Perhaps the impossibility of taking the castle of skepticism, as well as its failure to send out any marauding troops is due to the fact it is a mirage.

How can skepticism be a mirage? Do you mean that there is nothing to warrant skepticism as it is empty or futile in this case?

More that there is no genuine skepticism because terms of reference parasitic upon what is purportedly being doubted are always necessarily taken for granted.

Perhaps the impossibility of taking the castle of skepticism, as well as its failure to send out any marauding troops is due to the fact it is a mirage. — John

Doubt is like Jello. There's always room for it. :)

If I can rephrase that to make sure I understand, i think you are missing a THE and an AN somewhere there:

The terms of reference of the subject doubted are always being taken for granted because they are parasitic on the subject being doubted?

Even for cogito ergo sum?

We are talking about global skepticism here; not about skepticism regarding ordinary claims.

True with regard to all but global skepticism :P

Skepticism regarding perception thrives on the ambiguous use of words such as 'see' or 'experience'. It makes thinkers incorrectly believe that a mirage would be the object that one sees instead of the behaviour of light bent by air humidity, smog etc.. Or that in a hallucination one would actually see the things experienced instead of having one's perceptual system messed up by a drug or a disease or fatigue etc.

I understood that originally. Can you clarify what you said though? you just ignored it.

It makes thinkers incorrectly believe that a mirage would be the object that one sees instead of the behaviour of light bent by air humidity, smog etc.. — jkop

Yes but you can't prove light or air humidity or smog has an objective existence, you can only prove you can perceive it subjectively. Even if you use instruments to detect it, they only convey information to you subjectively and it is YOU who infers that 'because my instruments tell me objective phenomena exists, then it therefor does'.

Terms of reference that are dependent upon the reality purportedly being doubted, and which are absolutely indispensable to the coherency of the doubt itself, are always, inconsistently with the claim that the doubter is being globally skeptical, being taken for granted in the act of purportedly doubting reality itself.

What does it mean for something to have an objective existence?

Little prevents us from sharing epistemologically objective knowledge about our ontologically subjective experiences. We live in this objective reality, which we experience subjectively, but we talk about experiences and reality objectively (or "intersubjectively").

Even for cogito ergo sum? — intrapersona

That's indubitable. But it's apriori.

True with regard to all but global skepticism :P — John

Why so? It doesn't seem that it could have any logical flaws because it's not asserting anything.

You can't use the term "subjectivity" without implying the existence of the objective. Subjectivity is a limited and/or skewed view of the objective. If there is no objective world that you are perceiving, then your "subjectivity" is actually the objective world. In other words, you're a solipsist.

The paradox of our existence is that metaphysical extremes are always excluded because a context without any content or vice versa is impossible and all lesser truths will always transform into their complimentary-opposites. Dreams become reality and realities become dreams as our path shapes our feet and our feet the way. It also means Occam's Razor is paradoxical like everything else and, thanks to pattern matching or yin-yang dynamics ruling the universe the simplest explanation is either more useful or counterproductive because it is more often the most attractive. A simple analog systems logic that can describe both poetry in motion and crap rolling downhill becomes applicable to anything.

It's not so much that anything is being asserted that contains logical flaws (apart from the assertion that global skepticism is being practiced I suppose), but I am not convinced that global skepticism is ever a coherently formulated question or standpoint. When it comes to giving accounts of skepticism in everyday matters, the accounts are given as questions about the implausibility of something having been the case in terms of something else being more plausible.

Of course the terms of reference of any alternative scenarios are always the same; they are always our ordinary 'real world' terms of reference. When it comes to global skepticism, no 'alternative' position can be framed that isn't framed in those same 'real world' terms of reference. For me, this means that no genuine alternative has been framed at all. In 'Matrix' style skeptical scenarios, for example, the real world in relation to which the experienced world in question is being considered to be a dream or simulation is not eliminated, it is just displaced.

Of course, the reality of that world could then be questioned and 'real' reality pushed up another level again. You could do this endlessly, and produce an infinite regress, but the scenario you are characterizing as a simulation can only ever be understood to be such in contrast to some 'real' reality, and that reality can only ever be given account of in the 'real world' terms of reference we are familiar with. The whole idea of dream versus reality is derived form our own fundamental experience of waking and dreaming. It seems to me, we cannot be 'globally' skeptical about that fundamental experience (as opposed to being 'locally' skeptical merely about aspects of it) or we would undermine the sense of the very conceptual resources we need to frame any question about 'dream versus reality'.

Of course the terms of reference of any alternative scenarios are always the same; they are always our ordinary 'real world' terms of reference. When it comes to global skepticism, no 'alternative' position can be framed that isn't framed in those same 'real world' terms of reference. — John

GS isn't required to frame an alternative. It's just based on the possibility that none (or most of) the statements you make about the world are false.

The whole idea of dream versus reality is derived form our own fundamental experience of waking and dreaming. It seems to me, we cannot be 'globally' skeptical about that fundamental experience (as opposed to being 'locally' skeptical merely about aspects of it) or we would undermine the sense of the very conceptual resources we need to frame any question about 'dream versus reality'. — John

Yea.. I think Descartes used the Dream Argument to give the flavor of skepticism. It's good for that because a lot of people know what it's like to have full confidence in a dream world only discover upon waking that it wasn't real. It shows something about confidence.

I once had a dream in which my torso was a giant potato. It seemed perfectly normal to me in the dream. All my friends were like that. The customs of the potato-body people were part of the dream. And now it doesn't seem weird to me that I have a mammal torso.

Maybe the Evil Demon would seem like a more solid argument, but as I mentioned earlier, GS doesn't really need any argument.

Yeah, I know what it is like to dream absurdities that seem to make perfect sense.

