History Were Historical Shifts in Philosophy Right or Wrong Turns?

[Canute]

You mean if there were creatures who had conscious experiences but didn't have brains. Humans had conscious experiences well before they ever realized they had brains and that certainly didn't prove that brains don't exist. I know you are attempting a reductio, but hey, just give a little creedence to what is being said. How can you expect to be taken seriously when you won't take anyone else seriously?

That's a fair point. However I must admit that I find the argument that experiences are brain-states quite impossible, as yet, to take seriously. Perhaps this is lack of imagination, although I'm not clear what 'imagination' might mean if it is just a disposition of neurons. Can Antipodeans imagine things?

At the moment I can't understand how would one could know what state ones brain was in except by experiencing looking at it? What would 'knowing' mean if one cannot experience knowing? And if experiences are brain-states what on Earth is this 'consciousness' thing that so many scientists are trying explain?

This thought experiment is only designed to point out that our sensual abilities as a race have a lot to do with how we develop concepts.

It's not designed to point it out, it's designed to test the plausibility of the idea that brain-states are experiences. It asks the question - could Antipodeans as defined exist? I would say no, because their definition is self-contradictory. How can one know one has brain-state but not have the experience of knowing?

If "experience" within you really was only the dispositional propensity of one part of your brain to simultaneously store information gained from the senses or from direct thought processes and send it to reporting centers, would you know the difference?

I not only would, I do. I know nothing about my brain-states, but I know about my experiences. Ergo, they are not identical. Even if my brain-states are entirely responsible for my experiences they are not identical.

In fact, your brain does this quite a bit without you "experiencing" it. What exactly do you think the difference is? Mentat has given his hypothesis. He believes the difference to be simply that in what we term "conscious" processing, the results are sent in a manner such that they are also reported to what we conceive of as a "self."

This illustrates the problem with the idea you're defending. Who is this 'we' and what is this 'self'? And what do you mean by 'conceive?

But what about you? What do you think is different about the processes in your brain that are made accessible to your experience? Why some and not others? Under the right circumstances, they seem to have equal hold over your behavioral tendencies, so the idea of a Cartesian theater where the self beholds these facts of experience and makes decisions based on them is pretty much conclusively illusory.

Hang on, who mentioned Cartesian theatres? Not me. I'll happily agree that self is an illusion, a mere collection of memes. But it does not follow from this that consciousness is identical with brain, or that consciousness is no more than brain. As to why I am conscious of some of the results of my brain processes and not others I have no idea. Perhaps it's evolutionary, with functions that can be automated becoming unconscious over time.

I can quite understand why someone might conclude that conscious experiences are entirely caused by brain states. However I really cannot make any sense of the idea that conscious experience are brain states. It seems about equivalent to saying that the picture on a computer screen is identical with the state of the processor. If it were then there would be no point in having screens, we could just observe the states of the processor instead.

 

[Mentat]

You must be unique amongst human beings for not knowing what an experience or a mind is. I'm afraid I can't be bothered to follow you down that route.

As you wish. However, I should find it most distrubing of everyone responds as you do. After all, if there really is something more to the great philosophies that depend on such distinctions as you take for granted, then I should like to know what it is (I have studied them all, and have found nothing so intuitive or obvious as you imply).

It's no good quoting from the Bible to counter my assertion that the Bible misrepresents the teachings of Jesus. It's clearly pointless. Can I suggest that you read the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, The Gospels of Thomas or Mary, the writings of the Essenes or Nazirenes, the writings of twenty centuries of masters of the orthodox Christian tradition, and so on, rather than the Bible, written long after the events and carefully written/compiled to an agenda.

Not really. You see, the teachings of Jesus (and his apostles) are based on that which was written before him (in the so-called "Old Testament"), by the confession of himself and those apostles. And, the last apostle to die, John, proclaimed that any addition to those things which had been written (ending in his "scroll") would be a sin deserving of all the plagues and curses therein.

If there is more to Christianity than that which the Bible contains, Jesus was not a Christian, nor were his apostles.

A lot of it is online. His teachings are perfectly clear on the issue of objectifying God and why one shouldn't do it. He gives the same reasons as does the prophet Mohammed, the Buddha and Lao-Tsu. Imho it's best to research these issues as a historian, not as a institutionalised Christian believing all that garbled stuff about designer/creator Gods who get offended if one doesn't worship them.

Well, that is, after all, the opinion that Jesus himself held. Jesus quoted freely from "the prophets", who describe God in just such a way as you seem to hold in disdain. Jesus also spoke of "God" (probably using the Hebrew name, "Yahweh"/"Yehowah") as being his "Father" and the "one sending me forth", indicating a singular entity. Jesus called himself the perfect reflection of his Father, which would also indicate a person (since Jesus was himself a person).

This is not about religion or worship. I'm just stating the facts as an in-depth study of the Scriptures has revealed them to me. Regardless of whether the God of the Bible exists or not, He (again, a reference to a singular personage, as made frequently in the Bible, and by Jesus) is described a certain way, and these "Orthodox Christians" seem way off-base when compared to that description (again, a description subscribed to by Jesus himself).

How you can claim to understand his teachings while saying that you don't understand consciousness, which is largely what he is talking about, I don't know. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, as is 'God', yet you say that there is nothing within except illusory epiphenomena.

Actually, Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven was "among" them. It is a gross mis-translation to construe it as being "within" (my study of Greek (and more nascent study of Biblical Hebrew-Aramaic) was fueled by an interest in just such mis-translations).

Jesus' teachings about the Kingdom of Heaven are perfectly reminiscent of the prophecies of Daniel (with regard to a 'kingdom that would crush and put an end to all these kingdoms (he had ennumerated some major world powers, and then described the mixed state of nations and governments at the "time of the end", prior to this verse), which would stand to time indefinite'. They don't refer to some inner-state, but to an actual kingdom.

Even if you don't think Jesus was the "Christ" or "Messiah", you must admit that most of his claim to such titles relied on the accuracy of "the prophets". These self-same prophets spoke of God as just the singular, personal, and (when necessary) vengeful God that you claim to be completely distinct from Jesus' own teaching.

 

[Mentat]

(is that an Egyptian god or something - Mentat?)

Actually, it comes from two different science-fiction books (or, rather, series of books): Bruce Coville's "Aliens ate my homework", and Frank Herbert's "Dune".

Anyway, if I'm reading Mentat here correctly, he thinks that we have no need of the word "experience" in the sense you are using it because we can use other words that refer only to the dispositional states of neuronal arrays during what we now call a "conscious moment." Better to use one term to refer to one concept rather than two. You think you actually are referring to two concepts, that the dispositional states of neuronal arrays is not the same thing as "experience." Perhaps there is an identity in the sense that one cannot exist without the other, but they are nonetheless distinct phenomena. Neither of you is alone in your view. Personally, I don't really see any way to rule out the possibility of Mentat's proposition. If there existed a species of beings capable of identifying and labelling through introspection alone exactly the dispositional state of every physical process occurring in the brain that correlated with what we refer to as a "conscious experience," then perhaps they would never develop such a phrase as ours, indeed, the very concept would seem incoherent to them.

I would say that you are quite close to my meaning, but then you are also quite far (if I'm reading you correctly, that is).

I don't think that brain states influence mental states, nor that there is a causal relationship between cortical dispositions and "conscious experience".

I, instead, deny the very existence of "experience" as anything other than an empty word (at least, when used in the context of philosophy of mind (clearly, "experience" has many good uses in other fields of study, but the way it's used in philosophy is completely useless, IMHO)). I don't think that brain states are related to mental states, simply because I don't believe that there are any "mental states".

 

[Canute]

Mentat - You're way off with the Christian stuff. You seem to have missed the fact that the earlier texts on which the Biblical Gospels were largely based are now well known, many of them having been rediscovered. Still, no matter. I think we might as well just agree to differ on all these things.

 

[Mentat]

Mentat - You're way off with the Christian stuff. You seem to have missed the fact that the earlier texts on which the Biblical Gospels were largely based are now well known, many of them having been rediscovered. Still, no matter. I think we might as well just agree to differ on all these things.

That doesn't seem very reasonable...but I guess I don't want to argue either. If you choose not substantiate either position, then I guess I will have to stop countering you altogether.

I would really like to understand your position, and why you hold it. But I can't force you to instruct me (I am, after all, a very irritating student...or so I've been told).

 

[selfAdjoint]

Mentat - You're way off with the Christian stuff. You seem to have missed the fact that the earlier texts on which the Biblical Gospels were largely based are now well known, many of them having been rediscovered. Still, no matter. I think we might as well just agree to differ on all these things.

The subject of Bible scholarship is way off topic here, but I know something about it, and it is much more confused and contentious than you make out, Canute. Certainly there is nothing there firm enough to base an argument on.

Bottom line, no new manuscripts have been turned up (the dead sea scrolls to the side), but only fragments. And thus there is no firm modification of traditional readings but only different scholars' interpretations, which are driven by their private agendas, whethere to "demythologize" or find femimist gospels, or whatever. This interpretation limit applies to the dead sea scrolls too. Do they have something to do with Jesus or Christianity? A lot? Nothing at all? It's all in the eye of the believer.

 

[Tournesol]

In some way different from what object?

The scientific theory of perception has it that perception start
with an external object which causally interacts with a medium
(sound, light) which gives rise to some kind of respones
in the perceiving subject. I am using 'impression' to mean the
response in general, ie without prejudice as to whether it is
purely nerual or involving subjectivity/consciousness/qualia.

If Rorty is wrong that Mind can be dispensed with by dispensiing with incorrigibility, and if I am right that some sort of physical/mental
distinction is needed to avoid naive realism, then the second
question needs to be answered in separate, non-Rortian terms.

But you are making an ad hoc (or ad hominem) assumption, whereas he is merely negating one (a dangerous and mis-guiding one, at that, in his opinion). The burden of proof thus rests on you, as I've been trying to explain to AKG.

I making two assumptions and I can support them both:

1) A distinction is between properties of objects of perception and
the impression of the perceiver is needed (to avoid naive realism)

2) there is a difference between the impression as it seems
to the subject and description of the accompanying neural activity.
(based on my own experience).

Quote:

You can derive a mind/body distinction from indirect/direct access, and you
may be able to derive an incorrigible/corrigible distinction from it, but that doesn't mean the MB distinction is derived from the incorrigible/corrigible

.

But it is, historically speaking.

I contest that.

Besides, you can derive the mind-body distinction from direct/indirect access, and the only use for a concept such as direct access vs. indirect access is to establish which things can be assumed a priori and which things only a posteriori.

Heidegger and Dewey, in their historical approaches to philosophy, have borne this out as well. He is building from their approaches. Besides, as I've said, there is no other known or conceivable (AFAIK) use for the distinction between direct/indirect access (or concept/intuition, or idea/impression, or mind/body) except to establish the indubitable (or the "assumable", if that's a word). I examined these philosophies to great length before ever reading Rorty.

I have given an example of such use.

Why "naive"? How about "unbiased by the typical thinking of philosophers"?

"Naive realism" is a technical term for a pre-scientific understanding
of reality, particularly perception. Naive realists think rainbows
really are arches in the sky, sticks really do bend when you put them
into a glass of water, and so on. The problem for you is how
to keep your neuroscience without undermining the much more basic
scientific understanding that underpins the departure from NR.


Quote:
Secondly it is not about accuracy; even if my mental imprssions
are mere proxies or symbols, that doesn't mean they are inaccruate.

The very distinction between "objective phenomenon" and "subjective experience thereof" allows for "inaccuracy" ("inaccuracy" here simply means that "subjective experience thereof" doesn't equal "objective phenomenon").

It allows for the wrong turn whereby the map/terrain distinction is
confused with systematic misreperesentation, but it does not
force it upon anybody.

If, OTOH, we remove the distinction (and you have yet to give a good reason to invoke such a concept ITFP), and start from scratch, we can avoid the whole "mirror of nature" problem (and, in turn, the "hard" problem).

Only at the (unnecessary and avoidable) price of lapsing into
naive-realism, anaesthesia-feigning, etc. We can
also avoid it by understanding correctly how representations and symbols work, without incurring those penalties.

Quote:

I only misperceive when I receive the wrong impression (generate
the worng neural activity if you like -- this point is entirely neutral
about whether impressions are qualia or not).

=Mentat
That's because you are still talking about "impressions", as if we could assume a priori that they even exist.

Given the way I am using "impression", that is neither an assumption nor
a-priori.

"Neural activity" is not some scientific way of explaining what an "impression" is (contrary to popular belief among Chalmereans),

Given the way I am using the word "imprssion", it is.

it is an explanation of that which actually goes on in the brain of a conscious entity (instead of all the "writing on tablets" and "observing with our mind's eye").

