3. In a TOP-DOWN approach [mine], an anti-philosophical realist just accept whatever as far [deep] as the human-based evidence and reasoning can support. There is no need to speculate further there could be a reality out there which supposedly is independent from humans collectively.
Nah, that's not an accurate description of how you've been talking.
You say "there is no mind independent reality". You don't say "I don't know what reality is and I don't want to speculate".
"there is no mind independent reality" is the speculation
3. In a TOP-DOWN approach [mine], an anti-philosophical realist just accept whatever as far [deep] as the human-based evidence and reasoning can support. There is no need to speculate further there could be a reality out there which supposedly is independent from humans collectively.
Nah, that's not an accurate description of how you've been talking.
You say "there is no mind independent reality". You don't say "I don't know what reality is and I don't want to speculate".
"there is no mind independent reality" is the speculation
Nope!
The philosophical realist claimed there is a mind-independent reality and I disagree with that, thus, "there is no mind independent reality".
The onus is on the philosophical realist to prove his positive claim.
There is no speculation [the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence -dict.] on my part.
What I accept as real is anything that is supported by empirical evidences and philosophical reasonings within a human-based FSK without speculating what is beyond that.
Ah okay, I see the limit of your position then. I thought you had some more substantial arguments when you claimed there was no mind independent reality. Turns out your only argument for it is "prove there's a mind independent reality" lol.
Unfortunately, that's not actually how onuses and burden of proof work. Philosophical discourse has erroneously convinced people that a "burden of proof" is a property of beliefs people hold. That's not the case. In fact, no belief itself has an onus or a burden of any kind.
Instead, the burden of proof is something a PERSON obtains - not a belief, a person with a belief - when that person wants to convince another person to change their mind.
It looks like you want everyone to change their mind from what you recognize as the default of "there is an objective reality" to "there isn't an objective reality". You've been saying across many threads, there is no objective reality and society would be better off if everyone agreed with you. If you want people to change their minds, prove it. An effective proof generally looks better than "no you prove it".
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 7:33 am
Ah okay, I see the limit of your position then. I thought you had some more substantial arguments when you claimed there was no mind independent reality. Turns out your only argument for it is "prove there's a mind independent reality" lol.
Unfortunately, that's not actually how onuses and burden of proof work. Philosophical discourse has erroneously convinced people that a "burden of proof" is a property of beliefs people hold. That's not the case. In fact, no belief itself has an onus or a burden of any kind.
Instead, the burden of proof is something a PERSON obtains - not a belief, a person with a belief - when that person wants to convince another person to change their mind.
It looks like you want everyone to change their mind from what you recognize as the default of "there is an objective reality" to "there isn't an objective reality". You've been saying across many threads, there is no objective reality and society would be better off if everyone agreed with me. If you want people to change their minds, prove it. An effective proof generally looks better than "no you prove it".
I stated "there isn't a mind-independent objective reality"; there are only human-based FSK objective realities.
I already stated this;
What I accept as real is anything that is supported by empirical evidences and philosophical reasonings within a human-based FSK without speculating what is beyond that.
I have stated my main principle is this;
1. All facts, truths and knowledge are conditioned upon a human based FSK, thus Objective.
2. Despite its weakness, the most credible and reliable FSK is the human-based scientific FSK, which is the standard for all other FSKs.
3. Therefore we should accept human-based scientific objectivity [with philosophical reasonings] as representing the truest objective reality [not mind-independent].
My call is for philosophical realists to understand their IDEOLOGICAL philosophical realism is driven by a primal psychological drive and being dogmatic with this ideological "ism" hinders humanity's progress.
If all of humanity [or the majority or a critical mass] accepts point 1, 2 and 3, there is room for humanity's progress [especially re Morality] as it is evident since the days of the Enlightenment and prior.
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The philosophical realist claimed there is a mind-independent reality and I disagree with that, thus, "there is no mind independent reality".
The onus is on the philosophical realist to prove his positive claim.
VA does not seem to understand that there is, for example, an agnostic postion between the theist and the atheist who says there is no God. Since he's opted for one who says there is no reality out there, he is not taking the agnostic position, and agnostics and believers can demand evidence. The claim bears an onus - that is if claims bear onuses which he seems to believe.
There is no speculation [the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence -dict.] on my part.
What I accept as real is anything that is supported by empirical evidences and philosophical reasonings within a human-based FSK without speculating what is beyond that.
