Still curious why anyone needs a reason to believe? Beliefs can be built on faith and thus you don't even have to have any evidence. Simply believe and go from there. — Vaskane

A valid approach, imo. We can assume anything, just to have a starting point. Then see where it leads.

If one is into blind faith for something, then there is no point in trying to persuade him to be analytic, rational and objective, because it is not going to be easily accepted or agreed. Blind faith is for religious beliefs, but not for philosophical beliefs or arguments.

A valid approach, imo. We can assume anything, just to have a starting point. Then see where it leads.
— Patterner

Do I have to know I'm going to be a great artist or athlete or warrior or whatever to begin the path? — Vaskane

Not as far as I'm concerned. Go for it.

From the pimple of wealth that grew from the Apollonian sprang Dionysian post modernism. — Vaskane

It takes at least 100 years for the schools of philosophy to be formally understood and accepted as the true philosophy.

The new age trends keep get forgotten, and abandoned by the interlocutors and followers, but the true philosophical issues get discussed, and rise repeatedly after the centuries and centuries of time.

Who or what makes the certain blind faith that thought wishes to think, but not "you"?

I don't have a primary language as such because I do speak a several different languages, and English is just one of them. Are you sure you have written down the sentence clearly?

The pain is conclusive proof that the fist exists.
— PL Olcott

Pain can be caused by things other than fists. — Michael

There are only two aspects to reality
(a) Abstract ideas kept in the mind.
(b) What appears to be physical sensations from the sense organs.
If there are any examples of (b) then this proves that the world exists
even if the world is mere a projection from one's own mind. If your
fist hurts this proves that your fist exists at least as a projection from
your own mind.

If there are any examples of (b) then this proves that the world exists
even if the world is mere a projection from one's own mind. — PL Olcott

That's not the kind of world that the OP is asking about. It's clearly talking about something like a world of mind-independent material objects. The very first sentence of the OP reads: "I have been asked ... if I believed in the existence of the world, when I am not perceiving it" and later mentioned being asked "if I believed in the existence of the cup, when I was not seeing it."

Pain isn't proof that fists exist when not being perceived.

Philosophy is the shaping and creation of human all too human concepts, in which we have a certain blind faith. For example that "I" comes from "It" specifically that a thought comes when it wishes and not when "I" wish, so that it's a falsification of the facts to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." It is merely an assumption, an assertion, in no way an "immediate certainty." — Vaskane

It seems to me that you are asserting that your "I" is coming from "It", and it is not from your "thought", but from the "certain blind faith."
Isn't it what you meant?

hmmm I am not sure what freewill of Nietzsche has got to do with what we were talking about. I would have been lost for the relevance rather than translation.

I haven't read Nietzsche for many years, so I would find him alien even to read the titles of his books these days. Nietzsche was a good writer, but his writings don't have logical arguments for what he asserts, hence I am not sure if he qualifies as a rational philosopher.

Blind faith is a badly worded concept unfortunately. It sounds anti reason and intelligence and anti understanding which is against the reason, logic and evidence, which are what the traditional philosophy is all about. I cannot accept, blind faith or blind anything can give me any knowledge or concept.

You've not read Nietzsche much at all if ever. — Vaskane

That is a wrong assumption. I did read "The Birth of Tragedy", and some other books. I felt they are more literature than philosophy, so packed them in.

You have Blind Faith in yourself, perhaps one of the most dangerous errors Nietzsche talks about in that "Will to Truth," which shall still lead us to many daring exploits. — Vaskane

If I were a blind, then I would try to see the light. Blind sounds boring, bland and pointless, and blind. According to Plato, maybe we are all blind, but that is the whole point of philosophy - to see the light.

That's not the kind of world that the OP is asking about. It's clearly talking about something like a world of mind-independent material objects. — Michael

You can presume that, yet that was not stated.
I took the question to mean: Of every possibility that can exist are their
any of them where the world can be definitely proven to exist?

If "the world" is construed to include projections from one's own mind
then yes, otherwise no.

It is impossible to detect the difference between a perfect simulation of
reality and reality itself because "perfect simulation" means that no discernable
difference exists.

There are other variations of this same theme. Brain-in-a-vat, et cetera.
In the Matrix Deja Vu indicated a glitch in the matrix, thus not a perfect
simulation. In Hindu Maya the glitch seems to be detectable on the basis
of discovering that things in the world are too closely correlated to one's
thoughts held silently within the mind. In other words one finds that one
is subconsciously controlling aspects of the world.

"You know nothing Jon Snow." And that thought came to me without even trying to think about it. It just popped into my head. The wilder woman whose name is lost to me, came out of the abyss and whispered it to me.

Why does she say that to a man who knows much? — Vaskane

She forgot to tell him that the binman has taken away the rusty barbecue rack?

