I didn't take it that way. I think we maybe agree on the proper mix of appreciation and irreverence. Some of the old geniuses might be able to revolutionize philosophy again once they were up to speed. — plaque flag

Maybe....mayyybe.

But the matter turns to the notorious good and bad of ethics. Is it at all possible to deny a lighted match on living flesh is "bad"? — Astrophel

Given human history yes it is very possible to deny that is bad.

IOW, doubting and logically evaluating intuitions can lead to having very reliable intuitions in the future. There is a synergy that can arise from the interaction of slow thinking and fast thinking. — wonderer1

Not exactly no, intuition is more just playing off what you already know hence why it’s reliable with an expert. Logically evaluating them won’t take you anywhere.

A discrete experience is not a claim about the truth of what is being experienced. It is the act of creating an identity within the sea of one’s experience. A camera can take a picture, but cannot attempt to put any identity to any of the colors it absorbs. I can take a picture, look at portions of it, and make “something” within the “everything else”. It is the ability to part and parcel within the totality of one’s experience as one chooses.

Is this something I know? Knowledge is a deduction that is not contradicted by reality. I must be able to experience discretely to comprehend the idea of “discrete experience.” But I also must be able to experience discretely to comprehend the idea of the idea being contradicted by reality. For if I could not create identities, I could not create the idea of identities. For reality to contradict that I discretely experience, and to know this, I must be able to discretely experience. Therefore, I do not simply believe that I discretely experience, I deduce that I discretely experience. Therefore, I know that I discretely experience. — Philosophim

Mostly from some forms of eastern philosophy and some branches of non dualism that don't create identity from experience. This also assumes you know the state of the minds of others and just assume people do this. On could also un knowingly be able to experience discretely and yet not be able to comprehend the idea of it, I would cite animals as this case (at least I assume from their behaviors). So this act of creation is more an assumption than a fact of living things, or in this case humans.

This is fair as I paired this down a bit. The difference between each type of induction is how many steps it is from what is applicably known.

When you know the entire composition of a deck of cards and that it will be shuffled without intent, the next immediate induction you can make is that a Jack has a 4/52 chance of being drawn. There's nothing in between right?

Now look at possibilities. I've seen a jack drawn before. I believe its possible that it will be drawn on the next pull. But its less rational of an induction then utilizing the applied knowledge of the card counts, the suits, and the face. Something being possible only indicates that it was applicably known once. It has no bearing on whether it will happen again.

This allows me a set way to compare two inductions and determine which one is more rational to hold. I'ld say that's pretty useful right? — Philosophim

I guess that probability is more a likelihood within a known quantity like a deck. Possible is if it can happen. Plausible is more like a maybe it COULD be. I'm still not sure how one is more useful than the other though.

Could you specify what was iffy? Let me sum what the difference was.

Truth: What exist in reality.
Knowledge: A set of identities which when applied as matching with reality, are not contradicted by reality.

The point here is that knowledge can never "know" that what it holds is truth. All it can know is that what it currently holds has not been contradicted by reality.

As an example to this abstract, distinctively and applicably known physics from the 1700's is not the same as physics from today. There were certain identities in physics that when applied with the tools available, were not contradicted by reality. However, eventually certain contradictions were found such as with orbiting large bodies. What was applicably know for small bodies could no longer be applied to planets. Eventually relativity came along. Today, we distinctively and applicably know things in science that in 100 years, may no longer stand.

What was the problem you were thinking this missed? — Philosophim

I guess I have a more loose version of truth. For me truth is what IS and what comports with reality and evidence. Because one can "know" something and it be false (flat earth, autism and vaccines). It's why I said that knowledge sometimes yields truth. But I wouldn't exactly say that just because it doesn't know what it's got it has nothing, just that it might be so and not be aware of it.

