You aren’t hearing me. You said of blue, the measurable properties x and y means it’s blue. That doesn’t make any sense at all to a guy who claims a thing is blue for no other reason whatsoever than he sees it as blue. I see an object as blue therefore that means it is a blue object no matter it’s properties. How could what I see as blue mean it’s red? Hence, while discoverable properties describe something, such discovery does not always lend itself to meaning.

What you’re saying by measurable properties x and y means it is blue, is actually x and y are the conditions under which some part of the visual spectrum of EMR must be identified as the same as the sensation of “blue” that is perceived by humans. That spectrum has the exact same conditions for blue but may not identify as blue to an animal lacking the similar receptor system as the human animal that labels that part of the visual spectrum “blue”.
(Example only; it is a categorical error to suppose anything with certainty regarding non-human animals.)

So if there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. — S

Do you see that the subject of your proposition is “shape”? That makes explicit some arbitrary extension in space is necessarily presupposed in order for the conceptions in the predicate to be thereafter associated to something as a means to identity it. It follows if the arbitrary shape is constituted by four equal sides and four equal angles contained in those sides, THEN it is labeled “square”. It is not always necessary to actually quantify anything to perceive a square, insofar as natural knowledge evolution accepts the general conception of “square” without recourse to rulers, but there are still conditions where it is required in order for the label “square” to be at the negation of the possibility of all other shapes, i.e., construction trades, very great or very small distances, etc., or to falsify an optical illusion.

From this, it is clear that a necessary truth such that any extended shape with its own identifying consistently attributed constituents must be a square. A necessary truth needs no confirmation, it will be the case whether confirmed or not. An unconfirmed truth suggests a possibility of falsification, which requires a means of identity to apodectically resolve.

You have GOT to be the WORST epistemological realist EVER!!! — Mww

:roll:

Even saying if you knew enough is catastrophically inept, because it raises the question....how much is enough. If you knew x and y and from those predicted z, z remains no more than reasonable expectation until some other condition is satisfied, as in, experiment or accident. — Mww

No, you're catastrophically inept if you can't recognise the reasonableness in my argument that rocks would exist, which is an unconfirmed truth. Are you some sort of logical positivist or something? Some buffoon who thinks something along the lines that all knowledge requires verification? You do realise that logical positivism has been refuted long ago, and is now widely recognised as untenable? I produced a reduction to the absurd to show why we should believe that the rock would exist, in spite of the lack of verification. The explanatory power is superior to alternative positions. Alternative positions fail massively to make sense of these scenarios.

A caveman sees green grass and predicts it is fresh, but only because he has seen brown grass that deer never eat. Just because he knows the grass is green at night, does not allow him to predict the sun is partly responsible for fresh grass. — Mww

This is a false analogy to the situation with the rock, because the caveman might not know enough to make that prediction at all, let alone reasonably, whereas I can and do.

Faraday might have the unconfirmed hypothetical for electric lines, but without the rational appeal to a very specific experiment, he would have had no reason to suppose them. And even then, he got it wrong by requiring a medium. — Mww

Jesus, not your fallacy of irrelevance about certainty again. That's what your last sentence seems to be getting at. Am I suggesting that it's impossible that I could be wrong? In other words, am I suggesting that I have absolute certainty regarding my claim? No. I am a fallibilist.

Now, you seem to be so stuck in your extreme empiricism that you're forgetting about reason and logic. I'm not suggesting that we can perform an experiment, I'm saying that that's not necessary. It's necessary for confirmation, but it's not necessary for reasonable belief.

Yeah, so what? — Mww

So that refutes your claim! :rofl:

That’s what every theoretical physicist says, but I betcha a Benjamin he never calls it a “truth” before it is proven to be one. — Mww

I don't care. Even theoretical physicists can be unreasonable. There's a difference between doing science and doing philosophy, you know. Maybe they don't say that if they're doing science.

After the fact he can say such and such is true, thus beforehand it was an unconfirmed truth, which is exactly the opposite of what you say. — Mww

What? Um, no. That's not the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that, before confirmation, it's an unconfirmed truth. That's obviously what I'm saying.

Unconfirmed truth is a contradiction in terms. — Mww

No it isn't. If you're interpreting it that way, then you're interpreting it wrong. Unconfirmed truths make sense and are reasonable and are a matter of common sense. This can be demonstrated with examples.

