Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:22 pm**

And I can contrast that against something I wouldn't call reality: a dream state.

The reason a dream state isn't reality is for 2 reasons:

1. The people you bump into in your dream, as far as we can tell, don't also have a first person experience. So when you bump into another, you're not bumping into another real mind, you're just bumping into the image of a person you've created, a cardboard cutout.

But 1 alone isn't enough to make it not reality - after all, a reality could be populated by only 1 mind - you also need

2. A lack of consistent rules. In a dream state, there doesn't seem to be any rigid structure to how things operate. Things and people can appear and disappear with no warning, no reason, and no context. In fact, the entire context of your dream can change at a moment's notice. I recall dreams where I was running away from a murderous witch down a set of stairs, and suddenly I see my wife on the stair case, and the dream suddenly transitions to being a really peaceful one where I'm just exploring a house with my wife. It's not that the witch disappeared, it's that at the moment I saw my wife, it's as if the witch wasn't there to begin with. My fear was gone, everything that led me to that moment was gone and replaced by a new experience, a new context, a new past.

And I'm not even super committed to the idea that the dream state isn't a reality of sorts either, but it certainly seems to be the sort of reality where we couldn't discover things like h2o using similar tools to science. At least not in my dreams.

Posted: **Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm**

I've been following this discussion with interest. Thanks to both. I want to ask these questions.

1 Does the fact that we can experience - and therefore describe - what we call reality only in a human way mean that we can can never know what real reality is really like, and that that 'real' reality didn't exist before we turned up, and won't exist after we're gone?

2 Do what we call facts exist only within a framework and system of knowledge (FSK)? For example, does a chemistry fact exist only because chemistry discourse exists?

3 Does the fact that a factual truth-claim must exist within a descriptive context (an FSK) mean that any kind of description can, as it were, 'produce' facts?

4 Can there be moral facts?

I understand your wish not to dismiss VA's argument - that you may think it has a 'kernel of truth'. But my questions focus on the nub of VA's argument for moral objectivity, which I think deserves only dismissal. Please explain why I'm wrong, and how the kernel of truth may contribute to showing why I'm wrong.

Posted: **Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pm**

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm

1 Does the fact that we can experience - and therefore describe - what we call reality only in a human way mean that we can can never know what real reality is really like, and that that 'real' reality didn't exist before we turned up, and won't exist after we're gone?

Well, first of all I'd separate the question of if we can know reality, from the question of if reality exists independently from us. One can be true and the other false independent of each other.

I definitely think our grasp on reality has potential limitations, but I think our models can be tethered to real truths - I'm sticking with that wording. It's not that our model is true, but there can be aspects of our model that, if we were able as a God to see into the universe, we would say "yeah, that's... pretty close to what's really going on". And that's enough for me. That's enough for me to say "that model is true" or at least "that model is touching on truths".

I don't think reality didn't exist prior to us turning up. I don't think reality relies on us to notice it.

2 Do what we call facts exist only within a framework and system of knowledge (FSK)? For example, does a chemistry fact exist only because chemistry discourse exists?

Yes and no at the same time, I suppose.

Everything, possibly including even the most basic particles we can talk about, are emergent. Quantum mechanics tells us that the base layer of reality doesn't operate on particles themselves, like electrons and protons, but on the evolution of configuration states of electrons and protons, and how those configurations can interfere with each other. At least, that's my (slightly educated) take.

And if you're a pure reductionist, nothing exists except the base layer.

And if you're a reductionist but not quite so pure, like me, you can accept the reality of the base layer, and also the reality of emergent layers.

The source code of the universe makes no reference to an atom. It might not even make reference to a photon. But they emerge from the base layers, consistently, so I think there's something real about them anyway. And the base layers still result in rules - emergent rules - for how atoms are likely to interact. And I still count that as a fact - and a fact that even a god with perfect knowledge of the system would recognize. Not an invariant fact, perhaps, but a recognizable pattern in the system, a pattern that really does happen for real.

