Nature doesn't draw lines. We do, and we can be wrong sometimes, depending upon what we're delineating.

If you agree then what's the issue? — creativesoul

Alright, so do mountains exist? And by mountains, I don't mean the rocks, dirt, snow making them up. I mean do objects called mountains exist?

What's the issue here? It's an issue of whether nature is the way we conceptualize it to be. The problem with real mountains as objects is where to draw the line on what constitutes a mountain versus a hill or some other formation. It's also a question of where to delineate the end of a mountain versus the rest of the terrain. And a question of identity over time as the mountain gets worn down. At what point is it no longer a mountain? At what point does it become a mountain?

And it's also a question of whether the snow, rocks, dirt, trees, etc. really do combine together to make a singular object we call a mountain, or whether it's just a bunch of different stuff next to each other.

So yeah, I can agree that Everest existed as lump of different collection of matter prior to humans, but I'm not sure about whether it existed as an object we call a mountain, such that it had properties of being the tallest (from when the Indian tectonic plate pushed it up to the highest point until the present day, not counting underwater mountains).

I think Dummett made similar critiques of realism as well, although I think he tempered it by saying his approach might not work against all cases of realism.

Well, his critique was against transcendental truths, which he said realist statements had to assert.

I favor a linguistic approach to this issue. What exactly do we mean by 'being' and 'independent'? — Eee

It simply means there is more to the world than humans. So evolution, stars, big bang, atoms, disease, animals in the deep sea, maybe alien life, etc. We may or may not come to know about all these things. We certainly won't know everything.

Otherwise, the entire universe collapses to just what humans know and experience. What makes us so special? Why does science tell us we're not?

For a transcendental or Berkeley idealist, are there things that exist independent of their mind, whether it be other minds, or other bodies? — Harry Hindu

Well yeah, they're realists about other minds. Which is open to the same sort of criticism of the OP.

The point is that it doesn't matter whether the external stuff is other ideas, or material, or whatever - only that there is stuff that exists — Harry Hindu

That's true, there are different kinds of realisms. Most of us are realists about some things and not others.

As for the skeptical alternative, that would require a clear definition of what it means to know anything. — Harry Hindu

Yes. Doesn't that tie into the OP's argument?

I think I agree with what you stated there. Except that the world doesn't have to reflect our concepts entirely. We have gotten quite a lot wrong. I guess he means fundamental things like space and time, but even those have undergone revision.

What are the viable alternatives? Are there only two - solipsism and realism? — Harry Hindu

Add transcendental and Berkeley's idealism to the list. Skepticism is that we simply can't know, so that would be fifth one.

But I agree about solipsism, why does it appear as if a world and other people exist?

Is there a correlation between us and the world? If so, then isn't science getting at what is? — Harry Hindu

Yes, I'm a scientific realist. I was just repeating the correlationist argument Meillassoux critiques.

Right, Nagel's point is we can't know therefore science (or objectivity) can't tell us everything.

Block made a similar argument with androids and nations.

The redness I see is just "in my head" and not the same thing as a surface that reflects light at a certain wavelength. — Michael

It almost has to be that way. I guess the color realist would argue that human brains are recreating colors out there in the world, but I'm not sure this always works out with the colors we see versus reflective surfaces and lighting conditions.

Also, because the color we see is because of a small part of the EM spectrum, raising a question as to whether colors are associated with the rest of it, and if not, why not? If our eyes could detect radio rays, would we see some color range coming through the table and all around us? Is visible light special because if reflects off molecular surfaces?

If we deny non-empirical knowledge, the science of mathematics would be impossible. — Mww

True, but we use our experiences to draw the inferences that make most sense of all the empirical data, and form explanations around that. Thus we come to know that vision works differently than how we experience it, which resolves a lot of problems that were noticed a long time ago, such as sticks bent in water.

