Philosophy Now Forum

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Bear with me, Dear Reader, for restating the obvious before I introduce a thought experiment.

In more than one post in this thread, you have seen a claim worded somewhat like one of the following statements:
There are no things or objects that are absolutely independent of the human conditions.
There is nothing real that is absolutely independent of human beings.
Everything that is real is in some fashion dependent on humans.

I’ll come back to those statements at the end of this post. For now, Dear Reader, I’m inviting you to play a little mind game with me.
Imagine yourself taking a walk along a street. A blue car approaches at the same time that a brown Mercedes sedan passes you by.
Shortly, the Mercedes approaching you disappears. It’s just disappeared. But when you turn your head to look over your shoulder, it reappears.
Everything you think you are observing is actually a figment of your imagination that disappears when you are not observing it.

While this is probably not the case IRL, you cannot know whether you, Dear Reader, are the only actual person, the only actual thing, in the universe. Everything else might be an image of your own imagination’s making.
And while you may believe that this is not the case, you can never be sure. You can’t prove that anything continues to exist when you are not witnessing it. There are no persons, objects or things that do not depend on your sensing them in some way.

"you cannot know whether you, Dear Reader, are the only actual person, the only actual thing, in the universe. Everything else might be an image of your own imagination’s making."

I know, as FACT, I'm not imagining reality.

Simply: I'm too dumb to be makin' all this shit up.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:42 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 7:04 am This is like the Necker cube.
Conventionally you can only see one cube.
You will not know there are two cubes unless someone tell you there are two.
Even then it is not easy to see the two cubes.

Actually, there are 6 cubes in that diagram

The person who told there are only 2 was narrow-minded.

Strawman!

The highlight of 2 is sufficient to support and justify the main argument.
Any number more than 2 is insignificant to the main argument.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 3:47 pm "Note the interdependence of the Butterfly Effect, i.e. a flap of the butterfly's wing in North Africa cause a hurricane in Florida.

That's not 'interdependence', that's 'cause & effect'.

#

"more refined truths"

jeez...

The obvious is cause & effect.
The more refined truths are the hurricane [caused] sustain flowers and honey for that butterfly and its future generations.

Atla wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:40 am I re-adopted the prior state, but this time it's based on a deeper nondual understanding. Because why not, I think it's the optimal solution, the best of both worlds. It's hard to keep functioning in society without this anyway, which is what Western neo-Advaitins tend to miss for example.

Yes, its not the goal to get rid of all individuality, the personal I has its benefits and without it it would be pretty difficult to live in the world.
Agree, the "goal" is often misunderstood in modern non-dualism - it is not to eradicate all conceptual understanding - that includes the personal self - but rather to see through the identification. The personality lives on, with all its quirks (sorry Henry), likes and dislikes, but it doesn't define you anymore. There is great ease and freedom in this kind of living...

Atla wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:40 am I still don't know what "reality interdependent with humans" means

Haha... I feel the same... no idea

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 3:55 am Strawman!

The highlight of 2 is sufficient to support and justify the main argument.
Any number more than 2 is insignificant to the main argument.

False Strawman!

The main argument is perspectives!

When you uttered "Even then it is not easy to see the two cubes." you implied that all YOU see is 2 cubes.
So either you see 6, but you said 2 for simplicity. Or you only saw 2 until I pointed out to you that there are 6.

And so while you prove the main argument about 'perspective' - you also demonstrate Dunning-Kruger in action.

How do I expand my own perspective without the NEED for a 3rd party?
How do I beat Dunning-Kruger?

Self-skepticism, that's how. This thing you call (and have accused me of) "insecurity"

AlexW wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 5:38 am Haha... I feel the same... no idea

VA is trying to narrate Constructivist epistemology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct ... istemology

According to constructivists, the world is independent of human minds, but knowledge of the world is always a human and social construction. Constructivism opposes the philosophy of objectivism, embracing the belief that a human can come to know the truth about the natural world not mediated by scientific approximations with different degrees of validity and accuracy.

Because when you are talking about 'reality' you are always talking about the MAP of reality that is in your head. Not about reality itself.

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 9:56 am

AlexW wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 5:38 am Haha... I feel the same... no idea

VA is trying to narrate Constructivist epistemology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct ... istemology

According to constructivists, the world is independent of human minds, but knowledge of the world is always a human and social construction. Constructivism opposes the philosophy of objectivism, embracing the belief that a human can come to know the truth about the natural world not mediated by scientific approximations with different degrees of validity and accuracy.

