Philosophy Now Forum

VVilliam wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:50 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:14 pm

VVilliam wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:31 pm

I understand that humans are not who they think they are, and it is this identity crisis which leads to incorrect understand as to the nature of reality.

Humans are just 'skins' or "suits" which are worn by entities who created this virtual reality. We are possibly or even probably those entities who created this VR and the mistake made is that - not knowing this - we mistake ourselves as the experience rather than those who are having the experience ...and this notion is further reinforced by beliefs that our consciousness emerges from brain-matter.

This is the same thing as your referencing "Mistaking the map for the terrain"

Is there any evidence for the VR claim? Maybe I missed it. It seems to me just a tech-update of Descartes' malicious demon. But, as we're constantly reminded, people will believe any old cobblers.

Science is being done regarding the possibility we exist within some type of VR, yes. Plenty of information on the internet for those interested. One such article paper can be read here.

Thanks. I think 'science is being done' is closer to the truth than 'Humans are just 'skins' or "suits" which are worn by entities who created this virtual reality. We are possibly or even probably those entities who created this VR and the mistake made is that - not knowing this - we mistake ourselves as the experience rather than those who are having the experience ...and this notion is further reinforced by beliefs that our consciousness emerges from brain-matter...' which goes way beyond what we know.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 7:19 pm

VVilliam wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:50 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:14 pm

Is there any evidence for the VR claim? Maybe I missed it. It seems to me just a tech-update of Descartes' malicious demon. But, as we're constantly reminded, people will believe any old cobblers.

Science is being done regarding the possibility we exist within some type of VR, yes. Plenty of information on the internet for those interested. One such article paper can be read here.

Thanks. I think 'science is being done' is closer to the truth than 'Humans are just 'skins' or "suits" which are worn by entities who created this virtual reality. We are possibly or even probably those entities who created this VR and the mistake made is that - not knowing this - we mistake ourselves as the experience rather than those who are having the experience ...and this notion is further reinforced by beliefs that our consciousness emerges from brain-matter...' which goes way beyond what we know.

Of course. There is more that we don't yet know than there is that we do know. Small steps in science slowly and surely peels away the layers and reveals more and more about the nature of the reality we are experiencing and who we really are - as that which is doing the experiencing.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:10 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:06 am
Here is the perspective where humans are the co-creator of reality.
Create = to cause to come into being,
Reality [all there is] exists, i.e. emerges.
The fact is humanity [i.e. man] is a factor that cause reality into being.
Therefore, humans collectively are the co-creator of reality - all there is - thus including the universe.

Codswallop. Humans don't cause reality to come into being. Humans describe reality in different and changing ways. You mistake the description for the described - the map for the terrain. It's a fundamental - but fashionable - conceptual mistake.

You have to dig yourself out of your silo into the really real world.

Note this thread;
Humans are the Co-Creator of Reality They are In [2]
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32476

Note there are two senses of reality here,
1. The reality-as-it-is
2. The reality-as-it-is as described, verified, justified and agreed with consensus.

I posted the following therein;

• The reality-as-it-is comprises both the internal and external world as a whole.
  This wholeness of reality is "co-created" by humans collectively.
  
  No, humans did not exist prior to anything else.
  
  Your problem is, your focus is always from 'what-was' to 'what-IS'.
  What is most effective is to reflect top-down from 'WHAT-IS' [existing humans] to 'WHAT-WAS'.
  Then you will reach a point where Wittgenstein demanded you [and all] just literally
  shut-up!
  "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Here are your two claims.

1 What we call and describe as reality is a human, social construct.

2 We can empirically demonstrate the existence of facts - features of reality - and describe them contextually (within an 'FSK').

That's called wanting to have your cake and eat it. The existence of what can we empirically demonstrate? A thing we've caused to 'come into being'?

The claims of anti-realists detonate themselves, because they entail contradictions. Anti-realists don't have a leg to stand on.

Note my points above.

1 What we call and describe as reality is a human, social construct description where humans are the co-creators.

If you create a table, subsequently you of course can empirically demonstrate the existence of the table you created to any one who doubt its existence.

Where humans are co-creators of the reality - all there is - is reflected at a meta-level from ordinary conventional reality.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:06 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:10 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:06 am
Here is the perspective where humans are the co-creator of reality.
Create = to cause to come into being,
Reality [all there is] exists, i.e. emerges.
The fact is humanity [i.e. man] is a factor that cause reality into being.
Therefore, humans collectively are the co-creator of reality - all there is - thus including the universe.

