Human eyes can see millions of different shades of colour. This is not because there are millions of different wavelengths between 400 and 740. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good point. :) ..but then isn't also the range of wavelengths analog and dense...i.e. between two identified wavelengths there is always a third. Hence there are millions of them too.

lol, but that assumes you actually have a will in that which you learn — ernestm

Where is it assumed? Lay it out for me.

It strikes me as funny that everyone attacks the story and ignores the conclusion. — ernestm

What conclusion?

It would take time travel to unlearn something already learned. If they want you to learn and use their methods instead of your methods, then would you thereby unlearn something? Knowledge, skills, methods, habits and such can be revised or replaced, not unlearned.

..songs that bring back floods of memories and emotions... — camuswetdream

Hearing a sound can be like seeing a photograph of the past. As such it functions as a symbol in which you can recognize things and events of which you have memories; the sound evokes those memories, and nostalgia is typically a positive attitude to them.

I am not saying here what the Gestalt psychologists say: that the impression of white comes about in such and such a way. Rather the question is precisely: what is the impression of white, what is the meaning of this expression, what is the logic of this concept 'white'? — L. Wittgenstein, in Remarks on Colour, p 46e.

The impression of the depicted strawberries might be grey-blue, but the meaning of the expression "they look grey-blue" is the colour of the picture, not the strawberries.

Heidegger confined himself to the standards of nazism, and perhaps he thought it was a duty. But I think it was bad judgement evoked in a bad society, and arguably his murky philosophy made him susceptible to it.

how am I conscious of myself. How do I feel what I feel and wonder about you feel. — dm12

To be conscious of something amounts to having one's attention directed towards it.

How a biological organism can have its attention directed towards something is partly explained by the fact that there are things which are interesting enough to pay attention to; typically things which tend to increase the fitness of the organism, such as food, sex, dangers or predators etc. It seems fairly clear how the organism may also benefit from paying attention to itself, its capacities, like the presence of others and their capacities. That's one part of an explanation of how you are conscious of yourself.

The other part would be to explain how all the biology works in terms of synaptic events etc., i.e. how the biological activity of directing attention towards things arises from lower lever biochemical processes. It might require more empirical research but the problem does not seem insurmountably hard as some philosophical dualists would like to have it.

What is there to prove when the assumption, that it would be possible to live in a hologram or simulation, is incoherent?

Would you say the same of God? — TimeLine

God is a religious concept.

. . .functions as a symbol of evil and therefore is worthy of moral consideration. — TimeLine

Why would you consider whether the word 'satan' is evil? Can a symbol of evil be evil? I don't think so.

For example, we can't ask the word to apologize, confess its sins, send it to prison, nor expect it to improve its behaviour etc. It's a word, not a moral agent.

...proof that we live in a hologram or simulation? — Existensialissue

Hologram or simulation of what?

If it is a hologram or simulation of reality, then it is a hologram or simulation of the reality in which we live. It would be nonsense to ask whether we live in a hologram or simulation of the place in which we live.

Furthermore, if the question makes no sense, then talk of proof or references to QM are irrelevant.

Disregarding the many unwarranted assumptions and assertions in the OP (e.g. that nature would be an agent) I believe there is some philosophy to be discussed on the fact that animals kill and feed on each other's bodies instead of plants, minerals, sunlight, and so on. Could it be otherwise? For example, I doubt that my cat could become a vegetarian.

I'm writtin an essay about philosophical concept of Satan based on the analisys of the poem by Charles Baudelaire "Litanies of Satan" (incl. "Prayer").
So, in the text, i need to mention two different philosophical sourses that must be printed and published after 1970.
What's the problem? I am a first year student, not a philosophical direction, and I do not know how to distinguish between philosophical text from non-philosophical. — Maks23

I'd say Satan is a religious concept, not philosophical. Baudelaire's "philosophical" claims have little to do with philosophy. Instead they were deliberately obfuscatory and controversial, a way for the romantic poet to market himself as a public figure.

I guess it will be something like when older industries became obsolete and abandoned. When we run out of oil some industries and places will be abandoned, because they depend too much on oil, whereas new places and industries may run on other energy sources, which will probably thrive in the absence of oil. Perhaps some of the major oil companies will manage to convert to solar power companies even?

Why would you leave out logic, morality etc. from a physical world? Are you thinking that a physical world would have to be some kind of a dense lump of matter without parts? It seems fairly clear that the physical world has different parts, and thus logical relations between them, such as parthood. Likewise, as long as there social creatures in a physical world there are also relations between them which depend on their behaviour. So there is morality in a physical world.

