I am not particularly knowledgeable about the subject, but it was my general impression that at least the majority opinion among historians is that Jesus was a real person, it's just noch clear to what extent we can trust the details of his life.

Arguments I have heard against Jesus being a historical person usually fall into two broad categories.

One is about the lack of any biographical information concerning Jesus in the Gospels, and the similarity that the very early accounts share with widespread jewish stories about angels. The earliest account after Jesus' supposed death that uses the name doesn't describe a person, but a sort of angel. The argument here goes that Christinity perhaps started out like many other jewish sects, and that the heavenly being they worshipped gradually transformed into a historical person in their accounts.

The other category is the lack of any contemporary mention of Jesus, or any kind of jewish preacher that might fit. There are no records of disturbances in the jewish community, nor are there any records of a new religion forming in the decades after, until the first gospels show up. An interesting comparison in this regard is with the rise of Islam, where some kind of religious leader is mentioned in contemporary accounts and we do have early reports of the religious practices of the arabs after the invasion, though these accounts suggest that Islam didn't exist as an organized religion until much later.

What's your take on these two points?

A. In a world, me is one of FPPs.
B. In a world, there are multiple FPPs that are distinct.
C. In a world, FPPs and TPPs are the same.
D. Hence, in a world me is one of TPPs — bizso09

No idea where you get C from. It's not anything I said and you haven't provided an argument for it.

As for the rest:

18. Is questionable. I don't see how you could possibly know that.

How do you get 21? How do you view another first person perspective in the first place?

That's ok, 9. is actually not needed for 15., if you accept 10. which states that in any given world, there is one FPP in that world. Note, this still permits other worlds having their own FPPs. — bizso09

Obviously I don't accept 10 if I didn't accept 9. Because 10 is the conclusion that follows from 9, and without 9, there is no 10. WTF...

13. follows from 10. Given that in a world there is only one FPP, if there are multiple FPPs in that world, then they are all the same FPP. — bizso09

That makes very little sense. 10 says there is one FPP. 13 says if there are multiple, they are the same. How can there be multiple in the first case, if there is only one? No other part of the argument talks about multiple FPP. So, at best, 13. is redundant and confusing.

Please tell me the line number that is incorrect. — bizso09

Sure.

2. and 3. are superflous. They're just restating 1.

Most of 4. to 7. could also be ommitted, since 7. is already implied by 1.

9. I don't accept without further argument. Me is not the same as FPP. Me is an example of a FPP.

I'd also diasgree with 11. Since, as we discussed earlier, there isn't actually a "Third person perspective". That's just a shorthand for imagining other people's FPP. But this disagreement is less relevant to the point.

13. doesn't follow from either 11. or 12. nor from any other part of the argument. It also contradicts 10.

This does not explain how one of the subjective worlds becomes me. You say there's a world with multiple TPPs. Where does the FPP come in? — bizso09

No, I don't say that. I say there is a world with multiple first person perspectives. I reject your idea that the world can only be what is observable.

Things can only exist in a FPP, and not outside, because FPP defines existence. These things don't have to be knowable, but they must be observable. — bizso09

Semantics. You can call it whatever you like, but there is something beyond what is observable, most notably the observer itself.

Yes, but these two things are equivalent, because for something to exist, it is observed and vice versa. — bizso09

No, they're not. In order to observe something, it must have been there before you started observing it. Else it's not observation, but imagination. Do you think the world disappears when you close your eyes?

The main issue lies in the statement that there are multiple FPPs, but each FPP actually must include everything. — bizso09

That's indeed an issue, because it's wrong.

There is no such thing as something that exists in one FPP, but not another FPPs, because this is akin to saying that object X exists and it does not exist, since FPP defines existence. This leads to a contradiction. — bizso09

There is no contradiction, because something can exist in one perspective but not in another. You can't just drop the "in one perspective / in another perspective" for your conclusion. Here is what you're saying in a more formal format:

P1: Existence means being observed by an observer in their first person perspective
P2: Existence is binary, either something exist or it does not exist.
C1: Therefore something is either observed or it is not.
C2: Therefore, there is only one observer.

So, where is the problem? You ommitted the qualification that was inherent in your first premise from the conclusion. The correct C1 is:

Therefore, something is either observed by an observer in their first person perspective or it is not. C2 does not follow from this.

There is nothing unique about an objective world. There are things in it. Now add subjectivity. Still nothing unique, many subjective experiences. Now select one of the subjective experiences to be me. Now that subjective experience is unique, because it's me. — bizso09

What do you mean by "unique"? What is the significance of uniqueness? Usually, when we say something is unique we imply some value judgement. If you just mean unique as "no other thing has the the exact same properties", you're wrong. Every object and every subject is unique in that sense. There are no two identical "things".

The me in this case is merely the first person perspective (FPP). Nothing else, not the body, not the mind. Now when you say you have a FPP too, that means there are multiple FPPs. But if there are multiple, they are actually the same, because one FPP is still a FPP, as it's observed from the same place. If I regard your FPP actually a third person perspective (TPP), then in my world those two things are different. — bizso09

Subjectively, for you, that is the case. It doesn't follow that it's objectively the case. The only way your argument works is if you deny objectivity altogether, which would make you a solipist.

If there were genuinely multiple FPPs, that would require multiple worlds that are completely disjoint. But since there is only one world with everything inside it, how can this be? — bizso09

There is one objective world, on which there are multiple perspectives, which create smaller subjective worlds.

That would mean that my FPP cannot observe that world at all. But since FPP is just a relation with respect to which things can exist, how could something exist and not be inside my FPP? Anything outside of my FPP cannot possibly exist for me. — bizso09

Your last sentence is correct. The one before it isn't. Things not inside your FPP don't exist for you. It doesn't follow they don't exist at all.

This actually follows logically from assuming there is a "perspective" on the first place. For there to be a "perspective" there must be something outside of the first person that the perspective can point to. If there isn't, you don't have a "perspective", you're just dreaming.

