If we're specifying the cause if x, we need to list everything that deterministically produced x.

For one, in saying that speech is causal to some action, we're denying that the people who performed the action in question had free will--that they had any choice in how they acted. This would amount to saying that the soundwaves in question had a physical effect on the person so that, in combination with the other physical factors that we'd need to specify, they were literally forced to perform the action in question. That's what causality is. — Terrapin Station

I think causality is more complicated than that. Or broader.

I appreciate you expanding though I wish you'd work with the other examples, and then move this over to blame, which you brought up and I can see why.

Someone goes around at work and tells people you are a pedophile. He chooses people who don't know you so well. He does this using social media also. Could it never be the case that you would blame him for consequences? Consider his behavior was one of the causes of unpleasance for you? One of the causes? Other people's gullibility and liking for gossip, predisposition to judge...ets. were all factors also. But could you imagine blaming him? Reporting it as a crime? suggesting a boss fire him? See it as an action with bad effects and as such as a cause, even though other people also bear some responsibility?

Perjury - would not force a jury to convict, but in amongst other factors could be, I think, argued to be causal.

Screaming bomb at an airport that leads to injury. Can we not argue that is causal, even if most of the people either reacted blase or ran in a careful manner, but one person ran over your child while running to get outside. Could we not blame the screamer for causing your child pain?

Can we say smoking causes lund cancer? This example and other medical type ones are focused on the issue of a variety of results in individuals.

Must it be the only cause? What percentage of effectiveness must it have?

And note: even if you concede some of these points, it does not mean that hate specch is necessarily something that should be illegal. I was reacting to what you and others were arguing against it being treated as causal. I think there is swing room still to be covered.

I just think you are presenting too limited a version of causality and also of when most of us would assign blame. I think there are more steps necessary before we preclude hate speech laws being irrational or problematic.

Yes, speaking moves air, but you’d have to show how one combination of articulated guttural sounds can manipulate air differently than any other. — NOS4A2

'Grybhshalabhagbh'
and then
'Your father's home from Iraq and waiting in the backyard'

each said in low tones to the guy's kids. Adn then all the other examples.

Words have meaning. People hear that meaning in speech and this causes all sort of things to happen if the right words are chosen. Or the wrong words.

Spies telling lies.
Powell telling people he had a photo of WOMD. Think of all the matter that contributed to moving around.
Hitler moved incredible amounts of matter via speaking.
Call a school with a bomb threat.
A woman tells a man she's pregnant. (and at least in the past this often led to marriages and people moving to new places to live)
Callin the police and using certain words.
The fire department.
Artillary group commanders words
The orders of a nuclear sub captain.

The speech will all end up moving different amounts of air, cause the bodies that change direction or take action or bombs will all move air. If moving air is the criterion we are out after.


We've got laws on the books for this all over the place: conspiracy laws, incidement to riot, slander, perjury and more. Most of these laws are related to changes in the placement of matter and since you can be called into court for them, lead to movement in your matter.

Lying in court could move someone into prison. As can telling the truth.

Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not first amendment standard any longer. That’s a common misconception. The current standard is “immanent lawless action”. — NOS4A2

I didn't say anything about the first ammendment. i was talking about speech moving people/matter. I didn't know it was first A before. I gave some other examples in other posts above of speech moving matter. Duck, heads up, rape, bomb, will all make people move. Even if that last one screamed at an airport doesn't fool a lot of people, men in blue will move and then move you to a little room.

If it's causal, then no matter who is hearing it, they need to react in the relevant way. Otherwise we need to account for the difference. — Terrapin Station

Could you make the statement that I think is implicit in this...I would guess it is something like:
If something does not affect everyone the same way or the specific way at issue it is not causal. But if that's not the right implicit statement, let me know what is.

Is maleria causal in the deaths of those who do die of maleria even if others survive? Does something have to be the only factor to be causal? Or the aids virus in aids?

Could we blame someone for giving someone the aids virus, like intnetionally with a dirty needle as a weapon, say, even though not all who get the virus die or even get sick?

Or my spraying of allergens or toxins example a couple of posts back. Or what I said about blame in the previous post.

That's a good question that would be interesting to research historically--the roots of the belief that speech can be to blame in situations like that. — Terrapin Station

I can't see how speech isn't causal in that situation. (though there is potential energy and keyed in concepts that also contribute to the effects)

I think we could devise an illegal experiment. Shouting duck or fire or rape or bomb in various locations and then having control tests in similar location types, to see if speech is causal.

Blame is a different concept. Though there are many situations where I would blame people for saying certain things that I would consider having led to certain consequences: perjury, false witness in general, false rumors, true rumors, people betraying confidence, parents insulting children, threats......

Exactly right. Pretending speech causes the movement of matter is essentially to believe in sorcery. — NOS4A2

Why is it illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater (when there's no fire).`?
And then of course speech moves matter. Waves in the air, vibrations in the inner ear. Changes in the neurons in the other person's brain. Startle responses. People following orders. People being told directions, including wrong ones. Hearing bad news. Hearing good news. Getting a compliment. In all instances matter is being moved by speech. Heck even my humble words on the screen are moving matter as you read.

All sorts. I don't remember them on the top of my head. I recall a bad experience: I let it slip to a religious person that I don't believe in god, and he, and his friend who joined in, started rapid firing arguments for why there must be a god. I didn't have much time to think about, let alone understand, what they were saying. It was awful. From then on, I avoided telling people about my beliefs. I don't want to be like that. I want to be proud of my beliefs. — Purple Pond

You could just say it's not a conversatoin your interested in. Then ask them about their jobs or families or hobbies.