To say that it is the only way of looking at the only thing that is
going on is question-begging.

If "naive realism" is the ability to do philosophy without invoking meaningless distinctions (and they are meaningless until you (or someone who agrees with you) can assign them some coherent meaning), then I don't see the problem.

So sticks really do bend when you put them into water ?

You can't change history. Have you read Descarte's First Philosophy? It all starts with the dubito.

That Descartes said what he said is historical fact. That it has the significance
you and Rorty give it is a contentious interpretation.

There are [ antipodeans ] in the thought-experiment at hand.

Thought-experiments aren't facts. You can claim that antipodeans
have no deficit in culture or aesthetics, but I don't have to believe that is actually possible.

Quote:
However, there is a way things seem to me.

I'm not disputing that. I'm just asking you to consider the possibility that we treat your report about how things "seem to you" as a raw piece of information very much akin to a Doyle's "report" about the living habits of Holmes.

If you think you can "explain away'' my experiences as neural activity,
fine: let's see you try. But surely the point of a Dennett-style apprach is to
insist that there is nothing to explain away in the first place ?

I am not saying I have them because I talk about them, I am
saying I talk about them because I have them!

And that is yet another verbal (or, rather, scribal) report, nothing more (at least, to me).

Quite. But it isn't just a report to me.

And I don't really know what else it could be. It might hold up in argument, because people don't like to dispute someone's own reports about how things seem to them, but that doesn't mean that it's true in any "absolute" sense (whatever that means).

But I am not saying that my reports are incorrigible. I am saying there
is a way things seem to me, and it is not captured by any third-person
physcal description I have seen.

I do have some access and some way of accessing such information.
But then I am not basing my claims in incorrigibility.

What the heck are you talking about. You don't base a claim on incorrigibility, you make a claim and decide whether or not to be incorrigible about that claim.

You are basing your claims on incorrigibility, inssofar as you think the whole
MBP can be undravelled by no longer taking subjective reports as incorrigible.

And I maintain that you do not have a way of accessing it, until you can tell me what that "way" is.

it's ususally called consciousness. Even antipodeans have a version of it.

Yes, I need them to avoid the confusions that go with naive realism.
People who aren't familiar with philosophy (and are therefore, by default, naive realists) do fall into confusion. People get confused about the "if a tree falls in the forest ..?" question. With my vocabulary, I can answer it: it causes
sound -waves in the air, but no sound-impression to any onlooker.

That is one answer. But the question is only a "problem" in the first place because of its philosophical nature.

But can be and is posed by people with no particular philosophical background.
Getting rid of philosphical jargon and going back to ordinary language
dioes not put us into a position where we can answer all the questions
we can ask. We would need to go back further, maybe to Wittgensteins
"slab! block!" language.

Instead, the Wittgensteinian would simply say that "sound" is a term that applies to its being received and processed by an entity capable of such, and that the question was merely a word-puzzle.

I think it is a word-puzzle too! It's just that too unravel it you need
to make some kind of internal/external distinction.

In fact, your answer just raises more problems, like: Does "onlooker" allow for a deaf onlooker? Does it allow for a machine that records sounds, but doesn't have "sense-impressions" (like a tape-recorder)? Etc.

All fairly trivial.

 

[Mentat]

The scientific theory of perception has it that perception start
with an external object which causally interacts with a medium
(sound, light) which gives rise to some kind of respones
in the perceiving subject. I am using 'impression' to mean the
response in general, ie without prejudice as to whether it is
purely nerual or involving subjectivity/consciousness/qualia.

Not true. You said that the impression is somehow different than the object. That statement quantizes "impressions", even if simply by virtue of their comparison with "objects". All of this, in turn, leads one (inevitably) back to "hard problems", "qualia", and "mental states", and I see no reason to take this "wrong turn" with you.

Besides, if "impression" could refer to a purely neural response to some external stimulus, than the rule that it must be different from that which it observes would not hold when the person was observing neural patterns (perhaps someone else's, perhaps their own; it is technologically possible in principle).

I making two assumptions and I can support them both:

1) A distinction between properties of objects of perception and
the impression of the perceiver is needed (to avoid naive realism)

"The impression of the perceiver"...do you mean the activity that the object stimulates, or how the object seems to the person?

2) there is a difference between the impression as it seems
to the subject and description of the accompanying neural activity.
(based on my own experience).

There is also a difference between how Sherlock Holmes is described by Doyle, and the bits of ink on the pages of "The Hound of Baskervilles".

By virtue of heterophenomenology, the reports of how something seems to the observer are raw data to be treated as one treats a novelist's fiction. As such, there isn't so much a difference between Sherlock Holmes and ink as there is between Doyle's reports about Holmes and ink.

I contest that.

No you don't...that is, until you actually present some valid contest.

I have given an example of such use.

What example?

"Naive realism" is a technical term for a pre-scientific understanding
of reality, particularly perception. Naive realists think rainbows
really are arches in the sky, sticks really do bend when you put them
into a glass of water, and so on. The problem for you is how
to keep your neuroscience without undermining the much more basic
scientific understanding that underpins the departure from NR.

What are you talking about? Who says a stick doesn't "really" bend when it goes into water? If one defines "bend" as an apparent curvature (and given the non-Euclidean geometries where such concepts as "bend" and "curve" are quite different than normal experience, this is not much of a stretch), then it is indeed the case.

This is not a trivial point, since you appear to be trying to establish that, because something seemed to be a certain way until science proved it otherwise, "seems" and "objects" must be different in some non-trivial way. But they're not. How something seems to you (or to society in general) is different from the object that is being examined only if you hold that there is an "actual" way that the object is, and that we are simply perceiving it wrong. That, again, is within the confines of attempting to establish indubitability (only it shifts to the objective world for certainty).

It allows for the wrong turn whereby the map/terrain distinction is
confused with systematic misreperesentation, but it does not
force it upon anybody.

You're missing the point. Even the map/terrain distinction lends itself to the bias that there is one set of things that we can see "right in front of us" (or most clearly), and those things which the "map" represents (which are not "right in front of us" in that sense).

Only at the (unnecessary and avoidable) price of lapsing into
naive-realism, anaesthesia-feigning, etc. We can
also avoid it by understanding correctly how representations and symbols work, without incurring those penalties.

You have yet to prove that by me.

Given the way I am using "impression", that is neither an assumption nor
a-priori.

The way you are using "impression" is quite different from the way that you are claiming to use it.

To say that it is the only way of looking at the only thing that is
going on is question-begging.

No it's not. To say that we are attempting to understand what it going on inside our heads need not have anything to do with trying to understand "qualia" or "mental states" or anything like that, so long as we don't assume that such things actually occur inside us.

That Descartes said what he said is historical fact. That it has the significance
you and Rorty give it is a contentious interpretation.

What interpretation? He began his quest with the dubito and ended it with the full-fledged cogito (mind-stuff and all).

Thought-experiments aren't facts. You can claim that antipodeans
have no deficit in culture or aesthetics, but I don't have to believe that is actually possible.

And that's the point of the experiment. You believe that something is missing. Now, if you were confronted with a society exactly like the antipodeans, you would have to change your mind. As it is, there are no antipodeans. What is important, however, is that you have yet to prove the impossibility (in principle) of there being such creatures.

If you think you can "explain away'' my experiences as neural activity,
fine: let's see you try. But surely the point of a Dennett-style apprach is to
insist that there is nothing to explain away in the first place ?

There are reports to explain (please see my "Heterophenomenology" thread, and read the link), but I don't see what else there should be. After all, if there were something else, why didn't you report it? If, OTOH, you believe (and report) that there are things about your "experience" that are ineffable, then we must simply take that as another report, and attempt to explain it also.

Quite. But it isn't just a report to me.

Then what else is it?

But I am not saying that my reports are incorrigible. I am saying there
is a way things seem to me, and it is not captured by any third-person
physcal description I have seen.

But the way things seem to you (raw seems) is a concept grounded in incorrigibility. The fact that you can be absolutely, 100% positive, that that is indeed how things seem to you, reveals this fact.

You are basing your claims on incorrigibility, inssofar as you think the whole
MBP can be undravelled by no longer taking subjective reports as incorrigible.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I guess that's close to accurate. I'd prefer to say that we can avoid the whole MBP, simply not discuss such things, and get on fine without it (the sciences do on a daily basis, as does every other human endeavor). That the MBP is based on incorrigibility is not just an historical fact, but one to which almost all of your comments have added additional credence.

it's ususally called consciousness. Even antipodeans have a version of it.

The antipodeans have a way of seeing their insides. This could, perhaps, be a second set of eyes, which points inward. It could be a connection to some fourth-dimensional extension (as in "Spaceland") which sees them from a fourth-dimensional perspective. All that matters is that they can see their insides, and you cannot see your own.

But can be and is posed by people with no particular philosophical background.
Getting rid of philosphical jargon and going back to ordinary language
dioes not put us into a position where we can answer all the questions
we can ask. We would need to go back further, maybe to Wittgensteins
"slab! block!" language.

That's a misunderstanding of Wittgenstein which perhaps requires its own thread...for now, let me assure you that people with no philosophical background go about their whole lives without ever using your words (and I hold, until proven wrong, that "qualia", "mental state", etc, are nothing but empty words/phrases). That these terms have been infiltrating the common vernacular does not change the fact that they have added nothing to understanding of anything which we actually encounter in life. Philosophers of Mind are quite alone in their preoccupation with such things.

I think it is a word-puzzle too! It's just that too unravel it you need
to make some kind of internal/external distinction.

No, you don't. You need to make a distinction between air waves, and air waves that enter a recording device. This distinction is made perfectly clear in the very phrases used, and is no problem at all.

All fairly trivial.

Oh really? I recall reading many excerpts from Chalmerean philosophers which have questioned just such things to exhaustive lengths (especially that second part about whether recording devices, which clearly process sounds, have "sense-impressions" like we do, or have "qualia" like we do).

 

[loseyourname]

I don't think that brain states influence mental states, nor that there is a causal relationship between cortical dispositions and "conscious experience".

I, instead, deny the very existence of "experience" as anything other than an empty word (at least, when used in the context of philosophy of mind (clearly, "experience" has many good uses in other fields of study, but the way it's used in philosophy is completely useless, IMHO)). I don't think that brain states are related to mental states, simply because I don't believe that there are any "mental states".

I never answered this; sorry. I'd say you are reading me wrong. My explanation of your posts wasn't that you think brain states influence mental states, but that mental states are brain states and so in any meaningful explication of what a mental state is it is best to completely drop the concept of "mental state" and talk only of brain states.

 

[Tournesol]

The scientific theory of perception has it that perception start
with an external object which causally interacts with a medium
(sound, light) which gives rise to some kind of respones
in the perceiving subject. I am using 'impression' to mean the
response in general, ie without prejudice as to whether it is
purely nerual or involving subjectivity/consciousness/qualia.

Not true. You said that the impression is somehow different than the object. That statement quantizes "impressions", even if simply by virtue of their comparison with "objects".

Nope. I can talk about catching colds without quantising colds. straw-man.

All of this, in turn, leads one (inevitably) back to "hard problems",

Not by itself. If impression are purely neural there is no HP. In any case,
if everything that leads to the HP is indisputable, we are simply
stuck with the HP. The only other option is to deny the indisuputable
(eg pretend to myself that there is nothing going on subjectively
and reports just pop out of my mouth).

Besides, if "impression" could refer to a purely neural response to some external stimulus, than the rule that it must be different from that which it observes would not hold when the person was observing neural patterns

That would be introspection, not perception.

I making two assumptions and I can support them both:

1) A distinction between properties of objects of perception and
the impression of the perceiver is needed (to avoid naive realism)

"The impression of the perceiver"...do you mean the activity that the object stimulates, or how the object seems to the person?

As explained, either.

2) there is a difference between the impression as it seems
to the subject and description of the accompanying neural activity.
(based on my own experience).

There is also a difference between how Sherlock Holmes is described by Doyle, and the bits of ink on the pages of "The Hound of Baskervilles".

Not analogous, because stories cannot read themselves.


Quote:
I contest that.

No you don't...that is, until you actually present some valid contest.

Saying something is invalid doesn't show it to be invalid. Try harder.

What example?

The tree in the forest.

Quote:
"Naive realism" is a technical term for a pre-scientific understanding
of reality, particularly perception. Naive realists think rainbows
really are arches in the sky, sticks really do bend when you put them
into a glass of water, and so on. The problem for you is how
to keep your neuroscience without undermining the much more basic
scientific understanding that underpins the departure from NR.

What are you talking about? Who says a stick doesn't "really" bend when it goes into water? If one defines "bend" as an apparent curvature .

