Comments

  • What is realism?
    A portrait does not represent the person whom it portrays (resemblance)? — aletheist
    Any picture can represent the person, but then it is used as a symbol, regardless of its resemblance. A caricature, for instance, seldom resembles yet represents; resemblance is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation. A portrait, however, resembles, and a photographic portrait could be visually indistinguishable from the present features of the person. Granted that it could also represent the person, but if the question is: how does the picture signify, then it seems fairly clear that while a caricature represents by asymmetrically exaggerating or contorting known features of the person the portrait signifies primarily by resemblance.

    A weather vane does not represent the direction of the wind (connection)? — aletheist
    It represents the direction of the wind by being used as a conventional symbol for it, regardless of its direct causal connection to the wind.

    You do not recognize a familiar face in a photograph (both)? — aletheist
    There is no face in the photo but colour patches, and the photographic process arranged those patches in a way that resembles the way which makes the face familiar. The photo does not represent the face, it presents certain features which are recognizable as the face.
  • What is realism?
    I am looking at HOW a particular sign represents its object. There are only three options--by resemblance (icon), by direct connection (index), or by convention (symbol). — aletheist
    While it seems fairly clear that conventional symbols represent I don't think resemblance represents. Resemblance is symmetric, i.e. one thing resembles another by actually possessing some of its recognizable properties. Representation, however, is asymmetric, i.e. one thing represents another, regardless of whether they share properties.

    Therefore, resemblance does not represent. Neither does direct connection (index) or perception. Conventional symbols, statements, and beliefs represent things. Resemblance and direct connection, or perception don't (they present things).

    For example, a photograph presents properties which resemble properties of the optical state of affairs which was photographed, i.e. the photo reflects light in ways which resemble how the photographed things reflected light when they were photographed. The resemblance relation does not re-present the things (nor an impression inside the head of the photographer). It presents what's really there to see on the surface on the photo: properties shared by two different optical state of affairs.
  • Logical reasoning has led me to conclude that everyone around me is a p-zombie...
    ↪lambda

    Bullshit disguised as logic is worse than bullshit, it's fraud.
  • How many bodies do I have?
    In what sense is the human body independently existing from its visual field? What is left of a visual field if you remove the body which constitutes its point and angle of view, i.e. the properties which constitute the field?
  • The isolation of mind
    a form of an argumentum ad ignorantiam — Gooseone

    Spot on!
  • The isolation of mind
    This is merely communication and inference. — darthbarracuda

    "Merely"? What do you expect? Ability to be someone else?
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    ↪Real Gone Cat

    What's active is what's constituitive for sensing: e.g. sense organs interacting with physical force, radiation, synaptic events in the brain etc. But sensing also involves a passive identification of what is sensed, for, as you say, "We do not get to choose what is in our visual field".

    So it seems fairly clear that sensing is active in one use of the word but passive in another use.
  • The isolation of mind
    at least conceptually we can open these containers and see their contents. We cannot do this with mind. — darthbarracuda
    Evidently we can, for example, when we talk about the mind, and share insights into the minds of different speakers. Therefore, the mind is not isolated.
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    The cat does not cause the observer to have a visual experience, but it does cause the visual experience to be that of a cat. — Real Gone Cat
    I agree.
    Sensing is passive. — Real Gone Cat
    I would amend that slightly ;). Sensing is hardly passive but it is passively identifying what is sensed, for example, the cat.
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    ↪Michael

    Pretty clear analogy, but... unlike the boy who must kick the ball to break the window the cat does not really act to produce the observer's visual experience of it. The cat's presence in the observer's visual field is not sufficient but it is necessary for having a visual experience of the cat. One could probably hallucinate it, but in hallucinations nothing is seen.
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover

    The visual experience of seeing a cat is obviously caused by the presence of a cat in your visual field. Otherwise you'd be hallucinating. The biology of the being causes an activity by which things can be sensed but in which nothing is sensed, whereas the presence of the cat causes this activity to sense a cat. In this way the presence of the cat causes you to see the cat.

    I find no counter argument to this in your posts (only stinking ad hominems).
  • Is consciousness created in the brain?
    ↪intrapersona

    That's an obvious fallacy. The fact that some "parameters" like electrical firing rates are sufficient for photosynthesis to work in plants does not mean that computers or toilet plumbing could produce photosynthesis. Like photosynthesis consciousness is a biological phenomenon.
  • What IS this experience?
    Now that I have given up naive realism — intrapersona

    Lol did you ever stop rejecting naive realism?
  • Solutions to False Information and News in Our Modern World
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    I'm not positioning the seen cat within the sensing being. — Metaphysician Undercover
    Yet you wrote this:
    ... Let's position the referred to activity, seeing, where it truly is, within the sensing being, ... — Metaphysician Undercover
    It seems fairly clear to me that you suggest to position the cat within the sensing being since we were talking about a cat that you see. Now if "the referred" does not mean the cat that you see, then what?

