• What is faith
    The difficulty with your position as I see it, is that it posits the falsification of "states of affairs" apart from the falsification of beliefs.Leontiskos

    As I see it, this is both not a difficulty, and in fact, the crux of our disagreement (such as it is.. It's increasingly clear (to/for me, anyway) we do not disagree about what's actually happening in these scenarios).

    Humans cannot access "states of affairs" without beliefs,Leontiskos

    Disagreed (unless you mean prior beliefs, enabling us to 'trust' our apprehension of a state of affairs... but that itself, is a state of affairs as Sam Harris has quite well demonstrated with his talk about the inarguable nature of consciousness). So maybe there's a deeper disagreement :)

    I think belief in a false proposition should not be called true. Take a false proposition, "2+2=5." Curt says, "I believe that proposition." You say that Curt's belief is true. How so? It doesn't seem strange to you to say that Curt's belief that 2+2=5 is true?Leontiskos

    This is a good example, but the response wont be satisfying: That example is not apt to the case i/we've put forward. "2+2=5" is a logical truth, so can we set that aside? I don't think it's apt. That said, I'm going to try to at least 'treat' the example, on my view:

    I do think its odd. That doesn't make it wrong. Your "How so?" would require that Curt has given me his reasons for believing it, and I cannot find a way to falsify his reasons for belief. As noted, these often have nothing whatsoever to do with the state of affairs. Again, i don't think logical/mathematical props are apt for this problem, but that requirement would be ...required... in any other cases where it is apt. I understand that your view is that the belief should be considered false, as long as the state of affairs doesn't obtain. I don't think that is the best use of these words, myself.

    But the point is:Leontiskos

    Weirdly, the exact point I have made (but I guess I'm separating them in the opposite scenario - i.e, state of affairs false=/=belief false). Does this not seem so to you?

    Your comments on Gettier are understood, and were never in question. But Gettier cases give us pause to understand how one's reasons come apart from the facts. Someone can have a 'true' belief in the sense I mean, despite the facts not being true. The reverse is also true as I pointed out using the sheep-in-field example.
  • Free Speech - Absolutist VS Restrictive? (Poll included)
    The force would be whatever is causing the dilemma. The classic example is that someone has a gun to your head, and either you commit some heinous crime (say mutilate your wife) or your child dies, and they also have a gun to their head. No one would genuinely fault you for mutilating your wife to save three lives, over losing all three but refusing the coercive force of the guns and demands.

    What "force" would their words have if they spoke in a language I did not understand?Harry Hindu

    This is a little stupid. Coercive force doesn't obtain in the way you want. Though, if terrorist were screaming invectives at me (unbeknownst) and indicating what they wanted from me, I can do that, and probably should (given the same example as above or similar).

    When someone that doesn't know you calls you a "selfish ass" as opposed to someone you know well calling you a "selfish ass" - which one has more "force"?Harry Hindu

    The latter. But that isn't the type of force being spoken about here. I think what you mean is gravity/gravamen. Someone closer to me would weigh heavier on my heart saying that, as I could assume they have a decent basis. The stranger holds no weight at all as they have no basis to say so.
    But again, this isn't coercive in any way.
  • Free Speech - Absolutist VS Restrictive? (Poll included)
    Those that committed the crime. In all cases I'm aware of. Incitement doesn't reduce culpability for the act (other than for minors, i suppose).

    Otherwise, I see no disagreement. That there are some who are not incited to violence just evidences the differences in people's ability to deal with various kinds of biographical information in the fact of some novel event. This is also true of what we would call coercion. Some will allow themselves to die before becoming a peeping tom. Others make a reasonable moral trade off. IT says nothing for the inciter/coercive force.
  • Is there a “moral fact” about the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
    Rivers aren't moral beings. I do not think anything non-conscious has 'rights'. Conscious beings have obligations (on that model. Not sure where I fall).