If unconfirmed truths are incompatible with your position, then that's your problem as far as I'm concerned.

No truth is unconfirmed... — Mww

Good luck trying to justify that assertion! How could you??

...and that which is either rationally or empirically unconfirmed cannot be a truth. — Mww

The basis for believing these sort of propositions can, in some cases, be reasonable, and therefore justified. That's the case with the rock that would exist. And I've demonstrated that with my argument.

That which is true now and will be under congruent circumstance is a necessary truth empirically, or a logical truth rationally. Substantiated hypotheticals can lead to reasonable predictions, but truths absolutely must meet the criteria of knowledge. — Mww

That's absurd. All truths must be known? I don't think so. Knowledge criteria is for knowledge, and truth criteria is for truth. Knowledge and truth are two different things, obviously. It makes no sense to say that they have the same criteria. You are going by false premises, mate. That's why you are reaching absurd conclusions and that's why you're running into problems with my position which accords better with what's sensible to believe.

I didn’t say “determine”; I said determinable. Under certain conditions there are things completely undeterminable, and those conditions have to do with human inability. — Mww

I know what you said. It's the same with all of the variations of "determine", such as "determinable". That's what I meant. It's completely the wrong term. The right term is "discover", and all of the variations of "discover", such as "discoverable".

I've set out my usage. My usage makes way more sense.

This discussion was about realism and possible counter-arguments with respect to it. Knowledge and truth may enter into it but they are qualifiers for what they are. You brought truth here, apparently without understanding what it is. — Mww

That doesn't say anything at all really. I know what the topic is, thanks. I created this discussion.

And I don't care about your unsubstantiated opinions. Vague and unsupported remarks like those in the quote above can simply be dismissed.

A worthy epistemological realist would be quick to realize the limited practical purpose is the sole paradigm from which he can work. The total of practical exercise is indeed very far larger than the arena available to a human, but the totality is quite irrelevant. Hell, we haven’t even got ourselves off this planet yet. But the deeper you go into realism the more you need some kind of idealism, because you’re bound by reason itself to reduce to conditions not met with realism alone. — Mww

Worthy? Lol. Your value judgement is subjective, and I don't share it.

The above quote is completely unsubstantiated. I stand by my pointing out the irrelevance of what's practical, and I stand by my pointing out the clear fact that I'm not an idealist.

Do you know what non-sequitur means, or do you just use any words in any random way that pleases you? A simple statement of observation cannot be a non-sequitur, because non-sequitur refers to a conclusion drawn from previous statements. If you think that my observation is false, then say so, and explain why. But why use fancy words which you don't even know the meaning of? — Metaphysician Undercover

Your question was clearly loaded. The question, "You just now realized that my objection to your thought experiment is based in semantics?", clearly suggests that that's what you think. But it doesn't logically follow from what I actually said. It was a dumb question. Either illogical or just a stupid assumption. Take your pick, it's lose-lose.

”Yes, defining our terms is necessary. Without that, philosophy becomes meaningless, muddled gibberish.

If you can’t define it, then you don’t know its meaning, and that supports my claim that it doesn’t have one.” — Michael Ossipoff
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So until I define every term in this sentence, you have no idea what I'm saying.

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No, I didn’t say that.
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No finite dictionary can noncircularly define any of its words.
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But of course many words, like “here”, “go”, “with” “and”, “on”, “this”, “up”, “hit”, etc., can be known from gesture or experience. And, based on such words, and on the dictionaries’ definitions of words in terms of other words, we usually know what other people mean.
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Problem: Without specified context, “Real” “Exist” and “There is” don’t have metaphysical definitions in terms of other words, and aren’t the sort of words that we know from daily experience or gestures.
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When a dictionary tries to define “Real” or “Exist” in terms of other words, without reference to a specified context, the circularity is blatant and doesn’t terminate in an experience-known word, and the definitions aren’t helpful.
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“Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time.
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”What you’re saying (what you’re asking in your OP question) is meaningless.

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…and, not having a meaning, it also doesn’t have an understandable meaning.’ — Michael Ossipoff
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Yet almost everyone else understood it. How peculiar.

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“Everyone else” has previously heard, and recognizes, what you were asking, as a very familiar part of philosophical-talk.
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But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context.
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Anyway, I’m not interested in a census.
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 Tu

"without an observer, nothing exists"
— ZhouBoTong

To that I simply would say: "how do you know; you haven't been there"? — Janus

It's funny when they make self-defeating claims like that.

