@Terrapin Station, hold up a minute, isn't this very much like my reasoning in Part 2 here in my discussion on idealist logic? :brow:

Why isn't it a language if you don't understand it on the later occasion? Where is the requirement coming from that in order to be a language, you have to understand it in perpetuity?

Imagine that some virus strikes Earth that rapidly spreads and gives everyone a cognitive fog. A symptom of it is that there are many words in all natural languages that no one understands any longer.

Did we not have languages in that case? — Terrapin Station

Languages that are not understood, whether due to a cognitive fog or because everyone is dead... :chin:

Wouldn't they still be meaningful in the sense that these languages would consist in rules about meaning? In a language, it would be the case that this word means such-and-such, even if it wasn't understood. What even is a language if not basically a set of language rules about symbols or sounds or whatever?

Many words in natural language that no one understands any longer... :chin:

And words would be things that mean something, right? At least in the strictly linguistic sense.

Remind me, why wouldn't the meaning be objective?

If it's not a derail, I'd be interested to know what you think wisdom is, and how it might be discovered or attained? — Pattern-chaser

We know what wisdom is, in a sense, or at least the gist of it, because we know what the word means, or we can look it up.

What it consists in is trickier, although we aren't completely ignorant of that either. We can accurately identify what's wise and what's unwise in at least some cases, wouldn't you agree? The trick is in developing the skill to do so, knowing when to apply it, and following through with the right actions.

That seems alright as a brief summary, and as a working model - or at least the beginnings of one. Don't expect too much detail from me, though. It might be unwise to say too much or to venture too far. Sometimes there's wisdom in caution. Sometimes there's wisdom in silence. But then, it almost seems that nothing is guaranteed here.

Unfortunately for Kant, he wasn't around for the linguistic turn. Common sense relates to common language usage. Kant didn't realise the importance of common language usage. He wasn't around for the likes of Wittgenstein or G. E. Moore, who were more clued up in this regard.

No, you have not. Solid, mineral, Earth. All terms that refer to observations. — Echarmion

I can deal with this with a copy-and-paste: you're just reading that into it. That's not the same as me failing to provide one without that. That's a very important difference.

You need to understand that you kicking the can a little further down the road is not real progress.

A rock is never not a rock. — Echarmion

Good, I'm glad you agree.

No, in that case you are under an illusion. Your observations no longer conform to the observations of the majority of other observers, and so other observers will, by and large, conclude you are wrong. — Echarmion

Can, road, kicking. Imagine the majority of observers are under an illusion.

There won't be any rocks for you, since you'll be dead. Presumably, there will still be rocks for other people. Unless you're crazy, and everyone is playing along and agreeing with you that sure, rocks exist, so as to not disturb you. — Echarmion

No, you don't seem have properly read what I said. I began "if a rock is what it looks like (etc.) to me..."

Either a rock is what it looks like to me or it isn't. If it is, then what a rock looks like to other people is beside the point.

You could say that a rock is what it looks like (etc.) to most people, or even to everyone, but that would still lead to absurdity through a thought experiment. If we were all under an illusion, or we all developed some sort of genetic mutation where we no longer saw rocks as rocks, then it follows that there would be no rocks. But a) that's strongly counterintuitive, and b) that's illogical if you go by a sensible definition of rocks, where rocks are rocks, not what they look like (etc.).

Can you feedback to me what I've said multiple times about what you seem to be suggesting here, which once again seems to relate back to absolute certainty?
— S

Yep. First line of the OP.

There is a rock
— S — Mww

Ah, too bad. You failed my challenge! That was just part of a thought experiment. You brought up an irrelevancy implicitly relating to absolute certainty and possibility and the proper/improper way to interpret what I'm saying. I have tried to get you to see why it's an irrelevancy.

I don't need to prove anything with absolute certainty. I'm not suggesting that there are no other possibilities. This is your misunderstanding.

I grant the practical aspect for knowledge is more suitable for the man on the street, who would perhaps think me wacky for maintaining we cannot know about the rocks. — Mww

You grant it, but perhaps you don't realise how much of a problem it is not to conform with it. Philosophy-types can be exceptionally oblivious on a level, in spite of all of their clever tinkering around. There's that, and they also have a remarkable talent for rationalisation.