Codswallop. Humans don't cause reality to come into being. Humans describe reality in different and changing ways. You mistake the description for the described - the map for the terrain. It's a fundamental - but fashionable - conceptual mistake.

You have to dig yourself out of your silo into the really real world.

Note this thread;
Humans are the Co-Creator of Reality They are In [2]
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32476

Note there are two senses of reality here,
1. The reality-as-it-is
2. The reality-as-it-is as described, verified, justified and agreed with consensus.

I posted the following therein;

• The reality-as-it-is comprises both the internal and external world as a whole.
  This wholeness of reality is "co-created" by humans collectively.
  
  No, humans did not exist prior to anything else.
  
  Your problem is, your focus is always from 'what-was' to 'what-IS'.
  What is most effective is to reflect top-down from 'WHAT-IS' [existing humans] to 'WHAT-WAS'.
  Then you will reach a point where Wittgenstein demanded you [and all] just literally
  shut-up!
  "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Here are your two claims.

1 What we call and describe as reality is a human, social construct.

2 We can empirically demonstrate the existence of facts - features of reality - and describe them contextually (within an 'FSK').

That's called wanting to have your cake and eat it. The existence of what can we empirically demonstrate? A thing we've caused to 'come into being'?

The claims of anti-realists detonate themselves, because they entail contradictions. Anti-realists don't have a leg to stand on.

Note my points above.

1 What we call and describe as reality is a human, social construct description where humans are the co-creators.

If you create a table, subsequently you of course can empirically demonstrate the existence of the table you created to any one who doubt its existence.

Where humans are co-creators of the reality - all there is - is reflected at a meta-level from ordinary conventional reality.

Ah, there's a meta-level which is different from ordinary, conventional reality. And is it at that level that a meta-language exists - one which is needed to define the truth-conditions of our ordinary, conventional language?

The trouble with mysticism like this is that you can come out with any old cobblers you like, and kid yourself (and, sadly, many others) that you're saying something interesting or significant. Philosophers and religious types have been doing it for millennia.

Question: at what level of reality does the empirical demonstration of facts operate? Are we demonstrating the existence of ordinary, conventional things - things we co-created and therefore know to exist in advance - or of meta-things - things-in-themselves, perhaps? I think we should be told.

Question: since verification and falsification are two sides of the same coin, isn't Popperian falsification as dodgy as logical positivist verification? Isn't the claim that a factual assertion is false equally nothing more than a so-called polished conjecture? I think we should be told.

Question: whither the empirical verification and justification of facts of any kind (...within a credible FSK...blah...blah), let alone so-called moral facts? I think we should be told.

(The Wittgenstein quotation comes at the end of the Tractatus, which he spent the rest of his life correcting - partly because the logical positivists misunderstood what he was saying.)

Peter Holmes, do you not understand the significance of that concave/convex mask image copied by Veritas Aequitas ?

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:25 pm Peter Holmes, do you not understand the significance of that concave/convex mask image copied by Veritas Aequitas ?

Belinda, make your claim, or set out your argument.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:04 pm Belinda, make your claim, or set out your argument.

That's prescriptive/normative behaviour.

Ah. The irony.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:25 pm Peter Holmes, do you not understand the significance of that concave/convex mask image copied by Veritas Aequitas ?

Belinda - in case I don't understand it, please would you spell out what it means, and its bearing on our argument.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:30 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:25 pm Peter Holmes, do you not understand the significance of that concave/convex mask image copied by Veritas Aequitas ?

Belinda - in case I don't understand it, please would you spell out what it means, and its bearing on our argument.

I suppose you are being sarcastic in which case you do know what it means, and what it signifies.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:13 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:30 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:25 pm Peter Holmes, do you not understand the significance of that concave/convex mask image copied by Veritas Aequitas ?

Belinda - in case I don't understand it, please would you spell out what it means, and its bearing on our argument.

I suppose you are being sarcastic in which case you do know what it means, and what it signifies.

I wasn't being sarcastic. To be honest, I didn't pay VA's post much attention, I'm afraid, because I'm reluctant to waste time reading his nonsense. But I just checked back - and, yes, his argument is nonsense once again. Here it is.

Who are humans to say what reality really is? How do we know that what we call reality really is reality? After all, we can be fooled by visual tricks. And if we were bats, we'd think reality was completely different.

