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Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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By Sy Borg
#469336
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 29th, 2024, 9:47 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 28th, 2024, 3:45 pm Now I am more confused. What is a Whizzy-way? It sounds like a sherbert lolly.
Oh, please. We have been having this discussion over several posts, I know, but you do need to read them:
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 5:49 am I think this would be easier if you moved up a level? It looks like you are speaking from a physical perspective, but this is a metaphysical discussion. "We live in reality", yes, but here we are wondering about the (metaphysical) *nature* of reality.

You prefer the Whizzy-way*, while I have no preference. All possibilities are ... possible. The whizzy-way is one possibility, brains in vats and simulations are other possibilities. All of them account wholly for all available evidence. If they did not, they would and could not be 'possibilities'. All of them result in *exactly* the reality that you and I experience, and that's why we are unable to find out which of them is 'true'.


WYSIWYG is a long way from WHIZZY - it was so oblique that I ignored it. My apparent Whizzy Wonka Way is simple logic and rationality.

Why not claim that reality is the fever dream of an interplanetary leprechaun? It's no less (in)credible than creating universes in brains in vats.

Besides, I don't think the brain-in-a-vat notion is possible. It might be possible as a computational device but not in generating qualia. While the brain is essential for qualia, it is clearly not the only component, hence many decades of study, looking for the source of consciousness in brains but without success.





Pattern-chaser wrote: October 25th, 2024, 10:04 amI am wondering, not about (apparent) reality, but about the nature of reality, about any/all of the possible explanations that could explain actual (not apparent) reality. This is not physics, it's metaphysics.

Sy Borg wrote: October 28th, 2024, 3:45 pm We have [apparent] reality as it is, Kant's noumena - which is a chaotic mess of energy with some vague forms within. [This is physics.] And we have our filtered sense of that chaotic mess. [This is a description of physics.]

I'm talking about both, not one or the other.

[My additions.] You are still reasoning at the level of physics, and apparent reality. I am offering comments — metaphysical speculation — about the underlying nature of reality as it actually is, mind-independently, etc, etc.


I am open to the possibility that there are other dimensions of reality, making our reality a four dimensional representation of more complex happenings, but there's no way that we are brains-in-vats. It's merely a thought experiment that represents claims about reality that are probably wrong.
User avatar
By Pattern-chaser
#469363
Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm Besides, I don't think the brain-in-a-vat notion is possible. It might be possible as a computational device but not in generating qualia. While the brain is essential for qualia, it is clearly not the only component, hence many decades of study, looking for the source of consciousness in brains but without success.
In the imagined and speculative brains-in-vats story, it is *defined*, by the magic of a thought experiment, that the human mind receives and sends everything that it would experience in your preferred Whizzy-way (that apparent reality *is* Actual Reality; Objective reality; that which actually is).

But you still miss the metaphysical point. The purpose of brains-in-vats, or simulation, or solipsism, is as a complement to the unfounded belief that the nature of Objective Reality is what it seems to us to be. There are other possibilities too. That is the (only) point of BiV, etc, as far as I know.




Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm I am open to the possibility that there are other dimensions of reality, making our reality a four dimensional representation of more complex happenings, but there's no way that we are brains-in-vats. It's merely a thought experiment that represents claims about reality that are probably wrong.
Why do you believe that these speculations are "probably wrong"? What evidence do you offer to support this? You don't. You can't. No-one else can either. This is an area of speculation that can never progress beyond guesswork, because there is, and can be, no supporting or refuting evidence or knowledge.

Oh, and BiV is not a "claim". No claims have been made. A number of possibilites have been presented for your consideration, that's all. Nothing more than that.
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
User avatar
By Sy Borg
#469382
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm Besides, I don't think the brain-in-a-vat notion is possible. It might be possible as a computational device but not in generating qualia. While the brain is essential for qualia, it is clearly not the only component, hence many decades of study, looking for the source of consciousness in brains but without success.
In the imagined and speculative brains-in-vats story, it is *defined*, by the magic of a thought experiment, that the human mind receives and sends everything that it would experience in your preferred Whizzy-way (that apparent reality *is* Actual Reality; Objective reality; that which actually is).

