I was a Pyrrhonian in my wayward youth and still have great regard for that form of skepsis (incorporating its praxis, along with fallibilism, in my Epicurean-Spinozist 'framework'). — 180 Proof

Plato's academy eventually evolved into a school of skepticism as per some reports. Did all the work done upto that point lead upto it (knowledged searched, possibilities explored, discovered, later, that certainty impossible) or was skepticism something entirely novel (no Socratic/Platonic roots)?

You know, I accidentally (re)discovered Agrippa'a trilemma but, as you pointed out, the resultant aporia is distressing, like St. Augustine/St. Aquinas said it is, rather than tranquil (ataraxia). Perhaps I haven't really understood skepticism if that's the case.

I suspect fallibilism is more suitable for a contemporary kynic (unless you're a 'a deliberately homeless, p0m0 luddite') than (Hellenistic) skepticism.

I suspect fallibilism is more suitable for a contemporary kynic (unless you're a 'a deliberately homeless, p0m0 luddite') than (Hellenistic) skepticism. — 180 Proof

That's a good stance to adopt. Prefix every statement with "I could be wrong, but ..."

Yeah, fallibilism – "I could be wrong" about that too. :sweat:

Yeah, fallibilism – "I could be wrong" about that too. — 180 Proof

:lol: :up:

Better to be wrong with Galen than to be right with Harvey. — Ashok Kumar

The alien, the human and the donkey

Life first started to evolve on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, and there is no reason to think it has stopped.

We can show a donkey, which has a certain level of intelligence, the novel The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway and not expect the donkey to understand the plot-line. No amount of patient explanation or education will enable the donkey our level of understanding.

An alien, having several million years of further evolution, will have their own knowledge and understanding. The alien can show the human some of their knowledge and understanding and quite reasonably not expect the human to understand. No amount of patient explanation or education by the alien will enable the human their level of understanding. As we have knowledge and understanding the donkey can never have, the alien will have knowledge and understanding we can never have.

It is not so much our fallibilism, in that our knowledge might turn out to be false, but rather, as has been said before, the unknown unknown, facts in the world that we are incapable of ever understanding even if staring us in the face.

To me existence is a puzzle. Even if all that existed was one atom it's existence would be a puzzle.

It would either have a cause or be uncaused. It's cause would be caused or uncaused. Being uncaused would defy sense making.

To me existence is a puzzle. — Andrew4Handel

As with Windows Free Cell game 11,982, some puzzles are insoluble. Why should we think that all puzzles are soluble.

As with Windows Free Cell game 11,982, some puzzles are insoluble. Why should we think that all puzzles are soluble. — RussellA

Does an insoluble puzzle count as a puzzle at all?

@ucarr considers philosophers as detectives attempting to solve a puzzle.

ucarr considers philosophers as detectives — Agent Smith

I consider us escape artists (à la Witty's "flybottle" ... Epicurus' "tetrapharmakos" ... Plato's "cave" ... the Upanishad's "moksha" ...) :smirk:

I consider them escape artists (à la Witty's "flybottle" ... Epicurus' "tetrapharmakos" ... Plato's "cave" ... the Upanishad's "moksha" ...) :smirk: — 180 Proof

:up: Let me add to that most illuminating list ... nirvana. We're all tryin' ta flee from it all, but we forget it's a treadmill, we never get anywhere but where we alreasy are, oui monsieur? But be still, mon ami, but be still! :cool:

Consciousness
Mental imagery/mental representations/thought
Qualia particularly pain
Infinities particularly the infinite past
The nature of meaning/rationality/intelligibility — Andrew4Handel

Mine are:
jails
Merry go rounds
My hand writing at the age of six
nipples
That person at the party who always behaves as if you have been best of friends for a long time.

