Unlike the world thoughts have the disjoint syntax of our language, they are easily detachable, and dependent on a network of things to think about etc The world, however, is continuous, non-detachable, and the whole of all things that exist independently of our thoughts about them.

Cliquish.

People don't usually enjoy having their beliefs proved wrong, but some people hate it so much that they simply refuse to accept it, regardless of the proof. It might then seem liberating for them to assume that everyone has just their own opinion, that no-one is more right than any other, and that those who believe that some beliefs are right would be bigots. But who is the bigot? Hardly the one who accepts the risk of being proved wrong.

Do you mean 'bivalent logic'? There is also multivalent and paraconsistent logics.

Thoughts can be composed in many ways, and we can think about worlds composed in many ways, but they would be thoughts, not worlds.

Or is this just an appeal to emotions and ignorance? — darthbarracuda

The absurdity of existence is an argument for comedy :)

Is that clever? . . . — intrapersona

A solipsist doesn't publish, but you do. Therefore, you're not a solipsist. The existence of a speaker is not questioned by his/her speech but silence.

One might add that experiences have a hierarchical structure which goes all the way from what fundamental physics describes to the objects and states of affairs that we see, hear etc..

We can't experience each and every part of it, only those that an organism can detect, such as the presence of photons and the objects which emit or reflect photons into the visual field and system of the organism. But we can identify other parts dervivatively, and deduce that without this structure there would be neither objects and states of affairs, nor visual experiences of them.
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You can not think about anything at all and still exist — intrapersona

Only if you'd be a solipsist, but a solipsist does not publish.

It is not difficult to build affordable housing, the problem emerged with a financialization that

. . has developed over the decades between 1980 and 2010, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity), and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics. — Wikipedia

A home is no longer a place to live in but a market commodity, hence the silly property shows on TV etc. The overwhelming influence of the limited interests of economists and marketers has become destructive for our societies.

One difference between a manipulative statement and a lie is that the former can be true (e.g. selective and misleading), whereas a lie is never true. Perhaps the dog was truly feeling cold despite the temperature...

...a mysterious architecture. — wuliheron

The tectonics of Kant's epistemology is not so mysterious, it can be credited a collection of basic concepts and their logical relations to each other, which forms and controls the structure and properties of his epistemology. Likewise, the tectonics of a building can be credited its elements and materials and how they have been put together, which forms and controls the structure and properties of the building.

Little prevents us from sharing epistemologically objective knowledge about our ontologically subjective experiences. We live in this objective reality, which we experience subjectively, but we talk about experiences and reality objectively (or "intersubjectively").

Skepticism regarding perception thrives on the ambiguous use of words such as 'see' or 'experience'. It makes thinkers incorrectly believe that a mirage would be the object that one sees instead of the behaviour of light bent by air humidity, smog etc.. Or that in a hallucination one would actually see the things experienced instead of having one's perceptual system messed up by a drug or a disease or fatigue etc.

Really? Too bad. I think it is fairly clear that there is a difference between seeing something and having an experience of it, such as when remembering it without seeing it. I think the experience that one has in a dream is of the latter kind, when nothing is seen. After all one is usually asleep during a dream, with eyelids closed etc.., and there are many qualitative differences between "seeing" something in a dream and seeing something with your eyes.

Oh, but how could you see a dream banana? Didn't you rather dream the seeing of a banana? What satisfies the possibility that in the dream you saw a banana rather than just had an experience such as that of a described banana which is not seen?

Under what conditions could you see rather than just experience a banana in the dream?

Hence my question. What conditions satisfy the possibility that P?

Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English? — Bitter Crank

I think the word makes sense also in English, at least via the Greek words 'archi' for 'prime' or 'chief', and 'tectonic' for 'what controls structure and properties', or something like that.

For example, the tectonics of plates in the Earth's crust control the structure and properties of continental drift, the formation of continents, the sea bed, mountains and so on.

In architecture the tectonics of elements and materials control the structure and properties of a building and its components.

In Kant's philosophy it is the tectonics of his conceptual scheme which controls the structure and properties of a systematic study of possible knowledge.

But is it true? What conditions satisfy the possibility to see bananas in dreams?

