And do you agree Descartes never really disprove the BIAV? Except by bringing God in. — GLEN willows

I think there are two issues here that are getting entangled. One issue is logical/grammatical. This is what I've been focusing on.

The second involves probability and intensities of certainty. You and I might agree that it's logically possible that we are both brains in a vat, and we might discuss things until we give up on trying to prove otherwise. Fair enough. But our claims refer to an external world. It is or is not the case that we are really in a vat. But the 'structure' of rational discussion puts us in the same world together, whatever its nature, both conforming to norms for concept and inference application to understand and persuade one another.

Does that help ? I'm not trying to prove I'm not in a vat. I'm also not trying to prove I'm an alien raised as a human who was never told of his powers. Because I don't suspect such things. But both are coherent. Maybe the year is 3095. I was in a car accident and my brain was preserved. Some genuine Vanilla Sky stuff! (Note though our shared concept of some real world in contrast to the illusion that keeps this wild stuff coherent. We must have contrast, something that is the case.)

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=vanilla+sky&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7Zk4y9ZRlwA

The new one is heinous though. — GLEN willows

Agreed!

But the first one, the first time seeing it in the theater,...

Ok I feel like I've been a pest, sorry. I hope this goes on forever, I will be reading but not replying. I've hit my mediocrity level. I'l just ask that you critique this if you're so inclined. Or not.

Statement - There are other minds

premise 1 - We act in a social context

premise 2 - this could not be an illusion

-------
Premise 1 assumes the conclusion.

Premise 2 is weak.

Conclusion - Therefore there are no are other minds.

Cheers!

:chin:

You're misunderstanding what I've said. I've said that our lives, phenomenologically speaking, consists in images. Out of the repetition of these images we fabricate world of stable objects. But day to day, we do not experience stable objects; we experience a flux of imagery.

So, the objects are mental creations; purely conventional. And that's what science deals with. Nothing wrong with that and it obviously has practical uses, but that is not where life, experience and poetry are to be found.

You seem to be justifying the unimportance of establishing how justification how works by declaring it to be impossible in terms of an authority that's uncheckable even in principle. You also refer to our lives, without it being clear how a ghost trapped in its own private imagery could make trustworthy claims about other ghosts...if trustworthy makes any sense is this world of dreams without contrast. — Pie

Again this shows you've totally misunderstood what I'm saying. We know our observations and judgements are justified. or not, within the conventional co-creation of the world of stable facts and things. We know that it is the more primordial experience of imagery that makes this co-creation possible. So, why would we need to bother further with justification? Life does not consist in observation and judgement, even if discursive thought does.

Do you want your life, your thinking, to be creative, passionate and interesting, or merely normatively justified. I couldn't give a toss about normative justification, to be honest.

What is your grounds for other minds that doesn't PRESUPPOSE other minds? — GLEN willows

I didn't claim that there are other minds; why would I? Those who are in doubt, or deny there are other minds, are making the extraordinary claim idly without grounds to do so. Like you are / have.

And before you make any other "arguments from authority" ... — GLEN willows

Cite where I have made an "argument from authority". FYI: corroborating one's arguments with others' arguments / positions is not fallacious as you seem suggest, "newbie".

I've said that our lives, phenomenologically speaking, consists in images. — Janus

Yes. You keep making claims about the private minds of others, which should not be possible, unless the entities in those minds are part of the usual explanatory nexus.

But day to day, we do not experience stable objects; we experience a flux of imagery. — Janus

So you claim, but this is metaphysical theory, which could only be defended or justified in terms of universal rational norms.

We know that it is the more primordial experience of imagery that makes this co-creation possible. — Janus

As I see it, we don't know this: you merely think it. In fact, I've been arguing that this ghost story was developed in the first place by taking a genuine, shared, 'external' world for granted, one in which sense-organs are affected by objects. With Hume and Kant, this idea was pushed to absurdity, till the sense organs were ridiculously the product of (the sensations of) the sense organs.

Life is in the imagery, [ ... ] But that's just my feeling about it. — Janus

:lol: Pax.

Yes. You keep making claims about the private minds of others, which should not be possible, unless the entities in those minds are part of the usual explanatory nexus. — Pie

I know my life is such, and I have no reason to think it is different in form for others, although the content would obviously be different, though not without enough commonality

to enable the conventional co-creation of stable objects I have been going on about.

So you claim, but this is metaphysical theory, which could only be defended or justified in terms of universal rational norms. — Pie

It's not a metaphysical theory, but a phenomenological fact about my own experience, and again I see no reason to think it different for others.

