It isn’t the job of science, contrary to popular belief, to explain the Universe that we inhabit. Instead, science’s goal is to accurately describe the Universe that we inhabit, and in that it’s been remarkably successful.

This sentence contradicts itself. Describing the things we observe just is explaining how they work.

Evolution is a theory and as such is not a part of the physical landscape, so it belongs with reason. The correctness or incorrectness of that theory is not part of the physical landscape either but is determined by what actually has happened in the physical landscape. About this we have only clues which enable us to tell the story that is the Theory of Evolution.

Likewise, the basic principles of reason, the LNC, the LEM and consistency itself, as I already said, accord with our experience of the physical landscape, so they could be expected to have evolved out of that experience. An animal that can reason and anticipate what might happen would obviously have a survival advantage over one that cannot. I think it is obvious that animals also reason, at least in concrete, if not abstract, ways.

Nothing you have yet said explains why we should think that the fact that reason evolved out of our experience negates its validity. I'm still waiting for that argument. You are yet to be a very clear bury.

How do you get outside the human conception of reality to see the world as it truly is? That is the probably the question underlying all philosophy. — Wayfarer

I don't think that is the most important question in philosophy by any stretch because the simple answer is "You can't get outside of human conceptions of reality". (There are human conceptions of reality, not just one conception).

And it's not an attack on 'realism' per se. It's a criticism of the idea that the criterion for what is real, is what exists independently of the mind, which is a specific (and fallacious) form of realism. — Wayfarer

Of course the criteria (there is not merely one criterion) for what is real do not exist independently of the mind that asks the question—that is true by definition. What is real though most plausibly does exist independently of the mind or at least that part of reality which is dependent on the mind is only a part, the part we can know. The rest is forever out of reach, and I think we have every reason to think that is so.

You seem to want to say that you know what dogs see. — Manuel

The dog's behavior shows that he sees me and the ball and many other things in the environment. His behavior towards different things I see him reacting in different ways to is consistent with the qualities I perceive in those different things. That's all I'm claiming. I am not claiming that he sees things exactly as I do or that I can eneter his mind such as to know what he sees with certainty.. I am not even claiming that I can enter your mind and know with certainty that you see things exactly as I do. But if we are looking at an object and I see various small and subtle details on that object I can be fairly confident that if I point to them and ask you what small and subtle details you see there that your account will accord pretty much with mine. That suggests that what is there is real independently of us. Unless of course our minds are connected in some way unbeknownst to us and we are somehow sharing in a collective dream.

They do not jump from high places or don't go into fire as soon as they are born! If that is not innate, I don't know what is. — Manuel

They wouldn't react that way if they were blind and felt no bodily sensations, though, would they? If not then we can conclude that they feel the heat and sense the height just as do. I don't know if this is universally true, but it is said that dogs already react instinctively to snakes when they are very young, but would you expect them to do that if they could not sense the presence of the snake?

But that it makes sense to you (or me, or any other human being alive) says very little about how the dog actually experiences the world, that's a massive leap into claiming knowledge about a different creature. — Manuel

Again, I'm not claiming exhaustive knowledge or certainty about how dogs experience the world, but I think observing them react to things in the environment in ways consistent with the qualities we perceive those things to have, plus the fact we know they have sense organs and bodies not all that different to ours give us reason to believe that they at least see the things in the environment that we see, and that those things exist independently of us and the dogs, whatever the ultimate nature of those existences are. So, I don't see that I'm claiming anything which is not consistent with our experiences. That said of course we cannot be absolutely certain of anything.

But whereas I think you are attributing this to shared structure, I think it's an innate response (not conscious) related to survival. — Manuel

But is it not most reasonable to think they are responses (whether innate or not) perhaps to survival, or perhaps to enjoying themselves or whatever, to different things in different situations? And when we observe them do not those responses make sense to us in terms of what we see those different things in different contexts to be?

I mean you seem not to want to admit that the dog sees a ball, and yet you say the dog sees me making a gesture or movement. So my dogs see me and I'm an object in the environment. My dogs recognize me—of that there is no doubt. Now they may well not see me in the same way as people do (but then different people may not see me in exactly the same way either).