I agree that when we say "physical things obey the laws of physics", it is merely an expression to say there is uniformity or consistency in causality, and the laws of physics describe that uniformity. That's also all I meant in P1. — Samuel Lacrampe

Sounds good to me.

But there appears to be a discrepancy with our meaning of the term "determined". My understanding of "determined" is that a given Cause A will consistently result in Effect B; not necessarily that we can know with certainty what Cause A and Effect B are. Do you mean something else by it? — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't think that's true, at least not on the quantumn scale. Particles don't have fixed positions, they instead have probablity distributions. So you have cause A and then 50% chance for effect B, 20 % chance fo effect C etc. This does not normally occur on the macro scale, but the jury is still out on exactly when this breaks down into determined effects. It may just be that probablities are so skewed on the macro scale that it seems the effect is always the same, but in reality there is an infinitesimal chance that, for example, your desk spontaneosly turns into an octopus.

Edit: There is of course the "hidden causes" line of argument that claims this apparent probablity distribution is just dues to lack of knowledge. But so far experimental results have not backed it up. I think there have actually been a number of experiments that make "hidden causes" seem less likely.

You are part of the world that you observe. It's your world, which is defined by you. And this world includes everything that can exist for you, including yourself. There is nothing outside of this. — bizso09

This is a logical contradiction. The observer cannot also be the observed.

At the end of the day, it's only the you that exists. Everything is included in the you. That table you see over there is part of your observation via the first person perspective. — bizso09

Yeah, that's Solipsism. But Solipsism runs into the problem of performative contradiction: you still act as if there was a world outside of yourself. Unless you want to die of starvation, which I wouldn't recommend.

In the world you live in, you know that only you have the first person perspective. You cannot attribute something to others that you know they don't have. You know for sure they don't have a first perspective, because if they did, they would be you, but you know that you are not them. Does this make sense? — bizso09

No, it doesn't. Not because I don't understand what you are saying, but because you aren't making a logical and convincing argument.

The only way for them to have their own first perspectives is to be in their own separate worlds. If their world is observable to you, then their world is actually part of yours, and not really separate. — bizso09

But obviously their world is not observable to me. That doesn't mean it's not there.

So they would not have the first perspective, because you would have it. If their world is outside of yours, then that means you cannot observe it, and as a result, it doesn't exist for you. So again, their first perspective does not exist. — bizso09

You keep forgetting that your definition of existence is merely "things I observe". So lots of things that are real don't exist. That's not a problem. What is a problem is that you then assume - without any justification - that only things that exist are real.

Please set out your definitive definitions for what your terms mean.

In addition, you cannot make statements about things that do not exist for you. When you talk about Dragon, you're actually referring to the idea of a Dragon shown in literature or movies. Or your imagination of what a dragon looks like. Or your example here. These things exist in your world. If you're talking about real dragon that roamed the Earth, well you can't because that thing does not exist. In fact, you wouldn't even know how to describe a real dragon on Earth, because it is not part of your observable world. (and I don't know it either) — bizso09

Nonsense. A dragon is a scaled animal with 4 legs, bat-like wings, a tail and a long toothed snout. It also can breathe fire.

A dragon is currently, in the real world, sitting in my garage. I can't go in because if I try, it breathes fire.

There you go, I talked about a real dragon that roams the earth (in this case, my garage). It has defined properties (some of which I listed) and a specific position in time and space. It's just like every other object.

You claim the dragon doesn't exist. But in order to make that claim, you have to understand what I am talking about in the first place.

I'll accept some have been saved by the healthcare, but what percentage? 1%, 25%, 80%? No one knows, and so here we are preaching for more hospital space because we're just so sure the sick belong in the hospital because that's just always where we put them. — Hanover

Just to be clear, your reaction to a risk which has an unknown magnitude is to just take the risk to see what happens? Because "we don't know" seems like a perfectly good reason to err on the side of caution when what "we don't know" is how many thousands of "extra" deaths we will have.

Ok let's take a step back. I'll try to derive the argument from your point of view.

Do you agree that things exist?
Do you agree that you are and have a perspective?
Do you agree that others have a perspective?

Given that you answered all 3 of these questions "yes", tell me how you know which perspective you have? Where is that information stored? — bizso09

I don't know which perspective I have. I just know I have a perspective. To use Descarte's famous form: I think, therefore something creates thoughts that make it seem like there is an "I" to which these thoughts belong.

And that's the answer to the second question: The information isn't stored in compartment. Rather it is a property that "I" have.

The answer to this question is you know it, because one of the perspectives is seen from the first person point of view, while others are not. The extra information in the world, which tells you who you are is contained in the first person point of view. That is the differentiator. — bizso09

I don't see other perspectives at all. It's not like I have several perspectives, and only one is first person. I have only one perspective, period. I am aware of other people "like me" through the senses, and in a book or movie we'd call that "third person point of view", but it's fundamentally different from my actual perspective, which also includes my thoughts, feelings etc.

Now let's assume that there is no first person point of view. That means you cannot observe the world. Observation can only happen in first person. So that means you do not exist.

You are not your body, not your thoughts, not your mind because those things can still exist without a perspective. You are the perspective itself. You are the angle of observation.

If you do not exist, does the world still exist? As far as you're concerned, the world comes about because you observe it. In fact, if you do not exist, then nothing makes sense anymore for you, because everything requires you to be here in the first place. If you say that the world still exists when you do not, then that statement makes no sense. — bizso09

This is all fine, but the question then arises: If the world is nothing without me, and only exists if I observe it, then I am not part of the world. But then logically, there must be something which includes both me and the world as parts of a greater whole. What would that be?

But since things do exist for you, that means you are. And for you, things can exist, precisely because you are here to observe them. Note, do not confuse observing with knowing. Things can still be observed without knowing them. Observation merely means that they can be related to you in some form. — bizso09

Well, seems we arrived back at Descartes. But the common criticism to Descartes is that he smuggled the "I" into his proof. I have a feeling the same criticism applies to your statement here. I experience things, so something must create and/or have that experience, but it's not necessarily "I".

