Is there a specific proponent of either that you're currently studying?

(January 14, 2017 at 6:21 pm)Khemikal Wrote: If there are no objects to speak of, there is nothing to speak about.  Should be a short conversation. The variance of experience is not necessarily a question of the existence of a table (or any object). A blind person does not see a table, does this mean that there is no table?

Forget I said anything. Best to assume there is a table and get down to those sorts of nitty gritties much further down the line i don't know what I'm saying... just call it a brain fart

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(January 14, 2017 at 6:25 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Is there a specific proponent of either that you're currently studying?

Well the three philosophers so far discussed are Bertrand Russell, John Locke, and George Berkeley, and roughly it seems locke is direct aligned, Russell is indirect aligned, tending a little towards idealism, and Berkeley is the most idealism aligned but leaning a little towards indirect. That's just how it appears to me on this first pass. Locke is all about primary and secondary properties of objects, and tbh that sounds like a load of bollocks to me... so he's the one I'm most disagreeing with.

(January 14, 2017 at 10:58 am)Emjay Wrote: Another thing I've realised based on this is that since it is my firm conviction that in terms of the mind, phenomenal representations+dynamics and neural representations+dynamics are equivalent... two sides of the same coin...  that each informs and predicts the other, it therefore follows that I should be able to use them interchangeably (and if I can't, it suggests a problem with the theory). Therefore in the interests of clarity all round I think it makes more sense to only speak of phenomenal representations/dynamics in any premises/conclusions that rely on them, by finding common sense examples that everyone can agree on of the phenomenal/NN dynamics I have in mind. In other words, I should never need to mention neurons again... which only serve to confuse an issue... because talking about phenomena is talking about the same thing under my view.

It think your view is close to Rhythm's: that mind isn't a property OF brain function, it IS the brain function. I'd say given that view, then you couldn't allow for any lag, delay, or difference between the neural function and the experience-- i.e. what you are saying would be correct.

Quote:Anyway, onto your question; I make no claims (as yet) as to whether it represents truth. Ultimately I agree with you that we can't know if we're in the Matrix (or suchlike) or not so perhaps a good starting point is to refer to the external world as the environment we find ourselves in regardless of what's outside of that, if anything? As such it appears to me that any claims about 'truth' can only be in reference to that environment... anything outside of that has to be a position of 'scepticism' ie we can't know.

With this I agree. I call it truth-in-context, and Rhythm and I have been arguing about it.

Quote: So if 'absolute' truth is defined as including outside of the environment, then I don't believe it can be known. If it's not defined like that, and only refers to the environment, then I think the question is open to debate, probably coming down to the difference between direct and indirect realism. Does that answer your question, or at least start to? As I said, I'm not entirely sure of my position yet, because I'm essentially just being introduced to the material, but I would expect my stance to develop more strongly over the coming months as I study epistemology.

Well, why don't you go a couple pages back and see whether you prefer my idea of truth-in-context, which seems supported by your last idea, or "just truth" as supported by your first view about the brain and agreed with by Rhythm?


edit:
Also: Welcome back!

Will do but it could take some time... who am I kidding, a lot of time ... because there's a lot to read and apparently philosophy should be read slowly (I wish I'd known that before, because then maybe more of it would have sunk in )... so probably best not to expect a reply tonight. But from first appearances, I like the term 'truth-in-context' and it sounds like the sort of thing I'd agree with... but we'll see

I'll get on that reading properly tomorrow but I'll just leave this thought dump here in the meantime, and see if it help elucidate what I might mean by truth-in-context. Apologies in advance because I have to go neural again All the following is in my opinion:

A neural network allows a system to create a representational model of the stable features of the environment it finds itself in, constrained by and extracted from the sensory data it has access to. So what's 'in here' (the representational model... which we perceive and can still perceive in the absence of sensory data... ie when dreaming, remembering, or imagining) is entirely dependent on what's 'out there' (the environment, as accessed by the senses) for its very existence. So the fact that there's anything in here means there's something stable out there, such as gravity or physical objects... that can be reliably detected by our senses in combination.

So how does 'truth' fit into this? The model is the 'truth' about our environment in terms of what is stable (and limited by our sensory access to it)... so if it were the Matrix and it had this same setup it (the neural network) would statistically extract the same stable features of the world and our experience would be no different. But if it was a different matrix, one with very different stable things, if that were possible... and putting aside the fact that we have specialised sensory equipment evolutionarily 'designed' to detect what we need to reliably detect the stable features of this environment; just pretending we were a neural blank slate for the sake of argument... then our model and perception would be very different. But make no mistake, a neural network is a statistical modelling machine so it can only learn if there is something stable presented to it. So without something stable in an environment there could be no model, therefore if you accept neural networks as the basis for the mind, it implies an 'out there' with stable features.

