What evidence could we have that things really are as they seem when that's all evidence is?

Tempest Beachy

My thoughts:
When it comes to evidence about ways in which things seem, I do feel experience helps with our understanding, but it isn’t evidence. People can be wrong when it comes to their experiences because we can adjust these experiences in our mind to be able to survive (experiences can be traumatic), or we might have certain conditions that make it so our experiences aren’t as true as other people's experiences.

At this point in time, evidence deals with things like the scientific method. It deals with using science to back up your conclusions. Creating a hypothesis, and then finding out if your hypothesis is true with experiments. If I’m being specific to how we prove things in science, then I’m not naïve to think that there are ways to to improve the ways we prove science. At this time we don’t truly have a method for proving these harder philosophy questions. I feel we are still at a point of trying "to not offend others", at least in America, that we don't even get close to talking about these deeper topics, let alone proving them.

In fact, when it comes to evidence about what things seem like, and if we're trying to be specific about being right or wrong, I truly don’t think that anybody can be 100% right or wrong. Even all of science that we know now, I believe that some of it can be partially wrong, including theories that have been proven. What I’m saying here is, I believe in varying degrees of right and wrong. (Mainly because of Math, but I do realize that because of believing what I believe, the statistics I am thinking about could be wrong too).

If I had to try to think of evidence for things being really are as they seem, then I will say again that it isn’t solely based on experience in order to get this evidence. Furthermore, I feel like there is much more discovery to be found out for if things are really are as they seem. I say this because of theories like the double slit experiment, which basically rely on observation on a quantum physics level. While more is being discovered with quantum physics, things like Schrodinger’s cat theory can also show a perceptive when it comes to how things are.

With theories like these two, it seems observation is important in order to make anything around us what it seems. If we didn’t have observation, then based off these couple of theories, could any specific state with multiple possibilities be true?

While I don’t have all the answers, I think the two big pieces of evidence that one needs to dive into to prove that anything around us is what it seems, is diving into the consciousness/perspective/experience type of philosophy, as well as dive into actual physics like theories that relate because of observation (not to say observation is the only important thing either). Perspective/consciousness is important because I feel like each of our perspectives add up to this humongous glob of information. That’s important for something, and I have theories myself that I wont get into right now.

I would love to read some of your thoughts though. I love expanding my mind for further knowledge. I am linking my blog post to give you some more background on what I think is important with Metaphysics, but dont feel compelled to check it out if you don't want to. This post is merely see what others think. Thank you for reading.

https://www.mendyourthoughts.com/blogs/philosophy/the-importance-of-metaphysics-in-our-coming-time

Borraz

Read "Proof on a External World" in Moore, G.E. (1959): Philosophical Papers, VII, London: G Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Tempest Beachy

I'll check it out, thank you. What did you like/dislike about the resource?

unenlightened

People can be wrong when it comes to their experiences — Tempest Beachy

One can be wrong, but one relies on experience to know this.

https://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/worst.html

Tempest Beachy

↪unenlightened

You are right. Life is always contradicting. You can love and hate someone for instance. I'll read that resource, thanks.

A Seagull

What evidence could we have that things really are as they seem when that's all evidence is?

Because it allows us to interact effectively with the world. That is all that is required.

unenlightened

That is all that is required. — A Seagull

A Pragmatist Seagull. How effectively are you interacting with the world? Are you sure you're not missing something? If it is all we've got, then we'll have to make the best of it, but one can certainly wish one could tell the oasis from the mirage without a five mile walk and a mouthful of sand.

A Seagull

That is all that is required. — A Seagull
A Pragmatist Seagull. How effectively are you interacting with the world? Are you sure you're not missing something? If it is all we've got, then we'll have to make the best of it, but one can certainly wish one could tell the oasis from the mirage without a five mile walk and a mouthful of sand. — unenlightened

Any philosophy that is not linked pragmatically with the real world is indistinguishable from an abstract fantasy.

Of course there may be gaps, but that is why we do philosophy.

It is naïve to think that facts about reality can be discerned without observation, though observations may be indirect rather than direct.

unenlightened

It is naïve to think that facts about reality can be discerned without observation, though observations may be indirect rather than direct. — A Seagull

A rather indirect observation, if I may say so. But the philosophy of the gaps will not do at all, because it is the philosophy of pragmatism that defines what is an observation and what is a gap. "Naive" is a dangerous word in this context, that may come to haunt you.

This is my pragmatic philosophy that I do because my experience has gaps ...

A Seagull

. "Naive" is a dangerous word in this context, that may come to haunt you. — unenlightened

I doubt it :)

I like sushi

↪Tempest Beachy

Lots to address here. I’ll try and cover what I can.

