Thelemic Materialism (Thelemic Philosophy)
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@Los said
"See? Avshalom Binyamin has provided us a great example of someone making conclusions based on his fantasies about my positions instead of bothering to read and comprehend my actual position and draw conclusions based on what I say."
That's why I asked instead, which you also complained about.
Now, to my question:
@Legis said
"What is that standard?
Your unstated axiom lies at the beginning of the logic for creating that standard."
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@Legis said
"Los,
"Sufficient evidence": "Sufficient" is a subjective-opinion word. Anyone can claim that evidence is "sufficient" for them. Personally, I'm fine with that. I think that's all that ever really happens anyway."
Obviously anyone can say that they find X, Y, or Z "sufficient" to support a claim (they "can" do this in the sense that it's physically possible for them to make such a statement).
However, there are indeed objective standards by which we evaluate whether evidence is sufficient or insufficient to support claims: these standards depend on the particular situation (on the exact claim, the specific evidence, and how the person making the claim is attempting to connect the evidence to the claim). For that reason, we can't sum these standards up into little pithy sayings that you can stick on your fridge, but we can -- for each and every instance of claims, evidence, and argument -- draw objective conclusions about whether arguments and evidence are sufficient to support the claims.
These answers aren’t always easy, so people may disagree – in the same way that people may “disagree” over the answer to a calculus problem that each one of them got different answers for.
If we all did a calculus problem, and we each got a different answer, obviously each one of us would be able to “show our work,” and could say, “But I did the work right here, and my work convinced me!!” but only one of us would be able to show the work properly proceeding through the steps necessary to solve the problem.
It would be no use to object, “But “properly proceeding” is subjective! There’s no way to know who’s right!” because there is a way to know who’s right.
Take a simple case as illustrative. Let’s say you have a friend who can’t find his keys, and he tells you, “I think it’s most likely that aliens took my keys.” You ask why he thinks this. He says, “I had a daydream about aliens yesterday, and I think that was really a transmission from the mother ship to my mind, telling me that I’m being watched.”
Obviously, this guy is convinced by that argument. He’s “showed his work” and he finds it sufficient to support his claim. But is it actually sufficient? Of course not. A daydream can’t be evidence for what happened to one’s keys. Even if it were true that the daydream were a communication – and there’s no reason to think that it is – there still would be no valid way to conclude that whoever sent the communication also took the keys.
This guy is objectively wrong in thinking that he has sufficient evidence to support that claim, just like the kid in class who has the wrong answer is objectively wrong that his work sufficiently demonstrates the answer he volunteered. It doesn’t matter that the kid can “show his work” and it doesn’t matter that the guy can provide an argument that he thinks is sufficient…they’re both demonstrably wrong.
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@Los said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"You've already defined "exists" as being material, so you're basically saying, "the material is material, and stuff that is not material is not material.""I've never defined "exists" as being "material." The definition I gave of "exists" is "manifesting in a detectable way."
So, to give an obvious example, the ideas I have for my next short story aren't "material" in the sense that I can't wrap my knuckles on them, but these ideas obviously do manifest in a detectable way (even if they're only detectable by me until I write them down)."
So, something you imagine, exists, because you can detect it?
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Los, I'm noticing that you keep dancing around such an axiom with Av. Only, you don't seem to realize that it's what I'm talking about.
It would go something like this:
"Everything that exists manifests itself in a detectable way."
Response? Correction?
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@Legis said
"Los, I'm noticing that you keep dancing around such an axiom with Av. Only, you don't seem to realize that it's what I'm talking about.
It would go something like this:
"Everything that exists manifests itself in a detectable way."
Response? Correction?"
Exactly. He's caught!
Since "manifestation in a detectable way" inherently interfaces the senses, and (according to Los' position today) this is the basis of how something is known to "exist," by his own words, his position is on par with subjective idealism.
Los, I suggest you go read Bishop Berkeley and brush up on your 17th Century immaterialism.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So, something you imagine, exists, because you can detect it?"
Yes, it exists as an act of make believe. The plot of my short story that I'm imagining right now is a real act of imagination going on in my head.
In the same way, when one of you imagines chatting up one of your preternatural buddies, that's a real act of imagination.
But what doesn't exist -- in the sense of existing separate from you in the same way that your table exists separately from you -- is the preternatural buddy itself. That preternatural buddy exists only as an act of make believe, not as an actual separate being. In the same way, my short story plot exists only as an act of make believe, not something separate from me.
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@Legis said
"Los, I'm noticing that you keep dancing around such an axiom with Av. Only, you don't seem to realize that it's what I'm talking about.
It would go something like this:
"Everything that exists manifests itself in a detectable way."
Response? Correction?"
Ok, are you saying that this is an undemonstrated axiom from which I begin?
I'm not quite comfortable with that particular phrasing because I suppose there could be something that exists but that doesn't manifest in a way that is detectable by any human ever, but in that case, such a thing would be completely indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist, and, therefore, no human would be justified in thinking that it actually does exist.
I would phrase it as, "For all practical purposes, 'real things' or 'existent things' are those things that manifest in detectable ways, such that at least one human is capable, at some point in time, of detecting it. Anything that 'exists' but is utterly undetectable by any human being ever is completely indistinguishable from not-existing and can be treated, for all practical purposes, as not existing."