Next question, why don't other people have perspectives? That's because perspective has to be in first person. In the world you live, only you have that. So it makes no sense to talk about others having first perspectives, because you know that only you have it. — bizso09

I don't see how it doesn't make sense. After all, what I am doing is assuming other people are like me. And in doing so, I am attributing to them a first person perspective because I have one, but which of course I cannot actually prove they have.

You might say, others do have first perspectives in their own worlds. But if you talk about these "other" worlds, that means they exist — bizso09

No. Again, I can talk about things that don't exist. Like Dragons. This seems to be the core of your misunderstanding. Everything that follows on from this no longer makes any sense.

Why is perspective a thing in the world? Simply because it tells you who you are. Are you a thing in the world? How do you know that you are a thing? It's because things exist for you. If you were not a thing, nothing would exist for you, and it would make no sense to have this conversation between us. — bizso09

I don't think I am a thing. Things are objects. I am a subject.

The final bit of the argument says that every person can derive this argument, leading to the conclusion that only their perspective is first. — bizso09

Did we need an argument proving that only you have your own first person perspective?

However, you know that only you have the first perspective because that's what defines you, and other perspectives are not first. Hence, although it looks like there is a contradiction, there is no contradiction at all.

Nonetheless, you cannot prove this to others, because doing so would require sharing your first person perspective with them, at which point others would become "you" and you would need to prove things to yourself, which is unnecessary, as you already know that you are you. — bizso09

Sure. That all seems entirely reasonable. It also seems to be the exact opposite of what you claimed until now. Perhaps there is a rather large misunderstanding here.

It is not possible. In the previous example about A,B,C, you'd be ignoring the observer, "yourself", typing out your reply on this forum. But in fact, I'd be ignoring myself observing your typing. The ultimate observer in this chain is me right now watching myself type on my laptop. If we're talking about the world, then we have to include this. We cannot conceptualise it away. — bizso09

So if you're the ultimate observer, where do you reside? You cannot be part of the world, according to this argument, so what's the term for the world + the observer?

It's not just a crutch of imagination, it's a fundamental part of reality we live in. — bizso09

But, again, "we" don't live in that reality, but outside of it, as observers.

That's correct, but you can show that no matter how many recursions you do, you will always end up with a single ultimate observer. — bizso09

This sentence is contradictory. If there is an infinite recursion of observers, there is no ultimate observer. One excludes the other.

The observer and existence itself are the same thing. If something exists, then it is observed by the reference point. If something does not exist, it is not observed. — bizso09

That doesn't work. Either existence is a relation between the observer and the observed, or it is the observer. It cannot be both. If "existence" means "to be observed by the reference point" it cannot at the same time mean "to be a point of reference".

You're going to have to decide on the definitions you want to use.

What is a thing that does not exist but has property? — bizso09

The red fire breathing winged dragon in my garage.

If we're talking about the world that is everything, then that includes that. There is nothing outside of it. — bizso09

Again, you're contradicting yourself. If the world is that which is observed, the observer must be outside of it.

Existence is a binary thing. Either something is included in "everything" or it's not. There is no "something" outside of everything. You cannot have multiple existences because by definition the world would expand to include it all. — bizso09

There is no logical connection here between the first sentence and the following sentences. Yes existence is binary. It doesn't follow that everything exists.

I'd go so far as to say that existence is in fact "unary" because if something does not exist, you cannot make any statements about it. For example, when you talk about dead people, you're talking about things that exist in the universe at a particular point of time, or the memories of them, but they still exist there. — bizso09

You could use existence in this way, but it would clash with the definition you have been using above.

Since the observer is existence itself, and we're typing on our laptops right now, we can conclude that there is existence and hence there is an observer. — bizso09

Refer to my point above as to why this doesn't work.

So the question remains, where is this unique observer or reference point? Well, it's where the first person perspective resides. — bizso09

And just where is that?

If I ask you the question, do you have first person perspective, my answer would be "no", because you have a third person perspective. If I ask myself, do I have first person perspective, then the answer is "yes". Hence, I know the observer is me. There is absolutely no contradiction for me. The contradiction arises because you claim you also have a "first person perspective" — bizso09

That's not a contradiction, but a disagreement. And your use of language here is really weird.

But by definition in any reality, there is one first person perspective, not multiple. — bizso09

I'd like to see that definition.

If you don't want to believe this, because you think you are an observer, that's fine. But in that case, you must believe that I am not a real observer, and you are the only one. Do you believe that? The fact that I have proof known to me about me being an observer would be irrelevant for you. In particular, you cannot come to the conclusion that you are not the only observer. — bizso09

It should be obvious from this bit to you that your conclusion is absurd, and therefore there probably is a mistake in your reasoning.

The contradiction in your argument comes from the fact that you regard the world as a collection of distinct entities, and while doing so, you assume the viewpoint of an outsider observer. — bizso09

I'd be interested to hear how we could conceptualise an metaphysically objective world without assuming the viewpoint of a hypothetical outside observer.

You say A is A, B is B, C is C, it's all self evident, they are part of the topology of the universe, they are their own flags. But this is incomplete because the world does not just consist of A, B and C but also an additional observer that is making the statement about A, B and C. You cannot ignore the observer. — bizso09

By definition, the metaphysically objective world has no observer, because then it would no longer be objective. Of course to imagine any kind of world, I have to imagine myself observing it. But that's a crutch my imagination needs, it doesn't say anything about how things actually are like.

Your argument would also lead to an infinite recursion of observers, because any observe would have to be part of a yet deeper reality, ad infinitum.

Fundamentally, things must exist in relation to a specific reference point or observer. They cannot exist without a reference point. When something exists, it must exist in relation to something. That something is called "the first person perspective". This must be unique because there is a single way for things to either exist or not exist. — bizso09

So, it follows that the observer also doesn't exist, because it cannot relate to itself. So what's the category of being that applies to the observer?

