Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Pattern-chaser]

It's not a matter of belief. It's not disregarding the bleeding obvious so as to look for more "clever" models of reality.

I don't think it helps simply to dismiss or ridicule those things you don't believe in.

There is no such thing, from a philosopher's perspective, as "the bleeding obvious". Just as there are no such things as 'self-evident' truths. If something is true, or false, there are reasons why this should be so. Good reasons, also called "justifications". I.e those reasons are good enough to justify the claim to truth, or falsehood.

[Edited to add: There are some truths that we might describe as "self-evident". But what we mean when we say that, is that the justifications for that truth are well-known, well-understood, and (most important of all) conclusive. So it isn't really the truth that is self-evident, but that its justifications are evident, and therefore the 'truth' is considered true.]

If we need to make assumptions, then the clear and honest way to approach the matter is surely to declare our unfounded assumptions as axioms, so that we all know where we stand? And so we might say "This," (whatever "this" is), "is an unfounded assertion, but we believe it to be true anyway, so we declare it to be an axiom, something we assert, and choose to believe, without justification."


And, in the end, it all comes down to "a matter of belief", for any idea that cannot be wholly and conclusively proven. And that applies to pretty much all ideas, I think. For proof, actual proof, is much rarer than our use of the word (in everyday conversation, at least) would imply. Hyperbole, nothing more.

Never mind the emotional appeal about "ridicule". I do not respond to attempts to make me feel guilty for supposed transgressions.

You misunderstand. There's no "emotional appeal", but only my observation that ridicule is non-functional, that it carries no useful meaning or philosophy. That it makes no useful contribution to the discussion.

I simply rebutted the BIV thought experiment as invalid.

You keep repeating the same 'objection'. BiV is just an imaginative illustration of an individual human being whose only connections to the rest of reality are via the BiV 'apparatus'. Your detailed objections wholly miss the point.

It's not a matter of belief, but logic. [...] my objection to the BIV is the same as my objection to creationism - it's an added layer of complexity that is not needed and explains nothing.

There is no added layer. Your perspective is from inside a context where WYSIWAI is axiomatic; unquestionable, Objective, Truth. And so what I say makes no sense to you. What I'm saying is that the nature of reality is unknown to us, and will always be so. BiV, or simulation, etc., stand *alongside* WYSIWAI, they are not an extra added layer. They are possible *alternatives* to WYSIWAI.

For as long as you insist and assert that WYSIWAI is the actual and only explanation of reality's nature, we will get nowhere.

If we are in a simulation, who is to say that God aka the Divine Programmer is not simulated?

Who, indeed?

Maybe we are the trillionth layer of simulation, a simulation within a simulation within a simulation within a simulation almost ad infinitum? Does that seem ridiculous to you?

No, but it does seem to reflect our very real uncertainty over something we cannot ever know for sure.

[Pattern-chaser]

There is no such thing, from a philosopher's perspective, as "the bleeding obvious".

Exactly so. I've been doing this long enough to realize that almost everything that is intuitively obvious is probably wrong. The intuitions are put there because of their pragmatic usefulness, not because of their truth. Start with that, and so many things suddenly make more sense, if not actually making sense.

Cogito ergo sum is an example of this. Sounds good, but commits several fallacies.

Yes, to all of what you say. As to your final observation, yes again, but even so, we can gain useful insights from the cogito. For example, we can, I think, conclude from cogitations revolving around the cogito that Objective Reality exists. That's a worthwhile insight, fallacies notwithstanding.

[Halc]

Responses are slow. Took 11 hours for my prior post to get approved.

You seem to not understand the purpose of the BiV thought experiment.

It’s posited as being a possibility. I’m saying it isn’t, for the reasons I’ve been through earlier.

Yes, posited as a possibility, not something probable. Your counters address the claim that it is probable, and don't seem to touch on the possible part at all.

There are some mainstream scientific (not philosophical) theories that predict that we are in fact Boltzmann brains, the arguments against which are very similar to BiV. Such theories cannot be justified, as was pointed out by Sean Carroll.

