Descartes proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt in my humble opinion, that the physical could be an illusion, unreal but, the mind, for certain, is not. Cartesian skepticism undermines materialism by showing the reality of the physical can be questioned but you couldn't doubt the existence of the mind. — TheMadFool

I'm afraid I have to doubt your certainty. Descartes showed that he had a brain, sure, but he has failed to show that the voice he could hear inside his head originated with him.

a thought experiment: you are lying on a beach. you can see the waves crashing on the shore. you can hear those waves crashing on the shore. in your mind you associate the sound you can hear with the waves you can see, so that it appears to you that the sound is created by the waves. this clearly shows that sounds inside your head can, or may, or possibly might sometimes, originate outside your head.

now close your eyes, and listen to the waves crashing on the shore. absent the visual signal, you are unable to tell whether the sound has an origin interior to or exterior to your head. there is simply no way to tell.

now explain how Descartes is able to prove, in your own words, "beyond the shadow of a doubt," that the voice he can hear is his?

I really don't have a problem if you want to claim that this is the most probable, the most likely, scenario, and that alternatives sound more like science fiction than philosophy. but to claim that Descartes "proved" this is simply not true.

Descartes showed that he had a signal processing organ inside his head that we call the brain. but you cannot prove where any of those signals originate.


Kaarlo Tuomi

You can just refer to me by name if you like — Pfhorrest

I deliberately avoided making it personal, I wanted it to be about the philosophy not the person. and I will return there and read a lot more and will almost certainly have many more questions but I would like to say thank you for having written it and made it accessible to all.


thank you


Kaarlo Tuomi

Nobody has ever seen a brain state, furthermore, whether it is possible to establish correspondences between so-called brain states and first-person experience is exactly the point at issue. — Wayfarer

several years ago I watched a documentary on the BBC in which a man was put into a fMRi machine and presented with two cards to choose from. the computer analysing his brain was consistently able to predict the choice he would make, before he made it.

for the purposes of the documentary the timing was the issue, that his brain knew before his mind knew that he would choose the cross not the circle. for the purposes of this thread, the point is that an analysable brain-state equated to a specific experience. I'm not overly familiar with the particular quandary being debated in this thread, but that Mary has a brain-state that corresponds to her experience of seeing Red does not seem to be an issue.


Kaarlo Tuomi

On the other hand, do you mean a galaxy literally made of computers? Like it's a galaxy, but instead of stars and planets space dust, it's entirely filled with mainframes from the 1960's, IBM PCs from the 80s, eight-inch floppy disks, last year's iPhones? An entire galaxy where obsolete computer hardware goes to simply orbit a black hole for eternity? Once beloved and then abandoned by a fickle market that always wants something newer? — fishfry

if this were true, then there would also be an infinite number of galaxies made of nothing but pineapples and bananas.

Kaarlo Tuomi

Banno said: There's a difference between unanswered and unanswerable.

thank you. I thought I understood that, but that you thought it necessary to say so makes me wonder.

Possibility said: ...he believes all questions have a correct answer (whether we are currently capable of answering it correctly or not), and that all answers can be questioned...

you may be right. but I don't understand how this sheds any light on unanswerable questions. if, as you say, be thinks that all questions have a correct answer, then why does he mention unanswerable questions?

okay, you mean he denies the existence of unanswerable questions. he doesn't reject individual questions if they prove to be unanswerable, he rejects the notion that a question can be unanswerable.

so that when confronted with a question of the form, "at what age do angels learn to fly," he can supply the answer "I don't know" and that satisifies his conditions.

that's very interesting.

thank you.

Kaarlo Tuomi

The MadFool said: So you think people have non-hedonic values? What might they be? I'm dying to know.

that isn't what I said.

I said that before considering someone's belief to be "silly" you might first consider that you misunderstood them.

Kaarlo Tuomi

Lif3r said: I think, therefore I am, and I am, therefore my reality is as well.

how do you know that those thoughts are yours?


Kaarlo Tuomi

Pfhorrest said: ...an advanced civilization would build a simulation for scientific purposes. They'd want to know what a universe like such-and-such, including people like so-and-so, would be like, so they make a model of one and see what happens in it. In a sufficiently advanced model, the modeled people in it might actually be fully conscious beings perceiving the model as their universe.

thank you. this answers my question. and it also answers what was going to be a follow-up question.

I could never understand why it would matter to the sumulators that the sims don't learn that they are sims. by analogy, why would it matter to me that my pet goldfish has learned she is a fish in a tank?

in your scenario, the motivation is the fidelity of the experiment.

thank you.

Kaarlo Tuomi

Nils Loc said: The ones inside it are presumably the ones who made it.

that isn't an assumption I would have made.

the assumption has always been that a civilisation, A, constructs a simulated universe containing simulated civilisation B, so that to B, A bears all the hallmarks of being god.

I can't personally imagine how A would construct a simulation of their own universe that includes themselves, but that's probably a limitation of my imagination rather than of your description.

Kaarlo Tuomi.

TheMadFool said:Only childlike naivety can explain someone believing that people have things other than raw, unbridled pleasure on their minds.

I subscribe to the charity principle, which has two forms:

1. do not attribute to malice that which can be attributed to ignorance.
2. if you cannot believe that a person would be so silly as to believe a proposition, it is safer to assume lack of understanding on your part rather than lack of anything on theirs.


Kaarlo Tuomi