I can make no sense at all of "degrees of reality". Reality is not something that can be measured, the idea 'real' is the binary opposition to 'iimaginary' or 'artificial'. Something cannot be partly real and partly imaginary or artificial in its wholeness.

God, no. We tolerate every species of fool in my country; dunno about yours. But tolerate them we do, because freedom of speech is a rights-based equality, available to all. — J

Right, and outside of particular contexts there are no degrees of knowledge. One can be a better physicist or mathematician than another, but there is no measure to determine purportedly different degrees of "insight into reality itself', as opposed to insight into or knowledge of real things.

That is a very thin attempt at an explanation. What are the two putatively different claims, how are they different, and which one am I supposed to be making? — Leontiskos

I already explained it. We can say something is true now about what would be in the future. Can we say it would be true in the future absent us? So if truth or falsity is a property of propositions and it is true that the gold will exist in the non-human future do you say it will also be true in that non-human future that there is gold when there are no propositions?

In other words I'm suggesting that truth is propositional and existence is not.

Banno makes that statement as an atheist who is presumably not assuming non-living minds (whether or not God counts as a non-living mind). — Leontiskos

Would God be capable of knowing what is true and what is false?

it is not time or change that changes but things.
— Janus

Not really. Or, not always. I just ate dinner from the same plate I ate dinner from last week.

Anyway….not that important. — Mww

Are you sure the plate was exactly the same? Anyway my point was not that things must change, but rather that change itself does not change, just as time does not change. That said time is always changing or at least the times are. :wink:

It is true that there is gold in Boorara. If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara.
It is true that even if all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else were undisturbed, that there would still be gold in Boorara. — Leontiskos

The mistake you are making is failing to notice the difference between "is true" and "would be true". It is true for us now that there would be gold etc., even if all percipients were wiped off the face of the Earth. That is not the same as to say it would be true that there is gold even if all percipients etc.

Actually it surprises me that being a theist you don't believe it would still be true because God would be there to know it.

Frankly, I am surprised there are as many grants for philosophy as there are. — jgill

I wonder why there is no Nobel Prize for philosophy.

Even the instantaneous cogito? — Moliere

I don't believe there is any instantaneous cogito.

Not quite; time is the representation of change, change presupposes time as the means by which changes are determinable. Change requires things that change, usually in the form of movement, but nevertheless, something empirical, whereas time itself does not change. — Mww

The way I see it time is change not the "representation" of change. You say change presupposes time, but I say that equally time presupposes change. You say that change requires that things change, and I would say that is tautologically true, and that what is also true is that time requires that things change. You say that time itself does not change, and I agree but would add that change does not change either and that it is not time or change that changes but things.

Well he literally said, "If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara." This is clearly committing to the view that truth exists where no minds do.

But apparently you hold a different view, namely the view that we can make truth-apt statements about unperceived events? — Leontiskos

Not saying you've done it deliberately but I think you have phrased that in a way that is misleading. The way I would put it is: "It is true that even if all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else were undisturbed, that there would still be gold in Boorara."

@Banno will confirm whether or not this misrepresents his view, but in any case, it is my view. So, yes I do think we can make truth-apt statements about unperceived events. The alternative, that truth depends on knowledge, seems absurd to me.

For me the strangeness of Banno's position is the claim that truth can exist where no minds do. — Leontiskos

It's not clear to me that is what @Banno is claiming. We can make truth-apt statements about what would be the case in the absence of any percipients. It is that which is really the point at issue as I see it.

That would depend on there being a valid objection. — Wayfarer

If you think an objection is not valid the way to engage would be to explain why you think that. Having observed the way you participate here for a long time it seems much more likely to me that you ignore objections to which you have no comeback.

The OP does not mention the Evil Demon. In any case once such a ridiculous idea as an Evil Demon is allowed it could bring about a state of being fooled in regard to anything at all

It takes time to think and to be.

What a strange question! Time is nothing more than change. Time as measured is a measure of change. The pendulum is constantly changing position when we are aware of it, as it does when no one is aware of it.

It's time for a change—it's time you started genuinely engaging with your interlocutors. You never know—you might learn something new.

Apart from any conception of it, it neither exists nor doesn't exist. Both existence and non-existence are concepts. — Wayfarer

To say it neither exists nor doesn't exist is meaningless. Existence is actuality, 'existence' is a concept and non-existence is a concept only, simply because it cannot be an actuality.

