On Idealism, repeated

on fundamental matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and ethics.

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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#61  Postby Cito di Pense » Dec 04, 2020 8:48 am

Frozenworld wrote:

However there are other posts on Quora about it just being plain uncertainty:


Well, that would mean nobody has to decide, one way or the other. No one's saying you're not free to believe what you want about stuff like this, including that solipsism is ridiculous. On top of that, if you do believe silly, nobody-knows shit when you have no good reason to do so, somebody will notice that you felt you had to decide, even though 'plain uncertainty' is in the wind. I actually get along pretty well without thinking too much about this stuff. But then, I have plenty of other reasons not to doubt my own sober assessments when they can be made. You're stuck in an endless loop of uncertainty, presumably about pretty much everything. You won't say you know anything, so I assume you don't, and that you believe you don't. Uncertainty? Drown in it, with my blessings.

We could say there are two kinds of people: Those who believe this is all there is, whatever it is, and those who believe there's got to be something else we don't (or rather, can't) know about. You can see god in your mind's eye, hear god with your sixth and seventh senses, smell god with your eighth and ninth senses, know god through your navel, and feel god whenever you take a good shit.
Хлопнут без некролога. -- Серге́й Па́влович Королёв

Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#62  Postby jamest » Dec 05, 2020 4:23 am

When I start my own blog on arseholeism and retardedness, to say the least, I will be referring frequently to this thread.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#63  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 05, 2020 5:39 am

It's just that some people, like in the threads I reference, seem to give it some level of credence that I didn't consider before. Like in response to solipsism being an argument from ignorance:

I totally agree with you here. Unfortunately, when strict logic and one's individual, immediate perception suggest something, it moves out of the realm of "ad ignoratiam" as you put it.


People argue that solipsism is useless and obviously false because it would mean that you're talking to yourself (as if that makes the experience any different). They say it "degrades" other people, that it's an obviously illogical philosophy because it would somehow assert "you" over "them".

In vivid dreams I've had, people have had strong arguments. I've had pity for others in the dream, argued with them, fought with them, even mourned for them, all with the pure conviction that these people were real. Yet in the morning I would wake up and realize that the arguments people made for their own existence said nothing about the truth of solipsism itself.

Solipsism is the simplest explanation not because it takes dissent out of the picture, as it does not; dissent remains the same, and people will still argue against you, as they would in a dream. The true source of solipsism springs from the fact that we never verify someone else's consciousness or thoughts as an actual experience. In a dream, they all appear to have their own consciousness and thoughts, but actually they are just two-dimensional actors in a temporary play, and no matter how convincing they are, the emotional convictions we experience in a dream in no way make the people in the dream real.

Yet somehow, as soon as people wake up and turn off their alarm clock, they believe the experience shifts radically. Of course you're the only person in the dream, but this is now, and we have logic and thoughts, right? But we come back to the same point we were at in a dream; we are only acting on our subjective emotional conviction, and not any actual evidence. One could theoretically create artifical intelligence that mimicked human intelligence, emotions and thoughts, even arguing aptly for its own consciousness and vehemently denying solipsism, without actually being real.

All philosophies that assume others have consciousness, emotions or experience rely on leaps of faith, assumptions and emotional convictions. This is, of course, more than good enough for most people; they try to logically justify it, always ignoring the persistent fact that they can never actually know whether anyone else has consciousness because they can never experience it, and in fact their own experience has taught them that, in a postmodern sense, there is no difference between "real consciousness" (if such a thing exists) and a mimicking character in a dream.

So before you think that just because "college freshmen joke about solipsism" that it is ridiculous and lacking evidence, perhaps you should try waking up and seeing if the college freshmen are even there. Indeed, there is no way to know, so based on our experience and Occam's razor, what is the more logical philosophy here? Just as one shouldn't be so quick to be defeated by illusions in a dream, one should also question this waking dream we experience everyday and try thinking about what we actually know about the actors that would be the first to silence our questions.


Or the quote in the previous page about how the burden of proof is on the realist and that solipsism is the default stance .
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#64  Postby Cito di Pense » Dec 05, 2020 6:44 am

Frozenworld wrote:It's just that some people, like in the threads I reference, seem to give it some level of credence that I didn't consider before.
Or the quote in the previous page about how the burden of proof is on the realist and that solipsism is the default stance.


When you're finally all done with this wankfest, and realized you're never cited anything but what people have said, in threads...

