robinpike

This topic talks about the relationship of philosophy, science and reality.

I will expound it thru questions:

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4. When can we say that a question become philosophical? Can we say that philosophy is an advance science? If yes then we can conclude that the only task of science is to prove philosophy ( is it correct?).

 

DrP,

 

So I take the opposite task and concentrate on the evidence that there is, that you have a mind, regardless of the fact that I can not know this for sure.

 

But follow me here. For me to think I have a mind, I MUST be capable of developing a theory of mind. The ability to view yourself objectively in this fashion, requires having a mechanism within your brain that is capable of taking "you" and putting that observer in someone else's or something else's "place". It is done in science all the time. The very idea of the models we are talking about requires the ability to have one thing stand for another, to consider what it would "be like" to be the thing under study. This operation requires two minds, one's own, and one's own in the place of the entity under study. Einstein had observers all over the place, that were given hypothetical minds. Science has peer reviewers. Other minds, meant to check reality for the same conditions you found. The whole operation, philosophy, science and reality, requires at it's base a mind that is investigating, recording and manipulating the place, and then only when this mind is assumed to be real, is there any reason to continue the investigation. Then the question of whether someone else has a mind, like yours, can be asked...but the fact that there is science (requiring peer review) and language (requiring a second party, or a internal construct,) to share your thoughts with and philosophy (requiring the consideration of other people's thoughts, by definition), and a reality to share with these other minds, already has the question of whether other minds exist, answered in the affirmative.

 

Regards, TAR

for instance, if one scientist makes some progress, but allows for the fact that he/she stood on the shoulders of giants to make such strides...the fact the other scientists existed, and had not only minds, but exceptional ones, is a given

Perhaps the following example shows how science and philosophy can be different.

When we consider quantum mechanics, science is able to model reality with QM maths, matching what is observed with what is calculated by the model. Note that science doesn't have to answer the question: How does the mechanism of quantum mechanics work? Or what is QM?

If we do ask, 'How does quantum mechanics work?', this perhaps leads to philosophical reasoning. For example, on trying to explain QM, we note that it has aspects that are very difficult to explain in physical terms, such as quantum spin, quantum entanglement, etc.

So philosophically, we could use the inexplicable physical aspect of QM to arrive at the conclusion that we exist in a simulation! ...since a simulation could have QM in it without the necessity to have a physical mechanism for that QM (which of course reality must do).

The rock, though, will not believe itself to be human.

 

Believe whatever you want - I'm not going round pages and pages with you repeating the same stuff... it's obvious. It's why I said "oh, never mind" with an implied face palm when I first entered the conversation as I knew you would just stick to your guns and just repeat the same stuff without actually bringing any actual substance to the discussion other than "I don't believe it".

 

I'll ask one more time - "HOW can you prove you are not a simulation"? Just saying "It's obvious, I don't believe that I am" is not proof that you are not.

And to make it clear on the above point, it is not about the likelihood (or belief) of what we are, but what can be proved absolutely.

Wouldn't a programmed simulation not follow identical responses to repeated identical stimuli?

 

I would think that could be one test.

Just to be clear, if you mean day by day the 'person simulator' experiencing the same stimuli, bear in mind that the 'person simulator' would be a learning program, in the same way that when we learn, we may change our response to the same stimuli.

 

We aren't computers.

But in the example given, how would the computer know that it is not a living thing?

what is this insistence that everything could be an hallucination?

 

it can't be

 

There is no way such a situation would work out. And it certainly makes no sense.

Take this example. All the inputs that feed into a computer inside a driver-less car are recorded and these are then input into another computer sitting in a lab somewhere, running the same driver-less car software. Can that computer tell that it is not in a driver-less car, controlling it down the road?

Suppose all the inputs that a person receives during their life were to be recorded and then played back to a computer running a 'person simulator'. Would that 'person simulator' think that they are alive and real? How would the 'person simulator' know that they are a simulator and not a living creature?