Extreme Scepticism

[Ermintruder]

where is Neo?

Presumably in mid-flight....en route to here

 

[baleeber]

How far can scepticism go? Seems to me that a proper sceptic should have doubts about all ideas, beliefs etc, not just some. So how about doubting the big one, the T Rex in the room, the physical world? If you see something, e.g. a tree, you're not seeing a tree but the mind's reconstruction of a tree. I think no way to prove there's a physical tree out there. Same for all physical things, so the conclusion is that the world is mental, not physical. So why should a man not walk through a wall, or a dog not turn into green mist? Fortean stuff is only to be expected!

Good question. I've been asking myself these questions for years.

There are 2 brief points I've considered.

1. To exist in a dream is still to exist. I still experience. I still respond. I am still aware. It doesn't matter, ultimately, whether what we experience is "real" or a "dream". It only matters that we "experience".

2. If you and I were playing chess, and I suddenly decided to break the rules: move a pawn five spaces, make the queen move like a knight, or steal back fallen pieces and put them back on the board ... one of three things would happen. Either (a) you'd stop playing the game and go play with someone who plays by the rules. (b) you'd pretend you didn't see it, and continue playing by the rules, no matter how I break the rules, all while ignoring my lunacy. (c) you'd follow my lead and start breaking the rules too, in which case we wouldn't be playing chess anymore.

Same with "reality". If I were to go against every "instinct" and overcome all inhibitions to the contrary in order to "break" the rules of "reality", one of three things would happen:

(a) I'd be removed from the game.
(b) Maybe everybody else would ignore it, maybe even be INCAPABLE of seeing it.
(c) I would enter a new reality in which such things are possible.

However, isn't it not unlike hacking a video game with cheats, save editors, trainers, etc.? Think of all the avid gamers who know these things exist, know how to get them, know how to use them, and perhaps even have some experience of them, who REFUSE to use them because they feel it cheapens the experience of the game? That it's not playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

Perhaps we could break the rules. Perhaps we're just very inhibited.

 

[Coal]

2. If you and I were playing chess, and I suddenly decided to break the rules: move a pawn five spaces, make the queen move like a knight, or steal back fallen pieces and put them back on the board ... one of three things would happen. Either (a) you'd stop playing the game and go play with someone who plays by the rules. (b) you'd pretend you didn't see it, and continue playing by the rules, no matter how I break the rules, all while ignoring my lunacy. (c) you'd follow my lead and start breaking the rules too, in which case we wouldn't be playing chess anymore.

(d) You wouldn't be playing chess.

 

[EnolaGaia]

...
1. To exist in a dream is still to exist. I still experience. I still respond. I am still aware. It doesn't matter, ultimately, whether what we experience is "real" or a "dream". It only matters that we "experience".

Excellent! :thrash:

This is in line with the sort of ontic shift to which I alluded in post #19.

2. If you and I were playing chess, and I suddenly decided to break the rules: move a pawn five spaces, make the queen move like a knight, or steal back fallen pieces and put them back on the board ... one of three things would happen. Either (a) you'd stop playing the game and go play with someone who plays by the rules. (b) you'd pretend you didn't see it, and continue playing by the rules, no matter how I break the rules, all while ignoring my lunacy. (c) you'd follow my lead and start breaking the rules too, in which case we wouldn't be playing chess anymore. ...

Actually, you would ... You'd be playing fairy chess (seriously - that's what it's called ...).* This scenario is metaphorically what's possible in each moment of interaction with others - i.e., at each step of every interaction within which you're negotiating consensual 'reality' in the social constructionist sense. If the other(s) were to engage in your option (c) above, you'd be mutually and reciprocally mutating the consensual reality (at least in that moment, and for so long as all involved keep the juggling act going).

* See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess

 

[EnolaGaia]

Same with "reality". If I were to go against every "instinct" and overcome all inhibitions to the contrary in order to "break" the rules of "reality", one of three things would happen:

(a) I'd be removed from the game.
(b) Maybe everybody else would ignore it, maybe even be INCAPABLE of seeing it.
(c) I would enter a new reality in which such things are possible. ...

Option (a), IMHO, is more appropriately phrased as: "I'd side-slip onto a totally different game board" (in the best case). In the worst case, you'd go so far as to violate one or more unavoidably fundamental requirements for being in the game in the first place (like someone on LSD jumping off a building under the delusion his new exultant state somehow includes the ability to fly) and it would be 'lights out'.

