Why things evolve?

[OuterLimits]

The other way to ask the question would be "why am I equating people with volcanoes and storms?" Just because you see a similarity does not make something identical.

You might have subjective knowledge of your own experiences but you don't seem to have understood how significantly those experiences have shaped you. Otherwise you would realize that this argument of yours is ridiculous.

going back to your robot analogy. A robot might be programmed to answer like a human but two robots with the same programming will give identical answers. Two humans produced by the same parents will not. The difference is experiences.

I seem to have jumped to a few conclusions. How much scientific education have you had?

By the look of things, a lot more than you, which isn't much to speak of.

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

[Terrapin Station]

All I'm saying is that we have empirical evidence of being brains in human bodies and houses and so on, whether that empirical evidence is just phenomenal data or not. We do have that at least. And that's more than just possibility.

I have the subjective experience of things, people, and houses.

I just have no "empirical evidence" of what causes me to have those experiences experience (real objects out in the world vs computer code somewhere).

I think we agree that the subjective experience doesn't amount to "empirical evidence". The main error so many people make is in the use of the word "we". If you ask yourself, instead, what do "I" experience and what does that tell "me" about the nature of reality, you might get into the spirit of this.

It seems you are taking the subjective experience and labeling it "empirical evidence". If you would stop doing that (or alternately explain why you are doing it) then things might move along.

This response tells me two things:

(1) That you've not understood at least some of what I've been writing, and
(2) That unfortunately you've not bothered to tell me that you've not understood at least some of what I've been writing and consequently asked for clarification.

Those two things in conjunction make it very difficult to have a conversation like this.

I said a number of times, not just in this thread, that phenomenal data/phenomenal experience IS empirical evidence. I even said it again in the post that you're quoting and responding to immediately above: "whether that empirical evidence is just phenomenal data or not"--in other words, the empirical evidence in question can only be phenomenal data.

What is phenomenal data or experience? It's what you're calling subjective experience. That IS empirical evidence. "Empirical" refers to something arrived at via experience or observation. Surely you're not saying that subjective experience isn't experience or that you do not observe it, right? You experience people, houses, etc. Well, that IS empirical evidence of (it is experience of/observation of) people, houses, etc.

What you're noting is that you do not know with certainty what the cause of that empirical data is. But what I keep telling you over and over is that my whole point here is that worrying about certainty isn't the approach to take when we're doing epistemology.

Re "getting into the spirit of this," it's not that I'm not familiar with the standard way of looking at this, by the way, where we treat Decartes like an epistemological genius, etc. and where we conclude, "Yeah, we could just as well be the dream of an evil demon" etc. I'm saying that that approach is inane, it's indicative of a neurotic concern with certainty/needing to be "absolutely" correct, and focusing on that part of both Descartes' and Putnam's ("brain in a vat") arguments misses not only the point of epistemology in general in my opinion, but the point of their arguments, which is in both cases how that sort of misconceived skepticism is or can be overcome (with different answers to that in both of their cases). The brain in a vat argument is often misunderstood as being a skeptical challenge, when instead, in Putnam's view, the whole point was to undermine such skeptical challenges as more or less incoherent. (I don't happen to agree with either Descartes' or Putnam's solutions to this, by the way--Descartes' is primarily based on beliefs about God, whereas Putnam's is largely based on his semantic (meaning) externalism, but nevertheless, the points of their arguments aren't that the skeptical view is just as good as the dismantling of such views.)

[Terrapin Station]

I seem to have jumped to a few conclusions. How much scientific education have you had?

By the look of things, a lot more than you, which isn't much to speak of.

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

You don't have to know much about science to be aware of the fact that different materials/structures/processes amount to different properties.

Steel scissors do not have just the same properties that cotton balls do, for example. Hence why you do not try to cut your hair with cotton.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I seem to have jumped to a few conclusions. How much scientific education have you had?

By the look of things, a lot more than you, which isn't much to speak of.

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

"Laws" follow phenomena, they do not precede it.
Laws are what humans initially thought that god had written so that the world had something to which it must comply. Miracles were instances when god decided to brake those laws.
Now human science has this notion as a legacy. It still conceives of "laws" has somehow prewritten. But it only takes a moment's thought to acknowledge that most 'laws" as written by science have proven incorrect so we continually replace them. Laws are simply descriptions of the characteristics of matter and energy and their interactions, that we might best predict and understand the appearances of the universe.
It's best to see laws as that way rather than pretend that they are forever the written uniformitarian stone; but only contingent on continued observation.

