• A Theory about Everything
    Putnam’s understanding of meaning assumes dualism: there are internal experiences, and external things that they mean. I reject dualism and so, I suppose, I reject Putnam’s understanding of meaning.Dominic Osborn

    Dualism? Putnam's argument for semantic externalism has little to do with dualism. Its conclusion is that the meanings of words (or thoughts) are causally constrained by speakers' encounters and interaction with the things that they speak or think of, and a division of their meanings by speech. An alleged solipsist has no sufficient reason to think of anything, for nothing comes from nothing.
  • An analysis of emotion
    it projects outwards a response to an internal conditionunenlightened

    What constitutes the response if not the internal condition? Perhaps I misunderstand, but I'd say anger is the internal condition expressed. It can be a response to other internal conditions or external events, or instantiate/emerge without being about anything in particular.
  • A Theory about Everything
    Or one has to remain silent, maybe.Πετροκότσυφας

    Right, a solipsist doesn't publish.
  • A Theory about Everything
    I cannot know that there is something other than my experience.Dominic Osborn

    On purely semantic grounds, you can know that there is something other than your experience.
    Meanings just ain't in the headPutnam
  • How do we know the objective world isn't just subjective?
    Sloppy use of language won't make the world subjective or objective; being referred to does not amount to being.
  • How do we know the objective world isn't just subjective?


    We can know this, for example, by investigating what's wrong with the question.

    Objective and subjective are categories used for how knowledge is acquired. Our knowledge can be subjective or objective, but to ask whether the things of which we acquire knowledge are subjective or objective is a category error, it makes no sense to ask whether the world is subjective or objective. It is neither.
  • Has social acceptance become too important in human society?
    But the question was not whether being social has become too important but whether social acceptance has. There is environmental pressure on individuals to be "socially acceptable", but this can mean many different things, from learning the language to adapting to oppressive habits (e.g. racist, nationalist, ideological) dictated by power in a conformist society.
  • What is wrong with binary logic?

    Unlike the world thoughts have the disjoint syntax of our language, they are easily detachable, and dependent on a network of things to think about etc The world, however, is continuous, non-detachable, and the whole of all things that exist independently of our thoughts about them.
  • How to Recognize and Deal with a Philosophical Bigot?
    People don't usually enjoy having their beliefs proved wrong, but some people hate it so much that they simply refuse to accept it, regardless of the proof. It might then seem liberating for them to assume that everyone has just their own opinion, that no-one is more right than any other, and that those who believe that some beliefs are right would be bigots. But who is the bigot? Hardly the one who accepts the risk of being proved wrong.
  • What is wrong with binary logic?


    Do you mean 'bivalent logic'? There is also multivalent and paraconsistent logics.

    Thoughts can be composed in many ways, and we can think about worlds composed in many ways, but they would be thoughts, not worlds.
  • Is the absurdity of existence an argument for god?
    Or is this just an appeal to emotions and ignorance?darthbarracuda

    The absurdity of existence is an argument for comedy :)
  • Does The Hard Problem defeat Cogito Ergo Sum?
    Is that clever? . . .intrapersona
    A solipsist doesn't publish, but you do. Therefore, you're not a solipsist. The existence of a speaker is not questioned by his/her speech but silence.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    One might add that experiences have a hierarchical structure which goes all the way from what fundamental physics describes to the objects and states of affairs that we see, hear etc..

    We can't experience each and every part of it, only those that an organism can detect, such as the presence of photons and the objects which emit or reflect photons into the visual field and system of the organism. But we can identify other parts dervivatively, and deduce that without this structure there would be neither objects and states of affairs, nor visual experiences of them.
    .
  • Does The Hard Problem defeat Cogito Ergo Sum?
    You can not think about anything at all and still existintrapersona

    Only if you'd be a solipsist, but a solipsist does not publish.
  • The Difficulty In Getting Affordable Housing - How Can It Be Resolved?
    It is not difficult to build affordable housing, the problem emerged with a financialization that
    . . has developed over the decades between 1980 and 2010, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity), and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics.Wikipedia
    A home is no longer a place to live in but a market commodity, hence the silly property shows on TV etc. The overwhelming influence of the limited interests of economists and marketers has become destructive for our societies.
  • How would you describe consciousness?
    One difference between a manipulative statement and a lie is that the former can be true (e.g. selective and misleading), whereas a lie is never true. Perhaps the dog was truly feeling cold despite the temperature...
  • "Architectonic"
    ...a mysterious architecture.wuliheron
    The tectonics of Kant's epistemology is not so mysterious, it can be credited a collection of basic concepts and their logical relations to each other, which forms and controls the structure and properties of his epistemology. Likewise, the tectonics of a building can be credited its elements and materials and how they have been put together, which forms and controls the structure and properties of the building.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Little prevents us from sharing epistemologically objective knowledge about our ontologically subjective experiences. We live in this objective reality, which we experience subjectively, but we talk about experiences and reality objectively (or "intersubjectively").
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Skepticism regarding perception thrives on the ambiguous use of words such as 'see' or 'experience'. It makes thinkers incorrectly believe that a mirage would be the object that one sees instead of the behaviour of light bent by air humidity, smog etc.. Or that in a hallucination one would actually see the things experienced instead of having one's perceptual system messed up by a drug or a disease or fatigue etc.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Really? Too bad. I think it is fairly clear that there is a difference between seeing something and having an experience of it, such as when remembering it without seeing it. I think the experience that one has in a dream is of the latter kind, when nothing is seen. After all one is usually asleep during a dream, with eyelids closed etc.., and there are many qualitative differences between "seeing" something in a dream and seeing something with your eyes.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Oh, but how could you see a dream banana? Didn't you rather dream the seeing of a banana? What satisfies the possibility that in the dream you saw a banana rather than just had an experience such as that of a described banana which is not seen?
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Under what conditions could you see rather than just experience a banana in the dream?
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Hence my question. What conditions satisfy the possibility that P?
  • "Architectonic"
    Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English?Bitter Crank

    I think the word makes sense also in English, at least via the Greek words 'archi' for 'prime' or 'chief', and 'tectonic' for 'what controls structure and properties', or something like that.