Also you say that dogs will not jump into a fire or from a high place—so it follows that they perceive fire and high places. They also do not bump into trees or walls (unless they are blind which was the case with my mother's cocker spaniel when I was a kid). They behave differently and consistently towards different things in the environment and that behavior makes sense in terms of how we perceive those objects. I don't know what else to say. If you remain unconvinced then I have nothing further to add.

I agree with Aristotle that time is in one sense measurement of change (movement) and have recently said as much in this thread I think, or perhaps in some other thread. I don't agree with Aristotle's assertion that time is only measurement of change—I think time just is change. But then how we choose to define the idea of time is a matter of which definition seems the best fit.

Plus I am not sure how i can really reach the conclusion that there are no moral principles without assuming the reality of principles of reason, and those are just as much jeopardized by the evolutionary account as the moral principles are. — Clearbury

How is it that you think principles of reason jeopardized by the evolutionary account? What if principles of reason are in accordance with the way the world is. We don't see contradictory realities or things which are neither this nor that. The LNC and the LEM are two central principles of reason. If inductive reason leads to a belief in the evolutionary account, and inductive reasoning is an aid to survival, then how do you see the two as being in conflict or being incompatible?

Everything about human understanding is in terms of subjects and objects. I think the human-independently real is non-dual, but that does not mean it is totally homogeneous. Although it is a perspective that derives from science, which means in the final analysis, from experience, I think the idea of objects being energetic perturbations in a field is the closest I can come to conceptualizing the human-independently real in non-dual terms.

I don't believe that science and ordinary observation, of which science is an augmented form, are impoverished understandings of reality—they merely present a different perspective than the "zuhanden" perspective (which itself does not succeed in transcending the subject/object dichotomy in my view. I don't believe any discursive understanding can transcend duality because our language itself is inherently dualistic. No experience at all is possible without the primordial distinction between self and other.

Yep. — Leontiskos

But in any case, our usual way of speaking about it suffices. So, pedantic concerns aside, does it really matter whether it is said that when humans disappear it will still be true that there is gold or that when humans disappear there will still be gold? Surely the salient point is that there will still be gold.

but when that is taken to be a true account of the nature of being, then it goes too far. — Wayfarer

I'm not saying it is a true account of the nature of being (whatever that might mean), but rather merely, leaving aside our personal interests, a natural, hopefully unbiased, account of things as they appear to us.

It's not arbitrary, but it is contingent, both on what there is to see, but also on how we see it. — Wayfarer

I have never disagreed with that.

The difference therefore, is that "representation" implies something else which is being represented, while "appearance" has no such implication. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is often said that our perceptions are representations of that which affects our senses. I would prefer to speak of "presentations". In either case something is either repsented or presented is implied. It is also common to hear that our perceptions consist in what appears to us and that what we perceive is determined by whatever affects our senses.

In either way of speaking the things which affect our senses are not themselves representations or appearances, If we are perceiving we are perceiving something, and the question as to whether the perception resembles what the thing that is perceived is like when it is not being perceived seems to be an incoherent question. I hope that clears it up for you.

The simplicity of one thesis compared to another does not guarantee that the simpler is true and the more complex false.

Interesting, thanks. I'll have a listen and a look.

Frankly I think they misuse language. — Banno

I tend to agree but it is a difficult thing to prove unfortunately. The idea that there was truth in the past when there could be no propositions or that there will be truth in a future when there can be no propositions definitely seems weird, but then so does the idea that there wasn't or that there won't be.

Some go further and say that absent us there can be no existence. That seems even weirder. But then they will define 'existence' such that it means something like 'an existent is something which stands out for a percipient and that, additionally, the percipient must be able to conceive of it. That is a very different sense of 'existence' from the common one it seems to me. You can always win an argument if you stipulate the definitions of your terms to suit your argument.

Are things that occur in the future already true? — Banno

What we say of the future will presumably be true or false depending on whether the state of affairs we now propose turns out to obtain. With your statement about the gold in Boorara you have with our condition "if everything else is undisturbed" guaranteed that it is true that there will be gold. The contention of your opponents seems to be that if truth is a property of propositions and there can be no propositions absent us, then there will then be nothing to be either true or false. Apparently the relationship between truth and actuality is a weird and tricky business.

