Well. We know quite a lot about how the brain creates a holistic experience out of that. Not a complete picture. I'm not sure what your point is. — Isaac

Actually we have theories for how experience is created by the brain.

The schematic of the nervous system gives us ample reason to believe that a spider's brain, for instance, is receiving a representation of its environment. For some reason you're wanting to ignore that obvious fact and say that hidden states and the representation are the same thing.

The eye has a lens and photo-receptors. The ear has cilia that send an electrical facsimile of vibrations. Obviously a representation is being delivered to the brain. We just don't know how the brain creates a holistic experience out of that.

god? Where does a god appear in someone claiming experiences = reality? :brow: — jorndoe

You seemed to be describing some kind of subjective idealism, so I gave you Berkeley's solution.

But hey, if you want to scoff at metaphysics, then I'm all :up: — jorndoe

Well that was easy!

Wait ...
the "it's all Frog" philosophers
— Tate
Did you mean it's all goat? :D — jorndoe

Don't be ridiculous. It's Frog.

Say, were I to claim my experiences = reality, I'd be reducing my neighbor a bit heavy-handedly. Solipsism. — jorndoe

Not if you have a god to ground your dreamy universe.

Maybe there are noumena after all — other minds? Per the comment above, "physicalities" comes before those other minds I've become so familiar with anyway. — jorndoe

What warrants this assertion? I think you're begging the question, and committing the dire crime of underestimating the wit of the "it's all Frog" philosophers.

We all put our shoes on one at a time, eat breakfast, go about the day, occasionally pondering how to make our favorite philosophy work. We're all the same.

well, when they say experiences = reality, they are saying something consequential. — jorndoe

What's the consequence?

, I suppose, idealists to who their experiences = reality, that question is settled? — jorndoe

I don't think so. Neither group appears to be saying anything. It's all physical, it's all ideas, it's all information, it's all frog.

Exactly? Who knows. — jorndoe

:chin:

Realism:
"The realist wishes to claim that apart from the mundane sort of empirical dependence of objects and their properties familiar to us from everyday life, there is no further (philosophically interesting) sense in which everyday objects and their properties can be said to be dependent on anyone’s linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, or whatever." --SEP

Wittgenstein wasn't a realist, then.

What is the ground if not "physical"? — jorndoe

And what is that exactly? :cool:

And this is perhaps why Wittgenstein said he had entertained and exhausted what was interesting in schopenhauer. — Banno

:lol:

A little perspective.

Is abortion a privilege?

That's not the point. It's not necessarily about you in particular. The subject is implicit in every such imagined world. — Wayfarer

No, the subject is in this world, imagining things. The object of imagination, in this case, is a world that contains no conscious entities.

Closer to what you're proposing. Yes, you can imagine an empty universe, but that is still an imaginative act on your part. The subject is still implicit there, as the subject who is imagining. So you can't imagine a world with no subject. — Wayfarer

Think possible worlds. There are possible worlds that don't contain me. I have no problem imagining them.

Likewise, there are possible worlds that contain no conscious entities.

Now try not imagining anything whatever. That would be closer to the mark. — Wayfarer

Closer to what mark?

But without existence as a concept how would it still exist?

Sorry I'm just trying to wrap my head around your point. — Darkneos

Existence is a concept whose meaning is opposed to absence. Ultimately, the absence of anything is a void.

A world that contains nothing, is a void. How can this be when a world that contains nothing, does not have the concept of a void?

It's because we're talking about that world from the comfort of our world, where there is an abundance of concepts.

In the same way, I can imagine a world that contains no conscious entities.

How about real estate? Doesn't that always go up? Just thinking of inflation hedges these days.

Oh, just saw that you addressed that.

The best moral choice is whatever the "most feasible" option is. From a moral point of view, it does not matter how probable the most feasible way to achieve the best moral objectives are, only that other choices are worse. — boethius

True. Here there may be differing cultural values that afflict regional problems. As an American, I was taught early the saying "Give me liberty, or give me death." And as it happens, this is exactly how I feel.