3 Does the fact that a factual truth-claim must exist within a descriptive context (an FSK) mean that any kind of description can, as it were, 'produce' facts?

Not sure what this means

4 Can there be moral facts?

I'm not sure, but I'm leaning on a literal no with room for some contextual yes.

Posted: **Thu Aug 18, 2022 8:06 pm**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:14 pm Right, so we all believe that at the very least, we're bumping into each other somehow, including apparently him - even he believes that.

This space that we share that allows us to bump into each other - whatever it really looks like, whatever it really is underneath it all - that's what I call reality.

And even if it's a simulation, if we're all still really here feeling these things, it's still reality. The precise nature of our shared reality doesn't necessarily make it not-reality.

Like, let's imagine that all of this is in God's mind, and it's him experiencing his own mental creation through all of our eyes in turn - I still call that reality. We still share this space, we still experience things and bump into each other, and this space still apparently has rules. That's reality. Even if it's "god's imagination", it's reality.

There are cases where I don't like words to be too loosely defined because it gets in the way of saying anything meaningful, but I think the word "reality" is one of the places where we have to allow a loose definition like this. Where even things like "god's imagination" count.

I'm an atheist, for the record, I'm just illustrating what I think is an acceptable scope for the term reality.

Yes, to this.

For me it's easy to take the tack that H20 doesn't exist without us. You can take something like the line I took earlier.
But the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
You can't then post with a couple of links to articles about mirror neurons in brains and then universalize about what we are all doing or should be doing. Because to him, we are ding an sich. And our minds!!?? that's even further away.

You can't then tell us what our perception is. Which he does. To do that assumes that we are all alike. But we are ding an sich. Our perception is beyond his perception.

He doesn't seem to realize that his idea about water also holds for mirror neurons and also holds for models about everyone's perception.

And why does he get nasty about people who he, according to himself, he never has direct contact with and only has implied knowledge of?

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:41 am**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 7:01 am You haven't really refuted the common sense view, you've just declared it not rational.

Common sense [archaic: vulgar sense] is often contrasted to the more rational conventional sense like rational & critical thinking, scientific thinking, and the likes.
As such what is there to refute.

With more refined thinking,
upon whatever is experienced or inferred via common sense, etc.,
a hypothesis is formed,
then it is tested with via verification and justification with the related empirical evidence,
whatever is inferred is subjected to peer review.
Surely it is obvious this is very different from common sense [vulgar sense] where anything goes.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:39 am**

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:47 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 3:10 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:41 am Right, so I get that there's a model in our minds, and I get that that model may not match reality as it is, and usually doesn't in fact,
........
but the common sense interpretation is that there is *something* that exists, that we are bumping up against when we drink and touch water, and our models are deeper and deeper attempts at understanding just what that something is.
.......
Reality is messy, but there's something really there, and I think we're doing a remarkably good job at prodding into it to discover real truths, whatever that means.
Note you are relying "there is *something*" merely on "common sense" which is most unreliable and irrational mode of knowledge. As such you have to downgrade your views on this.

The fact is 99.9% of humans [even Einstein and his likes] will naturally conclude spontaneously "there is *something*" out there based on common sense and if philosophically this is metaphysical realism. This is a critical necessity for humans to facilitate survival relative to past and current conditions, thus it is instinctive and psychologically driven.

But humans has also evolved to think and reflect rationally, deeply & widely. It is from such that the common sense "there is *something* in itself" do not make rational sense.

Since common sense naturally has failed to pass rational senses, it would be more effective to confine such ideas of "there is *something* in itself" relative to its conditions and necessity, i.e. not to insist it is the absolute truth.

The point is the deeper thought that that the 'thing-in-itself' is illusory is more effective and the idea of the emergent reality is more realistic.
Emergent reality is not as PH & gang conjectured [turned up with humans] but is conditioned upon a 13 billion years since the Big Bang [given your nic, you may not agree] emerged.

At least you critiqued my ideas with some reservations, in contrast to the other ignorant fools who condemned my views outright without any reservations.
If, as I agree, there's no such thing as absolute truth - because the expression is incoherent - then there's no contrast between absolute truth and (what we call) truth.

And, by exactly the same argument: if, as I agree, there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself - because the expression is incoherent - then there's no contrast between a thing-in-itself and (what we call) a thing.

Yet VA's (supposedly Kantian) argument depends on both rejecting and invoking these fantasy distinctions.

'There are no such things as absolute truth or things-in-themselves. So you're fools to think that what you call truth and things are absolute truth and things-in-themselves.'

But we don't. We have no idea what absolute truth and things-in-themselves could possibly be. Like VA, we deny their existence. But VA is distractedly fond of his straw twins.

PH:'There are no such things as absolute truth or things-in-themselves. So you're fools to think that what you call truth and things are absolute truth and things-in-themselves.'
You are calling yourself a 'fool'.

You are ignorant of what your own thinking and believing in terms of knowledge and reality.

Note definition of absolute;

-viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative.
-PHILOSOPHY: a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid or which may be viewed without relation to other things.
google dictionary

Now, you are claiming facts as feature of reality and its truths exist independently and not relation to the human conditions, i.e. individual[s] beliefs and opinion.
In other words the truths and facts you are claiming are absolute [as defined] truths.
As such to be precise your truth is a truth-in-itself independent of any individual opinions and beliefs.
You may not like the term 'absolute' for whatever reasons, but you cannot deny your facts and truths are in the absolute sense independent of the human conditions.

How can you claim you do not believe in a thing-in-itself aka noumenom, when it is so glaring that you do.
You claim your facts and truths are independent of individual's opinion and beliefs which is absolute, that they exists even when there are no humans.
A thing-in-itself aka noumenom is independent of individual's opinion and beliefs.
So you believe in a thing-in-itself that is independent of individual's opinion and beliefs.

Note my post in;
The in-it-self thing cannot exist
viewtopic.php?p=590315#p590315

Instead of dealing with a various views of the points below,
1. this kind of thing has mind-independent existence
2. exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding
3. reality exists independent of the mind
Kant categorized them as things-in-themselves, or a thing-in-itself aka noumenom.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 am**

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:41 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 7:01 am You haven't really refuted the common sense view, you've just declared it not rational.
Common sense [archaic: vulgar sense] is often contrasted to the more rational conventional sense like rational & critical thinking, scientific thinking, and the likes.
As such what is there to refute.

With more refined thinking,
upon whatever is experienced or inferred via common sense, etc.,
a hypothesis is formed,
then it is tested with via verification and justification with the related empirical evidence,
whatever is inferred is subjected to peer review.
Surely it is obvious this is very different from common sense [vulgar sense] where anything goes.

But your position is that the stuff we learn about the world through testing and empirical evidence and peer review isn't even is bumping up against reality, and it might as well basically have nothing to do with reality, so... I really have no idea why you're contrasting common sense against that.

I mean, to the contrary, the common sense view is that all of that stuff you just said does tell us truths of sorts. If you don't think those things tell us truths, then why are you bringing them up at all?

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 6:13 am**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:44 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:41 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 7:01 am You haven't really refuted the common sense view, you've just declared it not rational.
Common sense [archaic: vulgar sense] is often contrasted to the more rational conventional sense like rational & critical thinking, scientific thinking, and the likes.
As such what is there to refute.

With more refined thinking,
upon whatever is experienced or inferred via common sense, etc.,
a hypothesis is formed,
then it is tested with via verification and justification with the related empirical evidence,
whatever is inferred is subjected to peer review.
Surely it is obvious this is very different from common sense [vulgar sense] where anything goes.
But your position is that the stuff we learn about the world through testing and empirical evidence and peer review isn't even is bumping up against reality, and it might as well basically have nothing to do with reality, so... I really have no idea why you're contrasting common sense against that.

