I wish to start a debate regarding this topic because of ViceRegent. Though he is not a very pleasent person to discuss with (specifically if you disagree with him), he has sparked my keen interest in this field of philosophy.
I have some proposed "truisms" that could be debated:
1. Logic is trustworthy.
2. I [i.e., humans] think.
3. I perceive reality (albeit it's independent or not).
Care to refute or expand on any of these or add anything else you wish to regarding epistemology.
(NOTE: Please attempt to keep this debate civil and intellectual; do not be a fool.)
Bis das, si cito das.
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Prove you are not merely a determinist machine, that you do not really think, but actually just react to environmental stimuli in keeping with your biological make up and the laws of nature.
So what if you do? How do you know your perceptions accurately reflect reality, that you are not some delusional ?
BTW, nice hypocrisy in calling others both unpleasant and fools. That is awesome.
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I was stating that it was a truism, though I will admit that it isn't really apparent. I will support this point later when I get back online.
II. "Prove you are not merely a determinist machine, that you do not really think, but actually just react to environmental stimuli in keeping with your biological make up and the laws of nature."
You're assuming that my definition of thinking depends on free will.
It doesn't.
III. "So what if you do? How do you know your perceptions accurately reflect reality, that you are not some delusional ?"
Unless you (or I) can prove there is an independent reality, I will not assume that there is, and because of this, I will argue that my perceptions are reality.
I must ask, why would being delusional makes someone an ? Or are you just insulting me for no reason?
IV. "BTW, nice hypocrisy in calling others both unpleasant and fools. That is awesome."
How am I being hypocritical?
To be specific, I called you unpleasent when I disagreed with you, and I told anyone willing to participate in this discussion not to be fools. I never said that they were.
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It is a shame you don't have more to say; you do provoke thought.
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And I do want to specify that "reality" in my post was supposed to mean things that are real not things that are independently real.
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You have some good arguments. Instead of just insulting people try to make some good conversations out of them.
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i do not converse with the mentally ill. Waste of time.
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If we're talking epistemology, I would say there are some axioms from which I work, but I don't know if we mean the same thing. For example, I accept as an axiom that reality exists, that an outside world exists, that other minds exist, etc... But they are axioms in the sense that we cannot "prove" them--because to try to use logic to 'prove' logic is circular--they must merely be accepted.
However, this does not give us cause to believe any old thing and call it an axiom. Axioms are what we reach when we get to the end of the chain of "why X?" For example, Why A? Because B. Why B? Because C. Why C? Because D.... Why X? Because it is axiomatically true. As Wittgenstein said, “If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: 'This is simply what I do.'"
Edit: Removed principles of logic, because they don't really fit.
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Never mind. I saw the post you're referring to, and it looks like we're describing the same concepts. Your "truism" is my "axiom"
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In hindsight, I just realized that "I think" isn't really an axiomatic statement.
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There is a mind-independent reality:
Note that, especially for the last two, I'm not saying we axiomatically trust all of our memories and perception, I'm saying we accept that there is a past (no last-Thursdayism).
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What is your proof that "There is a mind-independent reality"?
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And what if someone denies your faith in yourself?
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The point is that there isn't any proof for any of these things. They all must simply be accepted, because at the end of the day, any "proof" we could provide for them would rely on the very reasoning faculties (sense perceptions, memory, cognitive faculties) we're trying to justify. There is no non-circular way to do it. You can't build a ladder to get to the same ladder. So I don't try to get around that with mental acrobatics, I simply accept that, ultimately, rationality is made up of assumptions which are not themselves rationally justifiable. It would be great if they were, but they're not.
Edit: To clarify, saying "any proof" is probably misleading. There is proof as in "evidence" or "reason to accept" something. But we don't have incontrovertible full-proof way of establishing these things that aren't ultimately circular.
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This doesn't mean that we can take any old belief and call it an axiom. If we want to call ourselves rational, we must justify our beliefs until it becomes logically impossible to do so (because we would end up using rationality to justify rationality).
But to your point, what if someone denies, for example, the axiom that an external world exists? Great for them. Why do they deny it? If you start asking them to justify themselves, you quickly see that they are not being rational. These Properly Basic Beliefs (PBB) are irrevisable (though they are not inerrant or a priori). They are the foundations of rationality; they are what make up rationality. To deny them is an example of irrationality. A person who acts as if they don’t trust their memory, senses, or cognitive faculties will be diagnosed as a mad person. So, yes, if someone could deny the existence of the external world without rejecting rationality, then I would have a reason to reject that axiom. But how could they do that?