Okay. So how do we get from this bombshell insight to the existence of moral facts? What's the argument - that we invent facts, so there's no reason why we can't or don't invent moral facts? And are they what we can empirically show to exist - things we invented in the first place?

If you can straighten out this mess and present a coherent account, please do. And then I'll show you why the argument is fallacious.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:57 am Ah, there's a meta-level which is different from ordinary, conventional reality. And is it at that level that a meta-language exists - one which is needed to define the truth-conditions of our ordinary, conventional language?

The trouble with mysticism like this is that you can come out with any old cobblers you like, and kid yourself (and, sadly, many others) that you're saying something interesting or significant. Philosophers and religious types have been doing it for millennia.

In the above, you are simply blabbering without arguments due to a triggered defense mechanism.
Note the theories of QM are very different from ordinary conventional reality, [condemned in the past as mysticism] but they are proven to be true and very useful.

Question: at what level of reality does the empirical demonstration of facts operate? Are we demonstrating the existence of ordinary, conventional things - things we co-created and therefore know to exist in advance - or of meta-things - things-in-themselves, perhaps? I think we should be told.

Note conventional reality deals with the obvious solid things. But when we look at molecules, atoms, quarks, they are at a meta-level from the ordinary.
Getting into the deeper meta-levels there is a problem of proving the external world and reality-in-itself exists as absolutely independent of the human conditions.

Can you prove the external world and reality-in-itself exists as absolutely independent of the human conditions?

Question: since verification and falsification are two sides of the same coin, isn't Popperian falsification as dodgy as logical positivist verification? Isn't the claim that a factual assertion is false equally nothing more than a so-called polished conjecture? I think we should be told.

The problem with the logical positivists is the claim of Scientism, i.e. a ideological claim.
Generally despite scientific facts as merely polished conjectures, what count is they had been very useful and contributed the the progress of humankind.

Question: whither the empirical verification and justification of facts of any kind (...within a credible FSK...blah...blah), let alone so-called moral facts? I think we should be told.

Whatever is to be claimed as credible facts, they must be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within a credible FSK, where the scientific FSK is the most credible and the standard bearer.

(The Wittgenstein quotation comes at the end of the Tractatus, which he spent the rest of his life correcting - partly because the logical positivists misunderstood what he was saying.)

So me where [references] did he spent his later life correcting that quote??

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 10:05 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:13 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:30 pm
Belinda - in case I don't understand it, please would you spell out what it means, and its bearing on our argument.

I suppose you are being sarcastic in which case you do know what it means, and what it signifies.

I wasn't being sarcastic. To be honest, I didn't pay VA's post much attention, I'm afraid, because I'm reluctant to waste time reading his nonsense. But I just checked back - and, yes, his argument is nonsense once again. Here it is.

Who are humans to say what reality really is? How do we know that what we call reality really is reality? After all, we can be fooled by visual tricks. And if we were bats, we'd think reality was completely different.

Okay. So how do we get from this bombshell insight to the existence of moral facts? What's the argument - that we invent facts, so there's no reason why we can't or don't invent moral facts? And are they what we can empirically show to exist - things we invented in the first place?

If you can straighten out this mess and present a coherent account, please do. And then I'll show you why the argument is fallacious.

As I had stated you are always arguing from a very shallow, narrow and ignorant database thus you inability to see how I had countered your views [3] in your original post, i.e.

• viewtopic.php?p=501704#p501704
  PH:
  Here are some exciting ideas.
  1 A thing can be described in many different ways.
  2 A description is always contextual and conventional.
  3 A description is not and can never be the thing being described.
  4 A description does not create or change the thing being described.
  
  And here's an exciting suggestion. Bear these facts in mind when thinking about 'holding a mirror up to nature' and 'things-in-themselves' and 'absolute reality' and 'polished conjectures' and 'epistemological foundations' and 'models being wrong but useful'. Hollow men. Headpiece filled with straw.

My argument effectively counter your claim that facts are independent of the human conditions, thus no independent moral facts.

My claim is facts are conditioned by a specific FSK [humanly constructed at the collective level] thus not independent of the human conditions.
In this case, we have moral facts specific to the moral FSK.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 10:05 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:13 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:30 pm
Belinda - in case I don't understand it, please would you spell out what it means, and its bearing on our argument.

I suppose you are being sarcastic in which case you do know what it means, and what it signifies.