So from the neural perspective there are two kinds of truth; one is what things are - what stable features of the environment are being represented - and the other is whether they are currently being detected, indicated by activation. Because neurons learn and detect at the same time... the synaptic changes we call learning only happen when a post-synaptic neuron is active, and only in relation to a pre-synaptic neuron that must also be active and providing input to it. So as an aside, in my opinion sleep and dreaming is all about consolidating learning... flooding the network with activation allows synapses to learn more rapidly... but in so doing it also activates the neurons, which then with my view of the equivalence of neural and phenomenal representations means phenomenally experiencing those activations in the form of dreams. Makes perfect sense.

This picture of truth is a complicated though by the differing 'quality' of representations. The physical world is detected and modelled by specialised circuits, such as the visual cortex... that can be consider hard-coded (by evolution) into its very structure (in the sense that it uses specialised neurons etc, with specialised sensitivities) to detect and represent colours, lines, shapes etc. So that part we can consider pretty reliable. But then you have the cerebral cortex... hugely enlarged in humans and with a structure designed for multimodal association... and its size allowing for an exponential increase in 'processing power' because of almost limitless capacity for abstraction (compared to other animals). The same type of learning occurs but the model cannot be considered as reliable because it is far more subjective and abstract (thoughts and ideas etc)... in other words whereas we can pretty much assume that everyone has the same representations of the physical world, we can't make the same assumption about their thoughts and memories... they are plastic and different in everyone. But still learnt and activated (neurally) in the same way. So that's why I have difficulty talking about truth, because from this perspective it only means either what is represented (which can be wrong... less so in the hard wired areas and more so in the association areas) and whether it's currently detected/activated (and to what degree... and in thought you can deliberately activate representations). You only need to play a game of Mafia (please do... sign ups are open /plug ) to realise that you can experience total certainty and still be completely wrong. So that feeling of certainty... of knowing... is no guide to the actual truth, all it means is activation.

I think that'll do for tonight. Hope this helps... rather than hinders in seeing where I'm coming from.

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Actually this is probably not helpful, but it was fun to write so I'll leave it nighty night

(January 11, 2017 at 11:51 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(January 11, 2017 at 10:42 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Little things like gravity, ballistics, orbital mechanics, aerodynamics, friction, and other likewise known and repeatable minutiae. Stuff that, so far at least, have demonstrated such reliability that you can trust your life to them, would certainly notice if they suddenly stopped working, and can be modelled mathematically with exquisite precision.

You know, the things that make up your video games.

None of the things you mentioned are dependent on a particular metaphysical reality, so far as you can demonstrate.  All you know is that you experience things a certain way, and that you can draw certain patterns.

Except that other people can verify my experiences independently. Unless of course you want to argue that I only perceive them doing it, in which case I can safely ignore you as a figment of my imagination. Though why I would imagine a figment whom I imagine wants to insist that I am only imagining him, I can't imagine.

(January 14, 2017 at 11:55 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Except that other people can verify my experiences independently. Unless of course you want to argue that I only perceive them doing it, in which case I can safely ignore you as a figment of my imagination. Though why I would imagine a figment whom I imagine wants to insist that I am only imagining him, I can't imagine.

That's my line!

Seriously, though, let's say that there are people beyond the self, and that they have some common experiences, which must therefore be considered objective. This doesn't really say where the experiences are coming from or why. It doesn't help us distinguish between idealism, materialism, the Matrix or the Mind of God. So that evidence, while it is evidence perhaps of many things, still can't transcend the mundane context, giving us useful insight into the why's and wherefores of reality.

So what does that get you?

@benny. Still reading but I'll just add a little bit of food for thought in case it's relevant to either of us: what about a lucid dream? First you are dreaming as normal and as such you take everything in the dream (the context/environment)... as true. But then you can become aware that you are dreaming.... that is you become aware of information outside the context which changes the rules of the game completely... introduces a relative underlying principle of your reality (living in the dream) that changes how you interact with it in profound (and wonderful) ways. So could that not be likened to an absolute/objective truth that exists outside the context/environment, but which can nonetheless be discovered from within the context/environment? Just food for thought.

(January 15, 2017 at 12:28 am)bennyboy Wrote: This doesn't really say where the experiences are coming from or why. It doesn't help us distinguish between idealism, materialism, the Matrix or the Mind of God.  

Sure it does.

Quote:So that evidence, while it is evidence perhaps of many things, still can't transcend the mundane context, giving us useful insight into the why's and wherefores of reality.

Begging the question of whether or not there -is- any other context, a less-than-worthwhile claim until you can provide some reason to entertain it. The litany of things you casually dismissed give us reason to entertain them. There is no parity between those claims and your own, making it a comparison between well evidenced explanatory propositions that can be assessed by logical means and "whetever benny can make up".

But hey, you might be right, that's a possibility. IT might be that the ideaverse/matrix/mind of god behaves -exactly- like the material universe in which all of that shit is grounded. At which point......what's the point, what's the difference?