    I think you'd agree that there is no cat within you when you see a cat but perceptual activity which enables you to see a cat when there is a cat to be seen in your visual field. You can't see your own perceptual activity at work when you see the cat.

    I am positioning the sensation of the cat within the being, and saying that the cause of the sensation is the act of sensing. — Metaphysician Undercover
    With respect to the OP which concerns the relation between sense organs and experience the location of the act of sensing is hardly an issue here. Obviously sensing is located within the one who's got the sense organs, not elsewhere (we're not discussing whether remote sensing is possible, are we?).
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    Can things be the both a cause and an effect? Can they cause themselves? Seems incoherent. — dukkha

    Seeming incoherences tend to arise from fallacies of ambiguity. For example, when using of the word 'see' in two different senses: for what constitutes seeing (perceptual activity), and for what you see (what the activity is about or directed towards). Unless the two are understood as different, then it may serm as if seeing would both be its cause and effect.
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    I merely corrected you, by pointing out that the act of "sensing", is the cause of the sensation of a cat. The cat is not the cause of sensing nor seeing the cat. Rather, the living being which senses is the cause of this activity of sensing. Let's position the referred to activity, seeing, where it truly is, within the sensing being, not within the thing being sensed. — Metaphysician Undercover

    You're not correcting anyone by "positioning the referred" cat "to activity, seeing" within the sensing being, because then you'd neither refer nor see the cat, only your own activity of sensing (e.g. "data" or ideas or hallucinations of an invisible cat).

    Our biology causates perceptual activity as the sense organs interact with physical force, radiation etc.. This activity is constituitive for seeing things, but it is the presence of a cat in your visual field which causes your biology to see a cat. The cat is what the perceptual activity is about when you see the cat.
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    This act produces sensation, perhaps the seeing of a cat. — Metaphysician Undercover

    The act is the sensation/seeing, the act cannot produce the cat that you see, only its presence in your visual field can.
  • How to reconcile the biology of sense organs with our sensory perceptions?
    I suppose you could describe the intentionality of perception as a "gaze" which goes out from your body towards the object that you see.

    Unlike electromagnetic radiation which goes towards your body so that your sense organs can interact with it the sensing is characterized by an outwards going direction as in identifying what causes a sensed change in the frequencies of the radiation: for example, the presence of a radiation-reflecting object in your visual field. The sensing is about that object, so you see the object, e.g. a cat. Unless you're hallucinating the present cat is the cause of sensing/seeing a cat.
  • The Dream Argument
    I asked how you know you aren't dreaming right now. — Mongrel
    Since I perceive the world directly there is no reason for me to doubt whether my experiences right now when I'm awake might be real or dreams.

    What does it suggest.. that you don't simply answer the question? — Mongrel
    No, after your clarification your question turned out to be easy to dismiss (despite your misuse of "logic").
  • The Dream Argument
    Problem? — Mongrel
    Yes, do you mean that the existence of dreams, or dreams of saying things, would somehow show that we never know whether we dream or not?
  • The Dream Argument
    ↪Mongrel

    You're not making sense. Would you care to explain?
  • The Dream Argument
    ↪Mongrel

    Nothing is literally said in the dream.
  • The Dream Argument
    What properties does one have that the other doesn't? — Mongrel

    Unlike the dream the real table has the property of being the object of your experience of a table. For example, its present features in your visual field cause your visual experiences of it.

    The dreamt table, however, is not causing your dream of it, instead it is evoked by your memories of a table, or your will, habits, or familiarity with describing tables.

    The two experiences might be momentarily indistinguishable despite their difference in objects experienced, but it is not difficult to find out whether there is a table in your visual field.

    The mistake of the skeptic is to assume that what the dream and the veridical case have in common would also be the object that you experience, or an element of the experience. It isn't. They only have in common what is constituitive for any experience, brain events. They differ, however, in what causes them, e.g. the real table as the intentional object of perceiving it, and in the dream it is your memories etc.
  • The Dream Argument
    ↪Mongrel

    But experiences are not objects of observation; it's trivially true that you don't observe whether this has dreamy or veridical features... and from the lack of such observation it doesn't follow that there would be no difference between this and a dream.
  • The Dream Argument
    The dream argument attempts to demonstrate that belief in the existence of an "external" world is never justified. — Aaron R
    That's a bad argument. You shouldn't ask for justification of belief in the existence of an external world under the assumption that the external world doesn't exist, or that we would never encounter the external world, only our own internal constructs.
  • What is the best realist response to this?
    Then how does the realist distinguish between a veridical and a non-veridical experience? — Michael
    For example, by verification.

    The very principle of realism is that the way the world is is independent of our experiences such that we can see things that aren't there and not see things that are there. — Michael
    That's not a principle of realism.