All that is irrelevant and a poorly formed reply, because I was talking about a representation and the thing represented, not any "appearance". — Metaphysician Undercover

What is the difference between a representation and an appearance according to you?

It is not at all what Merleau Ponty said or meant. It wouldn't even be worth stating, it would just be common sense. And how does that square with:

Laplace’s nebula is not behind us, at our origin, but rather out in front of us in the cultural world. — Wayfarer

I didn't claim that what I said was an explanation of what MP was saying. What do you think MP means in his comment there about Laplace's nebula? It seems to me only to refer to the phenomenological context, and in that context I agree with it. But the phenomenological context is from a particular perspective, so I don't see it as being discordant with what I said. Where we seem to disagree is that you seem to think we can only meaningfully speak from the "for us" perspective, whereas I think we can bracket that and speak meaningfully from a context that conceptually excludes us.

Merleau-Ponty is not denying that there is a perfectly legitimate sense in which we can say that the world existed before human consciousness. Indeed, he refers to the “valid signification” of this statement.

This shows that what I said is not at odds with MP.

The meanings of terms in scientific statements, including mathematical equations, depend on the life-world, as our parable of temperature and our discussion of the dependence of clock time on lived time illustrate.

This is just stating the obvious, and you should know I have never disagreed with it.

Furthermore, the universe does not come ready-made and presorted into kinds of entities, such as nebulae, independent of investigating scientists who find it useful to conceptualize and categorize things that way given their perceptual capacities, observational tools, and explanatory purposes in the life-world and the scientific workshop.

This is contentious. I don't believe that we carve up the world arbitrarily but that the ways we carve it up are constrained both by the nature of our sense organs and the nature of the world we are sensing. Of course I can't prove that any more than anyone can prove the obverse. No empirical observation can prove either case and neither case is logically self-evident. It comes down to what you think or feel is most plausible.

Nevertheless, Merleau-Ponty’s last sentence is exaggerated. Given the “conceptual system of astrophysics and general relativity theory, Laplace’s nebula is behind us in cosmic time. But it is not just behind us. It is also out in front of us in the cultural world, because the very idea of a nebula is a human category. The universe contains the life-world, but the life-world contains the universe.

This I agree with because it presents both the 'for us' and the 'absent us' perspectives.

You can throw any object you wish and most of the time the dog will chase it. — Manuel

If I throw a chair I doubt the dog will chase it. I'll try it when I get back home from my holiday and report the result. I have tried throwing sticks too large for the dog to pick up. Or bricks. He will chase them but as soon as he realizes it is too big or hard to pick up in his mouth he loses interest straight away. In any case when you say the dog chases movement it seems you agree that the dog and I both see something moving at the same place and time and in the same direction and the same distance.

It can be reasonably denied if you assume, as I believe is correct, that dogs have a different experience of the world. — Manuel

I have never denied that the dog has a different experience of the world. I have no doubt he experiences the things I experience differently, but the difference is not all that radical and can be made sense of by considering the differences between my constitution and the dog's constitution. The dog sees his food bowl as 'to-be-eating-from' and his bed as 'to-be-laying-in' and given the way I experience those things in terms of size, shape and hardness the dog's behavior towards those things is consistent.

I have predicated all my arguments on the condition "iff truth and falsity are properties of propositions". I haven't said that I accept that condition or that I reject it.

Janus has tried a few different tacks, but one of them is that a claim about the future can be true now even if it is not true in the future. I don't see him trying to parse out sentences/propositions in the way that you and Banno are prone to.

But note that Janus has agreed with Banno and tried to defend his claims, even if not his exact wording. — Leontiskos

I agreed with @Banno on the basis that his arguments seemed correct given the condition stated above. Perhaps I have misunderstood Banno's position. I hadn't noticed this:

If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. — Banno

I would say instead:If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then there would still be gold in Boorara. As I see it if the above-stated condition, that truth and falsity are only properties of propositions is correct then what you have quoted Banno as saying and what I have said in changing it do not mean the same. I suspect that Banno unwittingly misspoke, but let's see what he has to say about it.