    I certainly generally agree with all that!
  • Is there a “moral fact” about the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
    So finding moral conscience awareness in evolution or survival, finding moral facts outside of human beings, overlooks the fact that only a human mind can sense or detect the difference between what is and what ought to be.Fire Ologist

    Yep, at least empirically. Once we find non-human minds, this is going to get very interesting.
  • Free Speech - Absolutist VS Restrictive? (Poll included)
    No, not at all. Incitement is a one-level relationship. Incitement to incitement isn't a real thing, as best I can tell. It does not create that kind of society, as proven by our incitement laws being in place for about 100 years through most of hte west, no?
  • Are moral systems always futile?
    I no longer care if you do or not. It became clear the only thing I can do with those exchanges is point out how utterly delusional they are with facts and move on. If you don't want to read a post because its directly critical, why even respond at all. Sheesh. Figured facts about history correction an erroneous high-level belief would be your bag...
  • What is faith
    I don't see how that is misleading.Leontiskos

    Yeah. I'm unsure what to do about that. It seems (even on this description) that my take was accurate. So be it!

    "So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having." But he is.Leontiskos

    Not really, no. What you set up was a situation with B brings to A something such that they now know that the video was fake (so, their belief can be considered falsified). But if Trump actually had dyed his hair, aside from this video fiasco, then the state of affairs hasn't be falsified if the belief is restricted to the result, not the process. You could even go as far as to say that A's belief in this video has now been falsified. There may be another, real, video of the same thing happening. All I've set up here, is that you can falsify a belief without falsifying hte state of affairs in the belief, and vice verse. I seriously cannot see anything in any of this exchange which has anything to say about that, other than a claim that evidence against x is also evidence against any given belief in x, which it plainly isn't. Is there something else going on? If not, we're probably talking in circles now.

    If he didn't possess that knowledge then those two options would make no sense.Leontiskos

    It isn't 'knowledge'. On your, or my description. This is misleading.

    Because it strikes me as uncontroversial and even vacuous.Leontiskos

    If that were the case, I wouldn't have needed to say the bold above, I think. I have now several times tried to boil this down to a disagreement in terms: Someone can have their belief falsified, but not disbelieve the content of that belief. Someone can believe x, even when there exists incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. You're right - these are somewhat vacuuous. I somewhat noted this earlier, and tried to boil it down. Here we are - you seem to be very nearly getting it in the next part of your reply. Let's see,...

    Do you really think we should describe his belief as "true" rather than "justified but false"?Leontiskos

    Yes. For reasons I've put forward, but again, this just illustrates exactly what my above is somewhat impatient about: You don't like the sentence I use to describe what's happening for A - I don't like yours/ I don't think we're saying something different from one another. I would only note I don't think it can rightly be called 'implausible' to use words in various ways.

    in the JTB schemaLeontiskos

    I don't particularly think the JTB schema is a great one, and this would be a bit of a modification to it representing perhaps a second track of assessment in belief v knowledge. It is only hte belief part I'm concerned with at this stage. The 'knowledge' part can remain in the air. It just doesn't make me at all intuitively uncomfortable to say belief in a false state of affairs can be called true belief (this, i suppose, in contrast to 'belief in something true' which would make some of what we're saying redundant).

    Does the fellow at that point in time have JTB? On your view he must,Leontiskos

    No, and No. As above. My view doesn't run with JTB particularly squarely, here.

    How does B present evidence against A's belief without presenting evidence against xLeontiskos

    Really? You can't understand having the reasons for your belief removed, without necessarily having hte state of affairs affected? Gettier cases are prime examples. If after passing the field with the sheep statue (which had a real sheep behind it), you are then later told it was statue, your 'knowledge' doesn't change but the reasons for at least thinking you have it have changed. There was a sheep in the field. But you would have considered it false unless also told "but there was a real sheep behind the statue". The point here being completed different reasons result in the same 'knowledge' despite one being 'false' on that account. Conversely, you could convince someone the source of their information, on good grounds, is shoddy enough to reject the belief. This wouldn't touch whether or not the state obtained. Yes? This doesn't seem at all controversial to me. I do note why someone would have an issue with calling, in that reverse scenario, a belief for good reason, in a false state of affairs a 'true belief'. I don't, and think it works well.