But you still miss the metaphysical point. The purpose of brains-in-vats, or simulation, or solipsism, is as a complement to the unfounded belief that the nature of Objective Reality is what it seems to us to be. There are other possibilities too. That is the (only) point of BiV, etc, as far as I know.
You clearly have not bothered reading and understanding my thousands of posts here, not that I'd blame you for that. I have made that metaphysical point many times myself, as it's impossible to talk philosophy and not deal with epistemology. However, BIV is not being presented by you as a Matrix-esque thought experiment, but as a physical possibility, which I argue ignores the evolution of synergies in the human body.

Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm I am open to the possibility that there are other dimensions of reality, making our reality a four dimensional representation of more complex happenings, but there's no way that we are brains-in-vats. It's merely a thought experiment that represents claims about reality that are probably wrong.
Why do you believe that these speculations are "probably wrong"? What evidence do you offer to support this?
Now you are backtracking, suggesting that BIVs could be real.

Isn't reality wild and weird enough, without inventing extra false and completely unsubstantiated layers? Brains are clearly not solely responsible for consciousness. It's obvious. To build brains-in-vats you would only get them to work if you attached a body to it so that the synergies with the gut and circulatory systems were present, in which case it's a body in a vat, not a brain.
By Good_Egg
#469389
Seems to me that this is all about causation / explanation.

"Materialism" appears to mean that matter causes mind, as the alternative to "Idealism" meaning mind causes matter.

"Brain in a vat" is a potential explanation of everything. That explains away our perceptions of matter (and of causation and of everything else) by postulating our perceptions as caused by something other than their object.

In common-sense philosophy, our perception of a dog is most commonly caused by there being a dog.

Occasionally there may be something that is in some way a bit like a dog, which we might mis-perceive as being a dog.

And occasionally we might dream or hallucinate a dog, (perhaps due to fever or consumption of mind-affextng substances).

But I suspect that the answer to all these things lies in a clearer understanding of the process of causation/explanation.

My reading suggests that Aquinas followed Aristotle in postulating different types of causes, using a Greek word that can be translated as either "cause" or "explanation".

We liken causation to the interaction of billiard balls (material cause deterministically causing material effect) or to human decision (mental cause, material effect). But these are not exclusive. When you play billiards, both are involved.
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By Sculptor1
#469390
It is unavoidably true that the universe is best described by materialism. That is not just about matter but how it interacts physically and energetically.

But it is also unavoidably true that the ONLY way we have of describing the universe, of understanding the universe and being able to manipulate the universe is througha discource which is idealistic.

Humans have to use words and diagrams and reflect upon the world around them with metaphysical propositions which inevitably involve us in ideals.

So it has always been my view that this "argument" has always been a false one. Its a re-run of the Empiricists/Rationalist debate that never really was. A simpletons verion of intellectual history which attempted to pit the likes of Hume and Locke against Descartes and Spinoza.
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By Pattern-chaser
#469405
Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm Besides, I don't think the brain-in-a-vat notion is possible. It might be possible as a computational device but not in generating qualia. While the brain is essential for qualia, it is clearly not the only component, hence many decades of study, looking for the source of consciousness in brains but without success.
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am In the imagined and speculative brains-in-vats story, it is *defined*, by the magic of a thought experiment, that the human mind receives and sends everything that it would experience in your preferred Whizzy-way (that apparent reality *is* Actual Reality; Objective reality; that which actually is).

But you still miss the metaphysical point. The purpose of brains-in-vats, or simulation, or solipsism, is as a complement to the unfounded belief that the nature of Objective Reality is what it seems to us to be. There are other possibilities too. That is the (only) point of BiV, etc, as far as I know.
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm You clearly have not bothered reading and understanding my thousands of posts here, not that I'd blame you for that.
Oddly, and perhaps unwisely 😉, I have read many of them. 👍

I can't really vouch for my own understanding of them, can I? 🤔😆


Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm However, BIV is not being presented by you as a Matrix-esque thought experiment, but as a physical possibility,
It is both. The purpose of a thought expermient is to support our imaginative speculations; to see where they take us. I'm not too attached to it being a "physical" possibility, only that it is *possible*. That is sufficient for the sense of what I'm saying to be conveyed.


Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm ...which I argue ignores the evolution of synergies in the human body.
These "synergies" are accounted for by the magic of thought experiments, as I have already commented.


Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm I am open to the possibility that there are other dimensions of reality, making our reality a four dimensional representation of more complex happenings, but there's no way that we are brains-in-vats. It's merely a thought experiment that represents claims about reality that are probably wrong.
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am Why do you believe that these speculations are "probably wrong"? What evidence do you offer to support this?
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm Now you are backtracking, suggesting that BIVs could be real.
Yes, "could be"! Not "are", but only "could be". This isn't "backtracking", it's what I have been saying all along. Pretty clearly, I thought. It seems I was wrong.



N.B. The questions I posed, above, are offered so that you will realise and acknowledge that, although neither of us chooses to believe that BiV is correct, we cannot disprove or refute it. But you never do acknowledge it, do you?😢 That is why I offer unanswerable questions, to demonstrate that your chosen path is leading you astray.

It's not that I'm trying to prove that BiV is correct. That would be lunacy. For the whole point of the BiV story is that it is possible — *really* and *actually* possible — and that it is not subject to confirmation or refutation.


Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm Isn't reality wild and weird enough, without inventing extra false and completely unsubstantiated layers?
I'm not inventing or adding "layers". Instead of focussing on reality itself, as you are doing, I am wondering about the nature of that reality. The actual, absolute, Objective, mind-independent, nature of reality. By the magic of thought experiments, my semi-literal and metaphysical point of view is OUTSIDE "reality", not part of it.

I mention metaphysical possibilities — necessarily speculative works of imagination — and you counter with detailed physical, definitely-not-metaphysical, whizzy-way, objections. This is why we are not understanding one another.


Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm Brains are clearly not solely responsible for consciousness. It's obvious. To build brains-in-vats you would only get them to work if you attached a body to it so that the synergies with the gut and circulatory systems were present, in which case it's a body in a vat, not a brain.
Then maybe we should call it "body-in-vat"? It still illustrates exactly the same concepts and ideas. And that is its purpose. That it is actually possible too, is because the point it illustrates is real and useful.

A detailed scientific critique of Lord of the Rings would rather miss the point, yes?

To account for your detailed objections is to hugely over-complicate a simple illustration of these 2 ideas: your whizzy-way is not the only possible explanation, and there is no valid way to choose between explanations.
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
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By Sy Borg
#469415
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm However, BIV is not being presented by you as a Matrix-esque thought experiment, but as a physical possibility,
It is both. The purpose of a thought expermient is to support our imaginative speculations; to see where they take us. I'm not too attached to it being a "physical" possibility, only that it is *possible*. That is sufficient for the sense of what I'm saying to be conveyed.
Yes yes, like our debate where you insisted - and presumably still insist - that leprechauns might really exist. It's one thing to have an open mind, another to have no standards.


Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 29th, 2024, 3:47 pm I am open to the possibility that there are other dimensions of reality, making our reality a four dimensional representation of more complex happenings, but there's no way that we are brains-in-vats. It's merely a thought experiment that represents claims about reality that are probably wrong.
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am Why do you believe that these speculations are "probably wrong"? What evidence do you offer to support this?
Exhibit A: Reality itself and everything that people have found out about it. There is zero evidence that brains can operate in any way whatsoever without having a body attached. Not a small amount of evidence, but zero.


Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm Now you are backtracking, suggesting that BIVs could be real.
Yes, "could be"! Not "are", but only "could be". This isn't "backtracking", it's what I have been saying all along. Pretty clearly, I thought. It seems I was wrong.
No, you misunderstand. I agree that you have always claimed that BIVS could be real - and it's always been irrational and unreasonable.



Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am It's not that I'm trying to prove that BiV is correct. That would be lunacy. For the whole point of the BiV story is that it is possible — *really* and *actually* possible — and that it is not subject to confirmation or refutation.
BIVs are obviously not the case and obviously not possible.

One moment you're talking about the physical and evolutionary objections to the BIV notion being overcome by the "magic of thought experiments", the next you are positing that it may be possible (presumably sans magic).


Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm Brains are clearly not solely responsible for consciousness. It's obvious. To build brains-in-vats you would only get them to work if you attached a body to it so that the synergies with the gut and circulatory systems were present, in which case it's a body in a vat, not a brain.
Then maybe we should call it "body-in-vat"? It still illustrates exactly the same concepts and ideas. And that is its purpose. That it is actually possible too, is because the point it illustrates is real and useful.

A detailed scientific critique of Lord of the Rings would rather miss the point, yes?

To account for your detailed objections is to hugely over-complicate a simple illustration of these 2 ideas: your whizzy-way is not the only possible explanation, and there is no valid way to choose between explanations.
Body-in-a-vat is not the thought experiment. It's brains in vats. Reality is indeed largely WYSIWYG. If our senses were lying to us, then we could not operate in reality. The table really is there, just that its meaning/function depends on the morphology and circumstance of the observer. Our senses provide the best possible approximation of reality, not an unrelated fantasy.

Yes there is a valid way to choose between explanations. We discount obvious sci-fi like BIVs and focus on actual reality, as it is presented.
User avatar
By Pattern-chaser
#469461
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm However, BIV is not being presented by you as a Matrix-esque thought experiment, but as a physical possibility,
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am It is both. The purpose of a thought experiment is to support our imaginative speculations; to see where they take us. I'm not too attached to it being a "physical" possibility, only that it is *possible*. That is sufficient for the sense of what I'm saying to be conveyed.
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm Yes yes, like our debate where you insisted - and presumably still insist - that leprechauns might really exist. It's one thing to have an open mind, another to have no standards.
It's not the leprechauns that are important, it's "might". If something might or could be possible, then we can't dismiss it, if we wish to remain in accord with logic and reason, can we? Not unless we are able to clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that the idea in question is incorrect. I.e. we can disprove it.

Can we disprove it? [Not by unfounded assertion, but by logical and reasonable argument.]



Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am Why do you believe that these speculations are "probably wrong"? What evidence do you offer to support this?
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm Exhibit A: Reality itself and everything that people have found out about it. There is zero evidence that brains can operate in any way whatsoever without having a body attached. Not a small amount of evidence, but zero.
Here is a better answer than I can create:
Carl Sagan wrote: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.


Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am It's not that I'm trying to prove that BiV is correct. That would be lunacy. For the whole point of the BiV story is that it is possible — *really* and *actually* possible — and that it is not subject to confirmation or refutation.
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm BIVs are obviously not the case and obviously not possible.
If that is so, please demonstrate that it is so.


Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm One moment you're talking about the physical and evolutionary objections to the BIV notion being overcome by the "magic of thought experiments", the next you are positing that it may be possible (presumably sans magic).
Not "physical" but metaphysical. You cannot force metaphysics into a physical container. It won't fit.

The "magic of thought experiments" is used here to allow us to take a point of observation *outside* of Objective Reality, which is an impossibility, of course.
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
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By Pattern-chaser
#469462
Just out of interest, here's an article I came across today: Don’t be intimidated by physics: it is made of stories and metaphors. Learn these and the field will open up to you





Internet security: the link will take you here, https://aeon co/essays/to-understand-physics-we-need-to-tell-and-hear-stories, to Aeon, a current-affairs news/discussion site. I know of no security problems or issues with this site. [Replace the space between "aeon" and "co" in the URL with a dot.]
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
User avatar
By Sy Borg
#469471
Pattern-chaser wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 9:12 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 30th, 2024, 5:41 pm However, BIV is not being presented by you as a Matrix-esque thought experiment, but as a physical possibility,
Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am It is both. The purpose of a thought experiment is to support our imaginative speculations; to see where they take us. I'm not too attached to it being a "physical" possibility, only that it is *possible*. That is sufficient for the sense of what I'm saying to be conveyed.
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm Yes yes, like our debate where you insisted - and presumably still insist - that leprechauns might really exist. It's one thing to have an open mind, another to have no standards.
It's not the leprechauns that are important, it's "might". If something might or could be possible, then we can't dismiss it, if we wish to remain in accord with logic and reason, can we? Not unless we are able to clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that the idea in question is incorrect. I.e. we can disprove it.

