Yep, so let's say you unvat the brain and give them eyes, a nose, etc. And you say to them "that is a tree." And they're like, "yeah, I know." And then you say to them, "no, that's a real tree." They'd be like "yeah, I can see that, but what do you mean by a 'real' tree." And you'd be like, "a real tree is not a BiV tree." But of course you'd be assuming that the tree you were pointing to was not a BiV tree. And that's the problem. There's no reason that you, the scientist, are not also a brain in a vat. The semantic externalism argument against BiV only goes through by assuming not BiV.

The assumption that the body only keeps the brain alive and does not factor into phenomenal experience is a materialist form of dualism that ought to be dismissed as nonsense. — NOS4A2

Agree.

Would you mind laying out the argument as you see it, and we can both evaluate whether it is valid (or unsound by being question-begging)?

In the earlier argument you gave, I objected to premise 2. I don't consider the argument invalid, but I do consider premise 2 a faulty assumption.

Again, if you lay out the argument, I think we will both have an easier time evaluating Putnam's argument.

But he assumes that we are not BiV in proving it. Isn't that begging the question?

2 is question begging. If semantic externalilsm is true, we could still be BiV.

It seems to me that Putnam's argument is question-begging. SEP seems to basically agree. https://plato.stanford.edu/Archives/spr2009/entries/brain-vat/

I agree with everything you quoted. I admit it is a high bar. But no, I do not think it is advocating for pacifism.

"Do not resist an evil person" is an assertion that is made in the context of discussing "an eye for an eye." I think it is important to properly interpret scripture. According to Wikipedia, the original text may have legal connotations.

Here's a question: does anyone nowadays actually believe in "an eye for an eye?"

I'm a Catholic Christian and here are my views. Christ is unique; Christ is unlike anyone. His mission was to save, no matter what the cost, even at the cost of His own life. I am not sure I can fully explain salvation, but I do believe that salvation is through Jesus.

I also believe it is right and just to defend yourself or another from an attacker, and a war may be justly waged. I think Saint Thomas Aquinas commented on what constitutes a just war. The ability to wage a just war is not beyond the scope of what tradition has revealed.

I see no problem between Christ's mission and self-defense. Does that answer?

Humility is another virtue of the philosopher. It's important to acknowledge, at least to oneself, when one's own views are contradictory or inconsistent. Relatedly, the philosopher must persevere in their quest for truth.

It is possible to hold a view and not be aware why one adopts it. Some ideas may accepted from others unquestioningly and there may also be psychological factors involved. — Jack Cummins

That being the case, I don't necessarily think someone should be criticized for not being able to articulate their view well. Like you said, understanding is a part of philosophy, and so the virtue of patience with oneself and others is also important.

Doesn't semantic externalism require some kind of distinguishability? If BiV is phenomenally the same as not-BiV, then I don't see how semantic externalism can do any work. Even someone who is not-BiV would not know what they meant by real and not real.

Just to be clear: I know that none of us are brains in vats; we are all living in reality.

It seems to me that having an experience of eating pizza cannot be simulated. That is because my experience of reality requires more than BiV, it requires sensory organs that can experience the reality. The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the pizza. I think that if you remove the sensory abilities of the organism, you remove phenomenal consciousness too, or at least you remove the phenomenal consciousness of what is sensed. Experience is a more integrated process than just brain processing, in my opinion.

To be clear, we live in the real world; we are not living in a simulation.

Nick Bostrom's simulation argument is the one I am familiar with. According to Nick, if a future civilization develops and chooses to run ancestor simulations, then the odds are that we are simulated persons, rather than people in the real world. This probability is because future civilizations would have the computational resources to create many many simulations with many many simulated people (way more simulated people than there are real people).

I would definitely have a problem with being a simulated person as I think it would mean I do not have a free will. There are no computer programs that "self-code." All computer programs are deterministic. Accordingly, a simulation would also be deterministic. And in that case, if I were in the simulation I too would be deterministically programmed.

But we do have free will. Therefore, we must not be living in a simulation.