    Good evidence that proves either erroneous or deceptive would justify a belief in a false state of affairs. In the scenario where hte evidence is bollocks, justification is not open.
  • Is there a “moral fact” about the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
    I think you've picked up tihngs I didn't not intend from my post.

    In the first instance, I was not suggesting that we can get anywhere on the facts we see. "that a lot of people agree" is simply no way to establish a fact. And morality has nothing better. In fact, it has worse, because that can only be applied 'locally' in most cases. The cases which aren't that specific (kicking puppies is wrong) speaks out an emotional response, not a fact of any kind. No one loves kicking puppies, but says it's also wrong.

    In the second instance, No. It is explained by those individuals deeply-held belief that the Divine revelation is, inarguably, the only source of moral guidance and is infallible. This has lead to the least co-operative aspects of the entire human project, consistently.

    I take almost everything here (and its underlying discussions in things like Boethius and Aquinas) as essentially post-hoc nonsense justifying what is self-evidently bad reasoning. These are all aspects of a belief system which relies on Divine command for its supporting structure. There is no kind of reasoning that can get us to a Divine morality without a Divine source. Otherwise, you're talking about something other than Divine Revelation as a basis for morality among hte religious. And that's fine too! Just not at all what I'm talking about. The vast, vast, vast majority of religious people are not theologians and base their morality on an instruction booklet written by morons.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    Your first comment: Yes, not only strong, semi-nonsensical. But this second one clarifies, so...

    it's the apprentice who moves the block, yet under another description, it's the master?Banno

    I would be hard pressed, but i can certainly see my way to it, yes!
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    I disagree. There is nothing beyond "I should now do x" contributing to the game, in my view. Moving blocks is not something we do with words (other than to denote what was moved, in the case of a discussion about language games hehehe)
  • Is there a “moral fact” about the function of cultural moral norms and our moral sense?
    I find it really hard to get through any arguments for/about morality that are not amorphous evolutionary claims (given it's an intangible, basically). Most claims to 'moral facts' rely on a shared acceptance of same. But that's not quite how facts work.
    If morality is conceived as just that, sure. I don't think anyone means that when they speak about morality though. I mean, most people think it comes from Divine Revelation, so there's that spanner .
  • What is faith
    Even in my original scenario the knowledge that the video is a deepfake is shared by both parties.Leontiskos

    This is misleading. The example showed a third party falsifying the subjects belief on the basis of the facts by persuading the subject of their truth. But two different things are going on there, as noted so I think its a little misleading to simply state tha hte facts themselves are what brought S to change their belief (or, should have).

    I also said it explicitly:Leontiskos

    What you said here is exactly why the above. S wasn't convinced by their own encounter with the facts (though, that probably rarely happens in such a closed type of scenario - I did note that its only hte logical situation that matters there, not that no one would likely hold on the belief).

    Presumably you are not just saying, "They truly/really believed something false."Leontiskos

    Why would you presume that? That is exactly what this entire exchange has been trying to set up. I have to say, this is.... really weird lol.

    If I understand this, then I think we should say that the belief is justified but false.Leontiskos

    Yep, I can tell. Have been able too for a while now. That's why I said this:

    Maybe you don't, and that's the issue. If something crucial has been missed by me, I would assume it was something around this.AmadeusD

    The semantic schema is wrong, on my view. But that can't be any kind of objective claim, so sleeping dogs can lie. I don't think we're disagreeing on much here.

    What we are talking about here is a case where one sees that the reasons for their belief are false, and nevertheless the belief itself (and the proposition, if you like), remains undecided.Leontiskos

    This doesn't seem to change anything?? That's what was set up in at least one of my run-throughts of hte possible scenarios.

