Non-existence

[Ryft]

I understood that he was asking in which form we exist, and I responded [by] stating that we do not exist as nothingness, and do in fact exist.

So when Dagda argues that we exist in either this form or that form, you respond by arguing that we do exist, that we are not nothingness. My point was that such an argument risks the ignoratio elenchi fallacy because his argument never posited non-existence or nothingness. That is to say, you were making a valid argument that was outside the issue in question; upon reaching the conclusion of your argument, we find that it left the issue in question completely untouched. As an additional argument it would be fine, but as a counter-argument it would be fallacious.

Descartes once said, "I think, therefore I am." But he could have gone further to conclude that anything which can be interacted with must exist.

Descartes was addressing epistemology, not metaphysics (in this case, ontology); i.e., it was not about whether those other things exist, but what we can know about their existence. Specifically, his cogito was derived from a methodological skepticism, which amounted to his efforts in developing "a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt." His were epistemological concerns, not ontological ones. (The inseparability of epistemology and ontology would not be realized and formulated until the twentieth century.)

As for our state of existence, though: is it possible that we exist in more ways than one? After all, your dreams exist as surely as a table does, yet they exist in different ways altogether. The dreams are not tangible. They cannot be touched, smelled, felt, seen, or heard; they can only be imagined.

Tables and chairs have tangible existence in spatio-temporal terms only if our space-time manifold is real, an assumption that begs the question (fallacy) on the central issue. If the universe is a simulation, tables and chairs are actually not tangible; they only seem to be, within the simulation. Although we wake up from dreams—we can transcend or step outside of the dreamscape and be conscious of the differentiation—can we "wake up from" a simulated universe? If so, how? This, I believe, is how we would answer Dagda's compelling argument.

(By the way, "touched" and "felt" involve the same sensory apparatus. If you were trying to list our five senses, replace one of those with "tasted.")

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So you appeal to personal experience. Fine. ...

Good form! It was fascinating to watch as you (i) demonstrated that he must appeal to presuppositions informed by personal experience, and then, (ii) that if he thinks such recourse is valid then he must hold that consistently (i.e., that it is valid for others to do so). Well played, sir!

I would say it makes [a significant and important] difference, whether everything and everyone I know ... is actually just an illusion ... or real things and real minds just like me ...

I likewise found it interesting that he thinks it makes no difference whether sensory data is illusory or actually real. If what he thinks is true could actually be false, that makes no difference to him? I must concur with your emphatic rejection of such a stance.

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1. So you are saying this hypothesis is entirely indistinguishable in experience then?

That is what 'empirical equivalence' means, yes. Since a posteriori knowledge is identical under both scenarios, it cannot come into service as epistemic criteria. Under both scenarios, your brain is processing sensory data. The question is whether that data-processing is detecting a real world or an illusory one, which the data-processing itself (a posteriori knowledge) cannot distinguish because the sensory data under both views is identical. "What practical difference does it make," you ask? It makes all the difference in the world. If one has no valid criteria by which to evaluate competing views of reality, then truth can no longer be claimed as corresponding to reality, which does astonishing violence to reason, knowledge, and science.

2. With the computer simulation, are you postulating anything further than what we actually experience?

What it postulates is the necessity of a priori knowledge (because "what we actually experience" is identical under both scenarios), which cuts the ground out from underneath scientism, the atheistic epistemology found in the school of thought championed by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, Michael Shermer and others.

If there's actually no computer, then it's just a semantic thing to say this is a 'computer simulation'

I agree. It is only a mere word game if there is "actually no computer." But you can affirm that there is "actually no computer" only by petitio principii (e.g., given my view, it is false) or ad ignorantiam (e.g., it is false until proven true)—and either recourse simply will not do. The only thing weaker than scientism is fallacies.

If there is a computer, then you are 'postulating further', as I said. It's extra complexity, unnecessary, gratuitous, less parsimonious—and without evidence, I see no reason to believe it. ... If this is just an illusion and I'm a brain in a vat, then would there need to be something generating the illusion? If that's the case then I require evidence for such a generator.

First, the reader should be made to realize that 'unnecessary', 'gratuitous', and 'less parsimonious' are all synonyms, and an argument is not made stronger by filling it out with synonyms. Second, if you think that Dagda's scenario adds either complexity or violates parsimony, then why did you not interact with my rebuttal of both those objections? Third, given the issue of empirical equivalence (the fact that "what we actually experience" is identical under both scenarios), then what evidence would your intellectual assent require? This gets to the heart of Dagda's entire point.

There's evidence for brains ...

Irrelevant. He was addressing minds, not brains. And as I have said elsewhere, showing that X (brain states) causes Y (mental states) does not prove that X and Y are the same thing. Using a causal argument to reach an ontological conclusion is irrational (fallacious reasoning).