It's extraordinary to have someone use the internet to deny that the world is coherent and predictable.

That's just not so.

I don't know what more to add. The fact that you replied to me shows that the world is pretty much as it seems.

Spot on - see hereabouts.

"the Elusiveness of the Real" is pretty much exactly wrong.

Far more instances of that assumption failing that otherwise, as I see it. — AmadeusD

Are you perhaps dropping too much acid?

Overwhelmingly, the world appears to do much as advertised.

Yep. One would presumably describe what the interactions involved in what one does, rather than list a series of acts. Your somewhat literal interpretation might miss the point that what a city is like is dependent on what one chooses to do in that city.

Perhaps we could look for a point of agreement that would allow a rest.

Do we agree that one can coherently say "I don't know"?

I had the same thought...

Seconded.

Wouldn't it have been better if I had never existed at all? — Truth Seeker

Well, if Granny Weatherwax is right, we can't possibly know what the world would be like if you never existed.

It just is as it is.

I suppose the upshot is that choices are about what happens next, not about what happened in the past.

Perhaps the hardest part of living with disability is the constant struggle to improve, to advocate for oneself, to find better ways of doing things. Every small step is so very hard. Sisyphus had it easy in comparison, at least he knew what would happen next.

Stuff that those not living with disability can never grasp.

Seems to me that the key is other people. Keep reaching out. And keep in mind that while you don't know what will happen next, sometimes things get better.

You are welcome to PM me.

philosophical detachment seeks its goal through self-transcendence rather than by bracketing out the subjective altogether. — Wayfarer

Sure.

Supose that someone claims to have achieved "self-transcendence". How could we check?

A way this thread might have gone would have been to consider hinge propositions and such. Is it that some things must to be held certain, in order to get started? It seems so, and this relates to our conversation about what "counts as..."

That would be a far more edifying approach than the present woful mess.

Becasue none of that explains the mystery of how you could suggest something so distant from what was actually said.

Which you continue to do.

Most puzzling.

You should understand that you are not alone in any of this. Not that knowing this makes it any easier, but it might take away some of the stigma.

I very much like the approach set out by Terry Pratchett in Lords And Ladies. I've mentioned it a few times hereabouts. The witch Granny Weatherwax meets her one-time lover, the wizard Mustrum Ridcully. Ridcully is full of "might-have-beens"...

‘Do you remember—’
‘I have a … very good memory, thank you.’
‘Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if you’d said yes?’ said Ridcully.
‘No.’
‘I suppose we’d have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing …’
Granny shrugged. It was the sort of thing romantic idiots said. But there was something in the air tonight …
‘What about the fire?’ she said.
‘What fire?’
‘Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.’
‘What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire?’
Granny turned around.
‘Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say “If only I’d …” because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.’ — Terry Pratchet

Pratchett, Terry. Lords And Ladies: (Discworld Novel 14) (Discworld series) (pp. 162-163).

Counterfactuals are recondite. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. In your case you can't say how things would have been had you followed your parent's advice, any more than Ridcully could be sure that if he had made a different decision he would have lived happily every after.

More likely, you would be equally discontent but with a different set of issues.

"You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened."

if I live in St Louis, should I move or stick? And the same if I live in Kansas City. — Srap Tasmaner

Nice. This remains unaddressed.

Perhaps it's particulars that decide the issue - a new job, a cheaper house, being near family.

And here maybe the analogy breaks. Not sure.

In fact, the Pāli texts repeatedly describe the Buddha as having abandoned all views — Wayfarer

From this perspective, he does not occupy a standpoint but has relinquished all standpoint. — Wayfarer

Disinterested doesn't mean not caring. — Wayfarer

To care is to adopt a view.

Further, how could one ever know that one sees

“things as they truly are.” — Wayfarer

Perhaps I see things as they truly are, now, without the years of meditation - who's to say? SHould i take your word for it?

Moreover, doesn't your view require that our point of view is always situated, always subjective? I the Buddha's view then, still subjective?

Take pity on us - can you see how difficult it is to reconcile your account with logic? Presumably, the logic must be in error...?

But being unsure is not the same as being utterly in the dark, or forced to act at random. — J

This seems to be the key. From what Tim has said, he does not agree. I supose he might say that you need to know what you are looking for before you go exploring. But why?

"If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.” — Wayfarer

Then he was not disinterested - wanting someone to look after him.

See the problem?

, I picture language games as more or less discreet, seperate enterprises. The examples are things like the builders calling for a block, buying an apple, and so on. A form of life is an aggregation of these.

