how to put the subject back into the scientific picture, where he’s always been on the one hand, and overlooked on the other. — Mww

:100:

His statement (cogito ergo sum) does not account for WHY we believe in our own existence.
— Relativist

He says: my existence is apodictic (impossible to doubt) because in order to doubt, I must first exist. — Wayfarer

Irrelevant to my point. He is not establishing that I exist. Our belief in our own existence is, as you put it, a "pre-commitment", although not in any active sense of committing - it's not derived from prior beliefs. It is a properly basic belief.

Similarly, the belief in a mind-independent world is also properly basic. The correct question to ask about properly basic beliefs is: what caused it?

You're right, but only in the strict sense of knowledge (beliefs that are true, and justified so strongly that the belief is not merely accidentally true). We could perhaps agree that the phenomenology of sensory input and the brain's creation of a world model establishes the impossibility of knowledge (in this strict sense) about the world.
— Relativist

You're getting close to the point now, but still brushing it aside. What do we know of 'the world' apart from or outside the mind or brain's constructive portrayal of the world? — Wayfarer

I'm well beyond your point. Try to grasp mine: the "mind created world(model)" is a belief (a compound one) and it's core is properly basic. Please acknowledge this, instead of brushing it aside by simply reiterating what I"ve already agreed to. Make an attempt to understand what I'm saying. You can then challenge it, and explain why you disagree. But so far, you've mostly ignored it.

survival entails having a functionally accurate view of reality.
— Relativist

Functionally accurate in what sense? — Wayfarer

It means sufficiently accurate (i.e. consistent with the actual world) to successfully interact with it. A predator doesn't need to distinguish the species of his prey, but it needs to be able to recognize what is edible. Animals with superior mental skills can discriminate more finely. The most intelligent demonstrate an ability to think reflexively. But in all cases - a correspondence is maintained with reality - that's never lost.

But evolutionary biology is not concerned with epistemology in the philosophical sense. — Wayfarer

Of course it isn't, but it nevertheless is a discipline that consists of a set of "facts" (any discipline fits this model). But what is a fact? A fact is a belief, and rational beliefs have justification. Science progresses through testing and confirming explanatory hypotheses that explain a set of data (which are also facts/beliefs)- this is the justification. If we were to conduct a thorough logical analysis of the discipline - justifying every fact, we would inescapably hit ground at the level of our sensory input and properly basic beliefs. You deny those ground floor beliefs; so you have no foundation for accepting any science as true. And yet you do. You're inconsistent.

Their behaviours need not be understood in terms of their ability to grasp or express true facts. It is only necessary that their response is adequate to their circumstances. A bacterium's response to its environment is 'functionally accurate' when described this way, but plainly has no bearing on the truth or falsity of its ideas, as presumably it operates perfectly well without them.

I sincerly doubt that bacteria have ideas. I covered the issue your alluding to:

When we evolved the capacity for language, the usefulness of language entailed it's capacity to convey that same functionally accurate view of reality; had it not then it would have been detrimental to survival. So our ancestors accepted some statements (=believing them as true), without needing the abstract concept of truth. — Relativist

You referred to "true facts", but you haven't defined what it means to be true.

I've given you mine: correspondence with reality - objective, mind independent, reality. This is the concept, not the methodology for seeking/verifying truth.

You still haven't answered my question about whether of not there exists objective, mind-independent reality. Without it, truth can only be relative to perspective. So...are you the "relativist"?

Try to grasp mine: the "mind created world(model)" is a belief (a compound one) and it's core is properly basic. Please acknowledge this, instead of brushing it aside by simply reiterating what I've already agreed to. Make an attempt to understand what I'm saying. You can then challenge it, and explain why you disagree. But so far, you've mostly ignored it. — Relativist

I understand it, I am not ignoring it, and I'm saying it's mistaken. The 'mind created world' thesis is a rational and defensible argument based on philosophy and cognitive science. It's is not appropriate to describe it as a belief, as the subject is a factual matter. That is not to say we can't have beliefs, but beliefs are only a part of what the mind entertains - it also has concepts, intentions, reasons, passions, and much else besides.

This is the last time that I'll say it, but I don't deny the reality of the external world nor the validity of objective facts. I say that throughout the original post. What I deny is that the world would appear in the way it does to us, in the absence of any observer or mind, and that this is a fact that is generally ignored.
.

Functionally accurate in what sense? As said, non-rational animals can and have survived ever since the beginning of life without a rational grasp of truth. — Wayfarer

Rational grasp of truth is not the point. If our senses did not give us an adequately true picture of what is going on around us we wouldn't survive for long. And by "we" I mean animals also.

Rational grasp of truth is not the point. — Janus

If that’s not the point, then we need to be clear about what the point actually is. You’ve shifted the discussion from rational grasp of truth to perceptual adequacy for survival. Those are not the same thing.

Yes—animals must have perceptual systems that are adequate to guide response. That’s a claim about functional adequacy. It says nothing about truth in the rational sense: about propositions, validity, necessity, or justification.

A frog can track flies, a bat can echolocate, a bacterium can follow a chemical gradient. All of that can be adaptively successful without any grasp of truth, falsity, inference, or contradiction. Survival only requires that responses work—not that they be true.

The issue under discussion (which is tangential to the 'mind-created world' argument) is not whether perception must be good enough to survive, but whether survival explains the existence of a faculty that can grasp what must be the case—logical necessity, valid inference, contradiction, mathematical truth. That kind of truth does no direct survival work at all, and yet as the rational animal we are answerable to reason.

So if “rational grasp of truth is not the point,” then the question is: what, exactly, is being offered as an explanation of the authority of reason itself, rather than merely of adaptive perception? And if there isn’t any such explanation, then what point can be made?