Even in a dream, A could be true. . . — Mongrel

How could it be true unless it is assumed that you don't see the banana but only your own experience by way of which something you call 'banana' is then experienced (but never seen).

Perhaps Hawking is like the fictional mathematician in Asimov's Foundation series ;)

. . .Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting 30,000 years before a second great empire arises. Seldon also foresees an alternative where the interregnum will last only one thousand years. To ensure the more favorable outcome, Seldon creates a foundation of talented artisans and engineers at the extreme end of the galaxy, to preserve and expand on humanity's collective knowledge, and thus become the foundation for a new galactic empire. — Wikipedia

I never asked whether you can have 'an experience of your own experience.' — The Great Whatever

I didn't say you did. I said it is assumed in your question. It is assumed and disguised in its claim that you're having an experience during which you're also thinking about what it is.

You were unable to decide, on the basis of an experience you had, whether you heard what you thought you heard. — The Great Whatever

No, you assume too much. I was waking up, recall: I was unconscious when my brain's reticular activation system identified the sound of the phone, and thus activated sufficient conscious attention towards the phone for waking me up, but I was hardly conscious enough to be able to think about what I heard, nor contemplate on whether it is what I think I heard. It's ridiculous to assume that someone who is brutally woken up from a deep sleep would suddenly possess the conscious attention of some armchair phenomenalist who is awake and trained in thought about thoughts.

you don't antecedently know whether for any given experience, you are perceiving (seeing, hearing, etc.) what you claim to be or think you are. — The Great Whatever

Now you're just repeating a false mantra, you're on your own with that.

Again, no you can't have an experience of your own experience during which you'd be unable to tell whether it is what you think it is.

For example, the other morning the phone rang, waking me up from a deep sleep. The experience was a blur, and for a moment I couldn't tell whether I was answering the phone or dreaming.

But it was not the blur of my own experience that I experienced, so the question whether the blur is what I think it is does not apply.

I had yet to wake up, but when I was awake the "problem" of whether I was answering the phone or dreaming was quickly resolved (unlike your alleged problem which is basically insurmountable).

. . .nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. . . . I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go to space. — Stephen Hawking

Humans would most likely bring with them their nukes, viruses, and other dangers. Space might have no future after humans begin to colonize it.

You can take yourself to experience things you don't see, but never see things you don't see. You're using the word 'see' in two different senses.

You can't both see and not see in the same respect, but you can imagine seeing something, in which case the seeing is replaced by an empathic ability fueled by memories or descriptions of seeing something.

I don't see the experienced triangle having any lines or marks of its own, so, obviously I don't see the triangle. I experience it by way of seeing the black marks, like depicted things in illustrations can be experienced by way of seeing the concrete marks of which an illustration is made.

Sure, the experience of that white triangle, for instance. But the triangle has no lines of its own, and it is only experienced, not seen. Instead I see the black marks by way of which I experience a white triangle. When I see the black marks I can shift my conscious attention away from them and instead experience something I don't see, a white triangle.

Again, I'm not looking at my own experiences wondering which is illusory and which represents reality. That's your problem, not mine. The objects of my experiences are the real objects that I experience, not elements of my experiences.

You're right. Philosophical rejections of naive realism also had the unfortunate consequence of jamming epistemology for the last 350 years with pointlessly complicated or obscure attempts to overcome a problem which arises from a simple fallacy of ambiguity regarding objects of perception. As if the illusory white triangle would be seen in the same sense as the black marks from which it is derived.

It is trivially true that one either sees something or nothing, also in the case of hallucinations. It is not difficult to know whether one sees something or hallucinates.

the problem doesn't arise from a representational view of perception, nor from the existence of sense data. — The Great Whatever

If during a hallucination one sees nothing, then he does not know for any given experience whether he is seeing something or nothing, unless he antecedently assumes what was to be shown. — The Great Whatever

Then, despite your denials, it is obviously assumed that his experience represents either something or nothing, and that the object of his hallucinatory experience would be some element of the experience itself, i.e. sense-data, generated by synaptic screw-ups.

Direct realists don't make those assumptions about the nature of perceptions or experiences, so the epistemological problem is not the same.