That the world is not seen is not that it ceases to exist or even to be invisible.

Whatever 'particles' are, they are not defineable until they are measured. — Wayfarer

You mean they are not defined until they are measured, which is tautologically true. We can only define them by measuring them, (or their effects, since we cannot see them). They must be definable else they could never be measured in the first place.

In any case our inability to intuitively grasp what is going on in the microworld lends no credence to mysticism or spiritualism, which seems to be what you and many others seem to want to find there.

What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer

Of course, but the same applies to the things of this world. If the "in itself" is "meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle", that fact does not give any grounds for thinking it is mind-dependent.

So you have experience which can be said to be mind-dependent, and you have all that lies beyond possible experience about which we can know and say nothing at all based on anything other than what we are capable of imagining.

All that said, if we know nothing at all about the in itself then we don't know that it is not spatiotemporal or that it is not differentiated in ways isomorphic with our experience. We ourselves are after all, on that view, as noumenal as the rest of reality.

Physics has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the purported fundamental constituents of material reality do not have a meaningful existence outside the act of measurement which specifies them. — Wayfarer

How can you justifiably claim this when you also claim that the in itself is "meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle"? Physics itself is a part of human experience and by your own argument could only tell us how things are for us. So, if that is true it is by definition and thus trivially true that for us "the purported material constituents of material reality do not have a meaningful existence outside the act of measurement which specifies them". But it certainly does not follow that they have no existence outside of our measurements. and in any case to say that would be to contradict yourself.

You really don't believe there are uncountable things happening in other galaxies despite our knowing and being able to know nothing about them?

This has more to do with the sort of skepticism inspired by Descartes which desires a certain foundation. — Moliere

The idea that doubt can, dialectically so to speak, lead to certainty, is dependent on a pre-established conceptual context, which is historically, culturally mediated, and is thus itself open to doubt. hence the importance of the past. And the possibility that the said conceptual paradigm might one day be completely supplanted brings the future into play.

A limping authority that derives from pop physics. — Banno

I tend to agree. I see no reason to think that the apparent paradoxes in QM, which I believe come from attempting to understand it in terms of macro-world concepts, have any metaphysical implications, other than that the micro nature of things is not what we might intuitively expect it to be.

You'd do well not to be too proud of it as well. That a view is radical (in your case I would rather say "eccentric" since your views are quite conventional in the ancient context) is not necessarily a point in its favour.

And I missed this:

But one may be an empirical, without being a metaphysical, realist. — Wayfarer

I used to accept that distinction, but when I came to question what it really means I realized I could not see any cogent sense in which it is coherent and valid.

reputable popular books on the subject — Wayfarer

there are powerful trends within both physics and cognitive science that undermine scientific realism — Wayfarer

Why must you always argue from authority?

Consciousness in that sense is collective. — Wayfarer

To be conscious is to be aware. So we can say that if anything is conscious it must be aware. Individuals are aware and are hence counted as conscious. How can there be a collective consciousness unless there is a collective entity that is aware. Its awareness would have to encompass not only human but all animal consciousness. You are talking about an omni-aware god. I see no reason to believe there is a such an entity.

The fourth thing, albeit directed at Janus, is that it is not obviously wrong. — Michael

There are obviously questions which cannot even in principle be answered. So we do know there are unknowable truths. Your strategy is to tendentiously define truth such that to be true is to be knowable, thus ruling out the possibility of unknowable truths. This is an eccentric notion of truth and therefore not to be taken seriously.

Even if you're an astrophysicist aware of the vastness of the Universe, you are providing the perspective within which that is meaningful. — Wayfarer

Sure, but that doesn't entail that the existence of the universe depends on a perspective. You seem to be confusing or conflating two different things.

Similarly, in phenomenology (e.g., Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty), the world is not an objective domain "out there" but is always encountered through the structures of embodied, situated being. — Wayfarer

For the "world" yes but for the Universe, no—as far as I know this is not correct for Heidegger at least (who I studied extensively at one time).I believe that Heidegger acknowledges the existence of the extra-human universe, but that is not what he is concerned with when he deals with being (being-in-the-world) or Dasein.

I mean you can define existence in an eccentric way to mean something perceived, but that is not what Heidegger is doing. I doubt it is what Merleau-Ponty is doing either, but I can't be sure of that as I have not read much of his work.

