hackenslash wrote:I once found it fascinating the diverse directions people would run in by picking up Descartes' cogito and treating it as if he was making a statement about how reality works.

Maybe I'm just jaded. Or maybe FW is jaded, and I'm just the manifestation of their jadedness.

It's just shocking to find that what you thought was an undeniable fact is not really as unshakeable as you think. I would love to leave this be and move on, but not having a definite answer bothers me (like much of philosophy).

Frozenworld wrote:Wrong again, as I and others have show there isn't a preponderance of vastly more reasonable and logical reasons, that's just your opinion (which is wrong in this case).

Yes, there is. Empirical evidence, intersubjectivity and parsimony are preponderately more reasonable than solipsism, as a simple matter of epistemology.

The fact is that it is an inescapable fact that one can never truly know for sure and I want people to see that it is a real dilemma rather than call it nonsense.

Except it isn't a dilemma, and you simply aren't in a position to offer anybody here any insight.

Saying something is nonsense isn't an argument, as much as I wish it was. I don't want to believe it, but I have no evidence against it.

Bullshit. You very much want to believe it, and the evidence against it is voluminous, in the form of the aforementioned empirical evidence, intersubjectivity and parsimony.

SO it continues to remain a possibility I can't shake.

Except that you haven't demonstrated its possibility. Meanwhile you're certainly shaking something fapfapfapfapfap. Or does that not exist either?

Your reasoning is wrong here.

If it's wrong, you'll trivially be able to show where it leads to absurdity.

By that logic then you're just "people on the internet" so why should your word be taken over someone on quora? Doesn't make sense does it?

There's a huge difference, and it goes directly to why this forum and the forum that preceded it have been so valuable. It's exactly because you can interact with us an get good feedback on your mistakes. I'm not the intellectual minnow who entered the Dawkins forum over a decade ago, and the reason is discussion with those who've already done all the thinking and discussion that I'd previously only read about, so that I could take advantage.

Frozenworld wrote:It's just shocking to find that what you thought was an undeniable fact is not really as unshakeable as you think. I would love to leave this be and move on, but not having a definite answer bothers me (like much of philosophy).

Hahaha. Much? Philosophy isn't about answers. If you're expecting answers from philosophy, you're doing it wrong. Of course, we already know you're doing it wrong, because philosophy is about ensuring that you're asking the right kinds of question, and you have exactly the wrong kind of question here.

Frozenworld wrote:
I'm familiar with their arguments, if everything about you is controlled by biology or things out of your conscious control then what sort of things is there left for a "Self" to do. Or something like that.

Then you cannot be certain of the self you perceive either, if one accepts a real world of cause and effect.

Wait until he hears about cognitive priming.

Frankly, the notion that I can impact your decisions with nothing but a disposable cup should be telling you something important about just how little conscious control you have...

hackenslash wrote:
Frankly, the notion that I can impact your decisions with nothing but a disposable cup should be telling you something important about just how little conscious control you have...

I wonder if consciousness is simply an epiphenomenon. So I might add, if any.

Frozenworld wrote:

hackenslash wrote:I once found it fascinating the diverse directions people would run in by picking up Descartes' cogito and treating it as if he was making a statement about how reality works.

Maybe I'm just jaded. Or maybe FW is jaded, and I'm just the manifestation of their jadedness.

It's just shocking to find that what you thought was an undeniable fact is not really as unshakeable as you think.

And yet nowhere near as airy fairy, mystified wibble as you contend.

The reasonable ground is wide and open, yet you want to live in denial - it makes you special.

Frozenworld wrote:I would love to leave this be and move on,...

Who are you trying to convince by repeating this?

Yourself? I'm not convinced at all - you've no good reasoning at all for your position. A few half-baked ideas tenuously linked basically by shoving them together and then pointing at the small pile proudly.

Frozenworld wrote:... but not having a definite answer bothers me (like much of philosophy).

Not having a definite answer is the only state of truth you'll ever inhabit.

hackenslash wrote:

Frozenworld wrote:Wrong again, as I and others have show there isn't a preponderance of vastly more reasonable and logical reasons, that's just your opinion (which is wrong in this case).

