On treeness of Oak1, and other things
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
Before sleep. LI. If I were to tell you that I believe that we will find out everything there is to know about DNA constructing a raccoon with science alone would this be metaphysics?
If not then why would it be different with the mind?
If not then why would it be different with the mind?
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
The domain of all people who do not know what metaphysics is as well as the ones who do is R1 and R2.
R1/R2 for these people is NOT a metaphysical or ontological position. It is an operational set of knowledge or beliefs that we all agree on and all aquire as human beings.
But you can call it one if you must. It doesn't matter because it is a metaphysical position that you hold as well as I. All humans hold R1 and I can't think of one that doesn't hold R2 as being factual. In other words we all get out of way of the speeding bus.
If we have a problem from R1 such as why does that berry kill everyone that eats it then we can use R2 to figure that out. I think we can all agree that R2 is all that we need to isolate the poison and figure out why it kills us. So I can say that I believe that R2 will tell us everything that we need to know in order to EXPLAIN why the berry kills. When we are finished we have no more questions about it.
Reality1/2 is where we all are in complete agreement. It only gets problematic when we have a discussion about what Reality1/2 really IS.
I. Now I can tell you that R1/R2 doesn't have any additional ISness about it. It just simply is and it is in a fashion that we both agree on. I suppose that would be a metaphysical position. But a strange META physical position because it claims that only physics is meaningful knowledge. But I will give you that one.
II. A skeptics position would be to say, well I don't know if it has additional ISness because I have no way to figure that out and I don't think you do either, but if you do, SHOW ME. This has been the simple point that you and jamest don't seem to grasp.
Now if you can't show the greater ISness of (II) then we may as well assume (I ) or at least we will find ourselves making claims as if we do. This is probably where we get into a lot of confusion.
Everything is fine at this point. As long as we just talk about berries. Now if we talk about R1/R2 ideas about mind we get in the deep. Still, most ideas of mind are fine as long as we don't get to the ISness questions. We all agree that we have free will, that we observe things, that we have moral and intent. We all agree that we are conscious and that we have subjective experiences.
But it seems that agreement ends some time after we start looking under the hood of R1 ideas of mind.
Before all that though I am going to make a claim about poison berries. I claim that all we need to explain them is science. I claim that all of the things we observe about them and all the interactions that we have with them as well as all of their properties is explainable and sensible with science alone.
Note that I am making a knowledge claim not a metaphysical claim.
What do you think of my berry claim?
R1/R2 for these people is NOT a metaphysical or ontological position. It is an operational set of knowledge or beliefs that we all agree on and all aquire as human beings.
But you can call it one if you must. It doesn't matter because it is a metaphysical position that you hold as well as I. All humans hold R1 and I can't think of one that doesn't hold R2 as being factual. In other words we all get out of way of the speeding bus.
If we have a problem from R1 such as why does that berry kill everyone that eats it then we can use R2 to figure that out. I think we can all agree that R2 is all that we need to isolate the poison and figure out why it kills us. So I can say that I believe that R2 will tell us everything that we need to know in order to EXPLAIN why the berry kills. When we are finished we have no more questions about it.
Reality1/2 is where we all are in complete agreement. It only gets problematic when we have a discussion about what Reality1/2 really IS.
I. Now I can tell you that R1/R2 doesn't have any additional ISness about it. It just simply is and it is in a fashion that we both agree on. I suppose that would be a metaphysical position. But a strange META physical position because it claims that only physics is meaningful knowledge. But I will give you that one.
II. A skeptics position would be to say, well I don't know if it has additional ISness because I have no way to figure that out and I don't think you do either, but if you do, SHOW ME. This has been the simple point that you and jamest don't seem to grasp.
Now if you can't show the greater ISness of (II) then we may as well assume (I ) or at least we will find ourselves making claims as if we do. This is probably where we get into a lot of confusion.
Everything is fine at this point. As long as we just talk about berries. Now if we talk about R1/R2 ideas about mind we get in the deep. Still, most ideas of mind are fine as long as we don't get to the ISness questions. We all agree that we have free will, that we observe things, that we have moral and intent. We all agree that we are conscious and that we have subjective experiences.