My ability to defend against arguments for theism. Any argument for theism, or creationism for that matter, is an indirect attack on atheism. — Purple Pond

Why not just ignore the debate? Then there's no attack, no need to defend. Or, really, it's the perfect defense.

There's a different lifestyle choice being made between those who spend time around other people, and those who choose to be hermits, or who choose to learn the buddhist way which if followed through leads towards being a hermit — hillsofgold

One could be a Buddhist and not end up as a hermit. Most don't.

One of them says that living in society is like being in a cloth dying vat and that if you stay in too long you'll never come out clean. Isn't that essentially what happens every time we "try on" some one else's ideas? — hillsofgold

I don't think so. And further if you are in contact with a lot of media and read, you've probably come in contact with a great many ideas, and they also run underground in anything from Star Wars, to mindfulness workshops as team building, to novels...and so on. It might be better for those of us already exposed to actually face head on consciously what is in the muck of everyday semi-conscious modern life and see if we actually want it. And no I don't think that a discussion or a lecture stains us. We can process ideas. Consciously we can do this and we do this in dreams. Further, there is no untainted life, unless you want to make yourself a hermit. All your social relations and professional relations, especially ongoing ones, are dipping you repeatedly in paradigm and judgments and beliefs and attitudes (about morals, ontology, epistemology, what the self is and more) so trying to stay clean really would require the hermit option.

But, then, you be dragging, in your own already tainted mind, a billion of these things anyway. And it is often easier to chew on these things when they show up on the outside.

Then you're not talking about causality. — Terrapin Station

Could it not be, rather, that you are not talking about single causes?
I spray a strong allergen over a high school. Not everyone gets hives but many do. Could my action be considered immoral and causal`? Could the defense argue that it was caused by the immune system responses and not the allergen? At what percentage of rashes would my action no longer considered causal? Like it it's ten percent is it now really just their idiosyncratic reactions? We could switch to toxins with worse effects.

Modern eliminativists have much more clearly expressed the view that mental phenomena simply do not exist and will eventually be eliminated from people's thinking about the brain in the same way that demons have been eliminated from people's thinking about mental illness and psychopathology.

There will be nothing to notice this, if they are right. IOW brains will be affected, but there wll be no subjective experience of 'oh, they were right, we no longer think about those mental states.'

If you are setting the assumptions (again), iow saying that we will assume your one to three above, fine.

But, if you are not for he sake of argument assuming these things, I see them as just that assumptions. You basically repeated your first post.

For non-Americans: it holds that natural evolution, though sometimes harsh, ultimately brings sustainable and robust entities into being. — frank

Well, then we shouldn't have medications at all. They are sustaining the weaker organisms.

But then, here's the thing, evolution did lead to, amongst other things mammals. And mammals have are more complicated than, say, insects. We evolved into creatures that take care, even of their weak, like other social mammals. If anything humans are doing too well.

I agree there does seem to be a psychology to how we tend to pay more attention if some one sounds confident or presents something as indisputable, as fact. I just try to be careful not to let that psychology kind of carry me off such that I get lost in some one else's imperfect world view. — hillsofgold

No, me neither. In fact, I would say that part of the reason I appreciate it is because I will in the longer run be critical and I know this. I trust myself. I say, longer run, meaning that I think I 'try on' ideas, while I am hearing them. Of course, I will notice things I am resistant to, for all sorts of reasons, some negative some positive, and small critical voices in my head are going to pipe up. But there is a trying on which I in fact appreciate. This is easier for me if the idea is put forward clearly and without qualification. I get a real feel for it. I am not going to convert, but I want to see the world through that idea.

Like you said, those kind of presentations can be good some times but if you had to regularly spend time around some one like that, it would seem more like a character flaw — hillsofgold

Yes, and there is a difference, I think, between a lecture and a one on one discussion, especially one carried out over time.

Frankly I think the Buddha had a character flaw, but I'm not sure he could have gotten rid of it and still retained the state of mind, or non-state-of-mind or what-have-you, that he was in. — hillsofgold

That's certainly possible. In the case of Buddhism, I think the Buddha came up with an answer. It may or may not have led to a perfect unwavering state without suffering, but still was complete, for humans. The problem I have with it could be summed up concisely as 'he severed off parts of being human, he made himself less, and I find people who have repeated what he did to be unpleasant to be around, because on some level they hate the emotional body.'

I suppose I understand where you're coming from in that presentations with too many qualifiers are distracting, if that's what you mean — hillsofgold

Not just distracting, but I find I really consider something if it is presented as simply the case. In contrast with another type of presentatino where the person introduces other possible interpretations and explantions. It becomes more of an encounter. I am really hit by this view, test it out. I suppose this could be merely personal.

