Holy shit Mickey, what did you do to Pluto!?
Those old cartoons really didn’t hold back, huh?
Occam’s razor defeats Plato’s cave. There’s no reason to think that the world we experience would be just metaphysical shadows on the wall. The burden of proof is on Mickey’s shoulders.
Oh yeah and Cogito Ergo Sum. So there is one bit of definitely provable knowledge.
Occam’s razor is a rule of thumb not an absolute rule of the universe.
If you go with Cogito Ergo Sum, I think that’s the stance Mickey is taking. You only know for sure of your own consciousness, everything else could be a delusion of the senses. You know, like shadows on a cave wall or whatever.
Yes, and my response to what Mickey said was that why would we think that we’re in the cave looking at shadows? Why should I complicate my view of the world with the added baggage of metaphysical idealism when materialism works just fine to explain everything I see? Sure our perception of the world is limited to our senses and measurement techniques, but the scientific framework we’ve built onto that base appears very consistent and functional with its predictive power. It’s definitely not omniscience, but it works.
I only brought up the Cogito argument to point out that Mickey is incorrect in saying that no certain knowledge exists.
I think one of the points Mickey would make is you can’t entirely trust the scientific framework because it’s still coming from our flawed senses. Even if everything adds up, it could still be a lie. Solipsism and all that.
I don’t think anyone is talking about metaphysical idealism, but conceptual things shouldn’t be written off because they are inconvenient. Numbers aren’t physical, but I doubt you’d say they don’t exist and therefore should be ignored, unless you’re the most extreme materialist.
Eliminative materialism isn’t my thing no. Emergent materialism is what I roll with. So the human mind and culture and numbers are things that exist as emergent properties of other things.
Sure it could all be a lie with us living in the matrix or so on, and it’s fun to entertain such thoughts every now and then. But I won’t accept it as truth without a better reason than “but technically it’s possible”.
Now I’m not sure you get what the allegory of the cave is about. It’s literally trying to explain that our perception can’t be 100% trusted.
I know. The matrix (or any other metaphysical idealism for that matter) is an example of a situation where we cannot trust our perception for knowledge about the true nature of the universe (much like the allegory of the cave), although taken to the extreme. The epistemological and metaphysical aspects of Plato’s cave are very much intertwined.
But you’re assuming, from what I’m reading through your comments, that these shadows are cast by metaphysical forces, and I’m interpreting the allegory as how our senses are ultimately something we can’t trust completely.
As accurate as science may seem, it is ultimately based on these senses. It’s the best way we can understand the physical world, but science, wisely, always has a caveat at the end of every law and discovery: “… As far as we know.”
This is a good thing, it means that nothing is held sacred and everything can be tested and questioned again.
There is no burden of proof. There is only the experience of the here and the now. Everything else is stories.
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But then what perceives the illusion? How can the whole concept of an illusion have any meaning without a thinker to perceive what isn’t true?
An interesting take, but surely there would still have to be some substrate to facilitate the thinking (a thinker)? A brain in a jar might not be what you think of yourself, but whatever is thinking the thoughts which you consider your own, definitely has to exist.
This reminds me of that stupid thing in fallout 4 about possibly being a robot essentially and how it was supposed to be some big deal but I never understood what difference it made
In the case of Fallout 4, the big deal is that if you were a synth, that means all your memories and experiences prior to a certain point of your existence are almost assuredly made up. They are a fabrication. Maybe you never actually lived in the pre-war era. You never had a wife. You never had a child.
It would have been better from a story-telling point if that wasn’t added in a DLC long after most people played the main game through. It fits better if you do Far Harbour before ever finding Shaun so that you are forced to wonder if Shaun is even real.
Ya but why does it matter if your memory is all fake? not much you can do about it without a true answer one way or the other so just move on and don’t worry about it
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not much you can do if your memories are wrong, they are just as real as they where when you started so why change? this is something that hit me real hard as a kid but i just brushed it off eventually
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I still think Death said it better in Hogfather.
Brains are electro-chemical btw, not just chemical
And what organ told you that, hmm?
Perish like a dog it is then. There is no tearing down reality without you inside of it.
Have fun
Obviously, Donald will do whatever the chemicals make him do.
The decision that your brain’s decisions are due to chemical reactions, which itself would be due to chemicals reactions, is self-referential but not circular reasoning.
No, Mickey–I will perish like a duck.
Fight what exactly? Determinism either is or isnt how the universe works, it isnt like some sort of external force of finite capacity that can be resisted by some application of effort. If it is true, then you have no choice but to act the way something like you would act, and the way humans are wired to think is in terms of choices and the possible outcomes of those choices, even if the choice you make and the thinking that leads you to it is inevitable. If it is not true, then the possibility of making different choices exists, but it doesnt look any different to you because you only get to perceive the result of following one set of them.
The thing about determinism is that while it may be an interesting philosophical exercise, beyond being difficult to maybe impossible to prove or disprove, it isnt really relevant to much. A deterministic universe looks, feels, and acts to us exactly like a nondeterministic one would.
I took it to mean fighting against a descent into nihilism.
I never understood the fight against nihilism, as if it’s inherently bleak. I came to the conclusion that nothing truly matters a long time ago, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling like stuff matters, and doing what matters to me. Subjective meaning can still drive you to pursue and live a good life even while you’re aware that objective meaning doesn’t exit. Happiness feels good, which is enough for me.
I love nihilism because accepting that nothing inherently matters allows me to focus on the things that I decide matter to me. It also makes it easier for me to accept those things I dislike but am truly powerless to change.
I think I’d be so much unhappier if I was in some constant pursuit of a universal meaning of life, or felt like I had to fulfill some inherent purpose.
Either existence is a empty nothingness devoid of meaning, or existence is a empty blank canvas upon which we can imbue our own meaning.
If nothing matters, then it doesnt matter that nothing matters, so while I technically am a nihilist, since I dont see a plausible mechanism for how some kind of objective purpose/meaning could exist, I dont really think much of it. If nothing matters there is no reason for me not to care about whatever I arbitrarily happen to value anyway. Expecting the universe to find those things important too just feels kind of self-centered somehow.
Also: everything matters ☹️ everything matters 🙂
That would make it existentialism
Nothing matters, but knowing nothing matters,
It’s just life, so keep dancing through
This meme template usually ends with the like a dog bit, I wouldn’t look into it
The truth of determinism is relevant to the most popular conception of free will. That’s why this comes up repeatedly. People seem to want themselves to be free from causality itself, because being bound by it makes you not “free”, and just going through the motions.
The problem here is the definition of free will itself . Rather than demanding from the universe that your mind be inexplicably free form causality, why not just accept a more useful definition of free will? Such as the ability to make decisions without undue coercion. Vague as that is, it’s at least a workable definition.
Or, as I love to say: you feel what you feel, it’s what you do with it that matters
I think a critical part of being a human is the ability for those chemicals to induce such feelings, the ability to wonder and see beauty is something special
There’s a lot of assumptions in saying it’s just meaningless chemicals
- That chemicals are meaningless and lacking intriniic value. Seen from the outside they may appear that way, but evidently from the inside it seems quite different.
- “We” are not some other unseen brain behavior (not a crazy idea since we’ve never seen consciousness working in the brain)
- We are within the brain
- The brain exists at all
- Any knowledge exists at all (dubious as Mickey points out)
