I think your point is that you can believe X, but not be fully committed to it or completely certain of it. This is the way the word "belief" tends to be used in common conversation. We commonly hear people expressing certainty as "I don't just believe it, I know it", implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty.As such, beliefs need not be complete or absolute but can well be partial. — javra
There a bunch of other reasons, but as one significant gripe I have with it (here placing its inconsistencies aside), if physicalism is true, then this will easily lead to - if it does not directly entail - moral nihilism. And it certainly does away with any possibility of an objective good. — javra
Ergo, enduring the suffering of life with as much grace as possible when things get rough is stupid - and there is no ultimate good to aspire toward, well, other than one's personal death when life gets a bit too much. — javra
I think your point is that you can believe X, but not be fully committed to it or completely certain of it. This is the way the word "belief" tends to be used in common conversation, but why force this vague concept into a philosophical analysis? — Relativist
We commonly hear people expressing certainty as "I don't just believe it, I know it", implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty. — Relativist
By "inconsistencies" I take it you mean that physicalism is not consistent with our "normal' intuitions about the nature of mind and consciousness and the subject? — Janus
The question again was "are hallucinations physical?". So if a person hallucinates a stray cat running along their path, is the hallucinated cat physical?
As to perceptions being this and that in the brain, this will include all veridical perceptions just as much as it will include all non-veridical perceptions. So claiming that the hallucinated cat was caused by the brain does not resolve whether or not the hallucinated cat was physical as a hallucination per se. — javra
Anyway you've left those aside so are you saying that because (many or most?) people need to believe that moral laws are given by a higher (necessarily non-physical) power, physicalism in denying the existence of such a law-giver will lead to moral nihilism? — Janus
I don't think the idea of an objective moral good depends on a law-giver. — Janus
What about the idea of living a good life. improving the lives of others. Do you believe that it's all pointless if there is no afterlife? It may be for you but I'm sure there are many people who don't think this way. Thinking this way is after all only a particular attitude or disposition not an objective truth. — Janus
The question again was "are hallucinations physical?". So if a person hallucinates a stray cat running along their path, is the hallucinated cat physical? — javra
No. Reread what I've stated more attentively before replying and you might see how this assumption is unwarranted. — javra
And on what is this notion of what a "good life" is itself grounded, philosophically speaking within systems of physicalism? I'm not here addressing dispositions. I'm addressing logical reasoning. — javra
The philosophical analysis I was referring to was epistemology, so not directly related to "the real world or manufactured bubbles" - which is metaphysics.There a rather long enough post in which I explained, to which you did not directly reply. What does philosophical analysis address? The real world or manufactured bubbles? — javra
You're demonstrating that the colloquial use of the term "belief" leads to quibbling about what each individual means. All the more reason to use the formalisms.We commonly hear people expressing certainty as "I don't just believe it, I know it", implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty. — Relativist
Um, no, not "absolute - hence infallible - certainty". But it does mean that the belief can be justified without inconsistencies, thereby evidencing both its truth and that the knower can thereby confirm the — javra
Do we? It sounded like you were just defending the use of a definition of belief that differs from that of standard epistemology.. I am a fallibilist: empirical beliefs can't be proven with certainty. That is a separate issue from the definition of belief that is standard in epistemology.Hell, we disagree galore on epistemology then. — javra
The hallucination is a neural process and hence physical. Of course it is not a physical (real) cat. I see no inconsistency there but rather a conflation between the hallucination and what is hallucinated. — Janus
I read it attentively the first time and I can't see what in a non-physicalist model the objective support for morality could be other than a lawgiver or else some kind of karmic threat of having to pay for transgressions. And again, I don't see how any of that could work absent the assumption of an afterlife. — Janus
It would be grounded on human flourishing and social harmony. — Janus
How is a distinction between the perceived physical cat and the perceived non-physical cat to be made when both are equally "neural process and hence physical" as perceptions? — javra
There is here a warrantless conflation between lawgiver and afterlife. See, for example, Buddhism. I said "no" to your assumption of there being a deity (a law-giver) which ordains an objective good. — javra
And, within physicalism, why are these to be deemed "good"? — javra
The philosophical analysis I was referring to was epistemology, so not directly related to "the real world or manufactured bubbles" - which is metaphysics. — Relativist
Do we? It sounded like you were just defending the use of a definition of belief . — Relativist
implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty. — Relativist
You sound pissed off, like when you (falsely) accused me of making a confrontational statement. I've simply tried to address things you've brought up, as honestly as I can. If my views piss you off, there's no point continuing. — Relativist
The hallucinated cat is not a cat at all. The perceived cat is a cat. — Janus
I'm wondering how non-physicalism could support morality in any way that physicalism cannot, since that seemed to be your contention. You haven't attempted to address that question. — Janus
Because they are generally important to people, and because a society with moral principles that promoted general disharmony and suffering could not last long. It would necessarily be despotic. — Janus
Of course it is, but the definition of "belief" and the practices used in the discipline of epistemology doesn't depend on any particular theory of that connection.Epistemology is not directly related to the real world? — javra
Irrelevant to the point I was making about the terminology, and the problems of using any colloquial definition of belief.I really dislike the idea of "absolute/infallible certainty" being something that anyone can hold. You affirmed that:
implying that "belief" means something less than certain, and "knowing" = absolute certainty.