Another way to put this is that VA doesnt realize that in making a claim to know what is NOT also requires evidence, evidence he does not have.
It seems like there isn't really progress towards proving realists must believe in souls, or that realists should rationally change their minds to think more like va.
I think VA is tortured by Kant's idea - which he often quotes - that we're all tortured by the fact that what we call reality is - and must be - an illusion - because we have to perceive, know and describe reality in human ways, necessarily using our conceptual categories - primarily of space and time.
I agree with IWP's point that, if we can't know what reality is - because it isn't really anything-in-itself - then we also can't know what reality is not. And VA insists reality is not mind-independent.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 8:23 am
I think VA is tortured by Kant's idea - which he often quotes - that we're all tortured by the fact that what we call reality is - and must be - an illusion - because we have to perceive, know and describe reality in human ways, necessarily using our conceptual categories - primarily of space and time.
I agree with IWP's point that, if we can't know what reality is - because it isn't really anything-in-itself - then we also can't know what reality is not. And VA insists reality is not mind-independent.
You are begging the question,
you are assuming positively there is "a reality that you cannot know" thus cannot know what it is not.
As Kant has stated, such a assumed-positive-reality is merely an intelligible reality that is illusory, nothing, empty, meaningless and nonsensical.
Seriously for information sake, I suggest you read the Phenomena vs Noumena thread carefully. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=39987
Read it 10 times if necessary with a fine-toothed comb.
And VA insists reality is not mind-independent.
The is not my claim per se.
Philosophical Realists claimed reality is mind-independent.
My claim is merely, the onus is on the philosophical realists to prove their positive claim.
This is the same case with theism, where it is the onus on theists to prove their positive claim God exists.
Non-theists can prove God does not exist, but that is not obligatory within philosophical protocol.
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 8:14 am
It seems like there isn't really progress towards proving realists must believe in souls, or that realists should rationally change their minds to think more like va.
I guarantee you, there will be positive payoffs when you remove the 4 billion years old cobwebs.
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 8:14 am
It seems like there isn't really progress towards proving realists must believe in souls, or that realists should rationally change their minds to think more like va.
I guarantee you, there will be positive payoffs when you remove the 4 billion years old cobwebs.
I guarantee you, you'll have better luck changing people's minds with reasons instead of guarantees. It's easy to say "I guarantee it" than it is to show why they should change their mind.
Also, "4 billion year old cobwebs" certainly seems like the sort of belief a realist would have. If your position is that we don't know anything about reality and we shouldn't speculate that we do, then... what kind of speculations do you think are involved in thinking anybody has 4 billion year old anything? 4 billion years ago, humans didn't exist according to our best science, so you're either speculating on the existence of things that no human being perceived or knew about, OR you're speculating that regardless of what our best science says, humans have existed for 4 billion years.
Did something exist prior to human beings 4 billion years ago?
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 9:12 am
I guarantee you, you'll have better luck changing people's minds with reasons instead of guarantees. It's easy to say "I guarantee it" than it is to show why they should change their mind.
It's also telling to use 'I guarantee.' It's an appeal to the authority of oneself. If this is in a pattern of implicit and explicit appeals to authority in relaion to others: Kant, Hoffman and so on, then there's a problem. This can get subtle. Using experts can of course be part of bolstering a case, but it we are supposed to treat the person as an authority then those parts of what they say that don't fit are then problematic for the person using them in an appeal to authority. It seems best, especially with philosophers, to use them as help in describing and explaining. One can always find another philosopher to contradict them, but if they make it easier to understand an argument, then it's helpful.
I think the main problem here is that mind-independence means at least 3-4 different things. Taking 3-4 different things and mixing them together into one amorphous blob doesn't lead anywhere, an example is VA who has been hopelessly chasing his own tail for many years. Those 3-4 different things need to be evaluated individually, for example:
1. mind-independence as in the God's-eye-view: probably this view was, and to a degree still is a major collective hallucination, shared by countless people. Such independence was the 19th century scientist's dream. We are "looking into" a perfectly objective, independent world (reality), we are watching it as it happen, but we never disturb it in any way. We somehow have this God's-eye-view that looks into the world from an outside perspective. But when we try to find ourselves, the looker, this outside point, we don't find anything, can't find anything, but this doesn't seem to bother people.
