They say you can't ask what happened before the big bang and such a question makes no sense. To me that sounds like just dismissing an awkward question. "Don't ask. It's grown up business and you wouldn't understand."

Imagine the looks you'd get when you walk into the bar having just proved the Riemann hypothesis is false. Maybe someone has done it, they're just keeping quiet.

What biological advantage does qualia provide? — RogueAI

Source of income for philosophers.

I think I'll go for the free health care, welfare state and universal education. If I can have all that without military music and wild slogans I'll be delighted. If I'm a Marxist I'm probably more Groucho than Karl.

Cute idea. But how would they set the odds? Free will eleven to two against determinism and all bets off if compatibility is true. On reflection, all the fun would be in the post-match disputes which would probably never be resolved. That would take us back to where we started.

Do philosophy people have a reputation? — TiredThinker

I think I can confidently say that philosophy people do not have a reputation. In order to have a reputation one minimum requirement is not to be widely ignored. Hardly anyone pays attention to philosophers aside from other philosophers.

I would be in favour of abolishing the police, if there were no crime. It doesn't follow that I'm in favour of abolishing the police.

The question at issue is whether capitalism is the cause of poverty and misery or whether they merely happen to co-exist. So the OP begs the question.

Sure about what? — schopenhauer1

Are you sure that things would be "Just like now" as suggested in the OP? In the OP scenario, there would be no poverty or misery and there would still be capitalism. But in the world that is "just like now" - this actual world - there are both poverty and misery and there is also capitalism.

This is for all you commies. — schopenhauer1

I'm not a commie but can I join in?

What if ....Everyone was making a decent enough salary to live in a house, buy some entertainment goods, a car, had all their daily living met.. Would that satisfy you about capitalism, if it offered that to those willing to work? The capitalist owners are still in place and are much more wealthy is the catch.

OK so far.

Just like it is now

Oh. I see the owners in place. But I don't see everyone living in houses and being entertained. If I missed that change then I'm very happy about it. I'm particularly glad those children don't have to scavenge off rubbish tips any more and the garment workers are all in with the cars and the entertainment goods. Great news. Thank you. But are you sure?

Could we reword the claim "consciousness is an illusion" as "consciousness is created by neural activity in the brain"? — pfirefry

Sounds better. What this seems to say is that if you take away our brains and nervous systems we will no longer be able to know whether or not we are patting the dog. Now that is something I can sign up to. It's a minor triumph but a lot better than 'consciousness is an illusion'.

Spot the fallacy! — Agent Smith

If time is not real, then Agent Smith didn't post the OP before I posted this. Anyone for modus tollens?

Thinking is not an illusion, the concept that you need a non-physical entity to think is. — Brock Harding

So thinking is not an illusion - but (according to OP / topic title) consciousness is an illusion, or at least an 'illusion' - which may be something different? Yet we need to be conscious in order to think.

When I think about neurons - that's not an illusion, even though I can't experience the firing of neurons involved in the thinking, which is in itself after all only the firing of neurons. When I pat the dog - that's an illusion, because I cannot experience the firing of neurons involved in the perception and what I call 'patting the dog' is merely the firing of neurons. Seems quite arbitrary.

I expect you're right that you don't need a non-physical entity in order to think. But it does not seem to follow that consciousness or mind or our everyday dog-patting-style perceptions are illusions or that patting dogs is any more illusory that discussing neurons.

I am in no way suggesting that physical processes are an illusion. — Brock Harding

So patting the dog - a physical process if ever there was one - is not, after all, an illusion (when I'm patting the dog). Else, why does your argument apply to events like patting the dog and not apply to events like electrical brain impulses? Seems a bit picky and choosy to me.

We do not experience the light meeting our retina, travelling to our optic nerve as an electrical signal and into the brain structure and IT cortex where 16 million neurons activate in different patterns and register seeing a dog. — Brock Harding

By the same argument, digestion is an illusion. We may eat food and feel satisfied. But we do not experience the enzymes at work and the chemical transformations that occur in our bodies. These forums are also an illusion. We may think we are 'reading posts' but we do not experience the stream of 1's and 0's that constitutes the data. The 1's and 0's are also illusions: we may think we are dealing with binary numbers but we do not experience the electrical impulses of which the numbers are mere symbols fitted for our understanding. Further, illusion is an illusion. We may think we are seeing an illusion but we do not experience the nervous processes that we call 'seeing an illusion.' Since everything is in those terms an illusion we can jettison the concept of 'illusion'. It divides every term in every equation and so we can multiply it out without any loss of information.