Science relies heavily on removing extraneous circumstantial evidence. All experience, in this light, is evidence. Evidence for what is discovered through investigation.

Science and philosophy rely on logical principles. The ‘evidence’ is what we work with by sorting and ordering (logical principles). In this respect a book like ‘Logical Investigations’ by Husserl could be of some interest to you.

So for me when you say experience isn’t evidence then I can only ask you to ask yourself how you distinguish the two, what they have in common, whether or not they are essentially the same thing and merely separated by a habit of language use, and whether or not you think it is more likely that either ‘evidence’ is a kind of ‘experience’ or ‘experience’ is a kind of ‘evidence’ (take your pick).

Word can often be misleading if they’re not analysed carefully - hence what I believe to be one of, if not THE, importance of ‘philosophy’.

As for what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ I believe you meant ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’? The former are more laden with ethical thought in the lexicon of philosophical jargon. For ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ it is merely a matter of sets of rules - Wittgenstein’s ‘Philosophical Investigations’ would probably be of interest to you in this particular area. For example if we’re playing chess and both know the rules of chess there are definitively ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ moves. The problem is that if we’re not focused enough on the game it is possible one of us could’ve made an ‘Incorrect’ move unintentionally and neither of us noticed - here in lies the conundrum of whether or not we were ‘playing chess’ or not if we’ve made a mistake. We can argue that we were both under the impression we made no ‘incorrect’ moves therefore we were still ‘playing chess’ yet if someone was to watch a video of the game and pointed out our mistake they could see our error and tell us ... but that doesn’t change our belief that we had a game of chess, only that we made an unnoticed mistake.

In short, this comes down to accuracy of play and error margins. Undoubtedly someone learning to play chess will make some errors, and they are more likely to make errors than a grandmaster whose error rate would be as good as zero. ‘As good as’ in this sense could be equated to mathematical impossibility and basic entropy - it is ‘Possible’ that the wind will blow in such a manner as to for a perfect sandcastle on a beach somewhere on Earth, but the ‘Probability’ of this happening during the span of the Earth’s lifetime is so incredibly minuscule that we say it is ‘Impossible’. Claude Shannon may interest you in this particular area.

Gregory

Proving our optical vision is an illusion relies on science's use of the senses

Tempest Beachy

I am trying to get an idea of evidence for proving how we know how things are as they seem. Just stating that to try to stay on track.

Maybe rewording the question may help too. How do we prove philosophy in general? People have thoughts and opinions, but is there any way to prove most philosophy topics (opinions). I am working on seeing where the flaws are in philosophy and trying to change it. Regardless, evidence is one of the biggest hurdle for discovery within philosophy in my opinion.

Getting more specific to what 'I like sushi" said.
People like Neil DeGrasse Tyson state ideas of which is that experience alone isnt proof enough with sciences like biology, chemistry, and physics because each experience is subjective. You can believe experiences say one thing when they could in fact say another. An example he gave is that when many people come back from death they see bright lights. He claimed that this could be because of where the person is at, in a hospital ER (or hospital in general). There are reasons for what people say they experience, but getting down to the root of reason can nearly be impossible with finding out when it comes to all experiences.

I do agree with the logical principles and will have to check out the resources mentioned. When you being up this chess example, I would like to elaborate on my thoughts. Chess yes, is very logically based and it typically behaves with what move is the best (or most correct) move. There are possibilities even within chess that dont have any "good" moves (as you get towards the end game), or possibilities like there being more than one "great" move. If you compare this to life, these are the moments in life that I feel matters most.

Have you ever heard of the choice between a lesser evil? That is what I am getting at here today. Those situations that are not always easy to determine whether they are true or false (or correct / incorrect) so these situations seem to matters most in my eyes. These choices are what show to others what is important to you (i.e. when you have to make morally harder choices). While I like the chess example, I feel life behaves more complex then chess can (more possibilities. Also, more then just one thing is being done like in chess. In chess, you're only playing chess).

I do like how you viewed everything though "I like Sushi". Especially the last paragraph. It is why I am not fond of the quote "beyond a reasonable doubt" in politics. Truly, nobody can be beyond a reasonable doubt, but we can make an informed decision and consider the odds. That is partly why humans are intelligent species. We are able to comb through the possibilities (some are better at it than others) and decide what is the "most correct" choice. It is pretty cool in my opinion.

Lastly, Gregory! Thank you for commenting! If I understand you right, I don't think it is as simple as uses our senses to prove things, as I mentioned above, however in order to have ways to gain scientific evidence, those ways of proving is because of experience too. I feel like there can be an underlying contradiction when it comes to a lot of philosophy, let's be real.

Thank you all for the thoughts and I will check out the resources mentioned! Thank you all!

What evidence could we have that things really are as they seem when that's all evidence is?

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