But it seems that agreement ends some time after we start looking under the hood of R1 ideas of mind.
Before all that though I am going to make a claim about poison berries. I claim that all we need to explain them is science. I claim that all of the things we observe about them and all the interactions that we have with them as well as all of their properties is explainable and sensible with science alone.
Note that I am making a knowledge claim not a metaphysical claim.
What do you think of my berry claim?
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
First I do not care what some old dead wooheads have to say about epistemology. If anyone has something to offer that is sound and ties in to this discussion then I welcome that. But I do not think we have to get too deep and above all...
We should do our own thinking here.
What is an explanation and what is the intent of an explanation?
A first draft is that an explanations is:
A model of mechanism and parts
necessary elements
properties
predictions
All of these things need evidence with the possible exception of the model. That thing just has to work nicely with the others.
The intent of an explanation is to:
solve a problem
or some mystery
or make predictions.
So when we start to look at things about mind like observers and and representations and representation error it would be good to know something about the intent of the explanation we seek.
Before doing so it would be a good idea to have some simpler non-mind problem and it's explanation to allow comparisons and keep on track.
We should do our own thinking here.
What is an explanation and what is the intent of an explanation?
A first draft is that an explanations is:
A model of mechanism and parts
necessary elements
properties
predictions
All of these things need evidence with the possible exception of the model. That thing just has to work nicely with the others.
The intent of an explanation is to:
solve a problem
or some mystery
or make predictions.
So when we start to look at things about mind like observers and and representations and representation error it would be good to know something about the intent of the explanation we seek.
Before doing so it would be a good idea to have some simpler non-mind problem and it's explanation to allow comparisons and keep on track.
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
I do not accuse you (or 'the scientists') of doing metaphysics. I accuse you of having a metaphysical position; this position is that 'science can or will eventually explain everything by its methods'. This is called physicalism, and it is a metaphysical position.SpeedOfSound wrote:I don't quite see where I am 'doing metaphysics' because I have an opinion that R2 will or does adequately explain everything we need to know about mind. Having an opinion is not metaphysics unless 7 billion people are metaphysicians.Little Idiot wrote:This is exactly why you are accused of it, because you believe it; its a metaphysical position, even if its not consciously adopted by metaphysical method. Metaphysics is the study of other things beside absolutes.SpeedOfSound wrote: The dominant view of neuroscience is not metaphysical. We are accused of it because most of us think that we will explain everything there is about our minds though science at the biochemical level. Explain, not prove absolute truths.
We are accused of a backing of metaphysical materialism just because we refuse to entertain any woo when we have not yet exhausted R2 methodology. The other reason for the refusal is that as of this time no other methodology has been found to have any basis.
So you must be accusing me of being an unconscious metaphysics practitioner? I just calling it being skeptical about woo and looking at the evidence.
Why do I have a dualistic way of looking at body and mind? I say the body (and all the physical world of which the body is a part) is a product of mind. My mantra; 'its all mental.'No! Never! Why would they need to? It's your own inability to understand your own mind that makes you such a dualist. You project it onto everyone else who doesn't accept your R1 ideas about the mind and your metaphysical solution with idealism. Which of course is your proposed escape from dualism.One thing I would add, most neuroscientists possibly are ...assuming a mind body dualism; would that be fair?
YOU have a dualistic way of looking at mind and body.
YOU have come up with an intuitive solution to solve YOUR problem.
I am reading about evidence and finding solutions to the nature of the mind. I simply have the opinion that we know most of what we need to know already. My additional opinion is that further evidence will illuminate the entire nature of mind.
Why is ('absolute reality' is the awareness which knows and creates ideas) and (all existence i.e. 'things' are ideas known in and by awareness) duality?
Dont you see that you are only looking at 'the objective', the objects? How can you realistically hope to understand the subjective i.e the subject (the observer) if you only consider half of the picture, half of the evidence?