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Let's say you're a police officer, testifying in traffic court that I was going 99 MPH. I'm going to challenge you at every step of the way to justify your testimony. So you say you used a radar gun. I ask you to justify your belief that the radar gun is accurate. You say "I know it's accurate because it clocked you going 99 MPH." I'm going to object because you can't use your radar gun's measurement of my speed to justify your radar gun's measurement of my speed! That's circular. You might then say that you have it professionally calibrated at a facility which measures objects of known speed, blah blah blah. OK, so now you have some other thing to use to justify the reading of your radar gun.
But we don't have some "other thing" to justify our rationality. We only have our rationality--our senses, memory, cognitive faculties.
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How could you rationally tell me you think there is no world outside your brain? By talking to me you are showing that you think I exist, so there must be some outside world. If you tell me "You don't exist," you are not being rational
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So you're saying I could be a figment of your imagination? That there might really be no outside world, and you're just imagining it all, including me?
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But that lack of final justification doesn't mean it's equally valid to believe it is all a figment of my imagination.
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Incorrect. Either there is a contradiction, or it's completely valid to accept.
For example in geometry, Euclid's fifth postulate doesn't necessarily have to be true. Similar - yet contradictory - postulates could also be given that rise to Hyperbolic and Elliptic geometry.
They are all equally valid logically and mathematically.
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When you say "contradictory" do you mean "mutually exclusive"? As in, an external world is mutually exclusive with a internal-only world (it exists only in the imagination)? If not, can you tell me what you mean by contradictory? What is contradicting what?
In talking about alternate postulates, do you mean they are equally likely? I know you say they're equally valid, logically and mathematically, but do you also think they're equally likely?
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I do not know their liklihoods so I simply assume (until further investigation or arguments presented by others) that they are equally likely.
Unless you can demonstrate it to me, there is no reason to suggest that one assumption is more likely than the other.
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I guess you're saying you're a complete blank slate where an external world is concerned? The scales are perfectly balanced? OK let's tip the scales a little.
Right now you see a computer outside of your body. You feel the computer outside of your body. You hear things going on outside your body. Your skin probably feels clothing being worn on your body. These things are not proof of an external world, but they are evidence to go on the scale. Is there a reason we should discard this evidence? No. (We could discard it as hallucination, but should we? Why?)
What can go on the other side of the scale? Nothing? There is no reason to think we are hallucinating.
Really, I'm trying to figure out how my "an external world exists" is different from your "I perceive reality"? Why do you accept one as axiomatically true, but think the other is exactly 50/50?
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I disagree. Decisions require substantiation. Without substantiation, there is no reason to assert - with certainty - that propositions are true.
"One option has no evidence in ... of our faculties tell us otherwise."
So is your argument that we should believe reality is independent because it's intuitive to do so? Our faculties could be wrong. There is (we're now moving the goal post) no way you can confidently say that our faculties are correct and are not simply "deceptions" or "hallucinations".
"Right now you ... but they are evidence to go on the scale."
They prove that I perceive things. They do not at all prove that those things exist independently of mind. Again, there isn't really a good reason to assume they do.
"Is there a reason we should discard this evidence?"
Most of my reasoning for this comes from "Cartesian Doubt". There is a chance that what we see is not what is real (in the sense of being independent of mind).
"Really, I'm trying to figure out ... 'I perceive reality'."
My statement was supposed to emphasize that I perceive, and that I call my perceptions reality. I do not at all discuss the dependence of this reality within this statement.
If this is what you mean, then we are in agreement. If you still do mean that reality isn't a hallucination (or a deception), then we are still in disagreement.
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For example, you keep talking about certainty, but the context of this discussion is that almost nothing is certain, so why would we say certainty is required to assert a proposition? The whole point is that what we must be provisional in affirming or denying propositions, not that we cannot affirm or deny any.
Furthermore, I think your answer sidesteps my point. I'm drawing a comparison between our reasons for and against accepting two options:
External World Hallucination
1. Is it possible? Yes Yes
2. Is there evidence to support it? Yes, lots None or almost none
3. Is there evidence to contradict it? None or almost none Yes, lots
4. Is there reason to accept it? Yes, lots Minimal / Some
5. Is there reason to reject it? None or almost none Yes, lots
6. Decisions made assuming... Hundreds of millions+ Zero
You seem to be hanging your hat on row 1, as if to say both are possible, so they're equally likely. But you're using the opposite extremes of justification for the two opposing positions. For "hallucination" you only require the barest possibility, but for "external world" you require certainty. When we admit we cannot meet that [absolute] certainty, you want to conclude they're both equally likely, but this ignores the supporting evidence for the respective options.
