From: oldernow@dev.null   
      
   On 2025-03-11, D  wrote:   
      
   >> Empiricism: yet another religion.   
   >>   
   >> How so?   
   >>   
   >> Because adherent faith makes it seemingly real to its   
   >> adherents.   
   >   
   > Incorrect.   
      
   You forgot the rest of the sentence, which is: "in the   
   context of my faith".   
      
   > I always challenge people who think empiricism is a   
   > religion to jump off a roof, since obviously there is   
   > no external reality or laws discovered by empirical   
   > investigations of the external world   
      
   Positing an external world and its laws, and then   
   being surprised that it works in accord with one's   
   faith regardless how deeply one looks is merely an   
   investigation into the power of faith.   
      
   But it says nothing about any underlying .   
      
   > Of all the people I have met who do not believe in an external world, no   
   > one has ever taken the challenge, thereby proving that they do in fact,   
   > for all intents and purposes, act as if there is an external reality.   
      
   Not jumping ("act") doesn't prove there's an external   
   world: it proves one *believes* ("as if") there's an   
   external world,   
      
   > Since their behaviour in every single way indicates there is an external   
   > reality, this is, in fact what they believe and should drop any other   
   > ideas.   
      
   Reality to an individual is never not in   
   accord with what they believe it to be, for   
   that's all it could ever be in/to their isolated   
   conceptuality/representational/modeling context, aka   
   "mind".   
      
   What is often called "reality" is indistinguishable from   
   "dreaming plus the belief one isn't merely dreaming".   
      
   > Theres is then of course the ultimate argument that reality exists   
   > regardless of their attitude to it. They have no choice but to exist in   
   > external reality, short of suicide. So reality and empiricism does not   
   > imply belief. It just is. I can act freely in the external world, without   
   > any beliefs. That is why we know it is true.   
   >   
   > Then we can argue about the ultimate nature, but this, as material,   
   > beings, we will never know for sure.   
      
   Because "knowing" is faith plus the belief that what is   
   known is not "merely" one's faith.   
      
   Perhaps there's some underlying reality to experience. But   
   as soon as one says it "is" ,   
   one has stepped into a world of faith, because faith   
   defines is-ness in/to an individuality context.   
      
   Said another way, the belief in being an individual demands   
   auxiliary beliefs about its context/container to seemingly   
   "make sense" of the individuality belief. But that doesn't   
   mean the posited individual and its context/container   
   exist separately.   
      
   --   
   NPC's dutifully ignored.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)