And I maintain that this is basically in conformity with Kant's philosophy, insofar as Kant maintained that empirical realism and transcendental idealism are not in conflict (per these excerpts.) — Wayfarer

So, do you believe that if there were no minds in existence there would be no reality or actuality? I don't think Kant believed that— I think he would say the in itself would nonetheless be.

As I understand the reason that empirical reality and transcendental ideality are compatible is because the transcendental can never be more than ideal, that is can never be more than ideas, for us.

The very idea that the empirical is real, and thus more than merely mental or ideal, speaks against the notion that reality is mind-constructed, rather than merely brain/body-interpreted.

I took it to mean that when you are interacting with the room then that is what you are. I don't want to speak for @Banno, but I have no problem with that ever-changing notion of the self—why should we think there is an unchanging self over and above that?

Do you really believe that the question of whether or not we're hallucinating(whether or not the tree is really there) comes before belief?

All doubt concerning the veracity of our vision is belief based. — creativesoul

Yes, I do believe that the existence of the tree I see is not in question. If I decide to question it and then accept an answer, then, and only then, has belief come into play. In other words, of course all doubt concerning the veracity of our vision is belief based, but I am speaking about the situation prior to any doubt about the veracity of our vision.

The way I read it, Kastrup is not saying to 'mistrust our own senses', but to recognise, as I say in the OP, the way in which the mind creates (or generates, or manifests) the world, which is then accorded an intrinsic reality which it doesn't possess (thereby overlooking the role of the subject in the process). — Wayfarer

This is going too far. It is true that the way we perceive the world is conditioned by the ways in which our sentient bodies and brains are constituted. The suggestion that the mind creates the world, rather than merely interprets it seems absurd and wrong.

This is not to say it is not a logical possibility, but just that all our experience speaks against it. It is a logical possibility, a mere logical possibility with nothing cogent to support it as far as i can tell. Why should we believe something simply on the basis that it an imaginable possibility? That we should believe things just because they seem intuitively right to us is exactly the mindset of conspiracy theorists.

My point being however that I don't think removing the words know and knowledge is either necessary or effective. — Bylaw

I agree. Confusion results when knowing and believing are conflated. We might not always in practice know the difference, that is we may not always know which we are doing, but they remain conceptually distinct, and losing that distinction is not going to help.

Abuse is acceptable as a risk and then must be confronted by challenge.

Just because abuse exists is no reason to crawl under a rock and pretend to half-truths (your little t truth).

The big T truth is the only thing in life that really matters. — Chet Hawkins

Abuse might be acceptable as a risk according to your personal belief—but there is nothing in the fact that you believe that that gives me any warrant or motivation for believing it.

Little-t truths are not half-truths, they are truths relative to contexts, not absolute truths. There are no absolute truths, or at least none that are determinable by us.

The idea that big T-truth is all that matters is a dangerous idea—the very foundation of fundamentalism.

So, I reject your beliefs on ethical grounds, apart from the fact that there is no empirical or logical support for them. They cannot even be cited as inferences to any kind of best explanation. To me they are nothing more than rhetoric.

Yes, well, what we call reality is not reality. Physical reality is a shortsighted version of the actual reality, the capital T True reality.

We are embedded within the capital T reality. Its awareness and union is the only real goal of existence.

So metaphysics is a greater effort, and thus more worthy than physics is or could ever be. This truth does not diminish physics in any way. It shows it proper placement in actual value. — Chet Hawkins

I get that you believe that. I have some sympathy for those ideas, but I am not confident that it is anything more than a fantasy.

So, let's say you believe those things, and I don't. If you don't know anything more than I do, or if I don't know anything more than you do—if it is all just different beliefs then there is nothing to argue about, and no being right or wrong about it.

That there is no determinable right or wrong when it comes to metaphysics is the situation as I see it. No amount of high-falutin' talk is going to change that.

All assertion and no argument. I'll wait until you present an argument to address—responding to mere assertions being a waste of time.