Science I wouldn't really use as an example as it's designed to be a constantly evolving process, and even then it's complex. Like classical and quantum physics. It's not that classical is "Wrong" per se, just useful at our level of complexity (and that it is if you see what we've done with it). But in terms of reality as it is then the quantum world is where it's at, maybe.

A fantastic question, perhaps the best one. I find epistemology to be one of the core unsolved questions of philosophy, and the most important one. "How do we know what we know," is incredibly important before any serious discussion can occur. Being able to identity what another person distinctively and applicably knows is immensely valuable in debating another person. If you see that the conflict is merely over the distinctive differences in identities, you can refocus energy and efforts on that instead of the applicable.

As well, to my knowledge there is no theory in epistemology at this point in history which allows us a reasoned way to compare inductions and ascertain that one is more cogent than another in a particular situation. Intuitively we feel this, but no one has ever actively given an objective means to do so. Sometimes this is called "The problem of induction". The theory here gives a solution to this problem. — Philosophim

I guess I never really give much thought as to how I know what I know because in the past I tend to spiral into some radical skepticism where I know nothing and end up catatonic. I usually operate on what works and so far it seems to be the case.

While "how do we know what we know" is a nice question to ask, at some point we have to realize that everything ends in some irrational position, according to the Munchausen Trilemma. I think there was a thread on here called On Knowing that seems to illustrate my point.

I think a youtube video I saw put it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Vx9qoLzFs&t=185s&ab_channel=ExtraHistory

"When you drill all the way down, you'll find something you're just gonna have to believe".

Yes, Darkneos, I am familiar with the philosophy of "Bah Humbug!" — Astrophel

Say what you will but certainty is more a myth humans tell themselves because of anxiety.

Yes, that sounds right. I don't want to pick on Kant too much, because for his time he was a great genius. According to Popper and others, Newton was just a towering figure. Instruments were not precise enough to find fault with his physics. It was if the source code for the matrix had been discovered, a great triumph for species. Small wonder that Kant wanted to secure this treasure against Hume from being falsifiable. Synthetic apriori truth is tall order indeed. — plaque flag

Oh no I'm not saying he's an idiot, sorry if that's how it came across.

It's just that it's hard sometimes to realize how far our understanding of the world has come since then, especially neuroscience and other fields. They worked with what they knew at the time so I wonder what they would say with what we know now.

This kinda breaks down as you don’t really demonstrate we have discrete experiences but just assert we do. Same with a lot of other things in the OP.

Also the differences between the forms of induction are just splitting hairs than any actual distinction between them, apart from irrationality.

I found your “split” between knowledge and truth iffy at best. Knowledge does capture the truth at times but not always.

And my usual final question, what’s the point here?

No, you miss the point: knowledge of anything requires inquiry into that thing. You don't inquire philosophically, therefore you don't understand its issues.

It is not about ego. It is about basic reading. You need to do this, then your anxieties on this will disappear. — Astrophel

Not really, I can understand the issues of philosophy without looking deeply into it.

I have no anxieties around this but it sure seems like you do. For me philosophy is a nice hobby at times but I don’t get too worked up.

Yes, ethics. But how to live depends not simply on setting up a system for personal behavior: such a system needs a grounding in the understanding. Christians have a system, time honored and useful. But it comes with a metaphysics that is confused and dangerous. Philosophy is the tool to discover where things go wrong and how they might be reviewed and revised.
You likely have similar problems in the basic justifications of how to live, and I say this because you seem to be admitting that such a review is useless. Fundamentalists of all stripes think just like this, embracing foolishness, then reifying it in the public consensus. — Astrophel

Not really. Ethics just needs a system for personal behavior, that’s about it. It’s useful to know why but eventually you hit a dead end there.

Philosophy isn’t a tool to discover where things go wrong though. If anything it just ties things up and prevents meaningful action a lot of the time.

I don’t need a justification for living. It’s just as simple as wanting to.

Again you’re painting a lot on here which just reaffirms my position that you’re just stroking your ego here.