I don't have time for a more detailed reply right now. You ask what characteristics make a dog chase, piss, avoid and so on. Of course we are not compelled to chase balls, and I'm not claiming we should be compelled to piss on trees if both dogs and we see the same trees. The point is only that given the way we perceive things the dog's manifest behavior towards those same things makes sense.

We know we cannot walk through tress or walls, but we can through doorways. We know we can chase balls but not walls or trees and so on. We can observe that dogs see the same things we do, and additionally there is a consistency there between how we see things and how dogs see things which is demonstrated by their behavior towards those things. I don't see how that can reasonably be denied. That's all I'm saying, and what I'm saying has nothing to do with the names of things.

I am asking in what way might the representation (the visual image) resemble the thing being represented (the independent reality)? — Metaphysician Undercover

The appearnce could only resemble the thing that appears when it is not appearing if the thing that appears is an appearance when it is not appearing, which is a contradiction. So I think the question is ill-formed, incoherent.

I think that Jimi's having already drawn that correlation is more than enough to explain the fear and trembling displayed by him upon your return. I mean, the dead chook was right there. The fear and trembling showed his expectation(belief about what you were about to do). — creativesoul

Right, so he knew he had done something he shouldn't have, which was my original point. Do you think it is any different with humans? Do you think that if children were never taught that they would know what is expected of them?

To be sure humans learn what is acceptable and what is not through both behavior and language whereas dogs do so primarily through behavior. That said they do learn what kinds of behavior of theirs relates respectively to and invokes "good dog" and "bad dog" and other simple utterances; so language is involved to some degree.

That is not the issue. I don't think anyone here is questioning the existence of the independent reality. The question is whether that independent reality is as we sense it or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

What could that mean? Taking sight as the primary sense involved in describing things, are you asking something like whether the things that appear to us look the same when they are not being seen?

After reading many thousands of your words I am still not clear what you think the point at issue is
— Janus

Plainly. — Wayfarer

You asked me to comment on the MP passage, I did that and you didn't respond. Do you have a point of issue with my answer. If so, do tell.

I don't think we will proceed much here. We going to keep going in circles. — Manuel

I don't see that we.ve been going in circles other than that you have been misinterpreting some of what I have written. Do you disagree with my last post addressed to you? If not, we agree, if so, please explain. Or if you don't want to that's fine.

I understand what MP is saying of course. We can only speak in terms that come from and refer to our experience. To say that nebulae or dinosaurs existed prior to humans is only to say what we would have experienced had we been there. I don't see that as a problem for realism.

After reading many thousands of your words I am still not clear what you think the point at issue is if it is not whether or not this life is all there is. Because if this world is all there is, and beyond our experience there can only be 'something' the nature of which we cannot do more than vaguely imagine, then I can't see the point of all those thousands of words. If they were poetic words that would be a different story because we "do not live by bread alone", and the creative imagination is, the arts are, of high importance. The arts are liberating, and religion is binding.

Like you, I believe altered states are a real thing, but unlike you I draw no ontological or metaphysical conclusions about what they are showing us. Fiction or reality? I don't really care because what is of primary importance is the enriching effect on present experience and imagination.

Yes, it all comes down to experience. The world we experience is the real world, and it is a world shared with the other animals. It is a world that existed long before we did and will exist long after our passing (an advent which may not be too far off the way we are going).

This in no way indicates that the word "dog" is in any way similar to the real thing pointed to. — Metaphysician Undercover

The names of things is not the issue. The issue is their existence independent of humans or any percipients. This is not to say that their microphysical existence is the same as their macrophysical existence.

Seems, being the key word. — Wayfarer

'Seeming' is the essence of experience. How else could what is real and what is merely imagined be assessed. but by comparing what seems to be real to all, even dogs, with what are the wishful fantasies of a few?

As Peirce said: " "Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts".

They see something. What properties they attribute to these things we do not know.

So, it doesn't make sense to say - even if you admit that they don't see them as wall or trees - that this thing they see is in fact (mind-independently) a wall or a tree. It's not a mind-independent fact for us that walls and trees exist. — Manuel

I don't think you understand what is being claimed. The argument is not that there is "nothing there", but that whatever it is that is there, may not be anything even similar to how it appears to us. — Metaphysician Undercover

The dog sees the ball as something to chase, the doorway as something to walk through, the wall as something not to walk into, the tree as something to piss against, the car as something to get excited about going in.