When you mistakenly introduce other perspectives, then again you talk about a collection of entities, so those entities must again exist in relation to some reference point. Basically, when I say there is a reference point, I'm making the statement that "things exist". These two statements are equivalent. — bizso09

Why must entities exist? By your own logic, entities either enter into a relation to an observer, in which case they exist, or they don't. But crucially there are entities that don't exist but still have properties.

If you try to derive this argument from your perspective, you will arrive at the conclusion that that reference point for things to exist is in fact "your reference point". Every person can do this. However, we've seen that there is only one such reference point. Hence, there is a contradiction, because you cannot have multiple worlds out there with multiple reference points, when there is a single way for everything to exist or not. It's a binary choice. — bizso09

I don't see how the contradiction follows. If, and I would agree with this, existence is a relation and not a property, then the same entity can be in different relations with different observers.

The reason the reference point resides in me, is because I know I exist here and I observe. — bizso09

But you don't exist, according to your own definition.

By person, do you mean the limbs, the body, the thought, the mind or the perspective? When you build up a person step by step, at one point you gotta add the "you". — bizso09

I mean the mind. I don't see how this is a step by step process (or how we'd know it to be one). The "you" is part of an interconnected whole, not some kind of soul you add later.

The universe can be completely identical in every way, except for the "you". — bizso09

Only if the "you" isn't part of the universe. But then the perspective of "you" might not be part of the universe either, and your argument doesn't work.

If we assume that there is an "objective universe" that exists irrespective of any perspective, then "you" must also be in some way part of that. "You" must come from somewhere, and so at some point "you" must make a difference. You wouldn't say, for example, that a universe with cats is completely identical in every way to one without cats.

Let's assume you know the following: A, B and C exist. In scenario 1, you are A, in scenario 2, you are B, in scenario 3, you do not exist. Between the three scenarios, there's absolutely no difference in the world, apart from the "you". — bizso09

But the "you" is a difference. The world where I am A is different from the world where I am B.

The person you are now, could think, act, live and experience the world exactly the same way with or without "you" being there to observe it. — bizso09

That sounds like nonsense. Without me, there wouldn't be a person, there would be no experience, and while there would still be a world in some sense, it would not be the world I experience. There isn't a way in which someone else could have my perspective. My perspective is an integral part of me. It's fundamentally who I am.

Or look at your friend, they think, act, live and experience the world, but "you" do not observe any of that. — bizso09

They experience their world, not the world. There is a difference between the subjective world a person experiences and the objective world that logically precedes any subjective experience.

Why is it that when you say "I" you mean person A and not person C. — bizso09

Because that's what the word means?

If you were to ask person A and C if they are them, they will both say yes. But only "you" know which one of them is indeed you, because the "you" is assigned to person A. The first person perspective goes with A, not C. — bizso09

But obviously even though both A and C use the same word ("me"), they each refer to their own individual selves, which are different. If I know the people in question, or can see or hear them, I can figure that out myself. On the other hand, you have no way of knowing whether I am just a single person replying to you or some kind of committee.

Really, this is all about language. I don't see the relevance to your initial post.

I used the term "moral authority", because I was talking about moral authority.

The outcome of a voting process does not create new moral imperatives. — boethius

Fair enough. Does it create any other authority/ imperatives then?

How do I know I'm observer nr 587, and not nr 935? Where does that information come from? — bizso09

There is no such thing as "you" to which the category of "knowing" could apply in this scenario. Either the universe has some property which creates your specific perspective, thereby creating you, or it doesn't. You aren't assigned a perspective, you are a perspective.

You are right that "you" has zero content, but actually "you" encodes the "angle of observation" or the "point of view". So it does have something. — bizso09

I don't think that's logically necessary. There doesn't need to be some intermediary "you", like a homunculus in front of a screen that is then assigned a "channel". Perspectives might just be as naturally part of the "topography" of the universe as is everything else.

Well, I am inclined to agree with you that calling the result "determined" as per some clockwork model of the universe, isn't supported by current science.

I am also with @A Seagull insofar as the laws of physics are descriptive, not prescriptive.

As far as I understand 20th century physics, events are still causally connected, but the connection is probabilistic going forward.

Reduce the stream to a single particle every minute. Send through a particle. It goes left. What caused it to go left, and not right? — Banno

The emitter caused the particle/wave, including whatever properties it ends up having. The path it takes isn't deterministic, but I don't think that means any specific path it did in fact take was uncaused.

Note that asking "what caused it to go left" is a shorthand for asking "which properties of the preceding event were the most significant for this consequent event". Otherwise the answer is always "the entire state of the universe".

You know, much as I appreciate trying to keep the debate as honest and rational as possible, it strikes me just how absurd this entire conversation is.

If the president of France had said the same thing, what would likely have happened? He'd have done serious damage to his reputation, possibly ended his political career, regardless of the exact wording and intent. Yet here we are, discussing whether the media had maybe been slightly unfair to Trump.

This is an excellent example of how Trumpists, with the help of trolls and the people who unwittingly engage with them, shape the debate to their advantage.

and it's not just virtual particles. It's double slit experiments - nothing causes the photon to go left instead of right. It's atomic decay - nothing causes this uranium atom to decay now, but not that one. The list goes on.

And again, what is salient is that intelligent, practical folk accept these uncaused events as part of the mechanism that allows all our electronic devices to function. — Banno

I am not sure it's accurate to say that any events are uncaused. The double slit experiment shows that if you measure passage through the slit, the interference pattern disappears. So, whenever you have a specific event (photon passes left slit), that event has a cause. It's only in the absence of observation, i.e. when you don't know whether or not there is an event, that we can only work with probabilities.

In any case, notwithstanding any intense dislike we might have for an individual, I think it is important to render an accurate account of events. We can do this by not (a) misconstruing obvious things, (b) abiding by the principle of charity, and (c) avoiding gratuitous hyperbole. — Wolfman

While we are on the subject of epistemology, what is the epistemic justification for the principle of charity?