Childhood experiences do not give us a metaphysics, but they shape the stance that we will have. — Bitter Crank

Children might be shaped to believe that Santa Claus exists, but later they learn to think. Thought is not shaped by childhood experiences.

“Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world, revisionary metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure.” — Peter Strawson

I'm a descriptive metaphysician, it should show in my attempts to describe what is actual rather than possibly better.

That would require magic, not omniscience. Potential is an object of thought, not perception.

the world is the totality of perception — Heister Eggcart

Perception of what?

Aren't things that are perceived through the senses necessarily physical? — Samuel Lacrampe

Investigate what it means for something to be physical, does it leave anything out?

. . .We once had a blind poster on the old forum who asked us to explain sight to her and she couldn't make heads or tails of it, which is expected. — Michael

Strange, because usually obscurity inspires people to imagine more, not less. Fiction thrives on it even.

And when you imagine seeing neutrinos with your super-naturally sensitive eyes, what do you imagine? A tiny little ball, perhaps? I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that would be completely wrong. — Michael

Can imaginations be wrong? What is an example of a right imagination of something, anything?

. . .the blind person must have had some experience that is something like colours for them to understand colours, which they don't. — Michael

Here you're talking about understanding colours, not imagining them. And why would anyone need some experience that is something like colours to understand colours?

One counter argument might be that we can imagine, i.e. experience, fictional things we simply couldn't have had previous, nor similar, experiences of. Unseen colours even. Heard of blind painters?

How can the blind evoke an experience of a kind they've never had? — Michael

The question is incoherent, because one could not have something of a kind that one has never had.

From the lack of visual experiences it does not follow that the blind would therefore be incapable of imagining what it's like to have them. To imagine is to experience something real or unreal via knowledge, empathy, speculation, abductive reasoning etc.. We may imagine things impossible to perceive, or places impossible to visit and so on.

I think it reasonable to suggest that those who've never experienced sight at all would be like the one who can't remember, given that the information was never in the brain to begin with). — Michael

That's trivially true. But to imagine something new is not to remember something old. What do you know about imagination?


(EDITED for clarity, Feb. 22nd)

. . . ..won't help a blind person understand what it's like to see colours. How can you think it would? — Michael

Knowing that red is used in different ways in different cultures helps us understand what it's like to see red in different contexts. I think you ascribe the blind too many disabilities. A bind person lacks the ability to see; not to understand, nor imagine, what it's like to see.

I've never seen neutrinos, I can't see them, but I know a little about them: for example, that they are difficult to detect, even with sensitive instruments. That alone is enough for me to be able to imagine what it's like to detect them, or see them with my imagined super-naturally sensitive eyes.

Imagination is, unlike perception, an evoked experience which is closely related to perceptual experience but occurs under very different conditions. Instead of direct causal links and interaction with present objects there is knowledge, empathy, and the ability to evoke experiences we call imagination. Do you think that's controversial or false?

It's a very common metaphor, so I would be very surprised if you were not already aware of its meaning. It's used in that way to mean "to imagine or visualise". To see with your mind's eye. It's not meant to be taken literally, hence the scare quotes. — Sapientia

Oh really. But 'to imagine' is what I said, recall. The fact that "seeing" is a metaphor does not make its use appropriate, nor innocent, in a context where one argues for a rejection of its literal meaning in talk of imagination.

tracing the effect back to the cause. — Samuel Lacrampe

There are other things to perceive than physical objects, such as socially constructed objects, which are not so physical, nor are they imagined; they're agreements perceived as things to live by. From the fact that you perceive something it does not follow that the world is physical (unless you'd assume that perception must be the cause of a physical world, but then your argument would be circular and invalid).

What does "seeing" mean when nothing is seen?

The blind can understand the theory behind the colour blue, that is, a certain frequency range of light wave, but he could not "see" the colour blue in his mind. — Samuel Lacrampe

But when we imagine seeing something we don't really see anything. That's why it is called 'imagination'.

Actually it depends on our ability to imagine physical things. Because if we cannot imagine physical things prior to experiencing them, then how can we explain our perception of physical things if these things don't exist anywhere? If we cannot provide an adequate alternative explanation for that phenomenon, then we must conclude that physical things exist. — Samuel Lacrampe

Are you assuming that the world would be made of your perceptions or imaginations? Why else would you claim that the question whether the world is physical would depend on our ability to perceive physical things?

In a physical world it happens to be possible for certain biological creatures to perceive things, invent a language by which they can talk about their perceived things, as well as other things they don't perceive but imagine. It is even possible to talk complete nonsense. In a non-physical world, however, we wouldn't talk nonsense even, because without the recalcitrance of a physical world inhabited by biological creatures there would hardly be any sufficient reason for the invention and use of words.

