It may be out of date terminology these days. Or climate scientists don’t mention it because it’s too scary and might be counterproductive to efforts to raise awareness of the issues. — Punshhh

I see. But that article says there is no chance it could happen on earth right now. It said that in a few billion years when the sun is hotter, it would be possible.

That seems to be what Ayer has in mind, and it doesn't work. — Banno

Yea, I see what you're saying.

Typing on a phone with big fat thumbs

I haver to differ. He is saying that the difference is purely linguistic - his so-called "two languages" theory. — Banno

He meant that the two senses of "see" are already in the rules of language, and that this is supposed to support talk of sense-data. "Sense data" is the new jargon.

...different senses...
— frank
I think it clear from Austin that there are not here two differing senses of "see". But I take it you are setting out what Ayer is claiming, rather than evaluating it? — Banno

Yes. I think Ayers would say that whether there are two senses or not should be decided empirically. I like that.

So here's a question for anyone who cares to delve deeper. That seems to me to be the argument in Foundations, found on pp 24-25. If not that argument, then which? — Banno

Strangely enough, he's doing an argument from ordinary language use. Pared down, he's saying there are two senses of "see."

1. John sees a star.
2. John sees a speck no bigger than a six-pence.

If there's confusion about the second sentence regarding the sense of the verb, further explanation would insert "what appears to be" after the verb. But Ayers says we usually don't need that extra phrase because we can discern the different senses by context of utterance.

Because these two senses exist in language, we can generalize this case.

Now we forget about John and his star and go back to cases of mistaken perception. I thought I saw two pieces of paper, but there was only one. Again, there are these two senses of "see"

1. I saw two pieces of paper.
2. I saw one piece of paper.

In the first case, what I saw does not exist as a material object. Therefore, it's a sense datum. Here, Ayers is reporting on the sense data theory, he's not presenting this as his own ideas. He says he accepts it, though, with the caution that what the sense-data theorist ends up doing is offering new jargon to explain a hypothesis which can be empirically verified or refuted.

In other words, he's saying that the sense data theorists isn't offering us any needed revisions to everyday speech, but rather offering jargon that's helpful for special purposes.

The problem of course is how do you distinguish between what is real and what is not real. And if you cannot make the distinction you cannot know that what you are seeing isn't real, at any given time, nor that what you are seeing is real at any given time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Somehow people do regularly distinguish real from unreal, for all practical purposes anyway. It's not merely a logical thing, it's more at the level of innate capability.

We know, for instance, that if a person is blind from birth, but then gains sight, they won't be able to distinguish a picture of an apple from a real apple. That's not a logical issue. It's something about perception.

So what is more rational?  I would say stopping believing in something when there is no ground, warrant and reason to believe it would be definitely more rational than keeping believing in something when there is no ground in believing it. — Corvus

This is true. What it shows is that in order to live, you have to be irrational.

When did you last ponder whether the car you're driving was in fact a car having the characteristics of a car as you understand them to be, or instead something else you can never know (if, indeed, it was anything at all)? — Ciceronianus

I have a thing where I lose confidence that the road in front of me will be there when I get to it. I think it's along the lines of OCD. I get through it by humming. For some reason, the worst drive is through West Virginia when the big open valleys appear between the peaks. In other words, philosophy probably isn't for you. :razz:

Bacteria love global warming. — Agree-to-Disagree

I know, they write operas about it. You just have to have tiny ears and they only last about twenty seconds.

They'll use your money for nest material. — unenlightened

I was hoping they would dig up an empty bag potato chips and put it in a museum.

In the event that we mitigated climate change rapidly and managed to reverse it to some extent, we might just hang on. Although this would depend on the extinction event to be quite limited and the runaway affects of climate change were slowed sufficiently for us and nature to adapt. — Punshhh

I haven't seen any scientists talk about "runaway climate change." I don't even know what that's supposed to be. There are positive and negative feedback loops, there are tipping points, but no runaway. The earth has been much hotter than it will be with anthropogenic climate change, and so we know what that looks like.

And if humans were wiped out, I'd put my money on insect supercolonies to evolve into a new form of life. Just as we're made up of individual cells, they'll be made up of individual organisms. That would be cool.

The economic collapse is part of climate change, just because the economy is predicated on the eternal expansion of fossil fuel consumption and waste dumping . When the burgers run out the white man will get angry. Angry toddler with nuclear arsenal may not wait for the seas to close over his head. — unenlightened

I've been pondering for years the way the present situation is similar to the world prior to the collapse of the Bronze Age. One expert, Eric Cline, believes the end of the Bronze age was brought about by a "perfect storm" of factors including war, natural disasters, and class warfare internal to the great nations of the time. Any one of them would have been survivable, but together, they weren't. What I disagree with is the notion that the coming collapse, if there is one, will mean the end of the human species. I mean, it could, but there isn't reason to believe it has to.

One of the things that was spawned by the Bronze Age collapse is the very thing we all think is killing us now: the free market economy. The seeds of what we are were created in that event. My guess is the same will happen again: the collapse will spawn a new human species who will one day discover where they came from, as we only discovered the Bronze Age in the 20th Century.

By the way, the book of Genesis is basically made up of mythology from the Bronze Age, although it's splintered and rearranged. The Old Testament is a link to that lost world. I wonder what myths of our own will survive.

As a sceptic, in fact I even doubt my own perception. But it is the most reliable source of knowledge for me. — Corvus

Right. I don't think Austin is arguing with that, although it may seem that some posters in this thread are. He was taking issue with a theory of perception transmitted by Ayers, which says your knowledge of external entities is built up from smaller units of perception called "sense data."