This one is funny too:

No truth is unconfirmed... — Mww

Okay, so it's not the case that, as I'm walking home, unbeknownst to me, I have left my keys at work, unless and until that has been confirmed. I don't ever need to worry about that possibility, because I'll only ever have left them at work unless and until someone has confirmed that that's what I've done. It's not until someone finds my keys on my desk the next day that I had left them at work. It's not true that, after I had left work without my keys, I had left my keys at work, on my desk.

How very peculiar. Or rather, how very ridiculous. And there are innumerable additional examples, just as absurd, if not more so. How about this:

Without confirmation, it isn't true that Earth spins on an axis. Cavemen didn't have confirmation of this truth. So it wasn't true at that time. But if it wasn't true at that time, then how are we even here right now? If the Earth didn't spin on an axis for all that time until it was confirmed, then it couldn't have been confirmed, because everyone alive at that time would've died long before then, and we would've never been born. That's definitely absurd.

This is where extreme empiricism leads, and this is why it should be rejected. It's extremely unreasonable. These people themselves have helped demonstrate just how unreasonable it is, by saying such things without realising the logical consequences of what they say.

And just to make the point for S, even if "unconfirmed truth" is a contradiction in terms... — ZhouBoTong

But it very clearly isn't. However, it will lead to contradiction for you if you do something dumb like interpreting it as saying "untrue truth" or by committing to the unjustifiable premise that what's unconfirmed isn't true.

The dropped pencil argument is straight out of Hume’s claim of epistemological knowledge given from mere habit or convention. — Mww

Would the pencil drop to the floor? We don't know for sure, but certainty isn't necessary. Could it rise to the ceiling instead? Yes. However, if we're reasonable, then what we must consider is whether the consequences of it not dropping to the floor would be more absurd than otherwise. If this alternative logically leads to seeming absurdity that can't be explained well or even at all, then it's not reasonable to believe the alternative. If the pencil dropping to the floor is the best prediction, and the best explanation of what would happen, given what we know, then it's reasonable to believe that that, all else being equal, would happen. You'd need a greater reason that something completely unexpected would happen instead, and certainly just because it could rise to the ceiling instead, that doesn't mean that it would, nor would it mean that we haven't the foggiest either way, nor would it mean that what we already know isn't enough to reasonably believe what would most likely happen, namely that it would drop to the floor.

Your latest post is exactly what I’ve been saying about your thought experiment since pg 5. You demand acceptance the rock will still exist, but here you merely agree the pencil will fall to the floor because there’s no good reason for it not to. What’s the difference between you saying, “will the pencil drop to the floor? We don’t know for sure....”, and me saying, “will the rock still exist? I don’t know for sure....”. You say it, it's correct; I say it, it’s extreme empiricism.

I deleted my comment on your big long comment when I saw your comment to Janus. Homie don’ play no schoolyard gangsta games, first of all, plus you’ve completely misunderstood my entire argumentative domain. Where I’m coming from, in case you missed that too.

Here’s how this is going to play out. You’ll say all sorts of mean nasty ugly stuff about me and my pathetic inability to use reason and logic correctly, and I’ll just sit here and think.....oh. Ok. So be it.

You aren’t hearing me. — Mww

Yes, I am. I am hearing your irrelevant nonsense loud and clear. When I asked, "What?", that wasn't because I didn't hear you, it's because you weren't making sense.

You said of blue, the measurable properties x and y means it’s blue. That doesn’t make any sense at all to a guy who claims a thing is blue for no other reason whatsoever than he sees it as blue. — Mww

I have no reason to care about that. It is not of any relevance.

I see an object as blue therefore that means it is a blue object no matter it’s properties. — Mww

No, it just means that you see an object as blue. You're of course free to go by some silly unwarranted premise which leads to the above, but I reject it, and for good reason.

How could what I see as blue mean it’s red? — Mww

It's red if it has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres, and it's as simple as that. If you're seeing red as blue, then it must be an optical illusion or it must be that something is wrong with your perceptual system.

Hence, while discoverable properties describe something, such discovery does not always lend itself to meaning. — Mww

You mean that people commonly use colour words to describe the colour which they see something? Yes. So what? I'm not using it in that sense here, and for good reason. Your point about common usage is trivial and misses the point.