If it's apparent , it's not real. The two words are opposites, FYI.

This is not a trivial point, since you appear to be trying to establish that, because something seemed to be a certain way until science proved it otherwise, "seems" and "objects" must be different in some non-trivial way. But they're not. How something seems to you (or to society in general) is different from the object that is being examined only if you hold that there is an "actual" way that the object is, and that we are simply perceiving it wrong. That, again, is within the confines of attempting to establish indubitability (only it shifts to the objective world for certainty).

That there is a way things actually are, and that it is not given by straightforward
perception, but requires thought and experimentation to uncover
are basic postulates of science. In your efforts to be hyper-scientific
you are pulling the rug from under science. Note, BTW, that what "really"
is the case as far as science is concerned is opposed to what is
"incorrigible" as far as experience is concerned, so it is hardly the same
issue.

You're missing the point. Even the map/terrain distinction lends itself to the bias that there is one set of things that we can see "right in front of us" (or most clearly), and those things which the "map" represents (which are not "right in front of us" in that sense).

Yes. We need that distinction to explain how we can be mistaken about things. Even your reports are a kind of map.

The way you are using "impression" is quite different from the way that you are claiming to use it.

evidence ?

No it's not. To say that we are attempting to understand what it going on inside our heads need not have anything to do with trying to understand "qualia" or "mental states" or anything like that, so long as we don't assume that such things actually occur inside us.

"need not" does not mean "must not".

What interpretation? He began his quest with the dubito and ended it with the full-fledged cogito (mind-stuff and all).

He did , and that does not mean the whole of the Phil. of Mind revolves
around Descartes, epistemology, incorrigibiity, mirrors, etc.

Now, if you were confronted with a society exactly like the antipodeans, you would have to change your mind. As it is, there are no antipodeans. What is important, however, is that you have yet to prove the impossibility (in principle) of there being such creatures.

Sure. I can do that by arguing that I have qualia (in some sense),
that they are very much connected with my own aesthetic appreciation, etc.

You could say that it is imaginable for people exactly like humans
to exist without lungs, and I suppose it just about is, but as far
as I am concerned, I need my lungs, and in this universe humans
need lungs to live. It's the difference between logical possibility
(just about anything) and (meta)physical possibility (much more restricted).


Quote:
If you think you can "explain away'' my experiences as neural activity,
fine: let's see you try. But surely the point of a Dennett-style apprach is to
insist that there is nothing to explain away in the first place ?

There are reports to explain (please see my "Heterophenomenology" thread, and read the link), but I don't see what else there should be. After all, if there were something else, why didn't you report it?

I did! The something else beside the report per se, is what it is a
report of -- experience!

If, OTOH, you believe (and report) that there are things about your "experience" that are ineffable, then we must simply take that as another report, and attempt to explain it also.

One possible explanation being to take it at face value-- yet that is forbidden.

QUOTE]But it isn't just a report to me.
[/QUOTE]

Then what else is it?

experience

But the way things seem to you (raw seems) is a concept grounded in incorrigibility.

I have not explained it that way. Straw man. Try to deal with the arguments
I am actually making.

The fact that you can be absolutely, 100% positive, that that is indeed how things seem to you, reveals this fact.

I never said anything of the kind.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I guess that's close to accurate. I'd prefer to say that we can avoid the whole MBP, simply not discuss such things, and get on fine without it (the sciences do on a daily basis, as does every other human endeavor).

Nope, actual real scientists do take subjectivity seriously.
The imaginary scientists promoted by Dennett and co are another matter.

That the MBP is based on incorrigibility is not just an historical fact, but one to which almost all of your comments have added additional credence.

You are not engaing my actual comments.

The antipodeans have a way of seeing their insides. This could, perhaps, be a second set of eyes, which points inward. It could be a connection to some fourth-dimensional extension (as in "Spaceland") which sees them from a fourth-dimensional perspective. All that matters is that they can see their insides, and you cannot see your own.

Since my subjective reports can scientifically be correlated with objective
neural activity the obvious explanantion is that I can see what is going
on inside me, but in different terms.

That's a misunderstanding of Wittgenstein which perhaps requires its own thread...for now, let me assure you that people with no philosophical background go about their whole lives without ever using your words (and I hold, until proven wrong, that "qualia", "mental state", etc, are nothing but empty words/phrases).

They probably don't use the word 'oesophagus' but they know they have one.

 

[Tournesol]

No, you don't. You need to make a distinction between air waves, and air waves that enter a recording device. [

That is some kind of internal/external distinction.

Oh really? I recall reading many excerpts from Chalmerean philosophers which have questioned just such things to exhaustive lengths (especially that second part about whether recording devices, which clearly process sounds, have "sense-impressions" like we do, or have "qualia" like we do).

Yes. Once you have accepted that you need an internal/external distinction,
there is a subsequent question about how best to characterise it in the
case of humans -- as neural activity, qualia or whatever. But you cannot
avoid that subsequent questions by refusing to make the internal/external
distinction at all, since that leads away from science back to naive realism.
Your characterisation of this kind of "hard problem" question as unnecessary
and avoidable therefore fails.

 

[Mentat]

I never answered this; sorry. I'd say you are reading me wrong. My explanation of your posts wasn't that you think brain states influence mental states, but that mental states are brain states and so in any meaningful explication of what a mental state is it is best to completely drop the concept of "mental state" and talk only of brain states.

Yeah, that's closer to my actual position. I'd say that the terms we use to describe "mental states" are simply short-cut terms, used in the absence of any clear understanding of what actually goes on inside our bodies (particularly, our brains). We, as humans, like to think that we have privileged access to our insides, since they're our insides (I'll leave it to the evolutionary psychologists to try and explain why this is the case ). It's territorial, I guess. But the simple fact is, we don't know everything about our insides, and making up terms for short-cut explanations was alright until people started treating them as though they were more than what they are.

 

[Mentat]

That is some kind of internal/external distinction.

Again, no, they need only be processed. That our processors our inside is irrelevant.

The distinction is between a sound wave that has been processed, and a sound wave that hasn't. These are merely distinction about the history of that particular wave.

Yes. Once you have accepted that you need an internal/external distinction,
there is a subsequent question about how best to characterise it in the
case of humans -- as neural activity, qualia or whatever. But you cannot
avoid that subsequent questions by refusing to make the internal/external
distinction at all, since that leads away from science back to naive realism.
Your characterisation of this kind of "hard problem" question as unnecessary
and avoidable therefore fails.

Science does just fine without even addressing such questions as the one we were considering ("if a tree falls in a forest..."). Science simply does not address them. That you refer to my dismissal of them as un-scientific (and naive) is indicative of a gross misconception about science.

 

[Mentat]

Nope. I can talk about catching colds without quantising colds. straw-man.

You are quantizing your case of the cold. Besides, to refer to "an impression" and relate it to "an object" is, by necessity, to quantize both (simply by use of the word "an/a", and by virtue of the object being singular/quantum).

Not by itself. If impression are purely neural there is no HP.

If "impressions" exist in any quantum sense (that is, if I can speak of "a perception" (rather than the process of perceiving), or of a "Final Draft" of my conscious perceiving of anyone thing) then we will be unable to avoid the hard problem. Why do you think this thread is called "Wrong Turns"? If it were possible to make a wrong assumption, but still be "on the right path", then "turn" wouldn't be a good analogy.

The only other option is to deny the indisuputable
(eg pretend to myself that there is nothing going on subjectively
and reports just pop out of my mouth).

I don't mean to sound like a therapist, but are you afraid of the concept of "reports just popping out of your mouth"? What if they do so in a predictable and pattern-oriented manner?

That would be introspection, not perception.

Not if s/he were looking at someone else's neural patterns (or at a computer image of their own, or whatever).

As explained, either.

Ok, then I need you to expound on what you mean by point 1, please.

Not analogous, because stories cannot read themselves.

Neither can a human (without special instrumentation, that is). It is the myth that we have privileged access to our inner-workings that causes some of our biggest "problems".

Saying something is invalid doesn't show it to be invalid. Try harder.

I'd like to think that there is something more to proving a point invalid than providing a unchallenged refutation, but I can't see what it would be. I have provided refutation to everything you have posted, and so cannot think of how your points could possibly be more invalid, at this point (no personal offense intended).

If it's apparent , it's not real. The two words are opposites, FYI.

No there not. What is a "real" bend, Tournesol? Is it in Euclidean terms, or in the terms of any of the innumerable other possible geometries? There is nothing more to the "bending" of a stick then how it appears.

That there is a way things actually are, and that it is not given by straightforward
perception, but requires thought and experimentation to uncover
are basic postulates of science. In your efforts to be hyper-scientific
you are pulling the rug from under science.

You are wrong. I have studied the philosophy of science. What you describe might have held up under the logical positivist view, but that has long been abandoned.

I will grant that, historically, the idea of an absolute reality was essential to science, but that's just because scientists were still trying to understand the mind of God (Why did He make this this certain way? What was His purpose? Since He is a rational and intelligent being, there must be a rational and intelligent explanation for His creations. etc). Scientists are no longer working under those assumptions.

Relativity in how things "actually are" is now an integral part of science, since the concept of "theory" (which is disprovable, but never provable) requires it.

Note, BTW, that what "really"
is the case as far as science is concerned is opposed to what is
"incorrigible" as far as experience is concerned, so it is hardly the same
issue.

Again, wrong. What is "real" in science (and in every other endeavor of man -- except, perhaps, philosophy) is that about which one can speak incorrigibly, without fear of contradiction. That's as "real" as anything ever gets, in any field except philosophy. That is yet another indication that incorrigibility is integral to the current concepts of philosophy, and that it is philosophy's Achille's heel.

Yes. We need that distinction to explain how we can be mistaken about things.

Ah, yes, but "mistaken" in what way? What would it mean for us to be "mistaken", and what would it require for us to change our opinions?

Even your reports are a kind of map.

Your reports are the only thing I might consider a "map" (in this context), and that only in the heterophenomenological sense.

evidence ?

You claim to be using "impression" to mean any effect that a stimulus might have on us (though it seems obvious, from the term "stimulus", that it merely "stimulates" us...I could still accept the use of the term "impression" in this way), and yet persist in quantizing our impressions and perceptions (even while you deny it outright, I have shown that, in every case, your use of such terms has been quantum in nature).

"need not" does not mean "must not".

It does as per Ockham. Why invoke an extra assumption that lends nothing to our explanations of anything, and that we can thus easily live without?

He did , and that does not mean the whole of the Phil. of Mind revolves
around Descartes, epistemology, incorrigibiity, mirrors, etc.

That's why this thread is called "Wrong Turns" in the plural. There have been many wrong turns, by I have traced them back to Descartes and his dubito. I am not the first to do so. That all of the problems seem to disappear when we stop trying to ground our beliefs in something certain lends further credence to the concept that post-Kantian-oriented philosophy of mind (Chalmerean, at its worst...perhaps Rylean at its best) is little more than dubito-revisited.

Sure. I can do that by arguing that I have qualia (in some sense),
that they are very much connected with my own aesthetic appreciation, etc.

You could say that it is imaginable for people exactly like humans
to exist without lungs, and I suppose it just about is, but as far
as I am concerned, I need my lungs, and in this universe humans
need lungs to live. It's the difference between logical possibility
(just about anything) and (meta)physical possibility (much more restricted).

Your very example does you in. It is impossible in principle for anything like a human to survive without lungs (given that which is scientifically known about humans). There is nothing in the scientific explanation about humans that requires (or even deals with) qualia, as Chalmers and his followers are quick to point out. They view that as a problem with science. I view it as intelligent people refusing to make assumptions a priori.

I did! The something else beside the report per se, is what it is a
report of -- experience!

But you are simply reporting again. There is nothing else besides the report, anymore than there is something "more" besides the report that Doyle makes about Holmes' adventures. Everything about Sherlock and his adventures is exhausted in Doyle's account of them. Now, Doyle could say that there was more to it, and that Sherlock was actually real, but then we'd think he'd had too much to drink.

The same goes, pace Dennett, for your reports about conscious experience. They are your reports, and are to be considered as the raw data. There is nothing more to your fiction, which you present to the heterophenomenologist, than that which you report.

One possible explanation being to take it at face value-- yet that is forbidden.

No, that's exactly what Dennett is saying we should do! It is you who are trying to add something to your reports. We (heterophenomenologists) are simply "taking it at face value"!

I have not explained it that way. Straw man. Try to deal with the arguments
I am actually making.

That you don't see the logical end of each of your lines of reasoning is not my problem. I have tried (and continue to try) to show you that all of your arguments lead back to incorrigibility and Descartes, but you simply deny it (without solid reasoning to back up your denial).

