It might be, for all we have said so far, that O exists when I perceive it but the moment I stop perceiving it, it ceases to exist. I am not assuming that this is true, and so I am not 'idly speculating'. What I am saying is that this has not been ruled out by anything we have said so far. You have not suggested any reliable method by which we could determine whether something exists when unperceived. — PossibleAaran

Here's another related way to go about this. Has anyone died from something unperceived? Yes, quite often. One example would be going on a hike and being killed by a falling rock. The hiker may not have seen or heard the rock.

Another would be dying from some disease, particularly in the past or places without access to medical equipment. You get sick and die from something nobody perceives. How does that work if the microbes, cancer, etc. doesn't exist?

What does it even mean to get sick if the cells in your body don't exist? If the organs aren't there, because nobody perceives them? Are you just a shell secreting mucus and blood?

Do you poop with no intestines? Did that food disappear without being digested? Will you really starve if you don't see food ever again? Why would that be?

What about the hypothesis that God causes O to exist and when I look away, God destroys O? What about the hypothesis that it is a law of nature that whenever we look in a certain place, O is created, and whenever we look away, O is destroyed? — PossibleAaran

Let's say that when nobody is observing the rest of the universe, all that matter is destroyed. So you get in a car while nobody is doing astronomy, and the driver steps on the brakes. What happens? Do you feel the rest of the universe opposing your change in motion, or just the Earth and Sun and maybe Venus if it's up?

The trusty old Samuel Johnson refutation. — Wayfarer

With some science and Heidegger thrown in. A big part of the perceived world is the interdependence of all the things we perceive. For example, how is it that I stay warm on a sunny day while I'm not aware of the sun? If the sun's not there because it's not being perceived, then what keeps me warm?

Is it coherent to say that you can have a perception of small part of the world without the rest of it existing to support it, including the body that's doing the perceiving?

Can I have a visual perception while my eyes don't exist (because nobody's perceiving them)? I don't actually see my eyes when I'm looking, unless there's a reflecting surface.

How do I know that this piece of paper still exists when I put it away in my desk and leave the room? — PossibleAaran

Because it's there when you reenter the room and open the desk. If you doubt that, you can set a camera to record a video or snapshots of the paper while you're away. And from there, any scientific experiment for determining the existence of the paper in your absence would show it was still there.

You could set up some indirect domino rube goldberg scenario to trigger a bunch of events if the paper is still there after you've left the room. Which ties into what holds the world you perceive together when you're not perceiving it. If you look up at the sky, is the ground still holding you up? Does your heart still pump blood while you're not aware of it beating? Does the back of your head exist when nobody's looking at it?

How far do you want to take the skepticism? Because it can go all the way to the current perception for me right now, and leave everything else as unknowable.

they are not given equal weight to all arguments — Andrew4Handel

Not all arguments deserve equal weight.

For example I think discussions about the nature of mind can be influenced by peoples metaphysical commitments and to some extent they have ruled out alternatives and or are committed to rejecting alternatives. — Andrew4Handel

Sure, but what if there's good reasons for one's metaphysical commitments?

I suppose the difference is between looking for evidence of black swans — Andrew4Handel

But what would the black swans look like in the case of God? Would it look like the show Supernatural?

guy running her to the side of the road with his car while she was riding a bike and then masturbating in front of her — praxis

That's two criminal offenses in one incident. Did she get his license plate and report him?

Freaky, and probably not the sort of thing any dude needs to worry about. — praxis

I did have a guy at a park who was staring me down when I went into bathroom, enter it and come to my stall. But at least he backed off when he saw I was taking a dump. I do get that uncomfortable feeling from gay guys at parks staring me down that women might feel on a regular basis. Only rarely, but I do get this feeling they strongly want action and they're trying to assess my interest.

I don't like it because I'm a total stranger, but maybe I'd feel different if it was an attractive female? Of course I'm not innocent in this matter either. I'm just not attracted to guys, particularly at parks. It's not harassment, but it does help empathize with what women might go through, for a brief moment.

Okay, but why are you talking about guilt? Is anyone but you talking about guilt? Especially guilt that one 'should' be feeling? Or is this just a bunch of introjection now projected outwards? — StreetlightX

But there is some societal guilt or shame for being privileged. I remember this college event for a club I attended. We were all white. This one guy called someone who stole his backpack a "nigger". Everyone's response was to shame and then ostracize him. I was distressed by this. Yeah, white people aren't supposed to use the N word, but people make mistakes and it was in context of being angry at someone for a legitimate reason. We could have just corrected him and let it go at that instead of basically unfriending him on the spot.

Thinking back on that and other ways white people often act publically about other white people exhibiting racism, it makes me thing well-meaning people feel some shame and need to prove publically that they're not guilty of sins of their ancestors, or KKK demonstrators.