What you’re saying by measurable properties x and y means it is blue, is actually x and y are the conditions under which some part of the visual spectrum of EMR must be identified as the same as the sensation of “blue” that is perceived by humans. — Mww

No, that's what you're saying. I'm simply saying that something is blue if it has the required properties. And I've told you the required properties already.

That spectrum has the exact same conditions for blue but may not identify as blue to an animal lacking the similar receptor system as the human animal that labels that part of the visual spectrum “blue”. — Mww

Lol! That's completely and utterly irrelevant. Identifying as blue, and labeling "blue", do not make something blue, except in a stupid and trivial way. I could do that with the colour red, but that wouldn't make it blue, except in a stupid and trivial way. If I identify my cat as a grizzly bear, and label my cat a "grizzly bear", my cat doesn't actually become a grizzly bear. That's absolutely ridiculous. Yet it follows from your suggested logic.

That a deer might not identify blue as blue has no bearing whatsoever of what makes blue what it is, or whether something is blue.

Do you see that the subject of your proposition is “shape”? — Mww

Yes, I see that. Funnily enough, I have eyes. And a brain.

Funnily enough, I was talking about a shape. So, funnily enough, I used the word "shape". Funnily enough, if I had wanted to talk about something else, like a salamander, then I would have used a different word, like "salamander".

That makes explicit some arbitrary extension in space is necessarily presupposed in order for the conceptions in the predicate to be thereafter associated to something as a means to identity it. It follows if the arbitrary shape is constituted by four equal sides and four equal angles contained in those sides, THEN it is labeled “square”. It is not always necessary to actually quantify anything to perceive a square, insofar as natural knowledge evolution accepts the general conception of “square” without recourse to rulers, but there are still conditions where it is required in order for the label “square” to be at the negation of the possibility of all other shapes, i.e., construction trades, very great or very small distances, etc., or to falsify an optical illusion. — Mww

That is laughably and needlessly wordy and convoluted, and parts of it are simply wrong and illogical.

If there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. And a shape is the form of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture or material composition.

From this, it is clear that a necessary truth such that any extended shape with its own identifying consistently attributed constituents must be a square. A necessary truth needs no confirmation, it will be the case whether confirmed or not. An unconfirmed truth suggests a possibility of falsification, which requires a means of identity to apodectically resolve. — Mww

I was only talking about what it is that makes something a square because you seemed confused, and you seemed to have the wrong idea.

My argument about the unconfirmed truth that there would be a rock under the circumstances I've described stands.

It's obviously unconfirmed in the sense you seem to mean, because as things stand, we haven't all died, and even if we had, your sort of confirmation would seem to require someone there to confirm that the rock is there, despite everyone having died, which obviously wouldn't even be possible.

And it's obviously true given what we know, and given my reasonable argument.

Therefore, it's an unconfirmed truth.

(And can you please quit it with the opaque philosophy jargon. Can't you speak like a normal human being?)

I think it's a profound mistake to believe that logic alone can tell us anything about the way the world actually is.

It's funny when they make self-defeating claims like that. — S

Yes, and they just keep coming; when will the fun ever end? :rofl:

No, I didn’t say that. — Michael Ossipoff

If you want to get technical, then yes, you didn't say that. It was logically implied when you said, "defining our terms is necessary". You even quoted yourself saying that.

That sentence, along with this one, with the exception of punctuation marks, is composed entirely of terms. Yet I haven't defined these terms I'm using, and nor do I need to, because you obviously understand what I'm saying. It would be a hilarious contradiction if you replied with, "No I don't". That would be reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch.

“Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time. — Michael Ossipoff

That is completely beside the point, because that's obviously not what I've done. I didn't just say, "Exist" or "There is" or "Real". I asked if there would be a rock in the situation that I described. You know what I asked. This is getting more and more ridiculous.

But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context. — Michael Ossipoff

Right, and they shouldn't do, as that's a challenge that has no relevance in the context I set for this discussion.

But it very clearly isn't. — S

Indeed. Which part of my post suggests that I disagree with that?

Indeed. Which part of my post suggests that I disagree with that? — ZhouBoTong

I was just making a general point based on what you said. In hindsight, that wasn't very clear at all. I didn't mean you personally, but rather an impersonal "you": better said as "one" or "someone" or "a person".

I wasn't disagreeing with you as such, I was emphasising that we don't even need an "even if", given that it clearly isn't.