Can we disprove it? [Not by unfounded assertion, but by logical and reasonable argument.]
If we work within the bounds of logic and reason then we don’t play word games by extremely loose use of language, unbefitting of any claiming to be logical and reasonable.

An egg might break when you drop it.
That egg might reassemble itself after being dropped.

“Might” does not differentiate between high chances and almost zero chances. The latter is theoretically possible but only the deeply misguided or crazy would behave as if it was a real possibility. I am reminded of Rudolph Hess trying to keep an unbalanced chair up with mind power.


Pattern-chaser wrote: October 30th, 2024, 10:33 am Why do you believe that these speculations are "probably wrong"? What evidence do you offer to support this?
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm Exhibit A: Reality itself and everything that people have found out about it. There is zero evidence that brains can operate in any way whatsoever without having a body attached. Not a small amount of evidence, but zero.
Here is a better answer than I can create:
Carl Sagan wrote: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.
[/quote]
It is with really blatant things. We are not talking about the subtlety of finding intelligent life in an ostensibly infinitely large cosmos but whether life evolved on Earth or it's all just a fake, a simulation.



Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am It's not that I'm trying to prove that BiV is correct. That would be lunacy. For the whole point of the BiV story is that it is possible — *really* and *actually* possible — and that it is not subject to confirmation or refutation.
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm BIVs are obviously not the case and obviously not possible.
If that is so, please demonstrate that it is so.[/quote]
Another Sagan quote: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You are making the extraordinary claim – that a disembodied head can not only live a full mental life, but be completely unaware of its situation. Please explain. I have already explained why it’s impossible that we are BIVs. I had a feeling you weren’t reading before replying.

Pattern-chaser wrote: October 31st, 2024, 9:26 am
Sy Borg wrote: October 31st, 2024, 4:49 pm One moment you're talking about the physical and evolutionary objections to the BIV notion being overcome by the "magic of thought experiments", the next you are positing that it may be possible (presumably sans magic).
Not "physical" but metaphysical. You cannot force metaphysics into a physical container. It won't fit.

The "magic of thought experiments" is used here to allow us to take a point of observation *outside* of Objective Reality, which is an impossibility, of course.
And I am saying that the thought experiment is only valid for entertainment purposes. Reality as we know it is real, not simulated. There is zero evidence to support the latter. You cannot dismiss this with Sagan deepities.
User avatar
By Lagayascienza
#469477
Sy Borg wrote:Body-in-a-vat is not the thought experiment. It's brains in vats. Reality is indeed largely WYSIWYG. If our senses were lying to us, then we could not operate in reality. The table really is there, just that its meaning/function depends on the morphology and circumstance of the observer. Our senses provide the best possible approximation of reality, not an unrelated fantasy.

Yes there is a valid way to choose between explanations. We discount obvious sci-fi like BIVs and focus on actual reality, as it is presented.
I think that's right. We must take the world we perceive to be the “real world” or, at least, accept that what we can perceive is all we can ever know of reality. Science extends our ability to perceive.

With science we have been able to perceive reality in ever finer detail. Anything beyond our feelings and what we can perceive with our senses and our technological extension thereof is, at best, hypothetical and often not susceptible to disproof. It therefore leads nowhere. Realism about the physical world we perceive and interact with is the only stance from which we can discover what is true, or likely to be true.

We are part of the physical world and everything that happens in the physical world, including our feelings, happens in accord with the laws of physics which we have no option but to accept as describing reality.

Of course, we can always ask whether the laws of physics, as we have understood them with science thus far, are correct. However, unless and until they are overturned (unlikely) we are justified in thinking that they the best description of reality.

We have no reason to think that physics is fundamentally wrong, and so we must trust that continued scientific investigation will lead us to an increasingly truer picture of reality, just as it has always done. There is no end to this process of refinement. However, we have no reason at all to take seriously unverifiable and unreasonable notions such as that the universe is all mind-stuff or that we are brains-in-vats or that elves might be real. These notions are all dead ends that cannot lean to any improvement of our understanding of reality.