Sure, everything is relative. But it’s real, obviously real.

Yes, obviously, and as I said, I question obvious stuff. I eventually had to abandon realism due to unsolvable problems with it. That doesn't mean I disproved it, but I try to find something with fewer problems if possible.

It makes more sense that we are not a simulation, that we are IT.

I don't know what you mean by saying 'we are IT'. I presume that stands for information technology, but then the phrase makes no grammatical sense.

Yes. Worlds are ideas. And yes none exist without the consciousness of subjects to create them. This inevitably means that the world you live in and the world that I live in are necessarily not the same world.

Not sure what is meant by 'worlds'. You seem to be referencing ideals, that one person's ideals are not the same as the ideals of another. Sure, that seems pretty straight forward.

If talking about physical worlds as in MWI, then the same is necessarily true. Two beings cannot share the same light cones.

The universe does not need us to exist.

Depends on your definition of 'exists'.
From a relational standpoint, the universe needs me to exist in relation to me, which is how 'exists' is defined in a relational view. From an idealist view, a similar statement can be made.

For example, we can, I think, conclude from cogitations revolving around the cogito that Objective Reality exists.

You can indeed conclude that, but that doesn't mean it necessarily follows. I for one do not conclude that.
Not sure what the Latin literally translates into, but I suspect it's something like 'thinking, therefore existence', which is far less fallacious than "I think therefore I am", but fallacious nevertheless, in at least two ways.

[Sy Borg]

It's not a matter of belief. It's not disregarding the bleeding obvious so as to look for more "clever" models of reality.

I don't think it helps simply to dismiss or ridicule those things you don't believe in.

There is no such thing, from a philosopher's perspective, as "the bleeding obvious". Just as there are no such things as 'self-evident' truths. If something is true, or false, there are reasons why this should be so. Good reasons, also called "justifications". I.e those reasons are good enough to justify the claim to truth, or falsehood.

[Edited to add: There are some truths that we might describe as "self-evident". But what we mean when we say that, is that the justifications for that truth are well-known, well-understood, and (most important of all) conclusive. So it isn't really the truth that is self-evident, but that its justifications are evident, and therefore the 'truth' is considered true.]

If we need to make assumptions, then the clear and honest way to approach the matter is surely to declare our unfounded assumptions as axioms, so that we all know where we stand? And so we might say "This," (whatever "this" is), "is an unfounded assertion, but we believe it to be true anyway, so we declare it to be an axiom, something we assert, and choose to believe, without justification."


And, in the end, it all comes down to "a matter of belief", for any idea that cannot be wholly and conclusively proven. And that applies to pretty much all ideas, I think. For proof, actual proof, is much rarer than our use of the word (in everyday conversation, at least) would imply. Hyperbole, nothing more.

Never mind the emotional appeal about "ridicule". I do not respond to attempts to make me feel guilty for supposed transgressions.

You misunderstand. There's no "emotional appeal", but only my observation that ridicule is non-functional, that it carries no useful meaning or philosophy. That it makes no useful contribution to the discussion.

I simply rebutted the BIV thought experiment as invalid.

You keep repeating the same 'objection'. BiV is just an imaginative illustration of an individual human being whose only connections to the rest of reality are via the BiV 'apparatus'. Your detailed objections wholly miss the point.

It's not a matter of belief, but logic. [...] my objection to the BIV is the same as my objection to creationism - it's an added layer of complexity that is not needed and explains nothing.

There is no added layer. Your perspective is from inside a context where WYSIWAI is axiomatic; unquestionable, Objective, Truth. And so what I say makes no sense to you. What I'm saying is that the nature of reality is unknown to us, and will always be so. BiV, or simulation, etc., stand *alongside* WYSIWAI, they are not an extra added layer. They are possible *alternatives* to WYSIWAI.

For as long as you insist and assert that WYSIWAI is the actual and only explanation of reality's nature, we will get nowhere.

If we are in a simulation, who is to say that God aka the Divine Programmer is not simulated?