Now you're writing about threads, as if they actually existed. An idealist would never take a thread seriously.

Writers and speakers can say pretty much anything they want to. There are a few things that moderated platforms won't allow, but that's about it. Be proud of yourself, bwah. You're asking hard questions, but only of yourself. What you find hard, other people may find ridiculous.

For someone who's not an idealist, and takes seriously that life is short and then you die, verbal wankfests cut into the time and effort you can spend on actually wanking. Consider how typing can actually occupy fingers on both your hands that might otherwise be stuck right up your butt...
Хлопнут без некролога. -- Серге́й Па́влович Королёв

Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#65  Postby zoon » Dec 05, 2020 1:43 pm

Frozenworld wrote:So...humans want to be special?

That aside it still bugs me as the quote I listed above says that there is no evidence to suggest other people are other minds……

You are saying there is no evidence that other people’s thoughts are real?

For the purposes of this thread, I shall take a model to represent “reality” if that model generates predictions which turn out to be accurate, or at least better than the predictions from any competing model.

For example, if I have a mentalistic model of the thermostat in my house as “wanting” to keep the temperature the same, that model does work much of the time, but overall that mentalistic model is far less accurate than the scientific model of substances operating according to the laws of physics. Accordingly, I take the thermostat’s desires to be “unreal”, and its law-abiding constituents to be “real”.

Scientifically speaking, all the evidence suggests the desires of a human are in the end no more real than the desires of a thermostat. Our brains consist of atoms which follow the non-teleological laws of physics, not the intentions of gods, souls, or thoughts. This scientific view of human beings does not support solipsism, because it holds for myself as well as everybody else. Science has the potential to predict me more accurately than I can predict myself. If a scientist of the future were to predict everything I said and did more accurately than I could, then I would rightly feel my sense of myself had been seriously compromised. My present feeling that my sense of self is unquestionable stems at least in part from the fact that I can predict what I say and do far more accurately than anybody else can. But in the end, from the scientific point of view, it’s just a vivid illusion.

If a model gives us the best predictions for the time being, but is likely to be superseded in future by another, then the first model may perhaps be said to represent a temporary “reality”. At the moment, humans can best predict each other using the mentalistic model: it’s evolved guesswork, but it’s so far much more effective than science; current science can predict thermostats but not brains. On that basis, for current practical purposes, I can reasonably regard both my thoughts and other people’s as “real”. Again, this version of “reality” does not support solipsism, because all the evidence shows that modelling other people as having thoughts, beliefs and intentions provides us with the best available predictions. Another person’s consciousness is “real” enough until science catches up with evolved mindreading.

If we are using the scientific model, then everyone’s thoughts, including my own, become “unreal”. If we use the evolved, mentalistic model, then everyone’s thoughts, including other people’s, become “real”. For predicting people, the mentalistic model is currently much better, but the scientific model has the potential to outperform the mentalistic one. Neither model supports solipsism.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#66  Postby felltoearth » Dec 05, 2020 10:12 pm

jamest wrote:When I start my own blog on arseholeism and retardedness, to say the least, I will be referring frequently to this thread.

I have a name for your blog

Idol Threats


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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#67  Postby laklak » Dec 06, 2020 2:52 am

Frozenworld wrote:It's just that some people, like in the threads I reference, seem to give it some level of credence that I didn't consider before. Like in response to solipsism being an argument from ignorance:


People say all sorts of stupid shit. They witter on about God, Jebus, vaccines, moon landing hoaxes, SO much fucking stupid out there. One thing you can fucking count on, that's human stupidity. If you doubt that for a moment just read the news. Or listen to Depak.

Are you incapable of thinking for yourself? Can you not look at their philozofeezing nonsense and call bullshit on it? Use yer loaf, mate. This ain't no kindergarten for babies, you know.
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The sky is falling! The sky is falling! - Chicken Little
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#68  Postby Hermit » Dec 06, 2020 3:31 am

laklak wrote:One thing you can fucking count on, that's human stupidity.

Stupidity is something that is inculcated in most of us. Once we are successfully brainwashed with one ideology or another we tend to lose the ability to think.

Image

laklak wrote:This ain't no kindergarten for babies, you know.