In this respect, Kant has no problem with objects existing before or without us, he's only making the point things must be explicable in our concepts. Kant, as an emprical realist, has no problem with My Everest existing at a particular height before any humans measure it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, but then this leads to the Meillassoux critique that dinosaurs existed (not really). So we can empirically say humans evolved from earlier life forms, but since we weren't around, we can't assert this to be true. It only appears that way to us, because that's how human minds carve up the world. And thus we can't say anything true outside of ourselves. Science is only concerned with how the world correlates to us, and not how it is.

I find that hugely problematic. Anyway, it's certainly not a realist position.

From this can we rightly assume that the natural human instinct is to view our ‘seeing this tree or that table’ as projected outward rather than as given by external illumination? — I like sushi

Yes, that's how we experience vision.Which is why naive realism doesn't work without a sophisticated philosophical defense. It can't just be asserted or assumed as the premise, since it's been challenged since pretty much day one once people started reflecting.

But back to consciousness.

Along these lines if we talk about ‘what it is like’ what does that sentence mean? The ‘like’ is a redundant word because we’re not really asking about ‘likeness’ at all. To be a bat is to be a bat, and to be human is to be a human. — I like sushi

The "what it is like" is just a way of saying that a bat may have a kind of sensory experience that we don't because bats make use of sonar. If not bats, there are plenty of other examples in the animal kingdom. And anyway, why should we expect human experience to be exhaustive of all possible experience?

"Mt. Everest" picks out a particular mountain. That mountain existed in it's entirety prior to being named. — creativesoul

I agree, but where does nature draw the line on what is Mt. Everest and what isn't?

As for the OP, how do we know it existed before we were around? I think there are good scientific realist reasons for saying so, but regardless a realist needs to defend the assertion that things can exist without us knowing and not just state it.

Do we picture a chair in the room (and no person present)? But then that's just a counterfactual (disembodied) experience. — Michael

That would be naive realism. The chair exists pretty much as we perceive it when we're not around to perceive it. But that obviously has problems, which were noted a long time ago.

We could instead say the lump of matter we consider a chair continues to exist. That's more defensible. But what makes it a chair? Are chairs real? Not the matter itself but the object we call a chair? That's harder to defend, since chairs are a cultural artifact. If humans didn't exist, there would be no chairs to sit in.

But what about mountains? Here it gets murky, because humans don't make mountains. They're already there. But how do we categorize a mountain, single it out, and measure it? Was Everest the tallest mountain before anyone measured its height? What gives tallest its meaning in this case, since the measurement depends on the criteria for being tallest mountain?

We see this problem with whether Pluto should be considered a planet. Nature doesn't care. But we try to be precise with whatever classification scheme works best for orbiting bodies. But then again that implies there are joints to nature science tries to carve at. And on it goes.

Anyway I'm bowing out, I don't want to hijack the thread. — Wayfarer

Wait, what? This is going to be the new 100 page idealism/realism death match. It's way too early to bow out.

You notice the hidden assumption in your last question? The 'real world'? — Wayfarer

So are you saying Kant didn't think the noumena was real?

But he still maintained that in some fundamental sense, time itself was a 'primary intuition' of the observing intelligence, and denied that it had absolute or objective reality; that science itself is still dealing with the realm of phenomena. — Wayfarer

Right, does Kant ever say positively what exists and how it relates to the phenomena? So if time is a mental category, then what does it relate to in the real world?

That question doesn't make sense to me. Does it to you? Is that what you meant to ask? — creativesoul

No, but I can substitute real in there: How dow we know Mt. Everest is real?

Cue ordinary language response.

'Before' implies duration, duration is predicated on there being time, and time is somehow dependent on the perspective of an observer. — Wayfarer

And yet we know about deep time, and we can measure how long Everest has been around.

If Mt Everest were endowed with sentience, he/she/it would probably be incapable of cognising h. sapiens, because we're so tiny, and our lives so ephemeral, that they wouldn't even register in his/her/its
consciousness. Glaciers and rivers, maybe, because they stick around long enough to (ahem) make an impression. — Wayfarer

Probably, but we also know about picoseconds and nanometers, so it's not impossible for a society of sentient mountains to learn about life.

