some more detail in some respects, although that might require some prodding from you, but you threw me off by seemingly confining things to the physical, and then you went to the other extreme and brought up the supernatural.
I've said before that I'm not much of a fan of this category game. It's not always the most helpful approach. But, like I've said, I don't doubt that some of the stuff involved is physical. And there's also a relation to stuff that's mental. And then there's the abstract, whatever that is, but that seems like a bit of a mystery. I'm not sure exactly what's what, ontologically, and I don't have a complete account in that regard, and I'm not sure how the whole thing neatly ties together, or of finer details like interaction.
But that almost seems like a different topic, or a different angle on the topic. I still know what I know about meaning and language and suchlike, and I standby what I've said.
Okay thanks for the answer.
Re the physical stuff, I'm a physicalist, obviously, so I think that everything is physical, including mental phenomena, including abstractions, etc. I have beliefs about what's going on with things like meaning in ontological terms (which is then a physicalist account for me). When I encounter a different, "competing" view, I'm curious what the details are, so that's why I push for that.
That's fair and makes sense. The most suitable -ism for me in terms of the ontology would be scepticism. I reckon I could probably agree with a physicalist about a lot of things, but I don't go as far as they do, because of my scepticism. I'm obviously not an idealist, but I haven't concluded physicalism or dualism either.
Really? :brow:
Anyway, it would be good if the poll showed who voted for what. That's a shame. And it doesn't break down the number of votes, which I had to do myself. It only shows the percentage.
Interesting. I doubt any professionals disagree with realism, but I certainly hope they don’t agree with realism exclusively. Depends on the choice of concepts attributed to the discipline, I suppose.
I'm sure it's a range, as with all things in philosophy where opinions differ. Personally, I don't think subjective idealism is very tenable. It's hard to think there isn't something real responsible for our experiences, since we experience having bodies that need nutrition, air, water and were born. Also, the whole evolution of life, stars, etc. before us.
Agreed; subjective idealism went out with continental German idealism, which advocated a necessary external material reality.
I don't know that reality is properly material, or even completely physical. It's something with those sorts of properties and relations, but it's not anything like what we get in everyday experience. Maybe its quantum fields with a touch of proto-consciousness or it's mathematical structures all the way down. I don't know. But it's something very far removed from our human experience. Or at least the fundamental (ontological) reality making everything up is.
I guess that means Kant was kind of right. As were the ancient Greek metaphysicians in the sense that reality had to be something counter-intuitive, even if they were mostly wrong about the actual ontology, with some exception for the atomists and Heraclitus.
Whatever it is, let's not throw ordinary language philosophy out with the rubbish.
Dunno how reality can be all that far removed from our human experience, when we’re right smack dab in the middle of it. Actually, all our experiences are of material reality, or, the appearance of it anyway. But yes, the ontology behind reality is far removed, I’ll give you that.
Max Tegmark, 2007, thinks it’s mathematical structures all the way down.
Kant is always right!!!!! (Grin)
.
Now S. is resorting to handwaving.
.
Not a quote from Wittgenstein, but just a name-dropping, the invocation of a holy-name.
.
So, does S. mean that Wittgenstein provided a definition of an objective, general, noncontextual “There is…”?
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Then quote it.
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Or is does he mean that Wittgenstein said somewhere that that “There is…” has a meaning that is unspeakable, but which we all know anyway?
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S. doesn’t say, but merely (as I said above) invokes a holy-name.
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Wittgenstein has been quoted in these forums as saying something that uses “There is…”. He was quoted as saying that there are no things, just facts.
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For one thing, facts are things. Presumably the quote means that there are no things other than facts.
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What might someone mean when saying that?
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I won’t speculate, because I don’t use that term or claim a meaning for it.
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In any case, whatever Wittgenstein said, to which S. is referring, the saying of something by Wittgenstein doesn't make it true.
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S. has now resorted to thumping his scripture and waving it at me.
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This isn’t complicated:
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1. S. asked a question.
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2. I said that the question is meaningless because it contains and depends on an undefined term.
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3. S. then said that that term has a meaning, though he’s unable to say what it is.
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4. I acknowledge that S. believes that that term has a meaning that S. is unable to express.
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In other words, I acknowledge that S. believes that, and I agree to disagree.
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There’s nothing more to be said on the matter. Argument concluded.
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Michael Ossipoff
.
10 M
Point number two is so obviously wrong that it speaks for itself.
And you keep getting point number three wrong in spite of my corrections. Yet you say that this isn't complicated. Why then do you appear to find such a simple correction so complicated that you presumably cannot understand it, and presumably keep wording it wrong as a result?