For Heidegger the world is neither "out there" nor "in here". That is a false dichotomy.

But there's also the philosophical understanding of the role of the mind in constructing the world. — Wayfarer

The body/ mind doesn't construct the world it participates in co-constructing the world of human experience and judgement. there is a very great deal of the world (in the sense of the universe) that has nothing to do with the human.

This sort of question is risible. The Orion Nebula is not dependent on you, nor are trilobites. But your saying anything (thinking, believing, doubting...) about them is dependent on you. — Banno

You're just basically repeating what I said in slightly different words. So it seems you are agreeing with me despite your boredom.

My take is that when Wittgenstein refers to the world he is referring to the world of human experience and judgement. He's not referring to the extra-human Universe.

Neither of those is quite right. It's a silly argument. — Banno

I agree it is a silly argument in the sense that it really doesn't matter. However, for the sake of clarity, how could it not be right to say that the prebiotic Universe was not dependent on mind? Granted the saying of it is dependent on mind, but to say the Universe was dependent on mind prior to the existence of any mind is tantamount to saying that it either didn't exist or that it is fundamentally mental in nature..

Everything human could be said to be mind-dependent (not that I am enamoured of the terminology).

If things existed prior to humans or any other percipient, there is no sense in which the Universe could be said to be mind-dependent (unless you posit panpsychism).

Ok. I'm not a science guy but I am reminded of the famous Feynman quote, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

Is there not also a difference between science's predictive success versus knowing why? — Tom Storm

Right, quantum mechanics is not intelligible if we try to understand it in macro-world terms and scientific explanations can never be certainties in any case.

Yes, I suppose this works. I'm curious what others might say. It seems to be a tendentious area. — Tom Storm

I agree it is a tendentious area because there are many who purport to use QM to support dubious metaphysical speculations, and this is only possible because in macro-world terms we really don't know what is going on and I think that is what Feynman was getting at. Different paradigms.

Give it time and it might explain these phenomena.
— jgill

Is that a faith based position? :wink: — Tom Storm

I think they already do explain their respective phenomenal fields, although perhaps not to the satisfaction of some who demand total unity and comprehensiveness.

That they might achieve comprehensiveness and unity in the future doesn't seem to be a faith-based position but merely an acknowledgement that we don't know what the future possibilities are.

On the other hand it seems unlikely that we will ever have an explanation that will satisfy everyone.

Interesting. Does nature include quantum mechanics and consciousness? — Tom Storm

Quantum mechanics seems to be intelligible via mathematics and it certainly seems to be based on observations of phenomena. The fact that we cannot apply intuitive macroworld generated concepts in order to get a satisfying picture of what is going on in the microworld should come as no surprise. In fact it is a human metaphysical presumption that there should be one overarching explanatory paradigm which could explain everything.

Consciousness, not being an empirical object, can only be studied by observing behavior and by listening to subjective reports along with brain-imaging. We have intuitive notions of consciousness which cannot be (presently at least) explained or confirmed or disconfirmed by science. Again, I don't see why that should surprise us.

Doesn't it rest upon a metaphysical presupposition that reality can be understood? — Tom Storm

I don't see why it needs such a presupposition. Humans have found that nature is intelligible. Science has yielded a vast and coherent body of understanding which is both comprehensively internally consistent and coherent and is confirmed to work insofar as it has yielded countless technologies which obviously work.

Philosophy on the other hand has traditionally been faith-based, since no empirical confirmations are possible. Modern philosophy has two other faces though—those of philosophy as description and philosophy as critique or conceptual clarification and extension.

If you're familiar with philosophy of science, E A Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, in particular, you will see that this is completely mistaken. The 'metaphysical belief' in question being early modern science's division of primary and secondary attributes, overlaid on the Cartesian separation of mind and matter. — Wayfarer

You are addressing a different point. It may well be historically true that the genesis and pre-modern rise of science was accompanied by metaphysical beliefs. It does not follow that those beliefs are necessary for the continued practice of science.

For other examples astronomy arguably grew out of astrological presuppositions and chemistry our of alchemy, but those earlier ideas have been left behind without any detriment to the practices of astronomy and chemistry.

Unless he means that we can't take our seriousness seriously? — J

This.

The unity of thinking and being described by Plotinus challenges the prevailing view that knowledge is a sequential accumulation of information. — Wayfarer

The problem is that such a form of knowing cannot ever be discursively justified. So it remains ever a matter of faith, even for the supposedly enlightened ones.