The idea is that what you directly perceive are these units, and the larger things like trees are constructed from the smaller ones. I think Ayers would have been interested to learn that this doesn't mesh with what we now know about perception, which is that the brain appears to be "wired" to anticipate objects, which is kind of what Kant believed @Mww, although I don't think he would have thought of it as the brain doing it.

Austin's objections have to do with the way we talk about perception, that we say we've perceived a tree, we don't say we've perceived sense data, so he's saying that Ayers' supporters are misusing English. I think they could have answered that by saying they would make up their own jargon, which is very common and acceptable. Otherwise, Austin puts forward arguments that are ancient philosophical issues.

I am afraid I don't base on any of above as the logical infallible ground for the existence of the tree apart from my own perception. — Corvus

I don't think your perception is infallible. LSD is not a "true" hallucinogenic, which means you know at the time that what you're seeing isn't real. For instance, I had an incident where I observed that the moon was following me around. I knew that wasn't real, though.

The logical ground for me to believe the tree exists across the road is that, I have perceived its existence. There is no other ground for me to believe in the tree to exist apart from the perception. — Corvus

You might believe the tree exists because a trusted friend told you so, and on the other hand, your perception might be delivering false information to you if, for instance, you have taken a hallucinogenic drug. So, though it's true that if you perceive a tree, it's rational to believe there's a tree, it's probably not the only grounding for such a belief, right?

Cool, thanks!

There is a difference between an order and a saw. They do different things. But that is not pertinent. I cut the tree down by giving an order. — Banno

Confucius taught this. They call it "social magic." It starts with rituals, but there is also the performance. Confucius taught that you should learn the rituals, and then perfect the performance by breathing life into your interactions with other people. So it's not just the words. They're basically part of the ritual. It's by the performance that you are responsible for the death of the tree.

Careful, now. I also think that the idea that I'm living in a Matrix situation is an implausible fantasy. In particular, I know that the truth of the matter is far stranger than Matrix proposes — Ludwig V

Yes. It's just that illogical doesn't mean unlikely, or even false. It looked to me that ordinary language was failing us in an ordinary language thread. Good to know that didn't happen. :grin:

Or perhaps you think that I think that the concept of a brain in a vat is illogical. I don't. — Ludwig V

Oh good. :up:

I am a brain in a vat. How could it be illogical? — Ludwig V

It's not illogical. If you think it is, could you show how?

But then, the whole business gets upset because I'm already in a brain in a vat. — Ludwig V

Whatever you may say about brain in vat, it's not illogical, and neither is indirect realism.

But you can't ask if everything you see is real. — Ludwig V

If you're contemplating the possibility that you're in the Matrix, you can. It's just a matter of imagination. There's nothing illogical about it. Descartes leads us through a list of possibilities for it.

I think the argument you're thinking of won't allow global skepticism, that is, you can't wonder if everything is unreal, because the meaning of real will breakdown if you do. Questioning everything you see is not global skepticism, though. You can allow the reality of something you aren't seeing.

Ok. :smile:

Why do you ask? — Banno

How would you characterize his metaphysics?

Showing that Ayer's metaphysics is misconceived is itself a deeply metaphysical activity. — Banno

Has anybody here actually read any Ayers?

It's a cliché, but you have missed the wood for the trees. Austin is not just analysing speech. — Banno

I agree. I was responding to the view of the folks here on this thread. They think Austin's analysis of speech provides some foundation for something metaphysical. I don't think it does.

We are not utterly adrift. — Banno

I agree, but we don't learn that from analyzing speech.

I was responding to what seemed like your dismissal that Austin:

"is providing evidence of how the world works, — Antony Nickles

I really didn't see him as doing that at all..."

Does it make sense now? — Antony Nickles

I don't think it's a dismissal of Austin to fail to see anything of metaphysical import. I didn't think that was his goal. He can point out features of the way we speak, but that doesn't cash out as anything metaphysical.

He wants to ask the question about anything that we see (in the normal sense of "see") whether it is real. Can't be done. — Ludwig V

You can't ask if your cell phone is real?

You'd have to give me some reason how this is not claiming evidence of how things are or are not done, or when they can be. — Antony Nickles

What metaphysical truth do you see in that?

So the question "Is God real?" would be framed "Is that a real god? — Antony Nickles

I was just trying to figure out what you were saying.

but he is providing evidence of how the world works, — Antony Nickles

I really didn't see him as doing that at all. Interesting how differently two people can read the same paragraphs, huh?

You're thinking of "the world" as not including origin stories, mythology, religious belief, etc. That there is, for example, nothing meaningful to anyone about having the world be created. This is an example of judgment by one standard, e.g. what is "real". — Antony Nickles

I'm not sure what you're saying. Do you mean if everyone believed in God, that would make him real?

was there something about the work or my reading that you are confused with or disagree with specifically? — Antony Nickles

I just disagree that there are metaphysical truths we can pull out of the way we speak. It's frequently difficult to even pin point how our speech refers, much less discover great truths in grammar.

but the gist of it is that the things we say (or could say) in situations reflect the criteria we use in judging a thing, and the mechanics of how the world actually works. What we say when talking about "real" are an expression of what matters to us about it, what we count as applicable, how mistakes are corrected, etc. — Antony Nickles

So if everyone says "God created the world in six days", would that reflect the mechanics of how the world actually works?

I don't think there are much in the way of metaphysical implications from Austin, do you? He's just pointing out the way we speak.

:up:

I wonder if the "Guns vs. Homicide by state" graph is counting rifles that are used for hunting. That might help explain why increased gun ownership isn't cashing out as a increase in homicides.

Now I'm gonna have to shoot you.