A problem with the simulation argument is that it is unclear to me why an entire civilization would choose to dedicate its resources to ancestor simulations. Not only would doing so be highly unethical and a complete waste of resources, (not to mention it would take a lot of time and resources to build this simulation) it would also be entirely pointless, given that everything that will happen in the simulation is already known, given that the simulation world is deterministic.

Additionally, I do not think consciousness can be "simulated." Only living things can be conscious, not computer programs or anything contained in computer programs.

Live and let live — 180 Proof

That's what I'm sayin!

Additionally, transparent argumentation makes for a more productive argument because one's views will be more clearly presented and because the actual beliefs of the individuals will be honestly assessed.

Transparency is important in argumentation because it leads to truth and is an example of the virtue of courage.

Abortion is always wrong. It's not complicated.

SophistiCat, I have to admit some confusion about your position. It is as if you are saying determinism is true and untrue. Is that your view? If it is, maybe we should be discussing the meaning of a proposition being-true instead.

I am an advocate of human freedom — Leontiskos

I agree with Leontiskos. All humans have a free will and belief in that truth is what is at stake in the determinism debate.

Can't we all agree that we can all predict how the Roomba will act? But the Roomba cannot predict how we will act. Why is that? If we are both just physical systems acting in accordance with the principle of causal closure, why is there an asymmetry in predictability? If determinism is true, it seems to me that predictability should be possible with sufficient computational resources.

It may be that there are some limitations on predictability. For example, perhaps the prediction must be kept secret, lest a counterpredictor falsify the prediction. But then why couldn't we just make secret predictions about how another will act? Surely such predictions must come true if determinism is true?

But such predictions cannot reliably come true because determinism is false.

Perhaps your concern with Chat GPT is that AI really lacks the ability to evaluate good information from bad information. Infsofar as AI is a collective knowledge platform, it may treat even inaccurate information as veridical. Is that a fair assessment of your objection?

I believe AI will deeply undermine our ability to verify. — Leontiskos

If it's scientific knowledge, can't it ultimately be tested and therefore verified without AI? I don't need to figure out all the algorithms that went into how ChatGPT said that water is chemically made of H20, all I need to do is conduct an experiment to determine if it is true.

I think this is well-articulated even though I'm still not sure that I understand Bell's Inequality. So the sin^2 rule does not adhere under 45 degrees. Why is this a problem?

Counterargument: a lot of scientific knowledge is trusted anyways, the verification objection: (that verification is a prerequisite for scientific knowledge), would deprive us of a lot of information we take to be scientific knowledge based on our trust of others' research (and without using AI). Verification is not pragmatically important for scientific knowledge whether we are using AI or not. That is, AI-generated "knowledge" can be verified by means other than technical knowledge of how the AI application works.

Note: I think the proper domain for AI-based knowledge is scientific knowledge, not historical or moral knowledge.

Interesting point about the way the AI tech can sidestep personal experience, and the entire experiential aspect of art (both in its creation and its reception). Here are two additional concerns: 1) the expertise, the craft that goes into the artwork is lost in the AI generation. This is the problem with AI solutions in general, they subvert human thinking. Try driving without navigation software and you may see what I mean. 2) relatedly, the production of the art is devalued; the AI creates the illusion of creativity, when really it's just outputting pre-programmed inputs, but it's not really producing anything, it's dead; the producers of the art are taken for granted in the AI "generation" of the art; if there is no Van Gogh, there simply is no art.

This doesn't mean AI is per se bad. Like anything else, it can be used for good or ill.

I do not know enough about socialism to opine about it. My opinion of Marxism is that it is right to admonish against commodification of labor, but it is very wrong in that it calls for violence. While I think Marxism can be understood as critiquing capitalism and that such critique is helpful, I do not and cannot support Marxism's call for violence.

But that’s happening already. Trump was hardly an expert in anything, and pretty extreme.

Take a look at the republican candidates. Good lord. Politics is almost like survival of the dumbest. — Mikie

Lack of accountability is still an issue; randomized officials would be insulated from what the majority of citizens deem right. Voting is a virtue of our democracy and randomizing officials rather than electing them would undermine the democratic process, preventing citizens from voting according to what they think is best. If you take away voting, you severely curtail the ability of people to participate in the political process and you disconnect politics from the will of the people.

And that's not to mention that a lottery-selected candidate is accountable to no one.