Well yes, there are many different usages and contexts of usage of the word.

Adding to what you say we could equally fail to cosmetically remove the word 'know' from our lexicon while continuing to tread the spiritual path @Chet Hawkins seems primarily concerned with.

To me the main area the word know, in its propositional sense at least, seems inappropriate is the metaphysical.

I get it. I understand the (your) position, Thank you for starting this thread as, to me, it has been fun and good work and clearly something people are willing to engage on. That's what such a forum is about! — Chet Hawkins

I agree that exchange of and argument about the different ideas we may have are fun and also worthwhile for the endless task of clarification. I don't share your notion of "capital T Truth" because I think the idea has been egregiously abused throughout history, and also, I think that if we have no knowledge we cannot even begin to approach 'small-t truth" let alone the Capital-T chimera.

I don't share the optimism that changing the words will make much difference. And people assert things as if they are certain all the time without using the verb know or the noun knowledge. — Bylaw

Sorry I missed your comment earlier. I think this is an important point: leaving aside faux-skepticism or global skepticism, which profess that we cannot be certain of anything at all, I think it is true that there are many things of which we can be certain. The distinction you seem to point to is that many people feel certain about things they obviously cannot be certain about.

"Redundant" is n interesting choice of terms. So, do we agree that belief is necessary for seeing the tree in the front yard?? It goes without saying that seeing a tree in the yard includes believing that something is there, doesn't it? That necessary presupposition is what makes the terminological use redundant, right? — creativesoul

I don't think believing the tree is there is necessary for seeing it. I see the tree there, and the question of whether or not it is really there (answering that question being the point where belief enters into the picture) doesn't arise, certainly doesn't have to arise.

You can say that seeing the tree presupposes believing it, (like the old adage "seeing is believing") and that is one way of speaking about what is happening; I just happen to see that way of speaking as redundant. I think believing comes into play when there is doubt and we decide to go with one possibility or another.

Yes, it seems easier to realize that touch, taste and smell give us immediate access to the qualities of things than it is in the case of sight or, especially. hearing.

Thanks Pierre, I hadn't before seen evidence that this exact debate had been going on that long. :up:

When I look at something I can see its qualities: height, width, shape, colours, textures; I don't need to infer those properties.

Do you have an argument to support the idea that I need to infer the properties of objects, rather than simply see, hear, feel, touch and taste them? You are the one making the extraordinary claim here.

And you haven't even attempted to address your performative contradiction. What does 'direct' mean if not 'reliable', and what does 'indirect' mean if not 'unreliable'? Surely that is the only salient issue: whether our perceptions afford us reliable information about distal objects, and everything points to the fact that they do. How would we survive if they didn't? How would science work so well if they didn't?

Firstly, if direct realism is true then scientific realism is true, and if scientific realism is true then direct realism is false. Therefore direct realism is false given that it entails a contradiction. — Michael

And you haven't presented your argument as to why sciietific realism being true entails direct realism (in the sense I'm taking it, namely that its central claim is that we have reliable information from and about distal obkects) being false.

Again not true: perceptible properties of distal objects are directly observed, no need for inference. Of course, these observable properties, being perceptible properties, involve us as well as the objects, so they don't necessarily tell us anything about what the objects are in themselves (or whether the idea of objects in themselves is anything more than a dialectical opposition).

Again not true: perceptible properties of distal objects are directly observed, no need for inference. Of course, these observable properties, being perceptible properties, involve us as well as the objects, so they don't necessarily tell us anything about what the objects are in themselves (or whether the idea of objects in themselves is anything more than a dialectical opposition).

I didn't say that we don't have reliable knowledge, only that we don't have direct perceptual knowledge. — Michael

What could direct perceptual knowledge be but reliable knowledge of its objects, as opposed to (presumably) indirect (because subject to intermediate distortions) unreliable perceptual appearances? And I'm talking about the vast amount of observational data in botany, zoology, geology, chemistry and so on, not about inferred, unobservable entities and events like electrons and the Big Bang.

