Who- why- where are we ?

[Dontaskme]

You can saying nothing about "ALL" unless you are omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

Are you?

ALL = Consciousness ..TAG you're IT ...IT's being IT herenow / nowhere ..omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent...objectifying itself via concepts arising in IT...albeit illusory.

There's no other ''Consciousness'' ?
If you think there is... then next time you are in close proximity to another human being see if you can point to where ''their consciousness'' ends and ''yours'' begins?

Bet you can't do that can you ?

Consciousness is what's looking out of your eyeballs ...but there not even your eyeballs, the eyeballs belong to nobody, nobody owns what they are, just try owning what you are, you can't own any of it....what you are does what it want's, when it wants, how it wants, and there isn't anything you can do about it...

What's looking aka Consciousness cannot be looked at by ''another'' so it must be ALL there IS...IT has to be ONE = ALL....ALL being another word for EVERYTHING...which is another word for NOTHING.

''Things'' are just 'THOUGHTS' which can't be looked at either.

The you you refer to is not what thought thinks it is... in reality, there simply is no you because there is no other than you, the only you there is..is CONSCIOUSNESS..KNOWING ITSELF...as ALL

If you think there are MANY you's each with their own little consciousnesses...then just see if the ''Hobbes'' can prove he exists by looking at your own eyeballs to see the source of seeing consciousness without using a mirror? .. I bet you can't do that can you? No, because Hobbes is just a thought arising in what you already are...which is consciousness:...Only consciousness is ALL knowing of every thought that arises....thoughts in and of themselves don't know anything....


.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You can saying nothing about "ALL" unless you are omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

Are you?

ALL = Consciousness ..TAG you're IT ...IT's being IT herenow / nowhere ..omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent...objectifying itself via concepts arising in IT...albeit illusory.

There's no other ''Consciousness'' ?
If you think there is... then next time you are in close proximity to another human being see if you can point to where ''their consciousness'' ends and ''yours'' begins?

.

I think you are confused.
If you jump in the middle, you should be sure of what the conversation is about.

[Conde Lucanor]

Kant's view is problematic, as it resembles in many instances that of Bishop Berkeley's, of which he tried to distance himself. Is still a matter of debate, but in other instances Kant seems to reject solipsism and implies that objects represented in our minds do exist out there. In any case, I don't subscribe to any form of idealism. Ordinary things age, evolve, change, for real, not as an illusion of our senses. They do it independently of our percpetion of them. And they occupy space, they have a real space-dimensional quality, not just in our minds.

I do not understand how we can claim to know about things 'independently of our perception of them'. Where would our knowledge be obtained except through our perception?

I think you misread the paragraph. I said that events happen to real things without our perception participating on those changes. We know now that the Earth goes around the Sun, but that's been going on for millions of years before we even found out.

(Regarding my recognising only the space domain, I do not see space and time as being two distinct things; they are two sides of the same coin, we understand one in relation to the other.)

I wonder: the two sides of what? Of being? Or of our supposedly illusory perception of being?

You cannot explain them separately; one can only be understood relative to the other.

You did not answer the question. You said space and time are not real, but just some kind of illusion of our perception. And then you say they are the two sides of one coin. My question is: the two sides of our supposedly illusory perception of being? Because that makes beings illusory too, right?

People who have met Londoner, will have formed a conception of Londoner in their minds, which is not the same as saying that Londoner exists only subjectively in their minds. It exists there with the assurance that Londoner is a concrete, real being, which as all beings, changes in time. Surely, when Londoner is not around anymore, they still will have access to the impression of Londoner in their minds and relate that impression to their past, present and future experiences.

So Londoner may have no physical existence, in that every single molecule that was in his body has dissolved and become part of other objects, and yet Londoner will still be a concrete and real being, that persists in time, in the form of memories (not identical memories) in people's heads?

No, that's not what I said. When Londoner, the CONCRETE real being, ceases to exist, he IS no more. What can only persist is the impression, the representation, in other words, the ABSTRACT concept of Londoner in other people's minds. Let's remind ourselves that people can also have abstract concepts of things that never existed as real, concrete beings, like unicorns and gods.

When we talk about 'an impression of' or 'a memory of' or 'the corpse of' or 'the youth of' Londoner, then although the same word 'Londoner' persists its reference changes, its meaning changes. When two people use that name, what matters is the meaning, which is usually made clear in context and the purpose of the conversation. If an official is compiling a list of voters, and Londoner is dead, then there is no such thing as Londoner.

People who have met the concrete real being called Londoner, will have formed their abstract concept of Londoner as a being that carried a body attached to his persona, not as a decoration, but as integral part of his self. When he dies (and we hope that happens in a very distant, far away future), they might see his corpse and think that not all of him is gone, because their abstract impression of Londoner carrying a body is still present and holds firmly. That's one reason why some people want to preserve dead bodies from decaying, but on serious analysis, people as we knew them are gone forever.

