That's right!
The view I have is known philosophically as monism. I'm quite sure you will not find my views compatible with any past philosopher, while your own views are consistent with historic philosophical skepticism.
That's right!
The view I have is known philosophically as monism. I'm quite sure you will not find my views compatible with any past philosopher, while your own views are consistent with historic philosophical skepticism.
And yet you are arguing about the possibility/impossibility of knowledge.
My views are consistent with being human. Skepticism is just one of many instruments in my mind's toolbox.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 2:40 pm your own views are consistent with historic philosophical skepticism.
That would be good if true. Just what tool do you have that is not skeptical, that is, that you can rely on to discover unquestioned truth? In your view, is there anything one can know is true with complete certainty and without doubt?
That's a new term for me, so I don't know if I should be delighted or crushed by the suggestion!
Interesting paper. And I think I appreciate the pivotal point - in the explanatory approach, I'm trying to account as fully as possible for how past experience can be explained by, or reliably related to, past data. In prediction, I'm just interested in finding a rule of thumb that reliably tells me what I should expect to happen.Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 11:10 amWhat if we simply abandoned the ideal of 'explanation'? What if we adopt a prospective (predictive), rather than a retrospective (explanatory) world-view?
To explain or to predict?
"truth" is a rather overused phrase. It means very many things to very many people. I am not even sure what you are asking.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:01 pm That would be good if true. Just what tool do you have that is not skeptical, that is, that you can rely on to discover unquestioned truth? In your view, is there anything one can know is true with complete certainty and without doubt?
I'm only looking to understand what you mean, and nothing more.Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 11:29 pm"truth" is a rather overused phrase. It means very many things to very many people. I am not even sure what you are asking.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:01 pm That would be good if true. Just what tool do you have that is not skeptical, that is, that you can rely on to discover unquestioned truth? In your view, is there anything one can know is true with complete certainty and without doubt?
You used the phrase "discover unquestioned truth", and that immediately raises a question in my mind: Why are you looking for "truth" and what would you do with it if/when you find it?
That doesn't really work. That you and I ask questions is a fact. But we ask questions for different reasons.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:05 am Use whatever definition of truth you like, or just, "a correct answer to any question", or, "certainty," about anything.
Uncertainty is ever-present. Errors in judgment (resulting from uncertainty) are ever present. This is known as propagation of error in statistics.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:05 am I am under the impression you are a total skeptic, the view that there is some doubt about everything and that nothing is certain. I'll be delighted for you to convince me I'm wrong, if you care to.
If you really are a total skeptic, I'll not argue with you about it. It's the dominant view of what goes by the name philosophy. My view that certain knowledge is not only possible but absolutely necessary for successful human life is pretty much anathema today.
The interaction between a gas and a sensor is purely electromagnetic. There is no such thing as smell.Skepdick wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2019 9:33 amHas nothing to do with my refutation.bahman wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2019 12:47 pm As you see for electronic nose you need arrays of sensor plus a pattern recognition system: "The expression "electronic sensing" refers to the capability of reproducing human senses using sensor arrays and pattern recognition systems." What the device does at the end is to separate different chemicals from each other depending on how it affects the sensors.
A scale is a device which separates different objects from each other depending on how it affects the sensors also.
Something that affects the sensor in a way that the screen says 0.1 kg is different from something that makes the screen say 0.2kg is different from something that makes the screen say 0.3kg.
You can measure and identify all objects with similar mass.
You can measure and identify all objects with similar smell.
You can measure and identify all objects with similar taste.
NaCl has mass, smell and taste.
The taste of NaCL is not a sum of the tastes of Na and CL
Again. Salt is made of electrons, protons, and neutrons which not of them have smell or taste...Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 10:11 am
Fucking called it!
In addition to "smell", can I just go ahead and assume that you also reject the notions of sight, taste, hearing and touch?
I have a song for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_(Metallica_song)
Then how do you even begin to explain the phenomena of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing except as emergent phenomena?
As I mentioned before the experience of sight, for example, is the result of the sensory system, eyes in this case, and how the brain is structured. We can see a part of the spectrum of light. Snake, for example, can see infrared which we cannot see. That means that light does not have a specific color otherwise all animal including human must have the same sense of light.
That's only one way to detect some chemicals. There are other better methods, such as gas chromatography, atomic absorption spectroscopy, and atomic emission spectroscopy, but no such method has anything to do with taste or smell.
If there isn't, where did the idea come from? Don't you ever smell anything? It doesn't matter how or why you have that experience, whatever its cause or nature, it is that experience the word "smell" identifies.
I think that that is the mind which experiences chemical. Consciousness to me is the ability of the mind.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:39 pmThe human ability to taste and smell is not electromagnetic. It is purely chemical in nature. Smell is how human consciousness detects some different chemicals.
I meant that the material does not have such a property. It just appears to the mind.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:39 pmIf there isn't, where did the idea come from? Don't you ever smell anything? It doesn't matter how or why you have that experience, whatever its cause or nature, it is that experience the word "smell" identifies.
My cat is conscious, but she doesn't have a mind. The mind is the unique kind of consciousness which only human beings have. The mind is the intellectual and rational aspects of human consciousness.
If you mean that chemicals and entities do not have properties that non-living entities can be aware of, that those properties do not exist (have any meaning) sans living organisms, you are right. Things only have properties to conscious organisms, and the properties (or more accurately, the qualities) of entities are what those entities are. If something really had no size, weight, temperature, texture, color, taste, smell, or made no sound, it would not exist. Everything else you know about physical existence is derived from the directly perceived qualities of existence. All of physics, chemistry, and biology are the study of perceived existence as it is perceived, because there is nothing else to study. If what you perceive is not what actually is, all that you think you know is an illusion.bahman wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 3:23 pmI meant that the material does not have such a property. It just appears to the mind.RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:39 pmIf there isn't, where did the idea come from? Don't you ever smell anything? It doesn't matter how or why you have that experience, whatever its cause or nature, it is that experience the word "smell" identifies.