They certainly do impact your life if you want to understand things beyond what "people say". Descartes' evil demon is just to demonstrate a point, like Schrodinger's cat. Not just a game, but an illustrative game. — Astrophel

Not really.

It is an important distinction: to be IN an environment implies that this environment is somehow outside or apart from one. I am saying, onw is not IN an environment like this in discussing experiential structure: Rather, one IS the the very structure one analyzes. It is a turning toward one's own existence for discovery, for, after all, the issue here is the relation between ME an that fence post, so what I AM and the distinctions that descriptively rise up when I try to make sense of something like "I experience a fence post" call for a sharp division between us. But is there such a thing? Does the traditional analysis of S knows P make any sense at all when it comes to identifying and releasing P from the justificatory conditions of believing P?

THIS is a very big question to philosophy. The fence post is "over there", granted; but my knowing is over here, on my side of the epistemic fence. What can possibly account for this? A fascinating question. — Astrophel

Not really, being in something doesn’t imply you are outside or apart from it, you’re just making things up.

Also can’t it be both? Why is it either or? It’s not fascinating question though, more ego stroking. And might I add no point either.

Heidegger believes that truth is "made" but the engagement of pursuing truth is an openness that has extraordinary VALUE, and I emphasize this because in this value is the true foundation of human cognition, which is one way to put what I have been arguing. The circle is hermeneutics. The disclosure within this is momentous. This is my position. Observe the value/aesthetic/ethical dimension of our existence, and do not simply register this as a premise, but realize this is "the place" inquiry truly seeks!

A very strong philosophical position. I am saying that Truth is really an endeavor of affectivity. We divide knowledge into categorical parts to pragmatically address our essentially problematic confrontation with the world, but this has led to the current illusion that truth is statistical, logical, rational, while affect is altogether unwelcome in describing truth (indeed, emotion has historically been willfully ignored). This is patently wrong.

As to certainty: this is not nonsense. But only if you are interested. — Astrophel

Yeah philosophers believe a lot of things, doesn’t make it true. Some truth is made and some isn’t. In the case of art it’s what we say it is, simple as. But this isn’t the foundation of human cognition. Also your place is literally nothing but an empty void. When it comes to subjective stuff like that (values, aesthetics, etc) inquiry leads nowhere. Things just are. Why do we like what we like? We just do. Why do I value this? I just do.

Truth isn’t a measure of feelings. It just is. It’s why I regard science so well. No matter how you define or describe it it just works. There is no why, it just is. Truth is statistical and logical and it’s something that bugs people like you because you want the world to be something other than it is. But it’s telling how philosophy is stuck on the same issues for hundreds of years while science advances on. Maybe, just maybe, philosophy isn’t a tool for finding truth, because a lot of it just seems like opinions to me.

Emotion hasn’t been ignored across history, it’s just not used to measure the truth of something (well if it’s subjective like how something makes you feel or if you like something then yeah). Because as research shows us, emotion is often wrong about reality (especially since our evolutionary programming runs against modern issues).

And certainty is nonsense regardless of what you think.

I’m having trouble finding it due to all the pop sci articles.

But suffice to say it’s not something apart from normal cognition, it just happens faster. You don’t just know, you think you do.

However research finds that if someone is an experience in a field then their intuition about something regarding that field is reliable.

So I guess if you don’t know anything about a subject then it’s no better than a random guess.

Intuition is the immediate response you get on a subject based on experience, prior knowledge and culture. In short it’s pretty biased.

As for its accuracy, tests show intuition seems to right about 50% of the time, so you’d have better odds through guessing

Great question. I suspect (as weird as it sounds) that Kant was saying that Newtonian physics is built in to the automatic human interpretation of otherwise obscure Reality (something actually beyond time and space.) It is only in the frozenness or unchangeability of the Form of our cognition that Newton escapes Hume ( and later Popper.) — plaque flag

Kant said a lot of things but that doesn't make them right. Classical physics was just a model that works at the macro level of things but fails when it gets to the Quantum Physics. It's a "good enough" method for day to day but not for understanding reality, at least according to the physicists I've talked to.