In the illusion of a white triangle in Wayfarer's post above we see black shapes on a white background as they really are, and make use of what we see, perhaps by entrenched habits of how to organize what we see. We don't see the white triangle as it is not there, but we evoke an experience by organizing the things we do see, and confuse the evoked experience with an experience of seeing a triangle.

Again, I don't need to, your problem arises from assumptions I don't make.

The point that's being made is . . . — Michael

..and that point arises from the false assumption that there exists something (e.g. sense-data, phenomena etc.) by way of which all things are experienced. It explains away the possibility of things being experienced as they are, and thus it muddles up perception of real things with dreams, illusions, hallucinations etc..

. . you don't know that, because you haven't antecedently figured out that all, or any particular, perception is not an illusion. — The Great Whatever

Look, there is no need to first figure out what a veridical perception should look like; perceptions are not somehow comparable representations from which we'd know whether a current perception isn't an illusion. The real object that you perceive looks as it is, not like something else, and unlike illusions the real object won't suddenly appear or disappear as you move around it etc.. It is not difficult to identify whether something passed for an object of perception is an illusion or a real object that one sees.

Now the question is just about whether you're seeing merely light or the object. — The Great Whatever

Your question makes no sense, because when we see the object we also see the light it reflects, not either light or the object. We can also see emitted light without seeing an object, e.g. a flashlight, that emits it.

the same experience can be one of seeing something or seeing nothing, and you aren't able in principle to distinguish between the two. — The Great Whatever

Hallucinations are hardly as recalcitrant, continuous, and non-detachable as the objects of veridical cases of perception. The existence of sense-data is not disvovered by having experiences, they're blindly assumed in the representationalist doctrine according to which we never see objects and states of affairs directly.

None of these rhetorical moves are ever going to work, because they all have the same structure — The Great Whatever

They work when you let go of representational perception. Also direct realists account for dreams, imagination, illusions, hallucinations etc

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How would you describe yourself? — saw038

For what reason?

you still have to come up with an explanation for hallucination, claiming that it's a real perception not of sense-data, but of a misleading ocular phenomenon, or something like that. But then we just have the same problem, rewritten without sense data: how do we know that all of our perceptions are not just of these misleading ocular phenomena and not of what we think they are? — The Great Whatever

You have the same problem because ocular phenomena are hardly less representational than sense-data.

It is not an ocular phenomena that we see in the case of an illusion but the real behaviour of light, as in refraction, or real shaded shapes, as in Mach-bands. In Mach-bands we see grey shapes as they are, but exaggerate the contrasts between the greys. The exaggeration is a use of the greys that we see, a way to organize them, but which is incorrectly passed for something present in our eyes or minds, yet absent somehow. But absent things are not present, neither in your eyes, nor inside your head. A memory of something absent does not possess parts of what it is a memory of.

In the case of hallucinations nothing is seen. The hallucinatory experience is not an impression evoked by, nor referring to, some synaptic screw-up; it is the screw-up that is experienced directly. Like the mind's organization of Mach-bands the mind attempts to make sense of the hallucinatory mess caused by drugs, disease, fatigue etc., by evoking "perceived" things despite their absence, hence 'hallucination'. It is simply incorrect to pass hallucinations for perceptions.

how do I know whether everything I'm seeing isn't what I think it is — The Great Whatever

Obviously not by continuing to assume representational perception; basically your question and problem arises from that asumption, i.e. that you only see your own impressions, sense-data or the like, and never the objects directly.

I don't make that assumption.

nothing about having a certain visual impression implies the metaphysical conclusion that something external is causing this impression). — The Great Whatever

Whence the assumption that it would be an impression? See, you continuously assume representational perception without noticing it .

To be clear, the argument from illusion concludes the existence of sense-data. But in its premise it is assumed that the appearance of the illusion somehow exists but not its object. Hence the conclusion that there must exist sense-data. But what appears in the case of an optical illusion is not the appearance of an absent object but some real effect of optics, such as refraction, or some real bundle of coloured shapes etc.. Those are examples of things we truly see in the case of optical illusions, but which we tend to mistake for something else. Without seeing real things there would be no illusions.