But all is not lost! For not all of them are like this to such a notable degree, thank heavens. The good ones are the ones who reason backwards from an incongruous conclusion like, "Rocks don't exist", or, "Rocks are in my mind", or, "The continued existence of rocks depends on whether I continue to exist", or, "We don't know whether there'd be a rock if we all died" to find out where one has gone wrong.

If only there were more like that!

But if I asked that man on the street if there were any frozen French fries left in the freezer case at the local Piggly Wiggly....what do you think he’d say? He being an honest man and all. — Mww

But that's not the same: different probabilities. So it doesn't count. You would need a claim where it's reasonable enough to give an affirmative regarding knowledge of the situation. And for the love of god, please don't interpret "reasonable enough" or "knowledge" as requiring absolute certainty or that you'd need to be there experiencing the situation, because if you do, then you'll go wrong again straight off the bat. For this challenge, you need to remove your blinkers. It's important to be impartial here, as it is elsewhere, or you'll just keep on failing before you've even gotten off the ground.

We both know you keep harping on my “extreme empiricism” because you refuse to accept the correctness of my idealism for this particular foray into the sublime. All you gotta do is acknowledge that the only way to know it is true those rocks are still there is to send us back to look.

I’m sure the rocks would be glad to see us. Well.....me anyway. You they’re probably quite unhappy with. — Mww

Why the heck would I accept something so unreasonable as the claim that we'd have to go and look? :rofl:

No, you're just setting yourself up for failure. Whichever way you look at it, there's a failure. If I accept your internal definitions and logic, then I clash with common sense and common language use. The guy on the street will think that I'm an idiot. And I don't think that I can deceive myself into believing that he'd simply be wrong. This situation, I believe, indicates that you've gone wrong somewhere. But you might just rationalise that in some way: you're a clever philosophy-type and he's unsophisticated.

My metaphysics has no problem with allowing the existence of objects without experience of them. Just like you, I find it reasonable to think those rocks are going to be there all else being equal. I said as much way back in the beginning, sentience is not a requisite for existence. Dunno why you can’t get that through your head. My metaphysics does not allow empirical knowledge of conditions for which any experience whatsoever is impossible, re: the future, impossible or inconceivable objects, spiritual objects, supernatural objects. If you agree with all that, yet insist you know rocks will still be there, or it is in fact true rocks will be there, in the future, then your metaphysics is catastrophically wrong. — Mww

Wait, why the heck are you specifying empirical knowledge?! That's doing it wrong. I'm not asking about empirical knowledge of the rock! I thought I made that clear, multiple times. Empiricism is a useful tool, but it is not suited for all jobs, and it is the wrong tool for this job. I'm just asking about whether we know that there'd be a rock.

As I've explained, my realism beats your extreme empiricism in a number of different ways. I have assumed the premise of extreme empiricism - the one about the necessity of experience in the scenario - and shown where it leads. It doesn't lead anywhere sensible. And my practical way of defining knowledge beats your impractical way of defining knowledge. Once again, I have shown this by pointing out the faults of where your way of defining knowledge leads: we can't know, but there's an incongruity there. The guy on the street would probably think that you're an idiot if you said that we don't know whether there'd be a rock. I think that the wrong thing to conclude from that situation would be that the guy on the street is unsophisticated, and the right thing to conclude from that situation would be that you're doing something wrong, like defining knowledge in a bad way, so that it clashes with common usage.

But have you demonstrated this supposed necessary dependency, or merely asserted it? Oh, you've merely asserted it. I see. And that's reasonable because...?

Necessary dependency, necessary dependency, wherefore art thou, necessary dependency?

You can't just assume some idealist principle like "to be" is "to be understood" and at the same time claim to be reasonable. — S

Key point right here, guys. Please try not to overlook it.

You’re getting closer and closer. YEA!!!!

What you listed as possible negation of the existence of the clock pertains in principle to the negation of the existence of the rocks. Because no one can prove none of those things did not happen, he cannot know the rocks, or clocks, are still there, because one of them might have happened.

Somebody gimme a damn mic!!!!! — Mww

Sigh. Why are you so excited? You are still stuck, it seems. Here is a challenge for you related to logical relevancy. Can you feedback to me what I've said multiple times about what you seem to be suggesting here, which once again seems to relate back to absolute certainty? And can you feedback to me what I've said about the proper and improper way to interpret what I'm saying? Do you see the problem?

