But in regards to dreaming, there is simply no way to know that you aren't dreaming.
No. There is no way to be certain that we're not dreaming. The distinction is critical, and your continued equivocation between knowledge and certainty is a major sticking point here.
Even that quote (I forget who said it) stated that he dreamt he was a butterfly. Upon waking he couldn't tell if he was himself dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreamning it was human.
Zhuangzi. A damn fine philosopher -- rare in ancient China.
You can only know it's not real after waking, but during the dream you believe it to be real. Given that, you cannot know you are currently not dreaming.
Of course I cannot know I'm dreaming under these circumstances. You're stipulating that I in fact am dreaming, so any belief I have that I'm not would be false and a false belief by definition cannot be knowledge. But you have not addressed the case where I believe I'm not dreaming and that belief is true. Not have you broached the question of justification at all. And yeah, I know you think the justified true belief definition of knowledge is dead, but you have yet to prove that so I'm going to keep using it until you do, or at the very least until you can provide an alternative definition of your own to discuss.
I don't see how that quote by Kant really adds anything here.
Dove flight = human knowledge
Air = human senses and reason
Air resistance = fallibility of human senses and reason
Dove trying to fly in vacuum = human trying to gain knowledge in vacuum
It doesn't mater whether physicists disagree on that point (assuming others people even exist which can't be known). The point is they can't prove that isn't the case.
Science is not in the business of providing proof. Ever. Science is strictly an empirical endeavor which can only push theories to ever-higher degrees of confidence through cumulative evidence and experiment. And science is the most fantastically successful intellectual pursuit the human race has ever undertaken. This uncertain foundation you so bewail is sturdy enough to feed us and light our homes and cure our illnesses and transmit our words to each other from opposite ends of the earth. What has radical skepticism accomplished in comparison?
And the Gettier problem essentially drove the nail in the coffin for justified true belief, to the point that JTBF isn't a sufficient basis to evaluate knowledge anymore.
This is simply not an accurate description of the state of the philosophical field on JTB. It is very much a live theory. You can't just say "Gettier problem" to dismiss it -- not like you could say, oh, "Gödel's theorems" to dismiss an allegedly complete and consistent mathematics. If you want to claim that the Gettier problem sinks JTB as we're using it in this thread, you're going to have to put forward an argument for that claim. And you can't, because it's irrelevant. Even insofar as it is a problem for JTB, it's a problem for an aspect of JTB that has nothing to do with the issues of empiricism and confidence that we're talking about here. Do you disagree that it's irrelevant? Okay, then show me how it's relevant.
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I don't know enough to say that. Philosophy is pretty much just a foreign language to me at this point.
That interpretation of the quote makes sense now.
You haven't proven the belief that you aren't dreaming is true. You have no evidence to support it. It's quite frankly a guess based on nothing. You can believe whatever you want but don't know if it's true, you just think so.
As for what radica skepticism has done it talks of what it can do. Bringing someone a sense of tranquility by doubting everything and not passing judgment on anything. Saying that the problems in the world are the result of beliefs and opinions and the solution is to extinguish them. It's quite similar to Buddhism in some regards. Also states that we suffer by labeling things good and bad and suffer in their pursuit and absence.
But like I said before, the Gettier problem has rendered JTB a poor definition of knowledge. BAsed on your replies you havent been sufficient to overturn that. Not to mention the other problems with epistemology.
And in regard to science, bare in mind that it has also achieved a great deal of problems in addition to the gifts (maybe even more than the good). That seems to be what uncertainty brings
You haven't proven the belief that you aren't dreaming is true. You have no evidence to support it. It's quite frankly a guess based on nothing. You can believe whatever you want but don't know if it's true, you just think so.
The evidence is that my waking experience exhibits continuity and consistency. Today I have been awake for hours and I have clear memories of all that time in which events follow logically one after the other. Furthermore, the events of today follow logically from the events of yesterday, and so on all the way back for years. Every day, every hour, every minute I experience that is continuous and consistent with the past constitutes evidence that I am experiencing something real and external to me. The probability that I am simply hallucinating things that happen to be consistent gets lower and lower, and the probability that the consistency is the result of reality grows higher and higher. This is how evidence works. This is what evidence is.
