believe David Chalmers wrote a book related to that called Constructing the World. He focuses on the idea of scrutability where you start off with a few basic assumptions and build up your metaphysics. — Marchesk

I think the idea of starting with a few basic assumptions and building from there is a good strategy. But how do you then justify the assumptions?

I had a brief look at Chalmers' book. The trouble is that he starts with assumptions about truth that seem to be circular, eg 'A truth is a true statement'. IMO truth is a goal or an end point, and not a starting point.

I don't believe that there are any major unknown conspiracies in the world.

The difficulty with a hidden conspiracy is the boundary between those in the know and those who are outside. Unless you have a strict control over who knows about a conspiracy (eg the Mafia) then eventually the knowledge about the conspiracy is going to leak out.

1. Reality is fundamentally flux, and permanency is constructed
2. Reality fundamentally is, and change is an illusion — Pneumenon

Reality is. Change is a part of that reality. Time is a part of that reality.

If see the mind instead of the external world as the greatest (most fundamental) reality, and see the eternal world as merely a circumstance encountered by the mind. If this is done successfully, we will stop asking ‘how to deal with my internal world’, and ask ‘how to deal with the external world’ instead.
It is logical to do so, not only because we can’t be aware of the external world without a mind, but also because we can’t know we know about the external world until our life experience (or feelings) tell us about ourselves. In other words, if we deny the realness of our minds, we must also deny the realness of external world; if we deny the realness of external world, we don’t have to deny the realness of our minds.
By doing so, the demoralizing power of free will isuue would be greatly diminished, as it is now reduced to a small problem we happen to encounter as we are trying to understand the external world sensed by our minds. — Rystiya

Sounds good to me. :)

However, as the size of each step diminishes the staircase seems to more and more approximate a straight line, which has length the square root of two. — jgill
Am I missing something? For so long as there are stairs, the length is 2. Doesn't matter how many there are. There is no "more and more," although there can be be a lot of steps. The appearance of the staircase as "approaching" a straight line is in terms of the math an illusion of perception. — tim wood

Yes, but in the real world... what happens when the step length approaches the Planck length?

This theoretical paradox applies to the practical problem of measuring the lengths of coastlines... The answer you get depends greatly on the degree to which the fine details of the coastline are taken into account.

What are these 'hard questions'? — A SeagullThe hard problrm of consciousness. — Relativist

Those 'problems' are no harder for physicalism than they are for immaterialism. In any case I prefer to think of them as mysteries rather than problems.

Ultimate truth is the belief that that is the way things are, that no improvement of ones perception of them will change that belief.

This is a USE, not a PURPOSE. — god must be atheist
And the difference being? — TheMadFool

Use is when something is used, perhaps to make change. Purpose is a projection of that use, a convenient idea perhaps, but also a fantasy.

Well he thought time was tangible. — Gregory

You're dreaming.

If the mind is immaterial:
— Relativist

.. it's not. — A SeagullPhysicalism is often dismissed based on the inability to answer some hard questions. I wanted to show there are also challenging questions for immaterialism.

I actually don't think "the mind" is a thing; rather, its an abstraction of all the processes that we categorize as mental. — Relativist

What are these 'hard questions'?

There may well be mysteries surrounding consciousness, but they will not be answered by posing that consciousness is immaterial or can be disembodied from the brain.

The argument that consciousness is an illusion... — Marchesk

What is an illusion? What is not an illusion?

My question is what Einstein's GR predicts and how, if time is a measure in our heads. — Gregory

Einstein said that Time is what a clock measures.

If the mind is immaterial: — Relativist

.. it's not.

What do you call someone who thinks that God is a joke?

Life is risky.

Can you imagine a laughing suicide bomber? — Athena

Lol

I did. :) — A Seagull
So what do you base your statement on? Usually on is expected to provide some sort of evidence. :cool: — Sir2u

This is a thread on quotes and in the Lounge section,. no evidence or justification is required.

My personal evidence and justification for the quote is too esoteric and perhaps long to put into the form of a concise and logical argument.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me.

The difficulty in bringing humour into philosophical writings is that it is inherently ambiguous, the author may be making a valid point but identifying exactly what the point is would be ambiguous.

That said, a humour is important as it typically presents an alternative viewpoint from a strictly and supposedly logical argument.

Religions generally abhor humour as it can expose the absurdity of their tenets.