If I place outside the room several objects, one of them identical to the one in the room, and I ask the other observer to identify which one he/she saw inside the room, then I will know that both me and the other observer had the same mental representation of the object in the room. It all can be achieved without resorting to labels of language. I can also replace the independent observer with an instrument that measures properties of the object and validate those in other objects I have perceived. One can devise many ways to validate that our mental representations of objects are not mere illusions.

You would know that they had had the mental representation 'X' within the room and the same (or very similar) mental representation 'X' regarding a particular object outside the room. And you might do the same, but your own mental representation in both cases might have been 'Y'.

What you cannot do is compare your 'Y' to their 'X'. Adding a third observer, human or mechanical would not help. The only way you could compare your 'X' and their 'Y' was if you could be them, while simultaneously remaining yourself.

You're obviously getting it wrong. If I saw inside the room and object which reflects light with a wavelength range of 620–750 nm (red) and then a second observer, asked to identify the same property on an object outside the room as what is found inside, and he picks the wavelength range of 620–750 nm (red), instead of the wavelength of 495–570 nm (green), then I can be completely sure that my perception of red inside the room is not an illusion and that we both had seen the same wavelength. It is not possible, as you suggest, that the second observer had seen the red wavelength inside the room and confused it with the green wavelength outside the room.

Isn't it improbable that our own human organs of perception, and our brains, just happen to be configured in such a way that we can know objects as they are in themselves? It is not just theoretical that some see 'X' and others see 'Y'; all humans do see things slightly differently, as do animals, and some lack the sense of sight at all. Who sets the benchmark to say 'what things really look like'?

All that is needed is to convert our subjective perceptions of things into knowledge of their objective existence with the tools of our reasoning, including the methods of independent verification.

I see you move between different forms of solipsism, subjectivism and idealism: nothing can be known to be concrete or real, but abstract and relative to perception. Under such view, no statement can hold any truth. Despite declaring otherwise, in that view "anything goes", everything is possible, even contradictory statements about the world, since their truth is not fixed, but fluid and only momentarily valid. In that world, saying god does not exist is equally valid to saying god exists. It's the hypostatization of the absurd. I can't subscribe to such view.

I would say truth is understood relative to context. But - since every assertion must have a context (if it is meaningful) - then it would not follow that no statement has truth, or that truth is fluid.

The problem is that your context is that of mere illusions, where concrete real beings are absent. Anything goes.

For example, God certainly exists - as an idea. Since you regard a dead Londoner as existing in the form of an assortment of different mental images in people's heads, I cannot see why you wouldn't agree that God also exists in that sense. But that doesn't oblige you to agree God also exists as an object in science, or maths.

I have always acknowledged there are many ideas of gods and all kinds of beings. I know also that having those ideas gives us no sign of their existence as real concrete beings. Gods are products of our imagination. The usual idealist workaround of the theist, that pretends to make everything a product of our imagination, and then put his/her god "outside the system", fails in all logical grounds.

[attofishpi]

Let's remind ourselves that people can also have abstract concepts of things that never existed as real, concrete beings, like unicorns and gods.

...and quantum mechanics, string theory and the multiverse - are these concrete to you?

[Londoner]

I think you misread the paragraph. I said that events happen to real things without our perception participating on those changes. We know now that the Earth goes around the Sun, but that's been going on for millions of years before we even found out.

That description; 'the earth goes around the sun' is a human description, incorporating notions of time and space, because that is the way we humans understand things. 'The earth' is not really a thing that 'goes' or 'doesn't go', that is anthropomorphic. To say that 'the earth goes round the sun' is ultimately a tautology; the earth does what the earth does, if it didn't then it would not be 'the earth'.

This must always be the case with any such description; it is just that. It must incorporate us, the observer. Those 'real things' 'out there' cannot somehow jump into our heads via our sensory organs in their original form; our idea of the earth, or the movement of the earth, cannot be the same as the earth, or the movement of the earth.

Me: You cannot explain them (space and time) separately; one can only be understood relative to the other.
You did not answer the question. You said space and time are not real, but just some kind of illusion of our perception. And then you say they are the two sides of one coin. My question is: the two sides of our supposedly illusory perception of being? Because that makes beings illusory too, right?

They are not 'real' in the sense of being objects we can perceive. You cannot see 'extension'. You can use extension to interpret those things you do perceive, but it is not a thing in itself. And, as a means of interpreting things we perceive, it is linked to another means; 'time'. And those two are linked in that if you explain what you mean by one you have to refer to the other. They make no sense on their own.

