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.

Jim is Jim. Jim acts. He’s not a set of anything. We tend to abstract Jim into states of Jim. We name the states we have abstracted, make of them a set, and so on. It is at this point we have stopped considering Jim and now consider our own abstractions, ourselves. — NOS4A2

I agree. The outcome is: the actor is not the action.

I don’t see a problem. Jim remains the same throughout while what he performs does not. — NOS4A2

Right, so Jim is a set of actions. Not one action.

Yes. One can abstract out a specific action from another by considering it on its own as a state, by placing limits on its duration, naming it, and presenting it as a singular movement, and so on. The actor is the action, or rather, the actor acts. — NOS4A2

Do you see how there's a numerical problem here? One actor, Jim, performs three different actions:

1. Picking up the garden hose
2. Whacking the baseball
3. Talking to his neighbor

So if there's equivalency between actor and action, then:

A. There are three different Jims, one for each action, or
B. Jim is equivalent to a set of actions (1,2,3).

See?

A “perception” to me is just the perceiver considered abstractly, and not worthy enough to be given position, spacial or temporal. — NOS4A2

Likewise the action is just the actor considered abstractly? Except one actor can do a wide range of actions, so you can't narrow it down to just one action. One actor is a set of actions? So one perceiver is a set of perceptions?

You take anything negative about the Russian invasion with a grain of salt. Perhaps too much salt for your health? — ssu

Causes high blood pressure :grin:

A stab at how Austin and Ayers are talking past one another:

For Ayers, the hallmark of indirect realism is divergence between the world as experienced by a human, and the world as it is. If there's a difference, it's indirect realism. Ayers says that since one's experience is a representation from a certain point of view, requiring interpretation for usefulness, there is divergence.

For Austin, if human experience lines up correctly with what one would expect from a certain POV, and therefore requiring interpretation, then directness and indirectness are valueless descriptions.

I think Ayers' view works, although he doesn't really prove anything. He starts out assuming indirect realism and concludes indirect realism. Austin's view might be valuable for someone who thinks all indirect realism requires a homunculus.

It's true that predictions about future climate change are in a range, not precise numbers.

The IPCC says that there is high confidence that the ECS is within the range of 2.5 °C to 4 °C, with a best estimate of 3 °C. That is a very wide range. — Agree-to-Disagree

I just saw a news thing that said the revised ECS is 4.8. It would be sweet if the revised ECS was lower than previously thought. It's higher though. That's how I know I haven't stumbled into an alternate universe. The news is worse than expected. :worry:

If 100s of climate scientists make the same incorrect assumptions then they will all get the same incorrect answers. If the majority of people think that the earth if flat it doesn't mean that the earth really is flat. — Agree-to-Disagree

True. I was just answering the question you asked.