If you're flipping a coin over and over again, and you keep getting heads, this constitutes evidence that the coin you're flipping is double-headed or otherwise non-random. It is always possible that you're flipping a fair coin and you just happen to get heads every time. You can never prove that the coin is double-headed (assuming this is your only method of testing it). But the probability of the coin being fair drops by half with every flip. The probability of a fair coin getting heads is 1/2 on the first flip. The probability of it getting two heads on the first two flips is 1/4. The probability of it getting three heads on the first three flips is 1/8. And so on and so forth. It does not take very many flips before the probability of the coin being fair is extremely low, and you can say with a pretty high degree of confidence that the coin is double-headed. After a hundred heads, the probability of it being fair is about the same as the probability of being struck by lightning this year... on five separate occasions. At that point, it would be pretty asinine to say, "But you have no proof the coin is double-headed. You can't know it is. You're just guessing it is based on nothing." Yes, you can; yes, you do; and no, you're not.
As for what radica skepticism has done it talks of what it can do. Bringing someone a sense of tranquility by doubting everything and not passing judgment on anything. Saying that the problems in the world are the result of beliefs and opinions and the solution is to extinguish them. It's quite similar to Buddhism in some regards. Also states that we suffer by labeling things good and bad and suffer in their pursuit and absence.
Nothing you're saying constitutes a valid argument for radical skepticism. You are recommending the theory on the basis of incidental effects it may have on our mental state. Theists sometimes similarly recommend belief in God on the basis that it might make you feel better about yourself and the world. This is called the appeal to consequences, and it has no bearing on whether or not radical skepticism or theism is justified. Maybe believing that there's pirate gold buried in my backyard would make me feel better, but if in fact there isn't, I ought not to believe that there is. Maybe believing in God would make me feel better, but if in fact God does not exist, I ought not to believe that he does. Maybe disbelieving reality would make me feel better, but if in fact reality does exist, I ought to believe that it does.
I might also bring up a second problem with this recommendation, that severing attachments is more likely to lead to or exacerbate depression than bring contentment. But that's more a matter of psychology than philosophy.
But like I said before, the Gettier problem has rendered JTB a poor definition of knowledge. BAsed on your replies you havent been sufficient to overturn that.
The concept of intensional statements renders the Gettier problem a poor objection to JTB.
No, I'm not going to tell you why. I'm just going to state that your failure to respond adequately to this claim demonstrates that it is correct.
And in regard to science, bare in mind that it has also achieved a great deal of problems in addition to the gifts (maybe even more than the good). That seems to be what uncertainty brings
You're missing the point -- and unwittingly conceding it. The point is that science has achieved. If empirical reasoning and the knowledge it generates were useless, then science could no more develop nuclear weapons than it could smallpox vaccines.
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As for what radica skepticism has done it talks of what it can do. Bringing someone a sense of tranquility by doubting everything and not passing judgment on anything.
Really? Because between your two threads you seem to be exhibiting crippling indecision as a result of following this method of thinking, rather than tranquility.
As for what radica skepticism has done it talks of what it can do. Bringing someone a sense of tranquility by doubting everything and not passing judgment on anything.
Really? Because between your two threads you seem to be exhibiting crippling indecision as a result of following this method of thinking, rather than tranquility.
Actually I haven't followed the method. I'm still judging things as good and bad and seeking judgment.
You haven't proven the belief that you aren't dreaming is true. You have no evidence to support it. It's quite frankly a guess based on nothing. You can believe whatever you want but don't know if it's true, you just think so.
The evidence is that my waking experience exhibits continuity and consistency. Today I have been awake for hours and I have clear memories of all that time in which events follow logically one after the other. Furthermore, the events of today follow logically from the events of yesterday, and so on all the way back for years. Every day, every hour, every minute I experience that is continuous and consistent with the past constitutes evidence that I am experiencing something real and external to me. The probability that I am simply hallucinating things that happen to be consistent gets lower and lower, and the probability that the consistency is the result of reality grows higher and higher. This is how evidence works. This is what evidence is.