So, not synonymous.

And calling for a block or buying an apple would look more or less the same, in various different cultures.

Consider Quine's Gavagai as a language game. Identifying the referent of "Gavagai" perhaps doesn't much matter, provided you participate int he hunt and get your share of the stew.

I haven't been following closely. — Tom Storm

You haven't missed much. No, I won't presume to summarise Tim's views. And yes, the thread is drifting into the culture wars, which is a bit of a shame. But perhaps my point has been made and carried.

From this perspective, he does not occupy a standpoint but has relinquished all standpoint. — Wayfarer

The view from nowhere? But don't you object to that?

They hold that the Buddha is perfectly disinterested: having eradicated every trace of craving, aversion, and delusion, he sees without distortion or agenda. — Wayfarer

To be disinterested in the suffering of others doesn't appear all that admirable.

The world pretty much seems to have an “in here” and “out there.” — T Clark

Since Descartes.

Why not start with the premise that the world is pretty much just as it seems to be, and look for evidence to the contrary?

A valiant attempt at bringing some reason into the discussion.

The moving cities analogy is interesting. I think we can take it a bit further. Let's consider the question, "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" This frames the issue as if there were only one way to live in Kansas City. but of course what it is like to live in Kansas City is not a thing, but a series of choices and interactions - do you stay in your flat, or do you go out and explore the parks? Do you join a choir, or a bike club? Do you get to know your neighbours, or keep to your old relationships?

The analogy holds when we consider changes in fundamental beliefs. it's not about what is the case, so much as what you do next. As such there is no answer to "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" apart from what one choses to do in Kansas City.

There's another aspect that is quite interesting. I would like to go back to this:

Are you seriously advancing the epistemic position that no one is ever wrong but that the two options would be: "yes I agree," and "I don't know?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Assuming this is honest, it shows how very, very far Tim is from understanding what I have been suggesting. It would be somewhat extraordinary for someone to suppose that I would argue that "no one is ever wrong", given that almost all my posts are about how folk are wrong! I think many would see it as my modus operandi!

How can Tim be so thoroughly mistaken? Do we supose his case is different to others here, who display less intelligence but more ill-will and aggression? Is Tim in the position of someone in St. Louis trying to describe what it is like to live in Kansas City? Is he just saying that there are better Jazz clubs in St Louis? (Never having been to either, I'm guessing...)

If you are not interested in Jazz clubs, such an observation is irrelevant.

Which city is preferable depends on what you are doing.

So it appears that Tim wants to do something fundamentally different to @J, @Moliere and I. Perhaps he's building from what he supposes are firm foundations, rather than looking around to see how things are.

But our differences might not be about what is the case, and so not the sort that might be brought out by logical analysis. They are rather differences about what we want.

@Tom Storm, more along your lines of psychology rather than metaphysics.

No. As I’ve said previously in this thread, it’s useful to be able to know the difference between a rock and the pain you feel when you drop it on your toe. — T Clark

If there is no rock, only "sensations-of-rocK", as some are prone to supose, then is there is no difference between the pain and the sensation-of-rock, no?

Why not start with the premise that the world is pretty much just as it seems to be, and look for evidence to the contrary.

How can they do that? — Richard B

Look around?

Who "constructs the ladder from their senses"? It's easy enough to understand which stick is straight, which crooked.

Maybe you're overthinking the problem.

Now you have added "imaginable". So now you are doing modal logic?

There is a difference between following some god-given principle and trying things out to see what works.

You appear to advocate the former, I advocate the latter.

But it would be if the community says so? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. The community is embedded in the world.

Again, it looks to me as if you are being disingenuous, this time by ignoring the triangulation.

That's not down to the community failing to accept a principle, but a mismatch between what the community says is the case and what is the case. It's a failure of triangulation, not of principle. — Banno

Can you give an example where just making up your data consistently leads towards knowledge? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, and that is exactly the point!

It's not some principle that leads to knowledge, but repeated, open, communal discussion.

If the way the world is requires that epistemic communities follow certain standards to avoid false conclusions, that sounds a lot to me like the grounds for a principle. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The world doesn't require anything.

"The way the world is makes it so that falsifying your data and lying isn't a good way to reach knowledge, but that doesn't make not just making up your observations a valid epistemic principle because..." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No!

Again, that is not what was said.

The way the world is will show that your data is made up, not that some mooted principle is true.