Yes, there is. Empirical evidence, intersubjectivity and parsimony are preponderately more reasonable than solipsism, as a simple matter of epistemology.

Yeah, but except for all the empirical evidence, intersubjective falsification, parsimony, deductive reasoning, and logic as a whole.... what have the Romans ever done for us?

romansh wrote:

Frozenworld wrote:
I'm familiar with their arguments, if everything about you is controlled by biology or things out of your conscious control then what sort of things is there left for a "Self" to do. Or something like that.

Then you cannot be certain of the self you perceive either, if one accepts a real world of cause and effect.

Back aboard the merry-go-round?

Tickets are free - all these seats, but only One True Sitter.

Frozenworld wrote:

hackenslash wrote:I once found it fascinating the diverse directions people would run in by picking up Descartes' cogito and treating it as if he was making a statement about how reality works.

Maybe I'm just jaded. Or maybe FW is jaded, and I'm just the manifestation of their jadedness.

It's just shocking to find that what you thought was an undeniable fact is not really as unshakeable as you think. I would love to leave this be and move on, but not having a definite answer bothers me (like much of philosophy).

Dude, nevermind even trying to put forth an argument; at this rate, you'll make progress just by saying loud and proud that you embrace Solipsism.

Spearthrower wrote:Back aboard the merry-go-round?

Tickets are free - all these seats, but only One True Sitter.

For a second, I was going to launch into a diatribe about density, which is not at all inapt, but then I realised I misread it as "One True de Sitter".

Ah, well, curvature own way...

hackenslash wrote:

Frozenworld wrote:Wrong again, as I and others have show there isn't a preponderance of vastly more reasonable and logical reasons, that's just your opinion (which is wrong in this case).

Yes, there is. Empirical evidence, intersubjectivity and parsimony are preponderately more reasonable than solipsism, as a simple matter of epistemology.

The fact is that it is an inescapable fact that one can never truly know for sure and I want people to see that it is a real dilemma rather than call it nonsense.

Except it isn't a dilemma, and you simply aren't in a position to offer anybody here any insight.

Saying something is nonsense isn't an argument, as much as I wish it was. I don't want to believe it, but I have no evidence against it.

Bullshit. You very much want to believe it, and the evidence against it is voluminous, in the form of the aforementioned empirical evidence, intersubjectivity and parsimony.

SO it continues to remain a possibility I can't shake.

Except that you haven't demonstrated its possibility. Meanwhile you're certainly shaking something fapfapfapfapfap. Or does that not exist either?

Your reasoning is wrong here.

If it's wrong, you'll trivially be able to show where it leads to absurdity.

By that logic then you're just "people on the internet" so why should your word be taken over someone on quora? Doesn't make sense does it?

There's a huge difference, and it goes directly to why this forum and the forum that preceded it have been so valuable. It's exactly because you can interact with us an get good feedback on your mistakes. I'm not the intellectual minnow who entered the Dawkins forum over a decade ago, and the reason is discussion with those who've already done all the thinking and discussion that I'd previously only read about, so that I could take advantage.

Yes, there is. Empirical evidence, intersubjectivity and parsimony are preponderately more reasonable than solipsism, as a simple matter of epistemology.

Wrong on all three there. There is no empirical evidence that there is an external world since the senses are what are being questioned. It's circular reasoning. Intersubjectivity assumes there are others but doesn't prove it. Parsimony still favors solipsism as being more reasonable than there being a whole bunch of people with minds and an external reality....that you can't prove. Why? Because all we have is the first person, so why from that would we assume anything else. It's not simple at all.

There is no proof of an objective reality. I want there to be one so I can feel like what I do matters. I want it to be utter nonsense like the idea of aliens taking over the white house, but instead it just remains a viable point...unfortunately.

It's circular reasoning.

Indeed it is. And motivated reasoning too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning

Motivated reasoning is a phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology that uses emotionally biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence. In other words, motivated reasoning is the "tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe".[1]

Motivated reasoning is similar to confirmation bias, where evidence that confirms a belief (which might be a logical belief, rather than an emotional one) is either sought after more or given more credibility than evidence that disconfirms a belief. It stands in contrast to critical thinking where beliefs are approached in a skeptical and unbiased fashion.

