(March 22, 2016 at 8:47 am)little_monkey Wrote:(March 20, 2016 at 7:45 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Not really, because the truth is embedded in the semantics. If a duck is a thing which experiences, then by definition you can be guaranteed that a duck experiences. Of course, we have no way of knowing whether a duck actually experiences, and cannot "correlate" quacking with actual experiences of the duck, at least from a gnostic position.
But you have no guarantee that ALL ducks experience exactly the same. One duck might see a piece of bread as delicious; another duck might see less than delicious, almost as disgusting. You have no way of knowing that. So you saying, "by definition you can be guaranteed that a duck experiences", you're just speculating. And without empirical evidence, according to my definition, you have a crackpot theory.
Fair enough. If you want to stipulate that all ducks, which may experience by definition (without actually being known to experience) could experience differently from each other, then I will accept that. This reinforces the idea that even given a particular organism, we cannot know what (or if) it experiences-- which is one of my primary points in this thread.