So the 'somethings' have roughly the same characteristics for the dog as they do for us. "Wall, 'tree'. 'doorway'. and 'car' are just names, but the things they name certainly seem to be real mind-independent things with certain attributes.

And I keep replying that we are attributing walls, trees and brick walls to animals' cognition, WALLS, TREES and BRICK are concepts, not mind-independent things. — Manuel

You may be attributing that, not me. I say they clearly see the things we call walls and trees, I'm not saying they see them as walls or trees.

Dogs push (or pull) something, they don't know it's a door. Cats walk on something; they have no concept of a wall. — Manuel

Right, and I haven't said or even implied any such thing. Dogs do know they can go out when the door is open, and they usually don't attempt to go out when it's closed, so they know that much.

Hey, that would require knowing the One Mind. And I don't claim to know the One Mind. I'm just tracking the footprints. — Wayfarer

You don't know if there is one mind and nor do I. You could favour that as an explanation for why we and some animals clearly see the same things, but it woiuld be an inference to what you considered the best explanation.

But I don't see evidence that suggests they see the world in a similar way than we do, it seems to me based on what we know, they have very different experiences of the world - each subject to species-specific brain configuration. — Manuel

As I said before we see cats climbing trees not brick walls, birds perching in trees, not stopping and attempting to perch in midair. We see dogs trying to open doors, we see crows using sticks as tools to retrieve food and getting out of the way of oncoming vehicles. We don't see animals trying to walk through walls or birds flying into trees. There are countless examples. I don't know what else to say other than to ask why you don't think the examples I give suggest that we see the same things animals do.

Those are not citations. They are your homespun truisms on realism. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming the science of perception does not tell us what I said it does? Are you claiming that the bee does not see the flower we see it collecting nectar from and pollinating. Are you claiming the dog does not see its food bowl where we see it, or does not see the ball we throw for it?

https://www.bing.com/search?q=animals+see+the+same+things+but+not+the+same+ways+we+do+according+to+the+scinece+of+percption&form=ANNTH1&refig=44e31eef9eb549d882fc9a5dd4e18d66&pc=HCTS

The meaning-worlds of different species are vastly different to our own. And for that matter, the meaning worlds of different cultures are vastly different to the meaning-world of this culture. But I don't agree that there is 'mind-independent substratum' behind all of those different meaning-worlds. — Wayfarer

Nothing I've said is inconsistent with that and nor is science or realism. I know you don't agree "that there is 'mind-independent substratum' behind all of those different meaning-worlds" but you don't know that there isn't and nor do I know that there is. I'm just pointing out that the evidence of our senses and observations of the behavior of other animals suggests there is. The other explanation is that this is all going on in a universal mind we and the animals are all connected to. I don't deny that possibility, but it seems to me by far the least plausible explanation. And it seems you don't want to even posit that, which makes your position seem to be completely lacking in explanatory potential.

Citations, please. — Wayfarer

Come on, this is standard science of perception. Neither science nor the realist claim that we all see things exactly the same way or that we see things the same way that other animals do. It is uncontroversial that some humans are colourblind, that dogs can only see a couple of colours, that bees can see colours we cannot and so on. I know you will see the same things at the same times and places as I do, but I don't know and can never know whether they appear exactly the same to you as they do to me because different individual's' perceptions cannot be compared with one another for obvious reasons.

I thought you were asking me to speculate as to what the structures we perceive as objects might be.It seems animals will not conceptualize structures in the ways we do or even conceptualize them at all. Perhaps I don't understand your question.

I agreed with this bold part, and I thought this meant we agreed on there being real microphysical things in the world.

But then I got confused when you said:

"OK cool it seems we agree. I think we and the other animals have access to the same basic structures." — Manuel

I didn't mean to say that animals have conceptual access to microphysical structures, but that we know by observing their behavior that animals have perceptual access to the same things we do and if things are real microphysical structures then it follows that animals have perceptual access to microphysical structures, This does not mean that we or the animals have perceptual access to microphysical structures as microphysical structures but we both have access to them as macrophysical appearances.

