Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

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Veritas Aequitas
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Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

I argue that the mind-independent reality and things as claimed by Philosophical Realism are merely speculations based on faith and Assumptions.
  • Philosophical Realism is ... about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
Why Philosophical Realism is Illusory
viewtopic.php?t=40167
This is due to a REALITY-GAP of time and distance between the supposedly mind-independent thing and the human mind of the perceiver.

Because the P-Realists' basis is illusory, they do not have any solid grounds to deny that Morality is Objective, i.e. via a human-based moral FSK

Can any P-realist here demonstrate how they can prove absolute mind-independence of things in reality?
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

On the other hand, what is claimed by anti-philosophical-realism is based on real experiences justified empirically via a specific human-based FSK via the TOP-DOWN approach.

TOP-DOWN Approach -Anti-Philosophical Realism
Instead of starting from the BOTTOM from merely speculation, and faith without proofs, the TOP-DOWN Approach starts from real experiences that can be verified and justified empirically to be real based on a Framework and System of Reality [FSR] which is human-based.

As such, the moon and table we experienced are real because the science-physics-FSR (FSK) said so, as conditioned upon 13.7 billions years of conditions since the Big Bang.

After philosophy had failed [miserably] to prove the existence of a mind-independent reality,
Kant adopted the TOP-DOWN approach [note his Copernican Revolution] starting with human experiences; what is real is goes as far as real empirical evidences can support it within a FSR/FSK.
Whatever is speculated [not proven yet] as possibly real must have the possibility of empirical elements to be experienced. [awaiting empirical evidence to be verified]
This is the Phenomenal that is conditioned upon a FSK, thus CANNOT be mind-independent [as claimed by P-realists].

Therefore what is real as experienced and possible to be experienced cannot be mind-independent noumenal as claimed by P-realists.

It is obvious, we have more confidence to rely on what is experienced as real [despite its weaknesses] than to rely on that mind-independent thing which is speculated and assumed by P-realist to be real.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Iwannaplato »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 6:21 am Can any P-realist here demonstrate how they can prove absolute mind-independence of things in reality?
I think an interesting question is whether you, for example, should assume there are other minds. You experience people's behavior. But you don't experience their subjective experiencing. Do you believe in other minds? And if so on what grounds? IOW I am asking should other minds (as in 'the problem of other minds') be consider noumena or not? If yes, do you deduce their existence and why can't we do this with other noumena? If no, why aren*t they considered noumena?
Skepdick
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 6:46 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 6:21 am Can any P-realist here demonstrate how they can prove absolute mind-independence of things in reality?
I think an interesting question is whether you, for example, should assume there are other minds. You experience people's behavior. But you don't experience their subjective experiencing. Do you believe in other minds? And if so on what grounds? IOW I am asking should other minds (as in 'the problem of other minds') be consider noumena or not? If yes, do you deduce their existence and why can't we do this with other noumena? If no, why aren*t they considered noumena?
This line of reasoning is inconsequential because realism never portrays objectivity as independence from the observer's (e.g my own) mind.

It portrays objectivity as independence from ALL minds. Presumably this extends to independence from ALL non-human minds too.

This dividing line between minds and reality is unquestionable in the realist's mind; so it's not all too different from Cartesian dualism.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Iwannaplato »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 7:20 am
Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 6:46 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 6:21 am Can any P-realist here demonstrate how they can prove absolute mind-independence of things in reality?
I think an interesting question is whether you, for example, should assume there are other minds. You experience people's behavior. But you don't experience their subjective experiencing. Do you believe in other minds? And if so on what grounds? IOW I am asking should other minds (as in 'the problem of other minds') be consider noumena or not? If yes, do you deduce their existence and why can't we do this with other noumena? If no, why aren*t they considered noumena?
This line of reasoning is inconsequential because realism never portrays objectivity as independence from the observer's (e.g my own) mind.

It portrays objectivity as independence from ALL minds. Presumably this extends to independence from ALL non-human minds too.

This dividing line between minds and reality is unquestionable in the realist's mind; so it's not all too different from Cartesian dualism.
You're talking about realism. I was asking an anti-realist how HE deals with other minds.
Skepdick
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:06 am You're talking about realism. I was asking an anti-realist how HE deals with other minds.
What is there to deal with?

Just go with Quine's answer to "What exists?"

Everything.

Whether everything that exists is "real" is not an interesting question to anti-realists.


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/onto ... ommitment/
Quine and his followers claim not to understand this substantial property of existence, a property that is conceptually independent of the quantifiers (Quine 1948; van Inwagen 1998). For Quine, the existence predicate, ‘Exists(x)’, should be defined simply as ‘∃y y = x’. Thus, for Quine, to say that some thing doesn't exist is to say that some thing is such that no thing is identical with it—a logical contradiction. But, Quine claimed, whether or not to accept the Meinongian account of existence is a sideshow when it comes to the question of ontological commitment. In responding to the fictional Meinongian Wyman, Quine offers “to give Wyman the word ‘exist’. I'll try not to use it again; I still have ‘is’” (Quine 1948: 23). That is to say, theories are ontologically committed to Ks if they entail that there are Ks, whether or not they entail that Ks exist. Indeed, Quine could also have given the (radical) Meinongian the word ‘is’ and any other predicate that purports to impose an ontological restriction on the quantifier; for what is central to Quine's criterion is that one cannot quantify over entities without incurring ontological commitment to those entities. To use quantifiers to refer to entities while denying that one is ontologically committed is to fail to own up to one's commitments, and thereby engage in a sort of intellectual doublethink. Quantification is the basic mode of reference to objects, and reference to objects is always ontologically committing.
Iwannaplato
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Iwannaplato »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:08 am Whether everything that exists is "real" is not an interesting question to anti-realists.
He is talking about what is real and what is not all the time.
I am asking him if he considers other minds speculative, the way he does other noumena, and why or why not. It's fits his regularly talking about what is not real, for example, and it fits the topic of the thread as a specific case. And you're framing of the question above is a strawman slide away from my post, and probably his also.
I am not sure what his answer should/would be. Nor am I exactly sure what my antirealist answer is. I'm exploring. I don't always do that, but I was here.
It's quite regular that you misinterpret or ignore the context or come with something irrelevant while performing these little reframes.
So, I am going to ignore you completely from here on out.
Skepdick
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Re: Mind-Independent Things are Speculations & Assumptions

Post by Skepdick »

Iwannaplato wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 2:34 pm
Skepdick wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:08 am Whether everything that exists is "real" is not an interesting question to anti-realists.
He is talking about what is real and what is not all the time.
It's called the use-mention distinction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80 ... istinction
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