I would describe the colour indirectly, by referring to its effects on people who can see it, by how they use the word 'red', describe things in which the colour occurs in nature, and its metaphorical uses etc. To imagine what it's like to see red is not to see anything, recall. Imagination is the evocation of an experience via knowledge of one's past or other experiences. Without any past visual experiences the blind can still use knowledge of other experiences, or knowledge of other people's visual experiences, in order to imagine what it's like to see red.

We cannot imagine anything that we have not already experienced in the past. EG: a man that is born blind cannot imagine the concept of a colour. — Samuel Lacrampe

As long as the blind share our background capacities and language there is little that prevents them from understanding descriptions of colours and imagining what colours are like.

It's relatively easy to imagine things or events that violate the laws of nature, such as shining darkness, ghosts, super heroes, and gods. To imagine these things does not require past veridical experiences, they're fictional, not real. We can imagine almost anything. If something is impossible to imagine it might be direct contradictions, such as 'a sun that shines and doesn't shine at the same time', or impossible things such as square circles.

But whence the assumption that the question whether the world is physical or non-physical would somehow depend on our ability to imagine non-physical things? It doesn't.

perhaps an unidentified infectious disease? — TimeLine

Right, the harmful effects of something contagious and invisible to the naked eye was identified long before knowledge of the existence of germs and viruses had been established.

It occurs to me we often derive or hypothesize that things exist from identifying what they are. Do we ever identify or hypothesize that something exists regardless of what?

Some would call it a futile endeavor because the question is unanswerable. — TheMadFool

There is a decisive answer to the question whether we're brains in a vat, recall. We're not brains in a vat, because if we were, then not only would our lived world be a simulation, the words 'vat' and 'brain' would not refer to real brains and vats either. Likewise, we don't live in a simulation.

The argument is that if there are more simulated worlds than there are non-simulated worlds then you're more likely to be in a simulated world than a non-simulated world. — Michael

Looks like it contains fallacies of ambiguity, such as two different senses of 'world' used in one sense: worlds you could be in. Or different senses of 'to be': as in to be in a world, or to be represented in a world etc..

I didn't say that.

I think the idea is that there is one universe and it is the inhabitants of the future that are simulating the past, and they are doing it an enormous number of times. Hence we are far more likely to be simulated than real. — tom

What a dizzying idea, but an enormous number of simulations won't increase the likelihood of other things being simulations. Even in a universe replete with simulations each and every simulation must be composed of parts which are constituitive for the possibility, but insufficient separately. The number of parts is always greater than the number of simulations.

But, if you add in the infinite number of other universes, and the infinite number of causally disconnected regions in our own infinite universe, then the fact that we are simulations is inevitable. — tom

How would an exercise in counting infinities be a reason to believe that reality is a simulation?

Like I said, it seems you can't comprehend that there is more than one universe. — Grey

What part of

there must be something left, say a second universe — jkop

do you not understand?

He's not saying that there isn't a real non-simulation universe in which our universe is simulated. — Michael

He says that the entire universe is a simulation, in which it is assumed that there isn't anything outside the simulation. Or he is misusing the word 'entire' or 'simulation' or both.

That's not my problem but yours. What I typed lays out how your claim fails to make sense.

Whence your concern for my comprehension? Post a counter argument instead, if you can.

Look, a simulation requires that there is something to simulate. If the entire universe would be a simulation of someone outside the universe "running the simulation", then it shouldn't be a simulation of a universe but someone outside it "running the simulation", which is obviously different from a simulation of the universe. Like I said, it makes no sense.

The entire universe cannot be a simulation, because there must be something left, say a second universe which is real, and of which our universe could then be a simulation. So the speculation makes no sense.

when entities use their capacity for reason are they able to reason apart from their personal natural history in an objective manner? — jackhuxy1

You might be interested in this book: Fear of Knowledge (2006), by Paul Boghossian, in which the idea that knowledge and reason would be fundamentally cultural or subjective is torn to shreds.

reason is simply a product of human existence — jackhuxy1

I don't think so. Reason is not a product but the capacity to make sense of words, beliefs, or perceptions, and as such it is not exclusively human. A bird, for instance, might not make much sense of words but it makes sense of things it sees, hears, feels etc., which enables it to act accordingly. Its tweets, colours, and gestural signs might be products of bird existence, like our words, pictures, and gestures are products of human existence. But the capacity to make sense of things is then not species-dependent but a feature of the biology of conscious creatures.

Alien blobs may thus have the capacity to make sense of perceptions, beliefs, or signs in alien blob languages.