If direct realism is true then scientific realism is true, and if scientific realism is true then direct realism is false. Therefore, direct realism is false. — Michael

That's not correct, it's an interpretation, and one which comprises a performative contradiction to boot. In other words, there is nothing in scientific realism from which it necessarily follows that direct realism is false, in fact indirect realism cannot support its conclusions on the basis of something which it rejects from the start: namely reliable knowledge of distal objects.

And as I've said I think the whole 'direct/ indirect' parlance is flawed anyway. What is really at stake is whether or not perception yields reliable knowledge of distal objects, end of story.

The idea that we have scientific knowledge relies on the assumption that we have reliable knowledge of distal onjects. Attempting to use purportedly reliable scientific knowledge to support a claim that we have no reliable knowledge of distal objects is a performative contradiction.

There is no fact of the matter as to whether perception is direct or indirect, they are just different ways of talking and neither of them particularly interesting or useful. I'm astounded that this thread has continued so long with what amounts to "yes it is" and "no it isn't".

I agree it should be a general rule to avoid torture, but there are hypothetical cases where it would seem to be the moral thing to do. Shouldn't the government carve out exceptions for those cases? — RogueAI

It would be too complicated, the kinds of arguments you would get would be "Well it applies in that case, why not this one?".

The distinction is between a general rule and those edge cases it cannot reasonably deal with. The law as practiced, whether judicial or moral, is never black and white, but the general rules must be set out as black and white.

:up: Ah, some subtlety!

As I said, we need general rules, but those rules cannot adequately deal with all cases.

No, I'm allowing that society needs general moral rules which I feel I should support but which unfortunately cannot be expected to adequately cover all circumstances. I'm not at all "tied up in knots" about it, it's crystal clear to me, so the seeming must be a projection on your part.

Perhaps seeing the coloured squares as different is not inferential or predictive, but a case of the locations of the squares in different tonal contexts producing the apparent differences simply due to contrast.

What do you mean by "our perceptions are of distal objects" when you say it is false?
— Luke

I don't say that it's false. I have been at pains in this discussion (and others over the past few years) to explain that trying to address the epistemological problem of perception in these terms is a conceptual confusion. It's an irrelevant argument about grammar. — Michael

Saying that distal objects are not constituents of perception or experience is potentially semantically ambiguous, so it cannot unambiguously be framed as a purely epistemological problem, as though there could be a determinate fact of the matter.

And its this that makes his ideas distasteful. We've had enough of dogmatism masquerading as liberalism. His confusion is gross. — Banno

:up: I think you're right that it is dogmatism masked as liberalism; it's couched in terms of being merely Chet's belief, yet it's asserted in a way that is inconsistent with that.

Absolute truth would refer, in your terminology, to anything that is considered true with absolute certainty; and 'absolute certainty' would refer to a level of certainty which cannot be doubted legitimately (e.g., a tautology) as opposed to what one doesn't have good reasons to doubt. — Bob Ross

What's the difference between having no good reason to doubt something and not being able to doubt something legitimately?

Until we are perfect, objective in understanding, until we do 'know'; we have only varying degrees of awareness and of course, belief. — Chet Hawkins

You have your way of thinking about it, and I have mine, and the twain shall never meet, it seems. I think we know many things, as I've said, but I admit there is no perfect, absolute, context-independent knowledge, and since such a thing is impossible, I find it to be an absurd inapt principle by which to attempt to assess and understand our concepts.

I see the tree in the yard but do not believe it's there. — creativesoul

I don't believe it is possible to actively disbelieve in something you see in front of you. Well, I know I can't at least. I also don't see that as supporting the notion that active belief is necessary in those situations. That said, I don't deny that you can talk about believing that the tree you see is there, rather than simply saying you see it there, but I think the former way of speaking is less parsimonious, even redundant. But ye know, that's just me; I don't have a problem with others disagreeing.