Some people think that they are being very clever in pointing out that we cannot disproves notions such as elves exist, or we could be brains-in-vats etc. But this is not clever. It's just playing silly games.
Favorite Philosopher: Hume Nietzsche Location: Antipodes
By Good_Egg
#469484
Lagayascienza wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 10:23 pm However, we have no reason at all to take seriously unverifiable and unreasonable notions such as that the universe is all mind-stuff or that we are brains-in-vats or that elves might be real. These notions are all dead ends that cannot lean to any improvement of our understanding of reality.

Some people think that they are being very clever in pointing out that we cannot disproves notions such as elves exist, or we could be brains-in-vats etc. But this is not clever. It's just playing silly games.
Yes, "dead ends" is exactly the issue.

The important characteristic of the brain-in-vat concept is that it is constructed to be immune to evidence. Any conceivable real experience could be simulated, making the idea undisprovable.

Elves - conceived as beings who have a magical ability to conceal their existence from us - have this same characteristic.

And this same characteristic is found in the evolution-sceptic's notion that God made the universe X seconds ago complete with memories/photographs/fossils/records of a past that never was.

Belief in or enthusiasm for any such concept is indeed silly.

But what is not silly is using these examples to understand the concept of the philosophical dead end. That there are such useless logically-undisprovable concepts tells us something about the insufficiency of logic in the pursuit of wisdom.

Was it Stalin who said "truth is whatever serves the interests of the Party" ? I want to disagree with that somewhat sinister sentiment, and I hope you do too. But what it amounts to is a reduction of truth to usefulness (for a particular purpose).

So I suggest that the distinction between elves being untrue and elves being useless is one that is worth maintaining.

As is the distinction between a concept of elves that is falsifiable (by their failure to appear in the old stone circle at the full moon, or some other verifiable characteristic) and a concept that is unfalsifiable.

I almost wrote unfalsifiable-by-design. But that's not quite fair.

In pre-scientific cultures many things are attributed to different types of "spirits" - noncorporeal beings. (Because the intent of a mind is one type of explanation). It seems not unreasonable to suppose that a range of ideas about spirits were once held. And the verifiable forms of these ideas have been discarded due to absence of expected evidence. Leaving only the forms for which the expected evidence is zero. With no design required.
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By Pattern-chaser
#469490
Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm If we work within the bounds of logic and reason then we don’t play word games by extremely loose use of language, unbefitting of any claiming to be logical and reasonable.

An egg might break when you drop it.
That egg might reassemble itself after being dropped.

“Might” does not differentiate between high chances and almost zero chances.
No, it doesn't, which is all to the good here, where we are considering speculation whose chance of occurrence cannot be calculated or even estimated. We cannot even compare the chance of BiV versus WYSIWAI, because we have no data or knowledge that would allow this. Both account, in full and in every detail, for the apparent reality that we experience.

I think you know all this already, but you still resist it, and I can't understand why.


Carl Sagan wrote: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.
Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm It is with really blatant things. We are not talking about the subtlety of finding intelligent life in an ostensibly infinitely large cosmos but whether life evolved on Earth or it's all just a fake, a simulation.
Still you persist in misrepresenting what is under discussion. If we should turn out to be part of a simulation, it wouldn't be "a fake". It would be reality as it actually is. Whatever the actual nature of Reality, it is not a fake, it's the real thing.


Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm You are making the extraordinary claim – that a disembodied head can not only live a full mental life, but be completely unaware of its situation. Please explain. I have already explained why it’s impossible that we are BIVs. I had a feeling you weren’t reading before replying.
I read what you wrote; you failed to read my reply. The BiV thought experiment includes in its definition that the brain in question receives (and sends) all that it would when connected to an ambulatory body. The experiment is not about what parts of a human body can be kept 'alive' in isolation, which is why the matter is dismissed with a simple "by definition".

The experiment considers a human whose seeming-reality is synthesised. Synthesised so perfectly that the result is not distinguishable by the human, by any means available to them. This also is part of the definition.

The two lessons we learn from the thought experiment are simple. 1. apparent reality and actual reality could be very different. 2. if it was so, that we are part of a simulation (or BiV, etc), there is no way we could tell.


Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm Reality as we know it is real, not simulated.
If that is the nature of Reality, it is Real. The "simulation" is Real. The simulation might fool us puny humans, but if that's how reality actually is, then it is Real. It can't be refuted because it is unchallengeably and Objectively correct.
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
User avatar
By Pattern-chaser
#469491
Good_Egg wrote: November 4th, 2024, 8:04 am The important characteristic of the brain-in-vat concept is that it is constructed to be immune to evidence.
I think that may be subtly wrong, but it's mostly correct. Let's start from there.

The brain-in-a-vat thought experiment exists to offer a lesson, that reality-as-it-seems, and reality-as-it-actually-is could be two different things. And if that is so, that we humans could not tell or know.

It's not about what part of a human can be kept alive in isolation. It's only about Objective Reality. It's a considered metaphysical speculation, not a "silly game".

Sy Borg and others have opined that BiV is ... all kinds of things, but I think what underlies those views is that the holders do not accept that apparent reality does or could differ from actual reality. WYSIWAI — What You See Is What Actually Is. In other words, if it seems so, then it is so. I reject this illogical mumbo-jumbo.

But in my rejection, I offer uncertainty in its place, not an alternative 'explanation'. I have no explanation; I don't think there *is* an explanation accessible to us humans. It is my view that the lesson here to be learned is that there are some, maybe many, things we don't and can't know. That, I think, is our reality (or part of it, at any rate). For us, uncertainty is real and actual...
Favorite Philosopher: Cratylus Location: England
User avatar
By Sy Borg
#469496
Pattern-chaser wrote: November 4th, 2024, 11:59 am
Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm If we work within the bounds of logic and reason then we don’t play word games by extremely loose use of language, unbefitting of any claiming to be logical and reasonable.

An egg might break when you drop it.
That egg might reassemble itself after being dropped.

“Might” does not differentiate between high chances and almost zero chances.
No, it doesn't, which is all to the good here, where we are considering speculation whose chance of occurrence cannot be calculated or even estimated. We cannot even compare the chance of BiV versus WYSIWAI, because we have no data or knowledge that would allow this. Both account, in full and in every detail, for the apparent reality that we experience.

I think you know all this already, but you still resist it, and I can't understand why.
Sorry, but you are simply wrong here. That's because there is a ZERO chance that we are brains in vats having reality fed to us by beings of godlike powers. I no more need to know everything to know this than I need to know everything about the human body to claim that we cannot fly (without using devices).

This is about as absurd as your claim that leprechauns might exist. I should not even have to explain myself on something so boringly trivial.


Pattern-chaser wrote: November 4th, 2024, 11:59 am
Carl Sagan wrote: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.
Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm It is with really blatant things. We are not talking about the subtlety of finding intelligent life in an ostensibly infinitely large cosmos but whether life evolved on Earth or it's all just a fake, a simulation.
Still you persist in misrepresenting what is under discussion. If we should turn out to be part of a simulation, it wouldn't be "a fake". It would be reality as it actually is. Whatever the actual nature of Reality, it is not a fake, it's the real thing.
No, you are positing that something that is utterly absurd and unrealistic may be true.


Pattern-chaser wrote: November 4th, 2024, 11:59 am
Sy Borg wrote: November 3rd, 2024, 4:55 pm You are making the extraordinary claim – that a disembodied head can not only live a full mental life, but be completely unaware of its situation. Please explain. I have already explained why it’s impossible that we are BIVs. I had a feeling you weren’t reading before replying.
I read what you wrote; you failed to read my reply. The BiV thought experiment includes in its definition that the brain in question receives (and sends) all that it would when connected to an ambulatory body. The experiment is not about what parts of a human body can be kept 'alive' in isolation, which is why the matter is dismissed with a simple "by definition".
Yes, it is EXACTLY about what parts of a human body can be kept 'alive' in isolation. It's about exploring the possible, not the ridiculous.

Pattern-chaser wrote: November 4th, 2024, 11:59 amThe experiment considers a human whose seeming-reality is synthesised. Synthesised so perfectly that the result is not distinguishable by the human, by any means available to them. This also is part of the definition.

The two lessons we learn from the thought experiment are simple. 1. apparent reality and actual reality could be very different. 2. if it was so, that we are part of a simulation (or BiV, etc), there is no way we could tell.
I see, so you are positing a machine of almost infinite complexity that has worked absolutely perfectly 100% of the time for billions of years.
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