The point being made here must be very far form how you understand things to be, for you to repeatedly make such misinterpretations.

From that blog:

Commemorating a person is a little more ambiguous. What constitutes a monument to a person? Does it have to be an outsized bronze or marble statue in their likeness, placed at a major traffic intersection or gateway to a seat of government, poised on a high pedestal, surrounded by subsidiary statues and friezes, surmounted by a portico or canopy of marble and labelled with a brass plaque outlining his* achievements? Or does it mean all sculptural representations of a famous person in any communal space, such as a park, the atrium of a city hall or rotunda of a library? How about oil paintings in the halls of legislative and judiciary proceeding? Does it count as a monument when a school, library, garden, theater or community center is named for a person who contributed nothing to the establishment of that public amenity? — Vera's Blog

Sometimes one's posts are a monument.

Bugger.


Thank you, , for passing this on.

I don't think it would be. So, the issue isn't just about what some community agrees. If some community does agree that falsification is ok, they're going to tend to come to false conclusions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. That's not down to the community failing to accept a principle, but a mismatch between what the community says is the case and what is the case. It's a failure of triangulation, not of principle.

The language game of doing science is embedded in the world, which provides the boundary. It's the reason not just anything will go. The community doesn't reject making data up becasue it breaks some Grand Principle, but because doing so bumps up agains reality. It's a methodology, not a normative principle. Scientific communities don’t reject making up data because it violates a timeless rule; they reject it because it doesn’t work.

The question is, What's the difference between "reasoned rejection" and "methodological foreclosure" when it comes to defending the basic tenets of a philosophical system? — J

If the system being discussed is used to determine what counts as "reasoned rejection", then we have "methodological foreclosure".

In the example, the Aristotelian system sets out what it is to be reasonable as accepting LEM. So it methodologically forecloses on paraconsistent logic.

What happens next? If Aristotelian logic is taken as final, paraconsistent logic is anathema. Alternately, we could admit that paraconsistent logic is incompatible with Aristotelian logic, and carry on seeing where paraconsistent logic leads.

So if Aristotelian logic provides the "an absolute, context-independent standard in all cases" it forecloses on paraconsistent logic.

For this to work, things must exist as distinct entities. — tom111

Is this right? Or is it sufficient that we be able to treat things as distinct entities?

Couldn't this be mistaking method for ontology? Mistaking what we do for how things are?

So again, I'm far form convinced that you are not presuming your conclusion.

If I have it right, the OP starts by looking for an argument that the world is as it appears, and finds the case wanting.

Why not start with the premise that the world is pretty much just as it seems to be, and look for evidence to the contrary?

If you were to move from principles in the strong sense to heuristics, we might have some agreement.

“It’s not okay to make up data” is a good rule of thumb, yes, but the history of science is full of edge cases where selective, embellished, or even downright faulty data played a productive role. Galileo’s telescopic observations, Newton’s bucket, Eddington’s eclipse photos—all involved choices that wouldn’t survive a modern methods review.

The issue isn’t that anything goes, but that what counts as "okay" or "not okay" is itself historically and contextually shaped. There is no algorithm for scientific legitimacy, but a community negotiating standards as it goes.

So I agree it’s not acceptable to misrepresent positions—but even that relies on shared context and trust, not a principle mechanically applied.

it's useful for what? Constructing a metaphysics?

The metaphysics you said was neither true nor false?

Given the misrepresentation in your last reply to me, I'm somewhat reticent to bother continuing this chat.

What progresses science is not adherence to some set of rules.

"Ah!" Says Tim, "but what do you mean by progress... if you are going to progress, you must already know what progress is..."

Yawn.

No, Tim, you don’t need a final theory of progress to recognize when something works better, explains more, predicts more reliably, or opens new avenues of inquiry. Scientists manage to get on with things without resolving metaphysics every morning. Progress is what happens when a community, through criticism and collaboration, refines its grip on the world—even if it never gets a God’s-eye view of it.

What's that, then?

Why presume a difference between "in here" and "out there"?

, @Moliere,

Somewhat famously, Feyerabend argued that Galileo manipulated or selectively interpreted his data—particularly with regard to the telescope—to press the case for heliocentrism. At the very least, Galileo made use of rhetorical and polemical tools to press his case.

The discussion has moved on to scientific method. I'll argue that there is no algorithmic method that produce science, that rather science is a social enterprise involving open criticism and shared information, a poster-boy for Davidson's triangulation.

If you think there is an algorithmic scientific method, all you need do is present it.