Or is the point of doing philosophy to say "Ennui Elucidator" instead of "bored speaker"? — Banno

Or maybe the name is about a particular sense of “boredom” that is more about the lack of joie de vivre brought on by existential angst than momentary lack of amusement and “speaking” that is more about explaining why it is gone rather than description of a mode of communication.

Besides, I was concerned that anomie aardvark was taken.

...then the solipsist must be using the words differently - playing a different game. — Banno

Of course they are not going to play a game that just assumes without proof that solipsism is false.

So have they shown that they alone exist, or just redefined "self" to include us? — Banno

People can use words however they like, so long as they can clarify what they mean, if they are using the word (s) in an unusual way.

What matters in this context is that this way of defining terms would be useful in order for them to convey their solipsist philosophy (assuming there were some hypothetical solipsist out there, which is of course unlikely). What matters, then, is the content of what they say, not the labels they use.

Perhaps you believe that definitions are “essential” rather than stipulative? (By stipulative I mean that they are useful to achieve some more or less definite goals)

What is it to have a proof here? In what way are you compelled by logic? There are those - myself amongst them - who deny that this is a cogent argument. Why are you compelled, but not others? — Banno

It's just what Descartes said: though we can doubt things like the existence of the outside world and perhaps even mathematics through sceptical scenarios like the Evil Demon, we cannot doubt the truth of the proposition “I think therefore I am”, or as Russell changed it: “there are thoughts”, since in all such sceptical scenarios there obviously must be thoughts, since it's utterly inconceivable for that blindingly clear and distinct idea to not be the case. Those thoughts imply something or someone who produces them, and even if that were doubted one could not doubt the existence of those thoughts.

Now, we could go down the complete sceptic's path (I don't mind if we do, by the way. I assumed for the sake of discussion that the bar for knowledge wasn't set this high), and claim that to say that to think it inconceivable or impossible for the proposition “there are thoughts” to be false, is not a sufficient ground for that to be the case, since it may just be due to our fallible and limited cognitive apparatus. This would also apply to things like the Law of Contradiction. One could argue like this for instance:

Some theologians and philosophers were not as convinced as Leibniz and Thomas Aquinas that conceiving of God as incapable of doing what is logically impossible was not imposing limitations on him. Some later nominalists argued that not only physical laws, but also mathematics and ethics had been established by God through free decisions whose reasons are unknown to us and that those decisions could have been different from what they were; omnipotence, they thought, is not "omnipotence to some degree," since that concept is, in fact, absurd.

God simply decreed that two contradictory statements could not both be true and that two and two were four and that fornication was bad. But he could have decided to decree otherwise, and if he had, the Law of Contradiction, mathematical truths, and moral norms would have been different than they are.

We cannot imagine such a world, of course, but we cannot affirm, merely due to the poverty of our minds, that this would have been impossible for God; We must not measure the power of God with the standards of our weak and finite intelligence. — Kolakowski

Now, if we go down that path, then supposing an omnipotent God like the one described by Kolakowski exists, there's absolutely nothing about which He could not deceive us (not even Descartes's cogito, in my opinion), and even if we suppose he hasn't yet done that, there's no reason why he could not change the laws of logic or mathematics in the future.

Leibniz and Hume summarized this nicely:

(...) if this doubt (Descartes's) could once be justly raised, it would be straightway insuperable, it would always confront Descartes himself and anyone else, however evident the assertions presented by them — Leibniz

This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason and the senses, is a malady, which can never be radically cur’d, but must return upon us every moment, however we may chace it away, and sometimes may seem entirely free from it” — Hume

Of course, this could all just be a wild fabrication of our minds, but we have no way to tell between a scenario in which that's true, and one in which God constantly deceives us about everything, including his own existence.

But since you are not a complete sceptic, surely you will at least grant that the proposition: “there are thoughts” is absolutely certain, right?

“Does logic reflect some given, a priori structure of the world, or does it merely reflect how the brain of us humans works?” is beyond the realm of any possible experience. — Amalac

"The a prior structure of the world" includes "how the brain works" so this question seems to me premised on a false (Platonic-Cartesian-Kantian) dichotomy.

This all seems to go back to Kant: since we cannot know or experience the “thing in itself”, we are trapped in the egocentric predicament. — Amalac

"different creatures, different ways of experiences, different logic"

Do these creatures see the whole world different? Or is a circle still a circle even for them? — Mersi

"Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned." ~Ibn Sina, d. 1037 CE

But if a philosophical argument reaches the conclusion that "there is no reality", that alone is sufficient to reject the argument. — Banno

:up:

"Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned." ~Ibn Sina, d. 1037 CE

But if a philosophical argument reaches the conclusion that "there is no reality", that alone is sufficient to reject the argument.
— Banno — 180 Proof

I’ve never understood you two with your seeming commitment to practicality while at the same time being committed to the law of non-contradiction. Some dialethia may be true and some may be useful (especially as an epistemological stance when evidence supports two contrary positions). Why reject them out of hand just because some long since dead people insisted it must be so? (See paraconsistent logics. SEP on Paraconsistent Logics)

What is to count as a simple depends on the activity in which one is engaged; tables and atoms are equally valid starting points, with the choice dependent on avoiding misunderstandings in a particular case. — Banno

Yes, I think that's what I was saying (at least that was the intention). Physics has nothing to say about 'tables', the boundary between an atom of 'table' and the atom of air next to it is no more relevant than the boundary between an atom of 'table' and the next atom of 'table'. To the waitress, however, that boundary is all important.

But you're right to say that there's no primacy in any of this.

What is real, what exists, is what serves to allay misunderstanding. Tables when you are having coffee, wood when you are doing carpentry, atoms when you are doing chemistry. What has primacy is dependent on what one is doing. — Banno

I think sometimes there's some confusion between certainty and realness (a confusion I'm definitely guilty of myself). a lack of certainty is not the same as a lack of realness. The table is real, despite uncertainty about it's properties, because the table (as a consequence of hidden states) is part of our socially constructed world, so yes table/atoms/quantum foam..."Does it matter which we say, so long as we avoid misunderstandings in any particular case?"

The issue, for me, still arises from the alternate primacy. The table is real as opposed to... denying the simples of edge, shadow, light, that I might want to talk about in the context of cognitive science. The table is real as a social construct is quite a different proposition form the table is real immutably and in perpetuity. Maybe I'm jumping at shadows, my hackles are up every time I log on at the moment.

it's simply not true to say that there is a table because you see a table. I'd go as far as to say that we flat out know that to be false. Your world (that of tables, cups etc) is 90% made up, at any given time, entirely phenomena, no substance. — Isaac

Personally, I am fact-based. So if something in front of me looks like a table, feels like a table, and can be used like a table, then it is true that there is a table. You can argue that it's an illusion but you would have the burden of proof.

And yes, the table is 100% phenomenal for me, as everything else. I don't see that as a problem, more as a law of perception.

Of course the table is composed of smaller elements. How could it NOT be? But there is absolutely no reason to see the elements as more "real" than the whole. Truth is not small. Reality is not hiding in atoms.

Anyone who denies the aw of contradiction ...
180 Proof

I do not deny that the axiom of cintradiction is a very useful tool.

But given human logic depends on experience, it means that it depends on the functionality and range of our senses. This range is limited, but can be extended using tools like glasses, telescops or radiation detectors. Using such tools made it possible to prove Einsteins theories of relativety of space and time.
After all two pillars of Kants "transzendentaler Idealität". I`m sure he considered rather solid parts of what he thought he knew.
What if physics succeed in shifting not only subatomic parts into a superposition state? Maybe a whole atom once? That will not affect the way we make decisions in everyday life, but how justified is it to approach this part of reality, in which certain logical axioms no longer correspond to experience, with a logic that still presupposes these axioms?

That will not affect the way we make decisions in everyday life, but how justified is it to approach this part of reality, in which certain logical axioms no longer correspond to experience, with a logic that still presupposes these axioms? — Mersi

Why assume (commit a category mistake) that anyone would try to use a logic which regulates making "decisions in everyday life" for domains which "no longer correspond to experience"?