I wasn't being sarcastic. To be honest, I didn't pay VA's post much attention, I'm afraid, because I'm reluctant to waste time reading his nonsense. But I just checked back - and, yes, his argument is nonsense once again. Here it is.

Who are humans to say what reality really is? How do we know that what we call reality really is reality? After all, we can be fooled by visual tricks. And if we were bats, we'd think reality was completely different.

Okay. So how do we get from this bombshell insight to the existence of moral facts? What's the argument - that we invent facts, so there's no reason why we can't or don't invent moral facts? And are they what we can empirically show to exist - things we invented in the first place?

If you can straighten out this mess and present a coherent account, please do. And then I'll show you why the argument is fallacious.

Sometimes we can't establish what is true and what false. This is because of 1. our understanding is limited as the convex/concave picture demonstrates. And 2. sometimes we cannot know all the relevant causes of an event.

Because of our perennial lack of understanding we understand some events emotionally . When you call a judgement a moral fact what is happening is you feel it subjectively and either blame or praise based on your own feelings.

Any individual's own feelings are conditioned by a compound of her nurture
and her nature.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 10:24 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 10:05 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:13 pm
I suppose you are being sarcastic in which case you do know what it means, and what it signifies.

I wasn't being sarcastic. To be honest, I didn't pay VA's post much attention, I'm afraid, because I'm reluctant to waste time reading his nonsense. But I just checked back - and, yes, his argument is nonsense once again. Here it is.

Who are humans to say what reality really is? How do we know that what we call reality really is reality? After all, we can be fooled by visual tricks. And if we were bats, we'd think reality was completely different.

Okay. So how do we get from this bombshell insight to the existence of moral facts? What's the argument - that we invent facts, so there's no reason why we can't or don't invent moral facts? And are they what we can empirically show to exist - things we invented in the first place?

If you can straighten out this mess and present a coherent account, please do. And then I'll show you why the argument is fallacious.

Sometimes we can't establish what is true and what false. This is because of 1. our understanding is limited as the convex/concave picture demonstrates. And 2. sometimes we cannot know all the relevant causes of an event.

Because of our perennial lack of understanding we understand some events emotionally . When you call a judgement a moral fact what is happening is you feel it subjectively and either blame or praise based on your own feelings.

Any individual's own feelings are conditioned by a compound of her nurture
and her nature.

I agree that we can feel there are moral facts. And I think that's where the claim that there are moral facts comes from. And I agree that sometimes we can't tell if a factual assertion is true or false, in context. But the crux is whether a moral assertion has a truth-value at all - whether its function is to make a truth-claim about reality. And I don't think that's its function.

The analogy with aesthetic assertions is very precise. To say 'this is beautiful' is to express an opinion - a value-judgement. The claim that the thing's beauty is a fact - say, a property - of that thing, so that the claim that it's not beautiful is false - is false. And the invention of an 'aesthetic framework and system of knowledge' doesn't confer factuality, and therefore objectivity, on aesthetic assertions. It just means: against this standard of beauty, this thing is beautiful and is not not beautiful.

And this is nothing like the claim: against this use of the word 'red', this colour patch is red. The idea that we use the word red in the way we use the word beautiful is a nomenclaturist delusion that goes like this: 'red' and 'beauty' are both nouns, so they must both be names of something; 'red' and 'beautiful' are both adjectives, so they must both label properties that exist.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:48 am And this is nothing like the claim: against this use of the word 'red', this colour patch is red. The idea that we use the word red in the way we use the word beautiful is a nomenclaturist delusion that goes like this: 'red' and 'beauty' are both nouns, so they must both be names of something; 'red' and 'beautiful' are both adjectives, so they must both label properties that exist.

Who cares if "red" and "beauty" are verbs, adjectives or nouns? You keep telling us this has nothing to do with language.
And then (like the intellectually dishonest cuntwaffle that you are) you keep nitpicking grammar/nomenclature.

The statement "Murder is wrong" expresses an assertion.
The statement "This is red" expresses an assertion.
The statement "2+2=4" expresses an assertion.
This sentence assert that it expresses an assertion.

All statements are assertions, but you insist that some assertions have additional properties/qualities over and above being assertions. You insist that some assertions are "objective", and some assertions are "subjective". So go ahead and justify that distinction.

Sure sounds like you are committing a bunch of fallacies all at once: Begging the question, special pleading.