:cool:

Not primordial, as language only began about 50,000 to 150,000 years ago. — RussellA

For us now primordial. The social normative worldly linguistic situation is as deep and central as it gets.

My approach to "the world is all that is the case" is similar to that of Markus Gabriel: — RussellA

In my view, those totality of words do not refer to anything which is capable of having the property of existence" — RussellA

I think Gabriel is missing the point. The world as that which is the case is methodically minimally specified.

If Gabriel says that that kind of metaphysics is vague, he is describing what is the case, talking about the world --- as whatever is the case.

Finally, this property of existence he mentions seems like a less effective attempt to do the same job, given its ontological baggage (real versus unreal, etc.)

To get my point is to see what we are doing right now, to see what underspecified world we are always already talking about, to see us as discursive selves arguing what is the case.

Users of the same language agree to a basic meaning of a word, even though they can have very different concepts as to its particular meaning. For example, an Australian living in Alice Springs will have a very different concept of the word "grass" to an American living in Spokane. — RussellA

Forget this superstition of the meanings of individual words. Also no one agrees. Language is received like the law and endlessly renegotiated.

Look at which inferences are treated as valid. Look at which claims are treated as if no argument is necessary to use them as premises (as 'obviously' true.) There's so much baggage and assumption about this stuff that it's hard to just watch & see what you are doing already.

The underspecification of the world is also its endless openedness for philosophy. We can debate whether it is a flat black square, is really made of cheese, any kind of weird stuff. And who can predict what future philosophers might dream up ? But philosophy as a truthgiving intention specifies some world, which is always the world, 'target' of our claims. If you deny it, you tell me that such is not the case, which only supports my point.

The [ minimally specified ] world [ World ] is what we are alwaysalready talking about.

For more on this: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13308/our-minimal-epistemic-commitment-fixing-descartes-cogito/p1

I claim that the minimum rational intelligible epistemic situation is a plurality of persons subject to the same logic and together in a world that they can be right or wrong about. I intentionally leave open the details of persons and world and logic here, for these are very much part of what's discussed within this minimum assumption.

I think Gabriel is missing the point. The world as that which is the case is methodically minimally specified. If Gabriel says that that kind of metaphysics is vague, he is describing what is the case, talking about the world --- as whatever is the case. — plaque flag

Wittgenstein's "The world is all that is the case" is poetry.

Robert Frost also talked about the world

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Poetry is fine, but open to numerous interpretations, which is its nature.

If the writer knows his words will be open to numerous interpretations and doesn't find that a problem, then either they are a poet or they are, as Markus Gabriel said, being sloppy about their subject.

I think the distinction is that the direct realist believes that apples and their properties are manifest in conscious experience such that how an object appears is how it is (even when it doesn't appear), whereas the indirect realist believes that the properties which are manifest in conscious experience (e.g. shapes and colours and tastes and smells) are properties only of conscious experience, albeit causally covariant with (and perhaps in a sense representative of) apples and their properties. — Michael

"properties", "manifest", "conscious experience", "cause" -- these are what I'd term metaphysics. Not in the literal sense of the mind being above what is physical, but in terms of that discipline of philosophy which deals with ontology, and these are the sorts of words I'd use in talking about what exists and how we relate to them. There's a way of thinking that states -- this is what exists! And as far as I can tell you believe two things exist: science, and experience. Science is what is real, and experience is what is indirectly connected to science.

This way of using "science" though -- it's not scientific! "Science is real" is a political slogan, or an ontological assertion, but not a scientific truth deduced from the body of knowledge thus far generated, though widely believed. It's what I'd term a philosophical belief.

So what I'm asking is -- how do you get to the "Science is real" when you start with "experience is not-real though causally connected to what is real" ? That's the part I'm failing to understand. Why is science real, philosophically speaking?

experience is not-real though causally connected to what is real — Moliere

I've never claimed that.

My claim is that things like shapes and colours and tastes and smells are properties of conscious experience, which is restricted to the brain, not properties of objects outside the body like apples and chairs.

OK. So how do you get to the properties of objects outside of the body when shapes, colours, tastes, and smells are properties that are only inside conscious experience, which is restricted to brain activity?

So how do you get to the properties of objects outside of the body when shapes, colours, tastes, and smells are properties that are only inside conscious experience, which is restricted to brain activity? — Moliere

You're asking why I'm a scientific realist rather than a scientific instrumentalist?

Just how you avoid what appears to be the problem for indirect realism: perception is indirectly connected to reality. So how does science get directly connected to reality such that the inference that it is indirectly connected isn't self defeating, and doesn't lead one back to direct perception?

perception is indirectly connected to reality. — Moliere

It's not indirectly connected to reality. My conscious experience is as real as everything else.

Just how you avoid what appears to be the problem for indirect realism: perception is indirectly connected to reality. So how does science get directly connected to reality such that the inference that it is indirectly connected isn't self defeating, and doesn't lead one back to direct perception? — Moliere

Also on this point, as Bertrand Russell explains, it is in fact direct realism that is incompatible with scientific realism:

Scientific scripture, in its most canonical form, is embodied in physics (including physiology). Physics assures us that the occurrences which we call ''perceiving objects'' are at the end of a long causal chain which starts from the objects, and are not likely to resemble the objects except, at best, in certain very abstract ways. We all start from "naive realism', i.e., the doctrine that things are what they seem. We think that grass is green, that stones are hard, and that snow is cold. But physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and the coldness of snow, are not the greenness, hardness, and coldness that we know in our own experience, but something very different. The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself. Thus science seems to be at war with itself; when it most means to be objective, it finds itself plunged into subjectivity against its will. Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.