I admire your patient circumspection. I admit I am a bit prone to jump to conclusions. What I may or may not be able to conceive is not necessarily an adequate guide to what is conceivable or inconceivable tout court. How do we measure conceivability?

Well, I don't see it that way because I am no moral purist. Of course, torture must be condemned tout court, If I torture the perpetrator to save my family, I will never claim that act is morally justified, because the standard for society has to be "no torture under any circumstances" and I support that. If I feel circumstances call for me to commit an immoral act then I take full responsibility for that, and would feel justified and would not feel myself to have been a hypocrite,

In other words, we have the general rules for society, and then each of us has their own moral sense that we must accept responsibility for. If I didn't torture the perpetrator to find out where my child was, I would feel I had committed an immoral act even though it would have been in accordance with the general rule, and at the same time I would be prepared to accept whatever condemnation or punishment I had rightly subjected myself to and nor would I reject the well-earned epithet of "hypocrite' even though I didn't feel it to be so.

That people might do things they know to be stupid? Just as people might do things they know to be immoral? — Leontiskos

People do things they think to be immoral all the time if it suits them. How much more so will they lose whatever moral compass they may have thought they had when their lives, or the lives of loved ones are threatened?

This reminds me of an argument on another philosophy forum long ago. The question was whether it would be morally right to torture the kidnapper of your wife or child to find where he had hid them, if you knew they had them imprisoned somewhere and had planted a bomb set to go off in a couple hours that would kill them.

The one who posed the question said people were hypocrites to morally condemn torture in any and all circumstances when most of them would torture the kidnapper in that situation. I said that was wrong—even if there is no good argument to support condoning torture in any circumstance, it is nonetheless understandable that anyone who cares about their family would torture the kidnapper in that circumstance and would not be concerned about being justified in doing so. They are two different questions.

No. The moral status of self-defense is an age-old issue. It is not a de facto non-moral issue. — Leontiskos

I didn't say it was a "non-moral issue". I said that its status as a moral issue may be irrelevant to the one defending themselves in the act of defense.

That there might be pacifists whose ideology carries more weight to them than their own wellbeing or survival, even in the mortally threatening moment, doesn't seem relevant. People enslave themselves to all kinds of ideas, human diversity being what it is.

If you can flee, you should flee.

Needless to say, provoking an attack so that self-defense can be invoked is immoral. — BC

Nice pickups!

What might be, from an abstract perspective, immoral would be completely irrelevant to someone acting to save their own lives and/or the lives of their loved ones.

I take it that you mean by "energetic" the concept of energy that is defined by physics? Which, by definition, studies what is physical?
Perhaps St. Augustine's remark about time applies to matter, as well. — Ludwig V

We experience our own efforts all the time. We know energy from the inside, so to speak, and the idea of an interaction that does not involve energy, energy exchange, is inconceivable. So, I start from there, physics is merely an elaboration and formalization of that understanding. Speaking of basics, have you never heard of the four fundamental forces?

For my money, it is the neglect of the elementary point that both "substantial" and "real" do not have a determinate sense outside the context of their use. — Ludwig V

I passed this over before, and I should have made the point that this is a truism that applies to all terms whatsoever. There are no terms that have determinate senses outside the contexts of their use, which makes your point seem somewhat moot.

One way to talk? Sure. A bit shallow though. — creativesoul

If it seems shallow to you, then so be it.

seeing is believing. — creativesoul

No, seeing is seeing and believing is believing. I can see the tree outside the window, I don't need to believe it's there in order to see that it is. Belief is only operative where the possibility of doubt exists.

I think what you mean by 'substantial' and 'substantive' is 'tangible' and/or 'measurable'. Those are the empirical criteria for what is considered to exist. — Wayfarer

In the other thread I said this, which I think answers your question:

It depends on what you mean by 'substantial'; if you mean something like "tangible' then sure. Is mass fundamental in physics, specifically in QM?