You don't deserve a damn mic!

ROFL. Excellent comeback. — Mww

You forgot to say "mic drop" or some other brilliantly witty remark related to mics.

Wait, I think I get the idea of it. That's what you're supposed to say after you've mad a really poor argument.

Given that a "rock" is defined by the way it looks like, feels like, sounds like etc. how is anyone supposed to talk about rocks? Can you provide us with a definition of a rock that doesn't consist of subjective impressions? — Echarmion

I already have, you're just reading that into it. That's not the same as me failing to provide one without that. That's a very important difference.

Now, to reduce your suggestion to absurdity. When, if ever, is a rock not a rock? What about when something fits the definition of a rock, but doesn't look to me like a rock, or feel to me like a rock, or sound to me like a rock? Imagine I'm under an illusion. In this case, a rock is not a rock? :brow:

If a rock is what looks, feels, etc., to me like a rock, then there won't be a rock if I die. But there will be, meaning that the way we use language in that context, it makes sense to say that there will be. So that's a bad definition to use in this context.

See 1:30. You are pre-enlightened Bart Simpson. — Baden

Correction: pre-duped. Don't have a cow, man. I'm not gullible enough to fall for Lisa's faux-problem. Bart is struck by the faux-significance of a faux-problem! He is stupefied by it! He was wiser to mock it.

I ran out of mics. — Mww

How can you seriously believe that you're competent enough to argue against me when you're not even competent enough to hold a mic without constantly dropping it. Butter fingers!

This argument was never refuted because it was never presented. — Mww

What I meant is that I logically demonstrated (ages ago) that your claim about the meaning of words leads to absurdity. Do you remember me bringing up my cat and optical illusions? That was when I gave a strong and reasonable basis for rejecting your claim. You never actually addressed that, come to think of it.

I doubt that anything you can muster up will be enough to recover from that.

...it can also not be distinguished from non-rock, and seeing as this violates a condition of its meaning rock... — Baden

I'm glad that you agree with me on some important points. You agree with me that, in my sense, the word "rock" would still mean what it means. Yes?

The above quote, however, is a disagreement between us. I agree that (obviously) no one would be able to distinguish it from other things, because (obviously) no one would be there. But I see that as beside the point. Distinguishing particular things from other things is a subjective activity that isn't required for the word "rock" to have linguistic meaning. It has linguistic meaning if and only if the language rule applies. The language rule applies, therefore it has linguistic meaning.

Similarly, rocks can neither exist nor not exist under the first scenario's speculative conditions. — Baden

Wow. Did you just violate one or more of the three fundamental laws of logic? Seems so.

“Rock” is nothing but a human-developed word contained in a human-developed language given to a human-developed concept given to a human-perceived real thing. — Mww

Well, yeah, much of what you just said is really obvious and beside the point. You're indicating that you're talking about the word "rock" with your use of quotation marks. I know what a word is, and I know that the word "rock" is a word, and I know that it is part of a human-developed language, and I know that it is used to refer to a particular real object: a rock, and I know that we tend to use that word to refer to what we perceive to be a rock. I'm not actually an idiot, but it's good to know that you seem to think that I'm an idiot, since you're pointing all of this out to me.

The only important qualification to make here is that what we perceive to be a rock isn't necessarily a rock, but a rock is necessarily a rock, and we do not need to perceive a rock for there to be a rock.

You'll note that the dictionary definition of a rock I gave in the opening post doesn't in itself contain or imply anything about the supposed necessity of a subject. That's what the idealist erroneously smuggles in without any justification whatsoever for doing so.

If there's a [definition of a rock], then there's a rock. There's a [definition of a rock], so there's a rock. (Modus Ponens). Your additional idealist premise is unwarranted, and you don't even seem to be trying to support it. You just seem to be assuming it or suggesting it or asserting it without any supporting argument for it. And I'm expected to believe that doing that is reasonable because...?

I agree with half, disagree with the other half. — Mww

Weird.

If I was a rock in a world where humans had just disappeared, I would ask myself...how am I to be known? I can be remembered, sure, but what intelligence is there that knows of me now? And to be remembered is to be known as I was, not necessarily as I am. If I should be buried in an earthquake, the humans that were here wouldn’t know what happened to me, so why is that any different from not knowing about me if there wasn’t any earthquake to begin with?

