omniscience is not required for knowledge. We need not know everything in order to know some things. Just because we do not see everything as it is does not mean that we cannot see anything as it is. — creativesoul

It just means our knowledge of it is and forever will be incomplete and perfectible.

That brings us back around to the intersubjective reality:. for a long time, lines of perspective were a requirement for the production of realistic landscapes. There are many artists who still think that way. But that's not how the world really looks. — frank

"...really..."

No.

We do see things as they are - the sugar in the bowl, the tree in the garden. Sure, we don't see it all, but we do see enough to get by. — Banno

Key words: to get by. Which a good way to put it. Our senses have been selected to help us get by, based on their utility to survive and procreate. That 's why we can taste the sugar in the bowl, and see a red apple in the tree.

If you like; but I've seen the phases of Venus. Some folk mistakenly think our senses a restriction.

I'd take a step back from senses, and hence from pragmatism, and replace meaning with use.


Edit: Popper seems to have at the back of his mind that the stuff we agree on - intersubjectively - is what is real. But if pushed he might have said that the stuff we agree on is the stuff we can use to get by. Wittgenstein might have pointed out that it's not actually necessary for us to agree as to what is the case in order to get by.

This clarification made, real cartographers try to be objective, that's true, but they are only human and they do display biases — Olivier5

Right, but I think your personal objective narrative goes unexamined for bias. It's pinned as reality, right?

That's what we both said.

Too often a neophyte will present the profound truth that we cannot say anything true. You've seen it.

They'll next water that down to that we can't know how things are in themselves, only what we sense. Very many get stuck here, never noticing the phases of Venus. Their approach seems to be to do philosophy first, and let that lead their conviction, rather than to look around at what we do know.

They might move on to the further dilution that we can at least agree on the stuff around us, but that there are still things that are private, and hence that we others cannot possibly understand.

That's still mistaken.

It's just a symbol that refers to that portion (and others such as its own) according to well-established rules. — bongo fury

...then you should have no trouble setting those rules out, so we can share them.

The history of philosophy in the 20th century shows this to be a somewhat fraught exercise.

Have a go yourself, if you like. You'd think it would be easy.

but that there are still things that are private, and hence that we others cannot possibly understand.

That's still mistaken. — Banno

How could you possibly know that there is nothing in the experience of others that you could not understand? Huge groundless assumption!

.then you should have no trouble setting those rules out, so we can share them. — Banno

The rules referenced there are the rules of perspective in visual art.

Yep.

As groundless as the assumption that there are such things.

The rules referenced there are the rules of perspective in visual art. — frank

Ah.


So what are they?

Pick a vanishing point, draw lines from the foreground to the vanishing point. Lay your stuff on the lines.

It's just a symbol that refers to that portion (and others such as its own) according to well-established rules. — bongo fury

So... to teach someone to draw in perspective, we write "Pick a vanishing point, draw lines from the foreground to the vanishing point. Lay your stuff on the lines." on the board, then we're good? They know the rule, so they can draw in perspective.

No, you'd draw it for them.

All of them and more compose what must be a unique reality, with many different facets. — Olivier5

So,

the notion of the structure of the world.
-- Goodman — bongo fury

?

:ok:

Rules... conventions... traditions... customs...

Ok. It's just that real maps really are objective accounts. — frank

You might think so, but it is always subjects who decide what to put on maps, therefore maps are inherently subjective.

Suppose there's an array of one hundred items in front of you, and you draw a map locating the relative position of twenty items. Regardless of how true your representation of the locations of those items is, your map is subjective, because you have chosen which items to map.

But saying we don't see the world as it is isn't right, either. We do see things as they are - the sugar in the bowl, the tree in the garden. Sure, we don't see it all, but we do see enough to get by. — Banno

The issue is the process by which, what we do see, is selected from everything else, just like in the example of drawing a map, above. There is a process which makes us see crystals of sugar rather than molecules of sugar. But we smell and taste molecules. And I don't think we sense atoms in any way. Since this process is properly "of the subject", then the world which we see is subjective. Agreement between us, because the process is similar between similar beings, makes our descriptions intersubjective. But this does not change the fact that the aspects sensed are selected for, by the living systems of the subjects, so it does not make it any less subjective.

I experience, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience.
— unenlightened

You call your experience the world? Are you a solipsist, then? — Luke

EDIT:

I experience something, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience.
— unenlightened

Is that any clearer? Thus I am wearing a red fleece today, "The fleece is red", not "my experience is red".

Looking at something with the mind does not mean to hold an image of it, it means to think about it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then looking is a misleading way to express, which is what I told you a while back. Yes I can remember stuff and manipulate concepts. And this means that I have a mind. Some people, but very few, can remember and recall complete images. They have minds too, that work slightly differently.

