I guess the main arguments against this is illusions and misperception. — Apustimelogist
if you artificially stimulate sensory receptors of a brain with identical DNA to you in a way which is identical to the history of organic sensory stimulations you have personally encountered in your life, it will have the same experiences as you have had. — Apustimelogist
What is your alternative? Through an extended mind framework where the mind encompasses the body and environment, etc? — Apustimelogist
It dependa what you mean by object here. My instinct is to interpret object here as in some hypothetical object in the outside world. From my point of view, perception and myself are essentially not distinguishable. What you commonsensicallg would call your self are just sensory experiences pretty much imo. — Apustimelogist
To be honest I am not entirely sure what direct realism means. — Apustimelogist
I would kind of agree with both but I don't have a strong opinion because I am disinclined against realism. I think the notion of indirect realism is kind of a functionally useful way of talking about the brain though. I feel like it is implied by models in neuroscience, even if minimally or if one doesn't want to attach too much metaphysical implication to it. — Apustimelogist
So you don't believe the brain in a vat could have the same experiences? — Apustimelogist
All this affordance stuff is still going on inside our heads. We could be brains in vats artificially having our sensory receptors stimulated and experience the same things as if outside of the vat. — Apustimelogist
Well, what is the example you have in mind? Presumably you have an example that parallels the "wind"? — Leontiskos
Yes, and the finger-crossing example was risky in that it is easily misunderstood. I was only trying to illustrate the role of susceptibility and negligence. It is (intentionally) artificial because no one holds that rule. Of course, there is a sense in which it is important to consider subjective moral evaluations (in part because conscience is always a moral factor), but I think we can leave that to the side for the moment. — Leontiskos
Objection 5: Morality correlates to importance
Moral acts are important acts
Not all human acts are important acts
Therefore, not all human acts are moral acts
This is similar to Objection 2. I would respond by saying that everything someone does is something they consider worthwhile or worth doing. The simple fact that time is scarce leads us to try to use our time wisely and do things that are worthwhile.
On the other hand, not everything is equally worthwhile, and someone might use the idea of morality to denote those things or rules that are worth taking especially seriously. This is fine so long as we do not forget that there is no qualitative difference between more important things and less important things, for all things that are worth doing have a minimum level of importance. — Leontiskos
I only used the word "access" because it's the term Moliere used. He said "in terms of the epistemological problem of perception we have direct access to some kind of object". Given that he referenced the epistemological problem of perception I assumed by "access" he was referring to knowledge. — Michael
We have access to percepts. Percepts are often the consequence of the body responding to some proximal stimulus (dreams and hallucinations being the notable exceptions). The proximal stimulus often originates from some distal object.
The nature of our percepts is determined by the structure and behaviour of our sense organs and brain such that different distal objects can cause the same percept and that the same distal object can cause different percepts (e.g. the dress that some see as white and gold and others as white and blue).
This is indirect realism. Any direct realist who claims that this is direct realism has simply redefined the meaning of "direct" into meaninglessness. — Michael
Which means what? — Michael
does experience provide us with direct knowledge of the external world? — Michael
Both direct and indirect realists are realists rather than subjective idealists because they believe that the existence and regularity and predictability of experience is best explained by the existence of a distal world which behaves according to regular and predictable laws. — Michael
Both the direct and indirect realist infers the existence of some entity from some effect it is claimed to have caused — Michael
I liked it too. I just can't get into the main cast. Thimotee and Zendaya for main characters in a movie like this is just... — Lionino
I will probably watch the miniseries eventually — Lionino
it should be comforting to know that one's beliefs and guesses about a potentially comfortable, earth-like afterlife are more likely to be correct than any given guess a magical supercomputer could make about a correct hell. If people know that, then there is less to worry about concerning what might happen when we die, and we can all focus on the important stuff. — ToothyMaw
Is it not the case that Camus and Nietzsche, start with nihilism, more or less as foundational - there is no inherent meaning, value or purpose - and then devise a response to this, which is essentially subjective or personal? Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this, but no matter what one does to rehabilitate the implications of nihilism, it remains in some way a nihilist project. — Tom Storm
I agree with you. However, Fooloso4's points about the way she makes her point are also important. The issue crops up all the time in reading texts from the past - and the present. Her ideas about marriage, family, maturity were pretty much conventional, though not uncontested, at the time and still exist. We need to be able to acknowledge both sides of this, though I haven't worked out how to do so properly. — Ludwig V
Yes, they are linked to each other. Well, those approaches have a common concern and the latter is life. I also have my problems with discerning each of them. Sometimes, they feel closer than separated. Nonetheless, I still remain with the same thought that existentialism cares more about life than nihilism or other types of absurdism. If we compare different texts, I guess the differences are apparent. — javi2541997
This is very interesting! :smile: And we could spend hours and hours debating on this topic. Yet I think it is plausible how a text by an existentialist suffers from despair about doubting what is the right way to act. While a nihilistic jokes about this. — javi2541997
You presume that I am trying to persuade people to believe in a certain account of what the afterlife is. What I might try to persuade people of is more specific, such as: you are more likely to be correct in guessing at whatever earth-like afterlife you might believe in than believing that there is a correct unknowable hell that might ever be guessed. People who believe in unknown hells might reconsider their beliefs with this knowledge - or so I hope. — ToothyMaw
Honestly, I do not know what comes first. I think ethics is a very relevant element in existentialism, but I don't know which is the proper approach, whether ethics, metaphysics, or meta-ethics. — javi2541997
Would you agree that if an earth-like afterlife exists, we could indeed make guesses at its contents? — ToothyMaw