Woe is me....without something that knows, I am unknown. Here in my world, or anywhere else. — Mww

Wow. That's a lot of words, and a really creative way of saying something I never disagreed with, namely that the rock would at the time be unknown. There wouldn't be anyone there at the time to know anything about anything. That was the condition I set in the hypothetical, remember? That no one would be there. If you were the rock, and no one existed, there wouldn't even be anyone to remember you. Nada. But obviously you'd exist, which is sufficient to prove realism.

Yeah, well, the counter-argument’s going to be...it’s a hypothetical scenario and as such, POOF!!! All the humans are gone, so nobody is there to set a clock anyway. But if that’s true then what does an hour have to do with anything. The only way it could mean anything is from the perspective of a third party observer who CAN tell time. — Mww

Why on earth do you think that you need to remark that it wouldn't mean anything to anyone, as though I disagree? Of course! There wouldn't be anyone there for it to mean anything to! I reject the relevance of that, not the truth of that!

If at 18:00 we're all alive, and by 18:05 I had set an alarm for 20:00, and then we all die an hour later at 19:05, then the alarm would nevertheless go off at 20:00 (unless there was a malfunction with the clock or it was destroyed by an asteroid or something like that before an hour had passed) as any reasonable person would accept. Reasonable people don't interpret that as implying that it's absolutely certain and there are no possible alternatives. And reasonable people don't merely assume a wacky idealist premise or a wacky idealist interpretation of what I'm saying. They go by common sense realism. That's where reason leads.

..."an hour" is a human being telling time. — Metaphysician Undercover

How absurd! :rofl:

So, when I ask how many hours would pass in a year after we've all died, you think I'm asking how many human being telling times would pass? No wonder you think I'm talking nonsense! You interpret what I'm saying nonsensically! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Try taking your nonsense-tinted glasses off. It might make more sense! Hopefully they're not super-glued to your head! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

If the alarm is not sensed, the indication for the duration of an hour is not intelligibly given. If there is no intelligible indication given for an hour, there is no reason to think there would be an intelligible indication given for the duration of a day. If not an hour or a day, then no intelligible division of time at all follows. If no division of time, then there would be no indication of time itself. Humans “tell” time; no humans, no time “telling”. No time “telling”, no temporal reference frame, time itself becomes nothing. — Mww

This is a terrible argument because it's composed of points I already accept, and therefore don't need to be made, and bare assertions.

First, the pointless points. Time won't be intelligible, you say? Yes. It won't be intelligible to anyone, because no one would exist. No one would be able to tell the time, you say? Yes, because no one would be there.

Second, the bare assertions. It doesn't make sense! There wouldn't be hours or days! Why? Because no one would be able to tell the time! Because no one would understand stuff about time! But have you demonstrated this supposed necessary dependency, or merely asserted it? Oh, you've merely asserted it. I see. And that's reasonable because...?

Necessary dependency, necessary dependency, wherefore art thou, necessary dependency?

You can't just assume some idealist principle like "to be" is "to be understood" and at the same time claim to be reasonable.

An hour passes if a certain amount of time passes. If this certain amount of time passes and there is no one there to understand that an hour has passed, has an hour passed? Yes. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it fall, does the falling tree make a noise? Yes. If we all died, would there still be rocks? Yes.

Yes, yes, yes. It's more reasonable, has greater explanatory power, is not counterintuitive. What's your alternative got going for it? Oh, really? Nothing at all?

Some people have asserted that some part of the scenario doesn't make sense. Yet it makes sense to me, and it makes sense to others. Funny that, ain't it?

Guys, seriously, what is the point of begging the question by implying your conclusion in your premise? Can you please consider what you're doing and why it is fallacious? "Who" implies a subject. "Looks like" and "sounds like" implies a subject. You can't smuggle in the necessity of a subject, and then conclude that there's a necessity of a subject. Does that seem reasonable to you? Yes or no? I genuinely want an answer to that, because it's important. Especially when you're calling me things like unreasonable, irrational, and nonsensical.

Since there isn't a subject, there is no "who", and there is nobody for anything to "look like" or "sound like" to. It's a completely pointless road to go down to direct that stuff at me.

Set an alarm clock of some kind for an hour, kill off all the humans.......what does the alarm sound or look like? — Mww

Jesus. You guys are asking the wrong questions. How can you not see this?

