Evidence versus Proof

@Stansfield,

Stansfield;109151 wrote:

Maybe we disagree on the meaning. My definition of Metaphysics is that of Aristotle's. In this case, by metaphysical fact I simply referenced that part of Aristotle's "first philosophy" which concerns itself with the study of being and existence: ontology.

By the spelling of the word "weird" in Webster's dictionary being a metaphysical fact, I mean that said spelling exists, ink on paper, and that existence is a primary, independent of human consciousness and easily observable through the use of sight. If you have it.

What do you mean by metaphysics, that caused you such bafflement at my use of the word?

---------- Post added 12-08-2009 at 01:29 AM ----------

They do? How do you know?

"Metaphysical" means, "beyond the physical", so metaphysical questions cannot be answered by observation of any kind. That is why they are called, "metaphysical" questions.

@fast,

Unless you answer some of my questions/objections, I'm not going to bother to elaborate.

How do I know you're not too green to bother with? That "ontology" save was quite a stretch.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109155 wrote:

Unless you answer some of my questions/objections, I'm not going to bother to elaborate.

How do I know you're not too green to bother with? That "ontology" save was quite a stretch.

People who live in glass houses....

@fast,

Ah, now, come on. You still haven't answered my last question directed at you in this thread.

I hope your are referring to my boldness and not implying a lack of exposure.

I've mostly just paraphrased Rorty and Nietzsche in any case.

With a few twists of my own here and there.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109158 wrote:

Ah, now, come on. You still haven't answered my last question directed at you in this thread.

I hope your are referring to my boldness and not implying a lack of exposure.

I've mostly just paraphrased Rorty and Nietzsche in any case.

With a few twists of my own here and there.

The "other part" is probably genetic. I was referring to the saying about glass houses and stone throwing.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;109154 wrote:

"Metaphysical" means, "beyond the physical", so metaphysical questions cannot be answered by observation of any kind. That is why they are called, "metaphysical" questions.

You can interpret the word literally, like a five year old, or you can make the effort of searching out whether ontology is part of metaphysics, and if so, what exactly is it. I don't care, I explained what I meant in a way that can only be misunderstood if you don't care to understand it.

What the hell is there beyond the physical, anyway, and how exactly did you come to find out about it?

---------- Post added 12-08-2009 at 02:06 AM ----------

Reconstructo;109155 wrote:

Unless you answer some of my questions/objections, I'm not going to bother to elaborate.

How do I know you're not too green to bother with? That "ontology" save was quite a stretch.

I was looking to discuss the question about the nature of proof and evidence, with someone who does accept at least some of my premises. (such as the existence of an objective reality we all live in and know about) I'm not really interested in learning about your personal flavor of Kantian philosophy.

@fast,

Kant is old news. I'm fonder of Hegel, Nietzsche, Richard Rorty, Oswald Spengler, Jung, Tristan Tzara, F. Schlegel.

Of course objective reality exists. That's the easy part. Our interaction with it and conception of it is the difficult part.

Just because you aren't aware of the mirror of nature paradigm doesn't mean you don't pride yourself on what it refers to.

---------- Post added 12-08-2009 at 02:50 AM ----------

Kenneth:

Sense-data + what = our experience of objective reality.

I would say "what" = concept, which is born as metaphor. And that the concepts we adopt are those we find persuasive. And also that consensus itself is strongly persuasive, as we are social animals who depend on successful socialization in order to eat and breed safely.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109072 wrote:

Before you were born, there was no objective reality.

The idea that you have your reality and that I have my reality doesn't sit too well with me. I think that is a distorted way to use the term, "reality."

The culmination of all my thoughts, concepts, experiences, and views of the world may be unique to me (and me alone), and of course, the culmination of all those things (what I suspect you call my mental-model) did not exist before I existed, but to say of that that it's my reality is certainly not what I would call my reality but rather (perhaps) my view of reality. You need to distinguish in your writings between reality and your view of reality.

At least you acknowledge that "Nobody's saying there's not a world out there," but that's not exactly true, for although you may not be meaning to say that, that's the implication of some of the things you are saying. That's why I said what I said at the end of the previous paragraph. It seems that you are making the distinction, but it's not apparent by what you say.

@fast,

fast;109218 wrote:

The idea that you have your reality and that I have my reality doesn't sit too well with me. I think that is a distorted way to use the term, "reality."