In general I think the focus on an "accurate account of events" is somewhat misplaced here. If you go by headlines alone, you'd hardly gain an accurate account of anything. This is not specific to Trump. Nor is Trump specifically vulnerable to distortions. Quite the opposite, actually.

So if we want to talk about accurate reporting, we'd have to talk about the substance beyond the headlines and hot takes.

I suspect that this shared mistake was the consequence of adherence to a fundamentally stupid philosophical principle known as "Occam's Razor." Perhaps we can discuss this next, with the expectation of adopting better ways of looking at ideas. — Greylorn Ell

So, Occam's Razor is, let's say, problematic as a philosophical principle. But the scientific method is concerned with creating working models of reality, and in that context choosing the model that has the best predictive power with the least complexity seems entirely reasonable.

Of course the devil is in the details when trying to decide which model actually fulfills these criteria.

He is an agent of evil, — DingoJones

I think knowingly spreading propaganda that may contribute to decisions that end up killing people for political gain is evil. Arguably, spreading any kind of propaganda or misinformation is. So "agent of evil" seems accurate.

But maybe that's my weak character talking.

In other words, "voting" in anarchism is a tool of collective decision making, but not the only tool (one must have some moral system to decide what to vote on in the first place) and neither do votes create moral authority — boethius

But if voting does not result in authority, then it's not collective decision making, either. If any actual compliance to the outcome of the vote is incidental rather than based on the actual voting process, one might as well dispense with the voting and just have a discussion.

Morality based on value
p1 What is valuable to humans is that which is beneficial to humanity.
p2 What is beneficial to a human is that which is of no harm to mind and body.
p3 Good moral choices are those that do not harm the mind and body of self and/or others.
Conclusion: Good moral choices are those considered valuable to humans because they are beneficial to humans and humanity. — Christoffer

I am not sure why you're equating benefit and value in P1. Both "beneficial" and "valuable" are value judgements, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason to use one term or the other.

Furthermore, what you mean by "humanity" remains vague. Is humanity the same as "all current humans"? When you write "valuable to humans" do you mean all humans or just some?

In P2, it's questionable to define a benefit as the mere absence of harm, but it's not a logic problem. What is a logic problem is that P1 talks about benefits to humanity, and p2 about benefits to a single human. That gap is never bridged. It shows in your conclusion, which just makes one broad sweep across humans and humanity.

P3 is of course extremely controversial, since it presupposes a specific subset of utilitarianism. That significantly limits the appeal of your argument.

Combining belief and morality
p1 Unsupported belief is always less valuable to humans and humanity than supported belief.
p2 Good moral choices are those considered valuable to humans because they are beneficial to humans and humanity.
Conclusion: Moral choices out of unsupported beliefs are less valuable and has a high probability of no benefit for humans and humanity. — Christoffer

Again, I am confused by your usage of valuable and beneficial here. Since P1 already talks about what's valuable, it doesn't combine with P2, which defines value in terms of benefit. So the second half of P2 is redundant.

The scientific method for calculating support of belief
p1 The scientific method (verification, falsification, replication, predictability) is always the best path to objective truths and evidence that are outside of human perception. — Christoffer

I have to nitpick here: the scientific method works entirely based on evidence within human perception. It doesn't tell us anything about what's outside of it. The objects science deals with are the objects of perception. What the scientific method does is eliminate individual bias, which I assume is what you meant.

A scientific mindset
p1 A person that day to day live and make choices out of ideas and hypotheses without testing and questioning them is not using a scientific method for their day to day choices.
p2 A person that day to day live and make choices out of testing and questioning their ideas and hypotheses is using the scientific method for their day to day choices.
Conclusion: A person using the scientific method in day to day thinking is a person living by a scientific mindset, i.e a scientific mind. — Christoffer

That's not a syllogism. Your conclusion is simply restating P2, so you can omit this entire segment in favor of just defining the term "scientific mind".

A scientific mind as a source for moral choice
p1 Moral choices out of unsupported beliefs are less valuable and have a high probability of no benefit for humans and humanity.
p3 When a belief has been put through the scientific method and survived as truth outside of human perception, it is a human belief that is supported by evidence.
p4 A person using the scientific method in day to day thinking is a person living by a scientific mindset, i.e a scientific mind.

Final conclusion: A person living by a scientific mind has a higher probability of making good moral choices that benefit humans and humanity. — Christoffer

While I understand what you want to say here, the premises just don't fit together well. For example P1 is taking only about what is less valuable and has a high probability of no benefit. It's all negative. Yet the conclusion talks about what has a high probability for a benefit, i.e. it talks about a positive. And p4 really doesn't add anything that isn't already stated by p3.

Your conclusion is that knowing the facts is important to making moral judgement. That is certainly true. Unfortunately, it doesn't help much to know this if you are faced with a given moral choice.

What you perhaps want to argue is that it's a moral duty to evaluate the facts as well as possible. But that argument would have to look much different.

However, from another person’s point of view, this flag points to them, not me. This is impossible, since this is a universal flag. Hence, I am the only perspective there is. — bizso09

I don't see how any of this follows. If you are observer nr. 587, there might be a flag nr. 587 attached to the things that you experience. Another person might experience the things with flag nr. 935 etc.

If we assume, each person has their own world, with their own flags that points to them, then there needs to be another flag outside of this, which tells which world I will be in for the life I’m living now. — bizso09

You're assuming that there is some kind of "you" that is then assigned a perspective by being assigned a flag number. This doesn't make much sense since the "you" would have zero content associated with it. So instead of you being "assigned" a flag, you are what results from a bunch of "things" having the same flag.

I agree with their ideals, to a certain extend. I don't share their take on authority, nor really on the notion of freedom.

To wit, a free society is necessarily an ordered society. And while order can arise spontaneously, authority is necessary to make that order dependable. You need to be able to depend on order to be practically free.

It is, however, always a good idea to critically assess any specific hierarchy or authority.