I mean, to the contrary, the common sense view is that all of that stuff you just said does tell us truths of sorts. If you don't think those things tell us truths, then why are you bringing them up at all?

Note the OP, i.e. things do not exist independently by itself.
When you relied on common sense one can conclude the following;
1. common sense things exist independently by itself
2. common sense things can be confirmed to be more true via Science, and other modes [FSKs].

Now when you referred to things existing via common sense, your answer is ambiguous which can either be 1 or 2.
If it is 1, then you have to prove it can exists independently by itself; when you resort to proof or justification, it is no more via common sense.

What is common sense, i.e. via the five senses and crude reasonings cannot confirm any truth that is credible.
Whatever is claimed from the basis of common sense is vulnerable to being sense illusions, or influenced by mental illness.

Thus to claim any truth upon common sense is too flimsy and anyone can do it without limitations an open to consensus by anyone.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:54 am**

The OP is more specific than the question of "can things exist independently by themselves". It's, "things can exist independently of human beings".

But you've already said you don't think things discoverable through the scientific method are real, so why are you countering my common sense support of scientific discoveries by mentioning parts of the scientific method?

I'm saying common sense is pro-science. So pointing out the rigorousness of the scientific method isn't AGAINST my common sense argument, it's for it! I'm arguing for scientific discoveries, and so are you!

If you don't think you're bumping up against reality when you read the words on your screen, then what or who do you think you're talking to right now? Do you think these words were generated by a real thinking human with thoughts and feelings akin to your own, or ... what?

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 10:49 am**

bobmax wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 7:07 am
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:20 am VA

Prove that H2O-in-itself didn't exist as real by itself before it emerged as a fact entangled with the human conditions as conditioned within a credible chemistry framework and system of knowledge.
H2O in-it-self exists neither before nor now nor ever.

Because what is in itself does not depend on anything other than itself.
While what exists exists precisely because it refers to something else.

It is always something else that establishes existence.

That which has no foundation other than itself does not exist.

What, to you, does the Universe, Itself, have as a foundation other than Itself?

What is the other thing, to you, establishes existence?

And,

What else, to you, does the Universe, Itself, depend upon?

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 10:54 am**

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:47 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 3:10 am
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:41 am Right, so I get that there's a model in our minds, and I get that that model may not match reality as it is, and usually doesn't in fact,
........
but the common sense interpretation is that there is *something* that exists, that we are bumping up against when we drink and touch water, and our models are deeper and deeper attempts at understanding just what that something is.
.......
Reality is messy, but there's something really there, and I think we're doing a remarkably good job at prodding into it to discover real truths, whatever that means.
Note you are relying "there is *something*" merely on "common sense" which is most unreliable and irrational mode of knowledge. As such you have to downgrade your views on this.

The fact is 99.9% of humans [even Einstein and his likes] will naturally conclude spontaneously "there is *something*" out there based on common sense and if philosophically this is metaphysical realism. This is a critical necessity for humans to facilitate survival relative to past and current conditions, thus it is instinctive and psychologically driven.

But humans has also evolved to think and reflect rationally, deeply & widely. It is from such that the common sense "there is *something* in itself" do not make rational sense.

Since common sense naturally has failed to pass rational senses, it would be more effective to confine such ideas of "there is *something* in itself" relative to its conditions and necessity, i.e. not to insist it is the absolute truth.

The point is the deeper thought that that the 'thing-in-itself' is illusory is more effective and the idea of the emergent reality is more realistic.
Emergent reality is not as PH & gang conjectured [turned up with humans] but is conditioned upon a 13 billion years since the Big Bang [given your nic, you may not agree] emerged.

At least you critiqued my ideas with some reservations, in contrast to the other ignorant fools who condemned my views outright without any reservations.
If, as I agree, there's no such thing as absolute truth - because the expression is incoherent - then there's no contrast between absolute truth and (what we call) truth.