Who, indeed? 👍

Maybe we are the trillionth layer of simulation, a simulation within a simulation within a simulation within a simulation almost ad infinitum? Does that seem ridiculous to you?

No, but it does seem to reflect our very real uncertainty over something we cannot ever know for sure.

The fact that reality is real is not an "unfounded assumption". It could not possibly be more founded. What more founding do you need? What greater founding of an assumption is possible than being?

If you want to call it "axiomatic; unquestionable, Objective, Truth", go for it, but it does not describe my approach. I am interested in reality's practicalities, not philosophical noodling. It's like the leprechaun debate, where you insisted that they might exist. These are philosophical cul-de-sacs.

[Sculptor1]

Yes. Worlds are ideas. And yes none exist without the consciousness of subjects to create them. This inevitably means that the world you live in and the world that I live in are necessarily not the same world.

Not sure what is meant by 'worlds'. You seem to be referencing ideals, that one person's ideals are not the same as the ideals of another. Sure, that seems pretty straight forward.

If talking about physical worlds as in MWI, then the same is necessarily true. Two beings cannot share the same light cones.

If you read what I wrote more carefully I think the meaning is clear enough.
A world is the reality we construct from our ideas of the world.

What you think of as "the material word" is exactly what you conceive it to be. You can have no other world. The existence of "cones" is not relevant to what I was saying.

[Pattern-chaser]

For as long as you insist and assert that WYSIWAI is the actual and only explanation of reality's nature, we will get nowhere.

The fact that reality is real is not an "unfounded assumption".

No, but assertions concerning the nature of reality are unfounded. And because the "nature" of reality seems to be less than clear to you, I will try to clarify. By "nature" I refer to reality being WYSIWAI, or BiV, or simulation, or solipsist.... In all of those, 'reality' exists, but its nature is different in each case.

If we assert that the nature of reality *is* WYSIWAI (or any of the others), *that assertion* is unfounded and unfoundable.

[Sy Borg]

For as long as you insist and assert that WYSIWAI is the actual and only explanation of reality's nature, we will get nowhere.

The fact that reality is real is not an "unfounded assumption".

No, but assertions concerning the nature of reality are unfounded. And because the "nature" of reality seems to be less than clear to you, I will try to clarify. By "nature" I refer to reality being WYSIWAI, or BiV, or simulation, or solipsist.... In all of those, 'reality' exists, but its nature is different in each case.

If we assert that the nature of reality *is* WYSIWAI (or any of the others), *that assertion* is unfounded and unfoundable.

What do you think your senses are sensing? Reality or vat fluid?

[Halc]

If we assert that the nature of reality *is* WYSIWAI (or any of the others), *that assertion* is unfounded and unfoundable.

Agree with your statement, but want to point out that many (most, of those who care to know the subject well) realize the significant different between what is seen and what actually is. Per Heisenberg: "“Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”
I suspect Sy Borg gives a far greater correspondence between the two, but it's Sculptor1 that takes WYSIWAI most literally:

Yes. Worlds are ideas. And yes none exist without the consciousness of subjects to create them. This inevitably means that the world you live in and the world that I live in are necessarily not the same world.

Per this view, the world you live in is the same world that I live in, since in your world, both I and my ideas, are all just ideas of yours. Do you disagree with that, and if so, how justified?

I am interested in reality's practicalities, not philosophical noodling.

But this is a philosophy site, not a site for finding practical solutions to things.
I agree that your assumption is a very pragmatic one, which is why we're evolved to find it intuitive. But that doesn't make it any less unfounded. The alternative views (one of which is held by Sculptor1 above, another by me) cannot be falsified, meaning that the philosophical analysis is more than just noodling.

What do you think your senses are sensing? Reality or vat fluid?

BiV does not suggest that one senses vat fluid any more than you think you sense the inside of your skull.

And yet again, BiV is not a view intended to be commonly held. It does not argue for the significant probability of the scenario. You still seem never to get this despite being told over and over.
Boltzmann brains argument on the other hand does very much mathematically derive its high probability under certain models. There's no demon in the BB scenario feeding the mind false information deliberately, and no need for some artificial apparatus to keep the disembodies mind alive.