Who is going to determine this point in time an hour after we all died? — Metaphysician Undercover

You must surely realise that that question is a loaded question. Do you acknowledge that?

Not rejecting subjectivity shows hope.

What argument? I haven’t seen subjectivity mentioned once in 12 pages.

I asked “what is blue” and got a bunch of scientific fluff. What will I get if I ask “what is subjectivity?” — Mww

Irrelevant: that's what it is. Why would I reject subjectivity? I don't outright reject it. That would be absurd. And you know that I'm a moral subjectivist, don't you? I just reject its supposed relevance in a particular context. Subjectivity: feelings, thoughts, tastes, opinions, preferences, beliefs, looks like, etc.

Do you think it matters to the rock how we feel about it? :grin:

And the colour blue is what I described in scientific terms, not your related subjective fluff which I demonstrated leads to absurdity, thus refuting it. You didn't even address my refutation.

There aren't any rocks, and there have never been any rocks, outside of human minds. — Echarmion

Thank you. I needed a good laugh.

I’ll be damned. That paragraph right there, is a synopsis of what I and U.M have been saying for 6 pages. Rough around the edges, but that’s to be expected from one thinking like an idealist of some degree but refusing to admit to being one. Failure to grasp the understanding that EVERY rational human is just that. It is the dualistic, comparative nature of the intellectual beast. Get used to it.

This part hasn't been neglected. Go back and count the times I’ve said it doesn’t matter. — Mww

Look, it really isn't helpful to keep comparing me to an idealist. Yes, we have empiricism in common, but that's not what the realism-idealism debate hinges on, so it's not important at all in that context. Are we talking here about how I know what a rock looks like? No. Are we talking here about whether there would be a rock? Yes. I say that there would be a rock. I say that it's reasonable to believe that there would be a rock. And I say that I know enough to rightly say those things. All of this I have suitably qualified. Either you agree or you disagree. Which is it?

Correct; it is possible to be right on one level and wrong on another about the same thing. You’re doing it. Wrong on a whole ‘nuther level. The subjective level, where a priori knowledge lives, and resides over knowledge not given from direct experience. The a priori allows retention of knowledge of rocks after the experience of them, but not the existence of rocks without the experience of them, which is empirical knowledge. The a priori domain is the exact OPPOSITE of “extreme empiricism”.

The way things are going, the longer M.U. and I keep pissin’ you off, the closer you’re going to get to seeing we are right. But again......it doesn’t matter. — Mww

So we disagree then.

Regarding your last paragraph, I very much doubt that. For a start, you're not right. So that might make it a little difficult for me to somehow see that you're right.

I think that our disagreement is too fundamental. If your metaphysics doesn't even allow for the existence of rocks without someone being there at the time to experience them, then your metaphysics is fundamentally wrong. It begins with a false premise that no one here has actually bothered to support. On the other hand, we can reasonably reach the realist conclusion that there would be a rock, regardless. I have demonstrated that in this discussion.

Suppose I decide that I will tailgate any car such that the numbers on its plate add to a prime. — Banno

So was the rule I followed that their number plates added to a prime, or that their ancestry was Slav? — Banno

Wait. Is this a joke? It's the former, obviously. The rest of what you said about Slav ancestry and an observer is irrelevant.

Isn't this just like: suppose there's a cup in the cupboard, but we can't see it. Is there a cup in the cupboard? (Yes).

How about a beetle in a box? A puppy in my torture chamber?

Yes, yes, and yes again. I named the puppy "Little Banno", by the way.

There can't be private criteria for the private rule because? — Terrapin Station

Because Banno says so. I think that that's his argument. Perfectly reasonable, no?

That's it. Nietzsche could have no criteria for correctness in his moral principles. — Banno

False. They could be correct or incorrect by his own standard. You seem to be merely begging the question by assuming the necessity of a different standard, whether that standard is relative to Banno's standard or relative to "an objective standard", which in practice amount to the same thing. It's no coincidence that Banno judges kicking puppies to be wrong, and that he also almost certainly thinks that kicking puppies being wrong is part of an objective moral standard. What would a moral objectivist who judged kicking puppies to be right think in this regard? Hmm, I wonder...

It reminds me of what Xenophanes said:

Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and dark. Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and red-haired. If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, then horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses, and oxen to look like oxen, and each would make the gods’ bodies have the same shape as they themselves had.

