your denial of objectivity — tim wood

You do realize that this puts you in the camp of people who can't read, right?

If you think that's acceptable, then you'd have no ground for saying that this isn't acceptable:

"The way that you perceive a tree, despite perception being a function of your mind is to see it. You see it by seeing it."

Is that acceptable?

If not, then we've got to fix our account of how we take a cookie.

we realize that we are not passive observers of a world that doesn't depend on us, — leo

From where are you getting the notion of someone positing "passive observers of a world that doesn't (in any way) depend on us"? I just want to check whose views you're referring to, in order to make sure that you're not suggesting a straw man that you're reverting to an infant/todder/juvenile stage of development in response to.

I write what I "mean" without beating around the bush, so when I say, "I'd be happy to continue the phil of perception discussion, but only if you answer the last post in the other thread, where I asked you a non-rhetorical question that I expected you to think about and directly respond to (via quoting something and filling in the blank)," I mean that.

It's up to you. If you're not interested enough in the discussion to do what you'd need to do for the other necessary party to continue, that's cool with me. I'm just letting you know the requirement.

I explained that your answer needs to be in this form:

""The way that you can take a cookie, despite taking being a function of your arm/hand is ___________"

Where you're filling in the blank.

After my last post to you in that thread, which was this:

"The way you take something, such as a cookie, is with your arm/hand. But how do you actually do this if taking is something your arm and hand do? Doesn't that imply that really all you can take is your arm/hand? "

You didn't respond at all.

It wouldn't; the perception of the rock, though, does - as you note elsewhere. As to perception, though, that's mental, yes? And if mental, then you have to allow for some access to the objectivity of the rock, by some criteria, in order to even have the idea that it's a rock, so far yes? That is, some aspect of the rock that is in your mind/brain produced perception, must in some way or sense - not sayin' how - be from the rock itself, somehow. If not, then no objectivity - it's all in and of your mind - by your own definition. Do you find anything to disagree with here? — tim wood

Why are you avoiding answering the question I asked in the other thread?

(And apparently why are you avoiding answering why you're avoiding answering the question I asked in the other thread?)

Why wouldn't it? — leo

Because we're no longer infants. Our brains have developed past a stage where we believe that we're the entirety of the world, so that if we cover ourselves in a blanket, we've effectively disappeared, where we believe that the world is centered on us, and where we are not capable of understanding difference from ourselves.

So would you say it's not possible in this case? I was just wondering whether you thought it was possible.

Is it possible to not be long-winded, though?

Once the model implicit in the question is on the table, one would be swimming uphill starting to respond. Once, say the subject object split is assumed, for example. The subject here, controlling the existence of things out there.

I'm not an anti-realist or solipsist, so it's not my position, but it seems like answering that question is problematic for those who are, but because it presumes realism.

I don't know what a more neutral formulation would be,since that would depend on their philosophy, its ontology. And there's certainly nothing wrong with formulating the question from your perspective. But it's also a Trojan Horse. — Coben

Well, since I think that idealism is pretty stupid--I'm not joking when I say that I think it amounts to adults being stuck in a preoperational (a la Piaget) development phase, I'm not going to assume idealism in answering a question. It would need to be supported somehow as to why it should be treated as a default.

The argument for that position is implicit in my question. — Echarmion

How about making it explicit instead? Because it's a ridiculous thing to assume.

What I was hoping to accomplish was you offering why we'd think that the existence of anything hinges on us. (And that should have been pretty obvious.)

I am asking in what way distinct objects with their specific properties exist outside of human cognition. — Echarmion

And I'm asking why we'd think the existence of anything would hinge on human cognition (which is something we'd need to grant for your question to not indicate institutionalization). My suggestion is that some adults never developed beyond the pre-operational stage. Do you have a better suggestion?

Assuming you do have access to your objective things, if you neither have nor need objective truth, then how do you know you have access to an objective thing? — tim wood

As I've explained many times, I use "truth" in the traditional analytic philosophy sense of it being a property of propositions.

Propositions are (non-controversially in analytic phil) the meanings of statements.

In my ontology, meaning is a mental phenomenon, and truth, as a property of propositions, is thus a judgment about the relation of a proposition to facts (states of affairs). As such, the ontological status of truth value (that it's a mental phenomenon on my view) has no bearing on ontology in general or just how perception works (which is what you're asking about).

I'd be happy to continue the phil of perception discussion, but only if you answer the last post in the other thread, where I asked you a non-rhetorical question that I expected you to think about and directly respond to (via quoting something and filling in the blank).

Sometimes it seems like almost everyone here is stuck in an infantile/juvenile preoperational stage of development.

Why would the existence of something like a rock hinge on anything about us?

You make your own purposes or points.

You can change your life if you're dissatisfied.

I think the interesting question is which of the attributes that make up the category of "rock" can still be identified after said catastrophe. — Echarmion

If no people exist afterwards, there are no categories, there's no one to identify anything, etc.

what are the implications of this finding? — Wallows

That my brain is DMT deficient.

If we haven't detected that rock, then some people would say it makes no sense to say this rock exists as anything more than an idea. Some people think that we aren't creatures in a universe, but that the universe is in minds, and in that view there is no sense in which the universe exists without minds. — leo

Some people would say that, yes.

Do you think there's any merit in saying that?

There are some who contend that we have no knowing access to Objective Reality (that which is), and that the world we observe with our senses is not necessarily O.R. — Pattern-chaser

Yeah, and there are people who think they're Napoleon, too. :razz:

I wouldn't say that I'm positing something different than "Objectivists' objective reality," but I think that objective reality is relative, not absolute. (If that makes sense to you. I might have to explain it.)