I should have specified that the ontological makeup that results in the reality of the human experience (everyday objects, time, space and what not) are pretty far removed from everyday experience.
So what does that entail? My problem with ordinary language philosophy is that it seems to stick it's head in the sand regarding the difficult metaphysical and epistemological problems. We know from science that reality can't be simply what we experience. Ancient philosophers knew that as well. Everyday objects of experience aren't enough. There's a reason why naive realism isn't tenable (and by that I mean unreflective naive realism not sophisticated attempts to defend direct realism).
It means that whatever it is, or whatever the science says it is, that doesn't mean that we have to start talking funny.
No, S. did say that the term has a meaning.
...and that he knows what it is.
He won' say what it is.
Either that's because he can't say, or is unwilling to say. It has to be one or the other.
So now is he saying that he can say the meaning, but is unwilling to?
Alright, I'll change # 3 to say:
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Quoting S
Alright, maybe I misunderstood S. when I thought that he meant that he couldn't say the meaning, when actually he meant that he doesn't want to say it.
But maybe S. meant something else? Forgive me for trying to guess what S. meant to say.. Only S. knows. :D
Michael Ossipoff
10 M
I’m cool with all that.
Do you remember the short version of the explanation I gave as to why my unwillingness or inability to do so is unimportant?
[Hide]It's not necessary to do so![/hide]
I remember various versions. But I've taken the time to go through your various replies in this conversation, and, lo, your explanations that I found consist only of the ones that I remember.
1. You said that, in reality, I know what you mean, but I'm lying about that.
...and that, because we both know what you mean, it's unnecessary for you to say what it is that you mean.
Here's a quote:
2. You kept invoking a census of other members.
3. You mistakenly tried to claim that unqualified, noncontextual, absolute, objective "There is..." is one of those words (like "on" or "this" or "taller", that we know the meaning of from the context of physical pointing or physical-reference. ...that it's one of those terms that, for that reason, needn't be defined in terms of other words.
There's constant disagreement about whether the (infinitely-many) digits of the decimal expression for pi exist, or whether the square-root of 2 exists, or whether abstract facts "exist", etc. There will always be those disagreements, because of the undefinedness of "Exist" and "There is..."
If someone wants to make the broad statement that it all exists, that's fine (but, not making any distinction, it might not be real useful). But not everyone agrees. There's no such accepted definition of "Exist" or "There is..."
As for myself, I avoid using those terms and don't advocate a definition for them or a dividing-line for "existence" or "real".
By the way, that means that i don't believe in any metaphysics or ontology. What I've been mistakenly calling "my metaphysics" isn't really any metaphysics or ontology at all. It's non-metaphysics, non-ontology.
Materialists, for example, believe in a metaphysics. I don't.
Given the lack of accepted definition for the contested term, a definition is called-for if you want to use unqualified "Exist" or "There is"
As I said, I acknowledge that you believe that the term in question has a meaning and that you believe that you know that meaning.
There's nothing more to say.
Michael Ossipoff
10 M
.
I have been reading sites like this (including this one) for years. In the past, as long as there was one person per thread (like you in this one) arguing my line of reasoning, then I was content to simply linger. But lately the urge to add my thoughts has been growing, so I am happy that my ego satiation contributes to your sanity :smile:
Oh, and just know that even if you are the ONLY one presenting a certain line of reasoning, there could be some socially awkward person that entirely agrees but will always just lurk (I think you may have done that for me a few times in the past), so thanks and keep it going.
Just realized I am 3 pages behind on this thread. Got some reading to do.
Ok, so below is the OP (I think I put enough):
"There is a rock, but no one is there to perceive it, because we all died an hour previously.
Is there a rock? Yes or no?"
Are you saying if it was phrased this way:
"There is a rock, but no one is there to perceive it, because we all died an hour previously.
Do you think there is a rock? Yes or no?"
Then it is totally fine?
Until I have access to new evidence, I will just assume that "post-human" is rather similar to "pre-human". That's what happens when I actually think about it. I can also invent all sorts of hypothetical possibilities (like "maybe this is all just in my mind"), but actually "thinking" leads me to be agnostic toward those claims.
Quoting Echarmion
Quantum physics has led to stuff. It has some predictive and explanatory power. Can you give concrete examples of the "gains" of Idealism? See, I would not say quantum physics "fails" because it has "succeeded" in some areas. Aside from sounding good (or bad) in our minds, what has Idealism contributed? By the way, if you can point to hard gains of Idealism, you will be going a long way toward convincing me your position has merit.