My primary concern is that a non-expert might not make good decisions concerning a policy. My related concern is that an extremist would make decisions inconsistent with the majority.

Okay, but why does something need to be an "it" to have a position in space? Why do only things with mass get a position in space? Surely even something with no mass can occupy a "point in space."

he's talking about it like the elector thing is the only thing Donald Trump is in hot water for. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't believe if is. I'm not even sure it's ONE of the things he's in hot water for. — flannel jesus

Recommended to read the indictment. My understanding is that Trump is Not being charged for inciting violence. Rather, he is being charged with both (A) obstructing the electoral process, and (B) conspiring to obstruct the electoral process.

Maybe there is no ethical difference in what the electors did, but there is definitely an ethical difference between conducting a recount and conspiring to overthrow legitimate election results.

Geez NOS, how far would you let someone go in "contesting an election" ? Would you let them overthrow legitimate elections?

T Clark, we may stipulate that you are too important to the shelter society to sacrifice yourself (you're president or something like that). If you try to sacrifice yourself, the secret service knocks you unconscious and drags you to the shelter.

I save mom. But, being a utilitarian, I also kill the stranger (they would've died anyways) harvest their organs (we might use those later), and head on over to the Winchester for a pint "until this whole thing blows over."

I think Hegel was influenced by Fichte. In Fichte's Foundations of Natural Rights, he posits humans as finite beings; finite in body, finite in our ability to exercise our own rights against others. That said, there is ,alongside righthood, the realization of free efficacy as such; however, this isn't any particular "thing." Rather "thinghood is thought, thought is thinghood."

For Hegel, I think the Absolute, the unbounded, the infinite, may be properly understood as Spirit. It is that that is never at the fore of conscious but always subterranean in its operations. Consciousness, self-consciousness, etc. actualizes insofar as it actualizes Spirit. Spirit is, maybe, a bit like a book before it has been written.

Empirical findings are helpful. Thanks for the research advice.

Antony, I like the dialogues you wrote, cool. Also, I appreciate you engaging with the issue I stated.

I have two questions to ponder:

(1) where do we get the criteria for what counts as an object?

(2) I think the issue is a "how does our brain do that" mystery. Light enters the brain through the retina, it is parsed as images (lines, shapes, colors, and so on). At what point does that assemblage of lines shapes, colors, etc. become an object? If it's the brain that does that, how does it do so?

The law of non-contradiction seems like a rational insight. And it seems to be both a reliable source of justification as well as something independent of experience. Where in experience is the law of non-contradiction to be found? Further, following the law of non-contradiction does not seem to involve a lack of imagination.

I am not looking for an argument, I am just saying, we can recognize objects as such, that's kind of strange is it not?

That sounds right to me wonderer1, it just seems strange to me that we should be able to perceive objects as objects at all.

In other words, it seems like it would be difficult to explain to someone who is not familiar with an object, what an object is. If I said to someone "That is a lion." And they said back "what is a lion?" And I said, "the big creature with a mane over there." They might be like "I understand that you are trying to point something out to me, but all I see is a mane-like appearance connected to a creature-like appearance surrounded by a context of Savannah, I am unable to pick out what you are referring to as a lion." And then what can I say to them, to indicate that there is something there, namely a lion, and that the lion is distinct from the surrounding Savannah.

And you might say to me: "NotAristotle, the lion is the thing that will try to eat you." This might cause me some alarm, but if I am unfamiliar, fundamentally, with what an object is, then there is no way for me to differentiate the lion from everything else in the environment perceived. In other words, I would have to pick out the lion first, before I have good reason to avoid it.

But I can pick out lions, and other things. How do I do this?

I get that we perceive objects in contexts. My question is, after we have applied the Gestalt principles: how do we become conscious of an object? Sure, I am happy to acknowledge that we use similarity and closure in picking out an object. My question is, after the mind has applied the principles of similarity and closure, at what point does "what-is-there" become an object to you? How does something, as it were, break out of the background of visual stimuli, the context, to announce itself as a distinct object? Because similarity itself does not guarantee that something enters into awareness as a distinct object. For example, two trees are green, but I recognize that, despite the similarity in their color tone, they are not the same tree.