Nonetheless, if we were herein engaged in common meanings, we would be writing newspaper articles instead of delving into metaphysical particulars. — Mww

That is certainly fair.

But sufficient reason is not proof, sufficient reason here being gravity, or the mass of the pencil, but that doesn’t say what gravity is or why it acts on objects the way it does. — Mww

I am a little confused here. So knowledge that something will happen does not make it "true"? It also requires sufficient reason? I understand (I think) what you are saying in relation to science and in-depth philosophy in that we do not truly understand something until we completely understand it; but I am not sure that is exactly what S is trying to address.

No rational agent can deny the existence of real objects — Mww

But if there are no rational agents (S's hypothetical) then no real objects? I am not sure if this is your position, but it has certainly been argued in this thread. - ignore this, you answered below

So it isn’t so much about the negation of existence as it is about the negation of the observer with respect to existence. It’s the same error as defining a word and using the word being defined in the definition. — Mww

Ok, so your position is (again, I think), if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything? because there will be no agents to do the speculating? Doesn't this reduce any and all speculation about the future to meaningless nonsense? "The sun will rise tomorrow." We don't even know if any of us will exist tomorrow, and if we don't, then no (known) rational agents, so...?

My philosophy is obviously very amateur-ish. So I am happy to be corrected (or guided in a different direction) on any of these thoughts.

I wasn't disagreeing with you as such, I was emphasising that we don't even need an "even if", given that it clearly isn't. — S

Gotcha. Fair enough.

I have always been a bit worried about jumping into the middle of a thread (even if I read the whole thing) as misunderstandings can occur.

In any case, thanks for making the argument you are making. Not sure if I even knew the exact difference between realist and idealist before this thread (still a bit confused), but your side seemed to fit the universe that I think I exist in, better.

Your latest post is exactly what I’ve been saying about your thought experiment since pg 5. You demand acceptance the rock will still exist, but here you merely agree the pencil will fall to the floor because there’s no good reason for it not to. What’s the difference between you saying, “will the pencil drop to the floor? We don’t know for sure....”, and me saying, “will the rock still exist? I don’t know for sure....”. You say it, it's correct; I say it, it’s extreme empiricism. — Mww

What's the key point that I've been saying about surety, otherwise known as certainty? For what feels like the zillionth time, we don't need certainty to obtain knowledge. Why isn't this sinking in? If it is, then what's the problem? That we don't know for sure is not relevant in the context where I'm not arguing that we know for sure, I'm just arguing that we know. We know that the rock would fall. I've only brought up not knowing for sure in juxtaposition to knowing, and my point remains that the former is comparatively insignificant.

I deleted my comment on your big long comment when I saw your comment to Janus. Homie don’ play no schoolyard gangsta games, first of all, plus you’ve completely misunderstood my entire argumentative domain. Where I’m coming from, in case you missed that too.

Here’s how this is going to play out. You’ll say all sorts of mean nasty ugly stuff about me and my pathetic inability to use reason and logic correctly, and I’ll just sit here and think.....oh. Ok. So be it. — Mww

Alright, alright. Fine. I'm sorry. Look, you're a much better person to have a discussion with than that undercover sophist who has been taking up so much of my time, but the more you reason like him, the less credible you seem to me, and the more annoyed I become. I want what you're saying to be reasonable and make sense, but if it seems like the opposite to me, then I get annoyed, and that seeps through. The more annoyed I get, the more hyperbolic and scathing my replies become. I'll try to restrain myself from making comments like that to or about you, and maybe try to tone it down a bit. But I get passionate because, from my perspective at least, you've made so much more sense elsewhere, yet here it seems like you've gone downhill fast.

"No, I didn’t say that." — Michael Ossipoff

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If you want to get technical, then yes, you didn't say that. It was logically implied when you said, "defining our terms is necessary". You even quoted yourself saying that.

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Incorrect. I explained the difference in the text that followed what you quoted from me above. You left out that part.
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I refer you to that part of my post. …the part that spoke of why we usually know what someone means, but why the terms “Real”, “Exist” and “There is” are different in that regard
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That sentence, along with this one, and with the exception of punctuation marks, is composed entirely of terms. Yet I haven't defined these terms I'm using, and nor do I need to, because you obviously understand what I'm saying.

