Philisophical realization of uncertainty

[Dean Mullen]

1. You cannot be certain the external world exists because the external world if it does exist is only known to exist via the electrical signals which offer its presentation in our head yet we cannot be certain there is an external world in the first place, the external world may be completely in our brains.

 

2. If you cannot be certain the external world exists this opens up the possibility of the external world not existing regardless of it being true or not it is possible and if so then the real world is not the external world yet what is the real world? we do not see the real world if the external world is not the real world yet if we don't see the real world how can we be certain if exits too? how can we be certain there is a such thing of real?

 

3. If nothing is real then I cannot exist and nobody can so perhaps nothing exists.

 

4. I conclude there is no certainty anything exists, "I doubt therefore I am" is not even the only certainty.

[lemur]

Even if "the external world" only existed as part of your subjectivity, how would that change the way it functioned as a seemingly material entity. Would gravity suddenly be controllable by your conscious mind because you "realized" that the world you previously perceived as external was in fact only apparently so?

[Horza2002]

What makes you think that, just because for us to perseve the world via electrical signals, that means the world doesnt exist? And how then do you explain that everyones perception of the physical world is exactly the same (ignoring the normal changes resulting from relativity). If I drop an apple it will accelerate towards the Earth at 9.8ms^-2. If you drop an apple, it will also accelerate at 9.8ms^-2. If lemur drops and apple, it will accerlate at 9.8ms^-2...how do you explain that we all observe the same properties if nothing exists?

[Dean Mullen]

Even if "the external world" only existed as part of your subjectivity, how would that change the way it functioned as a seemingly material entity. Would gravity suddenly be controllable by your conscious mind because you "realized" that the world you previously perceived as external was in fact only apparently so?

 

No, it doesn't mean consciousness can control reality, its not like lucid dreaming. Perhaps this level of reality is somewhat a dream too yet its more rational and if this is true it contains overruling built in sub-conscious rules made to copy the above the realm of reality and so this makes events more and more unlikely to occur the higher the level you are in but the deeper you explore this world the less solid, powerful & vivid these rules become hence irrationalism becomes must more possible and seeing the world vividly becomes much more difficult.

 

What makes you think that, just because for us to perseve the world via electrical signals, that means the world doesnt exist? And how then do you explain that everyones perception of the physical world is exactly the same (ignoring the normal changes resulting from relativity). If I drop an apple it will accelerate towards the Earth at 9.8ms^-2. If you drop an apple, it will also accelerate at 9.8ms^-2. If lemur drops and apple, it will accerlate at 9.8ms^-2...how do you explain that we all observe the same properties if nothing exists?

 

Well first of all I am not saying the real world doesn't exist I am just saying the real world is uncertain to exist also how do I know everyone else experiences the same things? how can I know you exist? okay the only resolution is something that you would never believe in, that of course is solipsism so it doesn't really matter because you wouldn't believe me even if it was true because

 

A: you exist and know it

B: solipsism exists and you are designed to act like you know so I cannot convince you even if you don't exist

[lemur]

What makes you think that, just because for us to perseve the world via electrical signals, that means the world doesnt exist? And how then do you explain that everyones perception of the physical world is exactly the same (ignoring the normal changes resulting from relativity). If I drop an apple it will accelerate towards the Earth at 9.8ms^-2. If you drop an apple, it will also accelerate at 9.8ms^-2. If lemur drops and apple, it will accerlate at 9.8ms^-2...how do you explain that we all observe the same properties if nothing exists?

Basically you are saying that consistency between observations of distinct observers proves that something exists beyond those observers that is common to them. It seems logical to you that if each individual had their own personal reality, these realities would vary in their physical laws, force-strengths, etc. But what if perception and consciousness were malleable enough to render radically diverse experiences similar in perceptual appearance? You could still claim that whatever can be agreed upon by multiple individuals is objective, but then what if multiple individuals were actually part of the same consciousness, which was just conscious of itself from multiple perspectives? Anyway, it is possible to consider all such bizarre possibilities but it doesn't really make any sense to dispute their potential validity because if existence was in fact this variable, and yet people had achieved so much conviction about the factuality of existence as it is assumed and perceived, then how difficult would it be to resist thought-conformity to become completely aware of a radically different mode of perception/consciousness? If nothing else, it would require accepting the status of insanity from the perspective of normalized thought-conformity and this would be to painful for most people to accept. It may, however, explain what is going on with catatonic schizophrenics or other people who are simply labelled and perceived as insane.

 

No, it doesn't mean consciousness can control reality, its not like lucid dreaming. Perhaps this level of reality is somewhat a dream too yet its more rational and if this is true it contains overruling built in sub-conscious rules made to copy the above the realm of reality and so this makes events more and more unlikely to occur the higher the level you are in but the deeper you explore this world the less solid, powerful & vivid these rules become hence irrationalism becomes must more possible and seeing the world vividly becomes much more difficult.

Maybe, but I don't know what would govern such a correlation between "depth" and "fluidity." What do you think would determine such variability?

 

Well first of all I am not saying the real world doesn't exist I am just saying the real world is uncertain to exist also how do I know everyone else experiences the same things? how can I know you exist? okay the only resolution is something that you would never believe in, that of course is solipsism so it doesn't really matter because you wouldn't believe me even if it was true because

 

A: you exist and know it

B: solipsism exists and you are designed to act like you know so I cannot convince you even if you don't exist

You don't have to be convinced of solipsism to explore its implications. I think the main flaw in the way people understand solipsism comes with their assumption that the world they perceive is too complex to be an elaborate figment of their imagination. In solipsism, I think it is possible to perceive every aspect of the universe and your social reality as all being parts of an imagination that is greater even than your own capacity to have circumscribed awareness of it. Your subconscious mind would be generating potential new experiences faster than you could consume them and many would be construed and lost without you even becoming conscious of them. It is bizarre to imagine this, but it is possible to. The most bizarre part of solipsism, imo, is if you would "take the plunge off the deep end" and actually commit to believing in solipsism as the basis for all reality, would it change anything about the way you interacted with other people and physical realities as you perceive them? I don't think it would, because you would be susceptible to the same consequences from your subconscious mind that you were when you didn't perceive those consequences as coming from your mind. In other words, your mind would dominate you as effectively with you being conscious of it as if you interpreted it as independent, external people and realities.

