Now I'm gonna have to shoot you.

Jim is Jim. Jim acts. He’s not a set of anything. We tend to abstract Jim into states of Jim. We name the states we have abstracted, make of them a set, and so on. It is at this point we have stopped considering Jim and now consider our own abstractions, ourselves. — NOS4A2

I agree. The outcome is: the actor is not the action.

I don’t see a problem. Jim remains the same throughout while what he performs does not. — NOS4A2

Right, so Jim is a set of actions. Not one action.

Yes. One can abstract out a specific action from another by considering it on its own as a state, by placing limits on its duration, naming it, and presenting it as a singular movement, and so on. The actor is the action, or rather, the actor acts. — NOS4A2

Do you see how there's a numerical problem here? One actor, Jim, performs three different actions:

1. Picking up the garden hose
2. Whacking the baseball
3. Talking to his neighbor

So if there's equivalency between actor and action, then:

A. There are three different Jims, one for each action, or
B. Jim is equivalent to a set of actions (1,2,3).

See?

A “perception” to me is just the perceiver considered abstractly, and not worthy enough to be given position, spacial or temporal. — NOS4A2

Likewise the action is just the actor considered abstractly? Except one actor can do a wide range of actions, so you can't narrow it down to just one action. One actor is a set of actions? So one perceiver is a set of perceptions?

You take anything negative about the Russian invasion with a grain of salt. Perhaps too much salt for your health? — ssu

Causes high blood pressure :grin:

A stab at how Austin and Ayers are talking past one another:

For Ayers, the hallmark of indirect realism is divergence between the world as experienced by a human, and the world as it is. If there's a difference, it's indirect realism. Ayers says that since one's experience is a representation from a certain point of view, requiring interpretation for usefulness, there is divergence.

For Austin, if human experience lines up correctly with what one would expect from a certain POV, and therefore requiring interpretation, then directness and indirectness are valueless descriptions.

I think Ayers' view works, although he doesn't really prove anything. He starts out assuming indirect realism and concludes indirect realism. Austin's view might be valuable for someone who thinks all indirect realism requires a homunculus.

It's true that predictions about future climate change are in a range, not precise numbers.

The IPCC says that there is high confidence that the ECS is within the range of 2.5 °C to 4 °C, with a best estimate of 3 °C. That is a very wide range. — Agree-to-Disagree

I just saw a news thing that said the revised ECS is 4.8. It would be sweet if the revised ECS was lower than previously thought. It's higher though. That's how I know I haven't stumbled into an alternate universe. The news is worse than expected. :worry:

If 100s of climate scientists make the same incorrect assumptions then they will all get the same incorrect answers. If the majority of people think that the earth if flat it doesn't mean that the earth really is flat. — Agree-to-Disagree

True. I was just answering the question you asked.

Yeah, that's the 30,000 foot view. Big picture. But the OT isn't 100% like that. You have the story of King David and Solomon where their riches are written of positively. Israelite strength is portrayed positively. Be strong. Be wealthy. Be knowledgeable. Be righteous. It's really Jesus who imho truly encapsulates and preaches servant morality. The themes are still present in the OT though. — BitconnectCarlos

You keep comparing the whole OT to the message of Jesus. There's much more to Christianity than the sayings of Jesus as depicted in the gospels.

Did you know some historians believe it's possible that both Homer's epic and the book of Exodus are memories of something that happened around 1170 BC?

Always happy to be someone's significant other. — unenlightened

You pitbulls need to stick together.

But I do remember that Agree-to-Disagree did acknowledge the effects of CO2 earlier in this thread, so one does wonder where all of this is going. — Echarmion

I think he's just here to poke unenlightened in the butt.

That's the point, and the difference between being slave to man and being slave to God. — baker

Nietzsche's point was that slaves want something that's directly opposed to what warlords want.

This is typical of what you find when you go looking for secondary information on Austin's overall agenda:

Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia (1962) generates wildly different reactions among
philosophers. On the one hand, some allow that the text offers acute criticisms of the
argument from illusion for sense data, but see little further value in the work.1 Some
dispute that the lectures achieve even this much, and claim that Austin and sense
data theorists simply talk past each other.2 On the other hand, some have decidedly
positive reactions but differ over the text’s main purpose: some see far-reaching
ramifications for the philosophy of perception;3 others see the work as a prime
instance of an ordinary language philosopher offering us therapy;4 while still others
find a substantive anti-skeptical agenda supported by complex argumentation.5
Philosophers will disagree of course, but the extent of disagreement about Austin’s
contribution is remarkable, with the main arguments, methodology, and the whole
point of the lectures under dispute. — Krista Lawlor

So there's no single view of him that represents a consensus.