I did not say they were 'illusions'.

No, that's not what I said. When Londoner, the CONCRETE real being, ceases to exist, he IS no more. What can only persist is the impression, the representation, in other words, the ABSTRACT concept of Londoner in other people's minds. Let's remind ourselves that people can also have abstract concepts of things that never existed as real, concrete beings, like unicorns and gods.

So why isn't that also the case with the living Londoner? That person is also continuously changing; there is no single feature of Londoner that is identical to Londoner. To say that this Londoner is still the same as the Londoner of 20 years ago is to say that both correspond to an abstract concept of Londoner. Or perhaps not; if my abstract concept of Londoner was 'an unmarried man' then that Londoner would no longer exist.

I think this is true generally; names cannot be simple signs attached to one specific object. If that was the case, how would we understand words like 'man'? If I say that word, we do not need to both be thinking identical thoughts of one particular man. All we need is to have a loose bundle of associations, depending on the context in which that word is used.

You're obviously getting it wrong. If I saw inside the room and object which reflects light with a wavelength range of 620–750 nm (red) and then a second observer, asked to identify the same property on an object outside the room as what is found inside, and he picks the wavelength range of 620–750 nm (red), instead of the wavelength of 495–570 nm (green), then I can be completely sure that my perception of red inside the room is not an illusion and that we both had seen the same wavelength. It is not possible, as you suggest, that the second observer had seen the red wavelength inside the room and confused it with the green wavelength outside the room.

But you were not discussing wavelengths, you were discussing mental representations. A particular wavelength is a particular wavelength, but the way my eyes and brain respond to that wavelength ('it looks red') is different. Insects and humans encounter the same range of wavelengths, but it does not follow that they 'see' the same thing - in fact we know that they don't.

All that is needed is to convert our subjective perceptions of things into knowledge of their objective existence with the tools of our reasoning, including the methods of independent verification.

Verified by humans or insects? Why isn't the bee's mental representation of light on a particular wavelength the 'objective existence'? Why would we assume human eyes more attuned to the 'objective' than a bee's?

I would say that neither the human nor the bee is seeing the 'objective' colour. I think that the colour in our respective consciousness' arises from the nature of our respective organs of perception and our brains; it makes no more sense to say that one is more real than the other than to say the view of an object seen from the left is more real than the view of an object seen from the right.

The problem is that your context is that of mere illusions, where concrete real beings are absent. Anything goes.

Again, you are the one who keeps writing 'mere illusions'! That is not what I wrote and not what I meant.

Philosophy has never been able to come up with a synthetic a priori; something that must be true, without being just a tautology. So there are no examples of stand alone 'concrete real beings'; everything we know must ultimately rest on assumptions.

If you think otherwise we can discuss it, but I do not see how you can create an argument for certainty based on something we know to be as unreliable and variable as our perceptions.

[waechter418]

In the Orient the manifestations of consciousness are often classified as Reality and Maya.
Maya is generally translated as illusion, but delusion might be more appropriate, as Maya connotes a world of make-belief, that enjoys great popularity – contrary to Reality which is considered to be omnipresent, but only accessible to a few and unintelligible to Maya.

A paradox that has kept for millennia innumerable Oriental thinkers & sages busy – more so, since it leads by close examination – particularly with the feedback mechanism of the intellect – to more paradoxes.

[Conde Lucanor]

Let's remind ourselves that people can also have abstract concepts of things that never existed as real, concrete beings, like unicorns and gods.

...and quantum mechanics, string theory and the multiverse - are these concrete to you?

I think there's sufficient proof of quantum mechanics. I don't think string theory and multiverse theory are close to that.

[Conde Lucanor]

That description; 'the earth goes around the sun' is a human description, incorporating notions of time and space, because that is the way we humans understand things. 'The earth' is not really a thing that 'goes' or 'doesn't go', that is anthropomorphic. To say that 'the earth goes round the sun' is ultimately a tautology; the earth does what the earth does, if it didn't then it would not be 'the earth'.

You are contradicting yourself: first you say it's not OK to state that the Earth does something, because that's supposedly just a human description, and then you go on to say that "the earth does what the earth does". According to you, if we believe your first response, the Earth actually does nothing.

They are not 'real' in the sense of being objects we can perceive. You cannot see 'extension'. You can use extension to interpret those things you do perceive, but it is not a thing in itself.

Extension is a property of things. We can see properties of things. We can see extension, even measure it.

No, that's not what I said. When Londoner, the CONCRETE real being, ceases to exist, he IS no more. What can only persist is the impression, the representation, in other words, the ABSTRACT concept of Londoner in other people's minds. Let's remind ourselves that people can also have abstract concepts of things that never existed as real, concrete beings, like unicorns and gods.