On the other hand, some things are illusions: the rabbit from the hat, the winnings from your scam lottery ticket. Other things are not illusions: the hair of the dog you're patting when you pat the dog, for example. The hair of the dog when you think you're patting the dog but are just absent-mindedly patting the collar of your parka - that's an illusion.

The flies enjoy being in the bottle. (At least this one does). Perhaps that's the problem...

It's an illusion. Language again confounds us — Sam26

Yes, I completely agree. The point that kept me awake was the specific challenge - "OK, it's an illusion - now at which step exactly is the fallacy in the argument outlined in the wikipedia article - what premiss(es) do we have to deny and at what apparent cost?" As you say, there's a problem with 'unknown truths'. But coming into the room afresh, I ask myself - are there unknown truths? - well, yes, sure, everything that is the case that we don't know is an unknown truth... But as you point out, that is where we can be confounded.

It's like saying, "I both know, and don't know, that X is true, which is contradictory. — Sam26

To assert the truth of p is to claim knowledge that p. To assert that the truth of p is unknown is to disavow knowledge that p. So "p is an unknown truth" is simultaneously to claim and to disavow knowledge. — Cuthbert

Notice that "p is an unknown truth" uses a proper name - p - for the unknown truth. — Banno

So, it's true, but I don't know it. What!?This is essentially what you're doing by affirming an unknown truth. — Sam26

Agreement seems to be breaking out wildly on this thread. So how did it get to be a paradox? It's actually pretty clever and not so simple to pinpoint the exact place where the problem or fallacy occurs. I think it might be the premiss p -> LKp. That is because Kp -> ~ ( ~ Kp). So K(p & ~Kp) entails a contradiction. But can we buy the proposition that there are true propositions that cannot be known? And can we know that proposition to be true?

It is sensible to claim "Either p is an unknown truth or not-p is an unknown truth" With this amendment the conclusion of the argument is that we know p v not-p. That'll do nicely.

Fitch's paradox asserts that the existence of an unknown truth is unknowable. — Wikipedia entry for Fitch's paradox of knowability

I would say the argument establishes only that the assertion "p is an unknown truth" results in a contradiction. To assert the truth of p is to claim knowledge that p. To assert that the truth of p is unknown is to disavow knowledge that p. So "p is an unknown truth" is simultaneously to claim and to disavow knowledge.

I cannot think of an example of anyone claiming "p is an unknown truth". There are many claims of the form "If p is true, it is not known that p; and if p is false, it is not known that not-p". Or "The truth of the supposition that p is not known." That is why a more usual form of words would be: "We don't know whether p or not."

Example. We don't know whether there is a highest pair of twin primes. It would be odd to claim that there is a highest pair of twin primes (i.e. it is true that there is) and also to claim that we don't know that there is a highest pair (i.e. it is an unknown truth). That latter claim would be of the form "p is an unknown truth" but it is not a claim that anyone makes.

I think the paradox shows that a kind of claim that nobody ever makes would result in a contradiction. Not a great discovery but worth something.

We can't know if other minds exist and not that we know other minds don't exist. ........enough room in there to have a meaningful conversation or some semblance of it, no — Agent Smith

If there is room for a meaningful conversation, then solipsism is false. If this is merely a semblance of a conversation then it is a person's train of thought. But whose? It can't be mine, if you posted. And if I posted, it can't be yours.

Ok, I'm putting the wrecking ball away for a bit and unpicking the point.

We can doubt whether, for example, a webchat with a company is with a person or a bot - and as bots get more sophisticated we might be completely uncertain and make the wrong call. But this doubt is predicated on our being able usually to make a distinction between bots and persons. When this possibility is presumed irretrievably absent and logically inaccessible, then both doubt and certainty are out of the question. We may only be ignorant of things that could be known if we only knew them.

.

Ok, pfirefry, if solipsism is true, then either you're a bot or I am. I'm not. How 'bout you? And when you complain of unfairness on behalf of solipsism, who do you imagine you're complaining to?

And welcome to the Forums, by the way.

But there is no point to argue against it. You can only prove to your opponent that you cannot see — pfirefry

If anyone proves anything to anyone else, then solipsism is false.

As per solipsisim p-zombies are possible. Were they not, solipsisim has no leg to stand on. — Agent Smith

If solipsism is true, then it is an idea that cannot be communicated because there is nobody to communicate it to. So, given solipsism, if you wrote the above post, you did not communicate anything.