We don't know this. — Pie

I know this in my own case; it's simple phenomenology. I also have confirmed this with many of my friends from philosophy classes at university..I don't deny that sense organs are affected, or any of the whole story of science. But that whole story is abstracted from the more primordial experience of being in the world (to reference Heidegger); a world of images, sounds and bodily sensations.

:lol: Pax. — 180 Proof

:rofl: You mean Pussy. I don't kiss tablets.

We're all, in a sense, talking to ourselves! — Solipsist

Self-Talk

:snicker:

Please calm down, take a deep breath and relax. Pagliacci will be with you shortly!

it's simple phenomenology. — Janus

That's not always a good thing !

I don't deny that sense organs are affected, ... But that whole story is abstracted from the more primordial experience of being in the world ... a world of images, sounds and bodily sensations. — Janus

Incoherent, however initially plausible...to those like us exposed to the tradition, anyway.

And others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be the work of our organs! ... Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs—?

https://gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.html

:smirk: :up:

That's not always a good thing ! — Pie

Not if you don't like it. For me it;s the best guide to what living is for us.

Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs—?

You're tilting at straw windmills; I haven't said that the external world is the work of our organs; what on Earth made you think that? :roll:

I haven't said that the external world is the work of our organs; what on Earth made you think that? :roll: — Janus

The part where you said (implied) that ? The part that I quoted?

That's not always a good thing ! — Pie

Right you are! Good job!

The part where you said that ? The part that I quoted? — Pie

You mean this:

I don't deny that sense organs are affected, ... But that whole story is abstracted from the more primordial experience of being in the world ... a world of images, sounds and bodily sensations. — Janus

Where in that have I said the external world is the work of our organs? The world of experience is a world of images, sounds and bodily sensations, but I haven't said that the external world consists in images, sounds and bodily sensations. The external world, for us, is an inferential extrapolation from the repetition and commonality of experiences of everyday things. We have very good reason to think that it exists, but we only know what it is for our inferential imaginations, nothing beyond that.

Right you are! Good job! — Agent Smith

Phenomenology, intelligently practiced, is always a good thing. Anything at all unintelligently practiced, is not a good thing; so there's little of substance, and much of the bleeding obvious, there.

Phenomology, intelligently practiced, is always a good thing. Anything at all unintelligently practiced, is not a good thing; so there's little of substance, and much of the bleeding obvious, there. — Janus

Touché mon ami!

Touché mon ami! — Agent Smith

:smile: :cool:

The external world, for us, is an inferential extrapolation from the repetition and commonality of experiences of everyday things. We have very good reason to think that it exists, but we only know what it is for our inferential imaginations, nothing beyond that. — Janus

I dispute that. Only normative rationality and shared premises could support such a bold claim, yet you make the existence of anything outside your dream a mere hypothesis. We might just as well say that we have very good reason to think @Janus is not an artificial intelligence, utterly incapable of the feeling and sensation it's been designed to prioritize. The 'inside' and the 'outside' are interdependent concepts.

There is thus a polar opposition between mind and matter, an oppos-tion which is often brought out as follows. Material objects are situated in a common field, known as ‘space’, and what happens to one body in one part of space is mechanically connected with what happens to other bodies in other parts of space. But mental happenings occur in insulated fields, known as ‘minds’, and there is, apart maybe from telepathy, no direct causal connection between what happens in one mind and what happens in another. Only through the medium of the public physical world can the mind of one person make a difference to the mind of another. The mind is its own place and in his inner life each of us lives the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe. People can see, hear and jolt one another’s bodies, but they are irremediably blind and deaf to the workings of one another’s minds and inoperative upon them.

What sort of knowledge can be secured of the workings of a mind? On the one side, according to the official theory, a person has direct knowledge of the best imaginable kind of the workings of his own mind. Mental states and processes are (or are normally) conscious states and processes, and the consciousness which irradiates them can engender no illusions and leaves the door open for no doubts. A person’s present thinkings, feelings and willings, his perceivings, rememberings and imaginings are intrinsically ‘phosphorescent’; their existence and their nature are inevitably betrayed to their owner. The inner life is a stream of consciousness of such a sort that it would be absurd to suggest that the mind whose life is that stream might be unaware of what is passing down it. ... Besides being currently supplied with these alleged immediate data of consciousness, a person is also generally supposed to be able to exercise from time to time a special kind of perception, namely inner perception, or introspection. He can take a (non optical) ‘look’ at what is passing in his mind. Not only can he view and scrutinize a flower through his sense of sight and listen to and discriminate the notes of a bell through his sense of hearing; he can also reflectively or introspectively watch, without any bodily organ of sense, the current episodes of his inner life. This self-observation is also commonly supposed to be immune from illusion, confusion or doubt. A mind’s reports of its own affairs have a certainty superior to the best that is possessed by its reports of matters in the physical world. Sense-perceptions can, but consciousness and introspection cannot, be mistaken or confused.