So why isn't that also the case with the living Londoner? That person is also continuously changing; there is no single feature of Londoner that is identical to Londoner. To say that this Londoner is still the same as the Londoner of 20 years ago is to say that both correspond to an abstract concept of Londoner. Or perhaps not; if my abstract concept of Londoner was 'an unmarried man' then that Londoner would no longer exist.

Because people are used to the fact that beings change and so they must adjust their abstract concept of these beings to those changes. The perception of many of those changes is not an illusion and it is so evident that we can easy predict them. We know that a person will get older and not younger, that he/she will go through stages in a particular order that never goes back: from baby to childhood, to teenager, to adult and so on.

You're obviously getting it wrong. If I saw inside the room and object which reflects light with a wavelength range of 620–750 nm (red) and then a second observer, asked to identify the same property on an object outside the room as what is found inside, and he picks the wavelength range of 620–750 nm (red), instead of the wavelength of 495–570 nm (green), then I can be completely sure that my perception of red inside the room is not an illusion and that we both had seen the same wavelength. It is not possible, as you suggest, that the second observer had seen the red wavelength inside the room and confused it with the green wavelength outside the room.

But you were not discussing wavelengths, you were discussing mental representations.

We were discussing mental representations of an external reality. Color wavelengths are the content of one of our metal representations.

A particular wavelength is a particular wavelength, but the way my eyes and brain respond to that wavelength ('it looks red') is different.

But you miss the point that however your brain responds to a wavelength, it will respond the same either inside or outside the room, so your brain will not confuse red with green. And so, if your representation makes you select outside the room the same color we have both seen inside and outside the room, there's no space for any confusion: we can be completely sure that both of us saw the same color.

Insects and humans encounter the same range of wavelengths, but it does not follow that they 'see' the same thing - in fact we know that they don't.

That's because our eyes are constructed differently, but with a similar room experiment we can show that two insects have seen the same object.

All that is needed is to convert our subjective perceptions of things into knowledge of their objective existence with the tools of our reasoning, including the methods of independent verification.

Verified by humans or insects? Why isn't the bee's mental representation of light on a particular wavelength the 'objective existence'? Why would we assume human eyes more attuned to the 'objective' than a bee's?

Different forms of perception and still the objects keep their status of real, concrete beings. Whether the bees perceive honey differently than humans, that will not put honey in a realm of illusion, of a mere abstraction.

I would say that neither the human nor the bee is seeing the 'objective' colour. I think that the colour in our respective consciousness' arises from the nature of our respective organs of perception and our brains; it makes no more sense to say that one is more real than the other than to say the view of an object seen from the left is more real than the view of an object seen from the right.

If a property keeps constant, regardless of our perception of it, then we have guaranteed that the property is real, not an illusion of our senses. That's what happens with color when an independent verification shows that it keeps constant in different instances. It happens for the bees and for humans as well.

Philosophy has never been able to come up with a synthetic a priori; something that must be true, without being just a tautology.

I thought you were a Kant follower. How about his claim that every effect has a cause? Or the truths of mathematics? Or the principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.

So there are no examples of stand alone 'concrete real beings'; everything we know must ultimately rest on assumptions.

If you think otherwise we can discuss it, but I do not see how you can create an argument for certainty based on something we know to be as unreliable and variable as our perceptions.

I have never said our perceptions alone, our pure intuitions, are all that is needed to obtain certainty about the reality of the universe. We needed to develop the methods of philosophy and science to begin to understand the objective qualities of the universe.

[Londoner]

You are contradicting yourself: first you say it's not OK to state that the Earth does something, because that's supposedly just a human description, and then you go on to say that "the earth does what the earth does". According to you, if we believe your first response, the Earth actually does nothing.

It isn't about anything being 'not OK'.

My point is that once we have identified a part of the universe as 'the earth' then 'what the earth does' is going to be a consequence of that identification. The name and the meaning of that name go together. As a simpler example, I do not discover that 'ice' is 'cold frozen water'. Rather 'ice' is the name I give to 'cold frozen water'.

Me: They are not 'real' in the sense of being objects we can perceive. You cannot see 'extension'. You can use extension to interpret those things you do perceive, but it is not a thing in itself.
Extension is a property of things. We can see properties of things. We can see extension, even measure it.

I do not think you can see 'properties' including extension. You can only see the things. When I measure something I compare one thing to another, for example a pencil to a some marks on a ruler. I do not compare the pencil to 'extension', there is no disembodied property '6cm' that can be seen unattached to the '6cm thing'.

Me: But you were not discussing wavelengths, you were discussing mental representations.
We were discussing mental representations of an external reality. Color wavelengths are the content of one of our metal representations...