If what is is fundamentally energetic, then that is what I would mean by "physical". Is there an alternative view to this?

I wouldn't say they are "empirical criteria for what is considered to exist" so much as they are words denoting what is directly empirically available to us, that it is what it thus available to us and that the notions of real, actual, substantial and tangible denote this availability. How can we apply a term like 'real' to something which is not observable, at least in its physical or perceptible manifestations?

So, for example, mental activity (considered as being something distinct from neural activity) is not directly observable. but its; physical effects and correlates may be. So, I see no problem with saying that mental activity is physical, even though it is not a directly observable object of the senses. If we want to say that mental activity is non-physical or immaterial, I think we should first be able to answer the question as to what we could even mean by immaterial (beyond the obvious "not an object of the senses").

To say that mental activity is not physical, and hence does not exist, and yet is somehow real seems incoherent to me, because it seems impossible to explain what could be meant by that. In what sense could it be thought to be real if it truly is non-physical or immaterial?

Ontic structural realism, things just being the math that describes them, seems like the terminus point for this trend. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I could be mistaken but my understanding of the term "ontic structural realism" is more in line with saying that what is real are the relations that are described by the math, not that those relations just are the math.

If those relations are energetic (which it seems all but the most abstract or merely conceptual relations must be) then the real can still be understood to be substantial, since energy is measurable.

Is it, though? What I took from it, was the sense of ‘misunderstanding the point of being alive.’ It works as a religious metaphor but also as a philosophical one. — Wayfarer

I cannot think of a single philosophy that advocates the idea that there is just one point to being alive, unless you mean living itself (as opposed to being caught up in silly ideas or failing to reach one's potential, however the latter might be conceived). None of this has anything necessarily to do with religion. Religion is only necessary for those who cannot, or don't wish to, think for themselves.

A good example here would be the well-known fact that that physics reveals a physical world that is almost completely insubstantial. "Substantial" and "real" have a meaning in the context of physics, but not one that meets the demands of this philosophical wild-goose chase. — Ludwig V

It depends on what you mean by 'substantial'; if you mean something like "tangible' then sure. Is mass fundamental in physics, specifically in QM?

If what is is fundamentally energetic, then that is what I would mean by "physical". Is there an alternative view to this?

:up: :up:

Again - my claim is that due to the form that Cartesian dualism assumed, that there is a kind of widespread, implicit dualism of mind and body or spirit and matter that is endemic in culture. And that the untenability of the idea of a 'thinking substance' or 'thinking thing' has had huge influence of philosophy of mind ever since, it is one of the principal causes of the dominance of physicalism in mainstream philosohpy (remember your surveys in which only 1% of respondents hold to alternatives to physicalism?) Which is implicit in the question you asked. — Wayfarer

If the physical is naturally understood to have substantial or substantive existence, and it is upon that idea of substance that the notion of reality is founded, and the idea of a mental substance is untenable, then what justification would we have for saying that anything non-physical is real?

The alternative to eliminative physicalism would be to say that mental phenomena are real functions of some physical existents, and that the only sense in which they are not physical is that they do not (obviously) appear as objects of the senses.

It seems to me there are some things (even many things) which cannot be coherently brought into doubt. I agree with your point that to doubt anything other things must be certain, or at least held to be certain.

I've always like Peirce's adage (I believe specifically targeted at Cartesian doubt): "Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts"

Fuck, I knew there was something else!

One of the consequences of the approach Descartes takes is substance dualism. It's not, for him, the body that does the doubting. — Banno

That's true. I wasn't suggesting Descartes would think that, as I seem to remember (it's a long time since reading Descartes) that he thinks that the reality of the experience of embodiment could be doubted, that it could be an illusion or delusion. Of course I don't hold with that, I think such doubts (like 'brain in a vat') stupid, phony, pointless and toothless.

I was thinking more along the line of what we might be able to infer from the active awareness of doubt.