And it's pretty clear that we aren't going to stop producing plastic anytime soon. — JustSomeGuy

Can plastic be made out of hemp?

In all such matters, I refer you to:

The oceanic gyres serve as a large dump for plastics of all kinds. But maybe we can CRISPR some critters into eating it.

By design that spectrum is very large. What unite the people that are on it is that they are all somewhat dicks and can be shielded from just retribution by their power and position. That's why Franken got burned. — Akanthinos

But what about Keillor. Is touching a back sexual assault, or is there more to the story?

I've had women grab my ass on a few occasions. It wasn't wanted, but I didn't feel like it was assault. It was just a little awkward.

I've also had a few gay guys hit on me, and try and talk me into something I had no interest in doing. But I don't consider that harassment either. However, if that's something I had to face on a regular basis as a woman, particularly at work, but also in public places minding my own business, then I would want to speak out about it, too. That would cross over into ongoing harassment.

Edit: According to MPR, sounds like there might be more to the Keillor case that they haven't made public. So maybe it was more than a back pat.

As species got more and more intelligent, nature was finding better ways to contribute to increases of entropy. (Intelligent systems can be observed as being biased towards entropy maximization) — ProgrammingGodJordan

As some species get more intelligent. The keyword there is some. Intelligence is a favorable adaptation for some species. But those species aren't even the majority of life on this planet. Bacteria, plants, fungi, viruses and insects vastly outnumber mammals, birds and cephalopods. And they've been around for far longer.

So it's hard to see how intelligence is the end result of evolution. It's not even clear that it's a good long term adaptation for humans. We might go extinct because of our intelligence.

The options and the conscious decision are all which exist in the moment of decision. — bahman

I take it you're no fan of Freud. The brain and body also exist in the moment of decision.

So now we need three unjustifiable principles to certify our knowledge as true: Causality, the future will be the same as the past, and that the unexperienced is the same as the experienced. — tom

The problem has always been certifying our knowledge. If all we have is deductive logic, then we'll never know much. If the demand is certainty, Descartes got as far as the self before he had to bring God in to save the day.

I am consciously aware of situation and can decide too about whether I should move my hand or not. — bahman

But you're not consciously aware of what all goes into making your decision.

Because at the age of 47 I am pretty sure one normal lifetime will be enough for me. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Wow, really? I would be down with a few centuries, at least. Humans live such short lives as it is, compared to other time scales.

But he is pointing out that there is no logical support for the belief. — andrewk

You mean deductive logical support. Inferential and probabilistic reasons can be given for it. It's seems perfectly rational to me to infer that we have this habit of mind because causality exists, which permits an evolutionary account.

As I said, Sunyata has a good argument behind it and materialism backs it up. — TheMadFool

It all depends on whether one is convinced by mereological nihilism, and the project of reductionism in the sciences. I tend to think that objects can consist of parts, systems can consist of individual behaviors, and the self can exist as certain brain activity with a cultural context.

I don't think I have to say that only subatomic particles or fields exist. One can argue for that, but I'm not sold on it. I also tend to think that social structures like companies and governments exist. It's about the emergent complexity of various systems that result in objects, selves, social arrangements.

If you just look at an individual ant, it's behavior is pretty dumb and mindless. But an ant colony engages in impressive endeavors, which consist entirely of dumb ant behaviors interacting with one another. Do we understand ants as only the individuals? Is an ant colony not a thing in the world? If so, we're going to run into huge difficulties explaining how ants survive.

Pertinently, AGI/ASI can theoretically solve any task, given sufficient compute resources, including tasks performed by bacteria! — ProgrammingGodJordan

It's not whether AI can solve tasks performed by bacteria, it's the likelihood that bacteria will still be around long after the last machines rust away. All of human civilization is but a tiny blip in the history of life.

It's an interesting question as to whether the end result of human civilization is AI.

But personally, it's not my goal to create AI, and even if I had the means to do so, I would only do it to benefit myself and other humans, not as an end in itself. If it's my life or AI, I choose my life, and I choose humanity. I don't care about machines beyond their utility or interest to humans. When not consuming scifi, I prefer the augmented intelligence route over artificial, where it's always humans that are being made smarter, instead of being replaced.

Why? Because machines don't care about anything, don't feel, aren't conscious. They're just tools.

As for life in general, I don't see why intelligence is preferable to other strategies. Ants or bacteria may long outlive bigger brained mammals and their technological creations. Despite all our success, bacteria still have us way outnumbered. It's a bit egotistical to think we're the central focus of life.

Horseshoe crabs have been around for 400+ million years in a similar form. Why would that be if super optimization is the goal? There could be planets where the most sophisticated form of life is something like a horseshoe crab or jellyfish. Maybe Earth is an outlier.

Kurzweil is an interesting thinker, but he always comes across as someone who thinks because they're an expert in one domain, that makes them an expert in all the others.