Why, to you, are the two words 'absolute truth' together, incoherent?

They are not incoherent, to me.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:47 am And, by exactly the same argument: if, as I agree, there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself - because the expression is incoherent - then there's no contrast between a thing-in-itself and (what we call) a thing.

Yet VA's (supposedly Kantian) argument depends on both rejecting and invoking these fantasy distinctions.

'There are no such things as absolute truth or things-in-themselves. So you're fools to think that what you call truth and things are absolute truth and things-in-themselves.'

But we don't. We have no idea what absolute truth and things-in-themselves could possibly be.

When you say 'we' here, who is included in this 'we'?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:47 am Like VA, we deny their existence. But VA is distractedly fond of his straw twins.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 10:59 am**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 2:43 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:41 am Right, so I get that there's a model in our minds, and I get that that model may not match reality as it is, and usually doesn't in fact,

but the common sense interpretation is that there is *something* that exists,
I tend to agree.

How could anyone disagree?

Is there anyone here who claims that there is not some 'thing' existing?

If yes, then why, exactly?

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:47 am And I truly doubt that the implications of taking the other position are ones that VA is ready to defend. He wants to use scientific research conclusions when he sees fit and those of course generally assume both the existence of not only dich an sich but futher that their research is about the ding an sich.

that we are bumping up against when we drink and touch water, and our models are deeper and deeper attempts at understanding just what that something is.
Yes, and wise of you to go for touch contact. I notice a habit of most people who want to deny the existence of an independent reality to focus on vision and color. With that we can have a qualia party, but it's a whole different thing with tactile sensing. I tend to use a running through a field with clumps of grass and holes and how I do better than blind people, especially newly blind people. It seems like my seeing, even, is giving me information about ding an sich.

If we put quantum mechanics aside for a moment, I think we have a lot of really solid evidence that our model of atoms and how they form bonds with each other is not JUST a model, but that it has a strong tethering to something that *really is happening*. In fact, that's largely the point of the development of this model in the first place.
Yes, I am not denying chemistry or saying there is a good position to do so. It's more like conceding that when we refer to things, the images we have in our minds and our sense of what they are may have nothing to do with what they are like. That we can make salt out of sodium and chloride doesn't get ruined by this. I am often a kind of pragmatist in relation to knowledge. So, in a way I don't care about ontology. I don't have VA's position, because his is ontological.

It was a bad tactic on his side. He could have simply been agnostic

I know some people like to take the very philosophical approach to say that science isn't about discovering truths about how the world works, but just about developing models that make useful predictions. There's validity to that, but if you've ever read the writings of real scientists, plenty of them are really and truly drawn by the idea of understanding reality, real reality. It's naive, perhaps, when compared against the ultra pragmatic view of science as a useful tool that doesn't tell strict truths, but that naivety is pervasive among the most intelligent, most accomplished scientists, the biggest drivers of scientific advancement.
And you take up similar issues here. I should have waited to read. Well, it's mainly the physicists for obvious reasons who are much more open to ontological surprises and variety. And many of the best drivers there had ideas and models that radically challenge most people's realism
In any case, here we are in a philosophy forum, so it seems to me if he was clear and consistant his positions would not be ridiculous. And I think a real dialogue could take place.

And so our atomic model is in that vein. Yes, it is a model, but the functioning of that model and the root of it may still be literally and naively correct. And the success of the model - and it has indeed been remarkably successful - is further indication that the model has some real tethering to what's really going on.
I think actually the physicists might not agree with that. Of course, they're a diverse bunch, but I think they would see the model as effective for some things, but ontologically off.

I accept a moderately naive vision of reality. I accept the reality of weakly emergent phenomena. I accept that, when a model has as much evidence as atoms do, that that model is probably saying something really true about reality. My exact mental picture of it almost certainly doesn't identically resemble what's really happening, but I think there's enough reason to think that aspects of the model are basically and generally naively correct.