Well, this just says you haven't a clue. A bit like the Christian who insists through Jesus redemption arrives, but when asked how defers to faith.

If knowledge is justified true belief, and I am sure it is just this, and you believe "ability to experience" yields a justification, then show this. It is NOT that I am denying that we do have knowledge of the world AT ALL! It is rather that when you take this question seriously, you are forced to reconstrue everything everything you believe vis a vis basic questions. — Astrophel

I have "taken this question seriously" but what it come down to is all I have is experience and experimentation through experience. If that's not good enough then it sounds like a you problem. You say you're not denying knowledge o the world at all but honestly your posts say otherwise.

Anyone, that is, who does not think about serious philosophy. If scientists never tried to understand the fossil record, we would not at all have a concept in place about geologic eras and their subcategories. This is what happens when one chooses not to think. — Astrophel

Understanding the fossil record has nothing to do with philosophy bud, that's all science. Dating techniques, looking at positions in the rock layers, stuff like that. Again you're just making this harder than it needs to be. "serious philosophy" just sounds like you stroking your own ego.

No Darneos; you have it all wrong. This is because you haven't "read" your way into the discussion about the structure of consciousness. It is the only way into a philosophy of existence.

You should at least be curious as to the epistemic relation between a brain and a world. I mean, to have no analytic inquiry about this at all behind you, yet to come out swinging as you do....curious, and then some. — Astrophel

The "Structure of consciousness", at this point I'm really starting to have major doubts about you (as if the primordial origin wasn't enough). The only philosophy of existence that is worth a damn IMO is ethics or how to live. As to the relation of the brain and the world, brain constructs a best guess of reality based on the input of the senses, that's what the evidence shows.

Stuff like the Evil Demon, simulation, etc are nice games to play but they are useless to think about because they don't impact your life.

You're not really curious about this stuff, I think you're just looking to appear "smart" by asking "the big questions". I used to be like that. But after much experience I realized that a lot of the "important questions" of philosophy didn't really matter that much.

Causality is apodictic. Try imagining its contradiction.

The brain: but there is the brain and there is fence post. How does this work, exactly, or even vaguely, such that the former knows the latter. You take a philosopher like Quine, one of my favorites because he was an explicit naturalist in the Deweyan tradition, yet so revered in analytic philosophy, and you find nothing but frustration when it comes to accounting for how it is that causality, which he takes as foundational in explaining the world, produces meaning; and this has to be taken as priority: when you THINK at all, you are not IN meaning, but ARE meaning.
But such questions that apply to this kind of thinking have to begin with curiosity. One has to be motivated by seeing the deficit in human understanding at the basic level. If you don't see this, you really have no motivation, and end up in the back of the class sleeping.

Question: why take this class at all? — Astrophel

Weird that you say that about causality considering Hume made an interesting point against it. We assume causality according to him.

Again this just sounds like more ego stroking, I asked a while ago what the point is to any of this and you haven't given anything. You're all over the place, writing more than you need to, and deliberately being unclear in your communications (other posters are able to do it but you choose not to). This just sounds to me like you want to be special or unique for wrestling with such things.

I wouldn't say causality produces meaning, we do. It's actually a feature of our brains, we are meaning making machines. It's called pareidolia, it's how you can see a smiley face as a face even though it ain't really a face.

Not really sure what you mean by IN meaning or ARE meaning, it's just meaning. But then again heaven forbid you make yourself clear or explain yourself. My guess is that you are IN meaning when you think, you aren't meaning.

I mean it is obvious to everyone that we are limited in our ability to understand and know things around us. That all we will ever get is a close enough or good enough understanding of things, because you don't know what you don't know. I find it odd that someone so versed in philosophy doesn't understand that there are some problems that have no solution. Like the problem of solipsism, there is no way to get outside of your perspective so whether there is a world outside or not you'll never know and there's nothing you can do about it. Or Descartes about what can be known for certain, and you can't truly know if you're being deceived or not. There is a great degree of faith that comes with living after all.

