Hume: External World is a Fabrication

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Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:25 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:20 am That is not an ad hom.
You have misrepresented Hume's view of what is idea with your own 'what is idea'.
I believe you have not read Hume's work thoroughly else you would have quoted what Hume meant by idea and his view of external reality.
I never defined what he meant by idea. It doesn't matter in the context of my objections to your use of his ideas. It simply doesn't matter. One of the points I made was not about what he said, it had to do with what is entailed by what he said.
What Hume asserted is that the realist's belief that there is a reality and things existing as absolutely mind-independent or perception independent is an illusion and a fabrication.
I responded to what was in the post. You are just reasserting your position, so far without interacting with anything I said.
Since I believe your views are off tangent, I don't want to waste time on that.
If you are not going to actually respond to what I write, it would be clear and honest to simply not respond. Quoting me and writing things that are not responses to the points I raise is misleading.
This is the reason why I presented what is Hume's view to get back to topic.
I was on topic. And the topic continues if you simply don't respond.

This is a general pattern which others have pointed out. You often, but certainly not always, do not interact with post that you are 'responding' to.
Have you got the actual statistics of support your opinions.

Where it is off-topic, depending on the situation, I may ignore the points and represent what should be on topic especially on threads that I had raised. I don't think I could have done that if it is in someone's else thread (that has not ran amok]. [if you insist, evidence?]
Iwannaplato
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Iwannaplato »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:31 am Have you got the actual statistics of support your opinions.

Where it is off-topic, depending on the situation, I may ignore the points and represent what should be on topic especially on threads that I had raised. I don't think I could have done that if it is in someone's else thread (that has not ran amok]. [if you insist, evidence?]
So, you're opting to not responding to the point I made about what Hume said according to you and Chatgpt - what that sentence I quoted means in English?

So, you're opting to not respond to the point I made about a problem with Hume's position as interpreted by you, when it comes to what he is saying about other minds?

OK, fine.

I don't think you've actually read Hume's works. But that doesn't matter for the discussion. So, yes, it was ad hom. Instead of actually interacting with what I wrote, you went 'to the man', me, and said I didn't understand something/was incorrect about something because of X. It's ad hom. Look that one up. We can both play psychics or we can deal with each other's points.
Last edited by Iwannaplato on Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
Atla
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Atla »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:53 am
Although this belief is philosophically unjustified, Hume feels he has given an accurate account of how we inevitably arrive at the idea of external existence.
This is rubbish used by many philosophers, especially by Eastern philosophy. If the mind continuously exists, then by Occam's razor, the philosophically justified default stance is that the external world also continuously exists.

Sticking to non-existence as a default, is unjustified. Unless there really is no reason to believe in the existence of something.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:38 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 7:53 am
Although this belief is philosophically unjustified, Hume feels he has given an accurate account of how we inevitably arrive at the idea of external existence.
This is rubbish used by many philosophers, especially by Eastern philosophy. If the mind continuously exists, then by Occam's razor, the philosophically justified default stance is that the external world also continuously exists.

Sticking to non-existence as a default, is unjustified. Unless there really is no reason to believe in the existence of something.
You are strawmaning.
What you stated has no relation to the points from that link.

To Hume [if you have read the Treatise and Enquiry], the mind and the external world as continuous is an illusion like separate pieces of film when presented at a certain speed generate the illusion of motion and continuity.
How is this related to your points?
Atla
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Atla »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:51 am You are strawmaning.
What you stated has no relation to the points from that link.

To Hume [if you have read the Treatise and Enquiry], the mind and the external world as continuous is an illusion like separate pieces of film when presented at a certain speed generate the illusion of motion and continuity.
How is this related to your points?
Ok maybe, can you quote that? ChatGPT claims otherwise:
So, to answer your question, Hume does not view the mind as continuous in time in the sense of a fixed, unchanging self. Instead, he sees the mind as a constantly changing collection of perceptions and ideas, without a continuous and enduring core self. His views on personal identity and the mind are quite different from more traditional views that posit a continuous and unchanging self or soul.
A constantly changing mind continuously exists, it's just changing, has no permanent part.
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:56 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:51 am You are strawmaning.
What you stated has no relation to the points from that link.