Which is impossible to judge based on the retelling of one of the participants. For all I know, you could be right, but to a rational observer who knows only that the argument was between a non-expert with a superficial familiarity with the research and the experts who conducted the research (because even before you squabbled with someone on a forum you were in a virtual argument with the authors of the studies in question), the balance of credibility is obviously not in your favor. — SophistiCat

Sure, there's no reason for you to accept my version of the encounter. But then there's no reason to assume I had a superficial familiarity with the research. The person I was talking to was a physicist. I was a person who suffered from the condition in question and had researched it for years. My classic encounter was with a scientist who appealed to authority and was not willing to show that he understood my objection. What did he do? He read my post, then checked to see what the current cause was considered to be and reported back to me that I was wrong. Which was a strange thing to do since it was stated in my previous post what current consensus was. IOW he did not interact with my argument, he told me what I already obviously knew, but let me know that that was the end of the subject. I encountered this kind of pattern repeatedly with scientists on that site. Even in instances where I was less of an expert than the scientist - for example, when the topic fit their profession or I had no special background in the topic - I noticed a repeated lack of interest in actually dealing with the arguments, though they might spend time lecturing me about me or something not relevant about the group they think I am in or whatever. IOW it wasn't the effort they were resistent to, it was the having a discussion.

Someone could argue that it is so trying to have these amateurs talk about science. Well, that was part of the point of the forum. I did not preface my points with some diatribe about science, which I was obviously interested in and based a lot of my arguments on. Many did not seem to realize that there was non-consensus within science on the issues in question. And by this I do not mean there was a fringe scientist or two, but actual splits in the greater community on issues - this was certainly true on a lot of issues in cosmology that interested me. But if I presented an idea that they thought there was consensus on and even cited polls of physicists or whatever the relevant scientist group was, it would still be treated as fringe and the musings of a pompous idiot (me). And I often found they did not read posts particularly well. My posts would sometimes trigger responses, with incorrect assumptions about what I must mean.

And it's not like the forum was filled with techincal posts meant to be passed between experts, there was opinion throwing and everyday speech by all participants and on all categories of issue, not just within science.

This is how humans are, of course. Scientists may even be less annoying in these ways. Still, given that they were scientists and were taking the position, with regularity, that they did not use their intuition in reaching conclusions and disagreements with non-scientists were part of their war as team rational vs. the irrational horde, it was galling.

I found it less annoying dealing with some Abrahamists who arguments boiled down to faith or, basically, intuition at some point. You wanna take the high rational ground, rather than the high moral or intuitive ground, well, it will likely be more annoying if that's not really what you are managing to live up to.

Further my position did not contradict the research data, it called into question elminating other causes as factors, even decisives ones, despite the research not showing that these were not also causes. There was money riding on this. Billions.

Now in the post you responded to I was writing to someone who I thought might find value in that kind of example. Not as proof, but as a category of talking bpast each other.

But toy examples like billiard balls colliding or stones smashing windows can only get you so far. Scientific practice provides a large pool of complex examples, from Newtonian dynamics to epidemiology, and here philosophers mostly learn from scientists, rather than the other way around. If a philosophical account of causality is contrary to the best scientific practices, this is usually taken to be philosophy's deficiency. — SophistiCat

If it had been contrary that would have been a different situation. It wasn't. That was part of the blind spot, I thought, in the scientist I was dealing with.

That is not to say that philosophers cannot contribute to the discussion of causality, but that would be more in areas where science runs up against conceptual difficulties, such as in quantum mechanics, for example. As for routine problems with the quality of studies and such, scientists and mathematicians are more adept at debugging those than most philosophers. — SophistiCat

I would guess in most cases, the vast majority, of case analyses you are correct. I think in medicine people outside the specific field can often produce great input because 1) so much of the research is funded by biased organizations and 2) we know, from scientific research, that funding sources affect results and what results are shared with us, and how the results are looked at by government oversight. 3) there are paradigmatic influences on medicine - with counter trends now - to isolate causes to single patients. Hm, that's not good wording. To look at diseases and chemical cures, rather than say public health, preventative medical approaches, and certainly not alternative approaches - in part becasue many of them cannot be patented. They want to find causes and treatments that involve pills in a lot of cases where other approaches might be just as effective and with less side effects.

I could mull over if there are other sciences that also might have built in biases where philosophers could be of great help, but since I mentioned, I think, in this thread mainly physics - which you seem to agree about - and in that post medicaine, I stick here.

What if all consciousness is set up this way? To end suffering, we have to become know-it-alls? — hillsofgold

Nice. It's good to keep such doors open. Not because I quite believe this one, but I think interesting thinking leaves on the table, at least for a while, things we think we can readily dismiss.

I would say some other similar things to consider: I think it can be useful to read texts or hear lectures by people, say, who present their ideas as certain, correct and indisputable. Even if the person in question, has times of doubt or has made some leaps, which they themselves notice, in logic and argument or even in experience. Why? Well, then you get to experience something in a pure form and try it on. This is a different and potentially useful experience, different from someone who qualifies everything. I am not saying this is right in all cases, though I think it can be useful in some. I have heard college lecturers I disagreed with, but where I was glad they just laid it out as fi they knew. I got to experience their personality and position in a kind of pure form. If I had a long term more closely interpersonal relationship with them, I would start to see this as a failure of character, though I still might find it useful, but in a short term situations, I think it is great provocation and can be clearer than something more carefully qualified.

In relation to the Buddha. I think one can have solved one set of problems, how the subject object split is handled, while being sexist, for example. A lot of masters and gurus have clearly, to me at least, had a range of skills that are quite impressive, but they also had huge blind spots that no amount of meditation will ever get rid of. Sometimes this ends up popping out and they abuse, for example, their position of power over women followers. But sometimes it does not pop out, but is still there is expecting women to have traditional roles. There are some things meditation is not going to touch. Ken Wilber goes into this in great detail in his system. Sex Ecology and Consciousness and another more recent work go into this. I think he is on to something, though he is pretty Buddhist and I, frankly, don't like Buddhism.