But then if the direct realist tries to save the direct aspect of his position by arguing for scientific instrumentalism then he loses the realist aspect of his position, and might as well be an idealist.

So it's real, but maybe conscious experiences' properties are different from the properties of whatever is outside of our bodies, and whatever is outside of our conscious experience?


That's the antinomy again. I feel I've already given the best account I can of my side, though I can see it's orthogonal to a lot of the concerns you've presented. I'm trying to puzzle through how you make indirect realism coherent.

I'm trying to puzzle through how you make indirect realism coherent. — Moliere

I feel pain when I put my hand in the fire. The pain I feel is "in my head", not a property of the fire. Do you understand this much? Now just replace "feel pain" with "see red" and "put my hand in the fire" with "open my eyes and look in a particular direction". It's the exact same principle.

So it's real, but maybe conscious experiences' properties are different from the properties of whatever is outside of our bodies, and whatever is outside of our conscious experience? — Moliere

Yes. Different things have different properties. Pain is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of pain. Red is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of red.

I feel pain when I put my hand in the fire. The pain I feel is "in my head". Do you understand this much? Now just replace "feel pain" with "see red" and "put my hand i the fire" with "open my eyes and look in that direction". It's the exact same principle. — Michael

Yes. Different things have different properties. Pain is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of pain. Red is a type of brain activity, and apples don't have brain activity so don't have properties of red. — Michael

So the brain has the properties of colour, shape, sounds, and smells.

The apple, insofar that its properties are one of those, is in the brain.

What are the properties of whatever it is that's not in the brain? And how do we ascertain those?

Wittgenstein's "The world is all that is the case" is poetry. — RussellA

Philosophy is often a serious kind of poetry. Yes, we like inferences. But metaphors do much of the lifting.

Poetry is not always fiction. It makes explicit various aspects of the world. It helps us see with better eyes.

Just look at perception from a purely biological perspective. Electromagnetic radiation stimulates the rods and cones in the eyes. This sends signals to the occipital lobe which processes visual information, which is then sent to the temporal lobe where the visual information is processed into memory and to the frontal lobe where the visual information is processed into intellectual reasoning and decision-making.

Now what happens if we ignore the eyes entirely and find some other means to activate the occipital lobe, such as with cortical implants or the ordinary case of dreaming? I would say that the subject undergoes a conscious experience. And I would say that their conscious experience is one of visual imagery, such as shapes and colours. Seeing shapes and colours does not require electromagnetic radiation stimulating the rods and cones in the eyes (or an apple to reflect said light). Seeing shapes and colours only requires the activation of the appropriate parts of the cerebral cortex.

Given that seeing shapes and colours only requires the activation of the appropriate parts of the cerebral cortex, regardless of what triggers it, it's understandable why one would argue that the shapes and colours we see are "in the head" and not properties of apples. Seeing shapes and colours is no different in principle to feeling pain or hot or cold. — Michael

I think there's something to be said about the claim that seeing shapes and colours only requires the activation of the appropriate parts of the cerebral cortex. That is false. It's akin to claiming that phantom limb pain does not require having once had a limb.

If we ignore the eyes(or previous limb) we're also ignoring everything that led up to the ability to 'activate' the biological machinery. Much of what's being ignored is not located in the head.

And as far as I can tell you believe two things exist: science, and experience. Science is what is real, and experience is what is indirectly connected to science. — Moliere

This is how it seems to me as well.

I also don't think it works. Ideas of scientific entities are experienced. That's why Kant was shrewd enough to say nothing at all about the Reality behind appearance. While I don't embrace Kant's approach, he deserves credit for seeing that, for dualism, Newton's science must be part of our representation of the Real and not the Real itself.

I suggest that the ordinary world we talk about is Real --- and that real roses are red and made of atoms at the same time.

There's nothing in principle that stops us from manually activating the occipital lobe in a manner similar to how it ordinarily responds to signals sent from the eyes. The article I linked to talks about attempts to do exactly that, e.g. to help the blind see.

I feel pain when I put my hand in the fire. — Michael

You must mean (?) that you feel pain when an internal image shows you 'your' hand in a fire.

Why would you trust such a image ? And how would your knowledge ever be more than a correlation between various private personal sensory experiences ?

You must mean (?) that you feel pain when an internal image shows you 'your' hand in a fire. — plaque flag

I don't mean that.

My gripe is that indirect realism smuggles in naive realism to set itself up with a world in which social organisms have sense organs and nervous systems. Taking all of that for granted, then intermediate images or some kind of dualism is postulated.

I don't mean that. — Michael

OK. So...what is a fire then really ? What is your hand really ?

My gripe is that indirect realism smuggles in naive realism to set itself up with a world in which social organisms have sense organs and nervous systems. Taking all of that for granted, then intermediate images or some kind of dualism is postulated. — plaque flag

I don't think it smuggles in naive realism. It accepts scientific realism. But you highlight here the exact point Bertrand Russell made, as I explained here. Naive realism is self-refuting.

OK. So...what is a fire then really ? What is your hand really ? — plaque flag

Bundles of superstring according to one theory.

Bundles of superstring according to one theory. — Michael

But that's just an image in your head, right ? Why would math be more real than color ?

I read the Russell quote. I think it's a confused dualism.

Why would math be more real than color ? — plaque flag

I'm not saying that math is more real than colour. I'm saying that colour is a type of sensation, i.e. brain activity, not a property of apples.

I'm not saying that math is more real than colour. I'm saying that colour is a type of sensation, i.e. brain activity, not a property of apples. — Michael

You said your hand is really something like strings from string theory. Is that correct ?