And most people seem to do just fine knowing there won't be total certainty, because life goes on.

Curiosity is fine and all that but it does have to have a goal in mind and at times you have to be able to recognize when you simply can't. So far people have asked you what the point of all this is and as far as anyone can tell there doesn't seem to be one. It just goes in circles.

See above: How do you know objects cannot move themselves? — Astrophel

Experience. That's about it. If an object like a chair moved on it's own I'd have to consider something like ghosts since most non-living things don't tend to move on their own.

Ultimately all we got to go on is experience and our interpretation of it. You can philosophize all you want but if it doesn't stand up to the test of experience then IMO it's little more than hot air.

If knowledge is without meaning then how are you writing this and expecting others to communicate? How do you even know there are others to communicate with?

I think it's as I said before, you're kinda searching for something similar to Descartes except he had to invent god to get out of his funk. But life doesn't work like that, nothing can be definitively known beyond all doubt, it just doesn't exist. Still total certainty was always a myth anyway and we never needed it before. — Darkneos

Yes it can, this is literally the easiest thing ever. Descartes doubted it first off, well not really but many do. The pain can be doubted, and I have read some interesting Eastern Philosophy that alleges similarly as well. Though I can't honestly attest to that.

Then again there was that monk who set himself on fire and then just sat there...

Evidence of what? Evidence for the claim that the world outside our heads is not what we experience? Well, it's really not to the point. But since you asked, the world "outside" of one's head, how is it that is actually get into the head? I'm saying it doesn't because there is no way to even conceive of this. Therein lies the evidence: one way of justifying a denial that P to be true, to show that P is nonsense. — Astrophel

Not really. As to not to the point you don't really seem to have one but that's neither here nor there. Also it doesn't really "get into your head" so much as you are able to experience and act in it if you are conscious and active. It's actually really easy to conceive of it but you are making this hard than it needs to be IMO.

Keep in mind that if your belief that the world is what you see rests with "things working" then your claim would rest with pragmatics. Then you would have to show how pragmatics reveals the way the world is. That is, if S knows P, and to know is to be able to use for some purpose, then knowing is mere pragmatics, but what one knows IS the pragmatics and not the world

Generally science takes a stronger view than this, affirming the nitro's independent existence apart from the pragmatics we experience. But this, again has to be explained. I think it nonsense. — Astrophel

Science itself is a form of pragmaticism to a degree. It's focus is on testable and observable phenomenon and then it tries to generate explanations about what's going on. Granted it won't ever be complete but it's efficacy so far seems good to me.

As far as anyone knows it does reveal the way the world is given what it has done so far.

I can understand this. But a pragmatist like yourself should have an epistemology, just so your claims can be useful philosophically. Reread the things you object to, and consider the simple thesis that philosophy's pursuit of truth is REALLY an affective endeavor. So looking for truth as a propositional affair that only looks to facts is going to lead only to other facts and these the same. It is not about a quest for information about meaning. It never has been. This is the historical error that has made philosophy so intractable.
It has historically been the purview of religion to deal with value/aesthetics/ethics (the same thing in essence), and philosophy has been about analytic arguments at the basic level. I hold that philosophy IS the only authentic religion. — Astrophel

Philosophy's pursuit might be rooted in emotion but I fail to see how that changes anything. From where I stand no claim is useful philosophically because, in my experience, you can argue anything about anything and end up nowhere. If your claim can't apply to reality or affect my life in any capacity then it's kinda worthless. Otherwise we're just naval gazing, which is fine if it's just you. I also think you're just being deliberately obtuse as you aren't making yourself clear nor are you getting to any point from what I see.