Isn't this true of every notion we have? — Daniel

Yes, in the sense that every notion we have is based on the fundamental machinery that evolved. But that machinery has specifically evolved to be flexible, so there is an open (but not unlimited) space for notions.

And if so, how does this affect our notions of knowledge, Philosophy, Mathematics, etc. I mean, if my ideas, or my potential to imagine, is constricted by evolution, how far can I question the reality of my existence and how confident can i be of my assertions? — Daniel

It doesn't really affect our notions, because those notions are already affected. There is no way to tell what a mind with a different structure might think about these questions. So in terms of philosophy, nothing can be gleamed from speculations about evolutionary psychology.

even better, how sure can i be of my self? — Daniel

Well the starting point for that question would be Descartes, I think. Though Descartes smuggled the self into his famous proof, so perhaps the first question is: what do you mean by self?

Is the self also a notion that arose because it gave an advantage to the organism that posses it? Am I a trait under natural selection? — Daniel

Maybe. But it might also just be an accident. In any event, if you are a trait of anything, you're a trait of your thoughts. And those thoughts are not, strictly speaking, natural, so I don't think selection comes into it.

Thank you for saying simply and clearly what I have tried to express on numerous occasions but could't figure out how to say it. — tim wood

Thanks.

As I understood Kant, we don't experience space at all, it is instead the framework that outer experience has to conform to. If that is right even three dimensional space cannot be perceived. — jkg20

I guess you could make a technical argument here about how the form of the experience is part of the experience, but I think it doesn't really matter.

Given that he did most of his serious work before Gauss and Reimmann were even born, the only model of geometry he had available to him would have been Euclid's. So, it is not surprising that where he does talk about geometry it is of the three dimensional kind. Would it really have made a difference to him had he been aware of the possibility of coherent geometries with more than three dimensions? — jkg20

It's not an easy question to answer. I think the rub is that Kant says that all experience of external objects is formed by space and time. So, one might argue, there ought not to be a theory, based on experience, that space is not, after all, three dimensional. If the form is inherent in all experience, how can experience then establish something beyond the form?

I am not sure if Kant would have been concerned either way. That whole section of the critique has two purposes: To demonstrate that experience is formed by the mind, and that these forms allow synthetic a-priori judgements. Neither point seems to me particularly impacted by choosing the wrong number of dimensions.

Going back to my earlier point, Kant examined with great care what time and space "are like from the inside", and what we can conclude from that. And that critique still seems very relevant, even if it turns out our experience isn't even a good approximation of physics.

beware claims about "understanding" Kant — tim wood

In a way, I find Kant easy to understand in broad strokes, because it's all so well thought out. Actually following all these individual thoughts is quite another matter.

Assuming the theory of evolution is true, and that it is an organism's genome which serves as the blueprint for each one of its organs, I have reasoned that every idea must also be subjected to natural selection since ideas depend on the brain whose actual shape and function are a consequence of natural selection acting on this organ. — Daniel

This is, broadly speaking, true. But most higher cognitive functions have too much variance to be significantly constrained by evolution. The brain has evolved to be so flexible that it "beat" evolution.

Thus, in a population, the set of existent ideas is such that it is the fittest set. — Daniel

This doesn't actually follow from the theory of evolution. It's just a set that was "good enough".

If this is the case, that the set of thoughts of a population is under natural selection, then I am programmed, by evolution, to have a limited mind, in the sense that my brain will only be able to generate a particular set of ideas whose nature is mainly determined by my brain's actual state which, again, has been molded by natural selection (thing about an arm which has a limited set of movements that it is able to perform). So, for example, it might be the case that God is just an idea that's survived because it confers some kind of reproductive advantage to the person that has it, and so through the passage of time it's become fixed in the population. Another example might be the idea of what is real and what is not, and etc. Do you see the dependancy of our mindset in evolution? — Daniel

Sure. I mean the basic machinery that we operate with (logic and reason, in a borad sense) has, according to our current understanding, been molded by evolution. And in that sense it may very well be the case that the notion of God, or gods, is a result of the specific way in which the brain evolved. Humans do seem to have the tendency to reify categories and look for metaphysical explanations.

Sure. Aside from mathematics and pure logic, we never reach certainty for any other sciences. In all other sciences (metaphysics and others), the accepted position about a topic is the one that has not yet been refuted. We say that the position stands, that it becomes the prima facie, and that the onus of proof is on the other side. It is a good alternative to remaining agnostic about everything merely on the grounds that we do not reach certainty. Maybe we can afford to remain agnostic on some topics, but not all. See next paragraph as an example. — Samuel Lacrampe

But what do we do if there a bunch of conflicting hypotheses, neither of which can be refuted (in the sense of a falsification). Take the classic theism - atheism debate. Refutation really doesn't seem like a good fit for a host of problems.

This topic of whether all perceptions are false or some are true, is a good example where we cannot afford to remain agnostic on the grounds that both hypothesis remain possible. We gotta live. We gotta pick a side. Enters the Prima Facie approach as per above. — Samuel Lacrampe

But we only need working physics to live. We don't really need metaphysics. That is, we don't technically need to understand what it is we are predicting and explaining, only that our predictions are good enough. After all, the simulation hypothesis and similar thought experiments do not force us into inaction.

Hmmm.... That's a tough one. It's almost worthy of its own discussion. For now, I say real; as we cannot conceive something we have not experienced in the past. E.g. a blind man born blind cannot conceive the colour red. — Samuel Lacrampe

I am sure there have been plenty of discussions on this forum already :wink: . This is just a variant on the "hard problem": Red doesn't seem to be a physical property of anything (light has wavelength, but it doesn't have "redness") and yet it somehow is in our minds. And to make matters worse, there seems to be no way to confirm anyone else sees red the way you or I see it. It's subjective, but also real.

The objective basis to ethics is values, ie that some things are good or bad in reality. E.g. I should do this because it is objectively good. — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't want to make this a discussion about morality, but my question would remain the same. What is "objective goodness" even supposed to mean? A catalogue of good deeds? A definition? A divine judge?