Quoting Echarmion
I had to think about this quite a while, as I am sure I am somewhat ignorant of idealism. I think if you can explain how it is (an argument from ignorance), then that will help. What information do I not know? Like I said, I know of NO "gains" of Idealism. I certainly CANNOT disprove Idealism, but I can't disprove god either. Is there a hypothesis that would allow us to test whether idealism is real? Maybe that pixelated universe thing is a related experiment (although that seems FAR more specific than general idealism)?
I just responded to a post from each of you, but realized they are a couple of days old and S may have already replied. If there is nothing new (or worthwhile, hehe) in my posts, feel free to ignore. I will read the rest of the thread and catch up before adding more.
Agnosticism is a perfectly acceptable position. I agree that we cannot actually know about the objective reality of rocks. I agree with Kantian metaphysics in this regard. But this means that, unlike S, I accept that idealism is at least coherent.
That there were rocks in the past is not an effective argument against idealism, because we only conclude that rocks existed in the past based on observing them in the present. But if we don't know whether present rocks are real, our conclusion about the past isn't warranted, either.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well idealism precedes the scientific method, and certainly influenced it's formulation, so in this sense it has part in it's discoveries. Of course, idealism is not directly concerned with producing predictive models. It'd be unreasonable to expect all philosophy to have predictive power. Nevertheless, a proper understanding of the idealist position is necessary for a proper understanding of the scientific method. This is especially true with regards to Quantum mechanics, which has given rise to a bunch of bad metaphysics trying to square it's findings with a naive realism.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I was specifically responding to S' post, in which he maintained that idealism wasn't intuitive to him and therefore wrong. That isn't a textbook argument from ignorance, but it's the same kind of thinking.
Idealism cannot be proven or disproven the way that an empirical hypothesis can. It can be argued against. The core of idealism is that at the core of everything we know are our thoughts. Mental phenomena. This includes what we know about things outside of us. The world is a picture in our minds. This much I think, is hard to argue with.
@Michael Ossipoff, yep, that's it. I don't want to be like that lawyer in the video, whilst you act like the guy being questioned about a photocopier. (See here).
Your needlessly lengthy ramblings miss the point. It's far more simple than you're making out. It's just a matter of whether or not you understand me when I ask whether there would be a rock. And you do. So that's the end of it.
It would be funny if that solved [i]his[/I] problem, because in asking whether there is a rock, I'm implicitly asking what you guys think.
Why not? I've actually thought about it. I'm not the average guy on the street. We're both philosophy-types, remember? I just talk more sense. If I wanted to, I could argue from your position, but I don't agree with it.
Rocks are rocks. They are as defined in English. It's not the rocks that change, it's just the status of our existence that changes: as in, we do or we don't. We know that there are rocks in space that we've never even seen, or felt, or tasted, and suchlike. There were rocks before us, there are rocks now, and there would be rocks after us.
You're just creating problems for yourself. That's all. It's what philosophy-types frequently do without realising it. I'm offering you the resolutions, but you're rejecting them. Psychologically, this could be because it would ruin your image of yourself as a special philosophy guy with lots of insight here which turns our world upside down. You view me as someone who is trying to burst your bubble.
I don't think that this is the first time in this discussion that someone has falsely claimed that of me. That is, if you mean something like logically possible. I don't like the term "coherent". It's ambiguous.
Quoting Echarmion
It's absurd to deny that present rocks are real. It's either genuinely absurd, in the logical sense, or absurd as a deviation from ordinary language use.
Quoting Echarmion
Wow. That's a gross oversimplification which misrepresents my argument, otherwise known as a straw man.
This is always a massive problem in a debate. If someone sees my argument like that, then it is much more understandable why they reject it, or at least they [i]think[/I] they do. Of course, it's not actually my argument that they're rejecting.
Quoting Echarmion
No, it's definitely not. You can come up with clever arguments, sure. You can make it all internally consistent, sure. But if you have a false premise, then your argument is fucked from the start!
As I said in the beginning, there’s nothing inherently wrong with thinking there would be rocks, because sentience is not a requisite for existence. That is to say, just because we’re gone doesn’t imply rocks left with us, which permits the continuance of them. To say anything more than that, especially in a declarative affirmation, is irrational, for the painfully simple reason the proposition, “Is there a rock? Yes”, translatable without loss of coherence to “There is a rock”, is not susceptible to falsification.
Nevertheless, opinions rendered of idealistic bent had already been “reduced to the absurd” by the author, which immediately cauterized any rational argument predicated on pure reason alone.