Not just a form of cognition, but cognition itself. After all, how do you know modus ponens is right? How do you know objects can move themselves? The world of our understanding rests entirely on intuition.

Talk about brains: perhaps hard to see this, but brains are supposed to generate experience, and thereby give a reductive account of what experience "really" is. This is what I infer from your thoughts. but how is it one knows the brain is there to be this generative source? Why, it is through the phenomenon of the brain which the brain generates.

You DO see the issue here, yes? — Astrophel

Incorrect, the world of our understanding doesn't rest on intuition, not even close. We simply take a few things as a given and work from there. I already explained that intuition isn't good as science shows the universe doesn't work according to it. If anything I'd wager it resets on experimentation, we try things and see what works.

I know objects can move themselves if I see they have a way to propel themselves without the need of some outside force to move them.

There is no reductive account of what experience "really is" it's simply experience. Neurons and signals and all that stuff firing and processing sensory data. We know the brain does this as we have a ton of evidence to back it, and so far nothing to the contrary. Your last part is just nonsense. The brain is just there, the phenomenon doesn't generate it.

There is no issue here you just want there to be one.

Again, this all just reads like someone who wants reality to be something other than it actually is.

Perhaps a silly question - but if, as Kant and subsequent others suggest, space and time are built into our cognitive apparatus and not the universe , does this not suggest that the laws of physics are a reflection of how we process reality, not reality as it is in itself (the ineffable noumena). And does it follow from this that hypothetical sophisticated aliens who do not utilize human cognition might have developed an entirely different and efficacious alternative to our physics? A physics which appears to map onto their world the way ours appears to map onto ours? And there's the possibility that even this account of reality, however it might appear, is still just an appearance... — Tom Storm

According to general relativity that isn't the case. The laws of physics do explain how we process reality (partly, rest is neuroscience).

Kant many have posited a lot of things but that didn't make him right. I mean...he did exist prior to all the massive scientific discoveries that rocked our understanding of reality. IF anything science demonstrates that our intuition isn't a good measure of reality.

From what I read it's more like he is saying that reason alone, absent experience, can't lead to any real knowledge. It's sort of like trying to form an untainted truth about the world.

It just seems to me like OP is after some untainted source.

All you're really gonna get is a representation. Even our brains only give us a best guess about what the world around us is like, and even then you still run into the Evil Demon and other issues. You can think you found the ground level but that will still remain a belief.

But I'm pretty sure that Kant said you CAN'T know truth through pure reason alone.

What is it to know? If there is no way to account for this, then we are lost. I mean, if language is only self referential, and one cannot grasp even in the imagination what, at the most basis level, of knowledge claims could even possibly be, then knowledge isexistentially without meaning. What do I mean by existentially? Reference is to existence, and existence refers to the palpable "sense" of being here, and this refers to not simply raw physical feels and impositions, but, thoughts, and affectivity (a broadly conceived affectivity that comprises our ethics and aesthetics). Do thoughts exist? Of course. Existence is not to be reduced to "metaphysical physics". Does affectivity exist? A foolish question, really: nothing could be more palpable.

I think language gets lost in language, and it is the familiarity of language that removes for our sight an original existence, not original in an historical sense, as if once long ago, but original as in something primordial and "under the skin" of what we call experience.
Easy to access, in a way, because while language creates an analytic divided world, it also puts it back to gether again; in other words, language is also redemptive when the direction of inquiry goes to basic questions: those words you're thinking now, from whence to they come? I am thinking of Beckett's book Molloy. the idea is how to get around the extraordinary claim that it is language that speaks! Not "me". Molloy/Molone is dying, but it is not the death of the body, but of language, and words that linger to the end, grasping for existence, knowing soon words will not sustain the monologue that is the self. — Astrophel

If knowledge is without meaning then how are you writing this and expecting others to communicate? How do you even know there are others to communicate with?