    For example, the tectonics of plates in the Earth's crust control the structure and properties of continental drift, the formation of continents, the sea bed, mountains and so on.

    In architecture the tectonics of elements and materials control the structure and properties of a building and its components.

    In Kant's philosophy it is the tectonics of his conceptual scheme which controls the structure and properties of a systematic study of possible knowledge.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    But is it true? What conditions satisfy the possibility to see bananas in dreams?
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Even in a dream, A could be true. . .Mongrel
    How could it be true unless it is assumed that you don't see the banana but only your own experience by way of which something you call 'banana' is then experienced (but never seen).
  • Spaceship Earth
    Perhaps Hawking is like the fictional mathematician in Asimov's Foundation series ;)

    . . .Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting 30,000 years before a second great empire arises. Seldon also foresees an alternative where the interregnum will last only one thousand years. To ensure the more favorable outcome, Seldon creates a foundation of talented artisans and engineers at the extreme end of the galaxy, to preserve and expand on humanity's collective knowledge, and thus become the foundation for a new galactic empire.Wikipedia
  • "Life is but a dream."
    I never asked whether you can have 'an experience of your own experience.'The Great Whatever
    I didn't say you did. I said it is assumed in your question. It is assumed and disguised in its claim that you're having an experience during which you're also thinking about what it is.

    You were unable to decide, on the basis of an experience you had, whether you heard what you thought you heard.The Great Whatever
    No, you assume too much. I was waking up, recall: I was unconscious when my brain's reticular activation system identified the sound of the phone, and thus activated sufficient conscious attention towards the phone for waking me up, but I was hardly conscious enough to be able to think about what I heard, nor contemplate on whether it is what I think I heard. It's ridiculous to assume that someone who is brutally woken up from a deep sleep would suddenly possess the conscious attention of some armchair phenomenalist who is awake and trained in thought about thoughts.

    you don't antecedently know whether for any given experience, you are perceiving (seeing, hearing, etc.) what you claim to be or think you are.The Great Whatever
    Now you're just repeating a false mantra, you're on your own with that.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Again, no you can't have an experience of your own experience during which you'd be unable to tell whether it is what you think it is.

    For example, the other morning the phone rang, waking me up from a deep sleep. The experience was a blur, and for a moment I couldn't tell whether I was answering the phone or dreaming.

    But it was not the blur of my own experience that I experienced, so the question whether the blur is what I think it is does not apply.

    I had yet to wake up, but when I was awake the "problem" of whether I was answering the phone or dreaming was quickly resolved (unlike your alleged problem which is basically insurmountable).
  • Spaceship Earth
    . . .nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. . . . I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go to space. — Stephen Hawking
    Humans would most likely bring with them their nukes, viruses, and other dangers. Space might have no future after humans begin to colonize it.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    You can take yourself to experience things you don't see, but never see things you don't see. You're using the word 'see' in two different senses.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    You can't both see and not see in the same respect, but you can imagine seeing something, in which case the seeing is replaced by an empathic ability fueled by memories or descriptions of seeing something.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    I don't see the experienced triangle having any lines or marks of its own, so, obviously I don't see the triangle. I experience it by way of seeing the black marks, like depicted things in illustrations can be experienced by way of seeing the concrete marks of which an illustration is made.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Sure, the experience of that white triangle, for instance. But the triangle has no lines of its own, and it is only experienced, not seen. Instead I see the black marks by way of which I experience a white triangle. When I see the black marks I can shift my conscious attention away from them and instead experience something I don't see, a white triangle.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Again, I'm not looking at my own experiences wondering which is illusory and which represents reality. That's your problem, not mine. The objects of my experiences are the real objects that I experience, not elements of my experiences.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    You're right. Philosophical rejections of naive realism also had the unfortunate consequence of jamming epistemology for the last 350 years with pointlessly complicated or obscure attempts to overcome a problem which arises from a simple fallacy of ambiguity regarding objects of perception. As if the illusory white triangle would be seen in the same sense as the black marks from which it is derived.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    It is trivially true that one either sees something or nothing, also in the case of hallucinations. It is not difficult to know whether one sees something or hallucinates.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    the problem doesn't arise from a representational view of perception, nor from the existence of sense data.The Great Whatever
    If during a hallucination one sees nothing, then he does not know for any given experience whether he is seeing something or nothing, unless he antecedently assumes what was to be shown.The Great Whatever
    Then, despite your denials, it is obviously assumed that his experience represents either something or nothing, and that the object of his hallucinatory experience would be some element of the experience itself, i.e. sense-data, generated by synaptic screw-ups.

    Direct realists don't make those assumptions about the nature of perceptions or experiences, so the epistemological problem is not the same.

    In the illusion of a white triangle in Wayfarer's post above we see black shapes on a white background as they really are, and make use of what we see, perhaps by entrenched habits of how to organize what we see. We don't see the white triangle as it is not there, but we evoke an experience by organizing the things we do see, and confuse the evoked experience with an experience of seeing a triangle.
  • "Life is but a dream."
    Again, I don't need to, your problem arises from assumptions I don't make.