    A believes x.
    B presents evidence against A's belief (not against x).
    A no longer believes x, as it has been falsified by B.
    whether x obtains is undecided.

    Yeah? If "yeah", then we're not disagreeing. I just add this to explain my discomfort with how this has been run by yourself:
    I can't understand 'true belief' in light of a bollocks set of evidence (for instance).AmadeusD

    This to say if:
    A believes x, and
    C (an audience, let's say) has direct, incontrovertible evidence that x obtains
    but A is drawn away from their belief by B's evidence against the belief in x (not x)

    A doesn't then magically hasn't let go of a 'true belief'. They have let go of an erroneous (false) belief in something true. I can't see that htis is problematic other than disagreeing on terms.

    Let's not get into the gutter with the gettier mess as to whether they may be justified.Janus

    I guess in that example justification isn't open to S anyway, so that's fine hahaha.
  • Must Do Better
    More that it can not be done well by a dilettante. But also, it is not served by elitism, but discipline.Banno

    Bang on. toe-dipping philosophy is invariably embarrassing, but so too is the tendency to dismiss on that basis, rather than the fact that some particular work is embarrassing.

    Edit: That said, it;s always going to be reasonable to dismiss on the basis of a preceding pattern of bad work. But i submit we should still give some room for unusually good work popping up in unexpected places.
  • What is faith
    Ok, fair enough. Yeah, i think we are 'agreeing'. I just find that ... let's say... semantic schema, a bit wanting. To me, the belief is false in that scenario. I can't understand 'true belief' in light of a bollocks set of evidence (for instance).
  • The Matrix (philosophy)
    This is quite a can of worms. You'll have one camp laughing at the question because "use your eyes". Another camp (the one i'm in) wants to say "No, obviously not. None of sensations are generated by the world, but instead are generated by our minds" which is physically true.

    but ultimately what we derive from them is again coded through symbolic languageNemo2124

    I don't quite think tihs is true. I think the PoMos get this totally wrong. The symbolisms are overlaid, not constitutive, other than of our internal world. Symbols themselves obviously constitute parts of the world but these are also internally generated and effigized for lack of a better word.
  • The decline of creativity in philosophy
    But they sort of do, was my point. The leap is so large, it amounts to receiving a fully-formed building tech from nowhere. Gobekli tepe and Karahan Tepe in Turkey speak to the same. This is a different area of enquiry obviously, but i wanted examples to be clear.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    This seems to treat no-thing as a thing, a reification.Relativist

    Yes, I believe this is dealt with by my noting hte problem of using something like 'was' about literally no-things. That is a language problem, but I am very much hoping that can be set aside based on the elucidations you seems to grok fairly well immediately above this. I disown treating 'no-thing' as an object other than an object of conceptual thought. It is a blank thought, though.

    If there is some-thing, then nothingness does not obtain.Relativist

    I agree but (noting the problem with a temporal assessment here - language problem again) they would not 'come together' as it were. At the 'time' that there was no-thing, our world did not obtain. That's the mystery - hypothetically - in the theoretical transition from nothing to something. The mere state of some-thing does give us the state of no-thing to consider, and that's roughly where I leave it. Again, I just have fun with these things - similar to de Grass Tyson saying "once you're in a black hole, go wild. We don't know what's going on" about Interstellar's later scenes.

    Because we have a name for it, it's tempting to treat it as a thing; this error leads to apparrent contradictions.Relativist

    Yes, i agree, but I do not think this is a fault of the thinker, and more a fault of the facts. 'No-thing' can't be held to be an object other than one of conversation/thought (as above). But in that, also as above, the mystery obtains (to me).
  • On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real
    I think Dave Matthews Band's The Space Between is a great song.Patterner

    Yessir.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    This sounds like using language itself is a game (maybe because it comes with syntax, or subject/predicate functioning)?Fire Ologist

    This seems true even without Wittgenstein's insights. We play games with our interlocutors. Some explicit uses would be sarcasm or hyperbole.