But you miss the point that however your brain responds to a wavelength, it will respond the same either inside or outside the room, so your brain will not confuse red with green. And so, if your representation makes you select outside the room the same color we have both seen inside and outside the room, there's no space for any confusion: we can be completely sure that both of us saw the same color.

There is no problem in saying that we both saw the object inside and outside the room as being the same colour, that the object inside and outside the room had the same wavelength. But we still do not know that our mental representations are the same as each others, whether light on a particular frequency causes the same mental representation for both of us. But that does not matter.

I know that the experience in my head is not the same thing as the electromagnetic spectrum. That certain wavelengths of that spectrum cause me to have the sensation 'red' is just an accidental feature of the sort of eyes I have. That human eyes happen to be able to see 'near infrared' but not see 'mid infrared' does not tell us about the nature of infrared, it only tells us about the nature of human eyes.

So, in order for science to understand the electromagnetic spectrum, we have had to understand that although perceived 'colour' is significant for us, it does not have any objective significance. When I say I see something is 'red' I am saying something about me, not this 'real, concrete being', not the 'thing in itself'.

If a property keeps constant, regardless of our perception of it, then we have guaranteed that the property is real, not an illusion of our senses. That's what happens with color when an independent verification shows that it keeps constant in different instances. It happens for the bees and for humans as well.

You write 'If a property keeps constant, regardless of our perception of it' as though we could observe it in some way distinct from via perception. But all we have is perception. To say something is 'real' rather than an 'illusion' is only to make a claim about the nature of my own perceptions and predict that the same will be true for the perceptions of others. I am not doing metaphysics; I am not claiming I know of the object's 'properties' as distinct from its perceived properties.

Me: Philosophy has never been able to come up with a synthetic a priori; something that must be true, without being just a tautology.
I thought you were a Kant follower. How about his claim that every effect has a cause? Or the truths of mathematics? Or the principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.

I am not a 'Kant follower', or only in the sense that all philosophy post Kant has been obliged to deal with the issues he raised.

Kant says these things are necessary concepts of understanding. Because we cannot have access to the noumenal, to 'things in themselves', then Kant changes the reference of these terms such that they refer to the understanding. I was using them in the sense that you were; the claim that we can have certain knowledge of the noumenal world.

(Very briefly, that 'every effect has a cause' is true for the same reason that 'every left has a right'. If we pick out something as an 'effect' it is because we wish to link it to a 'cause', but that is something we do to help us comprehend the world. If we think about any example, we can see there is no reason to select out any particular aspect as either the cause or the effect. Regarding mathematics, you have to ask; What is it true about?. If it is simply true about itself then it is tautological; if it is true about things beyond itself then it isn't necessarily true. And that a straight line is the shortest distance etc. is purely tautology.)

I have never said our perceptions alone, our pure intuitions, are all that is needed to obtain certainty about the reality of the universe. We needed to develop the methods of philosophy and science to begin to understand the objective qualities of the universe.

But seeing as we are trapped within our own minds, how are we going to do that? How can we have a perception with which we can judge the validity of perceptions? How are we going to have an intuition with which we can judge the validity of our intuitions?

[Arising_uk]

...
But seeing as we are trapped within our own minds, how are we going to do that? How can we have a perception with which we can judge the validity of perceptions? How are we going to have an intuition with which we can judge the validity of our intuitions?

You ask others if they agree?

[Londoner]

...
But seeing as we are trapped within our own minds, how are we going to do that? How can we have a perception with which we can judge the validity of perceptions? How are we going to have an intuition with which we can judge the validity of our intuitions?

You ask others if they agree?

As I was saying to Conde Lucanor, that would only show that we share the same perceptions (and because we do not have insight into other minds we could not even know that for certain), not that our perceptions were in some metaphysical sense 'true'.

It would not give us 'certainty about the reality of the universe' since we might all be suffering from the same cognitive bias.

[Conde Lucanor]

You are contradicting yourself: first you say it's not OK to state that the Earth does something, because that's supposedly just a human description, and then you go on to say that "the earth does what the earth does". According to you, if we believe your first response, the Earth actually does nothing.

It isn't about anything being 'not OK'.

My point is that once we have identified a part of the universe as 'the earth' then 'what the earth does' is going to be a consequence of that identification. The name and the meaning of that name go together. As a simpler example, I do not discover that 'ice' is 'cold frozen water'. Rather 'ice' is the name I give to 'cold frozen water'.