— Relativist
Which to me is not a position that a fallibililist can hold. — javra
I expect we could agree on a definition of fallibilism, if we could agree on the terms (like belief) that it is based on.The discussion of what fallibilism is and entails can present itself as one such. — javra
Irrelevant to the point I was making about the terminology, and the problems of using any colloquial definition of belief. — Relativist
On what grounds if both percepts are physical in the same way via the functioning of the brain. (To better drive the point home, I'll specify that the observer of the cat is not surrounded by others - and that he observes a cat which he has no reason to presume is a hallucination even though it is.) — javra
Via examples, the Platonic / Neoplatonic notion of the Good can only be a non-physical ideal - one that is nevertheless the ultimate reality. But please note: no law-giver created or else decreed the Good in either system of understanding. And such objective good requires an non-physicalist metaphysics. Wtih the occurrence of such an objective good then also is entailed an objective morality. — javra
I acknowledge the sentiment, but none of this is a rational grounding for what is good. Slavery was once generally important to people, for example. Would that make slavery morally good? And on what grounds would an Orwellian 1984 not last long? Besides, why is lasting long a good to be aspired toward within physicalism? — javra
Consciousness IS part of the world at large. If consciousness is immaterial, then the world includes this immaterial sort of thing. — Relativist
I just don't understand why you think metaphysical physicalism overvalues the scientific method. — Relativist
The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.
If there is more to existence than what science can possibly discover or extrapolate, how then can it be discovered? — Relativist
The immense growth of empirical science, and the great and tangible benefits brought to civilisation by applied science, have given to science that degree of prestige which it enjoys, a prestige, which far outweighs philosophy and still more theology; and that this prestige of science, by creating the impression that all that can be known, can be known by means of science, has created an atmosphere or metal climate which is reflected in logical positivism. Once, philosophy was regarded as the ‘handmaiden of theology’. Now it has tended to become the ‘handmaiden of science’. As all that can be known can be known by means of science, what is more reasonable than that the philosopher should devote herself to an analysis of the meaning of certain terms used by scientists and an inquiry into the presuppositions of scientific method. .... As science does not come across God in its investigations, and, indeed, as it cannot come across God, since God is, ex hypothesi, incapable of being an object of investigation by the methods of science, the philosopher will also not take God into account. — A History of Philosophy, Vol 11, F. Copleston
I believe I've stayed faithful to this (structural realism) approach in all my replies to you. — Relativist
There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false? — Janus
I'm running out of steam and getting short on time. I still don't get why you defend physicalism against the possibility of non-physicalism when you so clearly expressed that:
There is no guarantee that physicalism is false. Nor is there a guarantee that it is true. The real issue as I see it is what does it matter? Why should we mind whether physicalism is true or false? — javra
I've provided this explanation, if not in full then in part: there can be no objective good - and hence no objective morality - within any system of physicalism.
You can, of course, evidence me wrong by pointing out any physicalist system wherein there can be coherently maintained an objective good.
But I'd like to know: why does all of this matter to you? — javra
Maybe I jumped the gun a bit. Do you take a categorical belief to be absolute? Granting no such thing as infallible beliefs, what would an absolute belief then entail? So far, it seems to me that if a belief is not infallible, then one is aware that the belief might be wrong - and this irrespective of how well justified it might be so far. Which in turn seems to me to necessitate that all fallible beliefs are graded beliefs upon analysis, even when staunchly addressed in terms of yes/no. — javra
My statement was not based on a premise of materialism. I was making a semantic claim about the meaning of "the world" in metaphysics: it is the totality of existence.Consciousness IS part of the world at large. If consciousness is immaterial, then the world includes this immaterial sort of thing.
— Relativist
The world contains no immaterial things, according to materialism. An 'immaterial thing' is an oxymoronic expression. — Wayfarer
...by elaborating on objections to this assertion:If there is more to existence than what science can possibly discover or extrapolate, how then can it be discovered? — Relativist
You noted that science cannot discover God. I agree 100%. My question is: is God discoverable through some alternative, objective means? What about other aspects of reality that are beyond the reach of science ? — Relativist
So then, do you agree that there are no alternatives to science for discovering objective truths about the world?There are domains other than that of objective fact. I will only say that Armstrong's style of philosophy is to assume that science provides the only valid perspective. — Wayfarer
What I infer is that you are defending or promoting world-views which do not depend exclusively on objective facts. Am I right? — Relativist
This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth - wayfarer.
I don't understand this. Truth is not subjective, although there are truths about subjective things. Objective truth: "The universe exists". Truth about something subjective: "The images of the 'Pillars of Creation' produced by the Webb telescope are beautiful". — Relativist
You seem to be tacitly agreeing, since you proposed no alternatives and instead said:do you agree that there are no alternatives to science for discovering objective truths about the world? — Relativist
So you're asking, what other 'terms' are there? To which the answer is, practically the whole of philosophy other than science. Ancient and pre-modern philosophy, Eastern philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology. There are many. But if they are looked at through the perspective of 'what is "objectively true" in what they say', then most of what they say will be missed. — Wayfarer
I think you're saying that limiting our perspectives (our world views) to objective facts is too limiting; it leads to rejecting some philosophies that can be valuable. — Relativist
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