Because I believe in the physical world. I believe we get sense data from it. But I don’t think it makes sense to speak of her as mind-independent. She has a mind and I have a mind.

No. But what she is really like independent of mind cannot be known.

My wife is still getting ready. Lol

We say we have justified true beliefs to have knowledge. But the truth condition may not refer to anything mind-independent. States of affairs are inherently mind-dependent. That’s how we can talk about them.

How does the truth condition work then?

Because a fact is an article of knowledge. It’s epistemic. Not metaphysical.

I’m leaving town for a few hours. This is a fascinating conversation to me, but I will have to put it on hold.

It’s not a simplified generalization. It’s a fact that the mind models the physical world. The things-in-themselves have no facts independent of a mind. I’m not saying they’re not real. I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense to speak of “mind-independent facts”. You’re assuming an observer.

So quanta are just models, but hydrogen being the most abundant atom in the universe is not a model? Or that trees are deciduous or coniferous?

No. Consciousness is immanent in the world. I’m not a physicalist. How do you explain the fact that quanta change behavior once they are observed?

A fact is nothing more than the order that the mind gives to the world. Without minds, there would be no facts.

Wrong. Without minds to make “sense” of the world, everything would be amorphous. You can’t posit a fact without first assuming a mind.

Brain states equate to mental states. I will give you that. But what is a mind-independent fact?

Remind me which question. I’m thick.

Okay. I just don’t know how you could describe anything from a mind-independent viewpoint without positing a mind. So what is mind-independent knowledge?

Just take the example of a city. It is order. Minds came up with the idea, but there are physical aspects to what we call “cities”. Living as intelligent social beings, we also cannot consistently live together without emergent objective social norms.

fMRI scans in conjunction with reported accounts are observable phenomena. They are objective. That’s how we corroborate the mental activity of minds giving order to the world.

Brain scans aren’t mental. But I’m sure that’s not what you’re saying?

Your stipulation was that mental states refer to the outside world truths. I’m giving an account of how that can be shown objectively.

It’s a fact about how brains work. I can look at other people’s brains through fMRI’s and the accounts they give while being scanned. Then compare it to a large sample of scans and accounts.

I would say that what I refer to as “God” is the causal phenomenon that gives dead matter life and consciousness in higher order beings. I’m not interested in what caused the universe wrt gods. Unless you are talking about a quantum fluctuation that inflated into a universe, or a 4-dimensional black hole that spawned the universe, then I am not interested in what caused the universe. It’s science’s domain to explain how the universe began, not religion or “proofs” of God.

The weak anthropic principle explains that the universe must be live supporting but it does not explain whether it was luck or design. Design is much more probable. — Devans99

I would say that it was inevitable given so many universes.

Why is everyone so hung up on the canonical Judeo-Christian attributes given to what THEY call “God”. Can’t we think for ourselves? Or at least synthesize conceptions of God from all religions and philosophies?

(did I need to explain this? To which idiot?). — StreetlightX

My bad. Proceed, good sir.

Okay. We were just jumping ahead.

I was referring to the objective fact that the human mind/brain seeks order. It orders the objective world, and human conduct is a part of the objective world.

I have to agree with Ciaran here. Sorry. This is also how my professor taught the PI, and it makes more sense given the overall message of the book.

You cannot rationally will the maxim that genocide is permissible without denying basic human rights. I believe in human rights. I believe society cannot function optimally without them, and chaos goes against our order-seeking minds/brains.

And burning atheists at the stake simply for being atheists is objectively wrong.

Agree to disagree. I believe in objective moral truths. Genocide is objectively wrong. Cold-blooded murder of babies is objectively wrong. Torture of religious heretics is objectively wrong.

It’s objectively true that the Holocaust was evil.

What do you mean by “only mental”? Words are only mental, too. Beliefs are only mental. Perhaps normatives refer to actual conduct and what is inter subjectively true?

For what it’s worth, you’ve at least convinced me to be agnostic about LFW.

still surprising that the pot has no hole (when most pots have holes)
— Devans99

Nope, still not getting it, given a billion pots, given that it is possible for one to be hole-less, why is it surprising to find that one is? — Ciaran

The only reason we are able to question pots with holes and hole-less pots is because we are in a hole-less pot. That doesn’t in itself make us special.

I don’t disagree with you completely. I just happen to believe in God through no conscious intentionality. It just happened to me. I pray to God as a form of meditation. Whatever the word “God” refers to in reality is a question I am not equipped to answer.

The emotion I feel, the reason I think, the wonder and awe of looking up at the cosmos, the fact that we are conscious and not not conscious, that life and consciousness are even possible, are all the evidence I need.

I don’t think it matters whether our universe is special or not. To me, God is a loving Presence, a Spirit akin to a Universal Consciousness that all of us can call upon for hope, peace, love, equanimity, patience, joy, and all of the loving virtues. It makes no difference how many universes there are. God is Present in all life-supporting worlds.

Science has yet to develop a coherent theory of consciousness and how observing a particular subatomic particle affects its behavior. Can it?

I thought I tried to address this with the money multiplier example. The meaning of words/concepts to a given person are predetermined by her beliefs and what she has learned previously, being imprinted on her brain through deterministic causes. At least that’s the argument I was going for at the time of writing this.

:)