[Lagayascienza]

I am a materialist because I think our best scientific theories give true, or approximately true, descriptions of observable aspects of a mind-independent universe.

In contrast, Idealism - the notion that the universe is all mind-stuff - is a theory that can be neither verified nor disproved. That is all that can be said for it and it is, thus, a philosophical cul de sac which leads us nowhere.

Scientific materialism, on the other hand, is successful because our best scientific theories are true or approximately true. They describe a mind-independent world of entities, laws, etc. Indeed, if these theories were far from the truth, the fact that they are so successful would be miraculous.

Given the choice between a straightforward explanation of success and a miraculous explanation, clearly one should prefer the non-miraculous explanation, which is that our best scientific theories are approximately true - there is a real, physical world out there that we are able to perceive to some extent with our limited sensorium and technological extensions thereof. And our scientific theories, whilst only approximately true, get better over time.

The scientific materialist path leads to success in our understanding of the universe. Idealism is useless and leads us nowhere.

Of course, if understanding the universe is not what interests us, we can sit in our armchairs and noodle around with philosophical Idealism. There are worse pastimes.

[Sy Borg]

What do you think your senses are sensing? Reality or vat fluid?

BiV does not suggest that one senses vat fluid any more than you think you sense the inside of your skull.

After writing that I was thinking that, in a sense, our brain is already in a vat - the skull. So BiV is basically the idea that there could be two layers of vat.

The question remains - what do you think your senses are sensing?

And yet again, BiV is not a view intended to be commonly held. It does not argue for the significant probability of the scenario. You still seem never to get this despite being told over and over.
Boltzmann brains argument on the other hand does very much mathematically derive its high probability under certain models. There's no demon in the BB scenario feeding the mind false information deliberately, and no need for some artificial apparatus to keep the disembodies mind alive.

I get it it, and I reject it, just as i reject BB. I probably should not be such a grouch and let you all play with the ideas without my objections, but I personally see them as philosophical cul-de-sacs.

[Sculptor1]

Yes. Worlds are ideas. And yes none exist without the consciousness of subjects to create them. This inevitably means that the world you live in and the world that I live in are necessarily not the same world.

Per this view, the world you live in is the same world that I live in, since in your world, both I and my ideas, are all just ideas of yours. Do you disagree with that, and if so, how justified?

It is not justified for the following reasons.

No because I can accept the concept of objectiveness. Although I think it is problematic to think any thing can be wholly objective I realise that there are realities that exist outside and beyond my set of concepts and beyond the world as I understand it.
This understanding means that I realise that all human subjects, being similar in physiology to myself also conceive of the world in their own terms. And that these personal conceptions are more or less like mine, but it is utterly impossible for them to be identical. We all live with slightly different experiences and so how we conceive the world to be is necessarily different.
If our worlds were the same then we would not even be having this discussion.
SInce my world view includes the notion, albeit imperfectly, of an objective reality, I know that another person's "world" is qualititively different and not available to my perception, nor can I ever hope to fully conceive of another's world. In this way it is not a part of my world but apart from it.

[Pattern-chaser]

For as long as you insist and assert that WYSIWAI is the actual and only explanation of reality's nature, we will get nowhere.

The fact that reality is real is not an "unfounded assumption".

No, but assertions concerning the nature of reality are unfounded. And because the "nature" of reality seems to be less than clear to you, I will try to clarify. By "nature" I refer to reality being WYSIWAI, or BiV, or simulation, or solipsist.... In all of those, 'reality' exists, but its nature is different in each case.

If we assert that the nature of reality *is* WYSIWAI (or any of the others), *that assertion* is unfounded and unfoundable.

What do you think your senses are sensing? Reality or vat fluid?

After all the years of participating in this discussion, I am ... surprised to discover you haven't even grasped its basic premises.

It starts, in our human-centric way, with apparent reality. "Apparent reality" is the 'reality', or the view/impression/perspective of reality, that our senses sense.

