Why may they want to lie to us? — Virus Collector

We start by knowing we are thinking and we are experiencing stuff. Well, in order to be thinking, we must exist.

Next, as far as we can perceive, our thoughts become our actions and these actions have a correlation with our experiences. This will be our foundation for our indictive reasoning.

Since our thoughts must exist, our actions must exist, therefore, IF our actions correlate with experiences, THEN our experiences are probably true. — Virus Collector

Given this epistemology, we can inductively determine that there may be parts of reality we aren't immediately observing. We discover object permanence by repeatedly observing something coming in and out of our existence; if it continues to reappear after it leaves perception, then it probably exists.

BUT we still don't know HOW reality functions. So we use things happening repeatedly to assign truth probability to our theories for how reality works (this is the scientific method). — Virus Collector

Therefore, we can conclude (deductively, this time) that information transmitted through other people has an inherently low likelihood of veracity without addressing the intentional and unitentional ways that the information can be made false (i.e. not corresponsing with reality). — Virus Collector

BUT we still don't know HOW reality functions — Virus Collector

CREDIBILITY---
1. Another mind (another person) makes a claim about reality.
2. A claim is honest IF the claimant is not lying or engaging in misdirection
3. A claim is thorough IF the claimant has not misunderstood their observations, AND has complete knowledge of their observations, AND has true observations
4. IF their claim is honest and thorough, THEN it is probably true — Virus Collector

1. If initial observations of multiple events are the same, AND final observations of the same multiple events are similar, THEN a pattern has been observed
2. IF a pattern has been observed, AND initial observations match the initial observations of the events of the pattern, THEN final observations will probably match the final observations of the pattern — Virus Collector

Because they know is necessary. I want to put the question backwards: Are we ready to live on the truth? — javi2541997

I think I get your overall point - you're describing a more or less formal process of induction. This part I don't get - You're trying to tie what you have to say back to the certainty of Descartes, but it doesn't work. I think, therefore I am, but that doesn't mean my experiences have any connection with an outside reality or even with a coherent internal reality. The same goes for my actions, if they are really even actions at all. If I even have a body. — T Clark

How much of what we know at a truly basic level is based on induction... We are not blank slates. — T Clark

Problem is, almost everything we know above a certain level is based on what we've been told by others - all of science, history, current events, etc. What we can directly observe is severely restricted. — T Clark

3) and 4) are unjustified. — Hillary

1) applies to astrology as well. — Hillary

2) That the final observations of the pattern and the final observations match depends on the state of the initial pattern. They can probably match or probably not. — Hillary

This is true. I'm more trying to state that all of our knowledge/beliefs should be traceable via this inductive reasoning to some observable. — Virus Collector

Cartersian Scepticism appears to work only on condition you stop halfway. Descartes never doubted that truth exists, reason exists, criteria to distinguish truth from falsehood exist, and that the nature of existence is basically rational and follows logical rules, and finally - and this most telling - never doubted for a moment that God exists. Even to the lacklustre extent that he applied his "universal doubt", he relies upon God to pull him out of the logical hole he digs for himself. — alan1000

Also, Descartes doesn't prove he exists by attempting global skepticism since the attempt itself presuppose he (the attempter) exists on pain of performative self-contradiction (e.g. "I do not exist"). If "the cogito" demonstrates anything it's this: "doubting happens" (not that "the doubter exists"). — 180 Proof

"A fart, therefore an ass" — Yohan

That the territory depends on the map. — Yohan

What gives mental phenomena a special ability to exist without an object, but not physical phenomenon? — Yohan

it is requisite to reason’s lawgiving that it should need to presuppose only itself, because a rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without the contingent, subjective conditions that distinguish one rational being from another. (5:21)

Reason must subject itself to critique in all its undertakings, and cannot restrict the freedom of critique through any prohibition without damaging itself and drawing upon itself a disadvantageous suspicion. For there is nothing so important because of its utility, nothing so holy, that it may be exempted from this searching review and inspection, which knows no respect for persons [i.e. does not recognize any person as bearing more authority than any other—GW]. On this freedom rests the very existence of reason, which has no dictatorial authority, but whose claim is never anything more than the agreement of free citizens, each of whom must be able to express his reservations, indeed even his veto, without holding back. (A738f/B766f, translation slightly modified)


To think for oneself Kant describes as the maxim of unprejudiced thought; its opposite is passivity or heteronomy in thought, leading to prejudice and superstition.[25] To think in the place of everyone else is the maxim of enlarged or broad-minded thought. And always to think in accord with oneself is the maxim of consistent thought (5:294). Although the last maxim sounds more straightforward, Kant is careful to emphasize its difficulty: it “can only be achieved through the combination of the first two and after frequent observance of them has made them automatic” (5:295). Consistency does not just involve getting rid of obvious contradictions in our explicit beliefs. It also requires consistency with regard to all the implications of our beliefs—and these are often not apparent to us. To achieve this sort of law-likeness in thought depends both on the genuine attempt to judge for oneself and the determination to expose one’s judgments to the scrutiny of others. In other words, it involves regarding oneself, first, as the genuine author of one’s judgments, and second, as accountable to others. As we might also say, it represents a determination to take responsibility for one’s judgments.

What is the territory? What exists beyond our maps? — Yohan

The truth theory you're using, which is along the lines of correspondence theory, is what the average intelligent person acts on. — Tate

"Correspondence theory of truth" is the positive version of the same law, the law of non-contradiction.
I fail to see how its a theory. — Yohan

Can you give an example of where "You are right/wrong" means something other than correspondance/non-correspindance?
I can accept that correspondence isn't sufficient for truth, but not that it isn't necessary — Yohan

You can look at people as if they're monkeys who communicate through chirps and screams. None of it really means anything. It's just sounds that are made according to a protocol. — Tate

A trap in philosophy and is getting so tangled up in theory and language that all we have is an infinite regress of maps referring to other maps, and reality attaining the status of myth and legend. — Yohan

Behaviorism is just ridiculous, but people adhere to it for various ridiculous reasons, none of which are very interesting. — Tate

Behaviorism has its heart in the right place. — Pie

This protocol swells and becomes self-referential, until it can talk about itself as chirps and screams governed by evolving norms (a protocol). — Pie

Wilfred Sellars (1912–89), the distinguished philosopher, noted that a person may qualify as a behaviorist, loosely or attitudinally speaking, if they insist on confirming “hypotheses about psychological events in terms of behavioral criteria” (1963, p. 22). A behaviorist, so understood, is someone who demands behavioral evidence for any psychological hypothesis. For such a person, there is no knowable difference between two states of mind (beliefs, desires, etc.) unless there is a demonstrable difference in the behavior associated with each state. Consider the current belief of a person that it is raining. If there is no difference in his or her behavior between believing that it is raining and believing that it is not raining, there is no grounds for attributing the one belief rather than the other. The attribution is empirically empty or unconstrained.

Is this a Lovecraft story? — Tate

You are chirping and squeaking about chirps and squeaks here. Talk about talk about talk. — Pie