Most of what passes for philosophy is best described as BS. — A Seagull
Who said that? :chin: — Sir2u

I did. :)

The point is that if you refuse to believe anything until it's sufficiently grounded, but at some point you can just say "this is sufficient enough" and stop looking for further grounding for that, then at any point you could do that, and you've completely thrown out the principle of refusing to believe things until they're sufficiently grounded. You're admitting that there are some things that just don't need justification, than can just be taken on faith, for no reason; or else, if you stick to the principle, you never admit any belief in anything. Justificationism either leads you to reject all beliefs or accept arbitrary beliefs, and is therefore useless as a form of rationalism. — Pfhorrest

My point is that if one follows the logical sequence of beliefs back to their source one eventually arrives at something that is not a belief. This applies to every belief.

I am here, I am now, I have the appearance of certain things occurring. — PuerAzaelis

Ok fair enough. But if those are axiomatic, which is what I assume you are suggesting, then you should be able to draw inferences from them. What inferences can you deduce from those axioms?

fed by the rain. It is the same with beliefs — A Seagull
What are the axioms of belief which are free from doubt? — PuerAzaelis

Maybe it doesn't have any axioms. Or maybe they are not free from doubt.

If you want to have axioms that are free from doubt then you have to do so in an abstract world. And if you believe in that abstract world, then you run the risk of being sure of a fantasy.

If your river of beliefs can start from a spring or the rain, how do you know that the water flowing past you now isn't immediately spring water or rain water? Conversely, if you think you're at the headwaters, how do you know that there isn't further upstream you can still go? — Pfhorrest

Do you have a point? If so, what is it?

Infinite regress. If every belief has to be based on something then that needs to be based on something else that needs to be based on something else and so on forever, — Pfhorrest

Not really. One can think of it as a river where your rationality is at the lower reaches of the river where the water flows languidly past fields and houses. But if you want to understand the river you have to travel upstream, and it is not an infinite regress, travel far enough and you reach the source which might be a spring and one can understand that it is fed by the rain. It is the same with beliefs.

Do not try to ground beliefs. That’s impossible. — Pfhorrest

Why not?

What makes you think it is impossible??

Beliefs have to be based on something. And in fact it is important to base them on real things lest one ends up with only fantasies.

↪A Seagull One index would be the degree to which I'm willing to admit all claims open to revision, in principle, obviously. — StreetlightX

Your index of rationality sounds like something the Bellman from Hunting of the Snark would keep in his back pocket.

Certainly. On the condition that I give up on being rational, which occurs from time to time, to be fair. — StreetlightX

How can you tell when you are be8ing irrational? Or rational for that matter?

Good. All your beliefs should be, in principle, open to revision. . — StreetlightX

Well I hope this belief of yours is open to revision too.

Propositions, statements are communications between people, nothing more.

Compared to most Western Democratic countries Bernie is neither radical nor socialist nor even leftist, he would be a centrist moderate.

The Epistemology of Visual Thinking in Mathematics

. — Banno

An interesting article. Not sure why it refers to itself as an epistemology.

It highlights the conflation of pure and applied mathematics. (a priori and a posteriori). Children learn maths counting sheep (well I did anyway) which is applied maths, yet maths itself is pure.

It also highlights how possible proofs of theorems are first visualised by mathematicians before they try to construct a rigorous proof.

It also suggests how the possible axioms and rules of inference of maths may be visualised first before they implemented. I am thinking here of when calculus and complex numbers were added to the canon of mathematical axioms and rules of inference.

Sweet dreams!

Clearly it isn't.

It is much more interesting when people talk about something they believe in rather than something they don't.

God is a myth, the devil is a fiction.

Truth and fact are different animals. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon is a fact. 2+3=5 is true — tim wood

The significant distinction between these two statements is that one relates to the real world and is ultimately founded on sense data, while the other is entirely abstract and relies solely on axioms, processes of inference and the generation of theorems.

'Christmas' was originally a pagan festival to celebrate the end of the year.. the winter solstice (in the Northern hemisphere). There were domestic animals that were not going to make it through the Winter anyway so it made sense to kill them and have a feast. Much later the Christians appropriated the festival and called it 'christmas'. So no its not hypocritical for a non-Christian to celebrate Christmas.

'What I really want is techniques for for how to live and techniques for how to to approach life as it is'.

My suggestion: Learn about the world. Focus on the facts. Read philosophy if you want to, but realise that these are only ideas about the world and not the world itself; they may be useful or they may not.

"by applying appropriate tests under appropriate criteria' seem pretty wishy-washy to me. It is just a sort of meaningless hand waving argument that is entirely non-rigorous and ultimately means nothing.