Reality is messy, but there's something really there, and I think we're doing a remarkably good job at prodding into it to discover real truths, whatever that means.
I generally agree, though as with a fluid, variable ontology that as a pragmatist I am not very attached to.

My main point in bringing things up is that as long as people are going to regularly interact with VA, it might be useful to find the best possible explanation of what he is saying.

That when we refer to and think about reality we are thinking and refering to 'things' that are a mingling of our advanced primate minds filters, sensory organs, our time bound nature (we experience time in sequence, not say as a block universe). Even all scientists have a kind of shared subjectivity in how they refer to things and how they must experience them given our bodies and minds. This does not mean that scientific knowledge is merely subjective, just that the phenomena (that interaction, the experiences of reality) is specifically human. And when we talk about it, we are always talking about something that is a mix of us and it.

I think in some way VA believes something like this. It is not totally wrong, has seeds of something important in it. Not for an organic chemist analysing a hormone in a new species of orchid, but for philosophers and people dealing with ontology. The position itself is not in the least a threat to that chemist's work.

So, if VA gets dismissed, he thinks you are missing a lot of stuff. Much less of it has value than he thinks, but his stubborness may have a seed of validity in it.

And obviously note: I am not sending bits of advice to VA. He doesn't read me, but I probably wouldn't anyway. I don't think he can tweak his communication approach.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:07 am**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:14 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 4:59 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 3:08 pm And the fact that he's talking to me means, in a pragmatic sense, he lives in that other 50% as well. I assume he doesn't believe he's talking to a figment of his imagination.
I took this tack in response to him once. I think it is an interesting one. And for anyone who has a belief system in that group. I don't think it's the magic bullet, but it definitely needs to be dealt with ESPECIALLY since he is always telling us about our beliefs, our brains, what is going on inside us and so on.
Right, so we all believe that at the very least, we're bumping into each other somehow, including apparently him - even he believes that.

This space that we share that allows us to bump into each other - whatever it really looks like, whatever it really is underneath it all - that's what I call reality.

And even if it's a simulation, if we're all still really here feeling these things, it's still reality. The precise nature of our shared reality doesn't necessarily make it not-reality.

Like, let's imagine that all of this is in God's mind, and it's him experiencing his own mental creation through all of our eyes in turn - I still call that reality. We still share this space, we still experience things and bump into each other, and this space still apparently has rules. That's reality. Even if it's "god's imagination", it's reality.

There are cases where I don't like words to be too loosely defined because it gets in the way of saying anything meaningful, but I think the word "reality" is one of the places where we have to allow a loose definition like this. Where even things like "god's imagination" count.

I'm an atheist, for the record, I'm just illustrating what I think is an acceptable scope for the term reality.

When words are specifically defined and used, then what the REAL and True Picture looks like becomes crystal clear. The word 'reality' is just another word that, when specifically defined, fits perfectly into the one unified Reality.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:20 am**

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm I've been following this discussion with interest. Thanks to both. I want to ask these questions.

1 Does the fact that we can experience - and therefore describe - what we call reality only in a human way mean that we can can never know what real reality is really like, and that that 'real' reality didn't exist before we turned up, and won't exist after we're gone?

The 'real' Reality can be, and is, known.

Reality has always existed is existing, and will always exist.

"veritas aequitas" just uses 'in-itself' in a very specific and particular way. Just like EVERY one of 'you' uses words and terms in your own very specific and particular way. Thus the reason why there was still some confusion, in the days when this was being written.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm 2 Do what we call facts exist only within a framework and system of knowledge (FSK)? For example, does a chemistry fact exist only because chemistry discourse exists?

A 'fact' is just a thing known to be true.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm 3 Does the fact that a factual truth-claim must exist within a descriptive context (an FSK) mean that any kind of description can, as it were, 'produce' facts?

If a kind of description does not fit in with how one already defines some 'thing', then that kind of description will not produce facts, to that one.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm 4 Can there be moral facts?