Unless you can answer my point I made explicit - how do you get rid of the observer but keep the observed - we will keep coming up against this one.
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
You need to clarify 'everything there is to know'SpeedOfSound wrote:Before sleep. LI. If I were to tell you that I believe that we will find out everything there is to know about DNA constructing a raccoon with science alone would this be metaphysics?
If not then why would it be different with the mind?
If you mean all the physical information, thats science.
If you include 'what its like to be a racoon' then we step out of science, would you agree?
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
- Little Idiot
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
SpeedOfSound wrote:The domain of all people who do not know what metaphysics is as well as the ones who do is R1 and R2.
R1/R2 for these people is NOT a metaphysical or ontological position. It is an operational set of knowledge or beliefs that we all agree on and all aquire as human beings.
But you can call it one if you must. It doesn't matter because it is a metaphysical position that you hold as well as I. All humans hold R1 and I can't think of one that doesn't hold R2 as being factual. In other words we all get out of way of the speeding bus.
If we have a problem from R1 such as why does that berry kill everyone that eats it then we can use R2 to figure that out. I think we can all agree that R2 is all that we need to isolate the poison and figure out why it kills us. So I can say that I believe that R2 will tell us everything that we need to know in order to EXPLAIN why the berry kills. When we are finished we have no more questions about it.
Reality1/2 is where we all are in complete agreement. It only gets problematic when we have a discussion about what Reality1/2 really IS.
I. Now I can tell you that R1/R2 doesn't have any additional ISness about it. It just simply is and it is in a fashion that we both agree on. I suppose that would be a metaphysical position. But a strange META physical position because it claims that only physics is meaningful knowledge. But I will give you that one.

I will take you up on this, but not now; its past my bed time and I am too tired to think through a clear explaination.II. A skeptics position would be to say, well I don't know if it has additional ISness because I have no way to figure that out and I don't think you do either, but if you do, SHOW ME. This has been the simple point that you and jamest don't seem to grasp.
I agree that science can do a very nice job of explaining why eating poison berries causes death.Now if you can't show the greater ISness of (II) then we may as well assume (I ) or at least we will find ourselves making claims as if we do. This is probably where we get into a lot of confusion.
Everything is fine at this point. As long as we just talk about berries. Now if we talk about R1/R2 ideas about mind we get in the deep. Still, most ideas of mind are fine as long as we don't get to the ISness questions. We all agree that we have free will, that we observe things, that we have moral and intent. We all agree that we are conscious and that we have subjective experiences.
But it seems that agreement ends some time after we start looking under the hood of R1 ideas of mind.
Before all that though I am going to make a claim about poison berries. I claim that all we need to explain them is science. I claim that all of the things we observe about them and all the interactions that we have with them as well as all of their properties is explainable and sensible with science alone.
Note that I am making a knowledge claim not a metaphysical claim.
What do you think of my berry claim?
It can do a less convincing job of answering related questions such as 'what is death,' or 'how do we know all experience stops with the death of the physical body?' would you agree?
We can only assume all experience stops with the death of the physical body, never demonstrate it, and it is not a question science or scientific method can attempt to answer.
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
Hrmmm....SpeedOfSound wrote:First I do not care what some old dead wooheads have to say about epistemology. If anyone has something to offer that is sound and ties in to this discussion then I welcome that. But I do not think we have to get too deep and above all...
We should do our own thinking here.
What is an explanation and what is the intent of an explanation?
A first draft is that an explanations is:
A model of mechanism and parts
necessary elements
properties
predictions
All of these things need evidence with the possible exception of the model. That thing just has to work nicely with the others.
The intent of an explanation is to:
solve a problem
or some mystery
or make predictions.
So when we start to look at things about mind like observers and and representations and representation error it would be good to know something about the intent of the explanation we seek.
Before doing so it would be a good idea to have some simpler non-mind problem and it's explanation to allow comparisons and keep on track.
Spider-senses tingling on that one.