If you're flipping a coin over and over again, and you keep getting heads, this constitutes evidence that the coin you're flipping is double-headed or otherwise non-random. It is always possible that you're flipping a fair coin and you just happen to get heads every time. You can never prove that the coin is double-headed (assuming this is your only method of testing it). But the probability of the coin being fair drops by half with every flip. The probability of a fair coin getting heads is 1/2 on the first flip. The probability of it getting two heads on the first two flips is 1/4. The probability of it getting three heads on the first three flips is 1/8. And so on and so forth. It does not take very many flips before the probability of the coin being fair is extremely low, and you can say with a pretty high degree of confidence that the coin is double-headed. After a hundred heads, the probability of it being fair is about the same as the probability of being struck by lightning this year... on five separate occasions. At that point, it would be pretty asinine to say, "But you have no proof the coin is double-headed. You can't know it is. You're just guessing it is based on nothing." Yes, you can; yes, you do; and no, you're not.
As for what radica skepticism has done it talks of what it can do. Bringing someone a sense of tranquility by doubting everything and not passing judgment on anything. Saying that the problems in the world are the result of beliefs and opinions and the solution is to extinguish them. It's quite similar to Buddhism in some regards. Also states that we suffer by labeling things good and bad and suffer in their pursuit and absence.
Nothing you're saying constitutes a valid argument for radical skepticism. You are recommending the theory on the basis of incidental effects it may have on our mental state. Theists sometimes similarly recommend belief in God on the basis that it might make you feel better about yourself and the world. This is called the appeal to consequences, and it has no bearing on whether or not radical skepticism or theism is justified. Maybe believing that there's pirate gold buried in my backyard would make me feel better, but if in fact there isn't, I ought not to believe that there is. Maybe believing in God would make me feel better, but if in fact God does not exist, I ought not to believe that he does. Maybe disbelieving reality would make me feel better, but if in fact reality does exist, I ought to believe that it does.
I might also bring up a second problem with this recommendation, that severing attachments is more likely to lead to or exacerbate depression than bring contentment. But that's more a matter of psychology than philosophy.
But like I said before, the Gettier problem has rendered JTB a poor definition of knowledge. BAsed on your replies you havent been sufficient to overturn that.
The concept of intensional statements renders the Gettier problem a poor objection to JTB.
No, I'm not going to tell you why. I'm just going to state that your failure to respond adequately to this claim demonstrates that it is correct.
And in regard to science, bare in mind that it has also achieved a great deal of problems in addition to the gifts (maybe even more than the good). That seems to be what uncertainty brings
You're missing the point -- and unwittingly conceding it. The point is that science has achieved. If empirical reasoning and the knowledge it generates were useless, then science could no more develop nuclear weapons than it could smallpox vaccines.
Note that your evidence for not being in a dream isn't actually evidence that you aren't in a dream. Dreams can have continuity with reality and things in them can feel real, and you have no way to test it. Memory is also poor evidence since it is not only fallible and subject to editing by your mind, but you can also remember dreams. Your evidence doesn't lead to an external reality, it just proves consistency (which dreams can have).
Your probability doesn't speak to those small chances though. Sure you could conclude that it's an unfair coin but you cannot really do that. You could be caught in the rare chance that it's all heads. There is no reason to treat it as unfair, you have no confidence to treat it so because you are stuck in that small probability event. The same goes for your "is ought" statements. You are assuming one isn't the case even though you cannot prove it. Just because something could be a certain way doesn't mean you should believe it so, especially when there isn't evidence for it. God and reality have no evidence for either one, so your points fail.
Note that your evidence for not being in a dream isn't actually evidence that you aren't in a dream.
You have no evidence that you are in a dream.
Dreams can have continuity with reality and things in them can feel real, and you have no way to test it.