But I don't deny the fact that there are real objects external to us. I will try one more time: — Wayfarer

So I'm not denying that there are objective facts (and therefore the existence of objects). What I said was

By investing the objective domain with a mind-independent status, as if it exists independently of any mind, we absolutize it.
— Wayfarer

And 'absolutizing it' amounts to metaphysical realism: — Wayfarer

OK, if you agree there are external objects that are real independently of human perception and that their characteristics determine what we see and where and when we see it then how is that not consistent with realism?

Realism does not deny that the ways we see things are also determined by our uniquely human sense organs, so that the bee or the bird will see the same flower we do but presumably not in the same way.

It seems we are an impasse here for the time being. I propose to park the conversation here and we can pick it up in some other thread, maybe by then we could understand each other better,

But I suspect we agree on something like 70% of the main topics, that is, if you still maintain some agreement with some version of Kant (albeit modified), if not then we may have drifted apart, which is fine.

I'll leave the proposal for you to decide. — Manuel

I thought we were in agreement. It's not clear to me where you think we are still not in agreement.

I do address them, and you object to my objections. I'm not lecturing you, just making my case. You don't like, fine. You can't say I don't make an effort. — Wayfarer

OK, I'll try one more time. You say the fact that have the same sense organs can explain why we can see the same details down to the smallest visible scale. The example I gave was the surface of a table—let's say it's a wooden table with little knots and patterns of figuration. We will agree on the exact locations of the knots and the patterns, and we can confirm this by pointing to them. Now if there were nothing there determining the positions of those details on what basis could we explain our precise agreement?

Don't say it is because we see things in the same way. As I already pointed out seeing things in the same way and seeing the particular things are not the same. We know we both see the particular things in their precise positions and patterns, and we know we see them roughly the same way in terms of colour, and tone and size, but we have no way of determining whether we see them in precisely the same way in terms of the latter qualities.

Don't give me a lecture about the history of ideas or Kant or Schopenhauer—just try to address tis simple point in your own words.

:roll:

There is no point lecturing me. I have no doubt I've read more Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and Merleau Ponty than you. I think your interpretation of Kant is off the mark anyway.
You simply cannot address the objections I make to your position. You don't even try...you just keep intoning the same mantras and citing the same "authorities". I'm done with responding to you...it's a waste of time.

We have ideas of what we perceive. The things we perceive are not ideas.

OK cool it seems we agree. I think we and the other animals have access to the same basic structures.

Meaning, you can't have any idea of it. — Wayfarer

Why would that be? We experience matter in an almost infinite variety of forms including our own bodies—why would you say we can have no idea of what we experience?

Now, it's your turn to explain how you believe that "matter" signifies something other than an idea. — Metaphysician Undercover

'Matter' is an idea. If it signifies anything it signifies something that is not an idea.

I was not evaluating your comment, I was asking if this structure is what you think is the same for all creatures - as I did not understand your specific description. — Manuel

I thought you were asking me to speculate as to what the structures we perceive as objects might be. It seems animals will not conceptualize structures in the ways we do or even conceptualize them at all. Perhaps I don't understand your question.

You defer to science as the arbiter of reality, saying that anything that can't be known by science is a matter for faith. — Wayfarer

You are putting words in my mouth. I don't say that at all. Almost everything we know is known by direct observation and science is just an augmenting extension of that.

A number of others have already addressed that - we're equipped with the same senses and inhabit a world of shared definitions, so we tend to see things the same way. — Wayfarer

This does not explain the problem. Seeing things in the same way and seeing the same things are not the same. We can see the same things in different ways.

So, some microphysical thing? — Manuel

Why not a microphysical thing? Must the physical be different than the metaphysical other than definitionally?

Do you see the deficiencies of metaphysical Materialism (Energy is physical but immaterial), that are glossed-over in sensable
Naturalism? — Gnomon

Energy is physical and is not "immaterial" but is constitutive of the material. In what way is that "deficient"?

What are the implications of the fact that the characteristics of the microphysical do not accord with the characteristics of the macrophysical? I think that is unknowable. If it is ever to be known, it will be science that explains it. The point of my example is that what is to be explained is the fact that people see just the same things down to the smallest detail. The most plausible explanation I can think of is that there is something there independent of the human that we are all seeing. How would you explain that?