On the other side, one person has no direct access of any sort to the events of the inner life of another. He cannot do better than make problematic inferences from the observed behaviour of the other person’s body to the states of mind which, by analogy from his own conduct, he supposes to be signalised by that behaviour. Direct access to the workings of a mind is the privilege of that mind itself; in default of such privileged access, the workings of one mind are inevitably occult to everyone else.

For the supposed arguments from bodily movements similar to their own to mental workings similar to their own would lack any possibility of observational corroboration. Not unnaturally, therefore, an adherent of the official theory finds it difficult to resist this consequence of his premisses, that he has no good reason to believe that there do exist minds other than his own. Even if he prefers to believe that to other human bodies there are harnessed minds not unlike his own, he cannot claim to be able to discover their individual characteristics, or the particular things that they undergo and do. Absolute solitude is on this showing the ineluctable destiny of the soul. Only our bodies can meet.

As a necessary corollary of this general scheme there is implicitly prescribed a special way of construing our ordinary concepts of mental powers and operations. The verbs, nouns and adjectives, with which in ordinary life we describe the wits, characters and higher-grade performances of the people with whom we have do, are required to be construed as signifying special episodes in their secret histories, or else as signifying tendencies for such episodes to occur. When someone is described as knowing, believing or guessing something, as hoping, dreading, intending or shirking something, as designing this or being amused at that, these verbs are supposed to denote the occurrence of specific modifications in his (to us) occult stream of consciousness. Only his own privileged access to this stream in direct awareness and introspection could provide authentic testimony that these mental-conduct verbs were correctly or incorrectly applied. The onlooker, be he teacher, critic, biographer or friend, can never assure himself that his comments have any vestige of truth. Yet it was just because we do in fact all know how to make such comments, make them with general correctness and correct them when they turn out to be confused or mistaken, that philosophers found it necessary to construct their theories of the nature and place of minds. Finding mental-conduct concepts being regularly and effectively used, they properly sought to fix their logical geography. But the logical geography officially recommended would entail that there could be no regular or effective use of these mental-conduct concepts in our descriptions of, and prescriptions for, other people's minds.
...
It is an historical curiosity that it was not noticed that the entire argument was broken-backed. Theorists correctly assumed that any sane man could already recognise the differences between, say, rational and nonrational utterances or between purposive and automatic behaviour. Else there would have been nothing requiring to be salved from mechanism. Yet the explanation given presupposed that one person could in principle never recognise the difference between the rational and the irrational utterances issuing from other human bodies, since he could never get access to the postulated immaterial causes of some of their utterances. Save for the doubtful exception of himself, he could never tell the difference between a man and a Robot. It would have to be conceded, for example, that, for all that we can tell, the inner lives of persons who are classed as idiots or lunatics are as rational as those of anyone else. Perhaps only their overt behaviour is disappointing; that is to say, perhaps ‘idiots’ are not really idiotic, or ‘lunatics’ lunatic. Perhaps, too, some of those who are classed as sane are really idiots. According to the theory, external observers could never know how the overt behaviour of others is correlated with their mental powers and processes and so they could never know or even plausibly conjecture whether their applications of mental-conduct concepts to these other people were correct or incorrect. It would then be hazardous or impossible for a man to claim sanity or logical consistency even for himself, since he would be debarred from comparing his own performances with those of others. — Ryle

Solipsism is where you end up when you can't prove other minds. — GLEN willows

No it isn't. Lack of proof other minds exist is not proof that they do not exist.

So, what will you choose?

I dispute that. Only normative rationality and shared premises could support such a bold claim, yet you make the existence of anything outside your dream a mere hypothesis. — Pie

You're really good at misunderstanding! I said we have very good reason to think the external world exists, but it cannot be for us, anything more than an inference to what seems to be the most plausible explanation for the repetition and commonality of experience. It's a very potenet inference; one we really have no reason to doubt, so I ask myself why I should bpother thinking about it? What difference could the absolute existence or lack of existence of something I know only via images and sensations, and which exists as such for me, (and I have every reason to think, everyone else) whether I like it or not, make to my life?