The culmination of all my thoughts, concepts, experiences, and views of the world may be unique to me (and me alone), and of course, the culmination of all those things (what I suspect you call my mental-model) did not exist before I existed, but to say of that that it's my reality is certainly not what I would call my reality but rather (perhaps) my view of reality. You need to distinguish in your writings between reality and your view of reality.

At least you acknowledge that "Nobody's saying there's not a world out there," but that's not exactly true, for although you may not be meaning to say that, that's the implication of some of the things you are saying. That's why I said what I said at the end of the previous paragraph. It seems that you are making the distinction, but it's not apparent by what you say.

In the tale of the blind men and the elephant, the blind men may each have said, as they touched the different parts of the elephant, "That's my elephant", but, of course, what they must have meant was, "That's my belief about what the elephant is".

@fast,

The point is that Reality only exists in the human sense (conscious experience) as mere viewpoints.

If our viewpoints did not overlap is significant ways, we would never have invented the concept of objective reality.

The realist want to see man from the outside, as a body in a material world. The idealist want to see man from the inside, as a subjectivity processing sense-data. Both viewpoints are limited and absurd in themselves.

I've chosen to emphasize the subjective to balance out what I consider a prejudice in favor of the objective. Our technological age has become so worshipful of applied science that it forgets its root in the finite creative human person.

It's because we share an environment that we must survive in that the mental-model of objective reality becomes so crucial. But this mental-model has changed with every advance of science and philosophy. How objective is a reality that is constantly being re-described in significant ways by scientists and philosophers? It is reasonable and practical to assume a "thing-in-itself" that is essentially constant behind our interpretations, but you seem to resist this.

Is your sense-data reality? Is your interpretation of sense data reality? I would call that appearance or phenomena. Is scientific measurement reality? Or is this measurement as association of number with concept?

I love science. If only prose could be as terse as a physics equation. But human life is more about logos than number. And personal human reality is largely created by language (concepts, names, etc.).

Is anyone here attempting to deny that human reality is always experienced subjectively? Does anyone here not find themselves attached to a particular human body, with only one set of sense-organs?

Do my opponents emphasize objectivity from some semi-conscious quasi-religious attachment to a god-substitute? Is subjectivity some strange replacement for sin?

Examine your motives. I know I examine mine.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109292 wrote:

The point is that Reality only exists in the human sense (conscious experience) as mere viewpoints.

If our viewpoints did not overlap is significant ways, we would never have invented the concept of objective reality.

.

But your first sentence is a proposition (which you believe true, I suppose) about, reality.

And let me remind you that whether or not we ever invented the concept of reality has nothing to do with reality. The concept of reality is just, after all, a part of reality, and without it, there would still be reality, only without the concept of reality. Just as there was before there were beings who had concepts.

@fast,

You say that I believe my statements are true. But what is truth? Provisional belief. White lies. I'm an ironist, bro. A transcendental buffoon. A gadfly.

In my conception of existence there must be consciousness. Presumably, the universe would go on just fine without us. But what would it be in the absence of consciousness?

This gets us back to the question of being. We are alive in particular brains that turn particular vibrations into the sensations of color, sound, etc. And also there is concept, a human social creation.

We have a justified belief in an objective world that grounds our being, but we also have (I think) a justified belief that consciousness is the ground of all human experience, including this objective world.-- as it exists for human beings.

It's only a living human imagination that can conceive of a mind-independent reality. Being has been described as the light that discloses beings. But consciousness is a strange and tricky subject. What is it? What is is?

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109329 wrote:

You say that I believe my statements are true. But what is truth? Provisional belief. White lies. I'm an ironist, bro. A transcendental buffoon. A gadfly.

In my conception of existence there must be consciousness. Presumably, the universe would go on just fine without us. But what would it be in the absence of consciousness?

This gets us back to the question of being. We are alive in particular brains that turn particular vibrations into the sensations of color, sound, etc. And also there is concept, a human social creation.

We have a justified belief in an objective world that grounds our being, but we also have (I think) a justified belief that consciousness is the ground of all human experience, including this objective world.-- as it exists for human beings.

It's only a living human imagination that can conceive of a mind-independent reality. Being has been described as the light that discloses beings. But consciousness is a strange and tricky subject. What is it? What is is?

Don't you believe that what you say is true? Are you a liar? But I supposed that when you said that reality exists only in the "human sense" (whatever that might mean) that you were saying what you really believed. Was I wrong? If I was, then, of course, I am not going to take that statement seriously. It is up to you.

What is is?

Your real name doesn't happen to be "Bill Clinton" does it?

@fast,

Yes, I do persuade in the direction where my prejudices lies. But I'm also aware that I can be persuaded toward other prejudices.