You are I presume setting up an emperical method type demonstration, which is fine, with one condition; I point out at this stage that it is not my position that such is the only way of aquiring knowlegde, as I have stated previously. I have no objection to emperical method as one way, but will not be tricked into your sneaky implicit claim that it is the only way - if indeed that is your intention or assumption.
Indeed, although this position is very unpopular, even mocked by empericists, there is considerable suport for the concept amongst the respected writers on the topic, for example the well established concepts of contingent and non-contingent truths: the former being those that may or may not be true, and these can be confirmed by emperical observation. (An example; it will rain this afteroon) while the latter are necessarily true and are so independent of emperical observation, such as mathematical relationships. Alfred Tarski in his semantic theory of truth spent a great deal of effort showing his thory worked for both of these, which suports my claim that they are relevent concepts, despite any casual claims to the contrary here on the forum.
Therefore emperical observation can not be the sole judge of the factual nature, or indeed truth of a situation.
In summary;
Acording to the semantic theory of truth
"p is true if and only if p"
and some 'p' can not be judged emperically because they are necessarily true.
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
And you should take meds for your paranoia. The point of the post is to identify what problem or thing we are solving or explaining and to use more mundane agreed upon examples to guide that process.Little Idiot wrote:Hrmmm....SpeedOfSound wrote:First I do not care what some old dead wooheads have to say about epistemology. If anyone has something to offer that is sound and ties in to this discussion then I welcome that. But I do not think we have to get too deep and above all...
We should do our own thinking here.
What is an explanation and what is the intent of an explanation?
A first draft is that an explanations is:
A model of mechanism and parts
necessary elements
properties
predictions
All of these things need evidence with the possible exception of the model. That thing just has to work nicely with the others.
The intent of an explanation is to:
solve a problem
or some mystery
or make predictions.
So when we start to look at things about mind like observers and and representations and representation error it would be good to know something about the intent of the explanation we seek.
Before doing so it would be a good idea to have some simpler non-mind problem and it's explanation to allow comparisons and keep on track.
Spider-senses tingling on that one.
You are I presume setting up an emperical method type demonstration, which is fine, with one condition; I point out at this stage that it is not my position that such is the only way of aquiring knowlegde, as I have stated previously. I have no objection to emperical method as one way, but will not be tricked into your sneaky implicit claim that it is the only way - if indeed that is your intention or assumption.
Indeed, although this position is very unpopular, even mocked by empericists, there is considerable suport for the concept amongst the respected writers on the topic, for example the well established concepts of contingent and non-contingent truths: the former being those that may or may not be true, and these can be confirmed by emperical observation. (An example; it will rain this afteroon) while the latter are necessarily true and are so independent of emperical observation, such as mathematical relationships. Alfred Tarski in his semantic theory of truth spent a great deal of effort showing his thory worked for both of these, which suports my claim that they are relevent concepts, despite any casual claims to the contrary here on the forum.
Therefore emperical observation can not be the sole judge of the factual nature, or indeed truth of a situation.
In summary;
Acording to the semantic theory of truth
"p is true if and only if p"
and some 'p' can not be judged emperically because they are necessarily true.
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
In the Peter Atkins video I just watched Rebecca Goldstein wanted his position to be a philosophical one because all philosophers want everything to be about philosophy and all scientists want everything about science and of course to carpenters everything is a nail.Little Idiot wrote: I agree that science can do a very nice job of explaining why eating poison berries causes death.
It can do a less convincing job of answering related questions such as 'what is death,' or 'how do we know all experience stops with the death of the physical body?' would you agree?
We can only assume all experience stops with the death of the physical body, never demonstrate it, and it is not a question science or scientific method can attempt to answer.
Whether or not you label, and this is all it really is, my R1/R2 position metaphysics or not, the fact is that you and I share this position. We trust it's facts to some degree, probably very much a similar degree.
Where we part is in my saying that I doubt like hell there is going to be any other way to know things. I simply haven't seen anything except silliness. So I am very skeptical. Further I haven't found anything to explain that has not yielded to the tools of R2. When I do I will go shopping for new ways of knowing.