I think the 6th row of the table exposes our positions beyond a mere mental exercise. Rational people don't behave as if the external world is a hallucination. The rare person who does ends up institutionalized. When we step into the street and a bus is roaring down on us, we don't ever say, "The illusionary bus is speeding down the illusionary street at my illusionary body," or "Meh, it's 50:50 this is all a hallucination." We always step back off the street.
That seems a reason to accept the evidence provisionally, not to discard it.
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I have exhausted myself of this conversation.
I feel as if we have only been banging our heads on walls trying to explain what we mean to each other, and I simply don't care anymore.
I'll respond to your contentions if I ever feel like I need to.
(Don't fret, this will most likely be soon, but currently, I'm frustrated as hell with real world problems.)
I would simply like to point out that mentioning that people make the assumption that the world is real as if it's evidence is an irrelevant appeal to popularity.
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Actually, I will not be responding here.
Instead, in the near future, I will create a new debate topic centered purely around this very issue, and we can debate this there.
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So you don't talk to yourself?
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So is your argument that we should believe reality is independent because it's intuitive to do so? Our faculties could be wrong. There is (we're now moving the goal post) no way you can confidently say that our faculties are correct and are not simply "deceptions" or "hallucinations"
In the spiritual sense our faculties are perfect, it cannot be wrong. But how it manifests itself to our physical world could be detrimental., because we (our body, our world) are not our own creation, but Gods.
Now if you believe that you are a result of your environment, I agree that your faculties are full of deceptions and hallucinations. But than that shouldn't be a problem from an Evolutionary standpoint, it is what you are, what NonCredenti is, .. which is a danger to both yourself, and to everyone and everything around you.
In another word, caution should be exercised by everyone around an Evolutionist, no different than with a full grown adult pet lion. No telling when that "animal" in you will pop up, .. a lightning outside could trigger it, or someone just stepping in a dried twig.
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I'm afraid that your first assertion stands without foundation - most likely because I do not understand the sense which you intend. I must advise you to tread carefully around the topic of God for the assumption that he (or she) exists is without proof (as the assumption that materialism is the right standpoint regarding reality is).
That perspective on reality would be called materialism, and I by no means believe in such a standpoint. The point I wished to make is that we can't just assume a materialist standpoint is the correct one to have when considering reality, as - I'm assuming - NonCredenti has done throughout this discussion.
This paragraph is nothing more than niaiserie.
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I find philosophy in its many forms a dialectic—a set of reasonable arguments seeking to establish the perception of understanding through wisdom and logic, in part, dealing with the intangible machinery of nature until the scientific method provides clarity.
We are a product of the physical laws of nature, we are a way for nature to see and experience itself; and by the property of omnipotence, trapped within its matrix, where there are no exceptions. The constructal flow of humanity through this matrix gave rise to philosophy, the taming of fire, the scientific method, having freedom to seek the path of least resistance in human evolution providing greater access to the pedagogic currents of nature.
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It is most definitely my inner "atheist" tendencies, but I can't accept a claim that must be accepted as an assumption without justification. I've even begun to question my stated "truism" that logic is trustworthy because it too must be accepted without question to be true. (If there was a proof that logic is trustworthy, it would be implicitly assuming that logic is already trustworthy and would therefore beg the question.)
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Yes, so true coming from a carnal, materialistic view. I lived most of my life outside that box, but I know what you mean. I am surrounded by boxes.
Dr.Cereal- That perspective on reality would be called materialism, and I by no means believe in such a standpoint. The point I wished to make is that we can't just assume a materialist standpoint is the correct one to have when considering reality, as - I'm assuming - NonCredenti has done throughout this discussion.
So how do you understand a "spiritual perspective" of life? (assuming you believe the mind is the result of the brain)
Dr.Cereal- This paragraph is nothing more than niaiserie.
From an Evolutionary perspective, yes, that would be, .. total nonsense. But you see God does exist, He created this body of dust, which is just a tool, a temple we/spirit/mind use to develop/evolve our individuality, or character. It's amazing how God was able to do that, .. now that would be a good philosophical debate, on: "How did Infinite able to create a body where a part of Himself could redefine itself!?" I know, you're thinking: "That does not compute".
Too bad that those into quantum theory don't step out of their box, but only peek. What are they afraid of? Like that Markram guy in Switzerland, uses biologically-detailed digital reconstructions and simulations of the mammalian brain.
But I understand if all he is looking for is for "health and disease", (or how to best depopulate?) .. but he does peek out of the box, for It is hoped that it will eventually shed light on the nature of consciousness. Imagine consciousness limited to a 3lb. brain!? What a waste of resources and time.
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