Option (b) isn't a separate option in terms of your locus of experience - it's a description of how everyone else would or could respond. Given the ontic shift, there's no alternative way things could turn out, because the other(s) cannot follow you there as a result of your shift per se. So long as, and to the extent that, your shift still plays out within the consensual 'reality' (e.g., as in the fairy chess scenario, where players are still anchored or grounded to a familiar context), the other(s) can potentially follow along. If your shift is radical enough to bail you out of the 'reality' underlying the consensual version negotiated and maintained collectively, others have no means for ascertaining where you've gone or what game you're now playing (figuratively speaking).

Option (c) is overstated or off the mark, insofar as you've phrased it as if it's a different place that necessarily has new and unlimited possibilities. This is to continue framing things in the conventional / old way.

Given the requisite ontic shift, you're still at the same referential 'ground zero'.

It's not simply like a dream (or, for that matter, a full immersion VR game). A dream is like a stage production in which you're still acting as yourself and as you would, but in a possibly quite surreal version of the everyday context. Strip away whatever surreal 'costuming' / 're-skinning' / superpowers / etc. the dream's stagecraft has afforded you, and it's still 'you'.

Neither is it the same as the sort of reported OBE / NDE experience where (e.g.) you're separately hovering at the surgery room's ceiling watching the doctors trying to revive you. You don't leave 'you'.

It's not a different place at all. It's still 'here and now', but engaged from an angle orthogonal to any you've experienced before.

 

[Gorilla66]

Good question. I've been asking myself these questions for years.

There are 2 brief points I've considered.

1. To exist in a dream is still to exist. I still experience. I still respond. I am still aware. It doesn't matter, ultimately, whether what we experience is "real" or a "dream". It only matters that we "experience".

2. If you and I were playing chess, and I suddenly decided to break the rules: move a pawn five spaces, make the queen move like a knight, or steal back fallen pieces and put them back on the board ... one of three things would happen. Either (a) you'd stop playing the game and go play with someone who plays by the rules. (b) you'd pretend you didn't see it, and continue playing by the rules, no matter how I break the rules, all while ignoring my lunacy. (c) you'd follow my lead and start breaking the rules too, in which case we wouldn't be playing chess anymore.

Same with "reality". If I were to go against every "instinct" and overcome all inhibitions to the contrary in order to "break" the rules of "reality", one of three things would happen:

(a) I'd be removed from the game.
(b) Maybe everybody else would ignore it, maybe even be INCAPABLE of seeing it.
(c) I would enter a new reality in which such things are possible.

However, isn't it not unlike hacking a video game with cheats, save editors, trainers, etc.? Think of all the avid gamers who know these things exist, know how to get them, know how to use them, and perhaps even have some experience of them, who REFUSE to use them because they feel it cheapens the experience of the game? That it's not playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

Perhaps we could break the rules. Perhaps we're just very inhibited.

Hi Baleeber! Of course, if there's any truth to any fortean phenomena then the rules are breakable!

 

[Gorilla66]

Excellent! :thrash:

This is in line with the sort of ontic shift to which I alluded in post #19.




Actually, you would ... You'd be playing fairy chess (seriously - that's what it's called ...).* This scenario is metaphorically what's possible in each moment of interaction with others - i.e., at each step of every interaction within which you're negotiating consensual 'reality' in the social constructionist sense. If the other(s) were to engage in your option (c) above, you'd be mutually and reciprocally mutating the consensual reality (at least in that moment, and for so long as all involved keep the juggling act going).

* See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess

Wow, excellent stuff Enola, I think I have a better idea what you were driving at earlier!

 

[EnolaGaia]

Wow, excellent stuff Enola, I think I have a better idea what you were driving at earlier!

First - Thanks!

I was hoping my reply to baleeber would also serve as an illustrative follow-up to my earlier response to you. Baleeber gave me more specific 'hooks' to play upon. I'm glad it had the hoped-for secondary effect ...

 

[baleeber]

There IS another possibility I've considered: I might be reset to before I broke the rules, i.e. I had to take the move back.

I've sometimes wondered if there are "save points" in my life, like a video game, where if I screw up too badly, I can just say "Hey! Can do that one again?" and reset.

Now, some people might wonder why anything bad ever happens ... I mean, if we can just reset, why not reset every bad thing that ever happened? UNLESS, adversity is part of how the game is played.

Imagine playing a role-playing game like Dungeons and Dragons, only without the dungeons or dragons. It would be called something like "Pubs and Beer", which, now that I think of it, I'd totally play.

 

[Shadowsot]

I'd make a issue over conciousness is required for quantum physics. I'm not a physicist, nor do I play one on tv.
I don't even have a labcoat!