I understand that your attachment to the doctrines of idealism, including subjectivism and solipsism, takes you to such conclusion. For you, ideas are all that exist and they make up the world we live in. The Earth is what we think of it an it does what it does in consequence of being that idea. I respect your doctrine, but I can't adhere to it. I'm a materialist: the world is concrete, made of physical beings with real properties, objectively verifiable. Whatever the Earth does, it does because of physical laws independent of our consciousness. And it is a concrete, physical, real object, independent of our mind. Independent does not mean "uncognizable". Though it is generally agreed that we don't assimilate the world directly as it is (noumena), that it goes through our perception, and we get it indirectly, we still get it in the sense that we can make statements of truth about its objective reality, using tools developed by culture, like philosophy and science.

I do not think you can see 'properties' including extension. You can only see the things. When I measure something I compare one thing to another, for example a pencil to a some marks on a ruler. I do not compare the pencil to 'extension', there is no disembodied property '6cm' that can be seen unattached to the '6cm thing'.

I don't need to measure the extension of a body to perceive its extension, its three dimensional properties. To have a body is to have extension. That is by the way a synthetic a priori statement.

There is no problem in saying that we both saw the object inside and outside the room as being the same colour, that the object inside and outside the room had the same wavelength. But we still do not know that our mental representations are the same as each others, whether light on a particular frequency causes the same mental representation for both of us.

Again, the experiment proves that we do. The controlled setup guarantees that the match between our two mental representation and two different objects, seen from two independent observers, is most likely due to our mental representations being identical.

But that does not matter.

Of course it does.

I know that the experience in my head is not the same thing as the electromagnetic spectrum. That certain wavelengths of that spectrum cause me to have the sensation 'red' is just an accidental feature of the sort of eyes I have. That human eyes happen to be able to see 'near infrared' but not see 'mid infrared' does not tell us about the nature of infrared, it only tells us about the nature of human eyes.

So, in order for science to understand the electromagnetic spectrum, we have had to understand that although perceived 'colour' is significant for us, it does not have any objective significance. When I say I see something is 'red' I am saying something about me, not this 'real, concrete being', not the 'thing in itself'.

If I only had my subjective experience, then that might be a problem. But I have the subjective experience of others, which becomes objective information received from a source external to myself. With that I'm able to reconstruct the objective reality.

You write 'If a property keeps constant, regardless of our perception of it' as though we could observe it in some way distinct from via perception.

As I said, independent does not mean "uncognizable". Our perception has its limits, agree, but that's why must use some other tools besides our immediate intuitions.

But all we have is perception. To say something is 'real' rather than an 'illusion' is only to make a claim about the nature of my own perceptions and predict that the same will be true for the perceptions of others. I am not doing metaphysics; I am not claiming I know of the object's 'properties' as distinct from its perceived properties.

If there were only one consciousness in the whole universe, that would be a reasonable expectation, since that mind could not have any means to verify its perceptions from a second observer. But the fact is that there are plenty of observers and ways to verify that our perceptions are not the motor of external events, nor the creator of things.

But seeing as we are trapped within our own minds, how are we going to do that?

But we have not seen that we are trapped within our own minds. The very concept of "trapped within" implies an objective external reality of which we are supposedly being separated.

[Londoner]

I understand that your attachment to the doctrines of idealism, including subjectivism and solipsism, takes you to such conclusion. For you, ideas are all that exist and they make up the world we live in.

I think it is better if we stick to addressing the points we actually make, rather than bracketing the other person into some vague philosophical category. If we do that then we will end up chasing straw men, where you insist I am a solipsist etc. even though I deny it and we end up having discussions about historical philosophical categories.

I'm a materialist: the world is concrete, made of physical beings with real properties, objectively verifiable. Whatever the Earth does, it does because of physical laws independent of our consciousness. And it is a concrete, physical, real object, independent of our mind. Independent does not mean "uncognizable". Though it is generally agreed that we don't assimilate the world directly as it is (noumena), that it goes through our perception, and we get it indirectly, we still get it in the sense that we can make statements of truth about its objective reality, using tools developed by culture, like philosophy and science.

I do not deny that it makes sense to think that the world exists independently from our minds, although we cannot know that for sure.

However, if it is the case we cannot 'assimilate the world directly as it is (noumena)', then I do not see how we can 'make statements of truth about its objective reality'. How would we know that they corresponded to its objective reality? This suggests that there are two 'realities', the reality revealed to us and a different 'objective reality'. When could we be in a position to compare the two? It is like asking a blind person what it is like to see; they could only know that if they were not the blind person that they are.

You suggest that we can achieve this 'using tools developed by culture, like philosophy and science'. I would suggest that those tools support my own approach. Progress in all these fields has been achieved by realising that the universe does not have a set 'concrete' nature, that there are no such things as simple 'statements of truth'. For example in one sense we can say that 'X is red', but we have come to understand that 'red' is really a property that arises from the electro-magnetic spectrum, pigmentation, the nature of our eyes, the nature of our brains, language and so on. So, to say 'X is red' is not even a simple statements of truth about its reality as we experience it, let alone its 'objective reality'...The same is true regarding quantum mechanics, relativity and so on.