[OuterLimits]

By the look of things, a lot more than you, which isn't much to speak of.

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

"Laws" follow phenomena, they do not precede it.
Laws are what humans initially thought that god had written so that the world had something to which it must comply. Miracles were instances when god decided to brake those laws.
Now human science has this notion as a legacy. It still conceives of "laws" has somehow prewritten. But it only takes a moment's thought to acknowledge that most 'laws" as written by science have proven incorrect so we continually replace them. Laws are simply descriptions of the characteristics of matter and energy and their interactions, that we might best predict and understand the appearances of the universe.
It's best to see laws as that way rather than pretend that they are forever the written uniformitarian stone; but only contingent on continued observation.

My comments can best be understood in the context of the conversation I was having. This is related to a harsh somewhat ad-hominem skepticism regarding my comments about how nature seems to operate vs how people seem to operate. I have other thoughts regarding this post, but why?

[OuterLimits]

By the look of things, a lot more than you, which isn't much to speak of.

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

You don't have to know much about science to be aware of the fact that different materials/structures/processes amount to different properties.

Steel scissors do not have just the same properties that cotton balls do, for example. Hence why you do not try to cut your hair with cotton.

My comments can best be understood in the context of the conversation I was having. This is related to a harsh somewhat ad-hominem skepticism regarding my comments about how nature seems to operate vs how people seem to operate. I have other thoughts regarding this post, but why?

[OuterLimits]

I will happily entertain comments or questions on this thread from anyone that isn't you.

You are blithely taking "subjective experience", labeling it "empirical experience" and then drunkenly slipping into treating it as "empirical phenomena." I'll let you have the last word.

[Terrapin Station]

You could present an argument for why, in the context of conventional language usage in a philosophical milieu, phenomenal data wouldn't be empirical evidence. Or you could present an argument for why we should depart from conventional language usage in that context, of course. Hopefully that argument wouldn't hinge in some way on the idea of (not having) certainty or proof, since that misses the whole gist of my comments so far.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

"Laws" follow phenomena, they do not precede it.
Laws are what humans initially thought that god had written so that the world had something to which it must comply. Miracles were instances when god decided to brake those laws.
Now human science has this notion as a legacy. It still conceives of "laws" has somehow prewritten. But it only takes a moment's thought to acknowledge that most 'laws" as written by science have proven incorrect so we continually replace them. Laws are simply descriptions of the characteristics of matter and energy and their interactions, that we might best predict and understand the appearances of the universe.
It's best to see laws as that way rather than pretend that they are forever the written uniformitarian stone; but only contingent on continued observation.

My comments can best be understood in the context of the conversation I was having. This is related to a harsh somewhat ad-hominem skepticism regarding my comments about how nature seems to operate vs how people seem to operate. I have other thoughts regarding this post, but why?

I'll not presume that I hit the context right. I was just throwing this POV in there in the hope that it might provide a more interesting way to look at the question. A sort of Kantian turn.

[sthitapragya]

Illuminating. Generally, it is believed that any physical laws which govern inanimate matter also govern living matter. Volcanoes, storms, people - the same set of physical laws and particles are at work. Maybe you have heard of this, maybe you haven't.

"Laws" follow phenomena, they do not precede it.
Laws are what humans initially thought that god had written so that the world had something to which it must comply. Miracles were instances when god decided to brake those laws.
Now human science has this notion as a legacy. It still conceives of "laws" has somehow prewritten. But it only takes a moment's thought to acknowledge that most 'laws" as written by science have proven incorrect so we continually replace them. Laws are simply descriptions of the characteristics of matter and energy and their interactions, that we might best predict and understand the appearances of the universe.
It's best to see laws as that way rather than pretend that they are forever the written uniformitarian stone; but only contingent on continued observation.

My comments can best be understood in the context of the conversation I was having. This is related to a harsh somewhat ad-hominem skepticism regarding my comments about how nature seems to operate vs how people seem to operate. I have other thoughts regarding this post, but why?

I don't think you have said anything to establish that connection. The conversation we were having was regarding your claim that other humans do not have experiences. I was simply pointing out the various reasons to reject that claim outright. Comparing humans to other objects will not help because they do not have experiences and do not behave like humans either. So I don't see where you are headed with this.

[OuterLimits]

... your claim that other humans do not have experiences.

Please find where I said that.

[sthitapragya]

... your claim that other humans do not have experiences.

Please find where I said that.

You find out. That is where we started the debate.

[OuterLimits]

... your claim that other humans do not have experiences.

Please find where I said that.

You find out. That is where we started the debate.

Thanks for understanding.