I'm sure in practical matters we have a pretty similar view of the world. Our theoretical taste is different is all. Your influences are on the opposite sides of my influences. Except I love linguistic philosophy. But within linguistic philosophy there are even two sides, you might say. I'm on the holistic metaphorical side.

I always thought Russell was hideously shallow in his History of Philosophy about Nietzsche. He painted a cartoon. The early Wittgenstein was great but seriously incomplete.

I know this is is a detour, but so was your last post....

@Reconstructo,

[QUOTE=Reconstructo;109292]The point is that Reality only exists in the human sense (conscious experience) as mere viewpoints. [/QUOTE]You capitalized the letter 'R' in the word "Reality," and I suspect you have done so to refer to our views of what is real (or subjective reality, if you prefer), and because you later talk about the environment we share to survive in when you said, "It's because we share an environment that we must survive in that the mental-model of objective reality becomes so crucial," I am still inclined to be of the opinion that you do believe as I do (or at least I hope so) in that there is a difference between our views and what our views are views of. What our views are views of are just as real as the views we have, so you need not be remiss in acknowledging what our views are views of are as real and drop the need to capitalize the letter "R" in what should merely be the word "reality."

[QUOTE]If our viewpoints did not overlap is significant ways, we would never have invented the concept of objective reality.[/QUOTE]We did not invent the concept of objective reality, nor did we invent objective reality. We gained the concept of objective reality and discovered objective reality. What we invented is the term that refers to what we discovered, namely objective reality--or what our views are views of; moreover, it can even be demonstrated objectively that we have subjective views.

For example, we did not invent the environment we come to evolve, share, and survive in. Our environment was here before we were, and it is as real as can be; different than consciousness for sure, but real nevertheless.

[QUOTE]But this mental-model has changed with every advance of science and philosophy. [/QUOTE]Yes, we are constantly learning things we did not know.

[QUOTE]How objective is a reality that is constantly being re-described in significant ways by scientists and philosophers? [/QUOTE]But here you seem to confuse our views with what our views are views of. We may be mistaken on occasion about what we think is true, but that just goes to show we never really knew what we thought we did when we believed what we did. What the case was at a particular moment in time, however, has not changed even if our views of what we thought the case was has continued to change for some things.

[QUOTE]Do my opponents emphasize objectivity from some semi-conscious quasi-religious attachment to a god-substitute? [/QUOTE]This is a discussion, and no one here is your opponent.

@fast,

I capitalized "Reality" to use it as a synonym of the "thing-in-itself" or mind-independent reality.

I suggest that its obvious that humans created all of their concepts, including their concept of objective reality and the correspondence theory of truth.

It's been suggested that primitives have an animistic rather than a naturalist view of nature. The concept of Nature as a system with inherent laws is invented not found. This concept became popular because it gave its adherents a practical advantage. For instance, consider technology in relation to war.

I suggest that, to a significant degree, we do create our environment. Our environment is hardly just sense data. We live among technology of our creation, in language of our creation, and in social structures of our creation. This forum is part of our environment and it is obviously a human creation.

Yes, we learn new things, and add them to our mental-model of reality -- which mediates our relation with Reality, the thing-in-itself, mind-independent reality. But even the concept of mind-independent reality is a mental construct and an important part of our mental-model of reality -- functioning as its frontier.

Our knowledge of this mind-idependent reality is for more quite obviously limited by our mammalian brains. It's humorless arrogant for a finite mortal being to think he speaks for some final "truth," as if the constant progress of science and philosophy didn't teach him how quickly such notions are superseded by notions more potent. As Einstein went beyond Newton, so will the next great scientist surpass Einstein.

Our personal view is what reality is for us. Human reality is grounded upon consciousness. I don't think you have presented any experience that is not conscious experience.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109335 wrote:

Yes, I do persuade in the direction where my prejudices lies. But I'm also aware that I can be persuaded toward other prejudices.

I'm sure in practical matters we have a pretty similar view of the world. Our theoretical taste is different is all. Your influences are on the opposite sides of my influences. Except I love linguistic philosophy. But within linguistic philosophy there are even two sides, you might say. I'm on the holistic metaphorical side.

I always thought Russell was hideously shallow in his History of Philosophy about Nietzsche. He painted a cartoon. The early Wittgenstein was great but seriously incomplete.

I know this is is a detour, but so was your last post....