Yes—animals must have perceptual systems that are adequate to guide response. That’s a claim about functional adequacy. It says nothing about truth in the rational sense: about propositions, validity, necessity, or justification. — Wayfarer

Functional adequacy, in fact extremely precise functional adequacy, does say something about what our rational truth propositions are based upon, which you would know if you have ever seen a bird flying at high speed through a forest. The bird has a true picture of where the trees are, of the "state of affairs", otherwise it would smack into them and die.

The issue under discussion (which is tangential to the 'mind-created world' argument) is not whether perception must be good enough to survive, but whether survival explains the existence of a faculty that can grasp what must be the case—logical necessity, valid inference, contradiction, mathematical truth. That kind of truth does no direct survival work at all, and yet as the rational animal we are answerable to reason. — Wayfarer

Logical necessity, valid inference, contradiction, mathematical truth are symbolically enabled elaborations of that functionally adequate picture of the world that is enabled by the senses. Reason has no authority beyond consistency, and must remain true to that which supports it, i.e. actual experience, or lose all coherency.

Functional adequacy, in fact extremely precise functional adequacy, which you would know if you have ever seen a bird flying at high speed through a forest, does say something about what our rational truth propositions are based upon. — Janus

The bird example again shows the equivocation I was pointing to. Yes—its perceptual system must be exquisitely tuned to environmental structure. But that gives us sensorimotor covariance, not truth in the rational sense. The bird does not entertain propositions about where the trees are, nor does it distinguish between correct and incorrect judgments—only between successful and unsuccessful action. You can say that its responses 'are true' but that is because you already have the conceptual ability to to that.

Experience can show us what is the case. It can never show us what must be the case. And logical necessity lives in that second domain.

Reason has no authority beyond consistency — Janus

You'd be well advised to heed your own advice!

Experience can show us what is the case. It can never show us what must be the case or what should be And logical necessity lives entirely in that second domain. — Wayfarer

Experience shows us what is the case. Due to our symbolic linguistic ability we can reflect upon and generalize about the features of our experience to derive what must be the case in regards to anything we would count as perceptual experience. What should be the case is another matter, and concerns the pragmatics of the relations between individuals and communities, such that each may thrive. Social animals are always already instinctivley good to their own, for the most part.

You'd be well advised to heed your own advice! — Wayfarer

If you think I've been inconsistent please point it out by quoting the relevant material. You never seem to be able to resist making personal slurs. That tells me you must feel threatened.

Here, Janus, a special one for you.

For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his (the dog's) field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

Good old Aristotelian Thomism.

That tells me you must feel threatened. — Janus

Terrified. Shaking in my boots.

As usual: quotes from your authorities and attempts to dismiss what I've said by associating it with empiricism or positivism instead of addressing what I've actually said. You claim I've been inconsistent but apparently can't point out any inconsistency. :roll:

The 'mind created world' thesis is a rational and defensible argument based on philosophy and cognitive science. It's is not appropriate to describe it as a belief, as the subject is a factual matter. — Wayfarer

It's unclear what you mean by a "factual matter", since I regard facts as true beliefs. I'll elaborate of "facts" later, but first discuss "belief".

You are applying a different definition of "belief" than I. Here's a rough outline of my definition:


Belief: a mental state that encompanses an intentional stance - it makes one apt to behave or think in a way that is consistent with the belief; it entails an assumed correspondence with reality.

It includes, but is not limited to, propositional beliefs - which are intentional stances toward the meaning of the proposition. Many, but not all, non-propositional beliefs can be expressed as propositions.

Even the meaning of a word would constitute a belief, because it is the meaning that influences the thoughts or behavior. Adopt a different definition of the word, and the subsequent behaviors and thoughts will shift.

A sensory perception is a belief: it produces behavioral reactions consistent with whatever it is the perception represents. Your driving along a road and you see a person in your path, and you react by slowing or stopping your car. You implicitly believe a person is in your (believed) path, and you implicitly believe you will injure this person if you maintain your path and speed.

From this point of view, a "mind created world (model) is a belief - a complex one.
‐-------------
The mental construct I have labeled "belief" is present, irrespective of any definition you may use for belief. I don't want to debate semantics (what is the proper definition of belief?), I simply ask that you accept that this is what I mean when I use the term. I'd be happy to clarify any issues you see.

‐--------------

This is the last time that I'll say it, but I don't deny the reality of the external world nor the validity of objective facts — Wayfarer

What is a "fact"? Is it mind-independent? I define it as a true proposition. Scientific facts are propositions that describe some aspect of physical reality (if the proposition is true). "God created the universe" is considered a fact by theists. So what a person regards as "fact" is, actually a belief.

Some philosophers (e.g. Wittgenstein) treat "facts" as elements of reality, rather than as descriptions of (what is assumed to be) reality. And yet, we often refer to a scientific discipline as embodying a set of "facts", even though these alleged "facts" are falsifiable and possibly false. That makes it cumbersome. "Truths" serves the purpose.

Yet another semantic issue. I asked you, "whether or not there exists objective, mind-independent reality." You responded with different words: "I don't deny the reality of the external world nor the validity of objective facts".

I shall interpret your answer as "yes" - that you agree there exists objective, mind independent reality. No need to respond if you agree.

But please answer my other question about the meaning of "true". In particular, do you accept my definition - that "true" = corresponds to objective, mind-independent reality? If not, then provide your definition.

All of this has bearing on your acceptance of "scientific facts", and whether or not you can justify belief in those facts.

You are applying a different definition of "belief" than I. — Relativist

I use the regular definition.

All of this has bearing on your acceptance of "scientific facts" — Relativist

I am not disputing the scientific account, but attempting to reveal an underlying assumption that gives rise to a distorted view of what this means. What I’m calling attention to is the tendency totake for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth.