(January 18, 2016 at 10:02 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:(January 18, 2016 at 3:17 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: By comparing what she reports to what others report, of course. It's not that difficult. You're overthinking it.
Exactly, which undermines the point of Brian37. Intersubjective results are still subjective experiences for the individuals having them. Radical empiricism of the type Brian37 advocates isn't truly objective in the way that he demands for it to count as knowledge.
As a group, the subjectivity can be diminished proportional to the size of the reporting group -- especially given the paucity of our knowledge about the workings of the brain.
In short, this is a gaps argument you're mounting. Until more data are collected, dismissing either option -- or another possiblity which may arise as our knowledge expands -- seems premature, to say the least.
The evidence to hand, however, supports the hypothesis that subjective experience comports fairly closely with objective reality, absent mind-altering drugs or other outside influences.