On logic and reason and mathematics I am fine with you calling that a new non-empirical way of knowing if you must. I think it too is a silly and premature claim that lacks a complete analysis. But have your way with it. I don't care.
So now we have two ways of knowing. This does not mean there are more.
The point of the post above about explanations is that you must feel that there is something to be explained that R2 can't explain and you can with your new way of knowing. I simply doubt that you are anything but confused about this. Metaphysics will do that to you.
But feel free. What is it that needs to be explained? Or maybe a list?
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
OK. I took a good handful of anti-paranoia medicationSpeedOfSound wrote:And you should take meds for your paranoia. The point of the post is to identify what problem or thing we are solving or explaining and to use more mundane agreed upon examples to guide that process.Little Idiot wrote:Hrmmm....SpeedOfSound wrote:First I do not care what some old dead wooheads have to say about epistemology. If anyone has something to offer that is sound and ties in to this discussion then I welcome that. But I do not think we have to get too deep and above all...
We should do our own thinking here.
What is an explanation and what is the intent of an explanation?
A first draft is that an explanations is:
A model of mechanism and parts
necessary elements
properties
predictions
All of these things need evidence with the possible exception of the model. That thing just has to work nicely with the others.
The intent of an explanation is to:
solve a problem
or some mystery
or make predictions.
So when we start to look at things about mind like observers and and representations and representation error it would be good to know something about the intent of the explanation we seek.
Before doing so it would be a good idea to have some simpler non-mind problem and it's explanation to allow comparisons and keep on track.
Spider-senses tingling on that one.
You are I presume setting up an emperical method type demonstration, which is fine, with one condition; I point out at this stage that it is not my position that such is the only way of aquiring knowlegde, as I have stated previously. I have no objection to emperical method as one way, but will not be tricked into your sneaky implicit claim that it is the only way - if indeed that is your intention or assumption.
Indeed, although this position is very unpopular, even mocked by empericists, there is considerable suport for the concept amongst the respected writers on the topic, for example the well established concepts of contingent and non-contingent truths: the former being those that may or may not be true, and these can be confirmed by emperical observation. (An example; it will rain this afteroon) while the latter are necessarily true and are so independent of emperical observation, such as mathematical relationships. Alfred Tarski in his semantic theory of truth spent a great deal of effort showing his thory worked for both of these, which suports my claim that they are relevent concepts, despite any casual claims to the contrary here on the forum.
Therefore emperical observation can not be the sole judge of the factual nature, or indeed truth of a situation.
In summary;
Acording to the semantic theory of truth
"p is true if and only if p"
and some 'p' can not be judged emperically because they are necessarily true.

I wasn't over serious about you 'setting a trap' for me, to trick me in to an emperical-only method, but I am very serious that my summary above demonstrates that emperical method alone simply can not let us know all things which are knowable. I think the argument 'all we've got is empericism' is dead and nailed in a box, this is the earth and headstone ontop of that one.
In simple words; do you agree that we can not hold on to the position 'all we've got is empericism'?
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
- Little Idiot
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
Exactly what I am saying; philosophers want it all to be about philosophy, and it can not be, empericists want everything to be emperical and it can not be.SpeedOfSound wrote:In the Peter Atkins video I just watched Rebecca Goldstein wanted his position to be a philosophical one because all philosophers want everything to be about philosophy and all scientists want everything about science and of course to carpenters everything is a nail.Little Idiot wrote: I agree that science can do a very nice job of explaining why eating poison berries causes death.
It can do a less convincing job of answering related questions such as 'what is death,' or 'how do we know all experience stops with the death of the physical body?' would you agree?
We can only assume all experience stops with the death of the physical body, never demonstrate it, and it is not a question science or scientific method can attempt to answer.
I have no problem saying we all share R1 models, which are fine for pulling on our pants. I have no problem with many of us having R2 models too, which are refined versions, which are fine for predicting things about the physical world.Whether or not you label, and this is all it really is, my R1/R2 position metaphysics or not, the fact is that you and I share this position. We trust it's facts to some degree, probably very much a similar degree.
