So you disagree with my conclusion that innocent persons deserve harm free beneficial lives?

Do you agree that this argument form is valid:

P.
Q.
Therefore P and Q?

Which quote?

What was?

no you didn't. You said something I couldn't understand. Quote a claim of mine - resist the urge to Express it it your own words (it won't mean the same thing, I assure you).
Quote a claim of mine. And then say why you think it is false without changing it to something else.

Which claim of MINE do you disagree with? Not yours. Mine. Quote me.

Are your sensations mental states?

Pssst. The answer is yes. And then Berkeley beats you.

Which claim of mine do you disagree with?

Highlight something I said. Not you. Me.

Is a sensation a mental state?

What are you talking about? What false thing did I say in my last post. Highlight it and then we can talk about it

Do you know what other things being equal means?

You can't have done as you have just ignored the argument.

If an innocent person deserves no harm and deserves benefits, then they deserve a harm free beneficial life.

They're not going to get that!!!

It's like chucking someone off a bridge so they can enjoy the benefits of the pleasing view on the way down.

They deserve a harm free happy life. That is not what they are going to get. So it's shitty to do that - to create a person who will deserve far, far more than they can be given.

Furthermore, if you do not create the person you are not depriving someone of benefits that they deserve, are you?

If you create someone, then you create someone who deserves none of the harms you have just condemned them to suffer and far, far more benefits than this world can ever provide them. That's really shitty. Self indulgent shittyness. But if you don't procreate you have not deprived someone of something they deserve. Why? Because they don't exist. Do the math!

Read the op!!!!!!

Er, what? Why are you saying stuff that doesn't contradict anything I've said.
Read what I said again and don't attribute to me thick inferences that I have not made.

Read. The. OP.
The fact they deserve benefits makes my case even stronger. Jeez louise.

Did you read the OP?
I know they deserve benefits.
They deserve no harm and they deserve a happy life.
And they won't get that. See? That's called an injustice.
The benefits are deserved. But they deserve much more.
If you saddle someone with a million dollar debt and then pay 100 grand towards it, then 100 grand was deserved. But they deserve 900 grand more!! And you deserve condemnation

If you think it is as solid as air, tell me which premise is false.

You are not one for subtle distinctions, so this is going to be a waste of time. But if you deserve no harm and come to harm, that's bad.
If you deserve to come to harm and do not come to harm, that's bad.
And - other things being equal - we have reason not to perform acts that will create bads.

None of that is controversial and it entails that we have reason not to perform procreative acts, ceteris paribus, as procreative acts create a person who deserves no harm but will inevitably come to some.

Your reply does not challenge those claims. If you deserve to come to harmand recieve a benefit that is bad.
If you do not deserve to come to harmand recieve a benefit that is good.
If you deserve a benefit and recieve it, that is even better.

Fine. I'm not going to quibble. And can sensations exist outside minds?

I'm taking the pixie out of you.
A person who hasn't done anything doesn't deserve to come to harm.
That's not controversial. You think it is. It ain't.
If someone deserves something but doesn't get it, that's bad. It's called an 'injustice'. Them's bad.
Other things being equal, we have moral reason not to perform acts that will create injustices.
Acts of procreation create such injustices. Therefore, other things being equal we have moral reason not to perform them.
It's a solid argument.

A sensation of materialness? Er no.
What the F do you mean? Do you have an Issac sense? What is a sense of materialness? Do explain

You haven't read him. And you seem incapable of understanding that the claim that percepts do not exist unpercieved is not equivalent to the claim that the precepts constitutive of the sensible world exist in our minds. They exist in another mind. Not yours, not mine.
Now you haven't read him because all you are doing is quoting big standard out of context paragraphs gleaned from websites written by ignoramuses, yes? Now read 29 to 33

We have a sensation of presentness. Do keep up.

From a pixie. And he learnt it from a tub of lard. And he learnt it from a waffle iron. And the waffle iron learnt it from me.

So, if a person has done nothing whatsoever, then that person is ice creams no harm. That's premise 1.

Premise 2 is that newly created persons - which is a word that in my community we use to denote used tissue paper - have done nothing whatsoever (for they are bits of tissue paper, not agents).

And then I conclude form those premises that bits of tissue paper ice creams no harm.

Oh, and in my community we use words differently every ten minutes. Which means 3 turnips.

But in my community it means ice cream. So the murderer's death was his just ice cream? That makes no sense at all.

In my community desert means ice cream. So Bartdumb is arguing that if a person is created from scratch, then they are born ice cream. Which is silly. How does it follow from a person being created ice cream that procreation is wrong? Isn't he a dumbo.