So while we can never reach this 'objective reality', one thing we do know is that the reality in which we believe we live is not a representation of this 'objective reality'. We can know that because our own ideas of reality are not consistent with each other, we have no single representation we call 'objective'.

I don't need to measure the extension of a body to perceive its extension, its three dimensional properties. To have a body is to have extension. That is by the way a synthetic a priori statement.

If a body must have extension, then to say a body has extension would be a priori but analytic. But if we are going to use these terms we need to be clear if we are discussing the ideas of Kant or your own.

Again, the experiment proves that we do. The controlled setup guarantees that the match between our two mental representation and two different objects, seen from two independent observers, is most likely due to our mental representations being identical.

I think we have exhausted this one. As I started with saying, if I have learnt that the word that describes grass is 'green' and so have you, then we can both carry on agreeing that 'the grass is green' forever. If in my mind the mental representation is different to yours, how could we ever know it? We might ask each other; 'Is it green like that door?' We both agree it is. 'Is it green like that bit of the spectrum?'. We both agree it is. The sensation we both get when looking at these things is what we have both learnt to call 'green'. And that's fine; as long as we are both using the word 'green' to describe the same range of objects, that is all that is necessary to communicate and function. Our subjective mental representations of 'green' have no consequences.

If I only had my subjective experience, then that might be a problem. But I have the subjective experience of others, which becomes objective information received from a source external to myself. With that I'm able to reconstruct the objective reality.

You cannot have the subjective experience of others. What you get is language. From each other we have learnt the correct use of the word 'green', under what circumstances it is appropriate to use it. To learn that does not require the impossible task of getting inside another person's subjective experience, let alone encountering 'the objective reality of green', whatever that might be.

But we have not seen that we are trapped within our own minds. The very concept of "trapped within" implies an objective external reality of which we are supposedly being separated.

That there is 'an objective external reality' is surely what you are saying we can know. If you are using the word 'objective' then presumably this is to distinguish it from 'subjective'? But I cannot escape my subjectivity; I cannot subjectively know the objective..

Alternatively, if we say that we are not separated from 'external reality' in any respect; then the labels 'objective' and 'subjective' both become meaningless. Then the position would be solipsistic; 'what is in my mind' and 'reality' would be one and the same thing.

(My own view is that to use words like 'objective' as if they refer to some Platonic or noumenal realm would load them with meaning they cannot bear. I think that by 'objective' we generally mean something like 'impersonal', or 'without self-interest', i.e. our understanding of words like 'objective' will vary with context.)

[Belinda]

Conde Lucanor wrote:

I don't need to measure the extension of a body to perceive its extension, its three dimensional properties. To have a body is to have extension. That is by the way a synthetic a priori statement.

It's not synthetic a priori. If you get a local anaesthetic from the dentist , for instance, you are unable to feel your mouth. In that case to be aware of your mouth you need to either remember that you have a mouth and it has probably not gone away; or you go the mirror or another person or bite your lip and and so get empirical evidence that you have a mouth.

[Conde Lucanor]

I think it is better if we stick to addressing the points we actually make, rather than bracketing the other person into some vague philosophical category. If we do that then we will end up chasing straw men, where you insist I am a solipsist etc. even though I deny it and we end up having discussions about historical philosophical categories.

My statements are part of a larger paragraph which aims to identify the broader philosophical context of our discussion. Since many issues in a debate can get to a point of no resolution, or getting messed up, I do think it's relevant to show the categories to which our point of views belong, so we can recognize if we need to focus on that larger set of doctrines or keep on discussing at a smaller scale. That's why I openly stated I'm a materialist, which should give you clues about what would make some sense to me and is worth discussing. In that same order of ideas, I actually was expecting that you would put no contest to my claim that your positions are those of idealism.

However, if it is the case we cannot 'assimilate the world directly as it is (noumena)', then I do not see how we can 'make statements of truth about its objective reality'. How would we know that they corresponded to its objective reality?

Because our perception can find necessary connections between things and events, which remain constant and predictable, without our perception participating in those constant relations. We know it because other perceptive beings, as independent, external observers, can validate those connections, as well as the use of instruments and ways of keeping records. If the structure of reality were purely the design of our mind, there wouldn't be any reason to believe that the conjunction of events at a given instance, would repeat at another. Anything goes. No enabling conditions of experience of our individual minds, no a priori framework of understanding, could make the structure of reality works as it works. It works with complete disregard to our perception of it. So we know that the dark side of the moon has been there for long, even when we didn't see it or go there.