If you can get the idea of solipsism across to anyone or if anyone agrees with you or if anyone disagrees with you, it's false. If you understand what I've written here, or even if you don't, then it's false - because there is one to write and one to read, which is no longer solipsism.

That's the leglessness of solipsism.

Philosophically, I am a solipsist and a panpsychist.

....says the Quora poster (from Opening Post in this thread).

If yours is the only mind, then I am not writing this post. I am writing this post. So yours is not the only mind. If mine is the only mind, then you are not reading this post. You are reading this post. Therefore mine is not the only mind. That makes two of us. Wonder if there are any more?

As for panpsychism and the idea that we are all really one person with one mind, that's ok too until it comes to splitting the bill in the restaurant or defending plagiarism in your college essays. That is, it's ok for playful whimsy in online forums but it's not fit for use in human life and it's not coherent thinking.

Some clarification: empathy is a subject of psychology. Or please enlighten me what philosopher has used empathy to argue about the nature of reality or perception. — Caldwell

Empathy and the Philosophical Problem of Other Minds — SEP

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/

You won't find me, or I think any lawyer, citing Descartes as an authority in a court proceeding. — Ciceronianus

True. I am talking about the philosophical bases of law and law-making rather than legal practice. But you will find philosophers dealing with legal concepts and lawyers who do philosophy. I'm thinking of Mary Warnock, for example, her work on education of children with disabilities (1970 Education Act). Abortion, passim. Human rights law. etc.

It's under-determination. For any finite set of observations an infinite number of hypotheses can be generated that will fit the data. For any finite number of co-ordinates an infinite number of lines will pass through them. But as more data / co-ordinates are observed, some of the hypotheses are falsified.

If that were true, why would anyone have bothered to proffer a new (heliocentric) theory? — Agent Smith

Because it also makes false predictions, in addition to the true ones.

The problem is we can show this:

If Theory, then Data.

And so we can show this:

If not-Data, then not-Theory

But we can't (deductively) show this:

If Data, then Theory

If fairies paint the buttercups yellow, then we'll see yellow buttercups. True.
If we don't see yellow buttercups, then the fairies aren't painting them yellow. True again.
So if we see yellow buttercups, the fairies are painting them? No, sorry.

Yes, the law will decide. The link I am making to Descartes is on the question of 'what can be doubted?' Knowing someone's complete physiology, present and past, does it make sense to doubt their sex? Some say very insistently, no, it makes no sense, because the sex can be read off the physiology with certainty. Others say most stridently, yes, because a person's sex is determined not by observation of others but by that person's self-perception. The law, in deciding, will need to grapple with the metaphysics. If it doesn't do so explicitly and with argument, then it will do so implicitly and with unquestioned assumptions. It's a case for philosophy of law, not just for law. If the law-makers ever get round to consulting a philosopher I would bet that the name of Descartes will surface at some point in the discussion.

I'm not sure how much I'm devil's advocating here because I share your impatience with apparently meaningless questions, brains in vats and other distractions. But increasingly I see how these tangles can be a cause of real life problems and I have more sympathy for the ivory tower puzzles than I used to feel.

It's awkward English, but if a non-native speaker said that to you, I think you'd easily figure out what they meant. — Millard J Melnyk

Sure. They would mean it's not in their pocket. When someone types 'Untied States' by mistake you know what they mean. But 'untied' does not mean 'united'.

And 'other than' does not mean 'not'.

Some thing can be said to be 'other than' a different thing. 'In my pocket' is not a thing. My pocket is a thing. 'My house keys are other than my pocket' is true. 'My house keys are other than in my pocket' does not make sense.

We have the two expressions because they have different senses and meanings.

So, if it's solid that "other than" is a peachy substitute for "not", I can point that out when people go loopy and encourage them to actually try the substitution and realize the difference it makes. — Millard J Melnyk

I did what you suggested and got nonsense. Turns out I need both expressions in different contexts.

Let's say it's true that A is not B.

Let's also say that A is not C.

Does it follow that B is not-A and that C is not-A? — Millard J Melnyk

Not necessarily. Cats are not tigers. Cats are not lions. But tigers are cats. And lions are cats.

So what I'm looking for a case where, for a true statement "_____ is not _____", the statement "_____ is other than _____" would not be just as true and convey the same meaning, even though they feel like they're different. — Millard J Melnyk

My house key is not in my pocket. True.
My house key is other than in my pocket. No clear sense.