Great care is advised here, because there are many disciplines listed under Idealism as a philosophical domain, just as there is in Realism. The purely subjective idealism of Descartes has been pretty much refuted, the Monadology of Leibniz was constructed with insufficient explanatory power and Christian Wolff was far too dogmatic to survive criticism. In short, plain ol’ Idealism, without qualification, can’t be said to have offered much of anything except background for what came after. Just as Realism, in and of itself, is much too ambiguous to have any substance.
And what came after was a paradigm shift, the single greatest such shift in history, with respect to philosophy in general and epistemology in particular. And this shift was predicated on the absolutely necessary attributes of the human subject, in and of itself, which is of course, an idealist position. The difference was how the subjective condition unites with the objective, in a complete theoretical derivation which for the most part still stands today.
Here the gains are most important, to wit: when we talk about the world, it is us telling the world how we understand it, not the world telling us in fact what it is. In other words, it was classically thought that the image in the mind of, say, star, was because of the object itself and knowledge of the star was given by it. The new way says the image “star” belongs to the mind alone, hence the mind is responsible for everything having to do with “star”, meaning we tell ourselves how it is to be known by us. While we are not responsible for the existence of the star, whatever the star is will be determined by us and not by the star.
There’s also the aspect of the new Idealism in the reinstatement of a priori knowledge as being both real and substantial, whereas classically, and even mid-Enlightenment, a priori knowledge was generally either disavowed or at least misunderstood. Like, everybody knew mathematics was always true but nobody knew how it could always be true, what made it always true, with respect to human cognition. It wasn’t the instance of “ideas” in the mind for rememberance of things not in immediate attention, but a very real kind of actual knowledge by means of which intuitions based on extant experience are brought forth.
The greatest gain, if one wishes to think of it that way, is the ground being laid for the dissolution of the church’s stranglehold on philosophy. While religion was still primary in everyday life, the seeds were sown for academia to stand on a different soapbox. The power of the mind began to overshadow the power of the Establishment.
The rest is all downhill.
Rocks, as defined by the English language, are a bunch of human observations. So the status of the observer is relevant. But I know you disagree with that.
Quoting S
All of these are conclusion we have drawn based on observations. So it's true that, in the world we observe, rocks exist independently of any specific observer. It just doesn't follow that they exist independently of observation, period.
Quoting S
My view of you is not that charitable any more, but that's beside the point.
Quoting S
I do like the term "coherent" though. Since your position is that idealism is absurd on the face of it and a deviation from ordinary language, I think "coregent" with it's connotation of something being incomprehensible as language, is apt. But I know you refuse to let anyone summarize your position.
Quoting S
Didn't you just say it's logically possible? Anyways I don't accept that "absurd as a deviation from ordinary language use" is a relevant criticism.
Quoting S
You could show us how the premise is false. But you won't, will you?Quoting S
One wonders why everyone misunderstands you.
I voted for realism and rocks in your poll. My thinking would be that everyday objects exist more or less as we experience them (with the addition of scientific facts), but they're not ontologically primary. Something else is, which is approximated by physics.
@S This post got rather long and I may have attempted to represent your view a couple times. I think if you just read the last 2 sentences of the post, you will see what I am getting at (and either agree or NOT).
Quoting Echarmion
Maybe this is part of our problem. I do not think I have once in this thread attempted to argue against idealism. I am more asking, "why idealism?" "what does it explain?" (I get that these questions could be seen as an argument against idealism, but that takes an extra step) Similarly, before I engage in an argument against god, I will want someone to show me something that god does. Until then, I will remain agnostic.
I agree that rocks in the past does not refute idealism (as you mentioned some idealist could easily say we don't "know" there were rocks in the past - I suppose the king idealist would say we don't "know" there are rocks now, even this one I am holding in my hand), but I just view this as one of those extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Surely to say "there is a rock", is far more ordinary (far less extraordinary) than "you know there might not even be such a thing as those entities we erroneously label as rocks". So not evidence, but decent reasoning...no?
Quoting Echarmion
If S admitted that it is possible we are all in the Matirx (he did so in this thread), then I think that places him more in line with me (sure idealism is possible, but it is meaningless whether it exists or not). I also think the varying degrees of idealism also vary in how coherent they are, and so you may have noticed S vehemently attacking a particular interpretation of idealism.
Quoting Echarmion
This is interesting. I do not have advanced degrees in physics so I do not feel all that qualified to have a strong opinion, but recently I was reading the Wikipedia entry on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (damn, I must be fun at a party) and one line stood out to me as suggesting the exact opposite of what you have said - ie bad metaphysics attempting to square it's finding with naive idealism. Take a look and let me know what you think:
"It must be emphasized that measurement does not mean only a process in which a physicist-observer takes part, but rather any interaction between classical and quantum objects regardless of any observer." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
This line can be found at the end of the second paragraph (attached to reference #10).