This list is satire of course, though all of these also puzzle me in some respect or other. That is the point. Things aren't puzzles in themselves. They are puzzles in certain contexts. They become apparent in certain constellations and appear puzzling. The way we question creates the puzzle. What philosophy does, at least according to me, is unpack the questions we ask and reflect on why we have come to ask them, with what motive and how our asking reveals the assumptions we hold about the world.

IIRC, the last major change was over fifteen years ago – a radical shift in my thinking about and comprehension of metaphysics (thanks again, Tobias) — 180 Proof

:cool:

What if the biggest puzzle is there's no puzzle. A puzzle solver (h. sapiens) with no puzzle to solve. Precisely what Albert Camus was referring to, whether true/false - the meaninglessness of life. The puzzle is there's no puzzle. We want to understand, but there's absolutely nuthin' to understand, only stuff to misunderstand.

Why are we able to understand reality at all?

Something about reality/the world and our cognition allows us to give detailed and causal explanations of things that also allow us to successfully manipulate things and make accurate predictions.

I believe the world must be causally and logically consistent to exist and therefore contain discoverable coherent processes.

That person at the party who always behaves as if you have been best of friends for a long time — Tobias

That might be me! :lol:

Why are we able to understand reality at all? — Andrew4Handel

Who says we understand reality? Einstein refused the presidency/prime ministership of Israel. Was it because he understood reality or was it because he didn't?

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible. — A. Einstein

Who says we understand reality? — Agent Smith

If we didn't we would probably be dead. We can predict reality's behaviour accurately. Our perceptions need to represent something accurately about reality so we can survive.

What would be the point of a hidden incomprehensible layer of reality?

The other situation is that we are in an illusion or a brain in a vat/matrix scenario.

Einstein refused the presidency/prime ministership of Israel. Was it because he understood reality or was it because he didn't? — Agent Smith

He certainly could have been influenced by thinking he understood some things, that made the job unappleaing, and didn't understand other things making him not competent for the position. But Einstein was very good at finding out some new things about reality faster than other people and in specific areas. This doesn't mean he'd be better at running a cash register in a grocery store or doing marketing or, yeah, running a country. He might have had all sorts of confusions about the parts of reality one needs to know about to run a country.

Why are we able to understand reality at all? — Andrew4Handel

The world appears logically consistent, which allows us, for example, to use Newton's second law F = m * a to predict future events. But does being able to predict what will happen mean that we understand why it will happen. We may know F = m * a, but do we understand why F = m * a ?

Does an insoluble puzzle count as a puzzle at all? — Janus

It must do, in the same way that there are impossible problems and impossible objects.

Wikipedia even has a list of impossible puzzles.

War between peoples has always been an impossible problem. If an impossible problem didn't count as a problem, then it would follow that war between peoples is not a problem.

I could say that there is an object on the table in front of me that is round and square. If this impossible round square object didn't count as an object, then how could I refer to the object that is on the table in front of me.

In language, there are impossible puzzles, impossible problems and impossible objects.

The laws of physics may be the only possibly scenario under which matter and life can exist.

I think the problem with fundamental unknowns is that they undermine all knowledge leaving us with no secure foundations on which to build.

For example I think until we understand consciousness we cannot possibly know the true nature of reality or whether the contents of consciousness are veridical.

I have had solipsistic intuitions/feelings in the past. I think we need to defeat solipsism or face a kind of personal isolation where we are able to be skeptical about everything but cogito ergo sum/ourselves.

Also we end up with a relativity about facts and truth.

In language, there are impossible puzzles, impossible problems and impossible objects. — RussellA

It seems to me that such puzzles, problems and objects are artefacts of linguistic reification. Of course whether or not an insoluble puzzle should count as a puzzle, an insoluble problem as a problem or an impossible object as an object just comes down to definition or stipulation, so it is not definitively decidable, and I would consider that question itself to be a pseudo-problem on that account, and to be merely a matter of what you or I might variously think is the most coherent and consistent way to talk about it.

So if I were to say " An "insoluble puzzle" is not really a puzzle" what could I mean to say beyond "Calling an "insoluble puzzle" a puzzle is not the most useful way to talk about it"?