I never said anything of the kind.

Previously posted by you:
I am saying there
is a way things seem to me...

You can look it up (it's a few posts back) to see if I'm quoting you out-of-context, or if I'm miscontruing this, but the implication of this statement is clear.

Nope, actual real scientists do take subjectivity seriously.
The imaginary scientists promoted by Dennett and co are another matter.

First off, Dennett and co. do take subjectivity seriously, just not in the way you'd like them to.

Secondly, scientists who study the brain, the body, social relations, history, etc, do so with no regard whatsoever to qualia or subjective experience. Historians and the like take into account the fact that one's own perception of a state of affairs needn't be perfectly accurate (relative to another's account, or relative to physical data), but this has nothing to do with MBP, HP, or anything like them.

Finally, that the neurological sciences can get on with a study of thought, and that historians and sociologists can get on with a study of our conscious interactions throughout time, without qualia or mind-body distinctions is clearly indicative of the uselessness of such terms (and that is the point I was trying to make).

Since my subjective reports can scientifically be correlated with objective
neural activity the obvious explanantion is that I can see what is going
on inside me, but in different terms.

Wrong again. Heterophenomenology was devised specifically to explain how your reports are to be treated scientifically. That your subjective reports sometimes correlate with objective neural or physiological activity does indicate that you have some knowledge about your inner-workings, but such is extremely limited.

OTOH, there are the innumerable times when a person has reported that they are going to have a heart-attack or that they are going to vomit, when no such thing was actually going to occur. It was a false alarm, which would not be possible if you could actually view your insides.

They probably don't use the word 'oesophagus' but they know they have one.

Some of them know that they have a "pipe", of sorts, down which food travels toward their bum, but that doesn't mean that they know they have an esophagus (since such entails quite a bit more than a mere "pipe").

 

[loseyourname]

That's why this thread is called "Wrong Turns" in the plural. There have been many wrong turns, by I have traced them back to Descartes and his dubito. I am not the first to do so. That all of the problems seem to disappear when we stop trying to ground our beliefs in something certain lends further credence to the concept that post-Kantian-oriented philosophy of mind (Chalmerean, at its worst...perhaps Rylean at its best) is little more than dubito-revisited.

Sorry to pick on this one little snippet here, but it might be worth pointing out that this could be said about any human endeavor. They'd all become immediately easier and we'd remove a good deal of problems if we simply stopped trying to be certain of anything. Philosophy and every other field of enquiry would revert to sophistry and we'd be left with lawyers instead of philosophers and scientists.

 

[Mentat]

Sorry to pick on this one little snippet here, but it might be worth pointing out that this could be said about any human endeavor. They'd all become immediately easier and we'd remove a good deal of problems if we simply stopped trying to be certain of anything. Philosophy and every other field of enquiry would revert to sophistry and we'd be left with lawyers instead of philosophers and scientists.

That doesn't contradict my point at all. As the existentialist philosophers would be quick to point out (if any still existed ), philosophy is only a segregated, distinct profession because it keeps trying to ground itself in certainty.

I would debate the placing of "science" in this category (of neo-Kantian, certainty-establishing, geisestwissenschaften), since science is more concerned with practical truths-for-the-time-being.

 

[loseyourname]

That doesn't contradict my point at all. As the existentialist philosophers would be quick to point out (if any still existed ), philosophy is only a segregated, distinct profession because it keeps trying to ground itself in certainty.

Well, philosophers I know personally say that any time a field of philosophy achieves some level of certain, concrete results, it branches off and becomes science. All of the natural sciences and even psychology essentially began as philosophy. They'd say the philosophy that remains philosophy is characterized by its inability to come to any conclusions. One might say it is the least able of all pursuits to ground its claims in certainty.

I would debate the placing of "science" in this category (of neo-Kantian, certainty-establishing, geisestwissenschaften), since science is more concerned with practical truths-for-the-time-being.

I think science belongs. In fact, ideally I think the justice system should belong as well. Both are designed to be part of the search for truth. They tail off for practical reasons at what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, or in the case of science, what reasonably fits the data and cannot be falsified, but these are only practical concerns because in both fields it is not possible to have complete certainty. It is likely that in many philosophical pursuits this is the case as well (complete certainty is a practical impossibility), but it does not mean the philosopher should cease to look for truth any more than the ideal scientist and ideal lawyer should.

I'm going to be honest here and admit that I haven't actually read Wittgenstein (he is on the reading list later in the semester for a class on causation that I'm enrolled in), but I have read modern philosophers of religion that cite his ideas as validations for their claims. They say that no particular language game can be critiqued from the POV of another language game, and within the religious language game (in which words mean completely different things than in scientific language), the claims made by the religious are correct, which really only means consistent with their other claims. I think you can see quickly why fideism becomes undesirable. Any group of people can simply say they are speaking a different language from the group that doesn't agree with them (even though they are both speaking English) and that they are correct from the POV of their own language game. Do you really want a theory of knowledge and meaning that leaves scientific knowledge on the same level as religious claims, the claims of terrorist organizations, even the claims of occultist mystics?

 

[Tournesol]

You are quantizing your case of the cold. Besides, to refer to "an impression" and relate it to "an object" is, by necessity, to quantize both (simply by use of the word "an/a", and by virtue of the object being singular/quantum).

My point was that you CANNOT infer metaphysical quantisation
directly from grammar, and I illustrated it by an example that nonbody
would be crazy enough to believe in: the example of "a cold" as an actual
entity. You may be insulting enough to think that I believe that colds
are actual things, but what do you mean when you say "I caught a cold"?

If "impressions" exist in any quantum sense (that is, if I can speak of "a perception" (rather than the process of perceiving), or of a "Final Draft" of my conscious perceiving of anyone thing) then we will be unable to avoid the hard problem.

Nope, the HP is about explanatory gaps. Purely nerual explanantions
are popular with the people they are popular with rpecisely because they don't have that kind of problem (and, no, that doesn't justify them).

I don't mean to sound like a therapist, but are you afraid of the concept of "reports just popping out of your mouth"? What if they do so in a predictable and pattern-oriented manner?

Fear has nothng to do with it; it's just no the way things are.

Neither can a human (without special instrumentation, that is). It is the myth that we have privileged access to our inner-workings that causes some of our biggest "problems".

Circular. You are appealing to your no-consciousness conclusion to support
the aptness of an analogy which is itself being put forward to support the no-consciousness conclusion.

No there not. What is a "real" bend, Tournesol? Is it in Euclidean terms, or in the terms of any of the innumerable other possible geometries?

Whichever is really applicable.

There is nothing more to the "bending" of a stick then how it appears.

A profoundly unscientific comment.

I will grant that, historically, the idea of an absolute reality was essential to science, but that's just because scientists were still trying to understand the mind of God (Why did He make this this certain way? What was His purpose? Since He is a rational and intelligent being, there must be a rational and intelligent explanation for His creations. etc). Scientists are no longer working under those assumptions
Relativity in how things "actually are" is now an integral part of science, since the concept of "theory" (which is disprovable, but never provable) requires it.

Nope. Relativism is not demonstrated by Popper-style considerations. ]
The fact that you cannot have final knowledge of the way things are
does not mean there is no way things are.
The fact that you cannot have final knowledge of the way things are
does not mean the truth of a theory consists of its acceptance, or
that incompatible theories can be equally true (the latter tow comments
are implications of relativism).


However, I am glad that you have made it clear that you have no
sympathy with realism, and are therefore not really basing your approach on science.

Ah, yes, but "mistaken" in what way? What would it mean for us to be "mistaken",

Among other things, it mean the way things seem to us is not how they are.

Why invoke an extra assumption that lends nothing to our explanations of anything, and that we can thus easily live without?

Qualia are part of the explanandum, so one would not expect to find them in the explanans.

Your very example does you in. It is impossible in principle for anything like a human to survive without lungs (given that which is scientifically known about humans). There is nothing in the scientific explanation about humans that requires (or even deals with) qualia, as Chalmers and his followers are quick to point out. They view that as a problem with science. I view it as intelligent people refusing to make assumptions a priori.

I think Chalmers-style qualiaphilia makes a wrong turn there. There
are some aspects of human behaviour which would be crazy if qualia
did not exist in some sense, therefore they do have an explanatory/causal role. Trying to promote qualia on the basis that they are epiphenomenal
is seld-defeating.

I did! The something else beside the report per se, is what it is a
report of -- experience!

But you are simply reporting again. There is nothing else besides the report, anymore than there is something "more" besides the report that Doyle makes about Holmes' adventures.

Yes there is. The fact that the report is all there is for you does
not mean it is all there is for me. To infer from "this is all the information I have" to "this is all that exists" is to make the same error
as a solipsist -- another Wrong Turn.

The same goes, pace Dennett, for your reports about conscious experience. They are your reports, and are to be considered as the raw data. There is nothing more to your fiction, which you present to the heterophenomenologist, than that which you report.

You mischaracterise het. The het-ist is supposed to take my reports
at face value unless there is specific reason to the contrary.

One possible explanation being to take it at face value-- yet that is forbidden.

No, that's exactly what Dennett is saying we should do! It is you who are trying to add something to your reports. We (heterophenomenologists) are simply "taking it at face value"!

That doesn't make sense. If I say "There is more to my experience than
the reports thereof", you are insisting on not taking it at face value--you are telling me I must be wrong.

I never said anything of the kind.

Previously posted by you:
I am saying there
is a way things seem to me...

My:
"I never said anything of the kind"
was a repsonse to your:-
"The fact that you can be absolutely, 100% positive, that that is indeed how things seem to you, reveals this fact. "

See what's going on here ? I didn't make the comment about
incorrigibility that you attributed to me. You are imagining
that I'm talking about incorrigibility when I am not; you are arguing
with an imaginary opponent.

You can look it up (it's a few posts back) to see if I'm quoting you out-of-context, or if I'm miscontruing this, but the implication of this statement is clear.

It doesn't have any implication about "absolutely, 100% positivitity"
for me -- you are reading your own obsessions into it.

Since my subjective reports can scientifically be correlated with objective
neural activity the obvious explanantion is that I can see what is going
on inside me, but in different terms.

Wrong again. Heterophenomenology was devised specifically to explain how your reports are to be treated scientifically. That your subjective reports sometimes correlate with objective neural or physiological activity does indicate that you have some knowledge about your inner-workings, but such is extremely limited.

Ok, so it's not incorrigible -- I never said it was. Now deal with real
issue: the difference in format, in presentation between neural firing
and subjective exprience.

Some of them know that they have a "pipe", of sorts, down which food travels toward their bum, but that doesn't mean that they know they have an esophagus (since such entails quite a bit more than a mere "pipe").

Whatever. You can't infer from the fact that someone doesn't employ
a particular bit of jargon that they are not talking about what the
jargon refers to: they could be using other terms.

 

[Tournesol]

Here's a thought experiment for you:

Zed is a neuroscientist. He is in the habit of sticking his head in a brain scanner and
correlating his subjective experience with what the scanner shows. Eventually
he gets so good at this that he doesn't even need to look at the scanner any more.
He can describe to an audience of his colleagues what is going on in his brain
purely on the basis of introspection: "as I eat this strawberry ice-cream, neural cluster JB853 should be firing at a frequency of 24.5hz" -- "Yes Zed, that is what the scanner shows".
IOW, he can now imitate an Antipodean. And Antipodeans know what is going on in their heads. So Zed knows, too. The only difference is that he can express it in
two ways, the Antipodean way, in neural language, and the ordinary way, in the language of seemings and feelings. He is, as it were, bilingual. But then, who
is to say that those of us who are monolingual who only speak the language of seemings and feelings do not know what is going on in our heads ?

 

[Mentat]

Well, philosophers I know personally say that any time a field of philosophy achieves some level of certain, concrete results, it branches off and becomes science. All of the natural sciences and even psychology essentially began as philosophy. They'd say the philosophy that remains philosophy is characterized by its inability to come to any conclusions. One might say it is the least able of all pursuits to ground its claims in certainty.

But the idea that they all branched off from philosophy makes philosophical points appear to be those which must be understood/agreed first, in order for other fields to do their work. That implies, once again, that philosophy is the firm "ground" upon which to found our assumptions (which, in turn, form the bases of our fields of study).

Rorty would say that that's what's wrong with philosophy today. Philosophers are so concerned with getting the "first questions" answered first (and grounding all others in these "first questions") that they will always be stuck at "square one". Wittgenstein's therapeutic approach to philosophy, on the other hand, suggests exorcising our "problems" by dealing with them in terms of puzzles in a language-game. IOW, if philosophers would adopt a more social approach (and a more relative one ("what move can/cannot be made, in this particular game?")), they wouldn't constantly run into "problems".