By mentioning that "measurement" exists outside of any observer, it seems the author is worried about what idealists will do with his ideas...right? (I really am wondering if I am right or not here, not just driving my point home)
And if I am reading that correctly, I think it addresses an important distinction in how idealism can be interpreted. If this is a definition of idealism (I tried to find a simple general one, please correct me if it is wrong or incomplete): Idealism is the group of metaphysical philosophies that assert that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. This could be interpreted as "we can not know reality except through the mind" which I would say is fine and I think S would agree (how else would we know anything?), but so what? It changes nothing, and explains nothing. However, if the above definition is interpreted as "nothing exists outside the mind" then we have a problem (and I think this is where S starts saying things that imply idealism is incoherent). I am not even saying I know it is false. But if it is true, it implies (directly states?) that we have NO IDEA WHAT REALITY IS. I am fine with being agnostic toward a claim like that. However, how SHOULD one live if they have no idea what reality is? Do you see the question itself becomes meaningless. Again, I am not arguing against idealism, just saying "why should I care?"
Quoting Echarmion
Yep, and as long as that means "we can only observe reality through the filter of our mind", I am find with it. If it means "reality only exists in the mind" it has become a hindrance and not a useful tool.
This thread seems as good a place as any to bring this up. Been thinking about this for a while.
There's a way of talking about idealism that most of us on the forums are familiar with. It's a no-nonsense wryness. It's meant as a corrective to out-there thought that's lost its grounding. & that can be a good thing.
Here's the problem:
[quote=Qingyuan Weixin]Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as river.[/quote]
The wryness only really works for the transition from non-mountain back to mountain. It doesn't work if you never understood the 'more intimate knowledge' to begin with, if you've always only seen mountains as mountains. Kurt Vonnegut went to war, Mark Twain was knee-deep in life, before retiring from it to reflect ironically. Their wryness was earned.
What I see in this thread, and many thread like this, is common sense masquerading as a knowing wryness, one it hasn't earned. It's mimicry, a borrowed veneer of knowingness.
So it sounds like adding, "do you think" would have solved the whole thing. Surely, I can not give my opinion without thinking? So isn't adding "do you think" to "is there a rock" redundant?
Quoting Mww
Indeed. I am learning as the thread goes along.
Quoting Mww
And that shift was so complete and profound and that those of alive today have made idealism a part of our lives without even knowing it? Becuase how come, when I hear the philosophy of idealism (the modern one you refer to), I think yeah that seem true, so what? How is it such a massive paradigm shift? It seems to me nothing changed. I few well-educated people just started admitting certain "truths" right?
Quoting Mww
A nice example of admitting certain "truths" but changing nothing. How did that change how we study the stars?
Quoting Mww
I don't think I understand this. Are you saying concepts like math were a priori in that they already existed and humans discovered them (I hope). Or are you saying that knowledge of math was(is) already inside people's minds (I hope not, but please do your best to explain - I can let you know now that I will likely be a terrible student as I am struggling to make any sense of that).
Quoting Mww
And here I had to think my way out of the church without even knowing what idealism was :grin: Doesn't this suggest that I didn't NEED idealism to do that - I would also point out that my becoming atheist was very tied to no longer NEEDING god to explain how I exist, or how the universe operates.
I suppose that you would say that I was using idealism without knowing it. But if I already had/have the same benefits, why do I NEED to know idealism? It happens to be interesting, so I may WANT to know, but I do not expect it to benefit me in any way.
Yes, I disagree with that because it's obviously wrong. It's ludicrous for human observations to have preexisted humans, yet rocks did. They did so for millions of years. So, again, you're doing something wrong.
Quoting Echarmion
Who was observing rocks when no one existed for there to be any observation of anything at all? Ludicrous.
Quoting Echarmion
No, it's okay for people to summarise my position when they're competent enough to do so correctly.
I'm not claiming that it's incomprehensible as a language. I'm making points that it's unsound or a bad way of speaking or a combination of the two.
Quoting Echarmion
There was an "either" there. That clearly means that I don't think that it's necessarily impossible. And it doesn't matter whether or not you accept it, because you're wrong either way.
Quoting Echarmion
The world preexisted us, so it preexisted our minds, so your premise that the world is a picture in our minds is false.
Quoting Echarmion
It's not everyone. Some understand me better than others.