Are you claiming that "There used to be jungles at the poles and the equator water was close to boiling" at some time in the last 420,000 years? — Agree-to-Disagree

No, that was 50 million years ago.

The earth seems to have 2 states, glacial and interglacial, and it regularly moves between the 2 states. We are currently in an interglacial and the current temperature is lower than the previous 3 interglacials. The current very high CO2 level has not increased the temperature above the temperature of a "normal" interglacial. — Agree-to-Disagree

True. There are huge number of variables that go into climate conditions. That's why they use super computers to model it.

What proof do you have that the current temperature is not just a "normal" temperature for an interglacial? — Agree-to-Disagree

They model the climate with super computers and they subtract out the CO2 humans have put up into the atmosphere. That tells us what the climate would be like without our contribution. 100s of scientists did that. That's where the IPCC came from.

I guess that's right. Isaac and I had some lengthy chats about what "representation" consists in, in a neural network. What we did agree on is that in so far as there are such representations, it is clear that they are not symbolic, but found in the weightings of various connections. — Banno

Corvus was directing attention to what we know about the eye, which is that an image is transduced to electrical signals, which the brain subsequently does something with.

When pressed, Isaac would admit that his "weighting" scenario is merely theory. We don't actually know how having a brain allows for the cohesive experience of perception.

If asked how does smelling works, I would refer to the standard scientific account - I'm doing philosophy, so I don't know anything those scientists don't also know. But those accounts do not talk of direct and indirect smelling, except when they adopt a philosophical stance. — Banno

I think Corvus was just pointing out that science shows that perception involves representation and interpretation. It's just weird to insist that that's direct (as someone in the thread was doing).

And the Old Testament displays a certain narrative where the weak are uplifted and the mighty are humbled. I never said Nietzsche was wrong; only that his "slave morality" is typified in the Jesus of the gospels. — BitconnectCarlos

You're right. If the OT says the weak are uplifted and the mighty are humbled, that's slave morality. And yes, Jesus' message is definitely slave morality as well.

Judaism popularized a book where the oppressed are uplifted and mighty kings are humbled. it is not about hating the aristocratic. much of the old testament attests to the regal glory of the mighty king david. it is jesus who says "blessed be the poor and meek" and "it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle." it is the jesus of the gospels who most adequately encaptures what jesus refers to as "jewish slave morality." — BitconnectCarlos

The idea is that there's a brand of morality that idealizes the underdog. History is a cloud out of which you can pull whatever narrative you like. I can easily support Nietzsche's assessment with certain facts about Judaism. I can easily show that Christianity didn't inherit a pacifist spirit at all. It's all a matter of what axe you want to grind or what chip you have on your shoulder.

Yes forgiveness is very important, but there's a not-so-subtle reason for it. "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." (Matthew 6:14). — BitconnectCarlos

Jesus has a pretty bad temper in Mark. He's cool as a cucumber in John. Some scholars speculate that he's a composite of a number of preachers who came out of the desert to rant about the status quo. You can make up any Jesus you want and start your own religion!

We don't just see cups, we pick them up, hold them, drink from them, wash them and store them in the cupboard. — Janus

The only cups I own are used for holding pencils and paint brushes. I drink tea out of a metal tumbler that comes with a lid.

I think the indirect realist gets it backwards. She sees the cup and based on a theory of perception infers that she sees patches and blobs.

Put her in a room that contains only patches and blobs my guess is she would see patches and blobs. But if some of those patches and blobs were arranged in a certain way, in dim light, and at enough of a distance she might see a cup or pen or chair. That is to say, there is, I think, a constructive element of seeing. — Fooloso4

Yes, if you read the SEP article on sense data, it asks you to focus just on blobs of color. I can do that, and it does have some philosophical significance to me, but I agree that it was probably misguided to say primal perception is blobs. We know, for instance, that there's a big section of the brain that's devoted to picking faces out of the visual field, so you're likely to see a face before you see a blob. :razz:

Terms such as 'realism' in all its variety of flavors confuse me. I try to avoid them. The fault may be entirely my own, but I have not been able to find any consistent usage that makes me confident that those who talk about such things have the same concerns and are arguing for or against the same things. — Fooloso4

There are all kinds of realisms and anti-realisms, so I agree there's no consistent usage. For this essay, I think an indirect realist believes there really are cups. The cups exist independently of me, it's just that all I see is patches and blobs from which I infer(?) the existence of a cup.