No kindergarten is for babies. We have crèches for them.
God is the mysterious veil under which we hide our ignorance of the cause. - Léo Errera


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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#69  Postby laklak » Dec 06, 2020 4:08 am

Who needs adulting? All it's given me is hypothyroidism and a penchant for drugs.
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The sky is falling! The sky is falling! - Chicken Little
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#70  Postby Hermit » Dec 06, 2020 4:44 am

laklak wrote:Who needs adulting? All it's given me is hypothyroidism and a penchant for drugs.

You mistake getting old and knackered with becoming adult.

Knackery is bad. Adultery is good.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#71  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 06, 2020 9:09 pm

laklak wrote:
Frozenworld wrote:It's just that some people, like in the threads I reference, seem to give it some level of credence that I didn't consider before. Like in response to solipsism being an argument from ignorance:


People say all sorts of stupid shit. They witter on about God, Jebus, vaccines, moon landing hoaxes, SO much fucking stupid out there. One thing you can fucking count on, that's human stupidity. If you doubt that for a moment just read the news. Or listen to Depak.

Are you incapable of thinking for yourself? Can you not look at their philozofeezing nonsense and call bullshit on it? Use yer loaf, mate. This ain't no kindergarten for babies, you know.


Because some say solipsism is true:

"It is true, but it is a dead end to be an overtly uncompromising and dogmatic solipsist.

Indeed, all we can know is that we “experience”, that we are “aware” - beyond that there is no certainty of anything, as to true 100% certainty or empirical provability.

Even any words or symbols we use are constraints. constructs, and false as well - we cannot recognize (“be aware”, ”experience”) we know anything beyond that we do “have experience”.

Everything else is up in the air, in that only what is actually Real and True hath not nary a care.

Simply as solipsistical as that."


And I don't really have a response to that. I mean how can I say they are wrong?

I totally agree with you here. Unfortunately, when strict logic and one's individual, immediate perception suggest something, it moves out of the realm of "ad ignoratiam" as you put it.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#72  Postby romansh » Dec 06, 2020 9:22 pm

Frozenworld wrote:
And I don't really have a response to that. I mean how can I say they are wrong?

You don't seem to be able to say much or enter into a conversation... but you are good at copying and pasting though.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#73  Postby laklak » Dec 06, 2020 9:57 pm

Frozenworld wrote:
Because some say solipsism is true:


Some say the moon landing was a hoax. Some say Jebus will find you a parking space at Walmart if you ask him nicely. Some say vaccinations are a plot by the Reptilian Overlords to mind control us. Like I said, people say all sorts of stupid shit all the time.

Frozenworld wrote:
And I don't really have a response to that. I mean how can I say they are wrong?


Easy. You listen to them and then say "That's a load of fucking bollocks, mate"
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The sky is falling! The sky is falling! - Chicken Little
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#74  Postby Cito di Pense » Dec 06, 2020 10:52 pm

Frozenworld wrote:
Because some say solipsism is true:

"It is true, but it is a dead end to be an overtly uncompromising and dogmatic solipsist.

Indeed, all we can know is that we “experience”, that we are “aware” - beyond that there is no certainty of anything, as to true 100% certainty or empirical provability.

Even any words or symbols we use are constraints. constructs, and false as well - we cannot recognize (“be aware”, ”experience”) we know anything beyond that we do “have experience”.

Everything else is up in the air, in that only what is actually Real and True hath not nary a care.


And I don't really have a response to that. I mean how can I say they are wrong?



Maybe you don't, but I do. You just quoted somebody who's so stupid (and pompous) that, in a vain effort to use flowery language to appear erudite, is unable to keep up with his own double negatives. See the bolded part, if you're not simply trolling at this point. You don't respect whoever you are begging to read this shit. You don't doubt you have an audience, though.
Хлопнут без некролога. -- Серге́й Па́влович Королёв

Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#75  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 07, 2020 12:11 am

Cito di Pense wrote:
Frozenworld wrote:
Because some say solipsism is true:

"It is true, but it is a dead end to be an overtly uncompromising and dogmatic solipsist.

Indeed, all we can know is that we “experience”, that we are “aware” - beyond that there is no certainty of anything, as to true 100% certainty or empirical provability.

Even any words or symbols we use are constraints. constructs, and false as well - we cannot recognize (“be aware”, ”experience”) we know anything beyond that we do “have experience”.

Everything else is up in the air, in that only what is actually Real and True hath not nary a care.


And I don't really have a response to that. I mean how can I say they are wrong?



