When you unpack what "H2O is water" means, you get a story of hydrogen and oxygen joining together by sharing electrons to form a molecule where the hydrogen and oxygen atoms still exist as distinct things. How on Earth would this work under idealism? The ideas of hydrogen and oxygen somehow combine to form a new idea (water) that is still composed of two distinct ideas (hydrogen and oxygen)? And this works only if they can share other ideas (electrons) that orbit around it?

As an idealist, I would say water is just part of the dream, and it will do whatever the dreamer wants it to do. It will look like a solid sometimes, or a liquid, or a gas. We've all had dreams of snow and rain and clouds. Why not dreams where water appears to be a collection of tiny particles? In idealism, there really isn't "water" just like there's no "water" in our dreams. There's just mind(s) experiencing the ever-changing dream they're (or it's) projecting.

Thanks.

Frank, Shawn, what is a good resource for a primer on this stuff? Is Kripke pretty accessible?

I lol'd, which in the end, is the mark of a good discussion.

Well, all you are saying is that the word "water" could be used to refer to other things besides water - sure, i could name my goldfish "water".

I'm not saying that. I'm saying water is consistent with two modes of reality: materialism and idealism. H2O is only consistent with materialism.

And this has nothing to do with naming goldfish. If we both are looking at a glass of water, and I say "that's a glass of water", that statement makes sense in an idealistic reality and a materialistic reality. If I say, "That's a glass of H2O", that only makes sense in a materialistic reality.

But water is physicals stuff.

It's ideas all the way down. Seriously, why torment yourself positing the existence of unprovable stuff? Materialism is not needed to solve anything. It creates endless problems.

Yes, H2O only refers to a physical thing. Water can refer to a physical and/or non-physical thing.

If I am a materialist and you are an immaterialist, we're still talking about the same person, Jennifer - the same object - even though we have radically different ideas about the nature of this object.

I would replace "Jennifer" with "house plant" because personhood issues muddy the water. Also, "object" implies a physical thing. So, if we're both referring to the same house plant, I would say we're both referring to a collection of shared perceptions we have (at least, we think they're shared) that we give the label "house plant" to: it's located over there (or seems to be over there, the idealist would say), it's green, has three leaves, etc. That, we agree on. What the ultimate nature of the house plant is, we might not agree on.

So, you and I have quite different ideas about Jennifer - I think she's an artist and you think she isn't - yet we're both talking about the same person.

The same person, yes. A shared sense of perceptions that we label "Jennifer", yes. The same thing, no. To get to "thing", I would have to unpack what you mean by "Jennifer", and there would eventually be a disagreement, I think.

This is why materialists and immaterialists can be said to be 'disagreeing' about the nature of water as opposed to talking about quite different things.

Agreed.

"Water" is consistent with two different versions of reality: idealism and materialism. H2O is only consistent with materialism. It makes no sense to say that hydrogen ideas combine with oxygen ideas to produce a water idea.

But H2O specifically refers to a physical thing. That's not true with water.

Well, a scientist who has examined water in a certain way and formed the belief that it is H2o is still talking about the same substance as I am, even though I am an immaterialist and belief that no material substances exist in reality.

The typical scientist is going to think that H2O is a physical substance that exists external to you. You, the idealist, would obviously not agree with that.

As far as Jennifer goes, we're talking about the same person, but not necessarily the same thing. You, the materialist, are referring to a collection of particles. Me, the idealist, am referring to...an aspect of the one-mind? But obviously the idealist is not going to see Jennifer as a physical thing. Personhood complicates things.

Also, I'm not assuming you're an idealist or materialist.

I don't think they refer to the same thing. "Water" can refer to a physical substance or an immaterial one (think of "water" in an idealistic universe- it refers to an immaterial thing, an idea). H2O only refers to a physical substance.

I bounced this off one of my favorite philosophers, and he directed me to 2d semantics, where I quickly got lost.

Yeah, I edited it to reflect the true odds.

It's a tricky case. I think the problem stems from the prisoner looking at Friday in isolation when he should be looking at a disjunction of possibly getting hanged on "Monday OR Tuesday OR...", which is captured by using a Bayesian model of surprise. It's a good paradox. I'm terrible at solving these sorts of things.

If you look at it in a Bayesian sense, then the probability of getting hanged on any particular day is mildly surprising, since absent any other information it's a 1/5 chance.

Based on what is known.. We can't know what we don't know..

What evidence do you have that we only have one lifetime? How is that a known thing?

We work with what is known. We can imply anything.. QM theory says... (place any possibility because infinite multiverse).

It is not known that we only have this one lifetime. You're making an assumption.

How would anyone know the converse? I don't see the justification in assuming this is the only life we've ever lived. A popular interpretation of QM implies there are near infinite copies of me in other real universes. If this (possibly) happens spatially, why not temporally?

What if one believed that people choose to come back again (reincarnation)? In that case, there would be no consent issue to having kids.

Hi Javi, to be fair, he is talking about "absolute antinatalism".. that is antintalism that thinks NO parents should ever have children because they want to prevent a future person from suffering. It doesn't matter the background of the parent, or the circumstances. All birth should be prevented if possible.

I already gave my answer as to the difference between beginning a life, and continuing a life that is already here and how ANs would not use the very things they are against (not forcing a situation onto someone, not getting consent, not harming) to prevent current suffering. The nonexistence of an actual person prior to birth makes all the difference here.

How sure are you that people are non-existent before they're born? Does your whole position rest on that?