But I've spoken to a few and listened to them when they write or talk about it.
The appearance of observation having an effect is due to us having to interact in the quantum world in order to observe it.
Not in the sense used in anthropology or zoology, but in terms of having to force the particles observed into one state or another to get a reading from it.
The observer effect is a product of what would normally be done by natural forces acting on the quantum particles. It's teasing out those forces that has been a problem. It'd be some relationship between normal physics and quantum, and we haven't figured it out yet.

The issue with stuff like the simulation hypothesis is that it's pretty much unfalsifiable. You can set up rules for it, but by the nature of it you can explain any contradictions away as simply not understanding the nature of the simulation.
Meanwhile anything that might support it can be brought it.
An example that comes to mind is that recently-ish there was a story about how physics in high tier video games was similar to recent observations of physics in the real world.
The problem to my mind is it can also be explained that while modeling the real world in a fictional environment they developed the same rules for their universe by accident.
This happens in other fields. Attempts to develop a new material or function after much work and development, it's found that something similar already exists in nature.
It's an unfalsifiable position.
And so for me, it's not worth really considering.


*should also be noted I am only not a complete idiot because I am missing a piece or two, so grains of salt abound.

 

[notdej]

Please don't think I'm trying to be anti-scientific, I'm really not, I just can't shake the haunting notion that we've made a fundamental mistake in our interpretation of things.

Your topic tells me you are anti-scientific.. Otherwise you would feel no need to start this topic!! You're being contradictory IMO!?

 

[Xanatic*]

It's always good to question your basic axioms. Sadly the very basis of empiricism is something we have found no way to verify.

 

[notdej]

Sadly the very basis of empiricism is something we have found no way to verify.

IMO it's verified within yourself.....

Einstein is classed as highly intelligent.... But who's qualified enough to confirm this?

 

[Gorilla66]

Your topic tells me you are anti-scientific.. Otherwise you would feel no need to start this topic!! You're being contradictory IMO!?

Not anti-scientific, I just think there are different ways of interpreting scientific ideas. I quoted Max Planck earlier, and he's one of the all-time great physicists

 

[Coal]

It's always good to question your basic axioms. Sadly the very basis of empiricism is something we have found no way to verify.

Seems to work though. Strong correlation between empiricism and results. Doesn't definitely mean causation of course, but I'm open to something which works better or demonstrates causation.

 

[dr wu]

'I think...therefore I am....I think.'


Personally I have never met anyone that I consider an 'extreme' skeptic.

 

[notdej]

Same for all physical things, so the conclusion is that the world is mental, not physical. So why should a man not walk through a wall, or a dog not turn into green mist?

why?? because it's a stupid conclusion

 

[Gorilla66]

why?? because it's a stupid conclusion

Oh, go on, don't beat about the bush, tell us what you really think!
Stupid the idea may (or may not) be, but it has the advantage of simplicity. All we ever experience in our lives is mind, so why not say that's all there is? Sounds OK to me. I quoted earlier some noted scientists who have been thinking along similar lines for various reasons. It's a minority view within physics, but a respectable one. And of course many people of the Buddhist or Hindu persuasion will tell you that consciousness is paramount, and matter is subservient or even non-existent...so quite a few people have come to these stupid conclusions!
Incidentally, I'm not expecting many people to agree with me: I am pushing an idea that most people regard as preposterous, but defending it is quite fun.

 

[Yithian]

How far can scepticism go? Seems to me that a proper sceptic should have doubts about all ideas, beliefs etc, not just some. So how about doubting the big one, the T Rex in the room, the physical world? If you see something, e.g. a tree, you're not seeing a tree but the mind's reconstruction of a tree. I think no way to prove there's a physical tree out there. Same for all physical things, so the conclusion is that the world is mental, not physical. So why should a man not walk through a wall, or a dog not turn into green mist? Fortean stuff is only to be expected!

Because the mind will conveniently construct the sensation of wood in front of your eyes and trigger pain reactions in your face as your forward motion ceases.

The fact that these subjective perceptions and sensations match-up so satisfactorily (though, confessedly, still imperfectly) with those of other people's subjective impressions that through language we are able to construct whole societies based on shared interpretations and expectations of the physical world should be enough to show that they're all (very likely) being generated by the same external objects.