I think science belongs. In fact, ideally I think the justice system should belong as well. Both are designed to be part of the search for truth. They tail off for practical reasons at what can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, or in the case of science, what reasonably fits the data and cannot be falsified, but these are only practical concerns because in both fields it is not possible to have complete certainty. It is likely that in many philosophical pursuits this is the case as well (complete certainty is a practical impossibility), but it does not mean the philosopher should cease to look for truth any more than the ideal scientist and ideal lawyer should.

But what if our "ideals" are misguided?

You're wrong about science, btw. Theories, the highest points of the scientific method, can be falsified. Indeed, they can never be completely "proven", in any normal sense. They can be disproven, and they can amass greater and greater amounts of "proof" that agree with them, but they can never be absolutely adopted as "facts" or "laws" or any other such things.

As to lawyers, their purpose is not to establish absolute truth, but (as you said) to establish truth beyond "reasonable doubt". What one society considers "reasonable" may not be the same as what another society does. Again, it is quite relative and (dare I say) fickle.

Our "ideal" scientists and lawyers are only ideals in terms of philosophy as a search for absolute truth (a goal that the lawyer and scientist will always fall short of attaining, but a goal nonetheless). There are other ways of doing philosophy.

I'm going to be honest here and admit that I haven't actually read Wittgenstein (he is on the reading list later in the semester for a class on causation that I'm enrolled in), but I have read modern philosophers of religion that cite his ideas as validations for their claims. They say that no particular language game can be critiqued from the POV of another language game, and within the religious language game (in which words mean completely different things than in scientific language), the claims made by the religious are correct, which really only means consistent with their other claims. I think you can see quickly why fideism becomes undesirable. Any group of people can simply say they are speaking a different language from the group that doesn't agree with them (even though they are both speaking English) and that they are correct from the POV of their own language game. Do you really want a theory of knowledge and meaning that leaves scientific knowledge on the same level as religious claims, the claims of terrorist organizations, even the claims of occultist mystics?

Well, think of this: can science ever be used to falsify the belief in a god?

This could be argued ad nauseum, but the usual consensus is that it cannot. Nor, AFAIK, can any other system/field of study ever be invoked to "prove" or "disprove" a religious precept.

Thus, the relativism inherent in Wittgenstein's philosophy may not be so counter-intuitive after all (and, of course, even if it is, that doesn't make it wrong).

 

[Mentat]

Tournesol,
Let's calm down a little. I don't mean to be polemic, merely critical .

My point was that you CANNOT infer metaphysical quantisation
directly from grammar, and I illustrated it by an example that nonbody
would be crazy enough to believe in: the example of "a cold" as an actual
entity.

But nobody relates the "cold" to another (singular) object. That you refer to it as "a cold" simply means that you are quantizing your case of the cold. That you relate an impression on our computative apparatus to the singular entity that caused the impression (and that you do so in a one-one relation -- i.e. compare and contrast just as you would with two singular objects) is indeed indicative of the confusion of Universals for particulars; of processes for quanta.

If you don't see this, then I wonder: what did you think a "quale" was?

Nope, the HP is about explanatory gaps.

Yes, but the HP evolved from a series of "turns" in the history of Philosophy (I feel as though I'm repeating myself, but you don't seem to be listening here (no offense)). The quantizing of impressions, or the reference to "final" ("end product") drafts of consciousness (implicit or explicit) is one of those "turns".

Fear has nothng to do with it; it's just no the way things are.

So you believe. But then, I'm applying heterophenomenology yet again.

Circular. You are appealing to your no-consciousness conclusion to support
the aptness of an analogy which is itself being put forward to support the no-consciousness conclusion.

No, I'm explaining that, in the history of man, there was a time (we're still in it) when we did not have a way to see what was going on within us. We are, however, territorial, self-aware animals, and so we don't like the concept of the things most intrinsic to us being unknown to us. So we develop a vocabulary that allows us to make claims about our states, inspite of our actual ignorance.

Whichever is really applicable.

But what does that mean? Is it the same as "Whichever can be used to make the most accurate predictions?".

You refer to my argument as "unscientific", and that is indicative of an ignorance about the philosophy of science (again, I don't mean to be offensive). Science holds the theory as the highest point of certainty (a theory can be "strong" or "weak", but it never ceases being a theory), and the best theories are the ones that can be used to make accurate predictions (and there's very little more to it).

Nope. Relativism is not demonstrated by Popper-style considerations.
The fact that you cannot have final knowledge of the way things are
does not mean there is no way things are.

Popper wasn't saying that. However, if we can never know how they "really" are -- and if we invented a method that doesn't require them to "actually" be anyone way -- so long as we can make accurate predictions, then, frankly, we don't care.

However, I am glad that you have made it clear that you have no
sympathy with realism, and are therefore not really basing your approach on science.

Again, please don't make too many claims about science without understanding it, Tournesol. I make no claim to know what level of education you've had in this field, merely that your comments do not reflect a good working knowledge of it.

Philosophy of Science, as it currently stands, dictates that realism is quite distinct from science.

Among other things, it mean the way things seem to us is not how they are.

Ah, but that there is a way that "things really are", is yet another example of how things seem to you. Think about it.

Yes there is. The fact that the report is all there is for you does
not mean it is all there is for me. To infer from "this is all the information I have" to "this is all that exists" is to make the same error
as a solipsist -- another Wrong Turn.

I'm not really saying that's all that exists, there is more to it (though, I confess, I haven't been forthcoming on this point before). There is also the matter of belief. However, Dennett's heterophenomenological approach does allow for the existence of belief. Indeed, it requires it.

However, it is a perfectly logical claim that there is nothing more to what you report than that which you report. It depends on your truthfulness, and perhaps on your belief that there are things that you cannot report (for whatever reason), but that is also taken into account.

You mischaracterise het. The het-ist is supposed to take my reports
at face value unless there is specific reason to the contrary.

That's what I said, isn't it?

btw, thank you so much for that: "het". That helps (I don't like typing "heterophenomenology" either).

That doesn't make sense. If I say "There is more to my experience than
the reports thereof", you are insisting on not taking it at face value--you are telling me I must be wrong.

No, we are taking the report at face-value. It is an expression of the belief that there is more to your "experience" than that which you can report. And we take that as absolutely, unquestionably, incorrigibly TRUE...in your fiction (or, if you prefer, in your belief-system/language-game).

My:
"I never said anything of the kind"
was a repsonse to your:-
"The fact that you can be absolutely, 100% positive, that that is indeed how things seem to you, reveals this fact. "

See what's going on here ? I didn't make the comment about
incorrigibility that you attributed to me. You are imagining
that I'm talking about incorrigibility when I am not; you are arguing
with an imaginary opponent.

Did you not say, in the "previously posted by you" quote, that there is a certain way that things seem to you? Isn't that the same thing as saying "there [certainly] is a certain way that things seems to me"? You made a statement, a proposition in logic if you prefer. As such it is assigned truth-value T, simply because it was stated in the positive sense.

Ok, so it's not incorrigible -- I never said it was. Now deal with real
issue: the difference in format, in presentation between neural firing
and subjective exprience.

"Subjective experience" = your fiction (as per het).

Neural firing = observable phenomenon.

What more distinction do you want?

Whatever. You can't infer from the fact that someone doesn't employ
a particular bit of jargon that they are not talking about what the
jargon refers to: they could be using other terms.

It's not just about "jargon". Think of how much more is involved in an esophagus than just the "pipe" (cilia; muscles that create a "wave-like" motion, thus propelling the food downward (if not, you wouldn't be able to eat upside-down); etc). What is important is that they are not referring to exactly the same thing.

 

[Mentat]

Here's a thought experiment for you:

Zed is a neuroscientist. He is in the habit of sticking his head in a brain scanner and
correlating his subjective experience with what the scanner shows. Eventually
he gets so good at this that he doesn't even need to look at the scanner any more.
He can describe to an audience of his colleagues what is going on in his brain
purely on the basis of introspection: "as I eat this strawberry ice-cream, neural cluster JB853 should be firing at a frequency of 24.5hz" -- "Yes Zed, that is what the scanner shows".
IOW, he can now imitate an Antipodean. And Antipodeans know what is going on in their heads. So Zed knows, too. The only difference is that he can express it in
two ways, the Antipodean way, in neural language, and the ordinary way, in the language of seemings and feelings. He is, as it were, bilingual. But then, who
is to say that those of us who are monolingual who only speak the language of seemings and feelings do not know what is going on in our heads ?

So, he's playing two language-games now? His first language-game still needn't really mean anything. It could have been a short-cut game, which he used before he had the antipodean ability of "intro-inspection" (I had to come up with something ). If he continues to use it afterward, it is merely because society at large doesn't yet have the intro-inspection abilities.

You've got to wonder if that's not why there's so much consensus in PoM with regard to there being some kind of MBP and/or HP. After all, so long as we've got nothing more direct, our short-cut jargon is the currently-accepted language-game.

 

[Tournesol]

But nobody relates the "cold" to another (singular) object.

That is exactly the point I was trying to make. The presence of an
singular noun in the sentence does not legitimise the metaphysical posit
of a single really existing enitity in this case, because there is no
general rule to the effect. That being the case, you cannot infer
that someone who talks about "a quale" believes that qualia,
any more than colds, are baisc constituents of the world.

That you refer to it as "a cold" simply means that you are quantizing your case of the cold. That you relate an impression on our computative apparatus to the singular entity that caused the impression (and that you do so in a one-one relation -- i.e. compare and contrast just as you would with two singular objects) is indeed indicative of the confusion of Universals for particulars; of processes for quanta.

Nope.

If you don't see this, then I wonder: what did you think a "quale" was?

Qualia are the ways things seem to us. Note that since we do not have a final can complete Theory Of Everyhting, we simply do not know whether the
things we talk in terms of --atoms, quarks -- are basic constituents of the words or approximate place-holders.

Yes, but the HP evolved from a series of "turns" in the history of Philosophy (I feel as though I'm repeating myself, but you don't seem to be listening here (no offense)). The quantizing of impressions, or the reference to "final" ("end product") drafts of consciousness (implicit or explicit) is one of those "turns".

That is your contentious claim.
OTOH, the HP can be formulated without reference to quantisation or finality.

No, I'm explaining that, in the history of man, there was a time (we're still in it) when we did not have a way to see what was going on within us. We are, however, territorial, self-aware animals, and so we don't like the concept of the things most intrinsic to us being unknown to us. So we develop a vocabulary that allows us to make claims about our states, inspite of our actual ignorance.

That's a testable proposition. If you are right there should be no correlation
between subjective reports an brain-scans. If I am right, there should.
Guess whose side the current evidence is on ?

But what does that mean? Is it the same as "Whichever can be used to make the most accurate predictions?".

That would be a start. But note that realists can talk about what
is really the case without specifying how it can be discovered, or
even requiring that it can be. Anti-realists believe you can't. Both
claims are philsophically contentious. Science assumes realism.

You refer to my argument as "unscientific", and that is indicative of an ignorance about the philosophy of science (again, I don't mean to be offensive). Science holds the theory as the highest point of certainty (a theory can be "strong" or "weak", but it never ceases being a theory), and the best theories are the ones that can be used to make accurate predictions (and there's very little more to it).

And theories which predict better do so becuase they are closer to reality--why else would they ? So there is still a more-real / less-real
distinction even in the absence of absolute certainty.

Popper wasn't saying that. However, if we can never know how they "really" are -- and if we invented a method that doesn't require them to "actually" be anyone way -- so long as we can make accurate predictions, then, frankly, we don't care.

If "we" are realists, we care about why one theory works better than another.

Again, please don't make too many claims about science without understanding it, Tournesol. I make no claim to know what level of education you've had in this field, merely that your comments do not reflect a good working knowledge of it.

I have a BSc in Physics. Don't confuse disagreement with ignorance.

Ah, but that there is a way that "things really are", is yet another example of how things seem to you.

Not experientially.

I'm not really saying that's all that exists, there is more to it (though, I confess, I haven't been forthcoming on this point before). There is also the matter of belief. However, Dennett's heterophenomenological approach does allow for the existence of belief. Indeed, it requires it.

However, it is a perfectly logical claim that there is nothing more to what you report than that which you report. It depends on your truthfulness, and perhaps on your belief that there are things that you cannot report (for whatever reason), but that is also taken into account.

But not at face-value -- and of course, there is no question of you
introspecting about how your reports relate to your experience ?

You mischaracterise het. The het-ist is supposed to take my reports
at face value unless there is specific reason to the contrary.

That's what I said, isn't it?

You seem to be making an exception for any reports mentioniung subjectivity,experince, qualia, etc.