Maybe you don't, but I do. You just quoted somebody who's so stupid (and pompous) that, in a vain effort to use flowery language to appear erudite, is unable to keep up with his own double negatives. See the bolded part, if you're not simply trolling at this point. You don't respect whoever you are begging to read this shit. You don't doubt you have an audience, though.


The double negative part sounds like nitpicking when the who topic is more about all we have being experience.

Or to put it another way:

This is turning into a semantics argument. I used the term "sensory input" because Im not aware of any other way to label the process I am referring to using the English language. What I am saying is that nothing indicates to me that I need to identify a source of sensation, internal or external, or that there is one. It simply IS the experience. When you begin to attempt to pinpoint a source it is a human attempt to rationalize the unexplainable, which is not possible.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#76  Postby laklak » Dec 07, 2020 12:31 am

OK, let's assume idealism is The One and Only Truth. So what? Does it change anything? Are you going to wake up tomorrow and say "You know, fuck work, it's all in my mind"? Ignore that traffic ticket? Stop worrying about your diet, or how much you drink, or that lump under your armpit? No, you're going to do exactly what you do now. So what's the fucking point?

It's like sitting in the freshers dorm smoking weed for the first time and wondering if the red you see is the same as the red I see. Like, wow, man.

If it looks like reality, walks like reality, and quacks like reality, it's probably reality. Or close enough not to matter, eh?
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#77  Postby Cito di Pense » Dec 07, 2020 5:17 am

Frozenworld wrote:
The double negative part sounds like nitpicking when the who topic is more about all we have being experience.

Or to put it another way:

This is turning into a semantics argument. I used the term "sensory input" because Im not aware of any other way to label the process I am referring to using the English language. What I am saying is that nothing indicates to me that I need to identify a source of sensation, internal or external, or that there is one. It simply IS the experience. When you begin to attempt to pinpoint a source it is a human attempt to rationalize the unexplainable, which is not possible.


But is it nitpicking? If idealism is true, this latest exchange is just another turn in the incredibly stupid game you're playing with yourself. Idealism doesn't stir me -- it looks like a way to just roll everything up into a simplistic little ball, and then forget it.

If you want to stay in character for supporting idealism, you have to decide whether or not there's an audience for your thoughts or whether it's just an incredibly stupid game you're playing with yourself to see how many holes you can ignore. For example, you've already been asked how there is only this restricted capacity to predict future experience. You tossed it off lazily, as if it were just another experience instead of a conversation with a mind other than your own.

You can conduct a scientific investigation as if it were just a sequence of experiences you're having. Try it sometime. It just makes for a more difficult conversation than the one you're trying to have, here.

It's self-contradictory to acknowledge arguing with someone else about whether idealism is true. If that's your 'experience' just go with it. There's no one with whom to have an argument.

Frozenworld wrote:
The double negative part sounds like nitpicking when the who topic is more about all we have being experience.


All we have being experience? We? Don't break character quite so casually. Just go fuck yourself.
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Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#78  Postby BlackBart » Dec 07, 2020 7:31 am

Bad news if solipsism is true. It ain't you, it's me. :smug:
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#79  Postby BlackBart » Dec 07, 2020 7:33 am

Though to You'd think I'd come up with a better video game than this one. Sorry! :dunno:
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#80  Postby Thommo » Dec 07, 2020 7:35 am

Frozenworld wrote:The double negative part sounds like nitpicking when the who topic is more about all we have being experience.

Or to put it another way:

This is turning into a semantics argument. I used the term "sensory input" because Im not aware of any other way to label the process I am referring to using the English language. What I am saying is that nothing indicates to me that I need to identify a source of sensation, internal or external, or that there is one. It simply IS the experience. When you begin to attempt to pinpoint a source it is a human attempt to rationalize the unexplainable, which is not possible.


That's illogical, by the way.

The assumption that it is not possible to rationalise the "unexplainable" is predicated on idealism being true - which is the conclusion being argued for. If idealism is not true then humans can successfully rationalise the "unexplainable" and it turns out that the "unexplainable" is the "explainable", but mislabelled.

This is a classic confusion of epistemology with ontology. We don't and can't know for absolutely sure that our explanations are correct (and that would include the idealist assumption that what we qualitatively experience is "real" for sure, a point which is yet again singularly neglected by the idealist), but that arguably successful critique doesn't turn a positive into a negative - we can't and don't know for absolutely sure that our explanations are wrong either.
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