You mean whether your name is, "Bill Clinton"? Not at all. You may not have got the allusion. Bill Clinton on trial for perjury famously said, 'It depends on what the meaning of 'is', is". ', when asked whether anyone was in the office with him and Monica. So, it was very much to the point, since both you and he (if you are not Bill Clinton) don't seem to know just what the meaning of "is" is. Russell's history was a pot boiler, written expressly to make money which he needed. For his work on history read his marvelous book on Leibniz. Your views on truth seem to have implications which are clearly false. Such as that my belief that Quito is the capital of Ecuador is not true. And, as you know, what implies a falsity is, itself, false.

@fast,

Have you read any Heidegger? I already said that for me, truth is justified belief. So you can have your Quito. I never brought up the city names and the basketballs. I was aiming my guns at more speculative questions to begin with. Such as the foundation of truth.

And no of course I don't think I can prove my argument, unless prove just means persuade. If you think I'm making unpractical statements, you're attacking a scarecrow. I have no intention of denying practical truth, animal faith, the everyday sense of objective reality.

I'm questioning the theoretical as opposed to the practical validity of the correspondence theory of truth, which is built on a questionable axiom. If truth corresponds to reality, how do we know reality? Facts are sentences, not realities.

@Reconstructo,

[QUOTE=Reconstructo;109343]I capitalized "Reality" to use it as a synonym of the "thing-in-itself" or mind-independent reality. [/QUOTE]Would you agree that the thing we now call Mars was still something long before we discovered that there is thing we call Mars? By the way, I call the thing we call Mars, Mars, and I think that thing is mind independent. Do you agree with me?

[QUOTE]I suggest that its obvious that humans created all of their concepts, including their concept of objective reality and the correspondence theory of truth. [/QUOTE]It's not true that humans created their concepts, let alone obviously true. We may have done things that led to their creation, but it's not something we can actually create. When I was a young child, I had no concept of what a zebra was, but once I was shown a picture of what others would call a picture of a zebra, I began to develop the concept of what a zebra is. By the time I visited a zoo, my concept was fully developed such that I had a clear understanding that a zebra (and not horses) had many stripes.

We create things such as drawings, sure, but not concepts. If you want to say we develop concepts (or rather, that our concepts develop), that would be better (I'd say) than saying we create them.

You may have some insights that is worthy of our exploration, but you need to give a little ... you need to bend a little in the words you use so that we can come to be (as they say) on the same page.

[QUOTE]Yes, we learn new things, and add them to our mental-model of reality -- which mediates our relation with Reality, the thing-in-itself, mind-independent reality. But even the concept of mind-independent reality is a mental construct and an important part of our mental-model of reality -- functioning as its frontier.[/QUOTE] You may be accustomed to talking the way you do, but it's a serious barrier to communication, and it may play a significant factor resulting in the opposition others have towards your views--not because they disagree but rather because they think they disagree. I'm not asking that you alter your beliefs (stick to 'em!); rather, I'm suggesting you make an effort to express them in plain English.

Why you equate reality with only mind-independent reality is bothersome, especially since mind-dependent reality is real as well.

[QUOTE]Our knowledge of this mind-idependent reality is for more quite obviously limited by our mammalian brains. It's humorless arrogant for a finite mortal being to think he speaks for some final "truth," as if the constant progress of science and philosophy didn't teach him how quickly such notions are superseded by notions more potent. As Einstein went beyond Newton, so will the next great scientist surpass Einstein. [/QUOTE]Who has spoken of some final truth? I think I know what you mean by that, but calling it a final truth is obscure. Yes, some things that we believe are true will one day be believed as false when we learn that our beliefs are false, but some things that we believe are true are true. That it's possible that we might be mistaken is not to say we are.

@fast,

Well, maybe we are more in agreement than I suspected. I've been stressing that subjective (mind-dependent) reality is just as real as the "mind-independent" reality. Some of my language was tangled in response to objections from others beside yourself. I tried to tailor my persuasions to their prejudices. Smile

One could say we develop rather than create our concepts. The verbs are close enough for me. And of course we develop them in relation to objective reality, for we are animals with needs. We can't afford a lack of correspondence. Perhaps you will admit that its obviously true that humans played a key role in the development of these concepts, which is the more moderate expression of the idea that "man creates his concepts."

If you agree that our conception of objective reality is imperfect and founded on sense-data, inter-subjectivity, and language -- we really don't disagree much.

My objection has always been that to found truth on reality is redundant. How is reality established? Sense-data, persuasion (philosophy forums..), consensus(the sense-data of others as reported, common names, inherited language, common concepts), etc.

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