Seven billion sets of subjective impressions--infinitely more similar that dissimilar--is as close as you can get to an objective fact. And that's only to invoke the experiences of those currently alive: in truth we ought to include pretty much the impressions of virtually everybody who has lived since the establishment of Sumer (whence impressions were first recorded). Conservatively, we're probably talking about the dozens of billions: how many observations of a phenomenon are required for scientists to stop using the word 'theory' and start saying 'law'? One might even include those species of animals whose observable actions and reactions imply they are experiencing the same external reality as humans: ever seen a fox try to walk through a tree? Or doubt the existence of hounds?

 

[Gorilla66]

Because the mind will conveniently construct the sensation of wood in front of your eyes and trigger pain reactions in your face as your forward motion ceases.

The fact that these subjective perceptions and sensations match-up so satisfactorily (though, confessedly, still imperfectly) with those of other people's subjective impressions that through language we are able to construct whole societies based on shared interpretations and expectations of the physical world should be enough to show that they're all (very likely) being generated by the same external objects.

Seven billion sets of subjective impressions--infinitely more similar that dissimilar--is as close as you can get to an objective fact. And that's only to invoke the experiences of those currently alive: in truth we ought to include pretty much the impressions of virtually everybody who has lived since the establishment of Sumer (whence impressions were first recorded). Conservatively, we're probably talking about the dozens of billions: how many observations of a phenomenon are required for scientists to stop using the word 'theory' and start saying 'law'? One might even include those species of animals whose observable actions and reactions imply they are experiencing the same external reality as humans: ever seen a fox try to walk through a tree? Or doubt the existence of hounds?

Blimey Yithian, it's early sunday morning, do you never sleep? I'm on the early shift...
Anyway, thanks for the interesting and thoughtful post. In fact, I basically agree with you. I'm happy to admit that all those billions of people having roughly the same experiences does indeed point to the existence of a single objective world. The trouble is, this can be interpreted in 2 ways:
1: a single physical world as people usually think of it, or
2: a system of shared thoughts.
I know number 2 sounds bizarre (at least in our culture) but it's hard to see any way to differentiate between these two. If you can, I'll take my hat off to you, buy you a pint and thank you for getting me back in with the normal people!

 

[Yithian]

The beauty of time-zones: I'm not in yours.

 

[Gorilla66]

The beauty of time-zones: I'm not in yours.

You mean...the world is round?

 

[Yithian]

You mean...the world is round?

We're getting ahead of ourselves now. We haven't yet proved there is a world to be round!

I tend to work with Husserl's approach to metaphysical issues: epoché. Place the world 'in brackets' at the outset and suppose it to exist for the sake of argument in spite of a lack of satisfactorily conclusive evidence, and then then focus one's attention on the phenomena that we as self-conscious beings experience; in other words, examine how we beings find ourselves and the world of which we are a part. If you can give an excellent description of our own being, you may well find yourself a few steps along the road to explaining the being of the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoché

 

[Gorilla66]

We're getting ahead of ourselves now. We haven't yet proved there is a world to be round!

I tend to work with Husserl's approach to metaphysical issues: epoché. Place the world 'in brackets' at the outset and suppose it to exist for the sake of argument in spite of a lack of satisfactorily conclusive evidence, and then then focus one's attention on the phenomena that we as self-conscious beings experience; in other words, examine how we beings find ourselves and the world of which we are a part. If you can give an excellent description of our own being, you may well find yourself a few steps along the road to explaining the being of the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoché

Interesting idea

 

[EnolaGaia]

...The fact that these subjective perceptions and sensations match-up so satisfactorily (though, confessedly, still imperfectly) with those of other people's subjective impressions that through language we are able to construct whole societies based on shared interpretations and expectations of the physical world should be enough to show that they're all (very likely) being generated by the same external objects.

This sentence is adequately defensible for hardcore philosophical leverage if it's rephrased and qualified in some manner akin to the following:

--------------------
The fact that these subjective perceptions and sensations match-up so satisfactorily (though, confessedly, still imperfectly) with those of other people's subjective impressions that through language we are able to construct whole societies based on shared interpretations and expectations of ...

the set of regularities so commonly and unavoidably observed / experienced as to afford us a reference model for wherever we are (i.e., what our experience indicates can be taken as universally 'given' and which we denote as the 'physical world') ...

... should be enough to show that they're all (very likely) being generated by ...

a general set of recurrent interactions (and demonstrable outcomes thereof) involving factors / features / forces sufficiently outside or beyond any individual observer's discretionary control as to be reasonably described, explained, and codified (in language) as an extrinsic milieu - and distinguishable sub-components thereof - for everyday purposes.
-------------------

Jumping to the conclusion the commonality of experience proves ontic validity for an external realm only throws you back into the naive biases of presumptive physical materialism that the prevailing Greek (etc.) philosophers left us to confront and untangle.