Siding with Aristotle, the foundations of epistemology are first principles called the laws of thoughts. These laws are Deductive Reasoning (aka logic), Inductive Reasoning (aka stats), and Abductive Reasoning (aka Parsimony). As first principles, they are not founded on any other premises. — Samuel Lacrampe

Right, so would you call these principles "true" or something else?

It does. Let me try again another way. We perceive a physical object. Either that object is real or not. If real, then we made a claim about metaphysics. If not real, then the explanation is the existence of a false perception. Then we still made a claim about metaphysics, namely that this false perception is real. — Samuel Lacrampe

That seems to be a bit like the logic saying that atheism is a religion. Let's say there is a physical tree. It could be that there also is a metaphysical tree. It could be that the tree is a metaphysical dragon. It could be that the tree is a metaphysical rock. Saying "the tree is really (metaphysically) a tree" is a metaphysical claim. So is claiming it's really a dragon etc. What's not a claim is saying that "it might be a tree, but I don't see how you could ever find out". The latter would, at most, be a claim about epistemology.

Good point. Let me try again: Knowledge is achieved when the thoughts are true and justified, and correct justification must follow the laws of thoughts. — Samuel Lacrampe

Justified true belief. Yes I think that's fine. I don't actually think there is any true definition for truth, it can only be described by example. But I am fine with using this one.

And Banno is correct, many people assume that General Relativity undermines Kant's conception that space is a form of intuition, since for Kant it seems the form of our space had to be Euclidean, whereas one result of General Relativity, and one which has been experimentally confirmed I believe, is that our space is non Euclidean. — jkg20

Of course, all the non Euclidian spaces are mathematical constructions that can be thought, but cannot be perceived. Kant really only talks about our experience of space, and so long as no-one experiences a four-dimensional space, that still holds.

But of course that all depends on just what mathematics actually are. If you think it's a construct of the mind, it has little bearing on Kant's argument (aside from making his examples look dated). If you think math is the "language of the universe" it's a different matter.

Failure to provide evidence or support when requested renders the proposition in question null. — tim wood

Could you explain why you used this specific phrasing ("renders it null")?

Yes, I used the term particles consistent with the accepted model of physics. It in no way constitutes or represents an atomistic ontology. Technically, particles are instantiations of underlying fields. I was expecting this response however. — Pantagruel

I do know that this is the case, but are fields "processes"?

Everything from a purely physical standpoint is a process. Particles cling together for finite durations then proceed on their way, in the "direction" of whatever impelled them to begin with plus the sum of interactions. It is only because we have a psychological affinity for a specific spatio-temporal scale (the observable universe) that we preferentially identify things as "things". Change the spatio-temporal scale slightly and some things begin to look more like processes.... — Pantagruel

Right, but note that your description of the process is based on particles. So the particles ("things") seem to be required to have a notion of a process.

Our scientific theories even describe objects as being the relationship between smaller objects, all the way down. Objects are conceptions of processes/relations. — Harry Hindu

But then how do we know there are processes behind the objects?

What do you consider to be all of you? — Harry Hindu

It would certainly have to include my internal thoughts, the way I feel about things etc. I am not convinced that is all physical stuff.

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Saying they are reasoned is the same as saying your views are objective. — Harry Hindu

I disagree. Morality has nothing to do with objects. It's about relations between subjects. "Objective morality" is a category error.

How can you say that something represents another without causation? Does the representation exist before or after what it represents, and how does a representation come to represent something else?

Can you say the opposite, that the colour blue represents a certain wavelength in the EM spectrum, but from a different view? — Harry Hindu

Yes, you can say the opposite. That's one major difference to causal relationship. Causality is unidirectional, representation is not.

As to how it works, there is no before or after, since those are temporal and therefore causal relations. Green is a certain wavelength (or spectrum), and that wavelength is green.

On the one side, you have the entire physical process: light is emitted, parts of it are reflected and strike the retina, electronic signals are emitted, a pattern of brain activity results. On the other hand you have "green-ness".

But the point of (sincere) debate is to find truth. Proper rules of reasoning and debate (which includes burden of proof) is part of epistemology. You might as well say that the objective world does not care about epistemology as such, which is true, but would miss the point that the function of epistemology is to know the objective world. — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't really disagree with much of this, but I don't think you're going about the "search for truth" in quite the right way.

The first question of epistemology is "what can we know", and the second is "how do we know it". To answer these question, one has to establish a connection between a certain rule and knowledge. It's not sufficient to identify rules of thinking about the world. One must also establish why, by following these rules, we actually gain information.

So if you want to establish burden of proof as an epistemological principle for metaphysical questions, you'll have to justify the connection between the rule and metaphysical reality.

That's fine. Instead of "hallucination" let's called it "false perception", for which "false" means "not in conformance with reality". — Samuel Lacrampe

The problem is that this false perception may very well be normal, even unavoidable, for humans, and therefore your previous arguments do not work.

I don't believe so. There are only 2 categories of being in that sense: real and imaginary. E.g. a horse is real, a unicorn is imaginary. By "internal reality", I am guessing you actually mean "imaginary" which is the alternative to being real. — Samuel Lacrampe

So what about the colour red? Is it real or imaginary?

I still challenge this claim. Ethic is only properly speaking a science if it is objective; which means that goodness exists in reality. But if no goodness in reality, then no ethics. — Samuel Lacrampe

How would that be possible? Do you imagine there to be some actual rulebook hidden somewhere that is the "object" you could base morality on? The question of morality is "what should I do". How is that in any way connected to objects?

Anyways ethics was one example. Another one would actually be epistemology itself. Because if epistemology is about discovering the "objective nature" of the universe, then the truth criterion for that cannot be "accordance with objective nature". That'd be circular.

Similarly, there is no such thing as "physical reality" if we can know nothing about reality. Even if the physical is the result of a false but universal and consistent perception, we are then still claiming that this false perception exists in reality. — Samuel Lacrampe

I think you're essentially complaining about words here (i.e. this is just semantics). Whether or not you prefer to reserve the term "reality" for "objective" or "metaphysical reality" doesn't change whether or not the latter is connected to physics.

