but then, i'm coming to think phil. is garbage & not a real discipline. — The Great Whatever
The point is that the external world has nothing to do with the meaning of the phrase "it is raining", and so nothing to do with the truth of the claim that it is raining. Only the things that play a role in how we use the phrase are relevant, which in my analogy is the simulation. — Michael
I mean, a feeling alone is not adequate justificatory ground for dismissing a widely accepted argument. — creativesoul
truth conditions have nothing to do with representation or 'viewpoints.' they have to do with whether sentences are true, i.e. whether certain things are so. — The Great Whatever
also, of course language games get outside of language games! — The Great Whatever
[Language games] make reference to all sorts of things totally indifferent to language. — The Great Whatever
oh, no, that something might be outside our recognition! boy, that's just a reductio, isn't it? — The Great Whatever
I see no distinction between the simulation and the external world. The simulation is the shared reality, making it external to to each person sharing that reality. An indirect realist would hold that the truth of a statement is dependent upon the way it's perceived and talk of an objective (i.e. non-simulated reality) is incoherent. — Hanover
So, "the cat is on the mat" is true if we all agree it's true, but we're agreeing on something external to us, whether it be the contents of God's reality or Michael's simulator. You've just distinguished phenomena from noumena.
By "external world" I meant the world outside the simulation. — Michael
If the inside of the cupboard isn't being simulated then "the cat is in the cupboard" is neither true nor false, because for it to be true requires that a cat be simulated inside the cupboard and for it to be false requires something else (or nothing) be simulated inside the cupboard. — Michael
And now back to your simulator. If I say "the cat is in the cupboard," such is true now if I look later and he's there. That is, even when he isn't presently simulated and observed, all the conditions for his appearance exist even while not simulated. Those conditions, all which exist independent of the observor, and which are part of the mysterious composition of the simulator, is the metaphysical reality which must be true for P to be true. If it's not, P is false. — Hanover
Instead of agreeing with most and saying we see the cat because there's a cat, you say we see the cat because there's a simulator showing us a cat — Hanover
When we don't see the cat in the cupboard we don't presently see the cay, but we note that everytime we look in the cupboard, there's that cat. We therefore conclude that even when we see no cat, something continues to exist that will cause the cat to appear when we open the cupboard. — Hanover
But this has nothing to do with the world outside the simulation. — Michael
In my example we've never looked inside the cupboard — Michael
But who made the simulator? The programmer would refer to this particular code that makes up the simulator program as "Michael playing a video game called Mario causing Mario to jump on a Goomba".Perhaps it's clearer if I use the example of Mario jumping on a Goomba. I see Mario jumping on a Goomba because Mario is jumping on a Goomba. To understand what I mean by the proposition "Mario is jumping on a Goomba" you have to look to the use that such a proposition is put. And that use is concerned with the video game I'm playing. It would be a category error to look outside the video game to determine what is meant by the proposition and to determine whether or not it's true. — Michael
You try to say nothing exists when things aren't observed, but then you offer no explanation for why things pop into existence consistently. — Hanover
But then you do admit that something exists independent of you, and you call it the simulator.
The cat is in the cupboard if all conditions presently exist which would cause an observor to see the cat if the cupboard is opened.
But who made the simulator? The programmer would refer to this code makes up the simulator "program as "Michael playing a video game called Mario and jumping on a Goomba".
When I write a computer program I'm thinking about what I want to happen in the game (a simulator), and what happens in the game is a reflection of what has happened in the outside world. A programmer can't even imagine, much less program, something that he/she has never experienced before. So their simulation will always include aspects and notions of the world outside the simulator. — Harry Hindu
Well, it may or may not. We just don't know. In fact, we can't even comprehend the world outside the simulator. It's the noumena.the world external to the simulation has nothing to do with the meaning of the things said inside the simulation.
No. The cupboard is closed, but if all conditions exist such that I'd see a cat if it were opened, I can say there's a cat in the cupboard. The metaphysical cat is whatever it is that makes us see the cat. You're saying that metaphysical stuff is a simulator.This strikes me being comparable to saying that the cupboard is open if all conditions presently exist which would cause an observer to see an open cupboard if the cupboard is opened.
Do you have dyslexia, or something? I said that there has to be a programmer that made the simulator with the plan of what he/she wants the simulator to do (and his plan exists prior to the simulator and anything that happens in it), and part of what they want the simulator to do is "have Michael play Mario and use the Mario character to jump on a Goomba." That is what the programmer would say if someone asked him what that particular code means. That is also what the programmer would have you say in this internet forum as an example of your position. The programmer would speak the same language as you. In other words, they'd be using language to refer to the happenings and things inside the simulator, the same way you'd be using inside the simulator. In other words, both you inside the simulator, and the programmer outside the simulator, would be using language to refer to what is happening inside the simulator. — Harry Hindu
But there is a corresponding event in regards to your other example of playing Mario. The corresponding event would be the computer code. The same can be said about the "cat in the cupboard" There would be corresponding code for looking in a cupboard and seeing a cat. Not only that but there is also code for your use of language. How would you speak, and what language would you speak in, in the simulator? You'd talk about whatever the programmer wishes and in whatever language he wishes, when he wishes.I'm pointing out that it would be wrong to look to some "corresponding" event outside the game, and so it would be wrong to say that the phrase "there's a cat in a cupboard" is true if there's a cat in a cupboard outside the simulation. — Michael
Well, it may or may not. We just don't know. — Hanover
The metaphysical cat is whatever it is that makes us see the cat. You're saying that metaphysical stuff is a simulator. — Hanover
But there is a corresponding event in regards to your other example of playing Mario. The corresponding event would be the computer code. The same can be said about the "cat in the cupboard" There would be corresponding code for looking in a cupboard and seeing a cat. Not only that but there is also code for your use of language. How would you speak, and what language would you speak in, in the simulator? You'd talk about whatever the programmer wishes and in whatever language he wishes, when he wishes.
There is the experience of seeing red, and the corresponding event of a particular wavelength of light entering your eye. Natural selection is the process of improving our knowledge of the world by selecting organisms that see more truly than their competitors. — Harry Hindu
f all conditions exist such that I'd see a cat if it were opened, I can say there's a cat in the cupboard — Hanover
For the realist there is a large class of statements whose truth-value is strictly undecidable since it lies beyond our utmost powers of verification or falsification yet concerning which we can rightfully assert that they must be either true or false – objectively so – despite our lack of knowledge concerning them. What decides that value is the way things stand in reality, that is, the existence of certain truth-makers (facts, circumstances, real-world [including historical] events, mathematical or other such abstract verities) to which those statements correspond in their role as truth-bearers. Truth is conceived as recognition-transcendent in the sense that it depends not at all on the scope and limits of our cognitive or epistemic powers. For the anti-realist, conversely, any truth-apt statement has to meet the condition that its truth-value can be specified in terms of some available proof-procedure or method of verification [my emphasis]. To suppose otherwise is to believe – nonsensically – that we could somehow acquire or manifest a grasp of what it takes for that statement to be true (or false) while lacking just the kind of knowledge required to decide the issue either way. In which case we should think of truth as 'epistemically constrained', or of statements as possessing a truth-value only in so far as we can (or at any rate could in principle) find it out by some investigative means. The realist must therefore be deluded – metaphysically out on a limb – if he or she asserts the existence of truths that would lie beyond our utmost cognitive, epistemic, or probative reach.
To suppose otherwise is to believe – nonsensically – that we could somehow acquire or manifest a grasp of what it takes for that statement to be true (or false) while lacking just the kind of knowledge required to decide the issue either way.
Unless you're an antirealist, as per the OP. — Luke
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