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@TwoMan
What does functional use have to do with reality? Is reality under some special obligation to afford you utility?
Solipsism.
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153
As you like say, you live your life as if your perceptions are real for convenience sake which is another way of saying functionality. You have a philosophical position that you disregard for convenience (functional) reasons.
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@TwoMan
I don't know which position is true. I tend to behave as if one is true over the others as a convenience in the absence of further information. My stance is one skepticism not belief.
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@drafterman
well I can't think of any way to disprove that.
If you look at the matter from the perspective of E-Prime, the problem disappears. I do not even know how someone could frame the problem without some concept of Being. Try it: speak without is, are, am, be, becoming, exists, reality and other such forms of the verb “to be”. Both sides of the solipsistic debate assume that we know what “to be” actually means, not as a placeholder but as a concept.
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@secularmerlin
Given one perceives a baseball a 'mental representation of a baseball' is present within one's brain. Such represetations take the form of patterns of neural activity, so I call them 'neural representations'; what one perceives is the information encoded into the pattern of neural activity.
So if there is a neural representation of a baseball in your brain you will perceive a baseball whether or not there is a baseball 'out there'.
We have evolved such that the neural representations produced by and in our brains correspond to the real world, but in the case of (eg) dreams neural representations arise spontaneously, ie without any correponding external object.
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@mookestink
All I know is I think.
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@keithprosser
So we know that we don't really "see" the base ball as picture it and we know that dreams and hallucinations exist and also that they can seem indistinguishable from "reality" to the person experiencing them.
So how do you know that this is not a dream or hallucination?
When you are in a dream don't you tend to go with the flow of dream events no matter how surreal? What makes "realkeith" accepting "reality" different from "dreamkieth" accepting the dream as reality?
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@secularmerlin
When you are in a dream don't you tend to go with the flow of dream events no matter how surreal? What makes "realkeith" accepting "reality" different from "dreamkieth" accepting the dream as reality?
Me dreaming and me awake is the same me. In each case my brain produces a neural representation of the world, the difference being that when I am awake sense data gets used so the representation corresponds more closely to actual conditions.
Even when we are awake much of what we are aware of is not a simple transacription of sense data - it is more like the brain's job is to continualy invent a representation of the world which sense data is used to correct.
Let me stress that I assume the existence of an external reality. That is not to say I don't see there is a philosophical problem with that; it's just that solipsism etc. is not a problem that interests me!
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@keithprosser
the difference being that when I am awake sense data gets used so the representation corresponds more closely to actual conditions.
You mean you presume that's the difference. I have no idea how to test that hypothesis without first making the presupposition that there is some correspondence between your senses and actual conditions.
No absolute objective evidence exists, or can exist. Reality is an assumption, and a necessary one.
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@Castin
There is nothing in your statement that I can disagree with (possibly the necessary part depending on what it is necessary for).
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@secularmerlin
I think it's necessary for human living.
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@Castin
It is necessary in order to care how or why humans live.
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@secularmerlin
You mean you presume that's the difference. I have no idea how to test that hypothesis without first making the presupposition that there is some correspondence between your senses and actual conditions.
As I see things, one can make the assumption external reality exists and get on with thinking about important things like ethics, free will and consciousness or get bogged down at square one forever wondering if you are a brain in a jar.
I spend about 1% of my philopical effort thinking about solipsism etc... it is obvious we could (in theory) all be diseembodied brains; it is equally obviously not so and anything else is just padding.
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@keithprosser
It is advantageous in the context of our perceived reality to accept reality as percieved. It allows us to avoid perceived pain and maximize perceived happiness and of course it allows us to have this conversation. Also if we do accept that our observable physical universe is real certain other inferences about the universe can be made by application of the scientific method.
That doesn't change the fact that objective certainty seems a practical impossibility for us as humans.
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@secularmerlin
Well we do have to add a caveat about definitions and tautologies - we can be certain that a batchelor is not married for instance. Another example where certainty is possible is suppose you see me throw a die 3 times and it comes up 4,2 and 1. You can be certain i didn't throw a six in those 3 throws because you saw me get a 4,2 and 1!
But sometimes we do have to risk being wrong and say all swans are white. The trick is to balance the risk of being wrong against the paralysis caused by wanting to reduce that risk to zero.
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@keithprosser
That is acceptance for convenience sake. I do endorse that but it doesn't make the question go away.
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@secularmerlin
I have no objection to other people spending their mental energies on proving and refuring solipsism, but it doesn't appeal greatly to me. If anyone comes up with something deeper than 'we could be brains in vats but we probably aren't' then I'd be all ears!
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@keithprosser
We won't get a definitive answer. Ever.
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@secularmerlin
That seems like a good reason to put it on a back-burner to me!
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@keithprosser
Feel free too. I created this tgread at the request of another poster who said they wanted to debate against the idea that our universe may not really exist.
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@secularmerlin
so you only believe in your own existence. Are you comfortable with that?
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@janesix
Firstly I do not claim to know if I exist or not. Secondly no I'm not really comfortable with that but I'm not sure what my comfort level has to do with what I believe.
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@secularmerlin
"Firstly I do not claim to know if I exist or not."
ok, i thought you did. so, what DO you believe? Anything?
"Secondly no I'm not really comfortable with that but I'm not sure what my comfort level has to do with what I believe."
It has nothing to do with it. I was just curious. is that ok?
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@janesix
It is all right for you to as I me anything you like I just wasn't sure if you thought there was some connection."Firstly I do not claim to know if I exist or not."ok, i thought you did. so, what DO you believe? Anything?"Secondly no I'm not really comfortable with that but I'm not sure what my comfort level has to do with what I believe."It has nothing to do with it. I was just curious. is that ok?
As for beliefs they are different from knowledge. This thread deals with knowledge and the fact that the only thing I can be objectively certain of is that I am experiencing something even if that something turns out to be totally illusory.
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@secularmerlin
you have to exist in order to be experiencing something, right? so you must believe you exist.
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@janesix
That would seem to logically follow but we must then presume upon the rules of logic which we have constructed through our interactions with "reality". In the end the most honest response I can give is I don't know.
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@secularmerlin
who is the "I" in "I don't know"?
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@janesix
I don't know for certain. For convenience sake I assume that we are both real and that I am the entity you know as SecularMerlin.