Yes.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm I understand your wish not to dismiss VA's argument - that you may think it has a 'kernel of truth'. But my questions focus on the nub of VA's argument for moral objectivity, which I think deserves only dismissal. Please explain why I'm wrong, and how the kernel of truth may contribute to showing why I'm wrong.

But you are NOT 'wrong', with the way you describe and define words. Just like "veritas aequitas" is NOT 'wrong', and just like ALL of 'you' are NOT 'wrong'. When 'you' form so-called 'arguments' here, they are NOT 'wrong' because of the way 'you' each describe and define the words 'you' use in those 'arguments'.

Posted: **Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:34 am**

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:24 pm
1 Does the fact that we can experience - and therefore describe - what we call reality only in a human way mean that we can can never know what real reality is really like, and that that 'real' reality didn't exist before we turned up, and won't exist after we're gone?

Well, first of all I'd separate the question of if we can know reality, from the question of if reality exists independently from us. One can be true and the other false independent of each other.

Just define the word 'reality' and if that definition includes the 'things' that MUST OF EXISTED BEFORE human beings came into Existence, then, OBVIOUSLY, 'reality' exists independently from 'you', human beings. However, and just as OBVIOUS, if the word 'reality' is being defined differently, then that could mean that 'reality' could NOT exist independently from 'you', human beings.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pm I definitely think our grasp on reality has potential limitations, but I think our models can be tethered to real truths - I'm sticking with that wording. It's not that our model is true, but there can be aspects of our model that, if we were able as a God to see into the universe, we would say "yeah, that's... pretty close to what's really going on". And that's enough for me. That's enough for me to say "that model is true" or at least "that model is touching on truths".

What people BELIEVE is true, then influences what they are capable of seeing and NOT seeing.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pmI don't think reality didn't exist prior to us turning up. I don't think reality relies on us to notice it.

2 Do what we call facts exist only within a framework and system of knowledge (FSK)? For example, does a chemistry fact exist only because chemistry discourse exists?

Yes and no at the same time, I suppose.

Everything, possibly including even the most basic particles we can talk about, are emergent. Quantum mechanics tells us that the base layer of reality doesn't operate on particles themselves, like electrons and protons, but on the evolution of configuration states of electrons and protons, and how those configurations can interfere with each other. At least, that's my (slightly educated) take.

You seem to be of the belief that so-called "quantum mechanics" already knows the 'base layer' of 'reality'.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pmAnd if you're a pure reductionist, nothing exists except the base layer.

But the so-called 'base layer' has been continually changing with the evolution of 'you', human beings.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pmAnd if you're a reductionist but not quite so pure, like me, you can accept the reality of the base layer, and also the reality of emergent layers.

But they WILL change. So, what this means that what you 'accept' CHANGES, also.

Here we have another example of just how often people used to just 'accept' what the majority told them and said.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pmThe source code of the universe makes no reference to an atom. It might not even make reference to a photon. But they emerge from the base layers, consistently, so I think there's something real about them anyway.

All that has been done here is just CHANGE the so-called 'base layer' from 'electrons and protons' to some convoluted term like, 'the evolution of configuration states of electrons and protons'.

Also the wording, 'the reality of the base layer', when the 'base layer' is into 'reality', itself, is just circular reasoning.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pmAnd the base layers still result in rules - emergent rules - for how atoms are likely to interact. And I still count that as a fact - and a fact that even a god with perfect knowledge of the system would recognize.

What does the 'emergent' word even mean or refer to, to you here?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:40 pmNot an invariant fact, perhaps, but a recognizable pattern in the system, a pattern that really does happen for real.

3 Does the fact that a factual truth-claim must exist within a descriptive context (an FSK) mean that any kind of description can, as it were, 'produce' facts?

Not sure what this means

4 Can there be moral facts?

I'm not sure, but I'm leaning on a literal no with room for some contextual yes.

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