Existence Exists - Redux

Jeff S,

I love this explanation, but I don't think it lets me off the hook. It presumes we have knowledge that there is a variance; this could be a priori knowledge, or it could be learned knowledge. Suspend disbelief for me for a second and suppose we really are in the Matrix. We really exist in a vat. ...

... I'm sure there's a fundamental mistake I'm making. I just wish I could discover it.

See post 15.

:-)

Ed

Post 21

Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 3:21pm

Thanks, Ted.

I really appreciate how fur you will go to help folks understand the what and the wherefores/wherefor's of myriad words.

:-)

Ed

Post 22

Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 3:41pm

Skeptic: "How do you know that this world is reality? How do you know that it isn't a dream?"

Aristotelian: "I'm sorry, what is a dream?"

Skeptic: "What do you mean, 'what is a dream?' It's obvious! Everyone knows what a dream is."

Aristotelian: "I'm sorry, could you explain?"

Skeptic: "Well, when you dream, you are asleep, imagining things that aren't real."

Aristotelian: "So you do know when things are real, and when they aren't?"

Skeptic: "..."

(Edited by Ted Keer on 7/26, 9:17pm)

Post 23

Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 3:25pm

Mr. Keer-
You wrote:

I cannot disprove that you are a serial killer. Would this justify me in treating you like you might be one?

No, but it also doesn't justify you treating me like I might NOT be one.

But then:

Claims such as that for the existence of God must be demonstrated by those who make them, otherwise they should be treated as arbitrary, and dismissed out of hand.

In effect, I'll know (believe?) what there is evidence to know? The claim of a mystical being outside of, and in control of, all natural laws is a fantastic claim - by definition. Therefore, the onus of proof rests with those who make the claim. I don't have to prove they're wrong, they have to prove they're right.

Do I get the heart of it?

Post 24

Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 5:07pm

Mr. Thompson-
I didn't miss your post 15. I typically begin a post and think about it for a few hours. After my last post I noticed your post 15. I thought perhaps I had answered myself, and your post 15, with this:

"Perhaps the answer is: Well, until proved otherwise, until there's even some evidence of an alternate reality, this is the reality I have to deal with and survive in. And this reality has certain requirements; like, you need to produce in order to survive."

Is this basically your point?

Post 25

Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 7:32pm

But what would you mean by treating someone as if he MIGHT be a serial killer? If you truly have reason to believe X, then you act on the belief that X. You don't go around calling the police and telling them that every person on your block MIGHT be a serial killer. Any talk of "logical possibilities" has no relation to reality. No sane person acts on the "logical possibility" that his neighbors are serial killers. And you yourself do not do so. Even when you lock the door at night, it is because you know that serial killers do exist. For that you have reason. You do not act as if your neighbors are serial killers. If you truly did, you would call the cops, and then pack up and move. Likewise, almost no one, even the so-called faithful, truly believes in God. To follow Daniel Dennett, at most they believe in the belief in God. If people truly believed in God, in the way they believe it may rain, we'd be in a much different, Middle Eastern world. Very few people in the West can even understand what it means to take such ideas seriously. Indeed, speaking of seriously, punch the next person who tells you he might be "dreaming" reality in the face. You will see how serious he takes this belief.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 7/26, 9:20pm)

Post 26

Saturday, July 26, 2008 - 9:59pm

Jeff wrote,

[I]f one merely asks, "How do you KNOW we're not living in the Matrix (dream, hallucination, etc.)?" I would hard pressed to answer anything else besides, "I don't." I could make appeals to an inability to prove a negative, or Occam's Razor, or, as Mr. Thompson pointed out, the principle of parsimony. But I still couldn't prove it.

Yes, you can prove it, because to assert the possibility that you are in the Matrix entails a contradiction. The contradiction is that it is possible that what you mean by the "real world" is not the real world. That's a contradiction, because it implies that what you mean by a term, namely its referent, may not be its referent. But if it's not, then it's referent is not its referent, which is a straightforward contradiction. Q.E.D.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 7/26, 10:08pm)

Post 27

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 9:23am

Jeff S,

... perhaps I had answered myself, and your post 15, with this:

"Perhaps the answer is: Well, until proved otherwise, until there's even some evidence of an alternate reality, this is the reality I have to deal with and survive in. And this reality has certain requirements; like, you need to produce in order to survive."