To Hume [if you have read the Treatise and Enquiry], the mind and the external world as continuous is an illusion like separate pieces of film when presented at a certain speed generate the illusion of motion and continuity.
How is this related to your points?
Ok maybe, can you quote that? ChatGPT claims otherwise:
So, to answer your question, Hume does not view the mind as continuous in time in the sense of a fixed, unchanging self. Instead, he sees the mind as a constantly changing collection of perceptions and ideas, without a continuous and enduring core self. His views on personal identity and the mind are quite different from more traditional views that posit a continuous and unchanging self or soul.
A constantly changing mind continuously exists, it's just changing, has no permanent part.
I have already given you the explanation re the individual films in a movie reel which when ran through light at a certain speed give the illusion of continuity and motion.
Your thinking that there is "A constantly changing mind" that is "continuously existing" is a delusion.

It is something like your "constantly changing external world" that is "continuously existing" which is an illusion and nonsensical making you delusional when insisting all these are real.
Atla
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Atla »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:06 am I have already given you the explanation re the individual films in a movie reel which when ran through light at a certain speed give the illusion of continuity and motion.
Your thinking that there is "A constantly changing mind" that is "continuously existing" is a delusion.

It is something like your "constantly changing external world" that is "continuously existing" which is an illusion and nonsensical making you delusional when insisting all these are real.
Kant, Einstein and QM all agree (which is rather remarkable) that there are no actual "moments in time", so existence can't be a string of snapshots which create the illusion of continuity. So your film analogy is probably rubbish.

That's the picture the Buddhists came up with 2000+ years ago, but looks like their guess was not good enough. But maybe you can prove it. Today is your time to shine.

And I don't know if Hume also said this "stringing together" illusion thing, maybe he did, quote please. So far we only have quotes that he argued the changing nature of the self, which is a pretty standard view today.
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:14 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:06 am I have already given you the explanation re the individual films in a movie reel which when ran through light at a certain speed give the illusion of continuity and motion.
Your thinking that there is "A constantly changing mind" that is "continuously existing" is a delusion.

It is something like your "constantly changing external world" that is "continuously existing" which is an illusion and nonsensical making you delusional when insisting all these are real.
Kant, Einstein and QM all agree (which is rather remarkable) that there are no actual "moments in time", so existence can't be a string of snapshots which create the illusion of continuity. So your film analogy is probably rubbish.
Strawman.
Kant as with Hume agreed with the film analogy.
That's the picture the Buddhists came up with 2000+ years ago, but looks like their guess was not good enough. But maybe you can prove it. Today is your time to shine.
Strawman again. Where did I relate that to Buddhism?
And I don't know if Hume also said this "stringing together" illusion thing, maybe he did, quote please. So far we only have quotes that he argued the changing nature of the self, which is a pretty standard view today.
You are so ignorant and a gnat that I have to spoon-feed you all the time.
If you have read Hume's Treatise and Enquiry, you would have understood the point.
This is a very common analogy in representing Hume's view.
  • A rough analogy goes like this: think of the Humean view of impressions as a kind of film where each individual frame
    (impression) is distinct and subtly different from other frames (both close to and further away from any one in question).
    https://willamette.edu/undergraduate/ph ... rueger.pdf
A contemporary example which illustrates the same point
Hume makes here is the act of watching a movie.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi ... tations_mu
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Sculptor
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Sculptor »

I going to take one of the quotes and show you what Hume said, and not what your source says he said.
I invite you to read it carefully and decide whether you think your source has really understood Hume, or has taken a negative stance and thereby mis represented Hume.

Perceptions of objects are disjointed and have no unity in and of themselves (Treatise, 1.4.2.29).