    Realists assume that the world exists independently of our beliefs and statements. You should not conflate that with talk about experiences and seeing, because many realists differ on questions on the nature of experiences and seeing (direct vs indirect realism).
  • What is the best realist response to this?
    ↪Marchesk

    For a realist reality exists independently of his/her beliefs or statements about it. The idea that reality would somehow exist in itself adds nothing. It is a term invented by thinkers who seemed to have reasons to distinguish an invisible yet existing reality from its visible parts.
  • What is the best realist response to this?
    Plenty of realists would disagree. — Aaron R
    What is an example of a realist who would disagree with a rejection of the idea that the world exists in itself?

    "In itself" need not denote Kant's "ding an sich", which is just his particular take on the concept. — Aaron R
    No-one says it needs to denote Kant's ding an sich, but you mentioned "thing in itself", and I replied. Moreover, plenty of scholars disagree on whether Kant's take implies two worlds or two perspectives. One is invisible and assumed to exist "in itself" whereas another is assumed to be a "visible" mind-dependent version of the invisible version. Neither is plausible, and regardless of what Kant's particular take might be I see no good reason for a realist to speak of things in themselves.
  • What is the best realist response to this?
    There is no such thing as the world in itself. You don't get to take anti-realist assumptions for granted.
  • What is the best realist response to this?
    There's no good reason at all to believe that the world would be differentiated by someone's mind.
  • Why I don't drink
    ...
    And you, you can be mean
    And I, I'll drink all the time
    'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
    Yes we're lovers, and that is that
    ...     — Bowie
  • Is Truth Mind-Dependent?
    Yet we don't just invent things to say, out of nowhere, for maintaining them in a linguistic system. We also discover reasons to invent and say them. Perhaps in some sense statements exist as reasons to say them, regardless of whether they are ever said or maintained by minds. Likewise their truths might exist as certain relations to what they refer to, regardless of whether minds discover them.
  • Is consciousness created in the brain?
    The word 'created' seems wrong, because to create is typically a conscious act of putting things together, or in motion, such as designed objects or machines. You don't explain whether consciousness is created by a brain under the assumption that it would already be a part of the brain, somehow creating itself out of its own brain events. You can. however, explain it like photosynthesis can be explained, i.e. as a higher level phenomena arising from lower lever events.
  • Work
    In some professions the border between work and free time, or work for money and work for nothing, is fuzzy. In architecture, for instance.
  • What do you live for?
    You didn't list why not, you just stated your premise again.

    Explain why you think people don't need purpose in life in order to live good lives.     — intrapersona

    I'm not obliged to list anything from nothing, nor explain an absence of necessity. Those who believe that purpose is necessary for a good life, and knows of causal or logical relations from which such a necessity could arise, are obliged to list what those relations are. But I don't know of such relations, and therefore I have no reason to believe that they exist, nor provide you with a list of why not.



    What is good? Is good happy? Fulfilled? How much of the time are they like that in order to termed "good life"? — intrapersona
    Right, but what's the point of questioning the meaning of 'good' in a discussion on whether purpose is necessary or sufficient for a good life?
  • Moving Right
    So in a single comment, you take the left to task for accusing the right of anti-intellectualism, then point out the right's "blatant" anti-intellectualism! Hilarious. — Real Gone Cat
    That's not my comment. Why don't you reply to what is written instead of your own rephrased misinterpretations?

    So your claim is that the right exhibits "blatant" anti-intellectualism. Are you a leftie? — Real Gone Cat
    My claim is directed at the anti-intellectualism of ideologues on the left and the right. Since you can read it should not have passed you by. So, are you an ideologue?
  • What do you live for?
    ↪Sapientia

    Life can be good exactly because you're free from having something to live for. In fact, having something to live for will likely prevent you from having other things to live for.

    For example, those who live for their professional careers and therefore neglect their children, partners, parents, or friends. In what sense could their lives be good? Surely not by having careers to live for. If they would instead live for their children, then others would be neglected. If they would live for all of them, then they would live for none of them in particular.

    Most people try to care as well as possible for their careers, children, partners, parents, friends etc.. without living for any of them in particular. The latter is for single-minded fanatics, marketers, ideologues or war mongers hoping to make people give up their lives for some special interest.
  • Moving Right
    Ideologues on the left typically circumvent the inconvenient truth of an opponent's words by smugly diagnosing it as a function of an assumed ignorance, personality, or socio-economic interest. For example, people who voted for Trump are simply diagnosed as ignorant or uneducated, regardless of the inconvenient truths which can explain their support for Trump. Ideologues on the right don't usually bother about explaining away the truth of their opponent's words, they simply ignore the facts, such as in the case of denying research on climate change.

    I don't know which is worse, the pseudo-intellectual anti-intellectualism of the left, or the blatant anti-intellectualism of the right. They both sabotage the means for resolving disagreements by their disrespect for truth. Instead there is violence.
  • What do you live for?
    The very nature of a "good life" entails a purpose. If you don't think it does... THEN LIST WHY NOT! — intrapersona

    People live good lives regardless of whether they live for something or nothing. A good life doesn't suddenly arise from having something to live for. Nor would the lack of something to live for imply a bad life.
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