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As I said above, I refer you to my previous post to this thread. …you know, the post that you think that you’re replying to.
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” “Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time.” — Michael Ossipoff

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That is completely beside the point, because that's obviously not what I've done. I didn't just say, "Exist" or "There is" or "Real". I asked if there would be a rock in the situation that I described.

:D You really need to spend a bit more time checking what you’ve written before you post it.
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Yes, you asked if there would be that rock.
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Does it occur to you that your question about “Would there be…” used the interrogative conditional form of “There is…”?
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You know what I asked.

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…and I reminded you of it directly above.
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(…though neither of us knows what you meant by it.)
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This is getting more and more ridiculous.

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You got that part right. :D
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”But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Right, and they shouldn't do, as that's a challenge that has no relevance in the context I set for this discussion.

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So, what you meant by what you said has no relevance to what you said :D
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 Tu

So knowledge that something will happen does not make it "true"? — ZhouBoTong

That something will happen is fine, one could say he knows something will happen, because it is impossible nothing will happen, barring extremes, which would make the whole thing moot anyway. But it cannot be said it is true that any particular something will happen without reasoning from induction, which is insufficient causality for knowledge, or, merely speculating, which has no claim to knowledge at all. It helps to have an idea of what one thinks knowledge actually is. This philosophical reasoning shouldn’t be confused with scientific causal necessity, as in that old, worn out, “I know the sun will rise tomorrow because it has always risen”, which is categorically false informal inductive reasoning, but rather that if the sun doesn’t rise in the morning the world is over anyway because natural law has been falsified. So if causal necessity of natural law holds the truth about the sun rising will also hold. Regardless, we won’t know the truth about the sun coming up until it isn’t dark anymore.

But if there are no rational agents (S's hypothetical) then no real objects? — ZhouBoTong

Who knows? Without rational agents, whose left to say anything about anything? Whether objects remain is certainly more than likely, because rational agency is not casual necessity for existence. It’s not a question of existence anyway, it’s a question of rationality. Correct reasoning. One cannot say with absolute certainty that which was left behind when observers are vacated remains in the same condition it was in when there were observers. The planet those rocks were on could have exploded vaporizing everything for light years around. That’s no more unlikely than having all observers just up and vanish.

if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything? — ZhouBoTong

Yep. Notice the lack of philosobabble on my part. Pretty cool, ain’t I?

Doesn't this reduce any and all speculation about the future to meaningless nonsense? — ZhouBoTong

Nope. We humans speculate about the future all the time whether we’re included in it or not. One can speculate from reason, relating knowledge to possibility, or he can speculate from imagination, relating belief to illusion. Some speculation is fascinating and leads to great discoveries; some speculation is irrational and leads to absurdities

some speculation is irrational and leads to absurdities — Mww

So, "the sun will rise tomorrow is an absurdity"? Isn't it more absurd to call that statement absurd? (I will be quick to admit this is not fascinating, nor will it lead to great discoveries; but if I went through life assuming it was true, what would be the problem?)

Aren't you (any sort of strong idealism) just pointing out that we all might be living in The Matrix (or any other related extreme)? I can agree that we might be, but to actually live like that was true is unlikely to be productive.

if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything?
— ZhouBoTong

Yep. Notice the lack of philosobabble on my part. Pretty cool, ain’t I?

Doesn't this reduce any and all speculation about the future to meaningless nonsense?
— ZhouBoTong

Nope. We humans speculate about the future all the time whether we’re included in it or not. — Mww

Maybe we need more philosobabble (but don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort :grin: )? Your statements seem to contradict. I get that you were being literal with "no rational agents so we can't begin to speculate" but there was a very strong implication in that statement that there are rational agents alive now who can speculate on life after rational agents; because as you said,

We humans speculate about the future all the time whether we’re included in it or not. — Mww

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So aren't you saying we can speculate on a future with no rational agents, but it would be meaningless?

Well since we can't know for sure there will be rational agents tomorrow, it seems all future thought is just meaningless speculation?

I think it's a profound mistake to believe that logic alone can tell us anything about the way the world actually is. — Janus

Logic tells us a lot about the way that the world is. Consider mathematics for example. But I really don't know what you are insinuating with "logic alone". Logic doesn't tell us things, it must be applied, used. When we use logic it is not the logic which is informing us, we are informing ourselves. So we use logic to find out about things, especially concerning things where we haven't been. That's why it doesn't make sense to say that if you haven't been there, you cannot know about it. We can use logic to know about places where we haven't been.