Because when you are talking about 'reality' you are always talking about the MAP of reality that is in your head. Not about reality itself.

Strawman.
Because you are ignorant and incapable of understanding [not necessary agree with] you are always building strawman.

The problem with the Philosophical Realists is they assume without proof there is already a pre-existing reality to be mapped.

What I am talking about is both the MAP and territory emerging spontaneously as reality.

It is something like the Wave Collapse Function where reality [wave or particle] do not emerge until there is a pro-active interaction with the human conditions.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:08 am The problem with the Philosophical Realists is they assume without proof there is already a pre-existing reality to be mapped.

What I am talking about is both the MAP and territory emerging spontaneously as reality.

And the problem with your view is you assume WITHOUT EVIDENCE that the map-territory emerges.

Neither position is provable OR disprovable. Like God. They are axiomatic!

And so it doesn't matter

It is FUNCTIONALlY EQUIVALENT to constructivist epistemology.

Do you know what functional equivalence means? It's an engineering term for 'indistinguishable from one another'.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:08 am It is something like the Wave Collapse Function where reality [wave or particle] do not emerge until there is a pro-active interaction with the human conditions.

Observe how you have CHOSEN a non-realist interpretation of QM. Instead of pilot wave theory....

TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:11 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:08 am The problem with the Philosophical Realists is they assume without proof there is already a pre-existing reality to be mapped.

What I am talking about is both the MAP and territory emerging spontaneously as reality.

And the problem with your view is you assume WITHOUT EVIDENCE that the map-territory emerges.

Neither position is provable OR disprovable. Like God. They are axiomatic!

And so it doesn't matter

It is FUNCTIONALlY EQUIVALENT to constructivist epistemology.

Do you know what functional equivalence means? It's an engineering term for 'indistinguishable from one another'.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:08 am It is something like the Wave Collapse Function where reality [wave or particle] do not emerge until there is a pro-active interaction with the human conditions.

Observe how you have CHOSEN a non-realist interpretation of QM. Instead of pilot wave theory....

Most of the time you are building strawmen and sadistically lashing at them.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:18 am Most of the time you are building strawmen and sadistically lashing at them.

Am I?

Why have you CHOSEN the Copenhagen interpretation (which backs up your argument re: interdependence) instead of the De Broglie–Bohm interpretation (which backs up the argument of the Philosophical realists) ?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:08 am The problem with the Philosophical Realists is they assume without proof there is already a pre-existing reality to be mapped.

What I am talking about is both the MAP and territory emerging spontaneously as reality.

Ah. Of course reality pre-exists, the idea that it "emerges" is just anthropomorphic, relational magical thinking. Why would existence/nonexistence have anything to do with what's going on in a human head.

There is the perception/direct experience in our head, and there are all kinds of conceptual overlays/conceptualizations made from this, also in our head. Collectively this is the MAP.

And then there is the totality of existence/the universe, this is the TERRITORY.

The MAP is part of the TERRITORY too, it's an inseparable part of the universe. It makes no sense to claim that the map and territory somehow additionally interact, co-emerge, mess with existence/nonsexistence.

I don't know what's so difficult about this, but even people like Kant couldn't see beyond the made-up duality of noumena and phenomena. And yes this also led to nonsense QM interpretations like the Copenhagen, thankfully now times are changing.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:56 am There is the perception/direct experience in our head, and there are all kinds of conceptual overlays/conceptualizations made from this, also in our head. Collectively this is the MAP.

And then there is the totality of existence/the universe, this is the TERRITORY.

The MAP is part of the TERRITORY too, it's an inseparable part of the universe. It makes no sense to claim that the map and territory somehow additionally interact, co-emerge, mess with existence/nonsexistence.

I don't know what's so difficult about this, but even people like Kant couldn't see beyond the made-up duality of noumena and phenomena. And yes this also led to nonsense QM interpretations like the Copenhagen, thankfully now times are changing.

What is difficult is this question (fundamental to science).

When you say "The Universe is X" are you talking about the MAPS (plural - 7.5 billion maps) or the TERRITORY (singular)?

There is no way to tell if something is consistent with the territory, or just consistent with human experience of the territory.

Yeah, but that ain't the 'interdependence' you been crowin' about.

You've made a big deal about a base existential interlinking (literally the 'thing' we call 'moon' depending on humans for its existence) and now it seems you've retreated from that and have plunked yourself down in the land of demonstrable 'heat exchange'.

Surely you see the two aren't the same.