My whole point has been that it doesn't matter anyway: we are all, in our everyday lives, naive realists; we have been conditioned that way. I am just not that interested in the kind of ourobouric pursuit of normative justification for facts and propositions, when the whole conventional machinery is already firmly in place. I'd rather preserve my mental resources for more creative, poetic pursuits, in the interest of intensifying the richness of the stream of imagery that is my phenomenal life.

I've read McDowell and Brandom, and I find their approach to be (for me) a waste of time and energy; it's just too anal.

I'd rather preserve my mental resources for more creative, poetic pursuits, in the interest of intensifying the richness of the stream of imagery that is my phenomenal life. — Janus

it's just too anal. — Janus

:up:

What is "ridiculous" is assuming a perspective for which there are not any grounds to assume and then use such an groundless assumption as a conditional or premise.

↪GLEN willows Epistemic warrant (of assent) does not require that claims (re: e.g. other minds) "be certainly established". Reasonably, there are not any grounds to doubt that there are other minds. — 180 Proof

That a specific claim has no grounds is something which needs to be proven. The person making the questionable claim may be asked to justify it, and failure to do this still does not prove that the claim is "groundless".

The issue though, which Wittgenstein demonstrated in "On Certainty", is that groundlessness is something which cannot be proven, because that would require grounds. So we just assign "irrational", or as you say, "ridiculous", to specific claims, but this is not the same as "groundless". The problem though, is that we have no real standards by which we make such a judgement, because the judgement it is not something which is proven. So the judgement is really just a personal opinion.

So you start by saying that a specific perspective is groundless, and ridiculous, and you end by saying that a different perspective is groundless, but reasonable, without any principles to support such judgements.

Right you are! Good job! — Agent Smith

Phenomenology can be good, but it often leans into the usual ghost story. Why is that bad ? The ghost story, in most of its forms, is obsolete -- has been shown to be wrong or incoherent. Because it's outlandish and daring, it's supposed to be sophisticated, but believers are quick to tell you that 'practically' they are just like everyone else. So it's a bad theory that serves no purpose, hackneyed poetry basically, 'describing ' the world by denying it ... insisting it cannot be described, does not exist, etc.

You've confused yourself again. Go try and score points elsewhere, MU.

I'd rather preserve my mental resources for more creative, poetic pursuits, in the interest of intensifying the richness of the stream of imagery that is my phenomenal life. — Janus


it's just too anal. — Janus


:up: — Pie

I'm glad you approve. It'll be good for your soul to return to your your Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida etc. :wink: : analytic philosophy is too anal, and if one keeps at it too long one disappears up one's own arse.

So it's a bad theory that serves no purpose, hackneyed poetry basically, 'describing ' the world by denying it ... — Pie

This is not phenomenology you are purporting to characterize. Phenomenology doesn't deny the world, in fact quite the opposite "Back to the things", "being in the world", "flesh of the world", etc.

Phenomenology is not a "ghost story": you've been (mis)reading too much Ryle, it seems. Don't get me wrong: Ryle is alright; I read and enjoyed Concept of Mind 20 or so years ago; it's good for dispelling "container" analogies for the relation between the body and mind.

The passage you quoted from Ryle is too black and white; more of a caricature than an accurate depiction. Of course we do have private experience, but it is also true that our experience is conditioned by being socialized. We cannot always accurately describe what we are experiencing, and that is where poetry fills the gap left by propositional discourse or literal description. We have no reason to assume, since we are all human and similarly constituted, that our diverse experience is without its similarities, so poetic language can evoke common kinds of experience effectively enough, without being literally descriptive.

You've confused yourself again. Go try and score points elsewhere, MU. — 180 Proof

Ad hominem instead of making an attempt at a coherent reply, 180 Proof's MO.

If you're into counting points, mark one for me, zero for you. Care to try for a reply to redeem yourself?

I've said that our lives, phenomenologically speaking, consists in images. Out of the repetition of these images we fabricate world of stable objects. But day to day, we do not experience stable objects; we experience a flux of imagery.

So, the objects are mental creations; purely conventional. And that's what science deals with. Nothing wrong with that and it obviously has practical uses, but that is not where life, experience and poetry are to be found. — Janus

Does this mean I don't have to read and try to understand Merleau-Ponty or Heidegger now? :razz: :cool:

You did it for me, Moo.