Dear Bruno,
I hope not to affront Lee when I imply that "both of
us" may well accept the 1st person "impression of
reality" as interpreted by the 1st person mind, only
the "objective" encompassing reality - which is not
accesible in its uninterpreted format - is the
problem. Interpreted used as subjectivised.
There is a fine line separating solipsism from
craziness and to 'verify' the existence of an
uninterpreted reality would go beyond our lifetimes -
unless we resort to beliefs of convenience.
John M
--- Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> Le 08-août-05, à 17:49, Lee Corbin a écrit :
>
> > (True, we can also extend sympathy by believing it
> to be utterly
> > true that he is experiencing pain, but I think
> that John and I
> > (and many) are simply not comfortable with
> introducing a "reality",
> > namely, "subjective reality" to cover this simple
> situation.)
>
>
> This amounts to dismissing the first person. I am
> sure you did have
> known to be living some "subjective reality".
> What exactly makes you not comfortable with the
> "other mind" reality?
> Is it the fact that it is not verifiable?
> In that case again, incompleteness theorem can be
> used as a cure,
> because it makes utterly clear that for the sound
> machine there are
> many truth which are guess-able but unprovable.
>
> Is it the fact that once you accept the reality of
> the first person
> experiences, then we are led to that first person
> indeterminacy from
> which the physical laws emerges, assuming comp
> (which you accept)?
>
> You are neither a zombie, nor a solipsist, so what
> is the origin of you
> dismissing the reality of first person experiences.
> I am very curious,
> because, as you say, you are not the only one.
>
> Is it because you do feel some inconsistency with
> your physicalist
> assumptions, once we take seriously the "assumption"
> that others can
> feel genuine pleasures and pains.
>
> Anyway. We are not supposed to search comfort, but
> to reason from facts
> and assumptions, isn't it?
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
Received on Tue Aug 09 2005 - 11:40:43 PDT