This form of mind-independence is indeed probably crazy. In this sense, reality probably isn't mind-independent. But one also can't say that reality is mind-dependent, only that it's not-independent, that's the correct opposite. There's no outside perspective, instead there's an inside perspective that feels like an outside perspective.
(anti-realism vs realism 1-0)
2. mind-independence as in absolute independence from the rest of the world: the human mind is probably a part of the head, so as VA would say "part and parcel of reality". In this sense the world again isn't mind-independent, but it's also not mind-dependent, just non-independent.
(2-0)
3. mind-independence of the presumed outside world in the non-absolute sense, that there is a shared objective reality "out there" and every human perceives it in a different way, while the mind is also part of this world: this form of mind-independence is probably correct, using science we could build an accurate model, mapping of this objective relity, and this model is a thousands times better and bigger than anything else, yet can be made to account for everything
(2-1)
4. mind-independence in a more Kantian sense: yes everything we ever experience is our own mind, it's not possible to get outside of it, there are only the appearances. Within our own mind, using its features, faculties, we construct the idea, the experience of the outside world. We live a representation within our own heads, and the representation works pretty well (unless one is schizophrenic etc.)
Which however totally doesn't mean that our mind can't have an outside, nor does it mean that such an outside would be mind-dependent in some absolute or relative sense.
(2.5-1.5)
5. mind-independence in quantum mechanics yeah yeah.. I think the mind would have to be fairly separate, independent, something "other" than mere stuff, in order to be responsible for quantum weirdness. Here mind-dependence kinda shoots itself in the foot.
Personally I believe that human thinking is linear, but reality as a whole is of course inherently circular because every other idea is incoherent. And our human minds may be smaller circular things within the bigger circular reality, which may have to do with quantum weirdness.
Still it would be more of a "consistency of the outer reality with mental phenomena, in some rather technical way(s)" than mind-dependence in a very literal sense.
Or maybe something else is going on entirely.
The 2022 Nobel was of course for refuting the idea of locality. Locality isn't real, or at least not fundamental. It's at best a soft-emergent property. Reality is non-local (not just in space but also in time). Which probably (by Occam's razor) has absolutely nothing to do with philosophical realism or anti-realism.
Anything in QM can be interpreted in both realism and anti-realism. I think by Occam's razor we end up with realism and an extra dimension btw.
Say (2.75-2.25)
Well looks like by my count, anti-realism got a little more points than realism, but imo the best models are overall almost "halfway" between realism and anti-realism. So I never really understand what people mean when they fully take one position or the other.
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Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 9:20 am
Also, "4 billion year old cobwebs" certainly seems like the sort of belief a realist would have. If your position is that we don't know anything about reality and we shouldn't speculate that we do, then... what kind of speculations do you think are involved in thinking anybody has 4 billion year old anything? 4 billion years ago, humans didn't exist according to our best science, so you're either speculating on the existence of things that no human being perceived or knew about, OR you're speculating that regardless of what our best science says, humans have existed for 4 billion years.
Did something exist prior to human beings 4 billion years ago?
All humans evolved [without any break] from a common ancestor, i.e. LUCA.
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) or universal most recent common ancestor (UMRCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_univ ... n_ancestor
As I had stated, Philosophical Realism is an evolutionary default.
The point is ALL humans still share the same basic genes that drive the impulse to survive at all costs till the inevitable.
This is the same genetically driven impulse that significant drive the Philosophical Realism ideology.
I wrote earlier,
There is no speculation [defined as "the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence" -dict.] on my part.
What I accept as real is anything that is supported by empirical evidences and philosophical reasonings within a human-based FSK without speculating what is beyond that.
I am not speculating [as defined], but rather inferred from available empirical evidences to the very empirical possible LUCA that existed >3.5-4.0 billion years ago.
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 8:14 am
It seems like there isn't really progress towards proving realists must believe in souls, or that realists should rationally change their minds to think more like va.
I guarantee you, there will be positive payoffs when you remove the 4 billion years old cobwebs.
I guarantee you, you'll have better luck changing people's minds with reasons instead of guarantees. It's easy to say "I guarantee it" than it is to show why they should change their mind.
The posters here are so sparse, even IF I change the minds of everyone here, it has no significance to humanity at all.
So, I am not in the changing minds business here.
What I am doing here is merely refreshing the knowledge I have acquired for my personal interests.
The above is a personal belief and conviction [inferred from empirical evidences] which I am entitled to express without expecting anyone to agree with it.