As all simple ideas may be separated by the imagination, and may be united again in what form it pleases, nothing wou’d be more unaccountable than the operations of that faculty, were it not guided by some universal principles, which render it, in some measure, uniform with itself in all times and places. Were ideas entirely loose and unconnected, chance alone wou’d join them; and ’tis impossible the same simple ideas should fall regularly into complex ones (as they commonly do) without some bond of union among them, some associating quality, by which one idea naturally introduces another. This uniting principle among ideas is not to be consider’d as an inseparable connexion; for that has been already excluded from the imagination: nor yet are we to conclude, that without it the mind cannot join two ideas; for nothing is more free than that faculty: but we are only to regard it as a gentle force, which commonly prevails, and is the cause why, among other things, languages so nearly correspond to each other; nature in a manner pointing out to every one those simple ideas, which are most proper to be united into a complex one. The qualities, from which this association arises, and by which the mind is after this manner convey’d from one idea to another, are three, viz. Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause and Effect.

I believe it will not be very necessary to prove, that these qualities produce an association among ideas, and upon the appearance of one idea naturally introduce another. ’Tis plain, that in the course of our thinking, and in the constant revolution of our ideas, our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient bond and association. ’Tis likewise evident, that as the senses, in changing their objects, are necessitated to change them regularly, and take them as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects. As to the connexion, that is made by the relation of cause and effect, we shall have occasion afterwards to examine it to the bottom, and therefore shall not at present insist upon it. ’Tis sufficient to observe, that there is no relation, which produces a stronger connexion in the fancy, and makes one idea more readily recall another, than the relation of cause and effect betwixt their objects.

That we may understand the full extent of these relations, we must consider, that two objects are connected together in the imagination, not only when the one is immediately resembling, contiguous to, or the cause of the other, but also when there is interposed betwixt them a third object, which bears to both of them any of these relations. This may be carried on to a great length; tho’ at the same time we may observe, that each remove considerably weakens the relation. Cousins in the fourth degree are connected by causation, if I may be allowed to use that term; but not so closely as brothers, much less as child and parent. In general we may observe, that all the relations of blood depend upon cause and effect, and are esteemed near or remote, according to the number of connecting causes interpos’d betwixt the persons.

Of the three relations above-mention’d this of causation is the most extensive. Two objects may be consider’d as plac’d in this relation, as well when one is the cause of any of the actions or motions of the other, as when the former is the cause of the existence of the latter. For as that action or motion is nothing but the object itself, consider’d in a certain light, and as the object continues the same in all its different situations, ’tis easy to imagine how such an influence of objects upon one another may connect them in the imagination.

We may carry this farther, and remark, not only that two objects are connected by the relation of cause and effect, when the one produces a motion or any action in the other, but also when it has a power of producing it. And this we may observe to be the source of all the relations of interest and duty, by which men influence each other in society, and are plac’d in the ties of government and subordination. A master is such-a-one as by his situation, arising either from force or agreement, has a power of directing in certain particulars the actions of another, whom we call servant. A judge is one, who in all disputed cases can fix by his opinion the possession or property of any thing betwixt any members of the society. When a person is possess’d of any power, there is no more required to convert it into action, but the exertion of the will; and that in every case is consider’d as possible, and in many as probable; especially in the case of authority, where the obedience of the subject is a pleasure and advantage to the superior.

These are therefore the principles of union or cohesion among our simple ideas, and in the imagination supply the place of that inseparable connexion, by which they are united in our memory. Here is a kind of Attraction, which in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and to shew itself in as many and as various forms. Its effects are every where conspicuous; but as to its causes, they are mostly unknown, and must be resolv’d into original qualities of human nature, which I pretend not to explain. Nothing is more requisite for a true philosopher, than to restrain the intemperate desire of searching into causes, and having establish’d any doctrine upon a sufficient number of experiments, rest contented with that, when he sees a farther examination would lead him into obscure and uncertain speculations. In that case his enquiry wou’d be much better employ’d in examining the effects than the causes of his principle.

Amongst the effects of this union or association of ideas, there are none more remarkable, than those complex ideas, which are the common subjects of our thoughts and reasoning, and generally arise from some principle of union among our simple ideas. These complex ideas may be divided into Relations, Modes, and Substances. We shall briefly examine each of these in order, and shall subjoin some considerations concerning our general and particular ideas, before we leave the present subject, which may be consider’d as the elements of this philosophy.