As Bob Dylan observed:

"There's something going on here, but you don't know what it is ... Do you, Mister Jones?"

There's no problem with a consensually negotiated agreement that 'there's something going on'. The problems start appearing once you claim to 'know what it is'.

The 'physical world' (as we consensually refer to it) is as much an epistemological construct as a subjective memory or mood. The difference lies in its being a construct that can be mutually observed and engaged.

This represents a middle ground position, one widely known expression of which would be Glaserfeld's radical constructivism.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Seven billion sets of subjective impressions--infinitely more similar that dissimilar--is as close as you can get to an objective fact. ... One might even include those species of animals whose observable actions and reactions imply they are experiencing the same external reality as humans: ever seen a fox try to walk through a tree? Or doubt the existence of hounds?

Agreed - subject to the above-cited rephrasing necessary to avoid equating commonality of experience / affordances with an external ontic foundation we presumptuously assume to 'know as / for what it really is'.

The reference to other species entails another issue - the confirmatory / reinforcing effect of progressively validating our working model obtained as we discover and better explain other species' behaviors in terms of factors to which they are sensitive and we humans are not (e.g., bats' ability to hear into the ultrasonic range; bees' ability to see into the ultraviolet range).

Being able to incorporate actionable experiences outside the human range of engagement using the same terms / model(s) we've developed for our own experience(s) suggests we're on the right track.

 

[Yithian]

Jumping to the conclusion the commonality of experience proves ontic validity for an external realm only throws you back into the naive biases of presumptive physical materialism that the prevailing Greek (etc.) philosophers left us to confront and untangle.

Other than simple deductive truths, very little is provable absolutely. I prefer to take the Popperian position that truths are contingently true until proved otherwise--and in that I rather grandiosely include the existence of the external world! (My use of 'very likely' was intentional). As I went on to say in my subsequent post on phenomenology, I'm not really trying to 'prove' the existence of an external world (it would be nice, of course...) and I'm certainly not going to make any claims as to its nature except to say that part of that nature is to affect all Earthbound sentient beings in more-or-less the same way. Whether the relationship between that which we sense through our limited biological apparatus and some likely noumenal realm is of transparency, inversion, contrast or whatever is largely irrelevant as long as we can agree that we are all having a comparable experience. From there we can move to analyse our shared experience of that interaction.

Yes, its is logically consonant that we could all be having the same experiences caused by different external forces, but we can invoke Ockham to prefer the more straightforward conclusion that there is one such force. Yes, it is also logically consonant that we could all be having the same experiences without any external force, but given that--following Descartes--we ourselves are clearly there to be having these experiences in the first place, we are already positing a universe in which one thing exists for certain (one in which, therefore there is existence), so to add more to the list is doesn't seem unreasonable. Once you can assure yourself that you exist and appear to have some form of extension in physical space, and by analogy that it is likely that a great many other people exist and are similarly extended, existence in general comes to seem more of a rule that an exception.

It's not a proof, I grant you, but it's grounds enough for myself personally, enough to feel content enough to move on to more promising pastures, ones where truth is more likely to be forthcoming.

 

[Yithian]

The reference to other species entails another issue - the confirmatory / reinforcing effect of progressively validating our working model obtained as we discover and better explain other species' behaviors in terms of factors to which they are sensitive and we humans are not (e.g., bats' ability to hear into the ultrasonic range; bees' ability to see into the ultraviolet range).

Being able to incorporate actionable experiences outside the human range of engagement using the same terms / model(s) we've developed for our own experience(s) suggests we're on the right track.

Yes, I like this very much and it's something I have given some speculative thought (a lifetime ago). If we could begin to build up a picture of the world as experienced beyond that supplied by our 'limited biological apparatus' and fuse our horizons with those of other species, perhaps the resulting tapestry might grant a grander view than that to which we have hither to been privy.

I seem to recall that some of this popped up in a discussion of Thomas Nagel's 'What is it like to be a bat?' Although that is more a discussion of qualia than ontology.

 

[notdej]

If we could begin to build up a picture of the world as experienced beyond that supplied by our 'limited biological apparatus'

How do you know we are limited in this context? To come to this conclusion as a possibility you must be using a yard stick to work with= what is it?

 

[Yithian]

How do you know we are limited in this context? To come to this conclusion as a possibility you must be using a yard stick to work with= what is it?

We cannot see all wavelengths of light; we cannot hear all frequencies of sound; many scents elude our nose.

More seriously, we can only perceive the immediate present.

All these are limitations.