Austin is pointing out flaws in some arguments for that scenario, particularly in the wording of the argument, which appears to be misusing common words.

Thanks for the clarification. The pie I got hit with was rather tasty, but I'm glad you avoided getting hit by one. — Ciceronianus

Was it coconut? :worry:

I don't recall mentioning "little blobs of color" or their relation to perception. Perhaps you're being deceived by your senses, yet again. — Ciceronianus

Per the SEP, that's what sense data is. That's what Austin is complaining about: little blobs of color.

The "pie in the face" moment as I like to call it is when you understand you've been on a wild goose chase all along. — Ciceronianus

I've never believed little blobs of color are fundamental to perception, so I missed out on the pie. I don't think any scientists believe that either, if any ever did.

n the case of the camouflaged church what we see is not, as Austin claims, "a church that now looks like a barn". (30) What we see is a barn. If we didn't what would be the point of camouflaging it? — Fooloso4

To say that what we see is "a church that now looks like a barn" is to admit that ideas and interpretation are parts of perception. That admission seems to be how he denies any sort of comprehensive indirect realism.

If we read him while focusing on what's happening with truth, he's saying we arrive at truth by various means, including reason. He's saying that Ayers was a truth skeptic. I don't know if he actually was. I've never read Ayers. :grin:

To put it another way, current temperatures are not higher than they were in the past. — Agree-to-Disagree

It's been a lot hotter, yes. There used to be jungles at the poles and the equator water was close to boiling. That event was actually due to large amounts of CO2 being pumped into the air from volcanoes, though. So we are headed for increased weather volatility and stress to survive it around the world. Yay!

He is claiming that the problem that everyone is arguing about how to solve is made up; that the whole picture that we somehow interpret or experience remotely (through something else--sense perception, language, etc.) or individually (each of us) is a false premise and forced framework. — Antony Nickles

I was reading him as having a less dramatic point. I think he accepts that perception involves a fair amount of interpretation. I think he's targeting a specific argument wrt that interpretation, that is, that we don't perceive the world around us, but rather we only perceive sense data, which is unique to each individual, as the medium for communication with the world.

I think the sense data theory is fine as a first stab at hypothesizing about perception. It's the idea that the fundamentals of perception are little blobs of light and color along with borders and shapes. The problem I see is that this conception of the fundamentals contains all the elements of the supposed higher levels. If you see a blob of light, you've tuned your attention to exclude everything except that, and "blob" is an interpretation. It's not raw perception, in other words. So I agree with Austin that the sense data theory doesn't do what it's supposed to do. I don't see Austin as establishing any great insights beyond that, though.

But "sense data" seems a term peculiar to philosophy, with the mentioned peculiarities. — Banno

I see.

You have two kinds of neurons, sensory neurons and motor neurons. Sensory neurons do nothing but send electrical impulses into your central nervous system. I would think those impulses would qualify as sensory data. No?

There is such a thing as sense data, per basic anatomy and physiology. It's just taking things too far to state that we don't see the world we're in, we just see the data from neurons. Neuroscientists would agree. The data from rods and cones is discreet. What we experience is integrated. The quest to know how that integrated experience comes to be continues.

I think Austin is saying that language is a tool and speaking about the world is part of how this tool works.

I think it is more a matter of what we do than what we say, of what cups are made and used for. The role or function that cups or, to use two examples Austin does, cigarettes and pens play in our lives. — Fooloso4

No doubt.

That's what @RussellA said. It's linguistic idealism.

Perhaps more the relationship of language to world. Don't you agree? — RussellA

You had said he puts mind at the center of reality, and language at the center of mind. That's why I thought the ultimate relationship would be mind to world. No?

I see. So Austin doesn't want sense data because it interferes with the way he envisions the relationship between mind and world?

As Austin is speaking from a position of Linguistic Idealism, Sense and Sensibilia should be read bearing this in mind. — RussellA

Could you explain what that is?

Wanna go out for a few beers tonight? — BC

Sure. I'll be right over. I've decided the world doesn't need to be saved. It's pretty much whatever it's supposed to be.

maybe I was of the the last comrades still standing? — BC

It just seems like that would be the reason to maintain contact, not sever it.