No, we are taking the report at face-value. It is an expression of the belief that there is more to your "experience" than that which you can report. And we take that as absolutely, unquestionably, incorrigibly TRUE...in your fiction (or, if you prefer, in your belief-system/language-game).

That is not taking it at face-value -- that would be to take it as true
full stop. "True in my fiction" is just a long-winded way of saying "false".
You are tying yourself in knots here.

Did you not say, in the "previously posted by you" quote, that there is a certain way that things seem to you? Isn't that the same thing as saying "there [certainly] is a certain way that things seems to me"? You made a statement, a proposition in logic if you prefer. As such it is assigned truth-value T, simply because it was stated in the positive sense.

No, there is in everyday language and logic a difference between saying
something is true and saying it is necessarily or certainly true.

"Subjective experience" = your fiction (as per het).

Neural firing = observable phenomenon.

But subjective reports can be correlated with objective brain-states.
How can a fiction be correlated with a fact ?

It's not just about "jargon". Think of how much more is involved in an esophagus than just the "pipe" (cilia; muscles that create a "wave-like" motion, thus propelling the food downward (if not, you wouldn't be able to eat upside-down); etc). What is important is that they are not referring to exactly the same thing.

OK. Oesophagus-talk is more accurate and detailed than food-pipe talk.
But that does not mean food-pipe talk is wrong, meaningless, fictional
etc.

So, he's playing two language-games now? His first language-game still needn't really mean anything.

It may be less informative -- that does not make it meaningless.
(It may even be more informative about some things -- ethical and aesthetic issues, the sort of things scientists aren't concerned with).

You've got to wonder if that's not why there's so much consensus in PoM with regard to there being some kind of MBP and/or HP. After all, so long as we've got nothing more direct, our short-cut jargon is the currently-accepted language-game.

surely the essence of the MBP is what sort of metaphysics to derive
from these two languages. IOW, it is a subset of the larger problem of how
to get from ways of talking to ways of being, the same problem
that gives us "do numbers really exist" , "do virtual particles really exist"
etc.

 

[Mentat]

That is exactly the point I was trying to make. The presence of an
singular noun in the sentence does not legitimise the metaphysical posit
of a single really existing enitity in this case, because there is no
general rule to the effect.

Yes there is, that's the whole point of "singular nouns"? Again, to refer to "a cold" is to refer to "a case of the cold". One. Singular. Ergo, quantized.

That being the case, you cannot infer
that someone who talks about "a quale" believes that qualia,
any more than colds, are baisc constituents of the world.

I'm not talking about basic constituents of anything, merely about singular entities. The word "quantum" just means that it is a singular or discrete entity.

Qualia are the ways things seem to us. Note that since we do not have a final can complete Theory Of Everyhting, we simply do not know whether the
things we talk in terms of --atoms, quarks -- are basic constituents of the words or approximate place-holders.

What are you talking about?

That is your contentious claim.
OTOH, the HP can be formulated without reference to quantisation or finality.

But you have yet to show this. Every time you talk about "impressions" or "qualia" you relate them to something specific (which is only right, if they are the way we preceive things), and you do so in the same manner (grammatically and logically speaking) as one would relate one object to another. You thus quantize the impression.

That's a testable proposition. If you are right there should be no correlation
between subjective reports an brain-scans.

You are apparently not paying attention to what I'm saying, Tournesol. I didn't say that there was no correlation between subjective reports and what's actually going on inside the head, merely that our grammar evolved among beings that do not have privileged access to their insides. If there is a correlation, it could easily be the case that they are merely concomitant, and not causally related at all. IOW, the physical processes that caused the brain state could have caused the verbal report, but that doesn't mean that the report is indicative of privileged knowledge, merely that it was caused at the same time.

That would be a start. But note that realists can talk about what
is really the case without specifying how it can be discovered, or
even requiring that it can be. Anti-realists believe you can't. Both
claims are philsophically contentious. Science assumes realism.

No. It. Doesn't.

There is too much literature on the subject of philosophy of science, and this ain't the place to discuss it, but I can tell you quite confidently that you are wrong about this. Science works within a method that doesn't take into account how things "actually are" (or even that such a thing exists).

And theories which predict better do so becuase they are closer to reality--why else would they ?

Who cares "why" they predict better? Scientists certainly don't. A theory predicts better, ergo it is better. That's what a "better theory" means. One that predicts better. It could be further from the "actual truth" (if such a thing actually exists at all) than ever before, but that would make it no less accurate in its predictions.

If "we" are realists, we care about why one theory works better than another.

But "we" are not realists. Just because you are -- and you may be the foremost scientist in some field or other, for all I know or care -- doesn't mean that other scientists are, and it certainly doesn't mean that the method of science has any relation to realism whatsoever.

I have a BSc in Physics. Don't confuse disagreement with ignorance.

Your ignorance of the philosophy of science is not affected by your knowledge of a certain science. Most scientists (in my experience) know (and care) very little about the underlying philosophies of what they do, or the history thereof.

Not experientially.

Have you ever "experienced" something outside your own "experience"? Have you ever had a conscious thought that you didn't "experience"?

But not at face-value -- and of course, there is no question of you
introspecting about how your reports relate to your experience ?

You are assuming (as per your belief) that there is such a thing as "experience". Why is that so hard to see? You believe this very strongly, but that doesn't mean anything more than that you believe it strongly.

You seem to be making an exception for any reports mentioniung subjectivity,experince, qualia, etc.

I make no such exception. Your reports about qualia and subjective experience are taken at face-value, just as much as your reports about when the next Leonid shower is. They are how things are in your fiction, and whether that relates to the world of science is a completely different matter. Your reports, at true "face-value", are just that: your reports.

That is not taking it at face-value -- that would be to take it as true
full stop. "True in my fiction" is just a long-winded way of saying "false".
You are tying yourself in knots here.

No, I'm not. Do you think anyone could debate with Sir Doyle about some aspect or other of Holmes' habits, appearance, or any other such thing? It would be foolish to even try. That's because it is Doyle's fiction, and no one else's. That doesn't make his reports about Holme's "false". It just makes them his.

No, there is in everyday language and logic a difference between saying
something is true and saying it is necessarily or certainly true.

Oh, please! I can't even believe I'm going to respond to this, but...

Is not the statement that something is (not "might be", not "could be", not "should be"...) "true", good enough to establish that you are not tentative or trepidatious about this statement?

But subjective reports can be correlated with objective brain-states.
How can a fiction be correlated with a fact ?

What is "fact"?

Besides, your fiction could easily correlate with "popularly-accepted-fiction", and that would be enough. Just as my fiction that the world is not the center of the Universe, could be considered "fact" so long as it agreed with "popularly-accepted-fact".

OK. Oesophagus-talk is more accurate and detailed than food-pipe talk.
But that does not mean food-pipe talk is wrong, meaningless, fictional
etc.

And I don't think that your short-cut speech for internal states is "meaningless or wrong" either. It is, however, "short-cut speech", nonetheless.

It may be less informative -- that does not make it meaningless.
(It may even be more informative about some things -- ethical and aesthetic issues, the sort of things scientists aren't concerned with).

Sociologists and the like are indeed concerned with such thins.

Anyway, it's not about how informative it is. That he used a short-cut language before, and that he doesn't need one anymore (except to communicate with others who still don't have direct, privileged access), is what's important.

surely the essence of the MBP is what sort of metaphysics to derive
from these two languages. IOW, it is a subset of the larger problem of how
to get from ways of talking to ways of being, the same problem
that gives us "do numbers really exist" , "do virtual particles really exist"
etc.

But all this questioning about what something "really" is, or whether something "really exists" is part of the problem ITFP. It's the "wrong turn" we took at Kant.

 

[loseyourname]

But the idea that they all branched off from philosophy makes philosophical points appear to be those which must be understood/agreed first, in order for other fields to do their work. That implies, once again, that philosophy is the firm "ground" upon which to found our assumptions (which, in turn, form the bases of our fields of study).

You're going to have to elaborate here, because how what you just wrote doesn't follow from what I wrote. To review, I pointed out that all products of philosophical thought that do result in concrete answers branch off to become sciences of one sort or another. The reason for this separation is simply the nature of the two beasts. I could be wrong, but I suspect that I have a very different view of philosophy than you do. I do think that philosophers, like any other human being engaged in the quest for knowledge, seeks certainty to whatever extent he can, but that doesn't mean philosophy itself is the practice of doing so. In fact, I think that the sciences have more of a grounding than philosophy does. Philosophy has more of a tendency to look for implications and to find more questions to ask, whereas science is concerned primarily with answering the questions that are already there.

You're right to say that philosophy has a greater tendency to actually seek certainty than the sciences, which simply seek whatever knowledge is practically attainable (and because of the nature of funding, largely what is useful). The thing is, if philosophy ceased to do this, it would cease to be philosophy. To illustrate, I'm going to bring up an example from political philosophy. Political philosophy can be looked at basically as the attempt to ground human society in foundations that will best serve the needs of the members of those societies. If you look at Rouseau or John Rawls, what they were doing was making an attempt to rationally demonstrate the basis of the social contract and the welfare state, respectively. If I'm reading you correctly, your brand of language-game sophistry would have them simply seek to use the most convincing arguments rather than the best. If they took your path, however, they would cease to be philosophers and become politicians, or at best political scientists.

Rorty would say that that's what's wrong with philosophy today. Philosophers are so concerned with getting the "first questions" answered first (and grounding all others in these "first questions") that they will always be stuck at "square one". Wittgenstein's therapeutic approach to philosophy, on the other hand, suggests exorcising our "problems" by dealing with them in terms of puzzles in a language-game. IOW, if philosophers would adopt a more social approach (and a more relative one ("what move can/cannot be made, in this particular game?")), they wouldn't constantly run into "problems".

What exactly do you see as these "problems," though? The problems of philosophy are simply a reflection of our inability to answer specific questions with complete certainty. It seems as if you are saying that this results in a lack of progress on the part of philosophy. However, when you look at the entire history of ideas that have emanated from philosophy, there has been plenty of progress. It's just that, as I mentioned earlier, when a certain field of study makes that progress it begins to call itself "science" rather than philosophy. I'm having trouble seeing how philosophy would progress anyway if it took your path. Let's say that metaphysicians ceased to search for truth, and rather looked to convince players in a language game. How would this results in philosophical progress? The only way is if you define progress as the ability to reach a consensus within a group that has already reached a consensus on the rules of its discourse (which is essentially what a language-game is).

But what if our "ideals" are misguided?

Is there any reason to think that they are? It seems awfully cynical to say that we should do away with one of the most basic of all human urges (the curiosity for knowledge) simply because it can be frustrating and practically difficult.

You're wrong about science, btw. Theories, the highest points of the scientific method, can be falsified. Indeed, they can never be completely "proven", in any normal sense.

I'm not wrong, I just didn't state it clearly. When I typed "cannot be falsified," what I meant was that the theory is accepted because, as of this current moment, it best fits the facts and has resisted falsification. Not that it can never be falsified.

As to lawyers, their purpose is not to establish absolute truth, but (as you said) to establish truth beyond "reasonable doubt".

That's the purpose of the lawyers, but it isn't the purpose of the justice system. The purpose of the justice system is to find the guilty party and punish him. Central to this aim is the pursuit of truth. Granted, it is the philosophers of law that see this pursuit as central more than it is the lawyers themselves, but is there really something wrong with that? Are you really going to get down on the philosophers because they want truth whereas the lawyers just want to convince a jury? It's hard to see how doing away with the philosophers by turning them into another form of lawyer will result in progress. We already have enough lawyers.

Our "ideal" scientists and lawyers are only ideals in terms of philosophy as a search for absolute truth (a goal that the lawyer and scientist will always fall short of attaining, but a goal nonetheless). There are other ways of doing philosophy.

Yes, I know. What I am saying is that it is not a better way. Just look to the last time we actually had philosophers doing what you would have them do - ancient Greece with the sophists. Do you really think that they made more progress than subsequent philosophers?

Well, think of this: can science ever be used to falsify the belief in a god?

This could be argued ad nauseum, but the usual consensus is that it cannot. Nor, AFAIK, can any other system/field of study ever be invoked to "prove" or "disprove" a religious precept.

To begin with, I have a semantic difficulty with the idea of "falsifying" a belief. If all you mean is to demonstrate that the belief is incorrect, then fine. In principle, what science can do is completely explain the causes and appearances of all of the natural world, in which case the invocation of God becomes completely unnecessary and superfluous. When they can no longer invoke the "God of the gaps" fallacy, it will be interesting to see where religious people turn, or if the world will even still contain religious people. Obviously, though, this isn't the aim of science; in fact, when it was first developed it was looked at largely as a means of uncovering God's truth.