Is this basically your point?

No, not basically. Basically, my point in post 15 is captured by the following quotes:

I brought up the arbitrary possibility that there might be a Guardian Angel out there for you -- one who tricks other arbitrary ... beings ... so that they are tricked into thinking they're tricking you ...

... because the arbitrary isn't tied in any way to reality, there is no way to compare probabilities of the two hypothetical scenarios ... There is no way, in truth and reality, to ascertain the difference in probability between these 2 scenarios.

Now, knowing this, it is an epistemological vice to continue to hang on to one or the other of these 2 absurd possibilities -- and it is an epistemological virtue to cast off the arbitrary as if nothing has even been said.

When you sever the tie to reality -- via counterfactual, mental gymnastics -- then even reason can't pull you back in to the shores.

So it's not really like we're waiting for evidence that is counterfactual to our everyday experiences -- in order to begin to doubt them.

Instead, our everday experiences are all that we have to go on (to think or talk about). We take those experiences as "the given." We take them as self-evident (even if not always self-obvious). Anything said that contradicts the self-evident is ultimately incoherent and meaningless -- not something that remains plausible or interesting (to the growing mind). A curious mind may deal with, or in, such fantasies for awhile, but only to understand the inner workings of the mind itself -- not the outer reality that is, and always was, out there.

So, engaging in counterfactuals like this is merely a mental exercise. And exercise is good when it causes progress -- so that the same exercise is no longer stimulus for growth that it once was. A non-progressive exercise like this, like perpetually arm-curling 2-lb dumbells, quickly becomes a waste of time (as the mind grows past it). On this view, your "fundamental mistake" is merely your transient expression of concern during an epistemological learning curve -- an open expression about mental growing pains, if you will.

And your quote at the beginning of this post is proof of mental hypertrophy.

:-)

Ed
[has a curious and growing mind, too]

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/27, 9:25am)

Post 28

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 11:29am

Hi Jeff S,

Here's another take from an instrumentalist (non-Objectivist) perspective, as opposed to a fundamentalist perspective.

We can be deceived by our senses. We can confuse illusion with reality. And we can actually get by just fine on that -- so long as our perceptions *suffice*, flawed though they might be -- and even though we accept that there's a difference between existence and non-existence. Our survival doesn't depend on getting it right so much as it depends on making sure it's useful in getting us through.

So I'd propose that our perceptions are *justified* - not necessarily true or flawed - to the extent they are *useful* in solving some problem, a measure largely wrapped up with how well the perception *coheres* with other (useful) perceptions.

To your example, when it comes to sorting out reality, the Matrix really isn't that useful. More to the point, it's not that useful to postulate stuff wholly removed from testability or the ability to determine *whether* it coheres with the rest of our (useful) perceptions. I mean, what problems does the Matrix solve? How does it complement our other (useful) perceptions? A god is a much more difficult case than the Matrix because people tend to postulate gods not just to postulate them but actually to try and resolve problems like loneliness, mortality, ethics, biogenesis, ontology, etc. In the end, I'd suggest gods aren't justified because they aren't useful enough to the problems they aim to resolve, nor are they coherent with our more justifiable postulations.

Now at this point, some our fellow discussers' heads might well have popped at my profane, blasphemous post. I would suggest they not sink their teeth into me in this thread -- as it would detract from yours -- but rather, they start a new thread if they so choose.

Jordan

Post 29

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 9:03am

Mr. Keer,
I wrote that simply because one cannot disprove I'm a serial killer, it neither [i]justifies[/i] others treating me like I might be one, nor that I might NOT be one. If someone treats me like a serial killer I might ask, "Why are you treating me like a serial killer?" They couldn't offer as their justification, "Because I can't disprove you are one." Similarly, if someone wasn't treating me like a serial killer, and I ask, "Why are you NOT treating me like a serial killer?" their justification can't be, "Because I can't disprove you are one." Regardless of the situation, "because I can't disprove it" is not a justification - it's not a valid reason why or why not.