Obviously, the Ethiopians, the Thracians, the hypothetical oxen, the hypothetical horses, the hypothetical lions, and in fact everyone but Banno, are all simply wrong. Banno has godlike impartiality here.

Speaking of Nietzsche, didn't he say a thing or too about moral prejudice, and the prejudice of philosophers? That's a good quote, too.

While philosophers generally would like to proclaim their objectivity and disinterestedness, their instincts and prejudices are usually what inform them.

But, of course, we know that Banno denies this criticism on a superficial basis because I'm using the word "objective".

no, your rule was not private when you did not kick the puppy and it became an external behavior. morals and rules are internal in that they are unique to that individual reality but exhibited by behavior externally. — Aadee

Okay, it's not private if you interpret that in your weird behaviourist way which has the obvious massive failing of not being able to rightly distinguish between someone just acting as though such-and-such, on the one hand, and genuine cases, on the other.

Kinda wondering what the puppy did? :wink: — Aadee

He was a behaviourist.

True. I do remember you saying that several pages ago, and I suppose your discussion of overly-high standards is continuing that. My stupid brain always thinks people just need to hear something in a different way and my view will suddenly make sense - whether it is my ego's fault or their biased thinking, I should have learned by now that it is unlikely to work. — ZhouBoTong

Don't worry, it's not just you: we're all mad. Some of us are mad-mad, and the rest of us are mad for trying to get through to them. :lol:

This is the part of this discussion that has baffled me the most. They do not seem to even care if there ideas have explanatory power. It seems if they are right, and I KNEW IT, it would still change nothing about how I live...so, so what? — ZhouBoTong

Yeah, tell me about it! That part has really been neglected. It does require a sort of meta-discussion, and a sort of thinking about how we're thinking. It's not actually difficult at all to be right on one level, but be wrong on a meta-level about how you're thinking about the issue. It's really easy, for example, to say that knowledge requires certainty, and that we therefore don't know this, that, and the other; or that an hour is a measurement, and a measurement requires a subject, therefore I'm wrong; or that everything requires experience, and I'm not there to experience it, therefore I'm wrong.

Easy-peasy lemon-squeezie. But wrong on a whole 'nother level.

Yes, indeed, we have been through this already. You play around with semantics and disregard my meaning. So you don't even begin to engage the argument on its own terms. Even after 12 pages, you still haven't even begun to engage the argument on its own terms. For that, you would have to remove your blinkers.

If you're not willing to engage the argument on its own terms, but instead misinterpret it and bring in your own premises, then what are you even doing here? Please go away.

I would also suggest that "experience" is about as subjective as it gets (can I ever have an identical experience to you?), so I am not sure how this follows:

all empirical knowledge absolutely depends on experience for it’s proof
— Mww

, unless we begin to summarize meaning like I have been suggesting. — ZhouBoTong

It might not seem like it on the surface, but given this context, I think that that line might be an indication of his extreme empiricism. I am an empiricist. I am onboard with Hume that a huge amount of things require experience. How would I know stuff about rocks, like what they look like, if I hadn't acquired that knowledge through experience? How could I even engage the thought experiment if I had never undergone the experience of learning English? But there is some knowledge which doesn't require experience in every respect, for example, that I know that there would still be rocks in the scenario doesn't require that I am there to experience it, not that that would even be possible, since it would violate the thought experiment and result in an obvious contradiction.

This is the distinction between empiricism, of which I am an adherent, and extreme empiricism, of which @Mww is an adherent.

Interesting read, but I gotta tell ya, man......

“....All I hear is
Radio ga-ga
Radio goo-goo
Radio ga-ga....”

....not quite, but you get my drift, right?

Anyway. Leading on, re: pg 8. You reject idealism in any way shape or form, so do you reject subjectivity as well? If not, what is it? — Mww

Mahna mahna
Do do, dododo

Mahna mahna
Do do, do do

Mahna mahna
Do do, dododo dododo dododo dododododo do do dodo do

No, and see my argument. (By the way, I find that kind of lazy and unhelpful reply far more insulting than "mean, rude, etc.", comments).

