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interstellarclerk t1_jar9guh wrote

Reply to comment by Travelerdude in Our emotional experiences reveal facts about the world in the same way our sensory experiences do. Trusting in either requires a leap of faith to some degree. by IAI_Admin

Of course it takes a leap of faith. There’s no good argument against external world skepticism. Sensory experiences do not necessarily logically reflect a world out there - they could very well be akin to a mirage. In fact, this is a core question examined in thousands of years of Eastern philosophy.

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kevinzvilt t1_jard714 wrote

>Sensory experiences do not necessarily logically reflect a world out there - they could very well be akin to a mirage.

This is one of the most basic questions of philosophy famously presented by Descartes. He answers it by saying that even if our sensory experience is a mirage, our experience of the mirage is real, and so there has to be "a" world.

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>There’s no good argument against external world skepticism.

"External world skepticism" denies the very platform of logic on which it stands asking to be dispelled.

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[deleted] t1_jasq328 wrote

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kevinzvilt t1_jaszfhk wrote

Yes, "I think therefore I am" is the famous quote by Descartes which illustrates his ideas about reality. Even if everything is a dream, there remains the fact that he is dreaming, and so there must be something to contain that dream.

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twoiko t1_jat9ppr wrote

Why?

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JohannesdeStrepitu t1_jau7vcf wrote

Other commenters are telling you nonsense about how Descartes argues for an external world.

His argument in the Meditations first establishes, as you and others said, that he exists but then goes from there to establish that he has an idea of an infinite being, an idea that he argues could only come from an actual infinite being that exists independently of his own mind (basically, the idea's content is too much to have ever come from any finite being like himself).

From there, he establishes that this being must have created him and must be good, so would not have created him with mental faculties that would be unable to detect their own errors. Since a systematic falsity of perception would be an undetectable error, our senses must not be systematically false. Therefore, at least some of the external objects we perceive must exist and any mistakes we make about what objects are actually out there must be able to be corrected, as we do in natural philosophy.

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twoiko t1_jatg9jv wrote

Yeah, the argument seems to be that a mind cannot exist without a universe to contain it but that assumes we know the nature of the mind/universe, unless I'm missing something.

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kevinzvilt t1_jauoqk4 wrote

There's not a 100% certainty of the world not being a creation of my own mind or a mirage of some sort, but that conclusion leads to a bit of a dead end in terms of further philosophizing or further anything really... It would involve too many mental gymnastics and isn't a very "evident" idea... Can I suggest a reading?

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disc_dr t1_javs3nj wrote

Not the OP or even the person you've been discussing this with, but I enjoyed Descartes in undergrad philosophy, but regret not digging further into Meditations, so would love a rec from someone more schooled in this realm.

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kevinzvilt t1_javx64j wrote

I've actually not read Descartes myself, and I'm due to! But I was going to suggest Russel's chapter on Idealism from The Problems of Philosophy. Most of everything I said here was really regurgitated Russel.

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disc_dr t1_jaypuwj wrote

Neat, thanks! I named an old car after Russell, and yet, hypocrite that I am, I've never actually had the pleasure of reading him... better late than never, I guess.

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ANightmareOnBakerSt t1_jas223z wrote

There is also no good argument for external world skepticism. It is nothing more than a hypothetical possibility, with zero empirical evidence to support it. Nor, is there any good reason to believe it to be the case.

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corrective_action t1_jaslitx wrote

> It's entirely possible that this train currently running over me is an illusion. There is no objective proof it's really happening

It's basically just a stupid thing for people like lex Fridman to wax eloquent about in podcasts. No one actually can or does live their life as if it might be true

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platoprime t1_jat2t66 wrote

Right?

Bet all these big brains brush and floss to prevent cavities.

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GsTSaien t1_jarb30b wrote

There doesn't need to be evidence against external world skepticism to make a good argument. It just wouldn't make much sense for reality to be made up by just myself right now and nothing to exist. And even if something as extreme as that were the case, what would change about my reality? There is no leap of faith required to trust my senses or emotions, that is literally the default behavior of a human.

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PiersPlays t1_jas9i1a wrote

From a scientific perspective, the world as you experience it is unambiguously made up by your brain. There's no directly experiencing the world. Only taking the electrical and chemical inputs from your sensory organs and interpreting them to create a model of what the world most likely is. It is a flawed and imperfect guess at reality based on the best available data. That is why illusions exist.

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Thelonious_Cube t1_jatyzpf wrote

> There's no directly experiencing the world.

You say that as if there is some possible world where we experience it "directly" and our current world falls short somehow.

That's a pretty odd view - how much more "directly" could we experience the world?

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platoprime t1_jat33ct wrote

>It is a flawed and imperfect guess at reality based on the best available data. That is why illusions exist.

And persistent objective reality is why you can test and find illusions even though they deceive your senses.

> is unambiguously made up by your brain.

Unless you wanna fit the universe inside your brain you're limited to your model but that's very different from external world skepticism.

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twoiko t1_jatagwk wrote

>And persistent objective reality is why you can test and find illusions even though they deceive your senses.

Interesting, I wasn't aware there was proof of what objective reality is like to compare to, other than comparing to other flawed models.

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platoprime t1_jatfwby wrote

Interesting I wasn't aware I said there was proof of what objective reality is like to compare to something other than models.

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twoiko t1_jatgp6z wrote

Then what did you mean by that quote? Are you simply assuming there is an objective reality?