This shows that in English we need the concept 'not' and also the concept 'other than'. Handily, we have both expressions, each useful in its own way.

I think that's more a dispute over the definition of "sex." As far as I know, there's no dispute regarding the definition of "hands." But in all honesty, I don't know much about the "war" you mention. — Ciceronianus

Lucky you. It's dismal. The relevance, I'm arguing, is that as well as all the heat and dust there is a metaphysical question or doubt, although not the same as Descartes's doubt. One proposition is that, given all that can be known about a person's body and its history, their sex may be inferred, if it can be inferred at all. Another view is that such a proposition is false. On the contrary, it is believed, any amount of information about a person's body is insufficient to establish their sex with certainty; and such information is indeed not even necessary. The 'war' is real enough: passions are raised, careers threatened and relationships broken. Perhaps this is a case where we have not enough in the way of general metaphysics outlining at least the possible grounds for agreement and difference. Far from being a waste of time the speculations could contribute to making peace. Anyway, nothing else seems to be working.

Them Greeks did some funny things with words. — tim wood

Private citizen= idiotes -> commoner -> pleb, chav, idiot. Similar derogatory shift in English.

I was taught that 'idiotes' meant private citizen and the concept was transferred metaphorically to mean 'living in a world of your own'. But I don't know.

I think that entertaining pseudo-questions isn't beneficial. — Ciceronianus

But it's not always a cut-and-dried distinction - the one between questions and pseudo-questions. Wars have been fought over this. In fact a war of a kind is underway right now. I mean, between people who know or think they know what sex they are, regardless of what kind of body they have, and people who think or know that our sex is (usually) as much beyond discussion and doubt as (usually, again) our possession of hands.

My problem with the anthropic principle so used is that it can be used to explain everything and so explains nothing. Why is the earth 93m miles from the sun? Because if it was closer or further away we would burn up or freeze. We are here and alive. No more explanation needed. Nah. It's a principle that should not be invoked to steamroller tricky questions flat.

So, would I be right in saying that our, especially a philosopher's, attempt to make sense of it all is, in a sense, misguided as it is not at all certain that this can be done. — Agent Smith

I think the idea is that making sense of the universe is not a misguided project - but it is we who are making the sense of it and we are not reading off a sense that is already there. Making sense of things is a project for rational minds and the universe is not in itself and as a whole a rational mind. So another theory goes.

A particle cannot be and not be at the same place at the same time. — AgentTangarine

Yes, I am sure you are right. By "So the theory goes" I was referring to the theory which I don't subscribe to - Hermeticus's post near the start of the thread. Superposition is a distraction. A theory might seem to disprove LNC but not actually disprove it, the theory itself being the premiss at fault.

quantum mechanics does not prove that a particle can exist in two places simultaneously, beyond the mathematical limitations it works with. In practice, testing, and application, a particle cannot exist in two places at once — Philosophim

Yes, I'm sure you are right. I was questioning the idea mentioned in a post above that superposition disproves LNC. Even if superposition seems (to somebody) to disprove LNC, it probably doesn't. And as you say, even the idea that it seems to disprove LNC is based on a misunderstanding. Still, it will keep coming back. It always does. The parallel with calculus vs Zeno's paradoxes is useful.

Can 1 equal, and not equal 1 at the same time? — Philosophim

According to one view in this thread, no, 1 cannot both equal and not equal 1. But one particle can both be and not be in the same place at the same time. That's because LNC applies to arithmetic but (as it happens) not to superposition. So the theory goes.

You hit a contradiction. If you can find no other way out, jettison LNC. Ta-da!

It's like some politicians' approach to their country's Constitution. As soon as it's inconvenient, you just ignore it.

A more modest approach would be - "We haven't found a way to describe superposition without apparent contradiction. Therefore we haven't yet found a good way to describe superposition. But we're working on it."

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11575/logical-nihilism

Don't blame me. It was Banno.

I'm concerned because there seems to be no deductive proof for The Fundamental Principle of Epistemology. — Agent Smith

Why is the lack of a deductive proof a concern? Suppose (a) it's a sound principle (b) we know it (c) we have good reason to rely on it and (d) we don't have a deductive proof of it. Suppose further that we have some reason to think that no matter how hard we look we will not find a deductive proof - and that this does not in the least diminish its soundness or our knowledge of it. I'm supposing all those things. Where (if at all) have I gone wrong?

I think there must be lots of propositions we don't have deductive proof for. The sun rose earlier today, for example.