From: nospam@example.net   
      
   On Fri, 4 Apr 2025, Richmond wrote:   
      
   > D  writes:   
   >   
   >> I disagree. Because it implies no certainty, no truth, and no other   
   >> consciousness who can partake of the story, so everything, assuming   
   >> the strictest solipsism becomes meaningless.   
   >   
   > According to that definition, dreams are meaningless. But I think dreams   
   > are meaningful. They are at least meaningful to the dreamer.   
      
   Why would dreams be meaningless? We have correlations between dreaming and   
   memory formation for instance. The reason for that, is that dreams is a   
   process in the physical world, we can track their effects on the brain and   
   the organism. This is not the same as solipsism. I think I am   
   misunderstand you here.   
      
   >> True, but that is not what I mean. First of all, this is a philosophy   
   >> discussion. Proof and evidence are very much at home in   
   >> philosophy. Those are basically the only tools we have. Without any   
   >> burden of proof or truth, discussion and philosophy by extention   
   >> becomes meaningless (see above). So I disagree with that.   
   >   
   > OK you can have a burden of proof in philosophy. But generally it rests   
   > on the person who made the positive statement. The statement "sense   
   > evidence is a source of knowledge" is a positive statement.   
      
   I think that's a gross simplification, that leads to infinite regression,   
   which lands you into solipsism territory. If every positive statement has   
   the burden of proof, you'll end up with something like this. The world   
   exist, what's the proof? The senses see the world. Ok, what's the proof?   
   Well, things don't move when I close my eyes, and other people agree wit   
   hme. Ok, so what's the proof? You see how this position eventually lands   
   you into trouble?   
      
   Now!   
      
   As I have stated before, although not emphasized, is that we solve this by   
   making sure what we say is open to falsification!   
      
   I already wrote how someone who denies that the world exist, since that   
   person denies the evidence of their senses, then has to falsify the claim   
   that the world exist.   
      
   No one in 2500 years of philosophy, has been able to falsify the claim   
   that the external world exists, nor that what we see exists.   
      
   Until the falsification is made, the world does in fact exist, and the   
   proof is the senses.   
      
   So if you can show me that, as per my earlier message, we live in a   
   simulation, that there in fact is an evil demon tricking us etc. I'll   
   happily agree! But no one has done it, so what we see, lacking proof or   
   falsification, is the truth.   
      
   >>   
   >> When it comes to a negative, you make a mistake in thinking about the   
   >> situation as world or no-world. but you are forgetting that there are   
   >> other positions.   
   >>   
   >> Someone who does not trust senses as sources of truth, and who   
   >> disputes the concept of an external world, can provide proof that   
   >> idealist is in fact the real "truth", thus disproving an external   
   >> material world.   
   >   
   > I don't know what it means to say "idealist is a real truth". I think   
   > solipsism means that only the mind is real. But that doesn't exclude the   
   > possibility of communicating with entities within the mind. To the   
   > subject, these entities could be as real as objectively real entities.   
      
   No, actually solipsism means you even have to doubt your mind, since you   
   could just be a simulation in an AI, so you could not be real, and also   
   you must doubt the existence of the tokens of your mind and the language   
   in which you think, because that could also be caused by a demon.   
      
   So in order to be consistent with your view, you would have to doubt the   
   entities as illusions as well, and your language, so any communication   
   would be ultimately meaningless, if you do in fact remain consistent.   
      
   But all solipsists engaging in debate on internet forums seem to believe   
   in some kind of rational discource, they seem to believe that they can   
   argue their point, they sometimes seem to become frustrated etc. which   
   proves that they in reality, actually to believe in an external reality.   
   If not explicitly stated, than at least through their behavior.   
      
   >>   
   >> The person could prove that we live in a simulation, or that what we   
   >> encounter when we touch and see a table is in fact an illusion.   
   >>   
   >> There are many ways open. But for 2500 years no one has succeeded in   
   >> disproving the default position, the position we have no choice but to   
   >> accept and live in, which is that there exists an external, material   
   >> world.   
   >   
   > Accepting it because we have no choice isn't quite the same as accepting   
   > it as true. It is possible that the properties of the world are in the   
      
   Choice is irrelevant. The world exists, the evidence is our senses. This   
   statement has been open to challenge and falsification for 2500+ years and   
   no one has succeeded, which means it is the truth, as much as gravity is   
   the truth, or the sky is blue.   
      
   You can of course deny gravity and the sky, in the same way, but that   
   leads to the path of denying truth as a concept, and then discussion as a   
   way to gain knowledge becomes meaningless.   
      
   > relations between objects and not in the objects themselves. We know   
   > this is true in some ways as some people like things which others do   
   > not. We can agree on the name of the colour red, but we don't know if we   
   > all experience it the same way.   
      
   That is the subject/object divide. We know perfectly well that red is the   
   reflection of light of a certain wavelength off an object, that hits your   
   retina, and activates certain areas in your brain. That is all there is to   
   "redness". It is a process that happens as describe. There really isn't   
   anything else to it.   
      
   Asking the question, but what's it like to experience richards redness, is   
   a meaningless question, since we can never be richard.   
      
   But this moves us into qualia territory, and I am an eliminativist, and   
   qualia for me does not exist as anything else besides the process of what   
   happens when consciousness experiences the world, described by physics,   
   chemistry and neuroscience.   
      
   When it comes to knowing the world, it is also not a binary question, but   
   a question of degrees. I know the table in front of me, and as per   
   constructive empiricism, neither you nor me can ever know electrons, but   
   only the properties (measurable) of electrons. That does of course not   
   mean that we do not know the world exists, but only that we do not know   
   everything in the world. But this we have already covered.   
      
   > Australian Aborigines have song lines, and as they walk along them, they   
   > sing the world into existence. If they all agree that is the way things   
   > are, how can anyone say they are wrong?   
      
   Because science can disprove it, and our senses give us evidence of the   
   external world. It all depends on the question. I'd rather trust the   
   scientific method when it comes to finding out facts about the world than   
   aborigines.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)