Pattern-chaser

Whatever else it is, perception - the 'processing' of sense data - is Neural Activity. :up:

In fairness, I think chemical and biological weapons come very close to the imminent threat that nuclear weapons present. And if the timescale is exte...

Not all hypotheses can. This is upsetting for scientists, but philosophers can continue applying their considered thought in such a case. Only scienti...

Don't be trite! :wink: :joke: Because nuclear war is possible, doesn't mean the threat can be dismissed because it didn't happen within the space of a...

I think maybe they are ("cases of underdetermination"), but addressing this point requires us to dive deeply into the eternal subjectivity/objectivity...

Very wise. :up: And logical. :smile: Yes, but I suggest my own course (as above) because there is no more justified one. To me, it is more important t...

I'm sorry if you think I have been negligent. I have tried to limit my responses to posts like this because they are so far off-topic, and also becaus...

I agree. There has been some examination and discussion of the matter, which is better than I'd hoped, if I'm honest. :smile: So let's end it here, an...

And my point is that BIV and RL are both examples of speculations that don't come with evidence. Their truth or falsehood is not the subject of this t...

Consider an illusion that an omniscient creature could see through, but that is completely convincing to you.... :chin:

Yes, exactly. Although an omniscient creature could tell RL from BIV, we cannot. :up:

Then I defer to your omniscience. For myself, I cannot scale such heights. I seek logic that works for me, with all my faults and deficiencies.

No, it's not. It's a speculation. How could we recognise it as 'a truth', when there is no evidence concerning its correctness?

How about the knowledge that we have no knowledge pertinent to the matter in hand? To move something from 'don't know we don't know' to 'know that we ...

You consider only illusions that are detectable because they feature imperfections? Of course such illusions can be detected, with application and pra...

So, if you were colour-blind, red and green would become 'the same', because you can't distinguish between them? The two speculations are indistinguis...

Not really. It offers a possible speculation, nothing more. RL is another such speculation. If we were concerned here with their correctness, we would...

You can't know that, which is rather the point. The BIV speculation is defined to be indistinguishable from the RL speculation, and from every other p...

Then what is the BIV speculation? Because it concerns our relationship with Objective Reality, something to which we have no direct (Objective) access...

I apologise for getting involved in this distraction. I should know better at my age. :blush: If you know how to deal logically with speculations that...

A deduction follows directly and unavoidably from its source material. Inference generalises from the specific, and is unreliable for that reason. Ded...

But when there is no evidence, there can be no inferences. This topic asks what we do in such circumstances, not what we (should) do in other situatio...

By placing these quotes after one another, you make it look like I was responding to @Baden, when my post clearly quoted you. You really should be mor...

I am (saying illusions are real). They aren't what they pretend to be, of course, that's what illusions are all about. :wink: But an illusion has exis...

Indeed he was. :up:

Yes, of course you're right. Stephen Hawking should've been drowned at birth, right? :fear: Because he was just a "parasitic drain" on society, right?...

This kind of thinking leads to mentions of things we're supposed to avoid on the internet. So I'll confine myself to shuddering with fright when I won...

A lovely image. :up: Stories are how humans learn and remember best. You can deal with reality as you see fit. I will continue to think about things I...

Another unjustified assertion. Why do speculations not need to be disproven? What is the logical justification? You keep insisting that there is no qu...

I wonder if considering disabled people as a separate group in society is helpful? I find myself wondering if we should not be considering instead how...

You offered several speculations. I have taken them in the way you intended, and not given them serious consideration. I'm sure you haven't either. Bu...

Thank you for this, @PossibleAaran! :smile: With two examples, we can make the whole thing a little more interesting. I start from the position that b...

highlighting.] Well that's great news! :up: Now, if you could just offer a logical justification for dismissing such things...? Seriously, some of the...

You seem to have mistaken Occam's Razor for something authoritative. :chin: It's just a rule of thumb, a way of guessing when we can think of no bette...

With all due respect to Mr Putnam, I just picked up ('stole', if you like) a speculation that I used for illustrative purposes only. I make no attempt...

What evidence? The point of this discussion is to ask how we deal with speculations for which there is no evidence. It seems that logic takes us so fa...

It was never my intention to promote a discussion of whether the brain-in-a-vat speculation is true or not. It's only here as a good example of specul...

Oh my! :scream: I was hoping to convince you, so that others who are also in awe of your status and prestige might follow your attention, and maybe re...

The justification is that we don't have Objective access to "the world". The uncertainty follows from that.

Yes, but we don't have Objective access, so everything you say about "the world" is necessarily speculative, and will always be so. :chin:

Right at the beginning, you include assumptions such as "actual world" and "real world". What are these worlds, and where is your justification for th...

Your logic is irrefutable! I therefore joyfully accept your conclusion. :up:

...then I think we should! Let's do it! :smile: :smile: :smile:

And also: OK, then I apologise to all for my imprecise use of words, and re-present the topic as: how should we deal, logically, with speculations tha...

:blush: :smile: I think that, because the source of our 'data' from 'the world' is Objectively (hard definition :smile:) unknown and unknowable, I don...

Indeed. But this topic offers the brain-in-a-vat scenario as an example of a speculation that is possible, but comes without any evidence. And it asks...

Yes, this is how I understand it. When we dismiss a notion as unrealistic, we're using our nonconscious minds in the same way that we make up our mind...

Yes, and a male-oriented brain running a female body might explain gender dysphoria as something other than a delusion. :smile: :up:

I don't think these things defy definition. But I don't know enough about the biology involved even to hazard a guess. The fault is mine. I believe th...

Yes, I've seen this before, but it's just like Occam's Razor: a rule of thumb which has proved useful in the past, which we can choose to apply if the...