As you can see Hume has a far more nuanced and justifiable set of ideas here.

I would suggest that if you relly want to understand Hume then take Hume's advice and read the Enquiry, since Hume regarded his earlier Treatise and too wordy and unclear. He admitted that the Treatise fell "dead from the printers" and did not sell well.
Despite that Kant was excited by reading it and awoke him from his "philosophical slumbers". Kant in many ways is a more formal expression of the idea of Hume and crosses the boundary from Empiricism to Idealism.

Hume is oftern assocated with the other empiricists "Berkeley, Hume, and Lcoke" is a common enough trio. But where Berkeley tend to go off the deep end Hume is far more rational. I think your source is treating Hume as it her were Berkeley. Berlekey who, as a rabid religionist, denies realtiy and thinks god may be active in pushing our perceptions. Hume has none of that. Whilst he questions the reliabilty of senstation he does not say those sensations are "NOT VALID" I take that phrase from your offering.
Last edited by Sculptor on Sat Sep 16, 2023 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Atla
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Atla »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:46 am
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:14 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:06 am I have already given you the explanation re the individual films in a movie reel which when ran through light at a certain speed give the illusion of continuity and motion.
Your thinking that there is "A constantly changing mind" that is "continuously existing" is a delusion.

It is something like your "constantly changing external world" that is "continuously existing" which is an illusion and nonsensical making you delusional when insisting all these are real.
Kant, Einstein and QM all agree (which is rather remarkable) that there are no actual "moments in time", so existence can't be a string of snapshots which create the illusion of continuity. So your film analogy is probably rubbish.
Strawman.
Kant as with Hume agreed with the film analogy.
That's the picture the Buddhists came up with 2000+ years ago, but looks like their guess was not good enough. But maybe you can prove it. Today is your time to shine.
Strawman again. Where did I relate that to Buddhism?
And I don't know if Hume also said this "stringing together" illusion thing, maybe he did, quote please. So far we only have quotes that he argued the changing nature of the self, which is a pretty standard view today.
You are so ignorant and a gnat that I have to spoon-feed you all the time.
If you have read Hume's Treatise and Enquiry, you would have understood the point.
This is a very common analogy in representing Hume's view.
  • A rough analogy goes like this: think of the Humean view of impressions as a kind of film where each individual frame
    (impression) is distinct and subtly different from other frames (both close to and further away from any one in question).
    https://willamette.edu/undergraduate/ph ... rueger.pdf
A contemporary example which illustrates the same point
Hume makes here is the act of watching a movie.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi ... tations_mu
They seem to be saying something very different: that even if the world is happening continuously, we can only have impressions at intervals. (Which is well-known today, I'd add that the intervals are probably most closely linked to the frequency of brainwaves, roughly between 1-100 Hz.)
Hume wrote:It has been remark’d by a great philosopher that our perceptions have certain bounds in this particular, which are fix’d by the original nature and constitution of the mind, and beyond which no influence of external objects on the senses is ever able to hasten or retard our thought. If you wheel about a burning coal with rapidity, it will present to the senses an image of a circle of fire; nor will there seem to be any interval of time betwixt its revolutions; merely because ‘tis impossible for our perceptions to succeed each other with the same rapidity, that motion may be communicated to external objects. Whenever we have no successive perceptions, we have no notion of time, even tho’ there be a real succession in the objects. Time cannot make its appearance to the mind, either alone, or attended with a steady unchangeable object, but is always discover’d by some perceivable succession of changeable objects (T 1.2.3.7).
A contemporary example which illustrates the same point Hume makes here is the act of watching a movie. The movements of characters in motion pictures seem to be continuous and smooth. In reality, however, a motion picture consists of a succession of individual motionless pictures that are projected onto a screen at a rate too rapid for the mind to notice the individual frames. The mind does not notice the temporal interval between each frame because that interval is too short for the mind to experience. That interval is below the threshold required for the experience of time. The mind cannot distinguish between temporal intervals that occur too quickly to reach the threshold, just as it cannot distinguish between a thousandth and a ten thousandth part of a grain of sand. When one watches a movie, one thinks one perceives continuous motion, not individual frames being projected at a high rate of speed. When one watches a burning coal being spun very rapidly, one thinks one sees a steady wheel of fire, not one burning coal changing location very rapidly. The mind cannot subdivide a movie into its individual frames, or the wheel of fire into the different spatial locations the coal occupies, because these phenomena happen so quickly that they fail to reach the minimum threshold required for the mind to experience them.
Incompetent gnat
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Sculptor »