Here is a hand.
Gasp! :scream:
No, because one can always think a rock without there being a rock. By the same token, it would be redundant to say I think there are rocks after one already has the experience of extant rocks. Knowledge is a stronger judgement of truth than mere thought.
———————-
Quoting ZhouBoTong
It may not, although the idea has been forwarded after the advent of QM that reason determines the nature of the experiment which in turn manifests in the experiment determining the nature of that which is being experimented on. This is because observation has been supplanted by the expectation given from mathematical prediction. Overall, however, in the macro world of direct experience, idealism in and of itself doesn’t change how we study, but rather how we understand what we study.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
They haven’t “made” it a part of their lives; it is an intrinsic part, exactly half, actually, of the system that makes us human. If you’d said without realizing it, I would be more inclined to agree.
———————-
Quoting ZhouBoTong
If one has no experience of what was, he thinks what is now has always been the norm. History books, the written record and imagination all say differently.
————————
Quoting ZhouBoTong
The thesis:
Those certain natural relations already existed; that which became mathematical conceptions and the principles legislating their truths are determined in the mind a priori, sufficient to explain and necessary to understand those natural relations.
The proof:
In the absence of a priori knowledge, no figure is possible to conceive from the thought of two lines. Given a 6 and a 3, no concept of 9 is possible from them alone. Given a triangle, it is impossible to conceive from it, that perpendicular lines drawn from the midpoints of each line will meet at a point central to all of them.
With respect to th OP, humans will retain knowledge of post-human rocks in general via their extant experience, but that a priori knowledge is not the same as the direct a posteriori knowledge of a particular set of extant rocks required by the OP. The former is given from intuition, the latter is given from sense.
Think of it this way: instead of asking after rocks post-human, ask about the temperature. There were humans, humans look at thermometers, humans henceforth have indication of a natural phenomenon. Vacate all humans, then ask about the thermometer. Just because there’s no reason to think there’s no natural phenomenon to register on the thermometer doesn’t lend itself to any possible knowledge of what the indication is. Hell, I can’t even tell you the temperature in the next town over and I haven’t been deleted from anything.
————————
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Absolutely not. You had to reason your way out, which makes explicit your formal transcendental idealism. Unless of course, you simply got kicked out for stealing from the collection plate.
At least you understand where I'm coming from, and accept that this can be a good thing.
Quoting csalisbury
That's how you see it. The following is how I see it.
Here's the problem. There's this assumption that because of my similarities with the average guy on the street, the same criticisms that apply to him, also apply to me. It's basically a guilty by association error. And your reply is also basically an ad hominem where you're calling me unthinking and unworthy. How judgemental of you. It's a shame you didn't go about replying in a better way.
Here's the difference. Believe it or not, I have actually thought about this [I]a lot[/I], and I feel like I've reached a point where I've come out the other side, only to find that my initial assumptions were pretty much right all along (albeit perhaps with a few qualifications here and there), kind of like your quote. And I've gained the insight of why it is that others go wrong, and get stuck at an earlier stage. This is basically the triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. You perhaps see my position as one of the first two. I see my position as the synthesis. You think that you're right and I'm wrong, and, funnily enough, I think that I'm right and you're wrong.
If you're thinking of Kant here, then yes, he was great. But he is an obstacle, just like Hume was. Just as Kant saw Hume in this way, I see Kant in this way. And that Kant is an obstacle does not mean that he is an [i]insurmountable[/I] obstacle. It seems to me that you're stuck in the past and a hindrance to progress. There have been important contributions to philosophy after Kant, and some of them have influenced my argument here.
Ok.
Now fetch me a beer.
You philosophy-TYPES.....haven’t adopted a decent metaphysical theory and haven’t graduated to a decent enlightening beverage.
I just listed the argument for the sake of completeness. I understand your position. As to your question: Idealism tells us what we can know about physics and how we can know it. In this sense, it is relevant for our formulation of the scientific method. Enpirical Knowledge is based on subjective observation, and not some other "direct" access to objective reality. There are also rules for constructing a theory (simplicity and parsimony, for example, often called Ockham's razor) that will change slightly based on what you think you are doing when you construct a theory.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is one of the colloquial sayings that are really hard to apply consistently. Who defines what an extraordinary claim is, and how? Either way metaphysical questions are not decided by evidence in the way physical questions are. How would you even apply evidence to the question of what evidence actually represents?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I wasn't able to extract much information about S' post at all. But that is somewhat beside the point, I don't want to talk above someone else's head.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I don't know if they thought about idealism as philosophy or the consciousness interpretation of QM. In any event I don't think that the author is worried about a misinterpretation is the same as sqauring the theory with idealism. That'd be actively advocating a theory of QM that references the mind of the observer. But other interpretations, such as many worlds, seem to be essentially realist metaphysics.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well why does anyone care about philosophy? For the love of wisdom, no?
