Angelo Cannata wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:08 pm
Perhaps the following note might help.
There’s no way to get evidence that our existence is not a dream.
So on my view, there's a ton of evidence for this, including the simple difference of phenomenal qualities. The phenomenal qualities of what I consider a dream (and I'm someone who always lucid dreams or who is at least aware that they're dreaming) are completely different than the phenomenal qualities of what I consider waking experience.
What we don't have is proof of such things, but that's because no empirical claims are provable period. That doesn't imply that there is no evidence. Evidence and proof aren't the same thing, and proof isn't something to worry about here. Reasons to believe one possibility over the other possibility is what we should be worrying about.
As a consequence, even the statement itself can be suspected of being just the result of a dream, so, it can’t be taken in turn as an objective statement.
I wouldn't say there can be objective
statements. Statements can be
about objective things, but statements themselves can't be objective. And just to clarify, I use a "mental phenomena" or "located at a creature that has mental phenomena" versus "not mental phenomena" or "not located at a creature that has mental phenomena" distinction as the "subjective" versus "objective" distinction.
It is just a consequence of the hypothesis that we might be in a dream.
That's possible, but possibility isn't sufficient for belief, otherwise you'd believe everything, including all contradictions (for example, you'd both believe that we're in a dream and that we're not in a dream). Again, the thing to do is to focus on reasons to believe one possibility over a competing possibility. "Everything is a dream" has no good reasons for belief. All it has going for it is possibility, but that's not sufficient.