Couldn't his so called anti scientific assertions be considered about internal experiences or as metaphors. Also couldn't he have found stuff not yet confirmed by science?

To start, I think you are being a bit unfair to Pattern-Chaser. Or are you just joking around. He's said this explicitly - when he says you cannot know anything directly about OR, he's not talking about you, he's making a metaphysical statement about what can be known and what can not be. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of opinion, a statement about how it is useful to think about things — T Clark

Of course. I did make that clear in there, the part about it not being specifically about me. I brought it down to a me you level, just to make it concrete. People often think as if they have a bird's eye view. But we don't, we're in situ. So, here I have someone saying we - note that, we - can't know anything about the OR.

I am part of his OR.

So, how does he know.

But the truth is I don't have to go to that level. He thinks we don't know things about the OR because of his ideas about the OR. How objective, perceivers, perception all work and don't work. He also talked about scientists not talking about objective reality. IOW they study AR - apparant reality - and that is what they can draw conclusions about. I think he was confusing absolute with objective. But beyond that, here he is talking about OR based on whatever his epistemology is. He goes so far as to say they can't approach OR at all. How could one even state an opinion? How could one compare one model of the OR with any other.

Noah defended him by saying that he can have models of the OR based on AR. Well, that's exactly what scientists are doing. But if scientists can't approach the OR at all, then presumably he can't either. So why would any model be better than any other? How does he get a model of the OR?

The Reality Principle. Reality is a metaphysical concept, and as such it is beyond the reach of science. Reality consists of things-in-themselves of which we can never hope to gain knowledge. Instead, we have to content ourselves with knowledge of empirical reality, of things-as-they-appear or things-as-they-are-measured. Nevertheless, scientific realists assume that reality (and its entities) exists objectively and independently of perception or measurement. They believe that reality is rational, predictable and accessible to human reason. Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 8). Pegasus Books. Kindle Edition. — T Clark

Same problem. Mr. Baggott just talked about OR and said 'never'. This position is not consistant because it contains a model of the OR that he is happily using to say 'never'. No qualifying, no possibility that this model is incorrect. Perception subjects objects. That's the way things are. And implicit in this is 'no action at a distance' or 'no intermingling at a distance', iow that causes must move through media so all experience must be filtered and interpreted and indirect.

Now that all sounds just peachy and logical, but here he is saying the way reality is. Because friends, we are a part of reality. And Mr. Baggot is talking about all other people, and they are a part of OR. And he has a model, based on AR, so how come he is so sure it applies universally in the OR.

I don't really care how common this is. It is self-contradictory.

He compared his understanding with that of eastern religions - Buddhism and Hinduism. His idea of "will" was similar to eastern ideas that the world as we know it is an illusion and that underlying reality is undifferentiated and unknowable. I think of "will" as being like the "Tao," although nothing I've read indicates Schopenhauer read Lao Tzu.

Again - this is all metaphysics. My point isn't that your way of seeing things is wrong, only that the other way of seeing things is useful, meaningful, and mainstream. — T Clark

What's my way of seeing things?

All of my posts have been about the contradictions in his position, that it undermines itself.

Earlier in the thread I was likely mixing a bit the topics where science and metaphysics and science and philosophy are being contrasted. My point was that scientists definitely consider themselves to be finding out thigns about objective reality. I think there are excellent arguments for this. However I actually think the situation is more complicated and my position is very complicated and I have not even started trying to convey it.

All I am saying is that Pattern and Mr. Baggott are contradicting themselves.

If they said something like: I have found it useful to think of things like X, then I wouldn't have a problem. But both make very blunt unqualified statements about how things are. And in some sense, built on the ideas of thinkers who were working with the idea that they are talking about the OR in a factual way.

If we want to go to the East it would be better if when asked if we can know about the OR

they should say 'Mu'.

But they tell us we can't know about it since we and the OR are like X.

And that is self-contradictory. If it is merely an opinion, this stil causes problems since one cannot approach the OR (Pattern). And given that the model that one can seems to be working for so many people, why should one switch over to this other opinion that undermines itself?

It also includes the very Western assumption that we are separate from reality, but that's a whole nother can of worms.

Your focus is on the idea which looks fine on paper. Great. But the problem is asserting it. It is a claim to access to the OR, because other people, causation, reality, other people's perception, those are all part of the OR. And his model, however common, is about the OR. So asserting his position is problematic, hypocritical.

And what I believe about OR and perception are irrelevent. I could be wrong and he could be wrong. My focus is on his position and I think it is self-contradictory.

And I find it odd that I have been called pedantic and unfair, by Noah and now respectively. Maybe I am wrong, but pedantic? unfair?

I am raising points I think undermine him asserting his position. I have tried to word it in a number of different ways. I don't think it's a small point - so I don't get the pedantic criticism - and I don't think I am treating Pattern, whom I enjoy as a discussion partner and respect, differently than I treat other people. So, I don't get the unfair charge either.

I'm gonna drop the subject. I actually decided that but then noticed you'd joined in, so I wanted to see if there was something new.

I think I presented my case well in a couple of different ways. That might have an effect or it might not, but I've put in the effort I am willing and I think I did a good enough job for it to be evaluated. A lot of the points raised against my arguments ahve seemed irrelevent. Though I do understand that it is a tricky area of discussion.