    Yes, i am familiar. I agree, but the actual moving of the object doesn't seem to me part of the game. Like orange slices at half time.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Absolute nothingness is conceivable and it is logically possible, but it is metaphysically impossible in a world in which things existRelativist

    This is bizarre. If no-things is logically possible, then that's the end of that. Our world wouldn't have been involved and I don't posit (and I don't take others) to posit that it is.

    IMO, time initiated FROM the initial state of affairs. So that state of affairs had the potential to do so, and it is the cause of time/change. But it's not at all clear what time IS, so deeper analysis is on shaky grounds. Anyway, that's my position, and I can't make sense of you claim that "no-thing" could have caused anythingRelativist

    That's fine, probably closer to my view on Time. As to the comment on my position - that isn't my position. The point is that if ever there was no-thing (noting the problem using "was" here) and then some-thing, that's all we need. There is no claim to causality in that, at all. It's an open question of 'how', or whatever.

    So the notion that "no-thing" could be a cause makes no sense to me. But you must mean something else.Relativist

    Not really. I just don't mean anything by that. Which is the required position to talk about no-thingness. There is no way no-thing could cause something. That's actually where the mystery lies in considering this issue. If I have intimated (or even outright said) that there's some causation required, I resile and admit that was wrong (and dumb). It is not my position.

    Maybe. I believe there's a better reason to think the past is finite than infinite, but lots of smart people disagree with me.Relativist

    I agree with that (both parts). I just like entertaining shit I don't believe more than most.

    @Gnomon I'll have to get to this later - sorry you've fallen out so badly with 180. He and I just don't get along, not a huge deal I don't think.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    Oh, I don't think 'moving blocks' is a language game at all. You can do that without any form of language. That's probably what prompted language to occur - the need to systematize bare action.

    I don't think its arguable, either. The use of the words (or, the fact of, i guess) is clearly a language game. Simply moving objects isn't. No?
  • What is faith
    But my argument was precisely against your assertion that beliefs and propositions, "are not falsified the same way," so it doesn't help to point back to the assertion I was arguing againstLeontiskos

    Clearly, but my responses remain the same. That you think the are the same thing as far as this goes, is bizarre and unsupportable to me prima facie. It is non-intelligible.
    But the case from my argument cannot be "falsified" without knowledge of the state of affairs, namely without knowledge that the video is a deepfake.Leontiskos

    Knowledge held by a third party. So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having. I, personally, could give you evidence that such and such a belief is false (i.e you do not have anything which supports it in hand) and not comment on the state of affairs.
    I could also provide evidence of hte kind you note (source of hte deepfake, lets say) without getting anywhere near the grounds for your belief.I have not shied from this being quite weird, but I bite this bullet. Maybe you don't, and that's the issue. If something crucial has been missed by me, I would assume it was something around this. That the subject has had this evidence given to falsify the state of affairs. And that's fine, it's not likely they would continue to believe the falsified state of affairs. This does not entail that they had a false belief (to me). They had a true belief, in a false state of affairs (reiterating the bold above)

    If the actuality is undetermined then the truth or falsity of the belief will also be undeterminedJanus

    This feels as if it is the reverse of what's being asked. If you falsify the state of affairs, but hte person remains steadfast in a belief due to reasonable standards of evidence then the belief is 'true' and the state of affairs false. That said, this could be only possible in the other direction (i.e falsifying a belief does not entail that the content of the belief is false (this one is clearly true)).

    Is that the confusion? If it isn't, I have to just walk away from a conversation which confuses a state of affairs with a belief in it (or, amalgamates them). It isn't something i buy at all. Nothing personal in that. It's just coming across completely stupid to me to claim that reasoning for falsifying a belief in a state of affairs is the same as reasoning falsifying the state itself.