That's rather the point, isn't it? Your claim isn't falsifiable. There is inherently no way to prove a negative of your statement, to disprove that we are in a dream. We could all be dreaming right now. It could just be you dreaming right now. There's no way of disproving that, no way of proving the negative, because it's not a falsifiable claim.
HOWEVER, you are trying to draw a false equivalency between "I cannot disprove this claim" and "this claim is true." And they're not the same thing.
And they're definitely not the same thing in your case, because you know you have absolutely no basis for believing you're dreaming, aside from wanting this to be true for some strange reason. Thus,
You have no evidence to support it. It's quite frankly a guess based on nothing. You can believe whatever you want but don't know if it's true, you just think so.
this applies to you.
In fact, that's what really gets me about this thread. See, I've had lucid dreams. I've had dreams in which I knew for a fact that I was dreaming. Never, not once, in any of those dreams did I react with dread or fear or despair based on that fact. In every single one, I reacted in the same way: "Oh cool, now I can do whatever I want."
Which brings me back to what I've been saying in this thread and in the other one: you keep making threads asking people how to deal with your existential dread, yet you have legitimately no reason whatsoever to feel it, and every time someone calls you out on this, you consistently push back against their argument, even though you have no evidence or logic - in other words, no validity - with regards to your position.
So, therefore, you're actively going out your way to feel existential dread. Why would you do that? Don't you think your efforts would be better spend on answering that question?
Your probability doesn't speak to those small chances though. Sure you could conclude that it's an unfair coin but you cannot really do that. You could be caught in the rare chance that it's all heads. There is no reason to treat it as unfair, you have no confidence to treat it so because you are stuck in that small probability event.
If you think this is the case, I would like to invite you to come gambling with me. We can bet on coin flips. I'll provide the coin. And I'll always bet on heads. But I'll let you go double or nothing for as long as you like. Hell, not even double or nothing -- I will wager my entire winnings on every flip no matter what you put up on your side. If you think there's no reason to treat the coin we flip as unfair, if you think there's always a chance you might win all your money back, surely this must sound like a great deal, right?
But if, over the course of this little game, you begin to feel a growing suspicion that you are being cheated -- that's your confidence in the coin's fairness falling. That's the result of all the empirical evidence you're observing. And it's a good thing. It's the rational thing. Nobody is going to look at a guy who lost all his money betting against a two-headed coin and think, "Oh, this is a wise fellow, I should listen to what he has to say concerning the deepest mysteries of life and existence."
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Note that your evidence for not being in a dream isn't actually evidence that you aren't in a dream.
You have no evidence that you are in a dream.
Dreams can have continuity with reality and things in them can feel real, and you have no way to test it.
That's rather the point, isn't it? Your claim isn't falsifiable. There is inherently no way to prove a negative of your statement, to disprove that we are in a dream. We could all be dreaming right now. It could just be you dreaming right now. There's no way of disproving that, no way of proving the negative, because it's not a falsifiable claim.
HOWEVER, you are trying to draw a false equivalency between "I cannot disprove this claim" and "this claim is true." And they're not the same thing.
And they're definitely not the same thing in your case, because you know you have absolutely no basis for believing you're dreaming, aside from wanting this to be true for some strange reason. Thus,
You have no evidence to support it. It's quite frankly a guess based on nothing. You can believe whatever you want but don't know if it's true, you just think so.
this applies to you.
In fact, that's what really gets me about this thread. See, I've had lucid dreams. I've had dreams in which I knew for a fact that I was dreaming. Never, not once, in any of those dreams did I react with dread or fear or despair based on that fact. In every single one, I reacted in the same way: "Oh cool, now I can do whatever I want."
Which brings me back to what I've been saying in this thread and in the other one: you keep making threads asking people how to deal with your existential dread, yet you have legitimately no reason whatsoever to feel it, and every time someone calls you out on this, you consistently push back against their argument, even though you have no evidence or logic - in other words, no validity - with regards to your position.