Maybe there are places in the world where this attitude would not be helpful. What's needed here is not a re-education of the American people. We are what we need to be. We are what circumstances have made us. We aren't going to change. And furthermore, we are not wrong about what's right and moral for us.

What's needed is a global government which can tune into the particular aspects of regional conflicts and deal with them effectively. That does not exist yet.

However, what I would add to that is that the only moral goals are feasible goals. — boethius

Sometimes justice is just unavailable. You don't give up on justice because of that, though. You keep struggling, because it might become feasible tomorrow.

Regretting the immorality of humankind is one activity. Trying to understand the world is another.

The second activity is better done by hypothesizing, gathering data, and allowing a likely picture to take shape. I'm relatively lucky when it comes to this because I'm not weighted down by hatred of any particular group of people in the world.

It seems that Wittgenstein conceived philosophy to be an activity rather than a belief. — RussellA

There are different sorts of anti-realism. Ontological anti-realists reject the debate regarding idealism and physicalism as valuable or resolvable. Maybe we would classify Wittgenstein as an ontological anti-realist.

So I invite everyone to join my (and Hume's) irrational faith that things will be broadly as they have been and that we ought to be good. — unenlightened

The alternative is pretty dire, so I'll have faith.

Relations are not of necessity properties
I can say "there is a relation between my pen and the Eiffel Tower", but this does not mean the relation between my pen and the Eiffel Tower is a property. — RussellA

A relation is an attribution to multiple objects. A property is attributed to one object. Relations and properties are kindred things, but not exactly the same. A property can be a "limiting case" of a relation per the SEP article on properties. In other words, if your pen is to the left of the Eiffel Tower, this is a property of your pen. It implies a property of the Eiffel Tower (that it's to the right of your pen) and what we're doing is working within a relation.

Relations, like properties, are constituents of propositions. The ontology should just follow whatever you think of propositions. Do you agree?

From 6.3 onwards he discusses Newtonian mechanics and physical laws, — RussellA

I don't think Newton is necessarily incompatible with some types of idealism.

The world is independent of my will." — RussellA

If the world is an abstract object, it would be independent of my will and mind, but still not a physical thing.

Unsolved problem.

Whatever the reason may be for our seeing the coffee get colder instead of hotter, it's not physics. It's pretty astonishing.

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside! The honorable thing to do is put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest.
— Wittgenstein Culture and Value

@Fooloso4. This sounds incredibly arrogant. :joke:

Per O'Dowd, physics doesn't care whether the system goes from greater entropy to lower entropy or the reverse.

It is a common mistake to fail to see when a philosopher, and not just Wittgenstein, is using terms in a unique way. — Fooloso4

That causes a lot of confusion.

Ah, I see. He's using the word in a unique way.

Answer my question first and I'll consider watching your video. — 180 Proof

The coffee gets cold. Physics only describes entropy fluctuations. It does not dictate an arrow of time. So my perception grounds my answer, not science.

So, without further heating, a hot cup of coffee does not become a cold cup of coffee? — 180 Proof

Watch the video.

A proposition is not generally considered to be a representation. I'm glad to see that he didn't use that word.

Oh, no doubt. I have no idea. 180 was the one saying that future is more entropy and past is less entropy. — bert1

O'Dowd says physics just describes entropy fluctuations, so 180 is incorrect.

Entropy doesn't care about the direction of time. That's a misconception. See here:

Wittgenstein distinguishes between facts and propositions which are representations of facts. — Fooloso4

Did he really? That's odd.

EDIT: Whenever you are conscious, it's now — bert1

Of course.

I agree. Putin could stop any time he wants to. He continues because it's benefitting him.

I have never come across a persuasive argument that external relations do ontologically exist in a mind-independent world, — RussellA

I don't think relations "reside" somewhere. They're properties, aren't they? The apple's property of redness doesn't have a location. If the apple is red, that's a fact. It's a true proposition. It's an abstract object.

Abstract objects are not residents of time and space. They don't move or age.

Wittgenstein's "facts" depend on the reality of external relations in a mind-independent world. — RussellA

Did he specify or imply mind independence?