If it is in a different dimension why would there be a problem with it being in the same place. — Sir2u

Because it's in a different dimension. Are you in the same place as me when I'm in Times Square and you're 10 miles above?

eah, empirical is anything that can be scientifically perceived to be even more accurate. — Agustino

Is there perception that can't be scientifically perceived? What does that mean?

Empirical is the domain of experience, feeling, thought, belief, idea, etc. — bahman

Empirical is perception only.

Time does not lie on a point. It is a psychological feeling imbued in the mind. We feel time pass we do not see it pass and we associate this passage of time with changes in memory. — Rich

I can watch things change right now. Time at the very least is empirical.

Do they both speak one different language before meeting? Yes or no? — Agustino

Like Hopi and English?

For you to easily understand that when I point at myself and say "Agustino" and then point at you I mean that "My name is Agustino, what is yours?" you must already have understood the grammar of name (ie how names are used, what kind of things they refer to, etc.). — Agustino

Sure, I'm going to understand that all human beings have names (unless they're feral), and when they point to themselves and say something, odds are they're saying their name. That or a pronoun.

And in fact Wittgenstein is right - feral children and similar cases who have NOT learned conceptual grammar, struggle mightily to learn any language whatsoever. — Agustino

But we weren't talking about feral children. I brought up anthropologists and different language speakers meeting for the first time, like the Europeans in the new world.

Somehow they still manage to learn to speak each other's languages. I'm guessing the don't start off with grammar.

So once I understand the grammar of - say - English, it's much easier to learn French by pointing me to stuff. — Agustino

Yeah, but you're not going to know the grammar for an unknown language.

Wouldn't you start out by pointing out objects and saying the word for them, after maybe giving your name?

There are many times in history when humans have encountered groups they had no previous contact with, with individuals from both learning each other's languages.

It might be occupying the same place. — Sir2u

How could it occupy the same place?

If I point you to a red apple trying to teach you what red is, I might say "This is red". But how will you know if by that I refer to the color, the shape, the fruit, etc.? — Agustino

But then how do anthropologists go about learning an unknown language from some tribe in New Guinea upon first contact? Wouldn't the equivalent of pointing out objects and saying "red" occur? You can point to apple and say "apple", then point to something red and say "red", then back to apple and say "red". Given a few examples, the person will probably catch on that you're talking about the color versus the name of the object.

Interesting idea. Where does the value stem from, then? Internal experience? Social interaction?

Not all theists are Christians. Christians generally have well defined concepts about God, the afterlife, etc.

Boy, Christians would not like that. — Mitchell

Most Christians think they can talk about God, so they wouldn't understand the Wittgenstein quote.

It's only theists who define God in purely negative terms for which that would apply.

Do you think it is possible to actually desire the bad, knowing that it is bad and that nothing good will come of it? — Mitchell

Yep, I have done so myself out of spite, anger, jealousy or bitterness, and have seen others do so. Also, I've stood at the ledge of a building or cliff and realized that I could choose to jump to my death or push someone for no reason other than being impulsive. I would count that as evil.

And then there are sociopaths who don't care about the good. To quote Batman's butler, "Some men just want to see the world burn".

It's troubling when there's nobody around to enforce the rules of good conduct. However, I expect banishment from the society to be in general the most severe form of punishment in said primitive or such societies. — Posty McPostface

It sounded like the Amish punishment for rape was not very severe, to say the least. And in a society where you're allowed to kill a relative because you think they've been possessed by an evil spirit, there is no recourse.

suppose Jesus always knew best, but one has to wonder whether Lazarus, who was already starting to stink pretty badly, really wanted to come back to life. — Bitter Crank

Guess that depends on where he was hanging out while he was dead?

There was an X-Files episode where these idiots uncovered a genie who gave them three wishes. One idiot wished to be invisible, and then he got run over by a bus who didn't see him. So his friend/brother idiot wished for him to come back to life, and he came back as a walking corpse.

What is "calling"? — Noble Dust

What Bitter Crank said. Jesus was talking to people who expressed an interest in being his followers, which seemed to involve leaving your old life behind and follow him around and learn from his teachings.

All this because the Kingdom of Heaven was near, whatever Jesus meant by that.

It's interesting to note how some tribes or primitive societies go about the whole ordeal. I'm on my cell and don't have the papers but it would seem that people in said primitive societies feel a much greater sense of.bond with their fellow kindsmen. I assume that would be another prerequisite for the golden rule to be maintained in practice. — Posty McPostface

Maybe so, but there was a show on how this Amish girl ended up going to the police because her brothers were repeatedly raping her, and the Amish community's punishment had not succeeded in stopping it.

She probably couldn't go back, but you realize that sometimes those small communities don't have a good way of handling certain situations.

Or take an actual tribe (I don't recall where this was, some jungle) where if you come to believe that your relative has been possessed by an evil spirit, you're supposed to kill them.