I think it's as I said before, you're kinda searching for something similar to Descartes except he had to invent god to get out of his funk. But life doesn't work like that, nothing can be definitively known beyond all doubt, it just doesn't exist. Still total certainty was always a myth anyway and we never needed it before.

certainly logic is not about nothing, nor is affectivity; but concepts like these that quantify and divide experience, because they are categories, do not represent the original uncategorized primordial whole. — Astrophel

"primordial whole"? Now I know you're talking nonsense.

That said I'm struggling to find the point to any of this. If it's suggesting that what we take as knowledge isn't reflective of reality, I'd hate to say that doesn't seem to be the case. The world outside our heads might be different than that which we experience every day, but unless you can provide evidence for such a thing it's useless speculation.

So far in my life everything I know seems to work out just fine and it's how we can interact and to some degree master the world as it is. Evolution may have evolved us for certain aspects of survival but I have no reason to doubt the world is what I see each day unless there is some dimensional break.

Though to be honest I've failing to see the point of your question or what you're aiming to achieve here since you're kinda all over the place. I'm guessing you're hounding for something that in reality doesn't exist, some foundational ground to make for knowledge. Hate to say it but there is no such thing. We take a few things as given, our axioms, and just hope for the best.

I will add that intuition isn't a special form of knowledge but still another form of cognition (something you seem to have a bone to pick with) as it is based on prior knowledge, culture, and personal experience. It's sort of like "thinking really fast". Even feelings are rooted in some form of cognition though not one you are aware of. Brains are weird.

PS: I do wonder if there is a way to write your stuff in a way that's easy to understand.

But this is just to the point I am making. But you need to make a further step into inquiry: when you analyze a star's light and bring forth a conclusion there is beneath this, or presupposed by it, a structured consciousness that does the bringing forth of the basic conditions for "receiving" anything at all.
What makes science singularly disqualified for philosophy is that it doesn't look at the world at this level of inquiry. Nor does it thematically take up the caring and value that you raise here. As a scientist you do indeed have more or less strong interest, occasionally exhilaration. But it goes further still: to speak at all, to have a thought and draw a conclusion or affirm a conditional or negation is inherently affective. the point I make here is that it is these analytical conditions, which are typical in everyday living, tend to reify the categorical analyses, reducing the world to its own abstract image. The actuality, intuitive givenness of things, if you will, of putting the eyes to the computer screen, implicitly drawing conclusions, rejecting others, then, consummating an inquiry! At this level the experience is a singularity. — Astrophel

Hate to break it to you but there isn't anything beyond that "abstract" image that you think science is reducing reality to, that's just what it is. It sounds like you really want reality to be something other than it is.

If anything a lot of these posts just sound like extreme frustration or dissatisfaction with how things work.

Considering how complex the brain is, no not really. And like was mentioned before ethics slows down progress (though as stated I'm glad for it).

Some problems in science are slower to progress than others, and it might involve some diverging paths. But so far all the evidence have points to it being a function of the brain and not some kinda "soul" or "ghost" like people think it is.

How though...well we're not quite there yet. I swear people really need to learn patience when it comes to science, these problems are hard. Just because humanity doesn't tolerate ambiguity well is no excuse, though I guess psychologically we do like filling in gaps just to feel better.

Again, you tell them that. If you look through my threads with them you'll see it's pointless.

Like in these threads for example:

https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?t=40294
https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?p=652138#p652138
https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?p=652127#p652127
https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?p=652119#p652119

It's more like they were trying to use the fact that meaning is subjective to say I can't say they're wrong. It's literally to just terminate argument.

You try arguing with them, I had an aneurysm from trying.

No that’s not socially correct either, again you’re just making stuff up to prop up your argument.

Also it doesn’t really matter what Shakespeare said.

Not necessarily. It’s also weird you’re calling it unresponsive to the situation like there is some objectively correct way to respond to situations.

Also you’re more reinforcing the notion that Buddhism talks about there being no self. So all these different “selves” really just prove there is no self just behavior.