My problem kicks in when we start to say there is nothing else, or we may as well assume there is nothing else.
We used to think there was nothing beyond R1, but this was an argument form ignorance, and then we found there was.
Some of us think there is nothing outside R2, but this is a similar argument form ignorance. It can be dressed up with a fake beard hat and glasses and called 'skepticism' but to say 'there is nothing beyond R2' is not the sceptical position - its an argument from ignorance. It is not same as saying 'there may or may not be something beyond R2 - we dont know'.
And assuming I can not demonstate to you a reasonable case for any such reality beyond R2, my ability to demonstrate any reality beyond R2 does not serve to decide there is no such reality.
Do you agree?
We dont need to shop for something we already have.Where we part is in my saying that I doubt like hell there is going to be any other way to know things. I simply haven't seen anything except silliness. So I am very skeptical. Further I haven't found anything to explain that has not yielded to the tools of R2. When I do I will go shopping for new ways of knowing.
You misunderstand, we have had these methods for a long time, I dont claim anything new with reason, logic and maths.On logic and reason and mathematics I am fine with you calling that a new non-empirical way of knowing if you must. I think it too is a silly and premature claim that lacks a complete analysis. But have your way with it. I don't care.
Do we need a list? just one would be enough to prove R2 alone is not enough.So now we have two ways of knowing. This does not mean there are more.
The point of the post above about explanations is that you must feel that there is something to be explained that R2 can't explain and you can with your new way of knowing. I simply doubt that you are anything but confused about this. Metaphysics will do that to you.
But feel free. What is it that needs to be explained? Or maybe a list?
Depending on what you include in R2, do you mean only emperical method, or more than this?
Do you include the work of Tarski on the two types of truth I refered to earlier? Thats R2, surely?
If so: As I (think I) demonstrated there are known form within R2 some truths beyond empericism.
If not: Tarski has demonstrated some truths ourside R2.
Which do you pick, unless you can wriggle out of it either empericism or R2 stands as insufficient

An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
You need to have at least this one thing in your list then. Where is your list of one? What problem are you proposing to solve here?Little Idiot wrote:Exactly what I am saying; philosophers want it all to be about philosophy, and it can not be, empericists want everything to be emperical and it can not be.SpeedOfSound wrote:In the Peter Atkins video I just watched Rebecca Goldstein wanted his position to be a philosophical one because all philosophers want everything to be about philosophy and all scientists want everything about science and of course to carpenters everything is a nail.Little Idiot wrote: I agree that science can do a very nice job of explaining why eating poison berries causes death.
It can do a less convincing job of answering related questions such as 'what is death,' or 'how do we know all experience stops with the death of the physical body?' would you agree?
We can only assume all experience stops with the death of the physical body, never demonstrate it, and it is not a question science or scientific method can attempt to answer.
I have no problem saying we all share R1 models, which are fine for pulling on our pants. I have no problem with many of us having R2 models too, which are refined versions, which are fine for predicting things about the physical world.Whether or not you label, and this is all it really is, my R1/R2 position metaphysics or not, the fact is that you and I share this position. We trust it's facts to some degree, probably very much a similar degree.
My problem kicks in when we start to say there is nothing else, or we may as well assume there is nothing else.
We used to think there was nothing beyond R1, but this was an argument form ignorance, and then we found there was.
Some of us think there is nothing outside R2, but this is a similar argument form ignorance. It can be dressed up with a fake beard hat and glasses and called 'skepticism' but to say 'there is nothing beyond R2' is not the sceptical position - its an argument from ignorance. It is not same as saying 'there may or may not be something beyond R2 - we dont know'.
And assuming I can not demonstate to you a reasonable case for any such reality beyond R2, my ability to demonstrate any reality beyond R2 does not serve to decide there is no such reality.
Do you agree?