Firstly, mathematics is not reducible to logic (Whitehead and Russell tried that).

Secondly, if you want to claim that mere logic tells us anything about the world, then provide an example.

Thirdly, when you say we can use logic to know about places we haven't been that would, if anything, only tell us what kinds of things we could possibly experience if we were there. It tells us about the forms our experiences could take, not about their content. And it cannot tell us anything about whether, as per the example, a rock is there when no one is around.

Incorrect. I explained the difference in the text that followed what you quoted from me above. You left out that part.
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I refer you to that part of my post. …the part that spoke of why we usually know what someone means, but why the terms “Real”, “Exist” and “There is” are different in that regard. — Michael Ossipoff

You said that we usually know what people mean when they use terms in context. I used terms in context. Therefore, what I meant is something which is usually understood. You're either an exception to your own rule or you're just pretending.

This discussion is testament to the understanding of what I asked. Most, if not all, other people understood what I meant. That's why we're having a discussion about it, instead of everyone just responding like, "What? I have no idea what you just asked", as though I was speaking in my own made up gibberish.

Look at how many people voted in the poll. Would you vote in a poll when you had no idea what it was asking?

You really need to spend a bit more time checking what you’ve written before you post it.

Yes, you asked if there would be that rock.

Does it occur to you that your question about “Would there be…” used the interrogative conditional form of “There is…”? — Michael Ossipoff

And...? What's this supposed problem you're having with understanding what I asked? Why shouldn't I believe that you're feigning ignorance, when that's what the evidence suggests?

Why shouldn't I believe that you're just dancing around the real issue about whether or not there would be a rock?

But it cannot be said it is true that any particular something will happen without reasoning from induction, which is insufficient causality for knowledge, or, merely speculating, which has no claim to knowledge at all. — Mww

Are you purposefully ignoring me now? Can we be friends again? I'm sorry! :cry:

Even if that were so, it would only mean that it cannot knowingly be said to be true. It can still be said, and unknowingly be true.

There's an issue about what makes something knowledge, and what's reasonable. But there's a separate issue about what is or isn't true. And these issues seem to be getting a little muddled.

So, you think that I don't know that there wouldn't be a rock, and you think that I'm not being reasonable to believe that there would be a rock, rather than the alternative of there being no rock, even though the alternative leads to absurdity of a sort? If believing that there would be no rock is absurd, and believing that there would be a rock is the best explanation, then why shouldn't I believe that there would be a rock? Why wouldn't that be what's reasonable to believe? Just because the best explanation isn't absolutely guaranteed to be 100% correct, that's no reason not to believe it. If that were the case, then we wouldn't believe anything, which isn't even possible. Not everything is mere habit. Some of what we do and what we believe is reasonable.

But if there are no rational agents (S's hypothetical) then no real objects?
— ZhouBoTong

Who knows? Without rational agents, whose left to say anything about anything? — Mww

I know. I know enough to know. I'm a rational agent.

If you think that I would need to actually be in the scenario, then that's where these problems of yours stem from.

...with absolute certainty... — Mww

:roll:

if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything?
— ZhouBoTong

Yep. Notice the lack of philosobabble on my part. Pretty cool, ain’t I? — Mww

But there are rational agents. And we can speculate. And even if there were no rational agents, we could still speculate. And what we speculate can be true whether we're rational agents or otherwise. If you were to take everything that we've speculated to date, then how would you know that it contains not a shred of truth? How could you know that?

Of course, there would be no rational agents in the scenario. There would be no one at all in the scenario. That's extremely obvious. But that doesn't matter.

Isn't it more absurd to call that statement absurd? — ZhouBoTong

Hurrah! Someone who gets the reasoning. :100:

Aren't you (any sort of strong idealism) just pointing out that we all might be living in The Matrix (or any other related extreme)? — ZhouBoTong

I can accept these sort of possibilities. I never denied them. I don't think that they're a real problem.

When we use logic it is not the logic which is informing us, we are informing ourselves. So we use logic to find out about things, especially concerning things where we haven't been. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now this is very interesting indeed! You get it right with a tool like logic, but wrong with a tool like a ruler!

We use a ruler to inform ourselves. We use a ruler to find out about things. Especially things we haven't measured.