I guess another way of putting the point would be that we know what it is to wake to reality from a dream, but we have no idea what it could be to wake from our reality to some other reality that wasn't either a displacement/ and or extension of our reality or something so incomprehensible that we could not even make sense of it let alone alone deem it to be a reality that would make our ordinary experience a dream.

I am perfectly willing to admit that reality might be greater than we think and that what we think reality is might be just a part of a greater reality. This is precisely what is proposed by some religions. But 'our reality' would still be a genuine part of that greater reality and could only be intelligible in some kind of terms we are familiar with just as dreaming is a genuine and mostly intelligible part of 'our reality'.

I'll have to think about that...

. If there is no objective world that you are perceiving, then your "subjectivity" is actually the objective world. — Harry Hindu

That isn't true, if it was true then any objective world could be called subjective. As you say, If there was no objective world that I was perceiving, then my "subjectivity" would now become an objective world. Therefore, how could I know that the objective world isn't just a completely subjective world?

Nor is it true that if subjectivity was there was it would imply I was a solipsist. I could be a panpsychist too as if everything was conscious then everything would be a subjective world.

Then you contradicted yourself. You said doubt is like jello, there is always room for it... but apparently not for cogito ergo sum according to you.

And do you mean to say it is apriori because we arrive at by thinking about the fact that "I am thinking therefor I exist". Is it not possible to arrive at that conclusion without reason alone?

What does it mean for something to have an objective existence? — John

Great question, you had me puzzled there to find an answer. Now that I think about it, there really is no way to find a distinction between the objective and the subjective BECAUSE we are confined to only one point of view. I can imagine what it might be like to be a hyperdimensional entity that is able to see where my self-awareness exists within a multifaceted objective world but nevertheless I am constrained to existing in a small compartment of a much larger reality.

Perhaps my inference of an objective world based on sensory impressions is undeniably false. Perhaps neutral monism or panpsychism has it correct in that everything is either one in the same or part of one consciousness in a subjective world ONLY... and that there are different slices of this subjectivity that are exclusive from one another (our single self-awareness included as one of these slices)... and even more, perhaps ONE single subjectivity unites them all together (God consciousness) that passively observes multiple subjectivities.

metaphysical extremes are always excluded because a context without any content or vice versa is impossible — wuliheron

Metaphysical extremes are not always without content or context... they just have less and depending on how much validates its worth.

Dreams become reality and realities become dreams as our path shapes our feet and our feet the way. — wuliheron

That's just a fancy way of saying that there is no difference between the dreamworld and waking life. They are bound together and influence one another. However I was talking about REM sleep dreams and dreams in the sense of aspirations wouldn't make sense with what you said so you must be talking about a "dream world" as per say in order for your statement to make sense. It is not logical to say that the visions encountered in REM sleep ACTUALLY become part of your waking reality activities.

It also means Occam's Razor is paradoxical like everything else and, thanks to pattern matching or yin-yang dynamics ruling the universe the simplest explanation is either more useful or counterproductive because it is more often the most attractive — wuliheron

Funny you say that, I find that the simplest answer for something often still requires an IMMENSE amount of understanding in order to understand what it is even despite it's simplicity. For example, E=mc2 is very simple indeed but it requires us to first know what energy, mass and the speed of light is. So I agree that Occams razor can be more useful or counterprodudctive although I don't see what that has to do with your quoting me or dreams?

A simple analog systems logic that can describe both poetry in motion and crap rolling downhill becomes applicable to anything. — wuliheron

I very much doubt analog systems logic can describe poetry in motion? Doesn't it need highly complex and abstracted structures like the human brain to be able to perceive beauty, meaning and emotion?

All analog systems to do is fart out computations like a blind man.

but we have no idea what it could be to wake from our reality to some other reality that wasn't either a displacement/ and or extension of our reality or something so incomprehensible that we could not even make sense of it let alone alone deem it to be a reality that would make our ordinary experience a dream. — John

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine

I am perfectly willing to admit that reality might be greater than we think and that what we think reality is might be just a part of a greater reality. This is precisely what is proposed by some religions. — John

Not only religions but physics as well. Such as the hypothesised 11-dimensions of string theory/m-theory etc.

I am perfectly willing to admit that reality might be greater than we think and that what we think reality is might be just a part of a greater reality. This is precisely what is proposed by some religions. But 'our reality' would still be a genuine part of that greater reality and could only be intelligible in some kind of terms we are familiar with just as dreaming is a genuine and mostly intelligible part of 'our reality'.

I agree and those terms are determined by (steeped in) our evolutionary position and development. But is it the case that we are experiencing two parallel evolutions, one of mind and one of body?

Now that I think about it, there really is no way to find a distinction between the objective and the subjective BECAUSE we are confined to only one point of view.

This is incorrect, we also have the sensory experience of our bodies, we are not just a mind in a cage, we have a body, which interacts within an environment

I can imagine what it might be like to be a hyperdimensional entity that is able to see where my self-awareness exists within a multifaceted objective world but nevertheless I am constrained to existing in a small compartment of a much larger reality.

Confined because we are in the position of having to rely on our brains for the computation of our minds. Hence we are subject to the environment within which we find our bodies.

Perhaps my inference of an objective world based on sensory impressions is undeniably false.

I would say mistaken, or deluded, rather than false, because your body is undeniably present within that objective world.
Perhaps neutral monism or panpsychism has it correct in that everything is either one in the same or part of one consciousness in a subjective world ONLY... and that there are different slices of this subjectivity that are exclusive from one another (our single self-awareness included as one of these slices)... and even more, perhaps ONE single subjectivity unites them all together (God consciousness) that passively observes multiple subjectivities. Perhaps, but it would mean that we interact with this subjective world chemically as well as experientially.