You argue that philosophy is like maths because it is rigorous, uses logic, and isn’t empirical science. However, mathematics operates on universally agreed upon axioms. Because the axioms are agreed upon, the proofs are definitive. In philosophy, the axioms are exactly what is being debated so it isn’t as rigorous.
Formal logic only guarantees that if the premises are true, the conclusion logically follows, it doesn’t guarantee that the premises are actually true in reality.
I don’t know why you keep citing “pattern matching” here, it’s the wrong term to use. My complaint that “Anyone can claim anything which can’t be proved” is a complaint about soundness. You can use flawless first-order logic to mathematically manipulate absolute nonsense, but it doesn’t make the conclusion sound.
It is a mistake to treat materialism as a scientific theory… it is a background assumption of science.
I’m not doing that, I’m just citing more evidence for it being the case and employing Occam’s Razor.
If we look at the cosmological timeline, the universe existed for billions of years before biological organisms evolved. If reality requires the “collective perception of many agents” to exist, how did the universe exist before agents evolved to perceive it? You fail to explain how non-physical “agents” can exist prior to the physical organisms they supposedly conjure into reality.
The rock would exist because the crowd is there to have that perception or the potential for that perception.
If a rock exists in the dark on an uninhabited planet purely because it has the potential to be perceived if someone were there, then the rock possesses objective, independent existence outside of any actual observer’s mind. This directly contradicts your earlier premise that experience/perception must come first.
I am not stretching the definition… In idealism, consciousness and all of your other definitions are left intact, except the order of operations is reversed like this.
This is literally changing the definition. In biology and common parlance, consciousness is defined as an emergent property or function of a biological brain. By redefining it as an independent, pre-existing, reality-generating force that creates biology, you have entirely changed the ontological nature of the word.
I appreciate philosophy has value, helps us form hypotheses and that we all hold unquestioned background assumptions but I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to convince me of idealism without strong evidence. This argument has been going on for centuries with no resolution so we might as well agree to disagree. At the end of the day, it’s empirical science vs. untestable speculation.
In philosophy, the axioms are exactly what is being debated so it isn’t as rigorous.
That’s not true. There are rules of logical inference that can be taken as axioms. These axioms are the reason why, as you stated, if all the premises in a valid argument are true then the conclusion must also be true.
Formal logic only guarantees that if the premises are true, the conclusion logically follows, it doesn’t guarantee that the premises are actually true in reality.
Of course. But this still gives us a lot to talk about. If someone makes an argument, they must defend the premises. If you disagree with the conclusion of the argument, you must find a flaw with one of the premises, etc
This is literally changing the definition. In biology and common parlance, consciousness is defined as an emergent property or function of a biological brain
This is not the definition, so I’m no changing anything. In all my years of studying this topic in an academic setting, the definition I have always come across is something like “subjective inner experience; the feeling of what it’s like to be something.” What you are doing here is you are including your preferred ontology into the very definition of consciousness itself, so when someone disagrees you claim they are wrong by definition. Its a sneaky move but its not going to work here
but I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to convince me of idealism without strong evidence
Can you convince me of materialism with some strong evidence? You can’t. And don’t say that I’m reversing the burden of proof here, because that misses the point: namely, that these are not ideas that you necessarily can prove using evidence. They are primarily philosophical/metaphysical views, rather than scientific hypotheses, and so they must be evaluated using different tools.
If we look at the cosmological timeline, the universe existed for billions of years before biological organisms evolved. If reality requires the “collective perception of many agents” to exist, how did the universe exist before agents evolved to perceive it?
This is a good critique, because it addresses the logical coherence of the views being discussed here. It is, in other words, a philosophical critique.
Recall that in my first message about this that I wasn’t trying to defend idealism, I was just saying that Bsit and you were trying to talk past one another. That was because his defense was philosophical and your rebuttal was scientific. But now there has been a shift, and your rebuttals are philosophical in nature. So now everyone seems to be on the same page.
This is exactly where I was trying to get things, so as far as I’m concerned my work is done here.
You argue that philosophy is like maths because it is rigorous, uses logic, and isn’t empirical science. However, mathematics operates on universally agreed upon axioms. Because the axioms are agreed upon, the proofs are definitive. In philosophy, the axioms are exactly what is being debated so it isn’t as rigorous.
Formal logic only guarantees that if the premises are true, the conclusion logically follows, it doesn’t guarantee that the premises are actually true in reality.
I don’t know why you keep citing “pattern matching” here, it’s the wrong term to use. My complaint that “Anyone can claim anything which can’t be proved” is a complaint about soundness. You can use flawless first-order logic to mathematically manipulate absolute nonsense, but it doesn’t make the conclusion sound.
I’m not doing that, I’m just citing more evidence for it being the case and employing Occam’s Razor.
If we look at the cosmological timeline, the universe existed for billions of years before biological organisms evolved. If reality requires the “collective perception of many agents” to exist, how did the universe exist before agents evolved to perceive it? You fail to explain how non-physical “agents” can exist prior to the physical organisms they supposedly conjure into reality.
If a rock exists in the dark on an uninhabited planet purely because it has the potential to be perceived if someone were there, then the rock possesses objective, independent existence outside of any actual observer’s mind. This directly contradicts your earlier premise that experience/perception must come first.
This is literally changing the definition. In biology and common parlance, consciousness is defined as an emergent property or function of a biological brain. By redefining it as an independent, pre-existing, reality-generating force that creates biology, you have entirely changed the ontological nature of the word.
I appreciate philosophy has value, helps us form hypotheses and that we all hold unquestioned background assumptions but I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to convince me of idealism without strong evidence. This argument has been going on for centuries with no resolution so we might as well agree to disagree. At the end of the day, it’s empirical science vs. untestable speculation.
That’s not true. There are rules of logical inference that can be taken as axioms. These axioms are the reason why, as you stated, if all the premises in a valid argument are true then the conclusion must also be true.
Of course. But this still gives us a lot to talk about. If someone makes an argument, they must defend the premises. If you disagree with the conclusion of the argument, you must find a flaw with one of the premises, etc
This is not the definition, so I’m no changing anything. In all my years of studying this topic in an academic setting, the definition I have always come across is something like “subjective inner experience; the feeling of what it’s like to be something.” What you are doing here is you are including your preferred ontology into the very definition of consciousness itself, so when someone disagrees you claim they are wrong by definition. Its a sneaky move but its not going to work here
Can you convince me of materialism with some strong evidence? You can’t. And don’t say that I’m reversing the burden of proof here, because that misses the point: namely, that these are not ideas that you necessarily can prove using evidence. They are primarily philosophical/metaphysical views, rather than scientific hypotheses, and so they must be evaluated using different tools.
This is a good critique, because it addresses the logical coherence of the views being discussed here. It is, in other words, a philosophical critique.
Recall that in my first message about this that I wasn’t trying to defend idealism, I was just saying that Bsit and you were trying to talk past one another. That was because his defense was philosophical and your rebuttal was scientific. But now there has been a shift, and your rebuttals are philosophical in nature. So now everyone seems to be on the same page.
This is exactly where I was trying to get things, so as far as I’m concerned my work is done here.