So, therefore, you're actively going out your way to feel existential dread. Why would you do that? Don't you think your efforts would be better spend on answering that question?
I'm not going out of my way to fell this. The replies that I have heard before in regards to this are just not good answers to the issue I raise. The threat of this being a dream and wasting any effort that you do is crippling. It's a thought that what you do has no real impact on things around you. No real consequences. Kind of like a game. Granted it is limited according to the type of game and whatnot, but there aren't any real consequences to your actions. There is no danger in killing all the NPCs because you know they don't have real feelings or pain. But then again, anything done in there doesn't carry over to reality. Any success is rather empty. All your effort is wasted on what was essentially nothing but pixels. If the data gets wiped then there is no proof. The same applies to a dream. You can dream you achieved success only to find out that when you wake it was all an illusion. All your effort wasted. That is if you don't realize you are dreaming, in which case if you do you are stuck with the painful knowledge that nothing you do matters and neither does any "one". Your point about being joyful is incorrect in this sense if you happen to be in a lucid or being aware of dreaming. Since none of it is real then all the joy is sucked out.
Then again, typing all that out does make me think there are cracks in all of it. My powers of analysis when it comes to philosophy are rather poor so I just get stuck on things over and over. Of course reading about the probability fallacy helps (just because something is possible doesn't make it certain). Plus appeal to ignorance. I don't have evidence I am dreaming, but that seems to matter little. The distinction between dream and reality seems clear, but upon realizing that pain can be felt in a dream it blurs that. Truth be told, this never bothered me until now. I could tell the difference between the two.
You have yourself admitted you have literally no reason or evidence to believe that you're dreaming, nothing at all to point to reality being unreal over real, and yet your question is how can we not be completely crippled by dread over this, and every single response that points out have you have exactly zero reason to feel this way has been met by you persisting in the argument that you should - despite, once again, having NO evidence or reason to feel this way by your own admission.
So I would argue, in light of this, that yes, you are going out of your way to feel this, given just how much effort you are committing towards defending it. You may not necessarily want to feel this absolute dread, but that just raises the same question I've been asking - if you don't want to feel this, why are you so vehemently defending it, even when you yourself have acknowledged that there's no basis behind it?
And you STILL haven't addressed my question about monsters under the bed. Do you live in crippling fear of them too? If not, then take note of your inconsistency.
The replies that I have heard before in regards to this are just not good answers to the issue I raise.
No, they're fine answers to the statements you have made. Nothing you have said in this thread hasn't been gainsaid. Your bullheaded refusal to accept that you have no argument doesn't mean you have an argument.
The threat of this being a dream and wasting any effort that you do is crippling.
A. You have yourself admitted you have no reason to think this.
B. Why is it crippling?
It's a thought that what you do has no real impact on things around you. No real consequences. Kind of like a game.
Do you feel crippling existential despair when you play games?
But then again, anything done in there doesn't carry over to reality. Any success is rather empty. All your effort is wasted on what was essentially nothing but pixels. If the data gets wiped then there is no proof.
Is in a Magic forum. Complains about games.
You can dream you achieved success only to find out that when you wake it was all an illusion.
You don't know you are dreaming, nor do you have any reason to think that you do, and therefore your fear that you are has absolutely no basis on evidence or reason.
Your point about being joyful is incorrect in this sense if you happen to be in a lucid or being aware of dreaming. Since none of it is real then all the joy is sucked out.
Uh, I responded to that realization that I was in a dream by ******* teleporting. Lucid dreaming is AWESOME.
My powers of analysis when it comes to philosophy are rather poor so I just get stuck on things over and over.
So, with that in mind, maybe instead of making more posts and more threads repeating the same exact things - things that we've already pointed out are invalid, that you've already pointed out have no evidence or reason to back them, and that you yourself acknowledge have holes in them - maybe you should instead STOP doing that, STOP making more posts and threads on the subject, and instead START looking into why you want so desperately for someone to tell you that feelings of despair and hopelessness are correct.