It is my contention, however, that the debate between science and religion should not be one of belief, but rather one of methodology. If we look at how the respective practices seek to acquire knowledge, generally speaking we have the scientific method, which seeks to demonstrate the truth of its propositions through logical reasoning and empirical study. Religion, on the other hand, is mostly a process of revelation, in which one either takes on faith the word of some authority or personal epiphany. The language games are certainly different. I'll agree with Wittgenstein on that, but I will not agree that we should simply leave each to its own domain and its own conclusions. Let us look at the issue a little more closely.

Take a simple religious proposition, one central to all of western religion: "God loves us." What is it that makes religious people believe this to be the case? To be honest, I'm not entirely certain. There are religious people that can suffer unspeakable misfortune for no apparent reason, often because of their religious beliefs, in spite of their prayers for help and mercy, who will still believe that God loves them. What's worse than that are the rational theologians with their free will defense of the problem of evil. The argument is often made that God allows evil to exist in order that we may be free, including that we may be free to choose the wrong path and utterly destroy and ultimately condemn ourselves.

Let us change the context here. Imagine a parent with a 17 year-old child that has become addicted to heroin and gotten caught up in the crime underworld. This parent does not want to impose on his child's freedom, so he watches him for the next 3 years as he falls into the depths of utter depravity, ultimately killing himself while at the same ruining the lives of numerous loved ones. In fact, the reason the parent does this is simply that the child chose this path and did not seek the parent's help, thinking he could handle his problems on his own. Would any reasonable person call this parent a good, loving parent? I would hasten to guess not. In fact, I would say that a religious person would have an especially condemning attitude toward this parent. If, however, it is God that behaves in such a manner toward his child, that same religious person will stand back in awe of God's infinite love.

What is my point? Simply that all language games are not of equal value. One of the defining characteristics of most religious propositions is that they are not falsifiable by any means whatsoever. No matter what happens to a person and no matter what reasoning or empirical research can be shown to contradict his claim, the religious person will continue to believe it. I want to say that this language game is not on equal footing with the method of demonstration and falsification used in the scientific language game. In fact, I want to say that ideally this method should be employed by all language games. It isn't that I expect a religious person to seek a scientific study that can disprove his metaphysical notions, but I do expect that he should remain open to the possibility of being incorrect and to the possibility that his incorrectness can be demonstrated through some means.

Thus, the relativism inherent in Wittgenstein's philosophy may not be so counter-intuitive after all (and, of course, even if it is, that doesn't make it wrong).

Whether or not I have demonstrated that Wittgenstein's idea of language game relativism is wrong, I hope at least that I have demonstrated that it is undesirable and can easily lead to more practical problems than we now have. Given that you claim Wittgenstein (and yourself apparently) is not looking to be correct, but only to be convincing and practical, I would think this should be adequate by his own rules.

 

[hitssquad]

Gerald & Kathy Hardcastle and bad parenting

Imagine a parent

Judges Gerald and Kathy Hardcastle.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-13-Sun-2004/news/24070707.html
http://stlawrence.to/ripples/hardcastle.html

with a 17 year-old child that has become addicted to heroin and gotten caught up in the crime underworld.

The aformentioned's daughter Whitney.

This parent does not want to impose on his child's freedom, so he watches him for the next 3 years as he falls into the depths of utter depravity.

From the New York Times: "The Hardcastles indulge their daughter with money, cars, a cellphone, nice clothing. They are waiting for her moment of clarity, the day she wakes up and they all laugh about this...

They spoil their daughter, the Hardcastles know. In defense of themselves, they recite that old saying: No matter how much you give your kids, it never feels like enough."

Would any reasonable person call this parent a good, loving parent? I would hasten to guess not.

The New York Times writes:

The judge can tell you about the horror of standing in the emergency room above his daughter, her painted lips dull red, her skin light blue. He can tell you about the fear he felt, wondering where it all fell apart.

He blames himself for his daughter's problems — his insatiable career drive, the pressure he placed on her to maintain appearances. But he also blames the corrupting influence of Las Vegas, a city grown beyond belief and control. He followed a dream here 30 years ago, when this was a small town. Now, he says, his dream is dead.

"I wouldn't come here again," he said. "I won't retire here. There's a lack of social control. The kids don't have dreams. I ask them, What do you want to be? They tell me nothing."

 

[Tournesol]

Yes there is, that's the whole point of "singular nouns"? Again, to refer to "a cold" is to refer to "a case of the cold". One. Singular. Ergo, quantized.

The presence of an
singular noun in the sentence does not legitimise the metaphysical posit
of a single really existing enitity in this case, because there is no
general rule to the effect.

You are apparently not paying attention to what I'm saying, Tournesol. I didn't say that there was no correlation between subjective reports and what's actually going on inside the head, merely that our grammar evolved among beings that do not have privileged access to their insides.

The fact that reports correlate show that we have some sort of
access. (I don't give a hoot about whether it is priveleged or not).
You must agree that we do not access what is going on
AS neural activity, since you evidently agree that Antipodeans
are different to normal people. So why shouldn't we
use 'expereince' or 'qualia' (or 'quali-age' or 'qualia-ness') to label
the non-neurological mode of access we actually do have ?

If there is a correlation, it could easily be the case that they are merely concomitant, and not causally related at all. IOW, the physical processes that caused the brain state could have caused the verbal report, but that doesn't mean that the report is indicative of privileged knowledge, merely that it was caused at the same time.

Since I have personal experience that my reports are produced consciously
on the basis of experience, you are never going to convince me that
they erupt out of nowhere automatically. Your refusal to introspect
produces no ore conviction than Pope whoever-it-was's refusal to
look through Galileo's telescope. Concs. is a 1st-person phenomeon, and
to insist on treating it from a purely 3rd-person perspectie is a form of
consciousness-denial.

There is too much literature on the subject of philosophy of science, and this ain't the place to discuss it, but I can tell you quite confidently that you are wrong about this. Science works within a method that doesn't take into account how things "actually are" (or even that such a thing exists).

This scientist begs to differ.

And theories which predict better do so because they are closer to reality--why else would they ?

Who cares "why" they predict better?

Scientists and other realists. If you feel that this topic should
be out-of-bounds to scientists the burden is on you need to explain why.

certainly doesn't mean that the method of science has any relation to realism whatsoever.

Is that a fact ? What kind of a fact is it, Mentat ??

Your ignorance of the philosophy of science is not affected by your knowledge of a certain science.

Rude and wrong. I have been studying both subjects since before you were born. Patronising ? Yes, and you thouroughly deserve it.

But not at face-value -- and of course, there is no question of you
introspecting about how your reports relate to your experience ?

You are assuming (as per your belief) that there is such a thing as "experience". Why is that so hard to see? You believe this very strongly, but that doesn't mean anything more than that you believe it strongly.

It doesn't necessarily mean that. It may or may not be true. How do we answer the question ? By looking, by introspecting.

You seem to be making an exception for any reports mentioning subjectivity,experince, qualia, etc.

I make no such exception. Your reports about qualia and subjective experience are taken at face-value, just as much as your reports about when the next Leonid shower is. They are how things are in your fiction,

Neither het. nor anything else entitles you to assume that my reports are mere fictions. Grossly question-begging.

No, I'm not. Do you think anyone could debate with Sir Doyle about some aspect or other of Holmes' habits, appearance, or any other such thing? It would be foolish to even try. That's because it is Doyle's fiction, and no one else's. That doesn't make his reports about Holme's "false". It just makes them his.

That a subject's reports are his does not make them fictional. You are misusing the word fiction. Of course, the problem her is that the het, principle
that subjects are the best authorities about what is going on inside
their heads is completely contrary to your desire to show that no-one
has privelged access or experience. (That is to some extent a problem for Dennett too).

Is not the statement that something is (not "might be", not "could be", not "should be"...) "true", good enough to establish that you are not tentative or trepidatious about this statement?

That still falls short of necessity. There are at least three 'grades' of truth:
possible (problematic), actual (assertoric), necessary (apodeictic). You
are confusing actuallity with necessity.

Read this:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

Note that there is no rule p->[]p

But subjective reports can be correlated with objective brain-states.
How can a fiction be correlated with a fact ?

What is "fact"?

It is what realists believe in and anti-realists don't. But you can't disbelieve
in something without knowing what it is.

Besides, your fiction could easily correlate with "popularly-accepted-fiction", and that would be enough. Just as my fiction that the world is not the center of the Universe, could be considered "fact" so long as it agreed with "popularly-accepted-fact".

That is the way relativists look at things. It is not "just true". Or indeed, a
fact. See, anti-realism and relativism are self-undermining because they cannot assert themselves as truths or facts. Realism isn't.

Anyway, it's not about how informative it is. That he used a short-cut language before, and that he doesn't need one anymore (except to communicate with others who still don't have direct, privileged access), is what's important.

How do you know Zed used a short-cut language before ? I never said so.
Since his reports on his neural states are "translated" from his subjective experience, they cannot possibly be more detailed than his experience.
So it is about how informative it is.

But all this questioning about what something "really" is, or whether something "really exists" is part of the problem ITFP. It's the "wrong turn" we took at Kant.

Questioning is never a problem, bad answers are the problem.

 

[Tournesol]

Scientific realism is, by the lights of most of its defenders, the sciences' own philosophy of science. Considerations of the significant philosophical challenges which it faces indicate that it can be effectively defended only by the adoption of a metaphilosophical approach which is also closely tied to the science, viz., some version or other of philosophical naturalism.


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/#3

 

[Mentat]

You're going to have to elaborate here, because how what you just wrote doesn't follow from what I wrote. To review, I pointed out that all products of philosophical thought that do result in concrete answers branch off to become sciences of one sort or another. The reason for this separation is simply the nature of the two beasts. I could be wrong, but I suspect that I have a very different view of philosophy than you do. I do think that philosophers, like any other human being engaged in the quest for knowledge, seeks certainty to whatever extent he can, but that doesn't mean philosophy itself is the practice of doing so. In fact, I think that the sciences have more of a grounding than philosophy does. Philosophy has more of a tendency to look for implications and to find more questions to ask, whereas science is concerned primarily with answering the questions that are already there.

I don't disagree with anything here. However, in a Rortean (ergo, Wittgensteinian) consideration of philosophies role -- what it is and what it should be -- I have come to think that the tendency of philosophies to become increasingly "scientific" as they become increasingly "certain" is a mistake (IOW, the legacy of the "analytic philosopher" (I'm sture it's still practiced, I'm just referring to it as a "legacy" to place it in its historical context) is perhaps a misguided one).

What I'm saying is that the role that philosophy has assumed ever since Descartes (and, perhaps, much earlier) has been one of "grounding" (this concept wasn't well-formalized until Kant, so I usually refer to it as "post-Kantian"). According to Descartes, it is through introspection that we can find the most "certain" things, and it is on such "certain things" that we should found all other pursuits of knowledge. If you follow the empiricist trend (which, to my mind, contains some of the most integral underpinnings of scientific method and philosophy of science), you will assume that, since you never experience anything outside of your own experience, you shouldn't trust the results of "reason" or "argument" as much as you should trust the (for lack of a better term) "right-before-your-eyes" phenomena.

In sum, philosophy doesn't look for grounding because it thinks it has already found it. Science, OTOH, is much more "grounded" (as you put it) because of its history and philosophy. It is an empirical tradition (coupled with the assumptions of induction).

If I'm reading you correctly, your brand of language-game sophistry would have them simply seek to use the most convincing arguments rather than the best. If they took your path, however, they would cease to be philosophers and become politicians, or at best political scientists.

They would indeed "cease to be philosophers", in the traditional sense of what a philosopher is. Wittgenstein's philosophy wasn't called "therapeutic" because he thought philosophy was fine just the way it was .

What exactly do you see as these "problems," though? The problems of philosophy are simply a reflection of our inability to answer specific questions with complete certainty. It seems as if you are saying that this results in a lack of progress on the part of philosophy.

Not a lack of progress, a lack of progress in the right direction. It has indeed progressed, but only to be met with dead-ends (viz, "hard problem of consciousness").

What is wrong is not "our inability to answer questions with complete certainty", it's that we're still trying to. What is "certainty"? Our current definitions are either too vague or based on a priori assumptions that have no good reason (IMO) for being accepted.

I'm having trouble seeing how philosophy would progress anyway if it took your path. Let's say that metaphysicians ceased to search for truth, and rather looked to convince players in a language game. How would this results in philosophical progress?

