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donathos on 31 March 2009
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appolose said:
donathos said:
appolose said:

Yes, all the sensory data would be relying on other sensory data (making it useless).

And we certainly wouldn't be left with nothing (even if we were, that does not at all detract any of the assumption out of it).  For instance, you could decide that flipping a coin can determine truth (while operating under the assumption that there is a coin and you can tell which side it lands on).  Which, as a method of truth, is no less founded as empiricism.

 

When you say "we certainly wouldn't be left with nothing," I think that your example is undermined by "while operating under the assumption that there is a coin and you can tell which side it lands on."

I mean, if we grant the coin... why not grant the other things that our senses inform us of?

And besides, when I say we'd be left with absolutely nothing, I really mean it.  I mean that... our very use of language is predicated on learning that has all taken place within the context of sensory data; we can use the word cat because we've seen a cat.  (Or, a blind person has touched a cat, or heard it.  Or, we have concepts of imaginary things by making internal comparisons with things that we have experienced.)

Whatever reality we ascribe to, or can imagine, must all be predicated on our experience of sensory data.  Without that data, there'd only be void.

 

That was just one method that needed that assumption to work; that does not imply a universal need for it (nor does it somehow mean we have to grant all sensory data the assumption).  Another method would simply be "Anything that I currently think is true is true".

 And how do you know our language/meaning comes from sensory data (as opposed to other possibilites)? Also, you say that we get all our language/meanings from sensation, and as you mentioned we can make incorrect judgements about reality, so I must ask your method for determining which of your judgements are true or false.

I don't really see why I would need to answer such a battery of questions in order to defend the proposition that sensory data is valid.

You're responding to an argument that I've made that, presumably, you've read; in doing so you relied on your sight.  Your answer was formed by typing, relying on your touch.  In short, by having this conversation with me, I believe you're making a thousand micro-decisions that are all based on this: at heart, you trust your senses.

More than that, I presume you live your life accordingly.  I don't expect that anyone who took seriously any idea like "anything that I currently think is true is true" would survive very long on planet earth; reality would disabuse them of that notion swiftly and brutally.  If you drive, you likely pay great heed to your senses.  When you talk to people, you hear them and act accordingly.  When you eat, if something tastes rotten, maybe you spit it out.

So, I feel like you're asking me to prove something that should be readily apparent and impossible to ignore.

I suspect that ultimately you want me in the following position: all of my "evidence" for believing in the senses is based on sensory evidence, so therefore it's circular, or fails according to Godel, or something like that.

But really, I find sensory data to be axiomatic, and my "proof" for that is that any attempt to "disprove" sensory data will necessarily rely on sensory data, even if you proclaim that it isn't so.  (Like I've said, in "proclaiming" anything, you're using language--and if you've ever observed teaching, or if you've ever been taught anything, then you'll know that teachers and students rely on their senses.  That's why Helen Keller had such a rough go at it, at first.)

Beyond that, I find this sort of discussion as pertinent as Zeno's paradoxes; it's perhaps entertaining to discuss Achilles and the Tortoise, but the question of "does motion exist?" doesn't actually need much asking.