As regards its modus operandi, then, all analysis is metaphysical analysis; and, since analysis is what gives its scientific character to science, science and metaphysics are inextricably united, and stand or fall together.
~R.G. Collingwood, Essay on Metaphysics — Pantagruel

This seems nonsensical to me. Science is justified only insofar as it is known to work. The same cannot be said for metaphysics. Science relies for its practice on no particular metaphysical beliefs.

Yet it falls into the common trap of: "wow, philosophy is hard and we don't get the same sort of certainty the early moderns decided should be the gold standard, thus nothing really matters." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I read the paper and I don't agree that it falls into that at all. The point as I read it is that if we stand apart from our lives and look at them in the abstract, so to speak, it appears as though our concerns are trivial. But he also makes the point that the 'mattering' of our lives needs no external justification, and that in fact, such justification could never work in any case.

Right, I had in mind conjectures like 'QM correctly models reality'. Or 'reality is mind-dependent' or 'reality is mind-independent'.

As to your example finding life on Pluto would prove there is life on Pluto, but finding no life on Pluto cannot prove there is no life on Pluto.

In any case according to the anti-realist of your account any conjecture which cannot be known to be true or false is neither true nor false. That seems to be an inadequate account of truth.

Also you haven't addressed the 'God' and 'multiverse' examples. Leaving aside God (since the idea could be argued to be incoherent) what about the multiverse? We could never even in principle prove there is or is not a multiverse. Would the anti-realist claim there is no fact of the matter?

1. If “God exists” is true then it is possible to prove that it is true
2. If “God exists” is false then it is possible to prove that it is false
3. If it is not possible to prove that “God exists” is true and not possible to prove that “God exists” is false then “God exists” is neither true nor false — Michael

The problem is that no conjecture can be proven to be true or false, so on the antirealist view, assuming you have correctly outlined it, no conjecture could be either true or false.

It's not obvious to the anti-realist.

If you're only "argument" against anti-realism is that it's "obviously" wrong then it's not an argument, just a denial. — Michael

If the antirealist says we can know whether or not there is a god or a multiverse then they should be able to give an account of how that would be possible. There is no such account that I know of and absent such an account they are not to be taken seriously.

If God exists then we can know that God exists, and if God doesn't exist then we can know that God doesn't exist. — Michael

And yet we obviously cannot know either of those. We cannot know whether there are multiple universes. Would you think a claim that our inability to know whether there are rules out the possibility that there are multiple universes is reasonable?

In any case it seems like the disagreement merely comes down to the definition of truth. Is there any way to know which definition of truth is correct? is there any truth as to whether one or other definition of truth is correct?

The antirealists must be wrong though because they cannot rule out the possibility that unbeknownst to us there might be unknowable truths. Just stipulating that truths are only truths if they are known seems obviously wrong as it does not accord with the common notion of truth. Is there any way they could know rather than merely opine that the common notion of truth is incoherent?

What if the question is changed to whether there are unknowable actualities instead? What about, for example, the question regarding the existence of God? We know we cannot know the answer to that, no matter how plausible or implausible the existence of God might seem. Would you say there cannot be a truth about whether or not God exists, despite that fact that it is obviously impossible to know?

This seems right to me.

There seems to be some sort of self-reference paradox going on here. So let's reframe the question in the hope of gaining more clarity. We know it is impossible to answer the question as to whether there is more than one unknowable truth. We might have an opinion either way but we cannot know. But the very fact that it is impossible to answer the question shows that there is at least one unknowable truth.

Please explain how it could be possible to know whether there is more than one unknowable truth.

The anti-realist will say that it is knowable that "there are unknowable truths" is false. — Michael

But that has been shown to be false, so the anti-realist is wrong.

There are really only two options. Try this:

1. The truth or falsity regarding "there are unknowable truths" is knowable
2. The truth or falsity regarding "there are unknowable truths" is unknowable

2. leads to a contradiction so 1. must be true.

3. and 4. are redundant because being able to or not being able to know the falsity is logically equivalent to being able to or not being able to know the truth

You assume "there are unknowable truths" is unknowable and then conclude "there are unknowable truths is knowable". — Michael

I provisionally assume that "there are unknowable truths" is unknowable and then show that this leads to a contradiction, which shows it must be false.