The world is such that it is of certain ways, and we use logic to find out these certain ways. A rock is a certain length, and we use a ruler to find out this certain length.

The world is such that it has rocks, and we use logic to find out that rocks don't just suddenly to be there when we look away or when we die. The rock is such that it is 10cm long, and we use a ruler to find this out.

We don't use a ruler to set or "determine" the length. That's absurd. I'm not giving it a length, I'm just measuring it to find out what the length is. It's 10cm long, and I find that out by going up to it, putting my ruler up against it, observing that from end to end it goes from 0cm to 10cm, and that's that. If it wasn't 10cm long, then I couldn't possibly find that out!

You confuse length with measured length. Length is how long it is. If it's 10cm long, then that's how long it is. That's its length. It doesn't require that someone has measured it. Measured length, on the other hand, obviously requires that it has been measured. This is a perfect example of what I meant earlier when I said that you were making a tautology which misses the point. I do not doubt for a second that the measured length of a thing requires that the thing, at some point, be measured.

Everyone who thinks that there wouldn't be a rock an hour after we died, or who doesn't think that there would be, or who thinks that we don't know enough to justifiably make that claim, should stop whatever line of argument they're pursuing and explain how it is that there were rocks before we existed, for hundreds and thousands of years, or how it is that we know that.

If you fail this test, then your position is untenable.

So, with 11 votes, realism has the lead in the poll for both Part 1 & Part 2, although it is tied with idealism in Part 2. So, realism is doing relatively well, but not quite as well as I expected. This might have to do with the "Other" option. I think that too many people have a tendency to vote "Other" when they probably don't need to. Some people might just not know, which is fair enough. In hindsight, maybe I should have included a "Don't know" option. But some people seem to have this tendency to think that they're somehow above the fray; that they are special and have a unique position which can't be categorised as either option, and is superior to both. I doubt that.

It is concerning that out of 11 people, there are so many idealists. Don't they realise that idealism is a load of bollocks? Why is it so popular (at least here, and judging by only a small and limited number of voters)?

So, "the sun will rise tomorrow is an absurdity"? — ZhouBoTong

Depends on your philosophical preference. It is usually considered irrational to claim a truth that is technically merely a possibility.
A.) To say an empirical event will occur implies irreversible factual causality. We have knowledge our sun is a star, stars are known to supernova, therefore......you get the picture.
B.) To say an event will occur implies the negation is impossible. If the negation is possible, the statement is false. The correct simple proposition is, the sun should rise tomorrow. Or, simple with qualifiers, all else being given, the sun will rise tomorrow.

Aren't you (any sort of strong idealism) just pointing out that we all might be living in The Matrix — ZhouBoTong

While it is more than likely a strong subjective idealist might claim, or at least argue in the affirmative for the Matrix scenario, or the philosophical zombie kinda thing, re: Nagel (1970) and Chalmers (1996), almost no one does anymore after Kant set the academic world on fire. Still, even now, we have no means to prove definitively we do not live in a Matrix or whatever, even if we can posit some strong arguments against it, re: Dennet (1999). My position is, it doesn’t matter. If we are, we always were, so nothing’s any different than we’ve already seen. If we suddenly discovered we were, that’s a whole different story.

A.) So aren't you saying we can speculate on a future with no rational agents, but it would be meaningless?
B.) Well since we can't know for sure there will be rational agents tomorrow, it seems all future thought is just meaningless speculation? — ZhouBoTong

A’) Consider the rest of what I said: speculate from knowledge vs speculate from belief. We know from the past what it’s like out there without humans, so speculation about the future without humans can be reasonable. Simple: there will be a whole lot more buildings and a whole lot less forest.
B’) All future thought, that is, thinking in the future, is indeed meaningless to us in the present, yes.
As I said, THAT I will think tomorrow, all else being equal, is most probable, but it is impossible to claim as true WHAT I will think tomorrow.

Depends on your philosophical preference. It is usually considered irrational to claim a truth that is technically merely a possibility.
A.) To say an empirical event will occur implies irreversible factual causality. We have knowledge our sun is a star, stars are known to supernova, therefore......you get the picture.
B.) To say an event will occur implies the negation is impossible. If the negation is possible, the statement is false. The correct simple proposition is, the sun should rise tomorrow. Or, simple with qualifiers, all else being given, the sun will rise tomorrow. — Mww

The certainty fetish. There's therapy for that. :joke: