Even if my consciousness did exist before it was aware of its consciousness, then in what reality did that unconscious mind exist? — vanzhandz

What do you think? :)

Suppose reality is as materialists claim it is. Wouldn't they then have knowledge of "base reality"?

Well, you are not the first to make this suggestion.

After Wittgenstein, the standard response is that there is nothing you can say about this "base reality". The corollary, that it therefore drops out of any discussion; it is irrelevant.

So back to plain ordinary reality, socks and hands and cups and kettles.

This process of change took place within some form of reality, whether I am capable of seeing that reality or not. If there were no base reality in which my consciousness could move from non-existence to existence then could it have happened at all? — vanzhandz

Perhaps it could be argued that the process of change that brought about your subjective reality occurred in another's subjective reality.

This, however, might imply the existence of multiple versions of you seeing as your inception was witness-able subjectively by multiple parties.

This reminds me of Theseus paradox, more specifically, an example given by the philosopher Daniel Gilbert (I think).

If Dan shows Jenny his blue Mazda, and then Jenny is asked if she knows what car Dan owns, and she says "Yes, I know, a blue Mazda". That's one thing.

But consider that 2 weeks goes by, Dan get's in an accident and total's his Mazda.
He then goes out and buys another blue Mazda.

Jenny knows nothing of this, but later, she is asked if she knows what car Dan owns. She says "Yes, I know, he owns a blue Mazda".

The statement "He owns a blue Mazda" is true, but is the statement "Yes, I know" true?

That is a lot like Gettier's clock example in his paper on knowledge and justified true belief.

How can Jenny or anyone else know Jenny's psychological state of mind? Why can't knowledge be scientific knowledge learned from a book?

How can Jenny or anyone else know Jenny's psychological state of mind? Why can't knowledge be scientific knowledge learned from a book? — magritte

Knowledge can be learned from a book, and with topics that are verifiable, then you can say "I know this" having read it in a book, and it can also be verified that what you know is correct. And in this situation we don't have to deal with any ambiguity in knowledges relationship to truth.

That's different though, to learning about "base reality" in a book (Or at all). As this might be unverifiable as @vanzhandz suggests. So you can still call it knowledge - provided you're comfortable with knowledge being simply "information you are aware of" rather than "information you are aware of that is true".

My comment was made without quote, so for reference, it was in regard to @RogueAI's comment:
Suppose reality is as materialists claim it is. Wouldn't they then have knowledge of "base reality"?

Yeah, they would. I wouldn’t disagree with that.

I disagree that it’s irrelevant. Maybe the overall question ends up to be irrelevant but the line of reasoning can be used to further many arguments. I haven’t even attempted to use it in that way, yet you assumed that it has no use. I guess because your reading of Wittgenstein told you to? I was looking for feed back on my logic, not the parroting of other peoples ideas.

Thanks for your response Dale.

I would say that even if my own subjective reality is the result of another’s subjective reality, the question still can be asked: In what reality does this “other” exist, to enable them to them to create my subjective reality?

Ultimately I believe this to be an unanswerable question. There is no limit to this idea of one subjective reality creating another subjective reality. We can go on saying that this subjective reality could be the result of the next subjective reality and that reality the result of the one before that and so on forever. This is is an infinite process.

With that being the case, in what reality does this infinite process of subjective realities creating subjective realities take place? And if the process of infinite creation is what makes up reality as a whole, then can’t that infinite process be called the “base reality.”

Base reality Babyyy.

You know what Banno, I was mean there, sorry. I stand by my previous comment but I get what your saying.

This reminds me of Theseus paradox, more specifically, an example given by the philosopher Daniel Gilbert (I think).

If Dan shows Jenny his blue Mazda, and then Jenny is asked if she knows what car Dan owns, and she says "Yes, I know, a blue Mazda". That's one thing.

But consider that 2 weeks goes by, Dan get's in an accident and total's his Mazda.
He then goes out and buys another blue Mazda.

Jenny knows nothing of this, but later, she is asked if she knows what car Dan owns. She says "Yes, I know, he owns a blue Mazda".

The statement "He owns a blue Mazda" is true, but is the statement "Yes, I know" true

I disagree. In the first instance Jenny was told by Dan that he owned the blue Mazda he showed her. She believed what he told her (likely for good reason), and as luck would have it, her belief happened to be true. But she didn't have enough information to know that he owned the car.

In the second scenario, she continued to believe Dan owned the blue Mazda that he showed her. Now her belief happens (through no fault of her own) to be in error. However through blind luck (and her casual syntax) he happens to own a different blue Mazda, thus her statement is true. Similarly, she still doesn't have enough information to know that he owns the car she was shown, let alone the new car, about which she knows nothing.