We dont need to shop for something we already have.Where we part is in my saying that I doubt like hell there is going to be any other way to know things. I simply haven't seen anything except silliness. So I am very skeptical. Further I haven't found anything to explain that has not yielded to the tools of R2. When I do I will go shopping for new ways of knowing.
You misunderstand, we have had these methods for a long time, I dont claim anything new with reason, logic and maths.On logic and reason and mathematics I am fine with you calling that a new non-empirical way of knowing if you must. I think it too is a silly and premature claim that lacks a complete analysis. But have your way with it. I don't care.
Do we need a list? just one would be enough to prove R2 alone is not enough.So now we have two ways of knowing. This does not mean there are more.
The point of the post above about explanations is that you must feel that there is something to be explained that R2 can't explain and you can with your new way of knowing. I simply doubt that you are anything but confused about this. Metaphysics will do that to you.
But feel free. What is it that needs to be explained? Or maybe a list?
Depending on what you include in R2, do you mean only emperical method, or more than this?
Do you include the work of Tarski on the two types of truth I refered to earlier? Thats R2, surely?
If so: As I (think I) demonstrated there are known form within R2 some truths beyond empericism.
If not: Tarski has demonstrated some truths ourside R2.
Which do you pick, unless you can wriggle out of it either empericism or R2 stands as insufficient
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
Do you want to go the Tarski route and have this thread be about that and what you posted earlier?Little Idiot wrote: If not: Tarski has demonstrated some truths ourside R2.
Which do you pick, unless you can wriggle out of it either empericism or R2 stands as insufficient
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
The statement is "P" is true if and only if p.Little Idiot wrote:I point out at this stage that it is not my position that such is the only way of aquiring knowlegde, as I have stated previously. I have no objection to emperical method as one way, but will not be tricked into your sneaky implicit claim that it is the only way - if indeed that is your intention or assumption.
Indeed, although this position is very unpopular, even mocked by empericists, there is considerable suport for the concept amongst the respected writers on the topic, for example the well established concepts of contingent and non-contingent truths: the former being those that may or may not be true, and these can be confirmed by emperical observation. (An example; it will rain this afteroon) while the latter are necessarily true and are so independent of emperical observation, such as mathematical relationships. Alfred Tarski in his semantic theory of truth spent a great deal of effort showing his thory worked for both of these, which suports my claim that they are relevent concepts, despite any casual claims to the contrary here on the forum.
Therefore emperical observation can not be the sole judge of the factual nature, or indeed truth of a situation.
In summary;
Acording to the semantic theory of truth
"p is true if and only if p"
and some 'p' can not be judged emperically because they are necessarily true.
I just have a couple of questions. Which respected writers and where?
what relevant concepts and how does Tarski support them?
What do you mean by a causal claim to the contrary? Where is that?
I didn't see an argument exactly. Can you tighten that up?Therefore emperical observation can not be the sole judge of the factual nature,
Where did "Alfred Tarski in his semantic theory of truth spent a great deal of effort showing his thory worked for both of these," ?
Last question is what the fuck are you talking about?
Favorite quote:
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
lifegazer says "Now, the only way to proceed to claim that brains create experience, is to believe that real brains exist (we certainly cannot study them). And if a scientist does this, he transcends the barriers of both science and metaphysics."
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Re: On treeness of Oak1, and other things
I am refering to Tarski to suport the position I was agruing before that emperical method alone cant be enough. If you accept that I am done with Tarski.SpeedOfSound wrote:Do you want to go the Tarski route and have this thread be about that and what you posted earlier?Little Idiot wrote: If not: Tarski has demonstrated some truths ourside R2.
Which do you pick, unless you can wriggle out of it either empericism or R2 stands as insufficient
The dilema I presented was for you to either say Tarski's work is inside or outside your R2.
If you accept he is in R2, then I still have to complete the list of one, but you are forced to agree that even R2 (Tarski as I refered to in the earlier post) shows there are truths beyond emperical method.
If you say Tarski is outside R2, then I have finished a list of one thing outside R2 because Tarski's work on truth has been put outside R2. And I did this without even going 'woo'.
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
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