In any event, in some circles, including seemingly on this board, there can be an attitude that "we have no knowing access to objective reality" is something that doesn't need to be supported. That's not at all the case. And in my opinion there's no plausible way to support it.

Do you buy that there are different sorts of necessity, such as metaphysical necessity?

This is a Kit Fine paper I've linked to before:
https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/faculty-documents/fine/Fine-Kit-necessity.pdf

Haha--aka "the bias for 'total unbias.'"

The existence of our perceptions and thoughts is more certain than the existence of matter, — leo

"That rock that seems external to me is really just mental content I have" is anything but certain.

Likewise with the notion that the rock is or must also be mental content in the first place, and
likewise with "If I have mental content that I can be epistemically and metaphysically certain of, then all must be mental content."

No, that doesn't fly. Objectivity is basic, in areas which it is applicable, like journalism, history, jurisprudence, and many more. For instance, you wouldn't read an account of the Holocaust by a Holocaust-denier, as his/her opinions would clearly be tendentious. If your daughter was in a talent quest, you wouldn't expect to be called as a judge. And so on. Yes, they're perfectly mundane examples, but that's part of the point. — Wayfarer

In other words, you'd avoid people biased in particular ways, while going with people biased in other ways.

First re "If no one can access it, it's an idea."

Say that there's a particular rock on a planet a million light years away. It turns out that we're the only technological creatures in the universe, and some catastrophe wipes us out soon. Is that rock on a distant planet just an idea?

I agree with you that there is no objective truth and no need for objective truth. I don't agree with your take on what "objective" refers to. I also don't agree that objective (external to mind) things are inaccessible.

So would you say that the "necessary connection" component of Hume's analysis of causal relations doesn't make much sense?

Ah, so you're asking for an explanation! :wink: — Janus

Yes. I'm not anti explanations. I'm anti "there's no explanation for x, therefore . . ." arguments sans criteria for explanations. I go into detail about all of that in the posts you're not interested in.

You would need to know a little bit about the history of Western philosophy to know what the ideas of necessity and necessary being logically entail. Perhaps read some Spinoza or Aquinas. — Janus

Patronizing mode. Aren't you familiar with my background?

At any rate, so you're not using "necessary" in the general philosophical sense where we it's conceivable to say that the morning star and evening star might be metaphysically necessary?

And in the limited sense in which you're using the term, Jesus was not physical?

What a convoluted load of bullshit! Arguments do not "hinge on whether something is an explanation": — Janus

Sure some do. For example, there are phil of mind arguments predicated on whether there's a physicalist explanation for mind. The answer for those who invoke these arguments is "No," of course.

Yes. I think that was the point.

Hint: what I'm asking you should seem pretty stupid.

The way you take something, such as a cookie, is with your arm/hand. But how do you actually do this if taking is something your arm and hand do? Doesn't that imply that really all you can take is your arm/hand?

Sure, but the issue is that taking something is a function of your arm/hand. Given this, how can you take something that's not your arm/hand?

Magritte said that a painting of a weeping face does not express grief. — frank

Isn't the idea here that art, perhaps to count as art in the first place, amounts to not taking things in their literal, everyday, mundane senses?

"Galileo was himself an heir in respect to pure geometry. The inherited geometry, the inherited manner of "intuitive" conceptualizing, proving, constructing, was no longer original geometry: in this sort of "intuitiveness" it was already empty of meaning. Even ancient geometry was, in its way, removed from the sources of truly immediate intuition and originally intuitive thinking, sources from which the so-called geometrical intuition, i.e., that which operates with idealities, has at first derived its meaning. The geometry of idealities was preceded by the practical art of surveying, which knew nothing of idealities. Yet such a pregeometrical achievement was a meaning-fundament for geometry, a fundament for the great invention of idealization; the latter encompassed the invention of the ideal world of geometry, or rather the methodology of the objectifying determination of idealities through the constructions which create "mathematical existence/'"(Crisis of European Science) — Joshs

An extremely long-winded way to say that geometry is based on the practical techniques of tasks such as surveying?

The answer I'm looking for is you telling me how you can take a cookie if taking is something that your arm/hand does.

Think about it for a moment. The answer needs to explain how you can take a cookie despite taking being a function of your arm/hand.

An easy way to make sure that you're answering the question I'm asking is to copy/paste the following and fill in the blank:

"The way that you can take a cookie, despite taking being a function of your arm/hand is ___________"

I have confidence that you won't do the stereotypical Internet jerk move of typing a long response where you don't follow the request here, or the alternate move of just ignoring it or just giving some short crack or something.

Care and what may appeal to me are not the same. — Fooloso4

Doesn't he mean that care, as a basis of ethics, appeals to you?

This is what I was saying in the other thread where the cave allegory came up. The shadows, etc. are just as real as anything else.

Seriously, by the way, I think free will is important for making the simplest choices we can make.

The ad populum fallacy sounds like something a rationalist or any person with authoritarian tendencies might advocate. — Wallows

The idea behind it is simply that nothing is made correct merely by agreement about it. Agreement is just agreement. It doesn't make or change objective facts (besides the fact that there's an agreement).

We can't have knowledge about normatives (in other words, we can't have knowledge that "X should y" for example) because knowledge requires truth value (knowledge is justified true belief), and normatives have no truth value.

Yeah; but, if we take the summum bonum of all net preferences and tastes, then for interpersonal relations, some consensus can be derived. And, this is how you can derive an ought from an is. Is this in align with what you have said already? — Wallows

To suggest that a consensus has any implication for "right" normatives is to commit the argumentum ad populum fallacy. So no, I wouldn't at all agree with that.

You definitely can determine consensuses. It's just that they don't tell you anything other than what's popular statistically. (And you can use them to pander to consensus tastes if you're marketing, and so on.)