I also don't think either realism or idealism can tell you what you should do. Both are speculative, not normative. That the world really is what it looks like doesn't tell you what to do, either.
That nothing exists outside the mind is the position of solipsism, which is a very specific version of idealism. I haven't seen anyone here argue for metaphysical solipism.
But apart from that, why is it a problem if we don't know what reality "is"? Isn't it sufficient to know how our reality works, what observations to expect, or rather not to expect?
Which begs the question: If a rock is not defined by reference to human observations, then what does the definition reference?
That rocks existed for millions of years is a theory based on observations. How does this theory say anything about what rocks are outside of observations?
Quoting S
Well no-one, obviously.
Quoting S
And incoherent is not an acceptable term for "unsound or a bad way of speaking"? Anyways this side argument seems rather pointless.
Quoting S
Perhaps I am, but so far I haven't seen a convincing argument to that effect.
Quoting S
Did it? Are time and space objective parts of reality? How do you know?
I don't know why you're saying it like that and talking as though you're not one yourself. And it's interesting how your drink snobbery matches your philosophical snobbery. Do you listen to Beethoven? Go to the theatre?
Rocks.
Quoting Echarmion
There isn't any valid logical connection between your first sentence and your question. Your first sentence is logically irrelevant. And you wouldn't need to ask your question if you understand the meaning of what I'm saying. Nothing I'm saying logically implies that rocks would somehow have magically changed. That might be your bizarre view, but it's not mine. Rocks are rocks.
Quoting Echarmion
But saying that doesn't resolve your problem. Let me explain. If rocks don't exist independently of observation, yet it is true that rocks preexisted all beings capable of observation, which it is, then you must explain how there was observation without any beings capable of observation.
Quoting Echarmion
I don't need one, because you never gave one for this:
Quoting Echarmion
Hitchen's razor.
Quoting Echarmion
You can look up the wealth of scientific evidence supporting the claim that the world preexisted us, and you can try to argue the hugely implausible alternative, namely that the world immediately sprang into existence the very moment that we did. As for the latter, good luck with that. You're going to need it.
If you can't recognise an extraordinary claim as an extraordinary claim, then you're extraordinary yourself. I don't believe that you're extraordinary. I'd find it more plausible that you're in denial or pretending.
This is like the photocopier guy from the video. I might call these kind of questions photocopier questions from now on.
Rocks as they are in and of themselves?
Quoting S
Uh, ok. Just replace the words "this theory" in the second sentence with the first sentence, then you have your question.
Quoting S
Where did I say that rocks magically change? I know rocks are rocks, I never claimed they turn into cats or toasters.
Quoting S
Again "rock" refers to bunch of observations, sensory input. As long as we fundamentally disagree about what rocks are, all further discussion is pointless.
You are going to keep insisting that rocks predate humans, which is of course true if we talk about the physical world. I am going to respond that the physical world is the world of human observation, and as such cannot predate humans. You are talking about temporal relations within observed reality, I am talking about the logical relationship between observation and observer.
Quoting S
You claimed "absurd as a deviation from ordinary language is a valid criterion, so Hitchens razor applies to you just the same.
Quoting S
So is the argument that scientific evidence, which is gathered by observation, proves what the world is like beyond observation?
Quoting S
If you're going to insult me, at least put some effort into it.
Since you like to reference fallacies: poisoning the well.
Re: philosophy-TYPE
“Snobbery” rather than “preference”
QED
Just rocks.
Quoting Echarmion
If you weren't suggesting that they magically change, then what was your point? They are what they are. I've told you what they are.
Quoting Echarmion
No it doesn't. It refers to a rock. Are you ever going to realise that what you're saying is just what you're reading into it, or is it futile for me to even try?
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, until you learn to let go off your funny way of thinking and speaking, it will continue to pose a problem.
Quoting Echarmion
There's only one world, which is this world, and in this world, it is a well supported fact that rocks preexisted us.
Quoting Echarmion
I'm talking about reality. You're free to keep rambling about observation, but you shouldn't expect me to care about logical irrelevancies.
Quoting Echarmion
No, because I provided an argument. You're sending us backwards when we should be going forwards.
Quoting Echarmion
How it's gathered is logically irrelevant.
