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@secularmerlin
I don't know how to say it. There are things that are good, and they are also desirable. I don't think goodness is desirableness is the full story but it's a start.
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@secularmerlin
Why not use good as it is? What could it be based? I don't think it needs to be based on anything but itself.
I meant what does it take to make something knowledge. Or, what makes knowledge knowledge.
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I mean, morality that is only objective is meaningless to anyone who cares to participate in it and it wouldn't be informative or prescriptive or rhetorical... in other words it would be purely descriptive when one of the most salient features of morality is that its focus is on what should be done rather than what is done.
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@janesix
It's both. You can't make sense of it if it is only one or the other.Is it subjective or objective?
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@ethang5
How does logic do it?
I don't see why it would.
If something is good, is it necessary that there be any justification or any reason why? If you didn't know that something was good, how could any amount of investigation lead you to conclude it was good? And if it could, then it mustn't be obvious. It could be mistaken as bad (if it is good) or there might be an argument for its badness.
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Can knowledge be justified?
Does inquiry into why something is good (or bad) undermine goodness?
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Is it really that consciousness is something that is possessed?
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I mean you can make inferences from perceptions whether they are real or illusory.No one made the claim that anything matters unless you did.
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@secularmerlin
All we have is subjectivity.
What does that mean?
Up and down are largely meaningless distinctions unless viewed subjectively and height is only objective if our perceptions reflect reality which we cannot be certain of.
What is subjective about up and down? They are relative if anything. And what baring does reality have on the objectivity of height? You don't need to worry about what seems to be 10 units long and what is actually 10 units long if you know what a unit is. Its veracity doesn't matter unless you think there's an actual, real unit and the units we use are just representations of the real unit.
If we accept our perceptions reflect reality then we can make certain inferences from those perceptions, particularly with the application of the scientific method.
If illusion is consistent with itself, I think it doesn't matter.
You are correct that quanta is meaningless without qualia but we cannot be certain that the quanta we have observed is more than our observations of an illusion.but we cannot be certain that the quanta we have observed is more than our observations of an illusion.
I guess so.
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@secularmerlin
If you know what is real, you know what is illusory. If you don't know what's reality, how can you go about saying what is illusion? If you know what's up you know what's down, but trying to decide direction without reference is meaningless. It's fine to be uncertain, but there's nowhere to go from there. You could not even say you are a solipsist.
It's true inches are subjectively decided, but 12 inches will always be 12 inches no matter where you are, no matter what refence besides the refence of one inch. A height of 5 feet 10 inches is objective in that sense, even if the inch is "subjectively decided." And you say, "[it] has no objective meaning without our subjective agreement upon that length." That's true, and it goes to show you cannot have objectivity without subjectivity. Likewise you cannot have up without down and you cannot have reality without illusion.
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People determine what seems real and what is real all the time but what your looking for can't be found. It's like the Meno problem. To try to find the starting point in experience is to engage in infinite regress or to be stagnant. And again perceptions don't seem like anything. When you realize something is not true, the true thing that brings out this realization will be qualitatively different than the "taken for granted" realness that we live by without thinking. Until you forget about it.
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@secularmerlin
How would you realize it? Don't your perceptions seem "real"? How does one go about determining the difference between seems real and is real?
These are the kind of questions that make me say radical skepticism and not also solipsism. Because even a solipsist recognizes the difference between reality and illusion. There isn't a way out of a position like this. I don't think I can give you a satisfying answer.
I don't know what happens behind the scenes of dreams. As bizarre as they can be I don't always realize I was dreaming until after I wake up. But it's not like I am consciously making the evaluation that a dream is real or illusion while I'm dreaming, I just live it.
I don't think your perceptions seem like anything as long as you don't think about it. The distinction isn't salient until something you've made up to be the case turns out not to be. Assuming you're a soft solipsist, is there anything about your experience that has lead you to adopt soft solipsism? If it's about knowledge then I don't think you can even get to "the idea that our universe isn't real" or "that my experience may be completely illusory"
without working out something more fundamental.
What do you mean by "doubt"? I cannot be objectively certain of anything except that I am experiencing something even if that something turns out to be totally illusory. Is being uncertain of something the same as doubting it?
By doubt I meant to reject solipsism as being the case. Being uncertain isn't the same as doubting. It's more like reserving judgement. And sure you can be objectively certain of things... if you've ever measured something like your height for example.
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@secularmerlin
What is the difference?
A radical skeptic would doubt even solipsism.
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@secularmerlin
Your perceptions would be accompanied by the judgment that they are illusory. I don't think they'd be different at all besides this. It'd be like being in a dream and then realizing you're in a dream.
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Maybe you're not a soft solipsist and you're only a very radical skeptic.
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@secularmerlin
You sure? What do you mean by "is"?
Wouldn't your perceptions be what are? As in, if they were not, there would not be any perceptions to talk about.
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I don't understand this. Do you mean that you know what real means but can't provide a definition? Because regarding your perceptions as "real" but not having a definition for real can't be meaningful.So I don't have a definition for what is "real" although I accept my perceptions as "real" for convenience sake.
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