Of course not. But true thoughts are thoughts which content conforms to reality. And true thoughts are possible only if they follow the laws of thoughts. — Samuel Lacrampe

The just seems obviously wrong. If the criterion of truths is conformance to metaphysical reality, then if you have a collection of random thoughts, some of those could just happen to conform. The process used wouldn't matter. It would have to be the other way round: the laws of thoughts only discover the already existing true thoughts, and are defined by them.

Imagining stems from the brain's ability to form concepts and goals. The goal in the mind is just as imaginary as Santa Claus. It doesn't exist in the world outside of the mind. But it drives the behavior of the body to change current conditions to reach that goal - so that world and mind are in sync - homeostasis. — Harry Hindu

I thought we had reached some sort of an agreement that it might be processes/relationships all the way down, not objects which would imply the "physical vs. non-physical" dichotomy I was trying to stay away from. You might need to re-read our previous exchanges. — Harry Hindu

It does get difficult to remember where each sub-discussion stands in a topic like this one.

Anyways while I am sympathetic to the idea of getting off the beaten path, I am not sure how to conceptualise a reality of "processes/relations all the way down". It seems to me that both processes and relationships require "things" as a substrate. How would you describe a process without the things it processes? How a relationship without the things it relates?

If you refer to yourself as a "subject", and others refer to you as an "object", are we both talking about the same thing, or are we talking past each other? — Harry Hindu

They're not the same, or they shouldn't be. If people refer to me as an object, they refer to what they observe. That isn't all I am, or so I believe.

You don't try to get people to agree with you, and see things how you see them outside of a philosophy forum, like in everyday life? Being on a philosophy forum or not has no bearing on how you use words to communicate ideas about the world. — Harry Hindu

Just because I want to convince people doesn't mean I regard whatever I want to convince them of as an objective truth. I wouldn't claim, for example, that my views on morality are objective. At best they're reasoned.

Then your mind has no purpose?

How can "physical" stuff represent "non-physical" stuff, and vice versa, except by causation? — Harry Hindu

A purpose? I don't know. But it is important, since whatever it does is represented physically. So something "objectively real" is happening.

As for representation: think about how a certain wavelength in the EM spectrum represents the colour blue.

Imagining stems from the brain's ability to form concepts and goals. The goal in the mind is just as imaginary as Santa Claus. It doesn't exist in the world outside of the mind. But it drives the behavior of the body to change current conditions to reach that goal - so that world and mind are in sync - homeostasis. — Harry Hindu

This sounds somewhat similar to the "representation" idea I have been advancing. What you're describing doesn't sound causal to me.

Not necessarily wrong. It just means he has the onus of proof. Absurd, common sense, reasonable, status quo, all these are terms which serve to establish who has the onus of proof. Once the onus of proof is fulfilled, then the claim stands, even if it is absurd. — Samuel Lacrampe

I am not a fan of "burden of proof" type arguments outside of a legal context. While I think the general rule that the one who advances a claim is obligated to provide justification is a fine one, it's a rule of debate, not a law of (meta-)physics. I am repeating myself here, but there is no reason to suppose that the world cares about the burden of proof.

And I think it deserves repeating here that "it's a hallucinations" is merely a metaphor for what Hume means. A Hallucination is a specific way in which one persons perception differs from the perception in others in defined, pathologic ways. Hume's scepticism goes deeper than that. It's not about individual mistakes but about whether humans are at all equipped, sensory or otherwise, to gain knowledge about metaphysical reality (by which I mean whatever reality is like before or outside of human perception).

I don't set the status quo. I discover it by experience. If you want to be formal about it, you could survey what most people believe about hallucination and the normal. My money is that hallucinations are not seen as normal. — Samuel Lacrampe

But this just seems to bring us back to the starting point. Why is the majority opinion relevant for what is metaphysically real? Hume is not, after all, worried about individual failures of judgement but by a general inability to prove metaphysical propositions.

Practical limitation does not entail that a thing is theoretically unobservable; unlike spirits for example. — Samuel Lacrampe

While you are correct in general, for the purposes of the example given by Russel the distcinction doesn't matter. For any given ability to observe, one can make up teapots that fall just outside of it.

My discussion, my rules. By objectivity, I mean "external reality" as per the dictionary, and that's how it will be used in this thread. :cool: — Samuel Lacrampe

Sure, but then your statement "reality implies objectivity" reads "reality implies external reality", which is wrong, as there are obviously internal realities.

Unfortunately, if you don't make metaphysical claims, then philosophy is impossible: Metaphysics is the science of what is real. If no knowledge of reality, then no truth (defined as conformance to reality), then no philosophy (defined as search for truth). — Samuel Lacrampe

I think you misunderstand what metaphysics is about. Not all philosophy is metaphysics. Metaphysics is specifically about the "real-ness" of physics, not things like e.g. normative statements (morality). So even if metaphysics would be impossible, there'd still be truth. There just wouldn't be any truth about the connection between physical reality and metaphysical reality. And an agnostic position is still philosophy - the corrollary to finding truth is finding what we cannot know.

And actually... I just realized that the Principle of Parsimony is nothing but Abductive Reasoning, which is a fundamental law of thoughts. — Samuel Lacrampe

Which is good, if you think that thoughts construct reality. Do you?

Language games take place in the world, and involve stuff — Banno

This is one of these sentences that can mean everything and nothing.

The keys are both part of a language game and the things you start your car with. "Making sense" involves both; better, the distinction is a metaphysical error. — Banno

But even if I were to accept that there is no distinction, it still seems that the language game about the key, as a "thing" is different from the keys as a "thing". The language game doesn't start the car.

Stuff in the world is always, already, interpreted; but it is also still stuff. — Banno

I agree with the first part. Not sure what the second part is supposed to say. Stuff is stuff, but also still stuff?