RE: Non-existence
August 9, 2009 at 11:36 am
(This post was last modified: August 9, 2009 at 9:09 pm by Jon Paul.)
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: If there is (in this hypothesis) a computer, then you are posulating furhter as I said; it's extra complexity, unnecessary, gratuitous, less parsimonious - and without evidence I see no reason to believe it.Just like postulating an actually independently existing reality outside of your mind is something extra and far more complex than not doing so.
(August 8, 2009 at 9:32 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: By the fact that I don't know of any evidence that I'm a special case in anyway in my consciousnes.You have no evidence of any other consciousness. You have only your own conscious experience.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: I am personally aware of my own consciousness, yes. I'm not personally aware of others, yes.You are not even aware if others have a consciousness, or are philosophical zombies, with the exact mechanisms of brain chemistry as you, and therefore mechanically human behaviour, just like you, but simply no conscious mind.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: There's evidence for brains. Not God.Brain chemistry would be present in philosophical zombies just as well, and it would be the very source of the mechanical human behaviour of that philosophical zombie. All that would not be present is a conscious mind.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: If I get hit on the head hard I lose consciousness. I am an example of that, and the fact that other people appear to experience the same thing when they get hit hard on the head; means that I see no reason to believe they are somehow an exception, and somehow aren't conscious unlike myself.You still haven't given pointed out reasons why you aren't yourself a philosophical zombie, a wholly mechanical and unconscious product of brain chemistry. No actual reason why there even is such a thing as consciousness.
You only have knowledge, which is properly basic to your personal and qualitative experience, that you aren't a philosophical zombie, namely your conscious experience as a mind. Just like a person has knowledge of Gods existence properly basic to his own personal and qualitative experience and knowledge.
You have no evidence others aren't philosophical zombies, because you have no knowledge of their conscious experience, only of their brain chemistry which might as well produce a philosophical zombie acting mechanically without a conscious mind.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: God however? No evidence for him at all (that I know of anyway - unless you can enlighten me?)I can, and have done so in my own thread, where I have presented two arguments for Gods existence which remain unrefuted.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: But if I was a 'Matrix-style brain in a vat' then that would be reality, so reality would still exist. It would still be a semantic problem again.It would be the illusion of the reality, not an ontologically existing reality. Being a brain in a vat, all other persons would not have minds, either.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Outside our minds? Oh, well I thought it was just about whether reality exists or not. Because if our minds are real and they're all that actually exists then out minds are all that actually is, our minds are actuality, or 'reality'.But the question still remains if the reality our minds experience and interpret is an ontic reality outside of the mind, or only an ontic reality within the mind and thereby not an ontologically indepdently existing reality, but an illusion of such an ontic reality outside of the mind, really confined to your own mind.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: 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.Brain-in-a-vat was only a metaphor. The only generator you would know (in the case of idealism) would be your own mind. It would be all that can be known to exist.
And if we were to speculate, in that case, about an "outside reality" (such as a generator), we would again be positing an ontic reality independent of the mind.
(August 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: If this is really all just a computer simulation then...Well, the computer simulation was a metaphor to posite the same idea as idealism, namely the proposition that what we experience in our own mind does not represent an ontic reality outside the mind.
...Then it really is all just a computer simulation! That's reality. In other worlds reality still exists - it's just different to what we think it is.
And in that case, it's an illusion, and that's all we can know reality consists of. That doesn't mean we know that that is all that reality REALLY consists of, independent of our mind. It means we cannot know anything more than the illusions of our mind, and that we cannot know that an ontic reality exists apart from our mind.
At least, there is no scientific evidence which can tell you so.
There are other forms of justification for such an affirmation (properly basic beliefs in your epistemic structure).
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton