has to be spelled out? We recognise illusion and hallucination in virtue of being a member of a community. — Banno

If you were on Ketamine you wouldn't be able to tell that you were hallucinating and if someone tried to tell you, you wouldn't believe them.

There are times when there's no difference.

Ketamine is another.

The ability to tell the difference can be taken off line with drugs. Datura is one.

Define 'reasonable'. — Olivier5

It was your wording.

What kind of reasonable solution were you thinking of?

That's a little myopic. We have this problem because we started using fossil fuels. The problem isn't that we're gluttonous. It's not a problem with the northwestern hemisphere. It's a problem the human species will have for the rest of its time on Earth.

A technological shift put us here. That's what it will take to stop it.

of looking at the problem differently, — Banno

Like with a blindfold on? :razz:

I have a hamster that drives a little turbine that I use to heat my tea. He's getting old, so my tea is usually luke warm.

I think we could use hamsters to generate the 4000 volts necessary to smelt iron. We just to get them motivated. A motivational speaker maybe?

None of which implies that we see things only indirectly. — Banno

It's what we would say of any other species, that its experience is a construction in which its particular strengths and needs are highlighted.

Yes, I run into a problem when I try to say the same thing about myself: as Wittgenstein pointed out, I'm trying to form a picture of something that isn't in my world. I think that's why nonsense appears.

You're saying the solution is to finesse the conundrum with a certain phrasing that leaves out the nonsense producing portion?

Why not just face the nonsense head on?

one does not see the results of one's nervous system, as it where; one sees with one's nervous system — Banno

I'd like to leave the "one who sees" out of it because I think the ego is probably constructed as much as the visual field is.

Point is, the brain isn't a video recorder, it's more like an organic computer, calculating and estimating.

Don't know. Is he attacking his own theory of acquaintance there?

Yes. It's fatally flawed, but an analysis of our nervous systems leads straight to that conclusion.

Maybe a scientific revolution is required.

So we repeat the mantra "It's got science behind it" in the place of thinking? — Banno

You misunderstand. It's not a view I favor or dislike. I'm just explaining where we are.

The debate between direct and indirect realism was settled a ways back in favour of dropping the distinction. — Banno

Could be. Nevertheless, indirect realism is on the table. Ignoring it won't help.

fails because the pod and the vat are not just "theoretical constructs". — Banno

Indirect realism lives on, though. It's got science behind it. It's a conundrum.

good grief

Science certainly does so. It is predicated on the idea that careful human observation of phenomena and the careful application of human reason to such observations (classifying, comparing, theorizing) can help make sense of the world. If you don't believe in that, you're not a scientist. — Olivier5

:up:

Something like this? — Olivier5

Yep. :grin:

A fairly obvious point when you think of it, but then few people do think of it. — Olivier5

I think of it as like being in a room and you're really preoccupied with something fascinating. Every now and then you glance at the walls and realize there's something wrong, but you don't pursue it. You just go back to being fascinated.

If you spend time allowing yourself to know what's wrong with the walls, you just laugh, and go right back. Do you know what I mean?

Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way.
What brings the self into philosophy is the fact that ‘the world is my world’.
The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world—not a part of it.

This is straight Schopenhauer.

Indeed, science is based on human perception, logic and imagination. So if human perception, logic and imagination are deemed problematic, then so should science be. — Olivier5

Exactly!

without just being programmed to detect what humans already think of as apples) — Isaac

Again, "Science has made me into a skeptic".

If that was true, you would have become skeptical about the scientific findings as well and arrived at the top of the ladder. :razz:

You may be right. :grin:

The "world" here is all that is the case.

Are scientific claims nonsense? — Harry Hindu

If they're about things in the world, they're fine. It's mainly philosophy that tries to comment on the world from a vantage point external to it.

I choose to argue for indirect realism because it's easier than arguing for idealism. What I actually believe is irrelevant. — Michael

But what do you actually believe?

I'm undecided actually. I just find it simpler to argue for indirect realism than for idealism. There's at least some common ground with the direct realist that makes for fruitful discussion. — Michael

Is it a matter of temperament? Indirect realism just suits you better?

They're inferred as it can be considered the best explanation for the occurrence and regularity of experience. Of course, some don't think this inference warranted — Michael

Why do you think it's warranted?

Why wouldn't I? — Michael

Because:

the properties of mind-independent objects are not present in the experience — Michael

I mean, if this is true, then how do you know about mind independent objects? What source of knowledge do you have other than your senses? How does this other source support your belief in mind independent objects?

I think that the science of the Standard Model shows that the character of our experiences and the nature of the mind-independent world is very different. — Michael

Why do you have confidence the standard model if you learned about it through your senses?

but I presume scientists don't actually see subatomic particles. — Michael

You agree with phenomenalism because of subatomic particles?

a) the properties of mind-independent objects are not present in the experience — Michael

I think that our scientific understanding of perception shows that both a) and b) are true — Michael

So science has access to the properties of mind independent objects? How is this possible if those properties are not present in experience?

We do, in fact, not experience reality past our senses. — Christoffer

Adding to this we have an extreme amount of scientific data that is testable and provable that tell us about a world past our perception — Christoffer

Isn't the scientific data about things that are past your senses?

I'm making a more modest claim: that what we know of the physical world is based on sensory input and ideas our mind creates in response. I don't deny the existence of the exterior physical world, only that we don't have direct access to it. — Art48

That's phenomenalism as I understand it. I guess my question would be: what supports this claim?

That metaphysical claims are nonsense.

That's the kind of reason I (and I claimed also W) counselled dispensing with mental entities. — bongo fury

In the TLP, he cautions against making claims of that kind (that's the overall message of the TLP, anyway).

Russell did believe that direct experience grounds the meanings of words.

"Every modern philosopher accepted some version of the theory of ideas—the view that we immediately perceive certain mental entities called ideas, but don’t have direct access to physical objects. Hume holds an empiricist version of the theory, because he thinks that everything we believe is ultimately traceable to experience."


"Impressions of sensation include the feelings we get from our five senses as well as pains and pleasures, all of which arise in us “originally, from unknown causes” (T 1.1.2.1/7). He calls them original because trying to determine their ultimate causes would take us beyond anything we can experience. Any intelligible investigation must stop with them.". -- SEP on Hume

Note that this is not an ontological view. This is epistemological: it's about what we can and can't determine. The question arises: how did we determine that our knowledge stops with experience?

don't think that's what Hume was thinking. Would you want to explore his ideas more? By going through the logic of bundle theory?
— Tate
I'd be interested but I think it should be in another thread. — Art48

Hume was a phenomenalist. Why would exploring his ideas go in a different thread?

Especially when do much green technology rests on these commodities. — Xtrix

On precious metals? Like what?

We experience objects "out there" indirectly via our physical senses and our mind. — Art48

I don't think that's what Hume was thinking. Would you want to explore his ideas more? By going through the logic of bundle theory?

population growth — jorndoe

Population growth is around zero in Europe, China, and the US. It's actually threatening to start going negative. Why do you think that is?

That's what trees have been doing for...some time...sort of. — jorndoe

Of course. Why would you think I don't know that?