Here's the really annoying quote..
Hume’s skeptical claim here is that we have no valid conception of the existence of external things (Treatise, 1.2.6.9).
This idea does not even appear in the enitire section I,2.
Nothing of the kind can be found there.
It's like VA's source is just picking numbers at random.
All Hume is doing in this section is deciding the best way to divide the topic to explain the roles of ideas and impressions..

I quote
SECTION II.: Division of the subject.
Since it appears, that our simple impressions are prior to their correspondent ideas, and that the exceptions are very rare, method seems to require we should examine our impressions, before we consider our ideas. Impressions may be divided into two kinds, those of Sensation and those of Reflexion. The first kind arises in the soul originally, from unknown causes. The second is derived in a great measure from our ideas, and that in the following order. An impression first strikes upon the senses, and makes us perceive heat or cold, thirst or hunger, pleasure or pain of some kind or other. Of this impression there is a copy taken by the mind, which remains after the impression ceases; and this we call an idea. This idea of pleasure or pain, when it returns upon the soul, produces the new impressions of desire and aversion, hope and fear, which may properly be called impressions of reflexion, because derived from it. These again are copied by the memory and imagination, and become ideas; which perhaps in their turn give rise to other impressions and ideas. So that the impressions of reflexion are only antecedent to their correspondent ideas; but posterior to those of sensation, and deriv’d from them. The examination of our sensations belongs more to anatomists and natural philosophers than to moral; and therefore shall not at present be enter’d upon. And as the impressions of reflexion, viz. passions, desires, and emotions, which principally deserve our attention, arise mostly from ideas, ’twill be necessary to reverse that method, which at first sight seems most natural; and in order to explain the nature and principles of the human mind, give a particular account of ideas, before we proceed to impressions. For this reason I have here chosen to begin with ideas.
At no point does Hume question or assert validity.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Iwannaplato »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 9:24 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:46 am Strawman.
Kant as with Hume agreed with the film analogy.
I wonder what their favorite films were.
Must have been something with handshadows on a barn wall or the like.
Atla
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Atla »

Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:22 am
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 9:24 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 8:46 am Strawman.
Kant as with Hume agreed with the film analogy.
I wonder what their favorite films were.
Must have been something with handshadows on a barn wall or the like.
Some blockbuster about Buddha sitting under a tree and realizing the power of the FSK-proper, but with explosions, I guess.
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Iwannaplato »

Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:27 am
Iwannaplato wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 10:22 am
Atla wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 9:24 am
I wonder what their favorite films were.
Must have been something with handshadows on a barn wall or the like.
Some blockbuster about Buddha sitting under a tree and realizing the power of the FSK-proper, but with explosions, I guess.
Oh, I love Scorsese. I saw that one.
Atla
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Re: Hume: External World is a Fabrication

Post by Atla »

Hume’s skeptical claim here is that we have no valid conception of the existence of external things (Treatise, 1.2.6.9).
It's in Book 1 Part 2 Chapter 6
Hume wrote:Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are derived from something antecedently present to the mind ; it follows, that it is impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of anything specifically different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produced.

The furthest we can go towards a conception of external objects, when supposed specifically different from our perceptions, is to form a relative idea of them, without pretending to comprehend the related objects. Generally speaking, we do not suppose them specifically different; but only attribute to them different relations, connections, and durations. But of this more fully hereafter.
Keeping in mind that he was a pre-Kantian empiricist so he only relied on perceptions (which is incorrect), to me this looks like an OK early take on the inherent unknowability of the external world, if there is one (which unknowability is probably not entirely correct either).
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