Then, a philosopher comes along, and wonders if what we see (i.e. sense) is what actually is? And we have so far concluded that there is a clear link between apparent and actual reality, but that we can't be sure what that link is, and how directly or indirectly one is connected to the other.

The underlying discussion, that philosophers have been considering for a very long time now, is, what is the relationship between Apparent reality and Actual reality? Could they be identical; the same thing exactly? Or might one be a blurred version of the other, or might Apparent reality be a complete misunderstanding, perhaps due to some form of illusion, or something?

So, back to the immediate context of our current conversation. Our senses will always sense apparent reality, because that's what they do. It is only thanks to our senses that apparent reality is, well, apparent. So whether Actual reality follows your expectation (WYSIWAI), or whether one of the other possibilities better describes it, our senses will continue to deliver the same sensations to our minds. *Exactly* the same — meaning not that they are two things that are identical, but that they are one and the same thing.

Whether Actual reality's nature is best described as WYSIWAI or BiV, Apparent reality remains unchanged, exactly as it has been and remains. The view from our human perspective is the same. It's the underlying truth, the truth to which we have no direct access, that is under discussion here, and we call it Actual Reality to distinguish it clearly from Apparent reality.

[Sy Borg]

For as long as you insist and assert that WYSIWAI is the actual and only explanation of reality's nature, we will get nowhere.

The fact that reality is real is not an "unfounded assumption".

No, but assertions concerning the nature of reality are unfounded. And because the "nature" of reality seems to be less than clear to you, I will try to clarify. By "nature" I refer to reality being WYSIWAI, or BiV, or simulation, or solipsist.... In all of those, 'reality' exists, but its nature is different in each case.

If we assert that the nature of reality *is* WYSIWAI (or any of the others), *that assertion* is unfounded and unfoundable.

What do you think your senses are sensing? Reality or vat fluid?

After all the years of participating in this discussion, I am ... surprised to discover you haven't even grasped its basic premises.

Go on, keep telling yourself that your leprechauns and brains-in-vats are potentially real, and then be a patronise and misrepresent the ideas of those who don't buy into such fanciful notions, who prefer to consider actual reality rather than pretend that magic might be real.

Reality is real. It is as presented, at least in a relative sense. Our dogs perceive more or the less the same world as we do, with some differences. Even an ant often perceives the same things, but its world is very different. Microbes could be said to live in a very much different world but, if an asteroid struck, our subjective worlds would converge.

[Halc]

I am a materialist because I think our best scientific theories give true, or approximately true, descriptions of observable aspects of a mind-independent universe.

In contrast, Idealism - the notion that the universe is all mind-stuff - is a theory that can be neither verified nor disproved. That is all that can be said for it and it is, thus, a philosophical cul de sac which leads us nowhere.

The topic title is a false dichotomy. The alternative to idealism isn't materialism since there are several other options.
In short, idealism has everything supervening on mind, and scientific realism is the objective existence view. The two seem on one level to be more or less the same model but from different viewpoints.
From an epistemological standpoint, idealism is simply about what one knows. Something is real if you are aware of it. That's pretty solid. From an ontological standpoint it is harder to justify. Only ideals exist. That much makes sense since only ideals supervene on minds. But where does information come from? Not from the mind, and that makes the ontological view harder to justify.

As for science, I don't see how science would be any different under either view since, as interpretations, if there is no empirical falsification test for any of these, then the view can be held by any scientist, even if none of the views are scientific.

Given the choice between a straightforward explanation of success and a miraculous explanation, clearly one should prefer the non-miraculous explanation

Agree, but I personally find any kind of realism to require miracles, so off I went in search of one that didn't so much. Idealism wasn't it.

The scientific realism view is certainly pragmatic for doing science, and I think that's the point you're expressing. Science has little concern for ontology, so the problems do not affect the science.

The scientific materialist path leads to success in our understanding of the universe. Idealism is useless and leads us nowhere.

I think what was useless was the methodological supernaturalism, coupled with rampant illiteracy, which kept humanity in the dark ages for millennia.

After writing that I was thinking that, in a sense, our brain is already in a vat - the skull.