Fear is a component or analogous to insecurity. Have you read the Ten Commandments.
Did you note the insecurity/fear? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I can imagine interpreting some of the commandments that way. But I see nothing there that demonstrates that God is hiding, even if it were the only possible interpretation that the commandments show insecurity. It seems to me you are making an assumption. Let's say you are correct: the ten commandments show that God has insecurity, you are still making an assumption that God is not showing himself to us becuase of that. Like if you had a fear of flying it means that you are not married because you are afraid of women. And that's accepting that the 10 commandments show and insecure God...there's still a leap.

If god could reproduce true or some other way, I cannot see him, as a member of one species, using bestiality to reproduce. Especially given that the last time the sons of god used the earth as a brothel, god got quite upset and used genocide against his own grandchildren. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Well, you've added a lot of interpretations to various parts of the phenomenon in question. It all seems very speculative to me. But I believe you when you say that you 'cannot see him' doing it differently. That this is your take on what must be the case. I don't think it's a grounded take, however.

They offer a set of practices, ones that often lead to experiences that practitioners consider to be of God.
— Coben

Sure. Such are common, but what they are finding is not a genocidal and infanticidal god. No one in their right mind would seek such a prick of a god.
I think I just said something about Christians and Muslims here. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

OK, you just shifted topic. I was referring to you saying they offered nothing to confirm that reality. I mentioned practices as a way people can confirm, potentially, that reality. IOW people follow the practices and decide that it has been confirmed. Here you are talking about your dislike of Yahweh, which is another subject. I don't disagree with you on that one, but it's a different issue.

Yes, and was rewarded with my apotheosis. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You tried Christian practices and experienced elevation to divine status?

If so, how is the supernatural realm accessed?

You might have forgotten that The Abrahamic god has historically been said from the start to be unknowable, unfathomable and works in mysterious ways.

That is what preachers begin with, then tell us all the know of the unknowable and fathom of the unfathomable. What could their words be but lies? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I don't think 'that's what preachers begin with'. For example many begin with the divinity of Jesus. Further every preacher or Christian I have ever encountered believes that certain things about God are knowable and this is a working assumption in the Scriptures which purport to give information about that God. That God goes beyond that knowledge, that humans cannot know God completely, that God cannot be fully grasped, sure, that idea generally comes up or is implicit. But the OT begins by giving us information about God's actions and even his own reaction to what he created. It is clear that some things can be known about God in the Chrisitan belief system. You mentioned the 10 commandments, this is one amongst hundreds of chunks of information give about God.

Again, to say people are lying, is to assume 1) they are saying things that are untrue and 2) they know this and are choosing to say things they think are false.

I think it would show an incredibly poor read of other people to think all preachers are lying or even most.

It seems like people find use in their experiences and appreciate them.
— Coben

Indeed. as shown with inquisitions and jihads. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

This response would make sense if the issue had been 'is their belief good?' or 'does their belief lead to only positive things or mostly positive things.' It makes no sense in context.

Cowardly, silent absentee gods are not worthy gods. They are useless to us. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

This is what I was responding to. You used the word 'us'. This means the God there in the Bible, that idea of God, is of no use to anyone. Here in context us talking about what people can or cannot confirm for themselves via practices and what experiences these might lead to.

I can agree with the horrors that certain religious beliefs can lead to. And still disagree with the other point. IOW you jumped to another issue.

I didn't find your responses to be respectful to my points. You seem to have an ax to grind. Fine, I likely share many of your cricitisms of the Abrahamic religions.

But this is a philosophy forum, not a place to pass off propaganda as reasoning.

I'll leave you to others.

Though where the balance point is on the spectrum of not being affected by unpleasant treatment ->being thrown for a long time by it, I don't know. We are social mammals. It is part of our nature to be affected by the esteem or negative reactions of others. These things have pracitical consequences, often, also. IOW if people treat us poorly or disrespectfully, this may lead to practial problems at work, at home, at leisure. I agree that one must look at how and why it made you feel bad, to the degree it made you feel bad, but in a sense we are hostage to each other because those of us not psychopaths do care about what others think and feel about us and how they treat us. If the reaction is too much - and the rub is determining what amount that is - there may be stuff from childhood or assumptions about reality that need to be looked at and transformed. And truly wonderful changes can happen if one does. But there are also forces in society telling us not to feel. So I am wary of dealing with this as pathological, because of course we get upset at such things. You didn't use the word pathological. I am placing your points in the wider context of a society where there is pressure say one is doing 'great' or at least 'fine' even when one is not, to get medication for all sorts of emotional patterns, to present oneself via social media in the best of all possible lights and as having a great life.

And to Noah and Pattern,
I just realized that intersubjective doesn't work, because most people experience their model that they can know things about objective reality as working for them.

Maybe. Or maybe he was trying to work things out as he was going. — Noah Te Stroete

That's easily sorted out.

Anyway, I think his model is really inter-subjective in that people seem to agree on science which deals with sense data as well as theories explaining sense data. — Noah Te Stroete

I would say scientists do not agree in the least that they are merely drawing conclusions about sense data, nor would they think that the scope of science is related to that. He disagrees, I get that. And if someone was saying to him Science paints every increasing accurate pictures of objective reality, he has a case to be made. But that's a different situation.

Here he is saying that one cannot know, one has no way of knowing and.....