We can say true statements about how things are, not just about our experiences of them. — Banno

Isn’t this just reinforcing the distinction you say we shouldn’t “invent”? A distinction between how things are and our experiences of them?

Regardless of how true your representation of the locations of those items is, your map is subjective, because you have chosen which items to map. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, and there are no doubt various influences on your choices that come through in your map-metaphor. If you start taking your metaphor as a higher truth, it would be good for someone to remind you that it's adulterated.

But what happens if there are no individual perspectives going into the production of the map?

IOW, if what we take to be individual perspectives are actually all cultural constructs? Is our map then also a purely cultural construct? What would the implications of that be?

Almost as groundless, except I know there are things in my own experience I cannot verbalize or explain to myself, much less to you.

Then looking is a misleading way to express, which is what I told you a while back. — unenlightened

Actually it's a very common use of the word "look", you're just obstinate, refusing to look at anything unless it's in front of your eyes.

But what happens if there are no individual perspectives going into the production of the map? — frank

I don't see how that's possible. Have you ever seen a group of people working together before. It's all individual perspectives going into the production.

IOW, if what we take to be individual perspectives are actually all cultural constructs? Is our map then also a purely cultural construct? What would the implications of that be? — frank

There is a small number of people who work together to produce a map. There is a very large number of people who make up a culture. It would be a fallacy of composition to say that the culture constructs the map. We also have the same type of fallacy if we try to say that the individual's perspective is the perspective of the culture. It's plainly and simply illogical.

Right, but I think your personal objective narrative goes unexamined for bias. It's pinned as reality, right? — frank

The way I understand these words, your personal narrative is by definition subjective because your are a subject. Keeping in mind that what you perceive is only a partial and imperfect view is important to be able to hear what others are saying

Popper seems to have at the back of his mind that the stuff we agree on - intersubjectively - is what is real. — Banno

Popper was a realist. He saw intersubjectivity as a tool, as means to an end, which is knowledge.

So what? There's no structure to things? Things are whatever we want them to be? Is that what you and this guy Goodman are saying?

To me, reality is precisely what imposes itself on us, what resists our fancy. What is, irrespective of what you think of it. More often than not, reality is what you don't want it to be.

replace meaning with use. — Banno

That can't be done. It leads to logical contradictions. Meaning is not disposable.

EDIT:

I experience something, I call it the world; I don't call it having an experience.

Is that any clearer? — unenlightened

It seems to run afoul of your earlier complaint, since it implies that you experience "the whole world at once".

Thus I am wearing a red fleece today, "The fleece is red", not "my experience is red". — unenlightened

What relationship is there between "the fleece is red" and your experience?

I get the sense you would prefer to reject subjective experience from your explanations entirely. After all, if subjective experience has no place in language then maybe it does not exist at all? For example, you said that your friend Richard did not have an experience of red, and instead you thought the experience of red might be an illusion for him. But an illusion is also an experience. If experience has taught me anything, it's that I experience things.

Popper was a realist. He saw intersubjectivity as a tool, as means to an end, which is knowledge. — Olivier5

Yep. Hence the next part of what I wrote.

Yep, I think you hit the nail on the head. So ↪Olivier5 is quite happy to bring intersubjectivity in to the discussion, not noticing how it is used by, for comparison, ↪Pfhorrest, ↪simeonz and ↪Mww.

So there's folk as for various reasons don't differentiate between what is true and what is believed - they suppose for example that nothing is true, just believed to a greater or lesser extent. They've various epistemological structures to reinforce this view, versions of coherentism or pragmatism, sometimes rejecting truth outright, sometimes redefining it in terms of a sort of popular vote or a final goal.

I'd just point out that being popular or being useful is not the very same as being true. I hope that's apparent.

But also I've no objection to the suggestion that some experiment that is repeated successfully should reinforce one's belief in the result; that's not at issue here, at least for me. — Banno

There seem to be some kind of a paradox hidden in this part of the philosophical universe. Scientific reproducibility, as understood in the obvious way, would have us believe that, well, more the merrier - the probability of something being real is directly proportional to the number of observers that report whatever that something is.

On the flip side, there exists a named fallacy that cautions us against such a mindset called, if I remember correctly, argumentum ad populum which basically denies any link between beliefs and the number of believers.

Perhaps, there's a difference, subtle or not, you be the judge, between observation and belief. The scientific principle of reproducibility is about observation and the argumentum ad populum fallacy concerns beliefs. While it's true that when it comes to observations, the number of observers has a major role to play in the authentication of the observation, the same doesn't apply, in fact the situation is the exact opposite in a sense, when beliefs are an issue.

Frankly, I have no clue. Both beliefs and reproducibility-based verification of observations seem inferential in character and hence, both should be equally fallacious if numbers are treated as a measure of truth/realness.