We do, and we can wave our hands about, kick rocks and debate with other people. But so can skeptics, idealists and other troublesome folk like Nick Bostrom. — Marchesk

They not only can do it, they actually do it, quiet shamelessly. Personally, I think those who claim to be skeptics and then act just as if they were not skeptics have a credibility problem.

I think we should have a reason to doubt the world before we start doubting it.

I think we should have a reason to doubt the world before we start doubting it. — Ciceronianus the White

Excelente! There must be a reason to doubt. Have you never been fooled? I've been, countless times, in the most humiliating ways possible. Worst of all, I've often fooled myself, unknowningly of course but that still counts as a good reason to be skeptical. What sayest thou?

Fooled by the world? Not in a manner which has caused me to doubt that I'm here in it with everything and everyone else.

Fooled by the world? Not in a manner which has caused me to doubt that I'm here in it with everything and everyone else. — Ciceronianus the White

It's not such a big step to go from being wary of conmen and false friends to entertain the possibility of Deus deceptor (Descartes).

t's not such a big step to go from being wary of conmen and false friends to entertain the possibility of Deus deceptor (Descartes). — TheMadFool

In fact, I snuck in and wired up Ciceronianus's brain last night while they were asleep. The only problem is I wasn't sure of the address, so it might have been someone else.

In fact, I snuck in and wired up Ciceronianus's brain last night while they were asleep. The only problem is I wasn't sure of the address, so it might have been someone else. — Marchesk

Now I know why I'm feeling a little different today! :lol:

I may have been a bit distracted in addition to having the wrong address. The pay just isn't that good. If you have complaints about the world you are experiencing going forward, I can give you the number for customer service.

I may have been a bit distracted in addition to having the wrong address. The pay just isn't that good. If you have complaints about the world you are experiencing going forward, I can give you the number for customer service. — Marchesk

Please do! Boy, do I have a lot to kvetch about.

I would remove "probably" above, agree with the idea that the "guessing" lies with the explaining, but then to say "some of it" seems to be subjective cancels the progress made in the statement. — Constance

OK. So the pain and, presumably, the sharp glass are real but they are not "out there" but "in here", where the perception of pain, and the mental analysis of it, are also located.

But is the perceiving entity identical with the brain? And is it single or multiple?

fyi – Neil Degrasse Tyson is also a physicist and so speaks their language even when he's speculating. And Daniel Dennett has conceived of a variation on phenomenology he calls "heterophenomenology".

One of T Clark's four Noble Truths is that metaphysical statements are not true or false, they are more or less useful in a particular situation. — T Clark

:100:

Rorty isn't necessarily representative of Pragmatism, as I assume you know. Susan Haack doesn't believe he is one, and I have my doubts as well. Anyone who claims Dewey is a postmodernist may have trouble understanding Pragmatism in general. — Ciceronianus the White

:up:

Most people have not been shown, or told, about quantum mechanics, number theory, or diesel engine repair either. That doesn't mean they are mysterious. — T Clark

However, if most people do not know about quantum mechanics or neuroscience, then they do not know about it. And what they do not know about is unknown to them.

It's not such a big step to go from being wary of conmen and false friends to entertain the possibility of Deus deceptor (Descartes). — TheMadFool

It's a leap, Fool: a groundless, or merely logical, "possibility". Big whup. Peirce refer to such as "paper doubts". BiV is idle child's play.

The ironic thing is that Putnam was using the BIV thought experiment to try and refute global skepticism by arguing that a BIV could not truthfully say they were envatted.

In fact, I snuck in and wired up Ciceronianus's brain last night while they were asleep. The only problem is I wasn't sure of the address, so it might have been someone else. — Marchesk

Damnation. I thought it was my cat Sulla pawing at me again. Not that I know he's a cat, of course.

It's a leap, Fool: a groundless, or merely logical, "possibility". Big whup. Peirce refer to such as "paper doubts". BiV is idle child's play. — 180 Proof

Yes, a possibility but I accept arguments that dismiss possibilities only if it's based on probability.

She's a cat-in-a-vat, but not on your mat.

I had to. It rhymed.

s not such a big step to go from being wary of conmen and false friends to entertain the possibility of Deus deceptor (Descartes). — TheMadFool

Well, the significant word there is "entertain." As an entertainment or as a matter of whimsy we might wonder if some demon is having a bit of fun with us, but it's not a true doubt.

A pity Dr. Seuss didn't think of the Cat in a Vat, I think.

I alluded to that here.

Groundless possibilities strongly correlate with vanishingly low probabilities.

:up:

Ok, let it be so, brain in vat time again and all aboard for the ride. But if my brain is a brain in a vat it would not be a brain as I understand brains because what I now understand to be a brain is (I'm imagining) an illusory brain. And it would not be a vat as I understand a vat because I only know illusory vats. So I would not be a brain in a vat. I would be something and I would not be able to say what that thing is because all I seem to perceive now is some kind of psychological trickery and I have no experience of reality. So it turns out that I cannot coherently state the situation that I am supposing to be possible. And that makes me pause to think whether it is a coherent supposition at all. — Cuthbert

I like this. This is a far more satisfactory answer than "It's just silly lets not think about it." It takes the problem seriously and suggests a genuine solution. And this analysis seems right to me. It seems like Cuthbert has correctly articulated a niggling feeling of 'there's something wrong with the thought experiment, but I'm not quite sure what'.

If the brain in the vat was given the faculty of reasoning, then it will keep doubting about itself. Sooner or later, it will find out, that something is not right. It might say "I perceive, therefore I am connected."

So I would not be a brain in a vat. I would be something and I would not be able to say what that thing is because all I seem to perceive now is some kind of psychological trickery and I have no experience of reality. — Cuthbert

The envattedness is a thing-in-itself.

Rorty isn't necessarily representative of Pragmatism, as I assume you know. Susan Haack doesn't believe he is one, and I have my doubts as well. Anyone who claims Dewey is a postmodernist may have trouble understanding Pragmatism in general. — Ciceronianus the White

You would have to explain to me how Rorty is not a pragmatist. Dewey a post modernist? But then, what is it to be this? Such terms. Post modernism? Such a wide concept, but what does it mean essentially? A denial that modernism fulfilled its promise to pin things down. Nothing pinnable like this. Certainly not ethics.
Anyway, does Dewey qualify? Why not? Pragmatists do not believe in absolute truths or any theory of truth that is beyond problem solving. Nietzsche is the first post modernist, they say. He was late 19th century, so being postmodern doesn't really have a period, a time limitation. Truth is something other than agreement with reason, and there are things that are more primordial than truth, though nothing is really primordial at all. The problem would be separating the post modern (in philosophy) from existentialism. It is the idea of epistemic indeterminacy that marks the post modern, and Dewey certainly qualifies.
There may be reasons to say Rorty may not be a pragmatist, but I would have to hear them. As far as I see it, pragmatism is the thesis that the most basic account of truth and the world is problem solving, a forward looking process that takes the consummatory event (Dewey) of a problem solved as the essence of truth.

We don't "discover" the world of course, being part of it. But neither do we "make" it--again because we're part of it. We seem inclined to either consider ourselves separate from the rest of the world or consider ourselves creators of the rest of the world. But we're neither. — Ciceronianus the White

It's not a thesis about what we are, but about what it is to know something. Pragmatism will not allow to posit anything about what the world is, for it is bound to a ubiquitous epistemology that does not yield up things and there presence. Such is impossible, like walking on water. All the understanding can ever know is the forward looking end of a problem solved. Anything beyond this is just metaphysical hogwash. And problems and their solutions are manufactured in the process of engagement. See Dewey's Art As Experience: both the aesthetic and the cognitive issue from the consummatory conclusion of a problem solved. To know, in other words, is to put something to use successfully. This is a "made" affair.
dont understand why the world can't be made if we are part of it. The matter goes to knowing, and to know the I of me or you is to encounter it as a problem to solve. Look, there is not way out of this. All apprehension of the world are knowledge claims, and knowledge is pragmatic.

fyi – Neil Degrasse Tyson is also a physicist and so speaks their language even when he's speculating. And Daniel Dennett has conceived of a variation on phenomenology he calls "heterophenomenology". — 180 Proof

Which is my complaint about both. Physicists' language has no place in genuine philosophy. And Dennett does not deal in Husserl, Heidegger, and the phenomenological body of texts. Therefore, he misses the boat. That may sound dismissive, but analytic philosophy is a waste of time, for the most part.

I just find it kind of simple, because the brain, as we know it, is a phenomena experienced through the brain...as we know it...and we don't know it.

Brains in vats is nothing...do we even exist? Or is this how it seems to a string of information vibrating in a void somewhere?

the brain is just an a pattern of color in the mind

look and see

but dont look with your eyes. look with consciousness

It's easy to say something is a waste of time when apparently you don't understand that something.

Well, the significant word there is "entertain." As an entertainment or as a matter of whimsy we might wonder if some demon is having a bit of fun with us, but it's not a true doubt. — Ciceronianus the White

You're equivocating. You know that right?

Begs the question: Real world?? — Constance

Not really. I am discussing two models of the relation between myself and the world: the common sense brain in a skull, and far fetched but technically possible brain in a vat. In the first, it is just a given that there is a perception independent real world.

To defend it, you would have explain how it is that anything out there gets in here, AT ALL. — Constance

Is the mystery here the hard problem? Because otherwise I don't really understand what's not to understand.

Do you find that unsatisfactory? I don't. — T Clark

I do. In this view, how would you account for what happens when the brain is unplugged, housed in a new body, and "wakes up"?

But...but.... Oh, wait, you resolved this conflict yourself? — T Clark

Not sure what you're getting at?