This suggests that there are two 'realities', the reality revealed to us and a different 'objective reality'. When could we be in a position to compare the two? It is like asking a blind person what it is like to see; they could only know that if they were not the blind person that they are.

What it suggests is that there's one reality, of which we are also part of and in which we interact with other beings. To think of a "reality revealed to us" is to imply there's a reality outside the perceiver to be revealed. The concept itself of a capturing mind implies too the objective reality of space. And the concept of perception itself invokes the need for something to exist as a reality, as a necessary truth of being: the self that thinks. Cogito ergo sum, remember?

You suggest that we can achieve this 'using tools developed by culture, like philosophy and science'. I would suggest that those tools support my own approach. Progress in all these fields has been achieved by realising that the universe does not have a set 'concrete' nature, that there are no such things as simple 'statements of truth'.

At least if we look at Kant's project, we would have to disagree. He set himself to do for philosophy what Newtonian science had done for scientific knowledge: to elevate it to a discipline in which we could ground truths that are necessary and universal. In any case, if there were no statements of truth, we could begin with the statement "all we have access to is our perceptions" as one of those not true statements. And just the same: "I perceive and think".

For example in one sense we can say that 'X is red', but we have come to understand that 'red' is really a property that arises from the electro-magnetic spectrum, pigmentation, the nature of our eyes, the nature of our brains, language and so on. So, to say 'X is red' is not even a simple statements of truth about its reality as we experience it, let alone its 'objective reality'...The same is true regarding quantum mechanics, relativity and so on.

If you were consistent with your line of thought, you would have to say that not only red is not an objective property of X, but that X itself lacks any objective reality, nor the electromagnetic spectrum, nor our eyes and brains. No real properties would arise from them, and no causal structured connections would form as universal and necessary. It would be all just an abstract, arbitrary, disorderly entropic idea floating in the realm of nowhere. But then of course, you would need an ordering entity to put that all together, a capricious contingent device, which idealist call god.

So while we can never reach this 'objective reality', one thing we do know is that the reality in which we believe we live is not a representation of this 'objective reality'. We can know that because our own ideas of reality are not consistent with each other, we have no single representation we call 'objective'.

How inconsistent they may be? To have no limits would imply no lawfulness of thought, completely arbitrary chaos in our minds. Not even the surrealistic order of dreams. To doubt external reality on the basis of the subjectivity of our perception inevitably leads us to doubt internal reality as well. There would be no reality at all.

If a body must have extension, then to say a body has extension would be a priori but analytic. But if we are going to use these terms we need to be clear if we are discussing the ideas of Kant or your own.

You are right, Kant does say it's analytic and I can agree. For the purpose of our discussion, however, it's then also relevant to notice that for him, "bodies have weight" is a synthetic proposition, and that synthetic judgements can convey truths. Kant does think there are real bodies out there and that Newton laws did apply to an objective reality, and he defends that concept against Berkeley and Descartes.

I think we have exhausted this one. As I started with saying, if I have learnt that the word that describes grass is 'green' and so have you, then we can both carry on agreeing that 'the grass is green' forever. If in my mind the mental representation is different to yours, how could we ever know it? We might ask each other; 'Is it green like that door?' We both agree it is. 'Is it green like that bit of the spectrum?'. We both agree it is. The sensation we both get when looking at these things is what we have both learnt to call 'green'. And that's fine; as long as we are both using the word 'green' to describe the same range of objects, that is all that is necessary to communicate and function. Our subjective mental representations of 'green' have no consequences.

You see, you are taking the experience itself and placing it in the field of language, but as I said regarding the room experiment, you don't need to utter a word or label something with a name for it to work as a proof of the objective reality of what is perceived by our senses. We can forget the word "red" and focus on the wavelength of the light spectrum, the objective property, which remains constant in two separate instances of perception.

You cannot have the subjective experience of others. What you get is language.

Not exactly. We get communication, which is not reduced to spoken or written language. We can infer the subjective experience of others by relating what we see in their behavior to our own subjective experiences and behavior, as if looking in a mirror.

That there is 'an objective external reality' is surely what you are saying we can know. If you are using the word 'objective' then presumably this is to distinguish it from 'subjective'? But I cannot escape my subjectivity; I cannot subjectively know the objective..

Not escaping my subjectivity would mean not having a relation with the external world. It would be the mind in a bubble, untouched by anything outside of it. But the reality is that there are ways of relating to the external world, called the senses.

Alternatively, if we say that we are not separated from 'external reality' in any respect; then the labels 'objective' and 'subjective' both become meaningless. Then the position would be solipsistic; 'what is in my mind' and 'reality' would be one and the same thing.

That has been precisely your position: that the reality of our minds is all that we have. And you're right: that is solipsism.