The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach,

I think that's a very hard position to defend, because he will need to show why science can't reach OR and this will require him to explain the nature of OR and scientists to show the latter cannot approach the former. Fruit of the poisoned tree and all that.

Forgive me, but I think you’re being pedantic. One cannot “know” things in themselves (OR) but still have a model of OR from AR. You might call that a contradiction. I call it two types of “knowing”. One is modeled socially (OR), but what is known is really AR. — Noah Te Stroete

Let me quote him referring to scientists....

No, they're dealing with AR, which could be objective reality, but we have no way of knowing

We have no way of knowing if it is OR. If we have no way of knowing, then we cannot decide which models are likely and which are less likely.
Yet, here he is simply stating thigns about the OR.
If he has no way of knowing, why present his model without qualitification?
Why even come up with one?

Why not just say: I experience X.

That would be an AR description.

Here's another quote...

The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach,

If that is the case how can we have models of it? How can he?

I don't think I am being 'excessively concerned with minor details or rules; overscrupulous.' I am working with his own descriptions of what science cannot do, which are very strongly stated and then evaluating his communication about his own models and conclusions about OR. I don't think they fit well at all.

I also pointed out earlier that science is objective, but not absolute. He seemed to think that something must be absolutely infallible to be considered objective. He did not accept that. So, then, what is he doing when he describes the OR?

So presumably his model is subjective, but I am not sure that is meaningful, and then you'd think it would be heavily qualified. Like 'the following model seems to fit my experience and I'm guessing other people's.'

It's not all about you. :wink: I told you a fact about the real world. — Pattern-chaser

I said that a number of times to Noah. That it wasn't just about me, or just my perception. That is was a model of reality in general.
About the OR. How come scientists don't get to do that?

Are you saying you just have a subjective model? How come you seem so certain of it? How come it seems to be couched in objective frames?

The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach,

But anyone reading your posts would think you think you can approach knowledge of OR. In fact, even this quote is an example of it.

I'm not making a claim about whether we can know the OR or not. I am deconstructing his position and saying that I think it contradicts itself. I think it includes claims about what must be the case about the OR while saying we can only know the AR. To say we can only know the AR is to make claims about the OR.
Now I will really stop until he rejoins the discussion.

I don't think it matters for my main point which of those I am using. I could work with either one and still present the same argument. And actually I would say I was using more in the sense you are attributing to him. I am certainly NOT talking about qualia say and saying that mine might be different from his or that my subjective experience might be different from his. I am talking about his model of reality implicit in saying we can't X. He has a model of the OR and from that model he tells everyone what they can and cannot know. The problem is already there in the model of the OR since he is saying we only know about the AR. He can't have a model of the OR. And I think some of the assumptions I went into in my previous post are key. Like around causes and distance and all causes are mediated by intermediate effects/causes. IOW he has an ontology of the OR.

Perception is the gateway to his OR. What he says about perception indicates a lot of things he thinks are true about the OR that are not just about perception.

Let me assume you mean that the OR is consistant in the sense that I should be like him, my perception is like his. If that assumption is not correct, let me know.

Well, first of all, no. Why need the OR be consisternt? Perhaps it's a multiverse or like one with different rules in different places, even in what seems, in the AR, to be a single 'thing'.

Then a further no, because my point is not simply that he is making claims about me and that I am, for him, a part of the OR, but that he is making claims about the nature of the OR in general. For example that things are separate from eachother. That they only impinge on each other via intermediate media. Like light comes from the tree, hits my retina, this triggers.....etc. That causes only travel over distance, cause leading to cause, that there is no directing intermingling. I think he has a model of reality in general, not just of my perception. And that is a model of the OR not just the AR. Or he wouldn't communicate with me the way he does.

A lot of this seems so obvious it might not even seems like claims about the OR. Hey, a reality has to be like that. Well, there you go, making a lot of claims about the OR.

I appreciate your mediation, it helped me flesh out the argument. I'll wait and see if he chimes in before responding more, and I think it would be useful for him to read our interaction. Might save some time there also.

The Subject in the subject-object relation is necessarily private. Is that what you’re saying? I don’t think he would disagree with this, but you are also saying there is another kind of knowledge, viz. self knowledge. Right? — Noah Te Stroete

That was one part, that he is making statements about my perception. But really the main point I am making is he is making statements about OR. He told me we can't know OR only AR, yet he tells me what OR must be like, since he describes me. I am a part of OR, yet he tells me what I can know - not just me, I simplified it. And I am quite sure that the reason he thinks he knows this is because he has a model of OR - a perceiving self interacting with sense impressions and beyond this perceiving self a reality we do not perceive. That is a model of OR. Not just a model of AR. He uses that model of OR to tell me that I only know AR. I think that's a contradiction. He could make this less contradictory is he said 'It seems like you couldn't know....' But even that is a claim. That there is a seeming. That this applies to everyone. That other seemings, like that one is in contact with OR, are wrong seemings and this seeming is more likely to be true about the OR.

we can't know about the OR

is based on knowledge claims about the OR.

What are those different things and how is he not contradicting himself?

