Pleasure and Joy

[genkaus]

. . . because increased condescension = better truth?

Nope, just more fun for me.

The problem with all your examples is that each inferred explanation starts with an observable property and a question about what caused it. That's how it works-- you see something, and you explain it. Sometimes, you can't see what causes a property-- then you must infer (or downright guess) what causes it. But in none of these cases do you start with an observable and sufficient cause of observable property X, and start guessing how it's the cause of unobservable property Y.

Get it yet?

That's where you are wrong. Look at the examples again - the inferred explanation starts with phenomena that are both observable and non-observable. You infer the phenomena based other observed properties (the phenomena itself need not be observable) and then you explain what caused it by further investigation.

The black-hole isn't the property. It's the explanation required to explain properties.

And the same applies to experience.

Which did you know first-- that you were actually experiencing, or that the brain was the source of your experiences?

The former.

Just like a computer can't win a game of chess without actual imagination?

Precisely.

Sure I do. I open the fridge and voila! there's my milk. Why are you arguing against that, anyway? When you open your fridge, do you say, "Voila! There's a contained collection of x^n wave functions vibrating in space!" ? No, because the underlying reality isn't important-- if milk were made of Matrix code or the Mind of God, it would still just be milk.

In making any statement like "milk is a collection of x^n wave functions" or "milk is a matrix code" or "milk exists in mind of god" - you are making the assumption of existential reality of milk. You are changing the nature of its existence, but that assumption is made all the same. And that assumption is necessary for existence of knowledge.

What's wrong with self-refutation? Science does it all the time.

That's falsifiability - not self-refutation.

Anyway, you've already established that you base your knowledge of experience on evidence-- like the Cyberboy 2000's ability to modify it's face structure to seem like it expresses emotions.

Not that evidence. Facial contortion is a physiological consequence, not a behavioral one. Given Cyberboy's different physiology, its behavior would be the standard evidence for experience.

What you haven't established is that the evidence you accept is sufficient to make it WORTH taking a gnostic position.

The knowledge that certain behaviors necessarily require experience to be reproduced.


I know that at least some things are not what they seem. Therefore, something seeming to be does necessarily make it so.
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