Quoting Echarmion
It wasn't intended as an insult, even if you find it insulting. You really would be extraordinary, because ordinary people can and do recognise extraordinary claims as extraordinary claims.
And I did say that I don't believe that you're extraordinary in this way. I believe that you're ordinary in this regard, like me, and like the rest of us.
Why not just answer my question? I am serious. If you believe yourself to be intellectually honest, you have to be able to answer.
Quoting S
I have told you what the point is further down in my post.
Quoting S
You can start by pointing out any single attribute of a rock that doesn't reference an observation.
Quoting S
So, metaphysics doesn't exist, or is entirely nonsense?
Quoting S
We aren't going anywhere anyways, that much is abundantly clear.
Quoting S
Uh huh. Is that supposed to be another argument?
"Kwed"?
I refuse to talk in your funny way, with your funny distinction. Rocks are just rocks.
Quoting Echarmion
That's all of them, so just pick any.
Quoting Echarmion
That doesn't follow from what I said.
Quoting Echarmion
It's on you to demonstrate the supposed logical link. It's unreasonable to expect me to do anything other than point out that, in my assessment, there isn't one. Put together a valid argument and we might just get somewhere.
What's unreasonable is to even try to have a discussion with you, so goodbye.
Do you understand that saying “rocks are just rocks” is a tautological declaration and not a dialectical contribution? Nobody can back-and-forth with “just rocks”. When the proposition is presented showing it is possible under certain conditions that rocks are not just rocks, and the rejoinder is, “Wrong. Rocks are just rocks”, the conversation’s over.
The votes exhibit the illegitimacy of your argument, and the fact nobody sticks around very long to parley with you should tell you you’re a philosophy_TYPE that doesn’t have much to say. To say you’re admittedly not a nice guy means nothing to someone here just to dialogue over a metaphysical quandry; nobody’s here to go out for drinks, but to see what you got for a brain, to investigate your capacity for reason.
You may well have it, but the precedents shown here and elsewhere certainly don’t display any of it. When your argument from authority is your own, small wonder folks just shake their heads and slowly back away.
........slowly backing away.
Oh noes. Please don't go. You make so much sense. Tell me more about how it is that rocks don't exist, and up is down, and the sea is the sky. I love that special kind of wisdom you get with philosophy-types.
Do you understand that missing what I was purposefully doing there only reflects badly on you? Try thinking outside of the box.
And this isn't a popularity contest. If it was, I would lose, because gadflies are unpopular with horses. Sometimes, it's like you're speaking, but all I hear is "Neigh! Neigh!".
Answering a question with a question, and deflection of culpability.
Wonderful.
You'd rather I spoonfeed you the answer straightaway than give you an opportunity to reconsider?
And again
No, that wasn't in reply to a question. :lol:
Do you recognize this: first positive, first negative, second positive second negative....
So I'm culpable for your failure to think outside of the box?
No. You’re culpable for accusing me of it without showing how the failure manifests.
Do you recognize this: first positive, first negative, second positive, second negative....
Okay, so you want me to spoonfeed you the answer. You could have just said that.
I did it on purpose to show that I reject his funny way of speaking. Someone who is capable of thinking outside of the box should be capable of figuring out what I was doing, why I was doing it, and what I meant by that, instead of just narrowly seeing it as a tautology.
A rock is just a rock. By which I mean that it is just as it is defined. And the way that it's defined says nothing of how it looks or feels or whatever to an observer. What it says is what it is. What it does is describe it terms of objective properties.
Of course, I could have humoured him by answering the question by adopting his funny way of speaking, but I don't approve of his funny way of speaking, so that would be counterproductive. In case it hasn't become apparent to you by now, I'm a proponent of ordinary language philosophy, not Kantian language philosophy.
We had a good laugh at this at work today when I relayed the conversation to my colleagues.
Nothing I said suggests I want anything but a critique of MY thinking, not a substitution of yours for it. You did the latter constantly and never once did the former.
The reason this thread has lasted so long is because you’re fun to play with. You offer no argument in the dialectic style, but reject everything under the guise of failure to think like you do.
You over-estimate yourself by supposing there’s a box to think outside of. There isn’t; the OP is too straightforward to be out of a box. Being in an established metaphysical box is entirely sufficient to falsify the conclusins in the OP.
No definition is ever entirely sufficient for the explanation of a particular physical object, for definitions are universals. Nor is a definition ever sufficient for enunciation of the conditions of particular objects or sets of objects. Whenever definitions are used in your argument, you fail to sustain it.
Irrelevant. No way to prove it, which leaves it as mere anecdotal fanfare for the common man.