Not something I believe in but for your case the more you argue the more you undermine your point.

I think you’re mistaken. I said I behave same no matter where I go, that “same” being who I am which is considerate.

I’m not a different person in different spaces, I’m the same person.

That’s why I said they’re just wrong that we all portray different selves to people across spaces. If anything that a psychological issue because it means you can’t be authentic and you’re just masking.

There isn’t a difference between “simple” and “complex concepts. You’re just inventing distinctions between the two.

And secondly you can absolutely be mistaken about having perceived something. It literally happens every day.

That said the only way for illusion to really carry any meaning is to know what is real and that’s a whole can of worms right there.

Usually when people say many X believe Y it’s usually none or little

I’d have to disagree with that link. Reality isn’t socially constructed IMO. It is very much an entity apart from us. It’s why you have some philosophies that claim to cut through all that to see reality as it truly is, behind what we paint over it, though if you believe such things.

Also how they’re staying you act differently depending on where you are, but this isn’t really the case for everyone. Me for example I act the same no matter where I’m at, same with others, so how do they explain that.

That’s why sociology is considered a soft science.

and how are they doing that in the links I give. I’ll give you that their knowledge of science poor but how is it the case in the links?

Though I’m also doubtful of their logic. It seems like only a few people there understand how it works. Like one person I was talking to saying:

Actually, I have an argument for the existence of the mind: Consider a change in a substance, X to Y. X and Y do not occur at the same point since otherwise there could be no change and the process is simultaneous. Therefore, X and Y should occur at different points in time. This means that there is a gap between X and Y so X cannot possibly cause Y. Therefore there must be a mind with the ability to experience X and cause Y.

Never mind that not only the logic doesn’t follow but also doesn’t demonstrate there is a mind or that the mind is responsible for what’s going on.

I think people on that forum as a whole don’t know enough about science to really cite it. The amount of misuses of quantum physics is already too many.

Though what did you mean by skin deep though?

Not everyone.

is that what you think is going on in the links?

I'm on the spectrum so....yeah, totally feel that.

That's fair, but I don't think they throw it about casually. There is a clear pattern of behavior in their posts that hints at something.

I know because I was the same, though not to that degree. The posts I would ask about stuff would just be me repeating the same thing again and again even though people either weren't bothered by it or understood and didn't care.

Judging from the other users who have more experience with that person than I do it's known, I just joined a week ago and while mental illness isn't something I'd say I can't deny something is really off about some of the users there.

Like I was saying before, they just want an audience for their views not a discussion.

I mean obviously right and wrong are "relative" in the sense that it depends on context, because in a different world then there would be a different framework based on what is right and wrong.

But what is going on with the person I mentioned in that they are using this to avoid criticisms of their points while also trying to use the same framework of meaning that even ENABLES them to argue their point.

But I don't think that's what the people in my quotes are saying.

I think it's more like just not doing anything since everything is just subjective then nothing is right or wrong and everything just "is". It seems more like a cop out to avoid criticism. If there is no objective meaning and everything is subjective then you can't say I'm wrong.

Which is kinda childish IMO.

That's the weird part, his own "logic" negates everything he is saying. Like if everything is subjective and according to you nobody is right or wrong about anything then...why should we listen? Better yet why are you talking, meaning is subjective so the words you use are too.

You see how quickly his own logic falls apart which is why I think he's mentally ill.

Though TBH the whole forum is full of nuts, case in point:

https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?p=652788#p652788

As for putting in the work, all one is required to do is do the no body home work. Which is simple and easy, a child can do it. Because there is no one that is taking occupancy in a child, not until the child comes into contact by association as and through this artificial illusory possession of knowledge, leading it back to it's original image, the illusion of it's reality. The image of the imageless.

It very easy, is hard work.

Which sounds like nonduality, but a horribly flawed version of it. Nevermind that that is not how the self works, that's more like a soul.

It's like I said, these people want an audience, not a discussion.