So it is, but it is not being deliberately fed lies, unless I suppose it is hooked to Fox news.

So BiV is basically the idea that there could be two layers of vat.

The question remains - what do you think your senses are sensing?

All of that is besides the point. So you don't get it. It's not a proposal of what somebody might believe. And BB has yet a totally different point unrelated to BiV, despite their similarities.

I get it it, and I reject it, just as i reject BB.

You don't get it because neither is something to reject. BiV is simply a counter example illustrating the impossibility of submitting an empirical proof of anything. BB is unavoidable in some theories and cannot be waved away with simple denial. It is used to dismantle any possible justification of said proposed theory.
My pet view is currently plagued by BBs, and that means my view cannot be both correct and justifiable. If such is the nature of our universe, then that nature cannot ever be known. That's what a BB analysis does. Rejecting it doesn't change that. BB isn't even a philosophical view, it is a scientific conclusion arising from certain classes of theories.

I'm not trying to cut down your opinions. Few actually understand why BBs are so important. Some understand at least what the BiV scenario is meant to illustrate, which is just a tool for skepticism. But your lastest post (not quoted) shows that you have no intention of even trying to grasp what is being illustrated by either of these things.

Our senses will always sense apparent reality, because that's what they do.

To be a little more precise, there's a difference between what is perceived and what is sensed. There's a lot of processing that goes on between the sensing and the conscious perception layer. Useless stuff is (hopefully) filtered out. But your point stands, the contrast between how we perceive the world and how it is.

[Sy Borg]

After writing that I was thinking that, in a sense, our brain is already in a vat - the skull.

So it is, but it is not being deliberately fed lies, unless I suppose it is hooked to Fox news.

So BiV is basically the idea that there could be two layers of vat.

The question remains - what do you think your senses are sensing?

All of that is besides the point. So you don't get it. It's not a proposal of what somebody might believe. And BB has yet a totally different point unrelated to BiV, despite their similarities.

1. I would say that CNN, the Guardian and MSNBC are less grounded in reality than Fox. That was not always the case but, Fox has reduced its misinformation while those other outlets have rapidly increased their misinformation.

2. I think you might be the one confused about what BiV means. It's an invalid way of casting doubt on the reality of our perceptions, rather like CNN and MSNBC today or Fox a few years ago. If the BiV was remotely possible, then it could validly make the "skepticism" point, but it's not.

I get it it, and I reject it, just as i reject BB.

You don't get it because neither is something to reject. BiV is simply a counter example illustrating the impossibility of submitting an empirical proof of anything. BB is unavoidable in some theories and cannot be waved away with simple denial. It is used to dismantle any possible justification of said proposed theory.
My pet view is currently plagued by BBs, and that means my view cannot be both correct and justifiable. If such is the nature of our universe, then that nature cannot ever be known. That's what a BB analysis does. Rejecting it doesn't change that. BB isn't even a philosophical view, it is a scientific conclusion arising from certain classes of theories.

I'm not trying to cut down your opinions. Few actually understand why BBs are so important. Some understand at least what the BiV scenario is meant to illustrate, which is just a tool for skepticism. But your lastest post (not quoted) shows that you have no intention of even trying to grasp what is being illustrated by either of these things.

You don't understand my position and thus miss the point. I will accept blame for not making myself clear enough. The BiV is an INVALID tool regarding skepticism. I have no problem with questioning reality, but if the tool used is simply impossible nonsense, then it's of no use.

The Boltzmann Brain is also pointless. Sure, there it technically a non zero chance that a brain could emerge in a vacuum, although that number would be exponentially greater than the total number of atoms in the universe, and is thus simply fiction. Another fanciful notion that proves nothing, demonstrates nothing, other than as a fable, like the hare and the tortoise.

It would be fab if reality was not as it appears. I understand the desire to imagine it as something other than the brutal, competitive milieu that it is. However, this is what we have to work with - actual physical reality as we perceive it. Yes, our perceptions are based on human senses and brain function, so reality is clearly not ABSOLUTELY as we see it, but it is clearly APPROXIMATELY as we perceive it.