Please set out the referent for the term "that". I — creativesoul

Oh okay, Cart, horse, idealists being trampled.

Mount Everest is the reference of "that". How do we know that Mt. Everest existed before we knew about it?

Please set out the referent of "that". — creativesoul

How do we know "that" numbers exist? Morality, qualia, possible worlds?

Just because you can put a that in front doesn't mean it has a real referent, and we all will take issue with some class of things being considered real.

If it is the case that Mt. Everest existed in it's entirety prior to it's discovery, then it does not matter what one's philosophical bent may be... Mt. Everest existed in it's entirety regardless of whether or not one believes that. — creativesoul

Agreed, but three possible objections:

1. How do we know that to be the case?

2. What if the concept of things existing independent of us (or perception) was incoherent?

3. What if mountains and everyday objects is just a human (or animal) carving up of the world?

All of these arguments have been made against mountain realism. I'm not saying they necessarily succeed, only that it can be a contentious topic in philosophy.

I'm just trying to delineate. I'm not feeling objectionable at the moment. — creativesoul

Well, in the context of subjective experience, humans, since we know that for ourselves. Most likely other animals, given similar enough biology and behavior. But we don't have a means of being sure. Thus "what it's like" to be a bat.

But we can stick with humans as perceivers.

Mt Everest existed in it's entirety prior to it's discovery? — creativesoul

We certainly have had such arguments on the old forum regarding Everest, apples and chairs. They tended to go over a 100 pages.

But yes, for everyday object realists, the mountain existed prior to humanity.

An amoeba? — creativesoul

Does it have sensory organs and a nervous system?

I would agree if we changed that slightly to "help generate"...

What's a "perceiver"? — creativesoul

Living organisms with active nervous systems and sensory organs.

What argument needs made here? — creativesoul

That realism requires things existing regardless of whether we know about them, which I understood OP's starting point to be.

Experience is a quality?

Consisting entirely of Quale? — creativesoul

I don't know, but it's something perceivers generate in the act of perception, memory, imagination, dreams, hallucinations, etc.

This realist doesn't. — creativesoul

Wouldn't a realist have to make that argument? A galaxy millions of light years away or an evolutionary ancestor would exist as they are regardless of whether we ever know, if galaxies and ancestor organisms are real.

Otherwise, "realism" dissolves into man is the measure, which would some form of Kantianism or anti-realiism.

The entire point about something being real is that it exists independent of us, whether we know it or not.

An issue here is focusing on individual things. So if I'm no longer observing the sun, then I can't know whether the sun still exists according to the argument. But a lot of things stand in relation to the sun existing, such as the temperature of the planet on which I live, plants continuing to photosynthesize, and so on.

An even better example is that the ground continues to hold me up even when I'm not aware of it. I can continue to breathe air, and my heat continues to pump blood, and I only become aware of those things if something causes me to breathe irregularly, such as when encountering smoke, or exerting myself.

The best example is having a body. I'm not aware of most of it most of the time. Yet I keep on having experiences with eyes, ears, legs, arms, a back, etc. So the realist argument can be one of focusing on how all the things connect together such that they cannot cease to be what they are when we don't know, since our experiences continue on as if they were still what we know them to be.

On a cosmological level, take inertia. Inertia is the result of all the mass in the universe resisting your acceleration. So if the rest of the universe didn't exist when the car suddenly stops, then there's no reason for you to lurch forward. Similarly, before the germ theory of disease, there's no reason for people to get sick from viruses and bacteria if those didn't exist.

What exactly does one mean by subjective experience. — TheMadFool

There are several things to the definition. One is any experience which varies between individuals. The room feels hot to you, cold to me, and fine for a third person. The experience of temperature is subjective. If we wanted to measure the room's temperature, we use a thermometer which gives us an objective value which does not vary.