That something is hard for you to understand and thus you shunt it to literature, or blustering, or something else is literally a sort of weakness that is akin to the powerless (as in humans with no power) projecting hate and resentment because they're not significant enough themselves. — Vaskane

I never said it was hard to understand. I meant that it read like Literature (like a Shakespear or Stephen King), rather than Hume or Kant.

It's the fox and the sour grapes. — Vaskane

The sour grapes needs some logic and reason to tell the world that it tastes nice and worthwhile eaten.
The world will not accept the sour grapes' points or conclusions unless it is offered with evidence and logic in well formed form of argumental dish.

Even you yourself claimed philosophy takes a long while to digest. And yet you wrote off one of the greatest minds to ever exist from Pindar to Present, simply because you didnt spend enough time to digest him. — Vaskane

In case of sour grapes, it doesn't take long to tell the sourness suppose :)

Nietzsche makes several arguments, if you need help transforming written text into arguments I suggest the book "Mind Your Logic," by Donald Gregory. — Vaskane

What does Nietzsche say about "the world"? What are his concepts for "the world", and "existence"? Any definitions or comments from him on that? Or interpretations?

BoT was about the Greek arts. The Apollonian and Dionysian elements in the ancient Greek arts analysed in critical methodology, I recall.

15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the idealistic philosophy; as such they certainly could not be causes! Sensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as heuristic principle. What? 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! It seems to me that this is a complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs—? — Vaskane

All of these are from Beyond Good and Evil, and he has many more Aphorisms about the world and existence. — Vaskane

Nietzsche is an interesting thinker and a great writer for sure. If you open a new thread for Nietzsche reading group, or any Nietzschean topics you feel interesting, then I would start reading Nietzsche again, and join the discussions.

It is quite the recurrent question in the history of philosophy. — Lionino

Have you ever wondered why it is so intractable?

Some great philosophy was done in the middle of last century, when Austin and Wittgenstein and others, instead of looking for the answers to such questions, looked at the background against which they were being asked.

What grounds do you have to doubt that you are now reading this post? How could such a doubt make any sense?

I am sorry but your post does not justify your comment at all. It is a question that been posited as early as we know (Ancient Greece) and it has had some satisfactory answers to some but not for others. If your criticism is that there is no definitive answer, you might as well throw out most of philosophy.

What grounds do you have to doubt that you are now reading this post? How could such a doubt make any sense?

You hardly need grounds to doubt anything, that is the point of doubting.

...you might as well throw out most of philosophy. — Lionino

Good idea. Now you are getting it.

You hardly need grounds to doubt anything — Lionino

In what way can you doubt that you are reading this question?

Notice that your reply puts the lie to that doubt.

I would be more interested in this conversation if you actually stated a clear argument rather than smirkly saying "I am getting it" by my obviously comedic statement of throwing out philosophy.

In what way can you doubt that you are reading this question? — Banno

I cannot doubt that it appears to me that I am reading the question. I can only doubt whether this question I am reading comes from the real world and not from a projection of my mind à la brain in a vat — that is the whole point of OP.

I would be more interested in this conversation if you actually stated a clear argument rather than smirkly saying "I am getting it" by my obviously comedic statement of throwing out philosophy. — Lionino

You are under no obligation to participate.

I cannot doubt that it appears to me that I am reading the question. — Lionino

Good. So, contrary to what you said before, there are things that it makes no sense to doubt.

Good. So, contrary to what you said before, there are things that it makes no sense to doubt. — Banno

Good, you just happened to ignore the phrase that comes after it.

You are under no obligation to participate. — Banno

I am only under the moral obligation of seeing through the hope of this leading anywhere beneficial for me. The hope dies the longer it goes on.

Good, you just happened to ignore the phrase that comes after it. — Lionino

Not at all. There are now in your world, some things you can doubt and some things that it is silly to doubt. I'll count that as progress.

So now the question arrises, what to doubt and what to believe?

Is there not in all philosophy and science an intention of truth, of objectivity, of universality of discourse? Therefore, isn't the skeptic's doubt a gesture in a certain sense that is anti-philosophical and anti-scientific? Doesn't it necessarily fall into the liar's paradox? Doubting the world would be like cutting the branch on which I am sitting, waiting for the tree to fall and not the branch. — JuanZu

Isnt it precisely the intention to objectivity that lends itself
to skepticism? Since Descartes the modern formulation of the subject-object relation depends on a gap that courts doubt.

"All As are Bs, all Bs are Cs, therefore all As are Cs" is a valid argument.

The above statement is objectively true and does not depend on the existence of an external world. — Michael

I don't think this is right: the statement is valid, but in that abstract generic form is not truth apt. It needs to be given content in order to be true or false.