It would result in a new role for philosophy. Philosophy would cease to be about polishing our internal mirrors (Rorty's metaphor for "making sure we are perceiving things accurately", i.e. that our "mental represenations" actually reflect something "real" and that they do so to greater or lesser degrees of "objective accuracy"), and would assume a role something akin to common sense or even literary tradition. Throughout history, such things (literary tradition, common sense, etc) have set the stage for numerous "games" to be played within the confines that they produce for society. So, if philosophy assumed a similar role, the fields that emerge from it would base their "games" within its "rules", but wouldn't run into the "problems" that result from representationalism.

The only way is if you define progress as the ability to reach a consensus within a group that has already reached a consensus on the rules of its discourse (which is essentially what a language-game is).

No, philosophy might be another one of the fields for providing "rules". Wittgenstein talked a lot about what "could be said" and what "should not be said", and is thus the quintessential post-Wittgensteinian-revolution philosopher. IOW, if philosophy assumes the role that the neo-Wittgensteinians think it should, then they will all start doing what Wittgenstein was already doing.

Think of the "progress" that literature has made throughout history. It can't really be said that it hasn't made any progress, it's just that there is no absolute ideal that it is striving to reach. Literature has been revolutionized numerous times, but it's not striving toward anyone thing. OTOH, it is setting the stage for new ways of thinking, new "rules" or formats for society's "games".

Is there any reason to think that they are? It seems awfully cynical to say that we should do away with one of the most basic of all human urges (the curiosity for knowledge) simply because it can be frustrating and practically difficult.

I don't think we should get rid of our curiosity for knowledge. Quite the opposite. However, I do think we should change our definition of "knowledge" and our understanding of how it is acquired, and this is not a particularly radical notion (many philosophers have pondered what "knowledge" really is, and how itss acquired; indeed, the first among philosophers (by the estimation of some), Plato and Aristotle, were concerned with little else so much as that question).

I'm not wrong, I just didn't state it clearly. When I typed "cannot be falsified," what I meant was that the theory is accepted because, as of this current moment, it best fits the facts and has resisted falsification. Not that it can never be falsified.

Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood.

That's the purpose of the lawyers, but it isn't the purpose of the justice system. The purpose of the justice system is to find the guilty party and punish him. Central to this aim is the pursuit of truth. Granted, it is the philosophers of law that see this pursuit as central more than it is the lawyers themselves, but is there really something wrong with that? Are you really going to get down on the philosophers because they want truth whereas the lawyers just want to convince a jury? It's hard to see how doing away with the philosophers by turning them into another form of lawyer will result in progress. We already have enough lawyers.

Couldn't agree with you more on that last sentence, but I think we may have more than enough philosophers too (no offense).

What is important is our definition of "truth". What more is there to "the truth" than that of which the lawyer can convince the jury? If there is more to it, then the jury system is intrinsically flawed.

Yes, I know. What I am saying is that it is not a better way. Just look to the last time we actually had philosophers doing what you would have them do - ancient Greece with the sophists. Do you really think that they made more progress than subsequent philosophers?

I don't think they had time to. I also don't think they were as concerned with "progress", and were perhaps the better for it. But that's just me :shy:.

To begin with, I have a semantic difficulty with the idea of "falsifying" a belief. If all you mean is to demonstrate that the belief is incorrect, then fine. In principle, what science can do is completely explain the causes and appearances of all of the natural world, in which case the invocation of God becomes completely unnecessary and superfluous. When they can no longer invoke the "God of the gaps" fallacy, it will be interesting to see where religious people turn, or if the world will even still contain religious people. Obviously, though, this isn't the aim of science; in fact, when it was first developed it was looked at largely as a means of uncovering God's truth.

All quite true. I would argue that science's explanations of "causes and appearances" are but one set of possible explanations, and that religious people have no reason to substitue science's explanation for their own, but that would side-track.

What I will argue is that science can never be used to explain why something is the way it is, and can thus explain the Universe exhaustively, in science's own game (the "hows" and "whats" and "whens" and "wheres"), but never really get rid of God, because God is usually invoked to give the "hows", "whats", etc a purpose or a reason for being there. Science is not equipped to answer this question, nor even to address it. It's a different game.

Let us look at the issue a little more closely.

Take a simple religious proposition, one central to all of western religion: "God loves us." What is it that makes religious people believe this to be the case? To be honest, I'm not entirely certain. There are religious people that can suffer unspeakable misfortune for no apparent reason, often because of their religious beliefs, in spite of their prayers for help and mercy, who will still believe that God loves them. What's worse than that are the rational theologians with their free will defense of the problem of evil. The argument is often made that God allows evil to exist in order that we may be free, including that we may be free to choose the wrong path and utterly destroy and ultimately condemn ourselves.

Brief interjection: they believe it because the Bible says it is the case. Indeed, one passage says that God is love, making love His quintessential quality.

Rational theologians don't make up the idea that free will is the cause of current evil, that's in the Bible too. God set up a test, the outcome of which He didn't know, for the first man and woman. The woman was thoroughly deceived by Satan to make the wrong choice. He called into question God's kindness, by stating that God was witholding something good from humans: the ability to decide for themselves what was "good" and what "evil".

Basically, it's supposed to be like a court case. God is the accused. Humans are the witnesses. If humanity can prove, by continual testimony (with reference to the results of human rule, which have been observed throughout history) that Jeremiah was right in saying "it does not belong to man that is walking even to direct his step", then God is "exonerated" of the charges.

Anyway, enough theology...

Let us change the context here. Imagine a parent with a 17 year-old child that has become addicted to heroin and gotten caught up in the crime underworld. This parent does not want to impose on his child's freedom, so he watches him for the next 3 years as he falls into the depths of utter depravity, ultimately killing himself while at the same ruining the lives of numerous loved ones. In fact, the reason the parent does this is simply that the child chose this path and did not seek the parent's help, thinking he could handle his problems on his own. Would any reasonable person call this parent a good, loving parent? I would hasten to guess not. In fact, I would say that a religious person would have an especially condemning attitude toward this parent. If, however, it is God that behaves in such a manner toward his child, that same religious person will stand back in awe of God's infinite love.

You, however, do not believe in an after-life. That's an essential part of most religious "language-games".

Anyway, according to Scripture, God has provided a way out for all obedient mankind: the ransom sacrifice of Jesus.

By virtue of that sacrifice, obedient people get rewarded with everlasting life on a paradisaic Earth.

All these points are, again, essential parts of the Biblical language-games.

What is my point? Simply that all language games are not of equal value. One of the defining characteristics of most religious propositions is that they are not falsifiable by any means whatsoever. No matter what happens to a person and no matter what reasoning or empirical research can be shown to contradict his claim, the religious person will continue to believe it. I want to say that this language game is not on equal footing with the method of demonstration and falsification used in the scientific language game. In fact, I want to say that ideally this method should be employed by all language games. It isn't that I expect a religious person to seek a scientific study that can disprove his metaphysical notions, but I do expect that he should remain open to the possibility of being incorrect and to the possibility that his incorrectness can be demonstrated through some means.

And should you too not remain open to the possibility that empiricism and induction could be "incorrect"? Should you not remain as open-minded as you would ask the religious person to be, with regard to what constitutes "correctness" in the first place?

 

[Mentat]

The presence of an
singular noun in the sentence does not legitimise the metaphysical posit
of a single really existing enitity in this case, because there is no
general rule to the effect.

Well, when you put it that way.

The fact that reports correlate show that we have some sort of
access. (I don't give a hoot about whether it is priveleged or not).
You must agree that we do not access what is going on
AS neural activity, since you evidently agree that Antipodeans
are different to normal people. So why shouldn't we
use 'expereince' or 'qualia' (or 'quali-age' or 'qualia-ness') to label
the non-neurological mode of access we actually do have ?

Our verbal reports are the result (end-result, some would say; but, "result", regardless) of neural processes. Speaking is a physical activity with correlates in the brain. This is all obvious.

So, we don't need "access" of any kind to our insides in order to report, because the report could easily be a result of those same physical processes of which the brain is indeed kept informed. IOW, nerve-endings in the skin (for example) allow the connected brain to detect when that skin has been damaged. The verbal report "ow!" is simply one of many physical processes initiated by the brain, upon being informed of such damage.

Since I have personal experience that my reports are produced consciously
on the basis of experience, you are never going to convince me that
they erupt out of nowhere automatically. Your refusal to introspect
produces no ore conviction than Pope whoever-it-was's refusal to
look through Galileo's telescope. Concs. is a 1st-person phenomeon, and
to insist on treating it from a purely 3rd-person perspectie is a form of
consciousness-denial.

Your missing the point. Your belief about what you've got going on inside you is irrelevant. Or, rather, it is relevant, but not for establishing absolute truth (as you are intending to do, with statements such as the first sentence above).

Pope Paul V had no more authority (regardless of how strongly he believed that he did) on what was going on in space, than you have on what's going on inside your body.

Scientists and other realists. If you feel that this topic should
be out-of-bounds to scientists the burden is on you need to explain why.

Philosophers of science throughout the ages of disagreed about many things, but I have yet to read one that disagrees with the fact that science does not answer "why" questions. It does answer "why" questions of the form "what cause", but never "what purpose" nor "why not some other way". Scientists can ponder this because they are human, and their interests needn't be exhausted completely by what is allowable in the scientific method.

Is that a fact ? What kind of a fact is it, Mentat ??

A historical one. You once again try to re-write history (or, rather, ignore it completely) to allow your views to continue to exist. I, OTOH, have formed my views based on an understanding and extensive reading of the what is currently known about that history.

Rude and wrong. I have been studying both subjects since before you were born.

Then I pity you. In 16 years of existence I have gathered more about your chosen subjects than you probably ever will (if you don't get past your current biases, and actually research the subjects). Patronising? Yes, but you're not listening anyway, so what does it matter what I say?

It doesn't necessarily mean that. It may or may not be true. How do we answer the question ? By looking, by introspecting.

To do what? Create more beliefs? Or, perhaps, to create/discover reasons to hold to the ones we already have that much more strongly? You will still change nothing with regard to the heterophenomenological approach, which will continue to treat your beliefs as beliefs!

Besides, haven't you read Summa Logica? If it doesn't "necessarily mean that", then it can be explained without invoking the assumption, and should be (since ad hoc assumptions are the death of rational inquiry).

Neither het. nor anything else entitles you to assume that my reports are mere fictions. Grossly question-begging.

I have begged no question, but you have. If you think you have some absolute way to distinguish between "fiction" and "non-fiction", then I'd like to hear it. Until then, it should mean nothing at all that I refer to your beliefs as "fictions". They are your worlds, your understandings, your beliefs. And the heterophenomenologist treats them as such.

That a subject's reports are his does not make them fictional. You are misusing the word fiction. Of course, the problem her is that the het, principle
that subjects are the best authorities about what is going on inside
their heads is completely contrary to your desire to show that no-one
has privelged access or experience. (That is to some extent a problem for Dennett too).

Heterophenomenology does not say that you are the best authority about what's going on inside your head. You are the best authority about what you believe is going on inside your head.

That still falls short of necessity. There are at least three 'grades' of truth:
possible (problematic), actual (assertoric), necessary (apodeictic). You
are confusing actuallity with necessity.

Read this:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

Note that there is no rule p->[]p

Your site is about Modal Logic. I'm already familiar with that, and wonder how you can add the "actual" truth-value to the two truth-values that Modal Logic allows for (namely: "possible that" and "necessary that").

Your statement, if it is to be translated into Modal Logic, cannot be translated "it is possible that there is a certain way things seem to me", and must thus be translated "there is necessarily a certain way things seem to me".

Re-read my previous post. I gave other options ("should be", "could be", "might be", etc), but you didn't use any of those. You said "there is a certain way things seem to me". Anyway, heterophenomenology already allows for this. There is indeed a way that things seem to you (which is exactly the same as saying that you have a system of beliefs about how things are), and that is what the heterophenomenologist is concerned with.

It is what realists believe in and anti-realists don't. But you can't disbelieve
in something without knowing what it is.

You're dodging, and you're wrong. I can indeed disbelieve something without knowing what it is in any exhaustive sense. I don't know very much about Astrology (as can be seen by my posts on the subject in the S&D Forum), but I disbelieve it.

Now, I ask you again, what is a "fact"?

That is the way relativists look at things. It is not "just true". Or indeed, a
fact. See, anti-realism and relativism are self-undermining because they cannot assert themselves as truths or facts. Realism isn't.

Sure they can, they just define "truth" differently than you.

How do you know Zed used a short-cut language before ? I never said so.

Didn't you say that he used to speak in terms of "qualia" and "subjective experience"?

Since his reports on his neural states are "translated" from his subjective experience, they cannot possibly be more detailed than his experience.
So it is about how informative it is.

Assumption upon assumption.

Questioning is never a problem, bad answers are the problem.

Questioning carried out badly (for example, questioning that basis itself on bad a priori assumptions) is indeed a problem.