It can lead to forming and clinging to false beliefs despite substantial evidence to the contrary. The desired outcome acts as a filter that affects evaluation of scientific evidence and of other people.[2]

Frozenworld wrote:
There is no proof of an objective reality. I want there to be one so I can feel like what I do matters.

Ah, but does whether or not what you do matters follow from the proof of an objective reality? No, not to anyone except you, so far. All you're doing is identifying the proof of an objective reality with the consequence of your believing that what you do matters.

The question preceding that one is about the "to whom" anything matters; the big question is not that there be a proof of an objective reality, but rather, to whom it matters what you do. If you're the only one to whom what you do matters, then it's easy to see why you crave so deeply a proof of an objective reality. It's OK that you do so, but it's your problem alone. In order for it to matter to anyone else what they do, you have to establish how the proof of objective reality (or lack thereof) is related to there being matters at stake for them. Furthermore, some proof of an objective reality still won't automatically make what you do matter to anyone but you. What all this shows is that you're pissing into your own wind. All that pissing is just dampening the paper sack you're trying to fight your way out from inside of.

Frozenworld wrote:Parsimony still favors solipsism as being more reasonable than there being a whole bunch of people with minds and an external reality...., but instead it just remains a viable point...unfortunately.

Obviously, this intellectual conniption of yours is related to the potential panic-inducing proof of an objective reality in which what you do matters even to you. You have once again talked yourself down from this potential state of panic, but in another few days, you're just going to have to repeat the whole process, because you can't manufacture proof that it isn't the case. It's simply your means of limiting yourself to questions that don't matter to anyone but you.

If you're the only one to whom what you do matters, then it's easy to see why you crave so deeply a proof of an objective reality.

And were that really the case, and were you really absolutely convinced of your solitariness, then this whole drama of repeatedly telling other people - complete strangers - how absolutely distraught you are by the inescapable conclusion that you can only be sure that only you exist is nothing more than farce.

You talk, but you don't walk.

Frozenworld wrote:Wrong on all three there. There is no empirical evidence that there is an external world since the senses are what are being questioned.

This is hilarious. One might suggest you mgo and look up the word 'empirical', except that you're unlikely to learn anything.

It's circular reasoning.

This is the bit where you expose for the class your blistering insight into what circular reasoning is, why it's a problem and, most importantly of all, when it's a problem. I've never been more certain of anything than this: you can't answer these questions.

Intersubjectivity assumes there are others but doesn't prove it.

Wrongo. There is no assumption (well, there is, and it's already been mentioned, but this isn't it). This is a postulate arising from empirical evidence.

Parsimony still favors solipsism as being more reasonable than there being a whole bunch of people with minds and an external reality....that you can't prove. Why? Because all we have is the first person, so why from that would we assume anything else. It's not simple at all.

Still wrong, because solipsism requires an additional stratum for which there is exactly zero evidence, along with a barrier to other minds existing for which, once again, there's no evidence. You clearly don't have the first clue of what parsimony entails. Simplicity is nothing to do with it.

There is no proof of an objective reality.

Reality is neither an alcoholic drink nor an axiomatically-founded system of deductive logic, so proof doesn't apply. What there is is empirical evidence. Gobs and gobs of it.

I want there to be one so I can feel like what I do matters.

No, you want nothing other than to blather and be taken seriously on topics you have exactly zero grasp of.

I want it to be utter nonsense like the idea of aliens taking over the white house, but instead it just remains a viable point...unfortunately.

You wouldn't know a viable point if it poked you in the eye.

Frozenworld wrote:…..
There is simply no way to test whether the world you experience is all in your head or not. …..
realism …. keeps adding external entities that it can't prove the existence of in order to say that a world outside our heads exists. But it cannot prove the existence of such things. It's something I personally want to be the case but I cannot prove it.

……….

