It seems to me (oh no, subjectivity!) that believing in an objective
reality is doing the same epistemic move as Bruno's belief in
arithmetic realism and Godel's Platonism. Isn't belief in "objective
reality" really by definition simply saying that there's something
CAUSING ALL of our subjective observations? If there is no objective
reality, then it begs the question, "Where do all our subjective
observations come FROM?" Surely not from other subjective observations,
by definition. If you don't believe in objective reality, then your
alternatives are: 1) try to explain repeatability of observations in
some weird indirect way and go crazy, or 2) just throw up your hands
and be agnostic and give up any motivation for science other than
pragmatism, which results in a pretty dismal outcome, the same outcome
as the 20th century philosophers: despair.
Tom Caylor
-----Original Message-----
From: John M <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>
To: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>; everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com
Sent: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 08:38:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: subjective reality
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 - 12:35:19 PDT