Of course, no one can answer that these days. But maybe a picture will help.Consciousness is like superconductivity, it is there or not. If something is not right (too high temperature, too strong magnetic field), then the superconductivity disappears. The whole system is superconducting, not the single atoms.

I've been thinking about that. We tend to value animals in proportion to their perceived intelligence, but does intelligence mean anything when talking about consciousness? Is my consciousness "greater" than a person born MR? That doesn't make any sense, and when I get high, my IQ drops to fantastically low levels, but my consciousness seems to expand. If consciousness IS an on/off thing, as I suspect it is, then we need to find out what the consciousness dividing line is, if one exists. Maybe the panpsychists are right and everything has a rich inner mental life, even electrons, although idealism seems the more parsimonious theory.

I think the most important thing a person can do is conquer their ego. It's the root cause of a lot of problems, for men and women. I don't think it's possible to totally overcome your ego, but it's possible to minimize it's destructive influence.

It doesn't follow that something predicable of the whole should be predicable of any of the parts.

That's true. Each individual neuron doesn't think or feel anything, but combined, they are more than the sum of their parts. Your position is going to lead to the hard problem: if the parts of a person don't experience pain, but the person does, how does that work? Which parts are involved? What's their function? How do they combine to produce the experience of pain? Why pain and not some other experience?

I agree, so why did you bring it up?

Is there any gain to using the word "being" when talking about whether rocks and bats have minds? If so, what is it?

It is you that is experiencing pain (or is in pain), not your toe.

This is a problem. Suppose I've made an exhaustive list of everything that makes up me. I'm also experiencing some pain from stubbing my toe. If I ask you: is my kidney experiencing pain? And you say: no. Is my toe experiencing pain? and you say: no. Is my x experiencing pain? And on and on. Eventually, you're going to have to say "yes" to one of my questions or else concede that I'm in pain, but no part of me is experiencing any pain, which of course is an absurdity.

I've been reading Sean Carrol (theoretical physicist). I get the impression that if you accept the idea that there are a lot of worlds other than this one, a lot of quantum mechanics' problems go away (the Many Worlds Interpretation). That sounds a lot like idealism: if you stop thinking this mindless material stuff exists, a lot of the problems related to consciousness go away. Of course, you have to go along with the idea that this is all just a dream.

The fact that one has a mind and the other doesn't is a "being" statement? It's just a factual description: the rock is mindless, the bat has a mind.

So we agree that there is a difference in quality between a rock and a bat, but disagree as to how to elucidate that difference.

One has a mind and the other doesn't. That's the fundamental difference between the two: one is conscious and other isn't (or maybe the rock is? Anyone want to argue that?).

People (or bats) have experiences, not brains or minds.

A person is made up of many things: arms, legs, organs, tissue, brain, etc. If I stub my toe and experience pain, where exactly in my body is that experience taking place? Not in my pinky. Not in my kidney.

Not if subjective means "in the mind" as opposed to "in the world" which in this context is a Cartesian distinction, not an ordinary or natural distinction.

You don't believe experiences happen in the mind? If not, then where? In the world? If so, then specifically where in the world do experiences (or experiencing, if you prefer) happen? The brain?

Experience is a subjective thing. When you unpack "1. A bat experiences the world when it uses echolocation.", you're saying there's an experiencer (the bat), and it has experiences. Those experiences are therefore the bat's subjective experiences.

If you're not a dualist, and you believe experiences are real, how are they real?

I think we're talking past each other. No worries.

Definitive proof of theism (of the kind of god I described) entails definitive proof of the supernatural. Supernatural inquiry would then become legitimate. There would be a crash effort to discover the nature of this god and attempt to communicate with it. Everything would be on the table: psi, mediumship, prayer, meditation, drugs, the wobble of the muon. It would become the number one problem in science, because any given scientific experiment done in a theistic universe begs the question: were the results accurate, or did the god do it?

So you're telling me Fish, that if you knew for certain that a god exists (and here I mean some powerful supernatural being capable of creating a universe like ours), you would have no follow-up questions? Really? You would just take it in stride?

How do you think the world and scientific community would react to definitive proof of theism? I think people would completely lose their shit. Because once you know some god exists, it becomes pretty important to find out what its plans are for you and whether you're in its good graces.

Name a staggering implication if theism is true? OK: God exists.

I don't think you're reading this right:
"Simulation theory and "god did it" are both very similar in that they're impossible to prove, but if true, have staggering implications."

If you knew for certain that god exists, that wouldn't change your life in any way?

I think you're conflating the difficulty of proving "god did it" with "god did it". Simulation theory and "god did it" are both very similar in that they're impossible to prove, but if true, have staggering implications.

Fishfry, if we discovered for sure that God did something, wouldn't it become of paramount importance to figure out the nature of this god? And then try to communicate with it? Of course. The "god did it" explanation, if true, has profound implications.

Our best cosmologists can only come up with absurdities to avoid believing "God did it." Yet "God did it" is useless as a scientific theory or an explanation of anything.

Why is "God did it" useless as an explanation? Doesn't it tell you why something happened? God did it!

But how could they not have made those distinctions? Again, as soon as you posit the world is made of mindless non-conscious atoms, doesn't the objection immediately arise: My mind isn't made of atoms! Which would have started the whole mind-body problem going. Socrates briefly alludes to this:

"It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking."

But that's only hinting at the problem. They weren't all panpsychists and they weren't all dualists, so this should have been quite the dilemma for at least a few of them.

We just assume we're all pretty much the same.