Another is private. I have a dream, and although I can tell you about my dream, you cannot experience the dream yourself. The experience is private to me. So although dreams can be studied objectively, the experience itself is only available to the individual who has that dream.

A third is perceiver-dependence. This is based on the kind of perceiver, and their sensory capabilities. So humans experience the world through five senses of an upright walking ape, with differences among individuals due to color blindness, being able to taste a certain chemical, incapacity, etc.

The perceiver-dependent qualities of human subjective expereince would be those sensations we have good reason to believe are generated by our nervous system, instead of being properties of the world around us. So shape, size and location are objective properties of things in the world, while color, sound, taste are properties we experience because of the kind of creatures we are. Going back to the room temperature, our experience of heat or cold is a perceiver-dependant quality. The temperature is objectively the kinetic motion of particles moving about, and not a feeling of coldness or heat.

Nagel makes the argument that science creates a view from nowhere that has no perceiver-dependent, private, perceptually-relative sensations. There is nothing it's like to be a wavefunction or a supernova or evolution. It doesn't feel like anything, it doesn't look like any color, it doesn't sound like anything. The particles moving about in a room don't feel cold or hot. Ultimately, it's mathematized models of some reality divorced from our experience of it.

And they say the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis ain't true... bullshit! — Wallows

Doesn't the strong version of that support conceptual schema relativism?

@StreetlightX But then there's the "unusual effectiveness of mathematics", particularly for physics. Also, space and time themselves might be emergent features and not fundamental.

Having pain is the experience. I have direct access to having pain of my own, and I have indirect access to another's. There are two kinds of accessibility here, yet you've claimed we have none. — creativesoul

Yeah, I should have said indirect. But it's also the case that we don't always have that indirect knowledge. It might exist in really subtle physiological cues, but we can't read brain activity that accurately, and we haven't put chips in everyone's heads yet. But sure, often enough we have some evidence to what people are experiencing.

I wonder if that's entirely true. Scientific objectivity doesn't mean you ignore essential and defining aspects, here subjective experiences, of the object of study. Rather scientific objectivity is specifically designed to eliminate observer bias and in no way does it/should it overlook, in this case, subjective experiences. — TheMadFool

Well, it's because certain properties of experience are perceiver-dependent and not in the objects themselves. The air feels cold, but that doesn't mean it is cold in an objective sense (the feeling of cold varies between individuals and time). It just feels cold to you now.

I believe Nagel was saying that science uses an objective view from nowhere (perspective-less or lacking subjectivity) to create explanations. But the subjective doesn't fit into these explanations. And yet subjectivity is part of the world.

If the universe went bang, and stars formed fusing heavier elements leading to life evolving, then somehow subjectivity emerged.

Is "indescribable" a description? If not, then how did it become a common saying? How did other humans learn to use the phrase? — Harry Hindu

We developed the cognitive ability to point to things we can't properly express. Unknown unknowns and what have you.

I don't see how this answers my questions. — Harry Hindu

The answer is inscrutable. I'm sure you understand.

"I finally achieved Nirvana this past Sunday."

"Oh yeah? What was that like?"

"Truly Indescribable. Beyond words!"

"Ah, I see. That explains it perfectly. Thanks for sharing! So what's the meaning of life?"

"42."

"Of course! I understand fully."

But they're properties of my brain. I mean, when brains are interfered with those things respond differently, so I don't see that as a reason to discard physicalism. — Isaac

They may be in reality, but brain models of neurons and neurotransmitters don't include sensation. That's just a correlation or outcome that we know exists from having brains.

I'm a physicalist simply because it seems a default for me, and I need a good reason to discard it. — Isaac

Simple: the colors, sounds, smells, tastes and feels aren't properties of the physical environment you interact with. Or at least not when it comes to our physical models.

Or to say it a better way, nobody has succeeded in explaining how they are.