If knowledge doesn’t require certainty or at least very strict criteria, how do we trust our theoretical science? How do we know it’s dangerous to step into a lion’s cage at the zoo? Sometimes reasonable to believe is all we have and other times reasonable to believe might just get you killed. — Mww

Some people have actually inadvertently contributed to their own death by believing what's reasonable at the time. But there's a very important sense in which they didn't do anything wrong. You could say, "They shouldn't have done that", but, although true, it would nevertheless be an astoundingly ignorant thing to say, given that they were being reasonable in doing what they were doing. They just didn't know any better at the time.

When I think about dinner tomorrow I am thinking NOW about dinner tomorrow. The other context is thinking TOMORROW about dinner tomorrow, which is meaningless. That’s what you wanted us to do....think rocks TOMORROW (because we were deleted an hour earlier is the same as thinking about something an hour later) about rocks tomorrow (an hour later). — Mww

I wanted you to presently think about a hypothetical scenario where we had all died an hour previously. I didn't want you to think at a time where that'd be impossible for you to do, like in the past or the future. You can only act in the present. I wanted you to presently think about what would've happened to rocks if we had all died an hour previously. I know that you're capable of doing this. I am capable of doing this, anyway. It's reasonable to believe that nothing extraordinary would happen. I also call that knowledge because I don't adhere to unreasonable criteria for knowledge like you do. Interpreted rightly, I'm not implying that it's impossible for something extraordinary to happen or anything of that sort. And as a result, I don't have the giant problem that you run into. How does it feel to have this giant problem where we don't know such an incomprehensibly huge amount, despite the really powerful sense of incongruity? Does it feel burdensome?

If I do interpret statements in a way that lead to a falsehood, the falsehood belongs to me or the statement. If the latter, the onus is on my co-conversant to rectify it, if the former the burden is to inform me of my misinterpretation and the onus is on me to rectify it. Six of one etc, etc, etc......

What I’m doing is a problem for the experiment, granted. That I’m over-analysizing, probably. But you did ask for opinions, after all. And yes, I know what opinions are like......

Anyway. Ever onward. — Mww

Well, just look at the results and think more practically about the situation. With your criteria, can you rightly say that we know what would happen to rocks if we all died? With my criteria, can I? Whose criteria is better? Give that some thought.

But S claims that the measurement of time, "an hour" in the op, could occur without a human being to measure it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh look, another misrepresentation. I claim no such thing. I claim that an hour would pass, not your nonsense-claim that a measurement of time would pass. For an hour not to pass, time would have to stop before an hour had passed, and I don't recall you making that argument. Instead, you make the argument of a sophist where you play around with semantics like a child with Play-Doh.

You could spend all day arguing against your own nonsense-claim, but it still would have absolutely zero impact on my claim. I reject your nonsense-claim, like you do. And I reject your additional nonsense-claim that your nonsense-claim is my claim. Your straw man is not my argument. Will you understand that? This discussion is strong evidence that you will not understand that, and that you'll press on regardless. Or you'll maybe have a temporary moment of recognition, but tumble head first right into another fallacy! You just can't seem to help yourself. I've never known anyone quite like you. You're pretty remarkable, and make for a fascinating case study.

Speaking of Play-Doh, have you noticed how little children tend to play around with it and mould crappy representations of stuff, then squish it when they're done? Apparently they find it satisfying, but if the adults are trying to have a serious conversion, and the little child keeps bothering them with their crappy little Play-Doh antics, then sometimes the appropriate action is to scold the child or to ignore it. And if that doesn't work, get the chainsaw.

I think I see our problem. I think every time you use the word "true", you mean something like "it can only be that way 100% of the time in any situation that anyone can conceive of" which I will think rarely occurs (I would say definitions and math is about it - language itself creates ambiguities, and even witnessed events go through an interpreting agent). However, when S or I (or most people out there that do not know the philosophical word idealist) use the word, we just mean "true enough for all practical purposes." — ZhouBoTong

I identified that problem long ago. To put it bluntly, whether it's truth or knowledge we're talking about, his criteria is fucked up, and he repeatedly assumes his fucked up criteria in his criticism. But we reject his fucked up criteria for a better, more practical, more sensible, more reflective of ordinary language, criteria.

I'm going to ignore you now.

First, I was leaving the argument with that as the major premise to you because you brought it up, and second, I don’t think S is ready to accept the absolute ideality of time with respect to human experience. — Mww

Sorry, but I'm not going to open wide for a spoonful of bollocks. That's not how I operate.