Justification for Foundational Belief

[Angrboda]

The assertions that a conscious thought exists is something which cannot be false. Thus, the assertion that the property of existence exists cannot be false. These are self-evident truths, independent of whatever there is or isn't around them.

I would readily argue that neither are objectively true.

I'll first dispense with the "existence exists" claim, which will in some way mirror my reply to the other. What one means by "exists" is pivotal, and imo, damning. Take for example the notion of a local reality, that underneath the observations of quantum mechanical experiments, there is an underlying reality that is "causing" these events. (I'm being sloppy to avoid research, but I can fully support my point here.) However, we know from experiments concerning Bell's inequalities, that this view is likely false. So if this notion of an "underlying reality" is what one means by "exists," then not only are they possibly wrong, but there is good objective evidence that they likely are wrong. Moreover, if we are mere ideas in the mind of God, to suggest that we are still "existing" in some sense would have to be viewed as rank equivocation of the meaning of the term "exists". More than that, I would argue that our notions of necessity are all based on our beliefs about the nature of our experience; if that experience is not what it seems, all notions of necessity and entailment based on them are essentially invalid. This guts the core of your claim. If what we are claiming is that, "existence exists, which I know because of what I know about existence," your claim has become circular and vacuous.

The second, regarding consciousness, and a "conscious thought existing", again, is a devil in the details problem. I would say that, "perhaps" consciousness and conscious thought exists, but only certain kinds of processes which we loosely refer to by the term consciousness exist, and, ceterus paribus, the properties those processes have form an overlapping but not proper subset of those properties which many — and most who argue as you do — claim that the thing known as consciousness possesses. In sum, what you mean by "consciousness" and what I, as an eliminative materialist, term consciousness, are likely two entirely different creatures; yours, I suspect, possessing magical, supernatural properties which I would doubt, if not outright deny. Recently in a discussion of free will, when asked by one of the participants with which I was at odds, asked me if I denied the existence of consciousness, and upon starting my explanation of my view, he disingenuously paraphrased me as denying that consciousness exists. I don't know from this rather brief exchange what your meaning is, but judging on the odds of prior experience, I likely suspect that, while consciousness exists, that thing which you think consciousness is does not itself exist. So dependent on what you mean by "consciousness exists"(*) in the particular, your statement could range from true, but unremarkable, to wildly and unsupportably false. It all depends on specifically what you think "consciousness" is.

(*) I've equivocated and slid from your "conscious thought exists," largely due to a misreading, but I think the same objections and complaints follow both "conscious thought exists", and "consciousness exists," without any loss of force or cogency, and, the question of the existence of consciousness will yield arguments that are more basic, more compact and clear, equally applicable, and ultimately preconditional to the notion of what "conscious thought exists" means.

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This will end up being tacked on to my previous comment, but that's okay.

I have a little thought experiment which I think puts in relief some of the core problems. We all know that there are three or more spatial dimensions, all things have length, width, and height. If asked to imagine a two dimensional or four dimensional world or object, particularly four or more, we do so with difficulty, and only well with mathematical training. Our brains simply aren't built to think in other than three dimensions (and think well; one might argue we can do two well, but since it's not core to my point, I'll skip the objection for now).

Now, this is a little gedanken that I call "the two dimensional brain in a vat". Let's suppose that instead of three or more dimensions, there are in fact only two spatial dimensions. However, all the same, in this two dimensional universe, life arose, and not only life, but intelligent life. These creatures, the Sporb, have their own sciences and technology and such, analogous to our own in three dimensions. And like us, they are curious about nature, and how their minds work, but are a little more advanced than us, relatively speaking. They have fully mapped and explained their mental apparatus, or at least sufficiently that all questions are mere matters of taking the time to explore the matter — there are no more unsolved questions for basic research. Moreover, they are able to create simulations of their minds, on their computers, living in virtual worlds, that believe they are real minds experiencing reality, just like any true to life Sporb brain. Being naturally curious, one day, a team of scientists poses the question of what it would be like to live in three dimensions, instead of the two that there actually are. So they create a simulated mind in a simulated world, just like the other simulations, except that they add a third dimension, extrapolating somewhat, as no actual three dimensional brain and world exists for them to model it upon.

Now the question to you is, demonstrate to a reasonable level of satisfaction, that you actually are a mind in a three dimensional world, that your notion of "reality" as having three dimensions is in fact properly basic, as opposed to your being a simulation of three dimensionality in a two dimensional universe.