Solipsism is perhaps the most consistent explanation for things because it can at least prove the existence of the entity responsible for them, you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Solipsism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds

Frozenworld wrote:

hackenslash wrote:I once found it fascinating the diverse directions people would run in by picking up Descartes' cogito and treating it as if he was making a statement about how reality works.

Maybe I'm just jaded. Or maybe FW is jaded, and I'm just the manifestation of their jadedness.

It's just shocking to find that what you thought was an undeniable fact is not really as unshakeable as you think. I would love to leave this be and move on, but not having a definite answer bothers me (like much of philosophy).

@Frozenworld:

Are you assuming that your self as a conscious being definitely exists, and that this is incontrovertibly a fundamental fact about the world because you are directly aware of it? If so, this is where I strongly disagree with you (and with Descartes). I think your scepticism doesn’t go far enough.

As a sceptic, would you be open to the possibility that your conscious self might be as much of a phantom as anything else? If you can doubt the reality of the food you eat and the hands you eat it with, is it so impossible to doubt the reality of your own consciousness?

Most people on this thread seem to be able to entertain the idea that their consciousness could be no more than a confabulation of their evolved brain; you are the one who is less sceptical?

romansh wrote:

Frozenworld wrote:No he's got it right.

Actually zoon is a she, at least in my imagination.

…

Yes, I’m a she in my imagination as well.

I still think there’s a genuine dilemma around consciousness, though not the one Frozenworld identifies, and more concerned with practicalities.

My version of the dilemma is that on the scientific model, consciousness is at best a sub-model, some sort of illusion in our brains, while by contrast in our everyday social lives consciousness is still of importance as a guide to behaviour. For example, to say that another group of people are “really” only mechanisms is the kind of dehumanisation that is liable to accompany exploitation or genocide. But how can it be so wrong to say that a group of people are “really” only mechanisms, when this is (almost certainly) scientific fact?

Humans have evolved both to cooperate closely with people of the in-group, and also to compete fiercely with outgroups for resources. Dehumanising the out-group by calling them animals or otherwise unworthy of consideration as conscious beings is standard behaviour while trying to exterminate them.

I find it reasonably easy to see that consciousness is probably an illusion, although “illusion” may not be quite the right word when it is still needed in practice for effective cooperation. I can also see that it may be dangerous to stress its illusory nature in a world where mutually distrustful armed groups are in competition for scarce resources.

(There is plenty of evidence that attributing consciousness to other people is an evolved trait with high survival value for humans. Our brains are similar to each other, so “I” can use “my” brain to predict another person with fair accuracy: in particular, I can calculate costs and benefits for other people as well as for myself, and this double calculation enables the cooperation based on reciprocity which has enabled humans to take over the planet.

Neuroscience is so far entirely useless for predicting people in ordinary life, so we still need to use the evolved model with consciousness, even though science has the primary “reality” because it’s potentially more accurate. If or when neuroscience takes over from Theory of Mind for predicting people in ordinary life, the concept of consciousness may well become irrelevant.)

But how can it be so wrong to say that a group of people are “really” only mechanisms, when this is (almost certainly) scientific fact?

Well, probably the first way of addressing this is to say that it's not a scientific fact at all but a form of reductionism. Employing the same reasoning to arrive at the contention that humans are only mechanisms would also necessitate saying that of literally everything in the universe, including the universe itself. It would, in other words, be about as useful a statement as the ones FW has been making.

All the standard responses to reductionism apply.

zoon wrote: But how can it be so wrong to say that a group of people are “really” only mechanisms, when this is (almost certainly) scientific fact?

It is the word "only" I disagree with.

Spearthrower wrote:

Well, probably the first way of addressing this is to say that it's not a scientific fact at all but a form of reductionism. Employing the same reasoning to arrive at the contention that humans are only mechanisms would also necessitate saying that of literally everything in the universe, including the universe itself. It would, in other words, be about as useful a statement as the ones FW has been making.

All the standard responses to reductionism apply.

Nothing wrong with reductionism I would argue. It has been one of the most successful strategies in understanding how this universe ticks.

Understanding we are mechanisms in some sense I find really useful in not believing I am a magic being or some god.