Michael

You can refer to Harry Potter without referring to words written in a book, or pictures on a screen, or ideas in my head, but it would still be a mist...

Then as I said, it doesn't address the objection, which is that realism isn't justified because there are grounds to doubt it – which is not the same ...

The objection is "the belief that we're not dreaming isn't justified because there are ground for doubting it". You suggested that the same can be sai...

No it wouldn't. A realist believes that the things we see continue to exist even when nobody sees them. Believing that the things we see are real does...

But you were addressing @"Aaron R"'s question "Do you think the argument is a decisive objection those who think belief in the mind-independent existe...

Depends on whether it's to be understood as "don't murder" or as "it is against the rules to murder". If the former then no. If the latter then yes, w...

With the property "wrongness" being the property "not to be done". What else would the property "wrongness" be?

Isn't that what many (physicalist) realists would say? Presumably for the most part they don't equate the mind with some persistent immaterial soul. T...

You don't even need one leg when you can just sit on your thumb.

The "everything might be a dream" hypothesis just suggests that the relationship between waking experiences and whatever mind-independent things expla...

The "to be is to be perceived" motto is a bit misleading. The idealist claim is just that only mental phenomena exists. So whatever exists, be it mind...

So pain coming into and out of existence depending on whether it's being perceived by a consciousness or not is hugely complex? Seems simple to me. Wh...

Here's an interesting article written by someone with aphantasia. Some interesting parts: Imaginination without picturing seems to amount to just reca...

That it's a contradiction to believe two opposing things is not that it's a contradiction to claim that neither thing is sufficiently justified.

What's complex about it? Mental phenomena exists and behaves in certain ways. How is it any different to saying that physical things exist and behave ...

Similar to what I said in the other thread, that a thing is real or not is an instrumental narrative that develops according to whatever epistemic con...

And the idealist would agree. They'd just say that the real things we experience (trees, cups, etc.) don't continue to exist after the experience ends...

Are you referring to posts posted in the Tao Te Ching appreciation thread? If so then they're not the posts I was referring to. I was referring to the...

Your poems were deleted because they're poems, not philosophy, and this is a philosophy forum, not a poetry forum. And in what way does this promote t...

If you're down for the count then, no, you're not self-aware. This is the problem. You're trying to make sense of idealism while assuming realism. If ...

I don't think it's ever certain. It's just an inference. I'd say not. I'm inclined to equate the mind with self-awareness.

I didn't mean "distinguish" in the sense of "ascertain". I meant it in the sense of the factual difference between a veridical and a non-veridical exp...

So he rejects idealism because he rejects idealism?

For instance, I understand realism as Dummett described it; the claim that truth is verification-transcendent (and bivalent). Theories on metaphysics ...

I might be reading this wrong, but your wording seems to presuppose that the water itself persists between your experience and my experience. So we ha...

It doesn't matter if there isn't anyone in the picture, just as it doesn't matter if there isn't an author in the story. The thing being pictured/writ...

I didn't say that you can't. You just said that you weren't. I'm sure if you took the time you could imagine a man cutting down seventy trees. But I t...

I would say that if you're not picturing it then you're not imagining it. You're just understanding the meaning of the sentence.

Again, it's the conclusion, not the assumption. I've come to that conclusion by imagining a tree and then analysing this imagination. It turns out tha...

I'm not assuming the conclusion. I'm describing what I'm doing. When I imagine a tree I picture one in my mind. I imagine what a tree looks like and f...

What matters is that the situation you're imagining is just a collection of shapes and colours and smells and whatnot. These aren't perspective-indepe...

And what does imagining a tree consist of? I would think it's picturing a tree in one's mind (or recallling the things we say about trees). One imagin...

I think my edit addresses this.

What do you mean by "appear" here? Obviously you can't mean it in the sense that we see something happening that isn't being seen?

The argument does go through, because what you're imagining is still experiential, not some non-experiential material substance (or whatever the propo...

So your explanation is that there just is world of material objects that performs steps A, B, and then C. And how is that any different to the idealis...

Then I'm not really sure what he could mean. The situation is different to the experience of the situation but they both have the same sort of qualita...

What's the realist's really simple explanation? Because there's a forest? Then why is there a forest and not some other thing? The realist has the sam...

Then the issue is with the truth of Wayfarer's premise(s) rather than the validity of his argument. Although, your wording is a little ambiguous. Acco...

What exists is the experience of a photograph of a forest.

The point is that when you imagine this situation you're imagining the experience of this situation – and the experience of a situation does require a...

But this admits that the concept of perspective-independent trees is unintelligible. And how can an unintelligible concept be meaningful and veridical...

You're taking about mental illnesses, so you should care what professional psychiatrists say. They're the ones who determine the "mental illness" clas...

So are tattoos, piercings, and boxing. There is for some, hence the desire for surgery. It isn't classified as a mental illness. DSM-5 is quite clear ...

Your very question presupposes that idealism isn't the case. All that happens is that you have the kind of experience described as "looking at a photo...

In the sense that includes minds experiencing themselves (i.e. self-awareness), sure. Sure. But the point is that they persist (if at all) as someone'...

I'm playing fast and loose with the terminology for simplicity's sake. Because obviously it also includes hearing and feeling and smelling and whatnot...

It needs to be a mental phenomena.

Having one arm is a disability. Having a penis or a vagina isn't. What's wrong with choosing to have one when sheer probability gave me the other? Als...

What's stupid about having a sex change, or choosing to wear clothing typically associated with those of the opposite biological sex?