:100:

Why are we able to understand reality at all? — Andrew4Handel

We are real beings inseparable from reality – the same reason fish are able to understand the sea.

Who says we understand reality?
— Agent Smith

If we didn't we would probably be dead. We can predict reality's behaviour accurately. Our perceptions need to represent something accurately about reality so we can survive.

What would be the point of a hidden incomprehensible layer of reality?

The other situation is that we are in an illusion or a brain in a vat/matrix scenario. — Andrew4Handel

I don't think longevity has any correlation with understanding.

We can predict reality's behaviour accurately. — Andrew4Handel

We can predict the behavior of some of what appears in our empirical world accurately. The empirical world is reality for us, and it is a collective representation or model. Can we accurately predict, or even talk about, anything beyond that?

Einstein is Einstein and I know too little about his competency outside of physics to comment further. Is a politician's job more difficult than a physicist's? A question worth asking, oui?

It's comparing apples to bicycles. Politicians need to be able to read people very well, use people, negotiate well, be false and be comfortable with at least some Machievellian routines. You can be a great physicist without any of that. You could find all of that utterly unpleasant or impossible. Some think E might have had Aspberger's Syndrome and just not been able to, read people, in the necessary ways, but this would be little obstacle to doing thought experiments, studying math and physics and so on. I don't know enough about him to know, but the skill sets for success are very different. So, it's not a difficulty issue.

I guess most politics simplify to lie, cheat, repeat, but I'm referring to actual/genuine statecraft which, in me humble opinion, requires more brain and heart than all of science combined.

I did say 'be false', but that's what almost all professional life with some kind of regular contact with strangers includes. Your doctor can't honestly react to your hygiene if it's terrible. They may need to inform you, in a delicate way. I'm someone who has a hard time with this. Not that I blurt out everything, but it weighs on me that I can't. But being false is not the same as lying, but really, no politicians can manage to state the truth all the time. It would cause all sorts of problems. Negotiation requires skills that a physicist does not need. I never said cheat. A politician must hide all sorts of reactions to negotiate well and interact with people he or she has distaste for, either on a personal level or the level having to do with worldview. A physicist, especially one who is a genius, can manage to be an eccentric, offputting, raw truth blurter with poor hygiene, even. Being able to hide your real reactions, not make a fair offer first in a negotiation, butter up people you personally dislike, ally yourself on some issues with terrible people short-term, and many other qualities my temperment has trouble with do not a bad person make. That is genuine statecraft, because we do not live in a world where all players play fair. Someone going in, deciding to always be honest, to always start with a fair offer in a negotation, who always puts his or her cards on the table, who will nefver ally with someone whose other policies they find offensive, never butter up someone they don't like, never pretend to be interested at the end of a long day in the complaints of a constituent, never play games with major players, never call in favors with a lot of pressure...well, they'll be honest and can pat themselves on the back, but they will get eaten alive. Everyone will know how to play them. But a physicist, yup, they can manage all that and be a world hero. Further a physicist might be terrible at reading people's emotions. They might react with tremendous confusing when encountering subcultures other than their own and might have no interest in trying to understand them. They might have little interest in winning people over: here's the study I read, this is what we should do, they might say over and over. They might be utterly incapable of speaking in different ways to children, poor people, working class people, rich people, people going through trauma and so on. Another way to more neutrally put all this is they could be socially rigid. You could say, such a physicist is socially honest. Or you could say they are a very poor communicator. You could even say they lack empathy. Einstein might have only had a conceptual empathy. Humanity, people in the abstract. This need no mean he can read people or is moved by people.
https://medium.com/@editors_91459/turns-out-einstein-was-a-cold-hearted-misogynist-who-attempted-to-control-his-wifes-every-move-c3f1ff70bf8c#:~:text=The%20two%20were%20open%20to,demanding%20ones%20for%20his%20wife.