Because I think you're starting with these feelings and then trying to rationalize them after the fact. But I could be wrong. Really, you should look into this on your own.
Of course reading about the probability fallacy helps (just because something is possible doesn't make it certain). Plus appeal to ignorance. I don't have evidence I am dreaming, but that seems to matter little.
No, it matters a LOT. There is zero reason to live in absolute stark terror of something you have no evidence or reason to think exists or is real. When I brought up the possibility of monsters under your bed, you didn't seem to take that threat seriously. This indicates that you are perfectly capable of skepticism. Maybe you should apply that same skepticism to the dream hypothesis.
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Is hard to look into something on your own. Considering that the origins of our feelings are prone to confabulation it's hard to know what it is.
Then don't do it on your own. There are professionals in the field of psychology who are trained to help you find the answers to such questions.
The trouble in that regard is that I need a philosopher to assist with this matter. Psychologists are rather inept in such matters as my personal experience has shown. So quick to prescribe a medical solution when that isn't the problem. It's almost like a fall back when they are out of their depth in regards to serious life questions that others have posed.
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Zhuangzi. A damn fine philosopher -- rare in ancient China.
Of course I cannot know I'm dreaming under these circumstances. You're stipulating that I in fact am dreaming, so any belief I have that I'm not would be false and a false belief by definition cannot be knowledge. But you have not addressed the case where I believe I'm not dreaming and that belief is true. Not have you broached the question of justification at all. And yeah, I know you think the justified true belief definition of knowledge is dead, but you have yet to prove that so I'm going to keep using it until you do, or at the very least until you can provide an alternative definition of your own to discuss.
Dove flight = human knowledge
Air = human senses and reason
Air resistance = fallibility of human senses and reason
Dove trying to fly in vacuum = human trying to gain knowledge in vacuum
Clear now?
Science is not in the business of providing proof. Ever. Science is strictly an empirical endeavor which can only push theories to ever-higher degrees of confidence through cumulative evidence and experiment. And science is the most fantastically successful intellectual pursuit the human race has ever undertaken. This uncertain foundation you so bewail is sturdy enough to feed us and light our homes and cure our illnesses and transmit our words to each other from opposite ends of the earth. What has radical skepticism accomplished in comparison?
This is simply not an accurate description of the state of the philosophical field on JTB. It is very much a live theory. You can't just say "Gettier problem" to dismiss it -- not like you could say, oh, "Gödel's theorems" to dismiss an allegedly complete and consistent mathematics. If you want to claim that the Gettier problem sinks JTB as we're using it in this thread, you're going to have to put forward an argument for that claim. And you can't, because it's irrelevant. Even insofar as it is a problem for JTB, it's a problem for an aspect of JTB that has nothing to do with the issues of empiricism and confidence that we're talking about here. Do you disagree that it's irrelevant? Okay, then show me how it's relevant.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
That interpretation of the quote makes sense now.
You haven't proven the belief that you aren't dreaming is true. You have no evidence to support it. It's quite frankly a guess based on nothing. You can believe whatever you want but don't know if it's true, you just think so.
As for what radica skepticism has done it talks of what it can do. Bringing someone a sense of tranquility by doubting everything and not passing judgment on anything. Saying that the problems in the world are the result of beliefs and opinions and the solution is to extinguish them. It's quite similar to Buddhism in some regards. Also states that we suffer by labeling things good and bad and suffer in their pursuit and absence.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Epistemology#Problems_In_Epistemology
But like I said before, the Gettier problem has rendered JTB a poor definition of knowledge. BAsed on your replies you havent been sufficient to overturn that. Not to mention the other problems with epistemology.
And in regard to science, bare in mind that it has also achieved a great deal of problems in addition to the gifts (maybe even more than the good). That seems to be what uncertainty brings
If you're flipping a coin over and over again, and you keep getting heads, this constitutes evidence that the coin you're flipping is double-headed or otherwise non-random. It is always possible that you're flipping a fair coin and you just happen to get heads every time. You can never prove that the coin is double-headed (assuming this is your only method of testing it). But the probability of the coin being fair drops by half with every flip. The probability of a fair coin getting heads is 1/2 on the first flip. The probability of it getting two heads on the first two flips is 1/4. The probability of it getting three heads on the first three flips is 1/8. And so on and so forth. It does not take very many flips before the probability of the coin being fair is extremely low, and you can say with a pretty high degree of confidence that the coin is double-headed. After a hundred heads, the probability of it being fair is about the same as the probability of being struck by lightning this year... on five separate occasions. At that point, it would be pretty asinine to say, "But you have no proof the coin is double-headed. You can't know it is. You're just guessing it is based on nothing." Yes, you can; yes, you do; and no, you're not.
Nothing you're saying constitutes a valid argument for radical skepticism. You are recommending the theory on the basis of incidental effects it may have on our mental state. Theists sometimes similarly recommend belief in God on the basis that it might make you feel better about yourself and the world. This is called the appeal to consequences, and it has no bearing on whether or not radical skepticism or theism is justified. Maybe believing that there's pirate gold buried in my backyard would make me feel better, but if in fact there isn't, I ought not to believe that there is. Maybe believing in God would make me feel better, but if in fact God does not exist, I ought not to believe that he does. Maybe disbelieving reality would make me feel better, but if in fact reality does exist, I ought to believe that it does.
I might also bring up a second problem with this recommendation, that severing attachments is more likely to lead to or exacerbate depression than bring contentment. But that's more a matter of psychology than philosophy.
The concept of intensional statements renders the Gettier problem a poor objection to JTB.
No, I'm not going to tell you why. I'm just going to state that your failure to respond adequately to this claim demonstrates that it is correct.
See the problem here?
Such as...?
You're missing the point -- and unwittingly conceding it. The point is that science has achieved. If empirical reasoning and the knowledge it generates were useless, then science could no more develop nuclear weapons than it could smallpox vaccines.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
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Actually I haven't followed the method. I'm still judging things as good and bad and seeking judgment.
Note that your evidence for not being in a dream isn't actually evidence that you aren't in a dream. Dreams can have continuity with reality and things in them can feel real, and you have no way to test it. Memory is also poor evidence since it is not only fallible and subject to editing by your mind, but you can also remember dreams. Your evidence doesn't lead to an external reality, it just proves consistency (which dreams can have).
Your probability doesn't speak to those small chances though. Sure you could conclude that it's an unfair coin but you cannot really do that. You could be caught in the rare chance that it's all heads. There is no reason to treat it as unfair, you have no confidence to treat it so because you are stuck in that small probability event. The same goes for your "is ought" statements. You are assuming one isn't the case even though you cannot prove it. Just because something could be a certain way doesn't mean you should believe it so, especially when there isn't evidence for it. God and reality have no evidence for either one, so your points fail.
That's rather the point, isn't it? Your claim isn't falsifiable. There is inherently no way to prove a negative of your statement, to disprove that we are in a dream. We could all be dreaming right now. It could just be you dreaming right now. There's no way of disproving that, no way of proving the negative, because it's not a falsifiable claim.
HOWEVER, you are trying to draw a false equivalency between "I cannot disprove this claim" and "this claim is true." And they're not the same thing.
And they're definitely not the same thing in your case, because you know you have absolutely no basis for believing you're dreaming, aside from wanting this to be true for some strange reason. Thus,
this applies to you.
In fact, that's what really gets me about this thread. See, I've had lucid dreams. I've had dreams in which I knew for a fact that I was dreaming. Never, not once, in any of those dreams did I react with dread or fear or despair based on that fact. In every single one, I reacted in the same way: "Oh cool, now I can do whatever I want."
Which brings me back to what I've been saying in this thread and in the other one: you keep making threads asking people how to deal with your existential dread, yet you have legitimately no reason whatsoever to feel it, and every time someone calls you out on this, you consistently push back against their argument, even though you have no evidence or logic - in other words, no validity - with regards to your position.