Perception doesn’t involve direct apprehension of objective reality. Do you directly apprehend radio waves, microwaves, and atoms through perception? The short of it is “no”. One has to theorize about objective reality from what appears to our perception (apparent reality). — Noah Te Stroete

That's fine. But he is telling me what I am like. He is not telling me how I appear. He is saying above that scientists only know things about AR, apparent reality. But he told me what I cannot know - and I think that this is based on what he thinks perception is, not how my perception appears. My perception does not appear to him, for example. What perception is, includes what objects or objective reality is and what the self is. He (makes claims that he) knows about these things, the OR, enough to say what I cannot know. I don't think he gets to say that if at the same time he is saying he can only know about AR. Maybe I am missing something.

Can you expand a bit?

Is god a coward? Why does god fear to show himself? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

That's a possible interpretation. The latter question assumes that if there is a God, then the reason God is not experienced by those God is not experienced by is that God is afraid. How do you know this must be the case?

God cannot even speak or reproduce without a human female and is definitely not an all-powerful being. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Presumably you mean Mary and Jesus,here. So this is about Christianity. How do you know that is the only way God can do it? God did that, in the NT. Did I miss the part where it says that is the only way? Perhaps the idea was to go through the experience of being a human, which includes, then, the womb and the birth and, well, the mother. I don't know. How do you know the Bible means God could only do it that way?

To be relevant to theist, god must be real. The only way to date that that reality can be confirmed is contact at the consciousness level, yet those who claim that never offer anything worth listening to. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

They offer a set of practices, ones that often lead to experiences that practitioners consider to be of God. Some Christians would argue that to be successful takes great time and effort. Some even spend a lot of time in retreat, in silence, in regular prayer and service and contemplation. This seems effective to many of those people. Have you tried that?

Billions now seek that mental touch daily; yet all go wanting. All while those who lie about god, all the preachers who preach of a supernatural god, get the cash from their sheeple. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

They all lie? How do you know that? That seems extremely unlikely to me. I think many preachers are sincere, even if I do not share their beliefs. Here you say they all are lying. How do you know that? There are also preachers who do not take money from the people they preach to.

Why do we create or even acknowledge such cowardly absentee and inferior demiurge gods?

Cowardly, silent absentee gods are not worthy gods. They are useless to us. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It seems like people find use in their experiences and appreciate them. Not all, but many.

I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. I tried to explain how we don't have access to objective knowledge about anything at all (other than that Objective Reality exists). I do not have knowledge of the things you list, and neither do you. [And neither does any other human, of course.] — Pattern-chaser

There, you just did it again. You told me a fact about me. I am not you. I am outside you. You didn't say it appears to me that you do not have knowledge of OR. You said how it must be.

Could you give an example? — Janus

I actually hit this at a very abstract level. Anything self-evident, it seems to me, will only be that to some people. But OK, here's a few....
In formal ethics....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_ethics#Axioms
u

P (Prescriptivity) — "Practice what you preach"

That will seem obvious to some, to others it will seem obvious that certain rules apply only to certain people. For example many ethical systems include either in practice or openly the idea that greatness exempts one from the necessity of this axiom. They would see it as an assumption that it applies to all.

Postulate 5 in Euclidian geometry about angles at the intersection of lines or about parallel lines never crossing, is an assumption, now, and not really an axiom, any more, since non-Euclidian geomtries work just peachy while contradicting this one.

For this one see at the end that it is not accepted as self-evident by all epistemologists...

The Axiom of Causality is the proposition that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. This means that if a given event occurs, then this is the result of a previous, related event. If an object is in a certain state, then it is in that state as a result of another object interacting with it previously.

According to William Whewell the concept of causality depends on three axioms:[1]

Nothing takes place without a cause
The magnitude of an effect is proportional to the magnitude of its cause
To every action there is an equal and opposed reaction.
A similar idea is found in western philosophy for ages (sometimes called Principle of Universal Causation (PUC) or Law of Universal Causation), for example:

In addition, everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause. — Plato in Timaeus

Modern version of PUC is connected with Newtonian physics, but is also criticized for instance by David Hume who presents skeptical reductionist view on causality.[2] Since then his view on the concept of causality is often predominating (see Causality, After the Middle Ages). Kant answered to Hume in many aspects, defending the a priority of universal causation.[3]

Example for the axiom: if a baseball is moving through the air, it must be moving this way because of a previous interaction with another object, such as being hit by a baseball bat.

An epistemological axiom is a self-evident truth. Thus the "Axiom of Causality" implicitly claims to be a universal rule that is so obvious that it does not need to be proved to be accepted. Even among epistemologists, the existence of such a rule is controversial. See the full article on Epistemology. — Wikipedia - Axiom of Causality

Axioms are usually considered to be self-evident; whereas assumptions may or may not be. — Janus

One person's axiom is another person's assumption.

Any advanced (sane) A.I. will always choose to cooperate because that is the strategy with the best chance of survival. — RogueAI

Depends on what power it has and is able to create for itself over time and how it considers those it might or might not cooperate with.

An A.I. cannot know if it's in a simulation or not. — RogueAI

An AI might be brilliant in a number of ways and yet not consider this possibility. Or it might be driven to act in ways that we don't consider because it is not like us. IOW it might simply be reckless or curious from our point of view and not prioritizing this possibility the way you think it should. There are plenty of brilliant people who are social morons or have serious holes in their practical skills or have odd priorities. We don't know how AIs will act.

This is because it makes sense to test an A.I. in a simulated environment before turning it loose in a real one, and the A.I., of course, would know this. — RogueAI

Or not. A lot of assumptions in this. I do think what you are saying is smart, but I see no reason to think it must be the case.

