I watched a pharmacist sort through shelves as she spoke on the phone, looking at this and that, walking around the room, asking questions and listening as she suggested, remembered, discovered...

Her thinking was not seperate from this bodily activity; nor from the items on the shelf, or the phone. Thinking is not just something that happens in minds. — Banno

Yes. Thinking doesn't have a definitive spatiotemporal location. It owes it's existence to a plethora of simpler things. One is physiological sensory perception. Another is an external world. Another is some innate instinctual state of mind... Fear and Hunger suffice.

I think it would be better to think something like, that having a hand and believing one has a hand are much the same thing - "inseparable", as you say. After all, to believe on has a hand, one has to understand ownership in some way, and what hands are in some other. — Banno

A potential problem here is that there are disorders in which people believe parts of their body don't belong to them. There are also disorders in which they completely ignore the left or right side of their body.

That means the belief is separable from the having a hand under special circumstances, and this is due to a brain injury or disorder, which places the belief in the brain.

I think that Moore is separating the fools of the audience. Who - in that situation - would deny that Moore's hand is external to them? — creativesoul

Someone after watching the Matrix or Inception movies. We can agree that in an everyday sense it's foolish, but philosophical doubt raises the possibility that we could be wrong. Thus the simulation, BIV, demon arguments.

Also, I can dream about my hands, but those might not be my external hands. Moore's proof isn't a proof, it's an appeal to common sense.

Or I suffer an inner ear infection that makes balance impossible, and so cannot demonstrate my skill; do I still know how to ride? — Banno

Yes, if your neuromuscular system is capable of doing so. All you need to demonstrate it is to have you ear infection cured. Do you doubt it's in principle possible for a medical examination to reveal the capacity?

It must be the case that you store that capability somehow, or you would not be able to ride again, without going through a relearning process?

...philosophical doubt raises the possibility that we could be wrong. Thus the simulation, BIV, demon arguments. — Marchesk

What you've called "philosophical" I would call "radical". It is borne of failing to draw the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief.

Such doubt is belief based. All belief consists of meaningful correlations drawn between different things.

Such doubt is belief based. All belief consists of meaningful correlations drawn between different things. — creativesoul

Right, and there's your argument in the other thread which I said I agreed with. But, what the dream argument shows is that it's possible to have an experience of my hands without them being external. We can differentiate between dreaming and being awake, but that possibility of having non-external hand experience still remains. Which means there could be radical scenarios in which it's actually the case.

As such, Moore waving his hands about doesn't defeat the skeptic, it just reinforces that such doubt is radical. But the skeptic can just reply, "Yeah and so what? I already knew that skepticism was radical to common, everyday sense."

what the dream argument shows is that it's possible to have an experience of my hands without them being external. — Marchesk

What reason is there to believe that one can dream of hands prior to thinking about them?

What reason is there to believe that one can dream of hands prior to thinking about them? — creativesoul

None, but it opens to door to having experiences of hands that are not external in other scenarios that could possibly be the case, as far as we know.

As such, Moore's argument isn't an argument to trot out against Bostrom's ancestor simulation argument, or a Boltzman brain.

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What reason is there to believe that one can dream of hands prior to thinking about them?
— creativesoul

None... — Marchesk

And if thinking of hands is existentially dependent upon and external world?

And if thinking of hands is existentially dependent upon and external world? — creativesoul

Then there has to be an external world. But that leaves several radical skeptical scenarios as possibilities.

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All you need to demonstrate it is to have you ear infection cured. — Marchesk

That misses the point. Do you know how to ride despite not being able to ride? That is, while suffering the inner ear infection.

I humbly suggest that there is no right answer here - or if you prefer, we can say either that: they do know how to ride, but cannot demonstrate it; or that they do not know how to ride, because they cannot demonstrate it; and that there is no reason to prefer one answer over the other.

That means the belief is separable from the having a hand under special circumstances, and this is due to a brain injury or disorder, which places the belief in the brain. — Marchesk

Sure; but belief and truth are not private. What makes this case interesting is exactly the extraordinary split between belief and the world: that in this case having a hand and believing one has a hand are erroneously separated.

To doubt this background, is to doubt the very thing that gives life to the language of doubt; and to that which gives life to the assertion “I know…” in our language. — Sam26

Excellent phrasing.

Excellent phrasing. — Banno

Thanks.

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Name and Sam is not part of the backdrop of non-linguistic reality, but a hand is part of the backdrop. — Sam26

The problem of course, is that natural language is it's own meta-language; it is therefore incapable of expressing a distinction between the publicly linguistic and the privately non-linguistic. This is why, contra-Wittgenstein, I think natural language is inappropriate for discussing philosophy. What you need is a special notation for signifying your pretheoretic and private sense of "hand".

The problem of course, is that natural language is it's own meta-language; it is therefore incapable of expressing a distinction between the publicly linguistic and the privately non-linguistic. This is why, contra-Wittgenstein, I think natural language is inappropriate for discussing philosophy. What you need is a special notation for signifying your pretheoretic and private sense of "hand". — sime

I'm not sure how your response is connected with what I was saying. It sounds more like you misunderstood my point.