With that being the case, in what reality does this infinite process of subjective realities creating subjective realities take place? And if the process of infinite creation is what makes up reality as a whole, then can’t that infinite process be called the “base reality.” — vanzhandz

I wanna step away from the subjective reality creating subjective reality thing, I think it's a distraction from your topic.

But let's take the idea of infinite regression in a different way.

Consider that we might live in a simulation. The reality that created the simulation could itself be a simulation of a 3rd reality, and so on and so forth. They're all still objective realities (in which we all have our own subjective experiences), but they're still infinite as you describe above.

Now, as you described above, if it is in fact infinite, "can't that infinite process be called the "base reality?"... I think it could, but I think "base reality" is now taking on a slightly skewed meaning to what you described in your original post.

"Infinite regression" is not a dimension, or plane, or space, or artifact (or reality), it is a concept or process. While I don't (typo) do understand calling it the "Base Reality" if it were the case, I think it's being casual with language. What if I said "We're born, we live, we die, and we never know any more than that... that's the base reality"

To me they are both concepts that (for the purpose of this argument) are true and I can casually use the term base reality and everyone will know what I mean.

But my feeling is that if it were an infinite regression in terms of realities, it would be more linguistically honest to say "There is no base reality".

I feel like you'd probably agree with that aspect, as it's not what you originally intended.
Thoughts?

I disagree. In the first instance Jenny was told by Dan that he owned the blue Mazda he showed her. She believed what he told her (likely for good reason), and as luck would have it, her belief happened to be true. But she didn't have enough information to know that he owned the car. — LuckyR

I think you actually agree with the point of the example.

For this example we merely take the first situation as definitive knowledge for convenience, not because it is, but because it's merely a setup to demonstrate the point with the second situation. (If it helps, you can assume she was there when he purchased it and also there when the salesman was hired and given the license to sell it, and so one and so forth).

By contrast, then, the second situation demonstrates that Jenny doesn't have enough information to know it was still a Blue Mazda, even though she is correct.

That's the starting point, but by extension, as you pointed out, the overall point is that we cannot know anything definitively ever. Thus she doesn't know he owns the car in the first place, even though she thinks she does and she is correct.

It just starts with a flagpole for demonstration purposes.

Given all of that, it's then relevant to ask what we mean by "true" when we say that "Jenny knows something" is true. Or if we can say it at all.

"Philosophy's job is to teach the fly the way out of the fly bottle."

Consider though that, if you could teach a fly that it is a fly, that it is in a fly bottle, and what a fly bottle is, you might be able to help the fly stop flying back into the same fly bottle over and over.

In any event, it seems to me like Wittgenstein's influence on metaphysics has really waned. Scientific realism seems more the default position than his anti-metaphysical stance.

That's the starting point, but by extension, as you pointed out, the overall point is that we cannot know anything definitively ever. Thus she doesn't know he owns the car in the first place, even though she thinks she does and she is correct.

It just starts with a flagpole for demonstration purposes.

Given all of that, it's then relevant to ask what we mean by "true" when we say that "Jenny knows something" is true. Or if we can say it at all

Well, within the context of a philosophical discussion, the meaning of "know" has nothing to do with truth, it refers to understanding and memorizing the content of one's perceptions. Truth, OTOH deals with the relative comparison to a Gold Standard. The selection of the particular Gold Standard is subjective, thus introducing an amount (ranging from large to quantum level) amount of subjectivity to "truth".

Scientific realism seems more the default position than his anti-metaphysical stance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In what sense does it differ from Wittgenstein's stance? Does it dispute the "plain ordinary reality" of socks and hands and cups and kettles, as Banno put it, or posit a "base reality" we can't know?

While I don't understand calling it the "Base Reality" if it were the case, I think it's being casual with language. — Dale de Silva

I agree that the term "base reality" is somewhat vague and doesn't really lend itself to the argument I'm making. Overall, I'm looking for a line of reasoning that describes a base or foundation of experience that can then be used moving forward. To me, this argument is not meant to reach a definite conclusion on whether or not there is some sort of foundational reality in which all other realities exist, that question is unanswerable. Thus @Banno pointing out the "irrelevant" nature of the argument because the ultimate goal of this argument is to move past it entirely. Although, I do think that knowing what can and can not be proven is very important when it comes to Ethical arguments, which is where I do most of my work.

Consider that we might live in a simulation. The reality that created the simulation could itself be a simulation of a 3rd reality, and so on and so forth. They're all still objective realities (in which we all have our own subjective experiences), but they're still infinite as you describe above. — Dale de Silva

This just seems to be another way of expressing the sentiment you were trying to get away from, it doesn't seem any different than the infinite regression of "subjective realities," all that's been changed is the setting. We agree that language is a key part of these arguments, so calling something "objective reality," although it IS a reality that objectively exists in some way, doesn't really change anything about the argument. They would all still be simulated in some sense. But that is nitpick and I don't disagree with what you're saying here.

I feel like you'd probably agree with that aspect, as it's not what you originally intended.
Thoughts? — Dale de Silva

Yes, if that were the case, I would agree. "Base reality" is just bad terminology on my part. I guess another goal of mine here is to use this argument of a foundational idea of reality to then justify our notions of cause and effect. This is an entirely different argument from the original post, however.

So back to plain ordinary reality, socks and hands and cups and kettles. — Banno

You mean....the socks I put on my feet are real? But the feet aren't, right?

No. But I always took Wittgenstein to be saying that philosophers (and scientists doing philosophy) shouldn't be getting into "what really exists," and what doesn't, in metaphysical terms. This is something you see a lot of today though. Scientific realism seems able to say things like: "fundamental particles don't really exist, they are just mathematical descriptions of standing waves, and it's the mathematical structure that is most real," as that becomes a popular view. I took PI to be sort of warning against this sort of theorizing.

For example, the dam has really seemed to break re people exploring the implications of "parallel universes."

Consider though that, if you could teach a fly that it is a fly, that it is in a fly bottle, and what a fly bottle is, you might be able to help the fly stop flying back into the same fly bottle over and over.

In any event, it seems to me like Wittgenstein's influence on metaphysics has really waned. Scientific realism seems more the default position than his anti-metaphysical stance — Count Timothy von Icarus

But that wouldn’t stop the fly from remaining trapped in the grammatical fly-bottle of propositional truth statements (this IS a fly, this IS a bottle , the fly is IN the bottle).

Didn’t scientific realism precede Wittgenstein? I’d like to think that New Materialism and Enactivism are beginning to catch on , at least in the social sciences, and certainly in science studies.( it’s always a slower process for the natural sciences). Wittgenstein is enormously important to their thinking.

But I always took Wittgenstein to be saying that philosophers (and scientists doing philosophy) shouldn't be getting into "what really exists," and what doesn't, in metaphysical terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see. I'm uncertain what his view was of scientific investigation and its results, but think he felt philosophers were misguided in pursuing theories of metaphysics, and therefore reality, and his criticisms related to their method of doing so. In other words, I don't think he believed we can't know whether, e.g., socks are real or that there's something real we can't know, but rather that our use of language can "trick" us into striving to know what's "really real."

, I don't think he believed we can't know whether, e.g., socks are real or that there's something real we can't know, but rather that our use of language can "trick" us into striving to know what's "really real. — Ciceronianus

He believed language can even trick us into striving to know what’s only provisionally real. The point isn’t whether we can know what’s real. Whenever we use the word ‘real’ we know what it pertains to. But like all words, there are infinitely many usages, and therefore senses of meaning, of ‘real’. So the fundamental truth of the ‘real’ for Wittgenstein has to do with what we are trying to do with other people when we use the word in any given context.

What you said looks like a complex, hidden, tricky way, of just reviving Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. If not, what is the difference between what you said and Descartes?

You don't like Descartes?

Scientific realism seems able to say things like: "fundamental particles don't really exist, they are just mathematical descriptions of standing waves, and it's the mathematical structure that is most real," — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't believe that is the consensus among physicists. Such particles exist but a predictive mathematical description of their behavior overrides any sort of ontological speculation. Virtual particles are another issue.

:smile: I think the point is not about liking Descartes or not. The point is that Descartes carried on in this human desire of finding something strong, definitive, finding power. We know that this point of Descartes, like any philosophical point aimed at gaining power, grasping existence, is exposed to criticism. Still, it seems that after centuries this human desire is irresistible to our psichology and our mind carries on devising stratagems to comfort ourselves and think that there is still hope to get some kind of ultimate power, ultimate control, able to finally withstand every possible present and future criticism.

:smile: I think the point is not about liking Descartes or not. The point is that Descartes carried on in this human desire of finding something strong, definitive, finding power. We know that this point of Descartes, like any philosophical point aimed at gaining power, grasping existence, is exposed to criticism. Still, it seems that after centuries this human desire is irresistible to our psichology and our mind carries on devising stratagems to comfort ourselves and think that there is still hope to get some kind of ultimate power, ultimate control, able to finally withstand every possible present and future criticism. — Angelo Cannata

:chin: What exactly are you referring to here?

Angelo where do you think the world came from? Does it exist in your mind?