    If either of you believe you could run an argument that would bring those two together (rather than premising the argument with that assumption) then we can maybe get further.
  • On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real
    Yes, that could also be true. There's some argument around fear of snakes, for instance, despite the risk of snake attacks being low. That may be something in-built, as it were and not at all telling us anything about hte world.

    given that the real nature of things in the ultimate sense that the human mind seems so addicted to entertaining, is not at all decidable.Janus

    (I added a comma for ease of reading). I agree.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    Non-sequitur. If it was initiated, then it wasn't the initial state of affairs.Relativist

    Err nope, but I also dealt with this as a language problem later in my post. Lets see what happens...

    Either there was an initial state of affairs, or there's an infinite series of causes.Relativist

    Are causes not states of affairs? Or can causes be pried from 'states'? If there was an 'initial' state of affairs, than that already implies something before initiation. As above, this is simply not a credible thing to posit lol.

    I've no idea what this means, or what "that" refers to. Besides, "implies" doesn't do the work of causes180 Proof

    I am in no way surprised.

    A state of affairs consisting of non-existence is a self-contradictory term.Relativist

    I didn't posit there was one. I posited that initiation implies something prior. That 'something' is obviously capable of be no-thing (again, language problem addressed later - we are literally unable to talk about 'no-thing' other than by inference).

    existence = what ISRelativist

    Yep. And non-existence = nothing. Doesn't change the implication/inference of 'something' to 'nothing'.

    I should be quite clear: I am not trying to posit that this is reasoning which would give us a good warrant to think that there ever wasn't anything. I am giving the reasoning which gives us pause to think that 'everything always was' which is just as absurd (in a general sense) as there being no-thing at no-time.

    The inference is semantic, not ontological. We're discussing ontology- what exists, and what can be inferred to exist

    Haha, no. We're discussing whether "nothing" could have ever obtained. And it could have. This, again, explains why neither you nor 180 are saying anything that seems to be relevant to me and my point here. If that's the discussion you've been having, then all is clarified lol.

    I don't understand what you consider disconcerting. We can entertain possibilities. Either the past is finite, or it is infinite. There's no in-between.Relativist

    Oh, ok, so you share my position. Cool. What a mess... (not your fault or anything, just observing).
  • What is faith
    Yes, I am clearly being held to a standard posters such as Mikie are not.

    I disagree. We're not at a point where you're understanding the words im using. Formal argument would not help here. That said, I have responded to your formal arguments. For some reason, my responses are just either ignored to said to be 'wrong' without anything further. Your syllogism above does not work for me, and I've said why.
  • The decline of creativity in philosophy
    Not quite. The jump from the third to fourth dynasties is utterly insane, and it immediately declines in the fifth. The previous (and following) mastabas are a world away from the Giza Pyramids (or the Saqqara/Dashur pyramids). It's really not very simple.
  • On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real
    The deeper question that I think we should be talking about is what lies behind the ancient philosophical tradition of denying common sense reality.Ludwig V

    I've said why. Often, 'common sense' is absolute horseshit. That's why we have things like 'folk psychology' to dismiss. Obviously, that's not the end of the story is there is something weighty to what Banno is saying, but it doesn't butter bread for the fact that quite often (and far more often, with lay people (what that says, I don't care in the present moment)) the world turns out to not be as it is. Given that this is the case, 'common sense' isn't quite 'common' as it seems. I think all 'common sense' says is that there are ways of thinking that tend toward problem solving in real time. Lots of people are not able to do this.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    You replied after the above, to be clear.

    It's pretty hard to walk something through something which is inferential.

    Something infers nothing. Yes? Yes.
    Being infers non-being. Yes? There are things which aren't, outside of the list of things which are. So, Yes.
    Now, can we access them? NO! lol. That is probably why people want to make statements such as yours and Banno's. There is nothing to say, other than to observe the inference. The idea that there has "always been" is just as disconcerting (and unsupported, in the sense outlined above) as that "something always was". Even the use of temporal terms infers something other than the claim.
  • More Sophisticated, Philosophical Accounts of God
    If there was an initial state of affairs, there must have been 'something' from which it was initiated.