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platoprime t1_jatgzqx wrote

What would proof of objective reality look like to you?

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twoiko t1_jath72t wrote

I don't know that there is such a thing, that's why I ask

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platoprime t1_jathn4p wrote

There is no such thing because you could always be in the Matrix or whatever. It's a stupid thing to take seriously and I doubt many people do.

Let me know when "you" stop paying your bills because objective reality isn't provable. You should check out the incompleteness theorem if you're interested in unprovable truths.

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twoiko t1_jatitdx wrote

I pay my bills because evidence supports the idea that it's what keeps me warm and dry, but that's still a leap of faith I'm making, I don't actually know it to be true.

I know all about the incompleteness theorem, I'm not sure what you mean by unprovable truths, maybe my definition of truth is too rigorous for this conversation.

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platoprime t1_jatj4u3 wrote

It is not a "leap" to accept that paying bills keeps you warm and dry. There might be a infinitesimal sliver of faith required but that is the level of faith required with all truths.

If you know all about incompleteness then you know incompleteness is the fact that we cannot construct a formal logical system that can prove all true statements.

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GsTSaien t1_jas9wdi wrote

It is a slightly flawed interpretation of reality, not a guess. And we use the scientifc method to measure things, even obvious ones, to better understand the world. Our perspective is not limited at all, illusions are fun and they show our brains can be tricked, but we are still pretty damn good at experiencing the world.

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twoiko t1_jasy0oa wrote

What metric are you using to determine how close our experience is to objective reality?

Edit: I'm asking in good faith.

I've never heard that we can find the difference between our experience and objective reality beyond comparing our personal perspectives with each other.

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TimelessGlassGallery t1_jarssm5 wrote

>It just wouldn't make much sense for reality to be made up by just myself right now and nothing to exist.

You're conflating "making sense" with "able to be proven." It doesn't have to "make sense" to you when nothing else can be proven in any way, shape, or form... But that doesn't mean you have to act based solely on what can be proven.

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GsTSaien t1_jas35sc wrote

No, I am not conflating anything. I am just saying that such a ridoculous idea does not require evidence in order to be discarded.

Example: You can't prove I am not actually a raccoon pretending to be a woman online, but the idea is so silly it does not deserve serious consideration.

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VitriolicViolet t1_jb2bz20 wrote

> It just wouldn't make much sense for reality to be made up by just myself right now and nothing to exist.

this is why no one takes Solipsism seriously at all.

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Travelerdude t1_jarcm69 wrote

In that case, are you sure I’m not a bot just responding to this thread, or worse, an AI struggling to achieve consciousness? There’s no good argument against the belief in God to religious believers because there’s no empirical evidence of His existence or lack thereof. I can’t tell if this is all a dream so I will let Descartes spend his life answering that question for me. Whether a dream in the 1600s or a computer simulation now is the same concept just with better internet. Is it a leap of faith for me to accept reality? I can pursue this rabbit hole thinking until I am insane. So for my own sanity I accept that I am real and that the world is not a simulation. I accept I am real and not in an elaborate dream.

Your point, though, is well taken because I have to think of a response. Or am I just collecting data from my confined environment and spewing it out mindlessly?

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WaveCore t1_jarrcuu wrote

You can accept that it's a leap of faith and still not drive yourself crazy over it. We rarely have perfect information on anything in this world, yet we still need to ultimately make conclusions. It's nothing new.

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CaptainAsshat t1_jasxdfj wrote

Then we are acting in order to impact that simulation, and we often think we see the results and consequences of our actions. Still no leap of faith, we are just not looking at what we thought we were.

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twoiko t1_jatb7oh wrote

Why would you think you're looking at anything unless you believe there is something there to look at?

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CaptainAsshat t1_jau6cek wrote

I don't trust I'm looking at something. I just have personal evidence that within my own experience, be it solipsistic or not, that interacting with the things identified by my senses has been effective at modifying my experience, solipsistic or not.

I do not have faith that I'm looking at something, I just do not have any evidence to suggest I am being misled. In the cases that I DO have evidence of being misled, such as optical illusions, I actively do not think I am looking at what I am seeing. And in such cases, no belief or trust is undermined, as it never existed in the first place.

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twoiko t1_jaud2zy wrote

How does any of that relate to the original comment?

>Sensory experiences do not necessarily logically reflect a world out there

Linking your personal experience to the model of reality your mind has created is not in question here.

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CaptainAsshat t1_jaumpdy wrote

I have no issue with the quote you included. My only issue was with the idea that faith is a necessary part of having said sensory experiences. Whether or not it reflects a "real" world is immaterial.

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Thelonious_Cube t1_jatyedk wrote

You might want to look into reliabilism and/or the work of GE Moore.

Descartes is not the endpoint of epistemology.

> There’s no good argument against external world skepticism.

There's also no good reason to accept it

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ronin1066 t1_jatzffw wrote

Not when it's consistently reinforced by everyone around us.

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BobbyLeeBob t1_jav39y8 wrote

The definition of knowledge is justified true belief (Pierce i think). So we don't have acces to the world in itself. But we do create justified arguments and conclusion. Human brains simultanious create the world around us as well as the feeling of being a self (Joscha Bach). I would say that we are bound to belief or faith but we have to back it up by justified logic or feelings.

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tnic73 t1_jarkxuy wrote

you give one example of the failure of a single sensory ability from a certain distance under a certain set of circumstances and you claim that invalidates all sensory experience

nonsense

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