In fact, you treat me like I'm NOT a serial killer largely as a matter of faith, or perhaps probability. You have no reason to believe I'm not, but I could be. (It's always the quiet, nice guys - right?) I don't call the cops on my neighbors not because I cannot disprove they might be serial killers, but because I cannot prove they are. I don't [i]act[/i] as if my neighbors are serial killers because they've given no evidence of being serial killers. So I'm playing the probabilities; most people aren't serial killers, therefore my odds are good that my neighbors are not. If one of them turns out to be a serial killer, I can only fall back on, "Geez, who knew, eh? He was such a nice guy."

If I can bring this back around to God, simply because I cannot disprove there is a God, it doesn't justify me asserting He exists, nor does it justify me asserting He doesn't. I don't [i]act[/i] as if there is a God because no one's given me evidence there is a God. But I can't assert there is no God based simply on the fact that I can't disprove it.

Likewise, almost no one, even the so-called faithful, truly believes in God. To follow Daniel Dennett, at most they believe in the belief in God. If people truly believed in God, in the way they believe it may rain, we'd be in a much different, Middle Eastern world. Very few people in the West can even understand what it means to take such ideas seriously. Indeed, speaking of seriously, punch the next person who tells you he might be "dreaming" reality in the face. You will see how serious he takes this belief.

This is a great point. But, again, I think there's a difference between proving or not proving and our actions.

Post 30

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 2:17pm

Mr. Dwyer-
You wrote:

Yes, you can prove it, because to assert the possibility that you are in the Matrix entails a contradiction. The contradiction is that it is possible that what you mean by the "real world" is not the real world. That's a contradiction, because it implies that what you mean by a term, namely its referent, may not be its referent. But if it's not, then it's referent is not its referent, which is a straightforward contradiction. Q.E.D.

Why does it have to be a contradiction? I can understand why it would need to be a contradiction if someone tried to assert, "The real is not real." But I don't see how it's a contradiction to state, "What you think is real is not." All they're stating is that what is being perceived is not reality.

Post 31

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 6:09pm

Jeff S,

But I don't see how it's a contradiction to state, "What you think is real is not." All they're stating is that what is being perceived is not reality.

But there's equivocation there -- an equivocation of "think" with "perceived." These two aren't the same thing, though.

As I said before in my stick-in-water-looks-bent analogy, what is being perceived is always reality -- though what you think about these perceptions may not be consistent with the infallible perceptions that we have. It's always a contradiction to say that perceptions are about something not really real. Yet it's not necessarily a contradiction to say that thoughts are about something not really real. Thoughts can go awry and sometimes that's a good exercise for the mind.

When we look for the error in the bent-stick-in-water then we find it not in our perceptions but, instead, we locate the source of the error in our judgments about the really real perceptions of those really real things we've perceived.

Ed

Post 32

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 6:25pm

No Jeff. I don't not treat you as a serial killer as a matter of probability. It is highly probable (to use your phrase) that you are not a time-travelling velociraptor with plastic surgery or a were-Dalek, or Saddam's ghost in drag. It is not because it is unlikely that you are that I don't treat you as if you aren't. Neither is this a matter of faith. The mere idea that you might be one of these things is arbitrary - without evidence or import - and hence I don't even consider the possibility in order to dismiss it. I don't dismiss nonsense, since I never entertain it.

There are an infinite number of "possible" falsehoods.

We don't attain knowledge by dismissing each imaginable bit of nonsense in turn.

Faith is the positive belief in the arbitrary. To speak of faith in reason or faith in science is to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the concept. Many people do stop trying to understand things at about the age they memorize the multiplication table. They may indeed take what they are told is science on faith. But if you do not surrender your mind, and if you make sure to understand and integrate all your ideas, you will never take or need to take anything on faith.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 7/27, 9:00pm)

Post 33

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 8:32pm

Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!

Post 34

Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 8:39pm