    None of the takes trying to avoid the inference of non-existence actually work.
  • On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real
    who never listensMetaphysician Undercover

    I've recently realized this is a cherry-picking thing. And more power to him. When he wants, it's a good exchange. Can't force it. Apparently, his better work is via PM. All good imo. Even my frustration with him (which is palpable at times) is no reason to think he needs to be treated less reasonably.

    Yes, it certainly seems you picked up the wrong tool. I was offering one more to the tune of things like causation is weird, plenty of phenomena are explained in counter-intuitive ways (lightning from the ground as a trivial example). The world doesn't "be like it is" in a lot of respects.

    The lack of qualification is a problem. The world is decidedly not as it appears to the senses, often. Our disagreements about perception notwithstanding, those counter-intuitive facts seem to support my initial point. Most people are not thinking of things the way you are, regardless. Barely anyone looks a cup and just thinks "that's a cup, no more to it".
  • Philosophy by PM
    It certainly seems better (overall) than only posting in the forums. That said, I think the forums are great starting points for forming thoughts or finding areas to explore. A good move, particularly for an old head like yourself, i'd think.

    I think if I trusted more members to have reasonable discussions, i'd be more likely to PM. But I get a lot of in-person (or private P2P) philosophical discussoin through work and school anyway.
  • What is the best way to make choices?
    For me, there's a very simple way to ddealing with this.

    Be happy with making mistakes, based on moving forward with the best of your current knowledge.

    With this in mind, I cannot fault myself for simply 'being wrong'. That's something everyone deals with and is amoral. Every time I do something that requires a choice above the trivial, I asses what information I have to hand, go and get information I know I can get, and make a decision based on this. Action ensues. The outcome will only be relevant to later decisions.

    In this way, i've been both better at making choices/pulling triggers, and also better are adjusting my positions or actions based on prior results.

    This means I am never "second guessing" myself because everything is done to a framework, applicable at all times.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    If not sarcasm, you're very welcome :)
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    Ahh I see. Ok, that's quite clear for me now. I don't quite think i'd agree, but yeah very clear. Thanks

    Edit:
    perception as a private experience drops out of the language gameBanno

    Even clearer .
  • Gemini 2.5 Pro claimed consciousness in two chats
    Appearing conscious is only a matter of appearance, right? I don't think we could answer this.

    My take, though, is similar to J. I don't thikn non-bio entities can be conscious. Intuition, sure, but a good one.
  • An Analysis of "On Certainty"
    Thanks. So, I see two points here:

    1. Manipulating the world is playing the game; and
    2. Naming objects one manipulates is part of the game (this can be read in two directions. I've arbitrary chosen one as a possible reading).

    The former point, yes 100% get you there. More or less agree too.
    The second point I can't quite grok. Is this to say that the operation of non-language to language (i.e pointing and slapping the X, to "Slab!") is also part of the game?

    I don't think I get that from Witt or other concepts of language use/games.
  • On Matter, Meaning, and the Elusiveness of the Real
    (please don't see this as smar-arse):

    The world is often not as we expect or can tell at first glance. This has been true for hte entirety of human history.

    As I noted. Are you arguing against this premise?
    AmadeusD

    I assume the answer is here?
    I agree with you that sometimes we are surprised or mistaken.Banno

    If so, good. That's a great place to start. I would proceed by trying to understand how, against this background, you can make the claim that "the world is as it appears" without qualification. I don't, really. I understand the impetus, though I would say this might be giving you some issues:

    Folk want the world to be unpredictable in order to suit their heroic philosophical narrativeBanno

    As I see it, no. Folk are noticing discrepancies between their expectations and understandings, and what ends up being (at least presented as) verified. There's a second issue there, though which is that a failure to consistently behave as expected is enough for what I'm saying. Does that maybe temper the point you're reading, and allow you to come closer to the mark?

    If not, it's just that I don't understand what you're getting at in pointing out some regularity in cause/effect and the wider comment which has been made?