Some dialethia may be true and some may be useful (especially as an epistemological stance when evidence supports two contrary positions). Why reject them out of hand ... — Ennui Elucidator

I have not rejected or implied rejecting anything; I've only pointed out that the LNC ineluctably corresponds with first-order facts of the matter. Systems of logic which eliminate the LNC are only useful for contrary (or not) higher-order interpretations of the facts of the matters. In other words, dialethia is derived from – supervenes on, or presupposes – alethia. The topic at issue, Ennui, concerns 'the relation of logic to experience' and not the relation of logic to "contrary interpretations" of experience.

if something in front of me looks like a table, feels like a table, and can be used like a table, then it is true that there is a table. You can argue that it's an illusion but you would have the burden of proof. — Olivier5

For proof see...well almost every paper on the neuroscience of perception since the late nineties.

the table is 100% phenomenal for me, as everything else. I don't see that as a problem, more as a law of perception. — Olivier5

The table is joint social object. You seeing the 'reality' of it as entirely and correctly whatever it appears to you to be is very much a problem, probably one of the most significant problems in the world today when extended to more complex concepts that 'table'. That things are just exactly how they seem to you has probably caused more wars than any other misconception.

Of course the table is composed of smaller elements. How could it NOT be? But there is absolutely no reason to see the elements as more "real" than the whole. Truth is not small. Reality is not hiding in atoms. — Olivier5

The elements of which it's composed are not at issue, those being yet more models. It's about the functional relationship in the network. Some data originates from outside your network of causal nodes, which means, by definition, you can only infer it's origin once you are past one layer of nodes inside that network. Elements don't matter, the state outside of that network could me made of massive distinct composites, it wouldn't have any effect on the fact that your second layer of nodes can only infer their properties from your first layer because the signal from them originates outside of the Markov Blanket.

For proof see...well almost every paper on the neuroscience of perception since the late nineties. — Isaac

No offense, but I seriously doubt that neuroscience can prove that tables are illusions.

The table is joint social object. — Isaac

This is a platitude but everything, including neuroscience, is a "joint social object". Tables are not the exceptions here, they are like everything else.

You seeing the 'reality' of it as entirely and correctly whatever it appears to you to be is very much a problem,

You are confusing empiricism with naive realism. Empiricism is a principle without which there would be no science, including no neuroscience, so you are professionally bound to respect it. And confusing empiricism with illusion is a road to nowhere.

your second layer of nodes can only infer their properties from your first layer because the signal from them originates outside of the Markov Blanket. — Isaac

In English, please. Also you may wish to connect this neuronal talk to the issue at hand, i.e. the reality of tables.

But if we share the same logic with these beings regardless of the experience we have, the question arises as to where logic comes from? — Mersi

If these beings live in this universe, or for that matter any universe, then they'll have experiences similar to ours, i.e., some kind of sensory experiences. I'm assuming of course that in your thought experiment that such beings have the ability to reason, i.e., minds or brains that are at least as advanced as our own. Given this assumption, then it follows that they have developed some kind of language, and assuming that they're not at the beginning of stages of linguistic development, it would follow that their language of logic would at the very least include the principle of non-contradiction. Any ability to reason would have to necessarily have this basic principle. I don't think we could even imagine a universe with other reasoning beings where this wouldn't be true. Reasoning presupposes some kind of rational thought, which by definition means the very basic principles of logic.

I'll just add this (which addresses other things that have been mentioned in this thread), that logic is parasitic, once a language of logic is formed, it extends what we already know as a result of sensory observation or linguistic training for example. So, formal logic is something that came later in human development.

Reasoning presupposes some kind of rational thought ...

The aliens of our thought experiment could well be ahead of us as logic is concerned. That could mean that some basic parts of theire logic is similar to ours, but that theire logic is far more extensive.
In analogy to mathematics, it could be that we are at a level, like the romans at which we are missing a notion and sign for zero and the negative numbers. Okay the range of the positive intergers remains the same. But as positive integers could be seen as a special case of complex numbers (with i = 0); our logic could represent only a special case of an otherwise far more complex reality. A reality where theire may never be complete accordance or non accordance and bivalence therefore makes no sense