 

 

[Marat]

Both Kant and Wittgenstein offered fairly convincing solutions to the problem of solipsism long ago. Essentially the disproof of the problem involves showing that you could not even be aware of yourself as a continuing platform on which experience is presented to a perdurant subject of experience unless experience were itself sufficiently stable and ordered that it could oppose you and bring you into focus so that you could perceive yourself. Only if the world outside you is sufficiently coherent to offer an order can you have the scaffolding necessary to bring the fugue of your internal sensations into sufficent cohesion that you can even experience yourself as existing. So from this we can establish that our knowledge of our own consciousness is no more privileged than our knowledge of the outside world, but rather, both simultaneously constitute each other.

 

From this argument we can also see that what really amounts to 'the reality of the outside world' for us is the existence of a stable array of sensations coming at us from a source whose stability demarcates it as opposed to our own sensations of our internal states. Once we see that this stability is what we mean by 'there is an external world outside us,' then its existence cannot be in doubt, since everything from our ability to pose an existence question, to use language, or to be aware of ourselves putting the existence of the outer world into question only first becomes possible because the stability of a world opposed to us brought us into focus for ourselves as an existent consciousness visible as a coherent object.

[lemur]

Both Kant and Wittgenstein offered fairly convincing solutions to the problem of solipsism long ago. Essentially the disproof of the problem involves showing that you could not even be aware of yourself as a continuing platform on which experience is presented to a perdurant subject of experience unless experience were itself sufficiently stable and ordered that it could oppose you and bring you into focus so that you could perceive yourself. Only if the world outside you is sufficiently coherent to offer an order can you have the scaffolding necessary to bring the fugue of your internal sensations into sufficent cohesion that you can even experience yourself as existing. So from this we can establish that our knowledge of our own consciousness is no more privileged than our knowledge of the outside world, but rather, both simultaneously constitute each other.

 

From this argument we can also see that what really amounts to 'the reality of the outside world' for us is the existence of a stable array of sensations coming at us from a source whose stability demarcates it as opposed to our own sensations of our internal states. Once we see that this stability is what we mean by 'there is an external world outside us,' then its existence cannot be in doubt, since everything from our ability to pose an existence question, to use language, or to be aware of ourselves putting the existence of the outer world into question only first becomes possible because the stability of a world opposed to us brought us into focus for ourselves as an existent consciousness visible as a coherent object.

Interesting approach; the best "proof of external reality" I've heard yet actually. However, I'm not so convinced that the Kant and Wittgenstein logic you cited is completely logical. Who is to say that an individual's mind couldn't be sufficiently divided and/or steadfast to generate the same level of fixity that we assume can only come from external facts/factors? If you look at how steadfast people can be in regarding institutionalized facets of even their own personality nuances as fixed (e.g. they think being late or argumentative is just in their nature - or they think there personality is fixed as a function of astrology, etc.) - why wouldn't this psychological potential be extendable to an elaborate world-fantasy in which all aspects of their personal universe are regarded as external to their own mind AND incontrovertible to themselves as such despite any amount of critical inquiry and testing according to their own rules (and maybe even the rules of imaginary others in their fantasy social world)?

 

 

 

[Marat]

We can posit the existence of hidden ontological platforms underneath the impressions we experience, but the real question has to be that of scientific positivism: What difference do these make? Thus if my mind were split in half so that one half could fixate the mental states in the other half into determinate succession and thus generate a discernible 'stage of the world' by presenting to it sufficient cohesiveness of its own states to make the self visible to the self, then why not just call the other half of my own mind 'the real, external, physical world'? I could never get underneath it and see that its platform was me-like rather than of an independent material world.

 

Wittgenstein's argument may also be helpful. Consider the example of a person who has always lived alone on a desert island. He can see things around him and experience different moods, memories, and dreams in his own head, but since he never comes into conversation with any independently existing humans, he never has a need to distinguish one from the other, he never needs to make a fuss about what belongs to the objective world -- which he can expect others to share with him -- and what belongs to his inner world, which he just has for himself. So it seems such a person would never have a reason for distinguishing his inner states from the outer world, so the whole issue of self vs. world must only first arise in an intersubjective community of other language users.

 

Also, suppose this person tried to develop a private language for himself. He looks at a palm tree and decides to make a rule that anything which is so tall, so thin, so leafy, and produces fruit like that is a palm tree. But then suppose he later encounters an ambiguous case, like a pine tree. Would he expand his rule for using the word 'tree' to cover that new sensation or would he find it something else entirely? He might want to call it something else entirely, but then what about a bush, or a twig? How would he know he was always using the rule to name things sufficiently alike all 'trees,' since the class is somewhat arbitrary? Why wouldn't he gradually alter his rule without noticing it, since there would be no community of other people also using the language to hold the use of rules steady and to determine which things were sufficiently similar to have the same name and which were not? Gradually his rule use would collapse, since it would lack an intersubjective community of rule users to hold the similarity classes stable and make the arbitrary decisions generating classes as new empirical data appeared. With his rule use unstable, he would soon have no language, or never be able to formulate one in the first place. And if he cannot formulate language, he has no tools to identify himself as opposed to the outside world, or even to formulate any questions about the existence of one or the other.