So, therefore, you're actively going out your way to feel existential dread. Why would you do that? Don't you think your efforts would be better spend on answering that question?
But if, over the course of this little game, you begin to feel a growing suspicion that you are being cheated -- that's your confidence in the coin's fairness falling. That's the result of all the empirical evidence you're observing. And it's a good thing. It's the rational thing. Nobody is going to look at a guy who lost all his money betting against a two-headed coin and think, "Oh, this is a wise fellow, I should listen to what he has to say concerning the deepest mysteries of life and existence."
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I'm not going out of my way to fell this. The replies that I have heard before in regards to this are just not good answers to the issue I raise. The threat of this being a dream and wasting any effort that you do is crippling. It's a thought that what you do has no real impact on things around you. No real consequences. Kind of like a game. Granted it is limited according to the type of game and whatnot, but there aren't any real consequences to your actions. There is no danger in killing all the NPCs because you know they don't have real feelings or pain. But then again, anything done in there doesn't carry over to reality. Any success is rather empty. All your effort is wasted on what was essentially nothing but pixels. If the data gets wiped then there is no proof. The same applies to a dream. You can dream you achieved success only to find out that when you wake it was all an illusion. All your effort wasted. That is if you don't realize you are dreaming, in which case if you do you are stuck with the painful knowledge that nothing you do matters and neither does any "one". Your point about being joyful is incorrect in this sense if you happen to be in a lucid or being aware of dreaming. Since none of it is real then all the joy is sucked out.
Then again, typing all that out does make me think there are cracks in all of it. My powers of analysis when it comes to philosophy are rather poor so I just get stuck on things over and over. Of course reading about the probability fallacy helps (just because something is possible doesn't make it certain). Plus appeal to ignorance. I don't have evidence I am dreaming, but that seems to matter little. The distinction between dream and reality seems clear, but upon realizing that pain can be felt in a dream it blurs that. Truth be told, this never bothered me until now. I could tell the difference between the two.
So I would argue, in light of this, that yes, you are going out of your way to feel this, given just how much effort you are committing towards defending it. You may not necessarily want to feel this absolute dread, but that just raises the same question I've been asking - if you don't want to feel this, why are you so vehemently defending it, even when you yourself have acknowledged that there's no basis behind it?
And you STILL haven't addressed my question about monsters under the bed. Do you live in crippling fear of them too? If not, then take note of your inconsistency.
No, they're fine answers to the statements you have made. Nothing you have said in this thread hasn't been gainsaid. Your bullheaded refusal to accept that you have no argument doesn't mean you have an argument.
A. You have yourself admitted you have no reason to think this.
B. Why is it crippling?
Do you feel crippling existential despair when you play games?
Is in a Magic forum. Complains about games.
You don't know you are dreaming, nor do you have any reason to think that you do, and therefore your fear that you are has absolutely no basis on evidence or reason.
Uh, I responded to that realization that I was in a dream by ******* teleporting. Lucid dreaming is AWESOME.
So, with that in mind, maybe instead of making more posts and more threads repeating the same exact things - things that we've already pointed out are invalid, that you've already pointed out have no evidence or reason to back them, and that you yourself acknowledge have holes in them - maybe you should instead STOP doing that, STOP making more posts and threads on the subject, and instead START looking into why you want so desperately for someone to tell you that feelings of despair and hopelessness are correct.
Because I think you're starting with these feelings and then trying to rationalize them after the fact. But I could be wrong. Really, you should look into this on your own.
No, it matters a LOT. There is zero reason to live in absolute stark terror of something you have no evidence or reason to think exists or is real. When I brought up the possibility of monsters under your bed, you didn't seem to take that threat seriously. This indicates that you are perfectly capable of skepticism. Maybe you should apply that same skepticism to the dream hypothesis.
The trouble in that regard is that I need a philosopher to assist with this matter. Psychologists are rather inept in such matters as my personal experience has shown. So quick to prescribe a medical solution when that isn't the problem. It's almost like a fall back when they are out of their depth in regards to serious life questions that others have posed.