appolose said:
Final-Fan said:
appolose said:
A. You and I have both said that the senses say nothing, that it depends on what we make of them. So how could they contradict us? It's only our judgements that could contradict, and you and I have said you could amek your judgements whatever you wanted. And what is that bolded objection about? Why is that an objection?
B. If sense data is represented by an unreliable sense of up, then I don't see it in the analogy, as we don't even have that (being completely dizzy and practically blinded). And, unless you mean empiricism to be "Making judgements of of sense data" (which would make the idea that the Matrix is reality an empirical one), I still don't see why you have to chose it, as opposed to any other belief. |
A. If you HAVE a worldview that involves your senses being accurate, and they TELL you something that contradicts another part of your worldview, then PART of your worldview is wrong. I really, really don't see how you disagree with that.
[edit: Wait, wait! "Why is that an objection?" Because you said that the sense data supports ANY WORLDVIEW. If I said "this bridge will support any vehicle", and then a big-ass truck was coming and I said "hold on, let me add extra supports", I've CHANGED THE BRIDGE. My original statement was not true (presuming that I strengthened it because it would have failed). If you CHANGE the worldview from what it previously was (into Matrix, or changing the definition of cheese, etc.) then you FAIL in your argument that the ORIGINAL worldview was supported by the sense data. Thus your assertion "ANY worldview is supported by the sense data" lies undefended against my objection. Don't you see?!]
B. Short version: you don't HAVE to.
"Or, suppose I'm literally "so dizzy I can't tell which way is up". Well, if I'll never stop being dizzy, I just have to pick the direction I THINK is up and see how it works out." You objected to "think" because you thought it implied more than 0% reliability, but in actuality I was only trying to convey that one is getting INPUT as to "up", not that it is at all reliable -- just as we get INPUT as to the world (that may be  ) around us.
All I'm saying is that we are getting INPUT telling us about the world that has appolose, Final-Fan, donathos, etc. etc. living, eating, breathing, and going to VGChartz. Maybe we're in the Matrix, but there's no INPUT to that effect. One could be a bodiless entity dreaming the universe, but there is no INPUT implying this.
The difference between empiricism and all the others is that there are two camps: "this is real" and "this is not real", and the first camp consists solely of empiricism-based worldviews. For me, "this is real" is the default position. That is all.
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A. You can't have a worldview that says your senses are accurate; only one that says your judgements are accurate.
I don't think we're on the same page. The essential issue is that as we both agree sense data is evidence for any worldview (or rather, particular beliefs), this irrevocably means that sense data does not offer a means of establishing the correct worldview/beliefs, amidst equal options. In recognizing this, one should know that any chosen worldview/belief is, therefore, arbitrary (the opposite of a method of truth).
B. I meant "why you have to" as in "the most practical choice" or "most likely to be correct choice".
But we're not getting input that just supports "living, eating, breathing" (VGChartz, essentially). All of our input, sense data, supports anything, because, as we've agreed, it says nothing for itself and our judgements on sense data are arbitrary. In other words the input, sense data, indicates everything, whether it be the Matrix or the real world (and the real world can have several of it's own positions; the moon is made of cheese, for example).
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@ Final-Fan: If I may attempt to paraphrase appolose's point B, I believe he's saying that we are getting INPUT that we're in the Matrix, if we choose to interpret our INPUT in that way.
And that there's no reason not to interpret it that way (or at least, no more or less reason for interpreting our INPUT any given way).
(Is this a good approximation, appolose?)
@ appolose: I believe that if you were to push the reset button on humanity, our generally-agreed upon judgements of sense data would eventually come to about the same places. In this alternate reality, eventually people would decide that the moon was not made out of cheese. (They'd probably have different words for rock, moon, cheese, etc.; hell, they might even use the word "cheese" for the moon's substance, but they'd still distinguish it from the substance that we mean when we refer to cheddar or gouda.)
I believe that such a result would point at the conclusion that our judgements are not arbitrary.
Now, obviously, it's impossible to perform such a test. I imagine though, that even if we could and did, you would call "foul" because I would have made judgements based upon sense data in assessing the results--it would get back to your general skeptical argument, that any attempt I make to prove empiricism relies on empiricism being true, and thus is a circular argument.
So, now I'd like to put the question to you: how did you come to believe that judgements based on sense data are arbitrary, and cannot be trusted?
