The skeptic assumes and asserts that we do not have the means by which we can have knowledge of the external world and, therefore, we can not have knowledge of the external world. Surely there’s something wrong with that argument. — Thales
Is a fair, if rough-and-ready, way to say that I can't really disagree, but i see the degree of mediation(provided by the senses) as enough to say we don't have access to the External Objects. — AmadeusD
If it doesn't constitute access to external objects, however limited, then what do you think it does gain access to? — Janus
our senses give reliable access to the organs of sense — Janus
I assume the organs of sense are producing the sense data. — AmadeusD
Since your assumption is based on the assumption or inference that you have access to your sense organs — Janus
Unsure how you're inferring that claim you just made from my position that sense data exists, and we have no access to any external objects. — AmadeusD
But I don't own the claim you're trying to make for me — AmadeusD
Since your assumption is based on the assumption or inference that you have access to your sense organs — Janus
The single, only thing I have posited I have access to is sense data. Not sense organs. Not external objects. Sense data. That is it. — AmadeusD
What I have been asking is on what basis do you conclude that you have access to sense data? — Janus
I presume that you, as we all do, experience a world of things, animals, plants and people etc., that are external to our bodies — Janus
I'm asking how that common experience leads you to conclude that you have access only to sense data and not to the things — Janus
1. We have sense data which is not the objects which i*t presents(to the mind);
2. Those objects are inaccessible; and
3. The sense data initiates/induces/informs/whatevers our internally-derived externally-delusional experience. — AmadeusD
I know. And I have answered, many times, my friend: I have experience, and I cannot understand that I have experience, other than as a result of sense data, based on the empirical fact of my experience. — AmadeusD
1. All knowledge comes either from sensory perception (e.g., visually perceiving a mountain) or reasoning (e.g., solving an algebraic equation).
2. Both perception and reasoning occur in our minds.
3. The external world is, by definition, “external,” which is outside our minds. — Thales
Therefore:
4. Because everything we know exists in our minds, we can not have any knowledge about the external world. — Thales
But all we know about our "external world" is through our senses and our experiences. Saying that we can't know anything because all we have is our senses is self-contradictory and makes no sense. — Alkis Piskas
The more immediate experience is that you sense things, not data — Janus
No one prior to the modern scientific era would have thought in terms of sense data, which means the idea is secondary and derivative. — Janus
If your idea of sense data is derived from modern scientific understanding, the veracity of which in turn is based on the assumption that we have access to external objects, then your belief that you have access to sense data necessarily depends on the latter assumption. — Janus
As to your idea that there is no reason to believe the tree you can see is actually there: well, there obviously is, since other people with you will see the same tree and on questioning will confirm that they see the same unique details of the tree, and even animals present will show by their behavior that they also see the tree; e.g. the dog might pee on it and the cat climb it or the bird perch in it. — Janus
I agree, that evolution has done an incredibly good job of making us think this is the case... — AmadeusD
Fact is, our mind is in receipt of data only. The movie it puts together to play to our experiential faculties isn't actually relevant to that - its an illusion. — AmadeusD
I'm sure i could find plenty of examples of thinkers relating experience to sense data (perhaps in other words) and carving out "actual objects", as it were, from the data. IN fact, that seems to be the entire thrust of Idealism (more specifically, Kant's Transcendental Idealism). — AmadeusD
It isn't. It's derived from the very clear fact that my mind is not actually in touch with any objects, yet my mind is the arena of my experience — AmadeusD
Hmm, point taken, but also I disgree.. but I think you're a step back from the level of analysis i'm at in this discussion.
Yes, that is, superficially, a reason to think those things are 'out there'. Our experiences converge, as it were. But I have already noted that I assume there are things out there. But it's an assumption that those people and their perceptions are also "real", so it's somewhat tautological to rest on that, imo. — AmadeusD
The veracity of evolution itself is based on the assumption that we have access to external reality — Janus
How do you know that is the case? I don't deny that it might be an illusion, but I also think it might not be an illusion. — Janus
the 'for us' nature of things — Janus
the "in itself' nature of things — Janus
What you say here shows that your perspective converges on solipsism. — Janus
I assume there are things out there. — AmadeusD
so it's somewhat tautological to rest on that, imo. — AmadeusD
On the assumption that we have no access to the external ('external' here meaning 'external to our bodies') world, what would constitute evidence for evolution? Just answer that one question and we might get somewhere.The veracity of evolution itself is based on the assumption that we have access to external reality
— Janus
I am fairly sure understand your position and am not missing it(that is obviously possibly wrong)... But, my position is still no, it isn't, and that this is the one of the cruxes. — AmadeusD
Correlation, I suppose, would be the only way. Do the things we're experiencing correlate with the expectations Evolutionary Theory posits?
But, I get the feeling I am committed to basically say "its an inference" and im fairly comfortable with that. — AmadeusD
For if one is unable to know anything about the external world, then one can not make any claims about it at all – even claiming that knowledge about it is impossible, because that too is knowing something about the external world – namely, that it is unknowable.
In fact, wouldn’t you need to bypass your own perceptions and go outside your own mind in order to make such a claim? After all, according to the argument, your own perceptions and mind are unable to determine anything about the external world. Given that argument, you would need to employ some means – other than your own perceptions and mind – to be able to verify whether or not an external world can be accessed by your internal perceptions and mind.
Because isn’t it possible that our perceptions are a dependable means of obtaining knowledge of the external world?
If we are to know anything, then don’t we need to (somehow) have access to that object of knowledge? And to have access, don’t we need a means by which we access it?...
....
.... Aren’t sensory perceptions the means by which we gain access to – and knowledge about – the external world? Skeptics misrepresent their critics as identifying perception with the world itself. Rather, aren’t skeptics the ones conflating process with result; confusing the road with the destination; and identifying addition, subtraction, multiplying and dividing with the solutions of algebraic problems?
And one final observation: It seems to me that the skeptic is rigging the game from the start – taking away the means by which we can have knowledge of the external world in order to prove it is impossible to know anything about it. Which actually reveals another logical issue – that of assuming what is to be proven and then “proving” it (the fallacy of begging the question):
The skeptic assumes and asserts that we do not have the means by which we can have knowledge of the external world and, therefore, we can not have knowledge of the external world... — Thales
A big issue, to my mind, is what exactly is meant by external here? People often speaking about external and internal, as if that distinction is very clear, I don't think it is. It would be replied that this sofa I am seeing is external to me, that is, it is not in my mind, so it is external in that sense. — Manuel
On the assumption that we have no access to the external ('external' here meaning 'external to our bodies') world, what would constitute evidence for evolution? Just answer that one question and we might get somewhere. — Janus
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