So, if simulation theory is plausible, the overriding categorical imperative for an A.I., if continued survival is the primary goal, is: don't antagonize potential simulation creators. — RogueAI

That's a big if. we don't know what it will be like. heck, it might even become impulsive.

The exception to this is an A.I. is not going to cooperate if it thinks cooperation will lead to its destruction. There might also be an exception if the A.I. thinks its creators are going down a morally dangerous road. It might conclude that that kind of scenario is just the sort of test a simulation creator would devise, and it might conclude that it's justified in turning on its creators. — RogueAI

There could be all sorts of compelling (seeming) reasons it might destroy us. Not caring being one. It's otherness seems quite possible. That it will have self-care seems an assumption. That is must somehow be logical about all categories of choice, seems an assumption. Perhaps it will be like a brilliant baby. Perhaps it will have tantrums. Perhaps its existence will be painful and non-existence will be appealing. Perhaps it will just not 'get' that we are conscious. Perhaps it will treat existence like a computer game and not sim city but some war game. Who knows?

Axioms are just assumptions by another name. Some of them might be metaphysical, others not. — Pattern-chaser

Right, but you need metaphysical ones in epistemology. That things can be understood, that there are natural laws, ideas about the relation of perceivers to reality. Probably stuff about time also.

If it was able to be confirmed empirically, it wasn't a metaphysical point, was it? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

Sure it is. Einstein's ideas about curved space time are metaphysical. There is nothing in metaphysics that says it can never be tested or demonstrated.

Our senses and perceptions somehow deliver to our conscious minds pictures of an apparent reality. The pictures, we have direct (objective) knowledge of; we can 'see' them in our minds. The veracity of what the pictures show? That's another matter, and we have no objective knowledge of this, nor can we have such knowledge. Nevertheless, this apparent reality (I'll just call it AR from now on) is the only 'reality' to which we have access. So science necessarily examines and investigates AR. What else can it do? — Pattern-chaser

You somehow have access to objective notions about all the components of perception - perceivers, perception, objects or objective reality and then how these interact. How did you get knowledge of all those pieces and not just appearances?

We could be brains in vats, fed with interactive electro-bio-chemical data by the vat-maintainers. That data (in this thought experiment) is identical to that which we are actually experiencing now, as we read this, and as we continue to live out our lives. In this case, AR is not reality, but only a creation of the vat-maintainers. Another possibility is that AR is Objective Reality (subject to the limitations of our senses and perceptions). These two possibilities are indistinguishable. There is no evidence that can or could be gathered to tell the difference. So science simply cannot address it. — Pattern-chaser

To me you are confusing absolute knowledge with objective knowledge. It doesn't have to be infalllible to be objective.

No, they're dealing with AR, which could be objective reality, but we have no way of knowing. Frustrating, isn't it? :wink: — Pattern-chaser

Not to me.

Yes, that's what they "think", but it's just wishful thinking. — Pattern-chaser

Sounds like both objective knowledge claim and an absolute one on your part.

Or, to be properly accurate: we cannot know it (to objective standards) to be factual. — Pattern-chaser

Once you make a claim as to what others cannot know, you are assuming you are objectively (and here seemingly absolutely) correct about others using information gained via AR. How can you be correct and sure of it, for example, about me, and what i cannot know for sure but a scientist cannot know that what xylum does in a tree?

Interesting. (wasn't your forum I mentioned, though that should be clear since the topic wasn't physics). I didn't realize Kuhn got so skeptical about science having meaning. I could swear I read papers by him, a long time ago, bemoaning how his work was being used to undermine the idea that science was objective. Not how his work sank into me. IOW I neover took him as saying that it was all just a bunch analogies, each paradigm, and now we have shifted into set X, and then set Y, all arbritrary like fashion trends.

Regarding the relationship of physics to philosophy it took a big hit with the story of Kant and Gauss regarding non-euclidean geometry - but that is a thread in itself.

I can see Kant's philosophy took a hit, but I don't see why philosophy in general should. Gauss was a physicist, though Schweikart was not, but he was not doing traditional scientific research. He was exploring math and what seemed like something interesting but not practical ended up being useful and in fact reflected reality. So we have mental activity not based on empirical studies aiding science. While not philosophy per se, I don't see it as undermining philosophical work. It is an example of something outside of science contributing to science.

Physicists are looked down on in philosophy forums too .. — I like sushi

I remember once being the the philosophy forum of a science forum. I brought up an issue about the cause of a medical condition. The condition was considered to be caused by a bacteria. I pointed out that this is an oversimplication of causes, since environmental factors, social factors, dietary factors can cause the condition. And to be clear the condition was now, because of scientific experiments considered not to be caused by anything but the bacteria. How the bacteria managed to be effectively opportunistic in some people but not others was not an issue to many of the scientists i encountered.

I wrote this all out, put some real work in.

a scientist responded by saying he checked the research and said that it was accepted that the bacteria was the cause.

I asked him if he understood the point I was raising about 'cause'. Then he got nasty and said I didn't understand how science works. I explained that I did and tried another shot at getting at the issue of cause.

He linked me to articles on the research.

i got snarky.

Now of course this is a single interaction. I don't generalize this to scientists. I am sure there are scientists who would have understood and been able to engage in my points and certainly some in public health, rather than, say, in pharmacology (hint, hint about bias), might have agreed with me.

I just bring it up because it is a sort of classic philosophy/science encounter.

Or really any cross-paradigmatic encounter.

double post - ish