Something's turning out to be as I expected it to be using some theory and others in my community seeming to have the same experience is a pretty good measure of my knowing that theory. — Isaac

I expect my wife is not having an affair with the plumber. I just expect that the pipes in our bedroom play up a lot during the day and that he really enjoys plumbing. Therefore, my wife is not having an affair with the plumber. Good. Epistemology Isaac style.

Now, how about you try and understand what I am using the word 'desert' to mean?

But how do we know anything? That's the problem with antinatalist arguments. How does anyone know anything? And language. What does 'desert' mean anyway? Ice cream? People are born ice cream? What's Bartthick on about? What a twit.

o deserve something does not mean others are obliged to give it to you
— Bartricks

Ok. But who decides what's deserved? That doesn't fall from the sky, I assume. It's not God-given. So who decides? Who decides what is deserved? You? — Xtrix

These are metaethical issues. If you're going to reject my argument by embracing some form of individual or collective subjectivism about morality, you're welcome as then you'd also be committed to concluding that the Nazis did no wrong.

Antinatalism is a normative theory, not a metaethical theory. So if you are forced to stray into metaethics, you've lost.

Moral properties are God given, but that's no premise in my argument. My argument requires only that one recognize that persons are created innocent and that an innocent person deserves no harm (and that it is wrong - other things being equal - to create injustices). Those claims are not reasonably deniable.

When's your next album coming out, Alanis?

There’s no illusion that the world is flat? You have just accounted for the illusion that the world appears flat even though it’s a giant ball and isn’t flat. — Luke

You're too confused for words. I'm not going to explain again.

So, basically, if science discovers that things are not as they appear, then that’s evidence of materialism’s falsity? According to what definition of materialism should things be as they appear? — Luke

Read the OP.

Appearances are default evidence in support of what they represent to be the case.

So, if event x appears to be present, that's default evidence that it is present.

If a certain theory about the world implies that x is not present, but past, then we have default evidence that the theory in question is false.

Surprise me - understand what I just said.

I’ve already told you. You’ve provided no argument that things are exactly how they appear to be. Saying that this is the “default justification” is not an argument. If it was, then you should agree that the world is flat, just as it appears to be. — Luke

OP.

I don't think you know an argument from your elbow given you think if someone says "if p, then q" they are defending p!

Right, that evidence. Other evidence may support it. Your argument would mean that appearance trumps any evidence. — Bylaw

Appearances ARE the evidence. Jesus!

Was I doing that? Could you show where? — Bylaw

Certainly. Here:

I am not sure how you got to materialism is false. I get that there is an illusion of presentness. But that doesn't make materialism false. It would mean that there is an illusion about part of experience. Materialism could still be correct in the main. And in fact could simply contain this as one of the facets of materialism. — Bylaw

You are simply assuming that materialism is true and then concluding that the appearance of presentness is illusion.

That's to assume a worldview and then interpret the data in light of it.

It's no different from, say, assuming that God exists and then concluding that the existence of evil is an illusion because God would not permit any.

It's not a case. It's just you imposing a worldview on the data. It's not following evidence. It's interpreting evidence in light of one's worldview.

It's not philosophy. It's what you did. And it's not philosophy. It's not how Berkeley argues. Berkeley's idealist worldview is in his conclusion, not his premises.

However, "if a theory about reality implies that a whole load of our appearances are actually false, then that's a black mark against that theory. It is evidence - default evidence - that the theory is false." seems to apply to Berkley here, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. How?

The sensible world appears to exist outside of our minds, yes?

He concludes that it does. Not that it doesn't. That it does - it does exist outside of our mind. It has, as he put it, 'outness'.

But it can't exist unperceived, as it is self-evident to reason that a percept can't exist absent any perceiver.

Thus, the external sensible world exists as the sensations of another mind.

Now, that does not conflict with any appearance. What it conflicts with is a widespread belief - belief, note, not appearance - that the world is an extended realm that exists extra-mentally.

I assume there is a typo confusing me here, but I can't figure out what it is or what you're trying to say. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's absolutely no justification for not being able to figure it out.

The sensible world exists outside of your mind.

And mine.

And everyone else's bar one mind - the mind that it exists in.

So, you seem unable to distinguish between two distinct claims: that the sensible world cannot exist unperceived and that the sensible world exists as 'your' percepts.

I've read the Principles many times. What makes you think that? I've quoted the entire paragraphs in question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, I don't believe you. I think you've read paragraphs that have been taken out of context. If you'd read him you'd know he never argues that the sensible world exists in 'our' minds. It exists in another mind. Read paragraphs 6 and 29-33 (and plenty of others, but those are just some)

>The desk can't exist when it is unperceived.
>You are alone in your office.
>You get up and leave, shutting the door.
>Your desk is no longer being perceived; it thus does not exist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not a quote from him. That's you misunderstanding him.