Your issue with my assertions about useful, relevant predictive models existing is that I am presuming that earthly events that can be logically connected have no particular reason to occur in the afterlife. — ToothyMaw
And what I meant was that my argument would hold if it were the case - and if it weren't the case, I grant that my argument would be faulty or incoherent. This is clearly a red herring. — ToothyMaw
I did not say "infinite" but rather "potentially infinite", which is different insofar as I when I use that term, I am denoting a set of unique events that are effectively unbounded in number, while if I said "infinite unique events" that would clearly correspond to the concept you are right to be wary of. I do not believe I have set up any antinomies, as I have made no references to anything actually being infinite apart from the potential different ways to be made to feel pain in an unknowable hell - but that is definitional and, thus, essential to any considerations of unknowable hells. — ToothyMaw
a perfect selector is selecting from a potentially infinite number of unique events to form guesses at an UH (unknowable hell), and the chances of guessing the right combination from this potentially infinite set of unique events approaches zero. — ToothyMaw
While the afterlife is essentially noumenal by virtue of us not being able to directly ascertain its details with our senses, that doesn't mean that what we can ascertain could never occur in the afterlife, or that phenomenal attributes perceivable in this life could not correspond to it. In fact, I argue that it is possible that we can predict some of these attributes, and I'll address your contentions about it further on in this post. But you are, at this point, making an argument against predictive models, not just predictable afterlives; just because we don't, or can't, know for sure, what is actually correct, doesn't mean no good guesses at what might be correct exist. — ToothyMaw
If there is an event in this life that is logically related via its content to other events, and the content of that event does not change if it happens in an earth-like afterlife, then we know that the logical connections between that event and others that are similar in this regard are the same as they would be on earth, and we have no reason to think otherwise; therefore, if certain events on earth can be predicted via these kinds of logical connections, they can be predicted similarly in an earth-like afterlife — ToothyMaw
That leads to my conclusion that, given these kinds of earthly events occur in the afterlife, certain combinations, based on the transcendent logic according to which the events are related, are more likely than others. — ToothyMaw
We can make that claim because a perfect selector is selecting from a potentially infinite number of unique events to form guesses at an UH (unknowable hell), and the chances of guessing the right combination from this potentially infinite set of unique events approaches zero. — ToothyMaw
when certain events occur on Earth, they are often followed by other events as reflected by consistent logic determined by the content of those events. For instance: if we mandate a vaccine for everyone in the US, we can expect a reactionary response characterized by vast protests and a general denigration of the medical apparatuses in place. This is because many people view it as a challenge to their autonomy, which is a consistent gripe. There is a clear logic to what might trigger that kind of complaint - in this case being injected against one’s will - and I can only imagine that the logic behind it would apply to a similar schema in an earth-like afterlife. If it would, then we know that certain combinations of certain types of events in the afterlife are more likely than others. I hope that isn't too reductive; I’m not saying we can extrapolate indefinitely far or even far at all from a given event, but rather that they might be able to be connected locally according to some inherent logic. Think something like Marxist critiques but in areas other than history. — ToothyMaw
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that
is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to
answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—
whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind
has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. — Camus
For me “The Myth of Sisyphus” marks the beginning of an idea
which I was to pursue in The Rebel. It attempts to resolve the
problem of suicide, as The Rebel attempts to resolve that of
murder, in both cases without the aid of eternal values which,
temporarily perhaps, are absent or distorted in contemporary
Europe. The fundamental subject of “The Myth of Sisyphus” is
this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a
meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide
face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the
paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in
God, suicide is not legitimate. — Camus
Are you referring to an unknowable hell or a hellish, earth-like afterlife here? If we are talking about an earth-like afterlife: I totally concede that an earth-like afterlife could be hellish, so that might be a misunderstanding. If we are instead discussing an unknowable hell in which cause and effect doesn't break down, then you are wrong: my argument is about guessing, and it doesn't say that the afterlife is not, or could not be, an unknowable hell just because the right one is virtually impossible to guess, but rather that we are much more likely to be right when we guess at an earth-like afterlife. — ToothyMaw
I'm not sure what your position is, really, so I don't know what it would mean if you did move. Is it just that since there is no evidence for any afterlife we can't have better or worse guesses at it? — ToothyMaw
Did you read the OP? I specifically say that we could form predictive models for what could be the case in the afterlife from observing the relations between events in this life. — ToothyMaw
This is interesting. Existentialism comes in various forms, including Christian existentialism. But isn't existentialism of the secular variety built upon similar notions as nihilism? The absence of meaning. Nihilism holds that life, existence and reality itself are devoid of inherent meaning, purpose, or value. It rejects the notion of any objective significance or ultimate truth. Existentialism tends to identify same lack of meaning and then moves in to fill the void. — Tom Storm
I would often consider myself to be a nihilist. But I don't tend to see this approach as one of destructive apathy, or assertive repudiation, rather a more cheerful springboard to make decisions about what choices you will make and what you will do. I would not consider myself to be an existentialist.
Ultimately calling the existentialist approach to life “ethical” seems to misuse the term ethical to me. It’s not acting ethical to take responsibility for one’s absurd reasoning, it’s just the true nature of authentic acting. In the end, any particular act (murder or self-sacrifice, either/or) is meaningless in itself, beyond good and evil. — Fire Ologist
This all depends what you understand a nihilist to be. I don't think all versions of nihilism preclude morality. It rejects inherent meaning and morality. — Tom Storm