Michael

Okay? I don't see how this answers the question. If we keep seeing the guy that changes the light bulb of the Sun changing its light bulb then how wou...

Ockham's Razor is a useful heuristic, not an objective measure of metaphysical truth.

I don't see how this follows.

I know that there's a qualitative difference between the experiences I consider dreams and the experiences I consider wakefulness. I presume that the ...

How so? Maybe this is exactly what a poor simulation is like. Perhaps in reality grass is red and the Earth has two moons.

The things we see when we dream and hallucinate are not mind-independent, and don't continue to exist when we don't see them, whereas (many believe) t...

I actually rephrased my claim to say "there is an objective, mind-independent, non-physical fact-of-the-matter."

Sure. But if one had only ever experienced a poor simulation of reality and never experienced reality then one wouldn't know that one was experiencing...

What do you mean by "supernatural"? Do you mean "non-physical"? Well, yes. Moral realists don't usually claim that moral facts are physical facts. Jus...

Precisely. You have a gut feeling that moral realism is false. They have a gut feeling that moral realism is true. One of you is right and one of you ...

How do I know that I am perceiving a physical thing in a real world and not just dreaming or hallucinating or being tricked by an evil scientist who h...

How do you know this?

I don't perceive Santa. Does he exist? Dreams? Hallucinations? A VR headset?

And the moral realist will claim that that one ought not harm another is an actual, obtaining situation in the world independent of further judgement.

How so? What does “state of affairs” mean to you? That one ought not harm another is the mind-independent state of affairs.

Possibly. Do you claim that it is unreasonable to claim to know that something is false because their “gut feeling” tells them so? If you do, how do y...

Realists will disagree. That I ought not harm another is as much a state of affairs as that 1+1=2 and that electrons are negatively charged particles ...

I don’t understand the relevance of your questions. People can believe different things about maths and physics and so on, but there are nonetheless r...

I’m not sure what you mean. Yes, there are many states of affairs: one ought not murder, my name is Michael, it will rain over my house tomorrow, etc.

Whether or not it’s persuasive is a separate matter. Flat Earthers often aren’t persuaded. I’m only trying to explain moral realism, not argue that it...

The same might also be true of obligation. Given the artificial definition of the words “you”, “ought”, “not”, “harm”, and “another” it is necessarily...

And why can’t it be that one such state of affairs is that we ought not harm another?

There seems to be this assumption that it can be an objective brute fact that gravity exists, that pi is irrational, and that I would never have been ...

I have no idea what this means. My use of the term is what I believe is most common. But rather than split hairs over the meaning of “external world” ...

You’re doing more than that: you’re claiming that objective truths depend on the existence of an external world, but this is false. If only my mind ex...

Physicalism is a position regarding what sorts of things exist. Your claim here suggests that you think that a statement can only be true if it "corre...

Mathematical (and other formal) truths have nothing to do with matter, energy, space, time, or Platonic entities. Yours is a false dichotomy. "All As ...

But what isn't verified is that there is more to the world than those physical sensations.

Pain can be caused by things other than fists.

If Platonism isn't true and there is an external world then the external world is exhausted by matter, energy, space, and time. If mathematical truths...

I'm not a Platonist. I don't believe that non-material objects or ideals "exist". As such I'm not a mathematical realist; I'm a mathematical antireali...

That doesn't mean it depends on an external world. Mathematical truths, for example, do not depend on the mind-independent existence of matter, energy...

Maybe a better approach would be to address the relevant differences between these: 1. The baby exists 2. The baby is crying 3. The baby was born in O...

Why can't "you ought not harm another" set out how the world is? I guess I'm just not really sure what you mean by "how the world is"?

Why can't this be a feature of the world?

Arguing that the existence of an external world is the best explanation for my existence is different to arguing that objective truths depend on the e...

Which doesn't require an external world. If only my mind exists then it is objectively true that a mind-independent material world doesn't exist (and ...

I'm showing that there can be an objective truth about what does and doesn't exist even if there isn't an external world, and so your claim that an ex...

I think you're being ambiguous with your use of the term "external world", and this is open to equivocation. Consider again my example above: 1. Only ...

You seem to be arguing that both (1) and (2) are true: 1. "things external to my perception exist" is true only if things external to my perception ex...

If your existence just is the occurrence of your perceptions then your existence isn't non-perceptual.

Assume for the sake of argument that only your mind exists (i.e. metaphysical solipsism is correct). Assume also that you believe in the existence of ...

I'd hazard a guess that you believe in the existence of a brain that you cannot see because its existence is part of a parsimonious theory with explan...

So you believe in the existence of your brain even though you don't ever see it? Then you clearly have reasons for believing in the (continued) existe...

I'm asking about the brain; do you accept that we have a brain and that brain activity is causally responsible for us seeing a cup (when we do in fact...

Then let's start with something that I'm sure most will agree with and work backwards; when we see a cup we see a cup. The next step backwards many wi...

Do you actually mean that there is no reason or do you just mean that the reasons given are inadequate?

Perhaps “one ought not harm another.” Perhaps that one ought not harm another. Perhaps not all truths come to our sensibility through phenomenal inter...

Are you saying that we do not know that there are moral facts or are you saying that we do not know whether or not something like "you ought not harm ...

I’m not trying to prove that one ought not harm another. I’m trying to make sense of moral realism. Moral realists claim that there is something like ...