When he talks about the desk, the point he is making is about the nature of sensations, not the location of the sensations constitutive of sensible desks of our experience.

Again, it's clear that you haven't read him, just paragraphs taken out of context.

He says:

...it will be objected that from the foregoing principles it follows things are every moment annihilated and created anew. - In answer to all which, I refer the reader to What has been said in sect 3, 4, &c, [sections that go over how things do not exist except as sensations] all I desire he will consider whether be means anything by the actual existence of an idea distinct from its being perceived.

Or to paraphrase: "a thing existing without being perceived is meaningless and incomprehensible, less so than that things might come into existence as they are perceived." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again, you haven't read him. You're just reading quotes taken out of context. He's referring you back to the early paragraphs - 3,4 and c. Paragraphs you should have read by the time you read the one you're quoting, and thus should already understand taht he's not arguing the desk exists in your mind, but rather that the desk can't exist unperceived.

Like I say, you haven't read him.

You haven't answered my question - if there's a giant ball and you're tiny by comparison and are stood on a tiny bit of it, how would things look from there? Flat, yes? So there's no illusion.

Added to which you're assuming materialism in assuming that there's an extended ball out there in space.

If the earth does not appear to be the shape it actually is, then that counts against materialism, not immaterialism. It doesn't. There isn't a problem there. But if - if - materialism is true and the earth appears flat when it is round (which it doesn't!), then that would be further evidence of materialism's falsity.

Anyway, how about addressing the argument in the OP? With which premise do you disagree?

Look up 'default'. Also imagine how a huge ball would look if you were extremely tiny and on it. And finally, recognize that on Berkeley's view the world is not an extended thing, but an idea in the mind of another.

In the OP.

So perhaps you can explain here then what the difference is between these two propositions...

"there appears to be a present in which events are occurring"

"there appears to be an external world made of mind-independent material objects" — Isaac

The mind-independent material objects bit. That's a worldview. That's not an appearance.

There appears to be an external sensible world, yes?

Whether that external sensible world is independent of all minds is not something one can see. How would you 'see' that?? You need to 'conclude' such things from premises whose content is appears to be true. (And as Berkeley argues, you can't even conceive of such a thing).

I don't see how you conclude not-p when you are strongly arguing for q. — Luke

Oh bloody hell, will you get with the programme!? I am arguing that 'if p, then q'. I am then arguing that not q. Not q here means I am arguing that our impressions of presentness are NOT systematically mistaken. That then gets me to the 'not p' conclusion.

You don't seem to understand what 'if' means. That's worrying.

You are not reading him or me carefully. I did not claim that the external sensible world exists unpercieved, and nor does he.
He argues, as would I, that it exists external to our minds.
Not 'all' minds. Our minds. That is, those minds whose sensations represent the world they are sensations of to have outness. It appears external. He concludes that it is. That does not mean it exists unpercieved.
Have you actually read the principles or are those cherry picked quotes from a website?
Because if you actually read him he's very clear about this. Those quotes are taken out of context. Willfully. Read him and see.
He doesn't think your desk disappears when you stop perceiving it. He does think it can't exist unpercieved. Read the actual principles, not misleading quotes taken out of context.
Read paragraphs 1-7. He references 3 and 4 himself - read them.
Then read my op. Then address it.

You're saying your opponents are speaking nonsense and contradicting themselves, but if I'm following you correctly, this is because you are assuming a premise they don't accept is a given. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think you're following correctly.

Do you agree that to assume a worldview right at the outset and then to interpret all appearances in light of it - rejecting as illusory those appearances that, if taken at face value, would imply the falsity of the worldview and accepting as non-illusory those appearances that are consistent with the worldview - is stupid? It's not philosophy, is it?

You would, I am sure, reject it when the worldview is a religious one. If I just started out by assuming the Christianity is true and then rejected any appearances that seem to conflict with it as illusions sent to test the failthful, you'd recognize the dogmatism inherent in such an approach.

Recognize the pattern. Identify the fault. What is it? Christianity? No, the dogmatic assumption of a worldview at the outset.

Isn't it dumb to decide that time doesn't exist because its existence is an inconvenience for one's favourite worldview? I think so. Arrogant, dumb, and not philosophy.

Now, I am not like that. I don't start with a worldview. I do philosophy. I follow reason.

If you do that, you'll arrive at idealism. You won't arrive at materialism. But by all means try and show me wrong. Just don't do it by assuming materialism at the outset.

Now again, you've said nothing whatever to challenge the argument I presented in the OP. Follow. The. Argument. Don't ignore it and just tell me everything you know about idealism (which seems mistaken anyway). Follow. The. Argument.