But I don't think that claim is undemonstrable. I induced it from my experience of real things...manifesting in detectable ways is a property of all real things.
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@Los said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So, something you imagine, exists, because you can detect it?"Yes. The plot of my short story that I'm imagining right now is a real act of imagination going on in my head.
In the same way, when one of you imagines chatting up one of your preternatural buddies, that's a real act of imagination.
But what doesn't exist -- in the sense of existing separate from you in the same way that your table exists separately from you -- is the preternatural buddy itself. That preternatural buddy exists only as an act of make believe, not as an actual separate being."
Well, that's difficult to prove. How would you suggest we set up the experiment? Could we include subjective (qualitative) data?
Please address how anything exists without one perceiving it. Again, you need to rethink your idea of materialism -- it seems much closer to subjective idealism.
The issue lies with you saying you believe something exists in the mind, but you can't measure it with objective measurements (quantitative measurement) -- this has to do with your bias of emphasizing one aspect of research over the other. This a superstitious belief.
Do you have a problem admitting when something smells like bread? How do people agree on what smells like bread?
This is how we arrive a correlating data in the astral, bro.
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Well, I think part of the problem is that everyone keeps jumping several steps ahead to how they think Los is defeated before he gets the chance to actually understand and accept the position as his own, without having to worry about someone telling him it's wrong before he gets there himself.
I'm hoping to go one step at a time so that, if nothing else, he can fully, logically own being a naturalist, materialist, or whatever, beginning to end, without just devolving into the merely superficial authority of eternal doubt's rhetorical ability.
I'm looking for positive "knowing" instead of merely negative "knowing."
@Los said
" "For all practical purposes, 'real things' or 'existent things' are those things that manifest in detectable ways, such that at least one human is capable, at some point in time, of detecting it. Anything that 'exists' but is utterly undetectable by any human being ever is completely indistinguishable from not-existing and can be treated, for all practical purposes, as not existing.""
This gets at it, but it adds a bit of the logic that supports and follows.
I think it would be good to try to get to the most concise statement of the idea. Something like:
"That which exists is detectable."
Rephrase?
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@Los said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So, something you imagine, exists, because you can detect it?"Yes, it exists as an act of make believe. The plot of my short story that I'm imagining right now is a real act of imagination going on in my head.
In the same way, when one of you imagines chatting up one of your preternatural buddies, that's a real act of imagination.
But what doesn't exist -- in the sense of existing separate from you in the same way that your table exists separately from you -- is the preternatural buddy itself. That preternatural buddy exists only as an act of make believe, not as an actual separate being. In the same way, my short story plot exists only as an act of make believe, not something separate from me."
So we both agree that there is a non material world of imagination and ideas.
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He'll say that "world" doesn't exist. Just the ideas and imaginings themselves. Those are detectable, not their world.
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@Legis said
"I think it would be good to try to get to the most concise statement of the idea. Something like:
"That which exists is detectable.""
Well, the problem here is that what we're talking about is complicated enough that trying to condense it into fortune-cookie type sayings is inevitably going to lead to misunderstandings.
If we're talking about what humans are justified in accepting as existent -- speaking in practical terms, in the context of useful knowledge -- then I would say that "Someone is justified in accepting as existent that which is detectable, once the person in question has sufficient evidence for thinking the thing in question has been detected."
In that case, maybe we could use your fortune cookie statement as a brief summary of that concept.
But if we're talking about "exist" in the sense of being some real ontological object -- in the sense that it's possible for something to exist in another dimension, such that no human could ever possibly detect it -- then no, your fortune cookie statement wouldn't be sufficient.
In such a case -- where we're talking about, let's say, some being that inhabits another dimension that no human has ever detected and that no human, no matter what any human ever does, could ever possibly detect that being, ever -- I would argue that such a being, "existent" though it may be in some sense, is, from the perspective of humans, completely and totally indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist and that humans are more than justified as treating it as something that doesn't exist.
I don't think it particularly helps the conversation to try to boil these complex ideas into sentences of monosyllabic words.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So we both agree that there is a non material world of imagination and ideas."
Depends on what you mean. Concepts and ideas are real things and we can't poke them with a stick, so they're obviously "non material" in one sense.
But on the other hand, we know that these concepts and ideas emerge from electrical activity in physical brains and are stored in physical brains. Further, we have no reason to suppose that these things do -- or even could -- exist apart from material brains. So they're not "non material" in the sense of being utterly separate from material.
As ever, it depends on the meaning of the words being used. Which is exactly why it's so unproductive to try to reduce everything to fortune cookie sayings.
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So are we back to your tautology, that only the material is material?
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So are we back to your tautology, that only the material is material?"
Look, buddy, if you're interested in having a serious, grown up conversation, you have to stop talking in riddles and fortune cookies.
You asked me if we both think that a non-material world exists, and I explained that it depends on what you mean by that. If your implication is that there is some world other than the material one -- in the sense of being an entirely separate world that doesn't depend on the material world -- then there is insufficient evidence to think that this is the case.
Nothing about what I've said there is a "tautology," and the only way to pretend that it is is to reduce these complicated and nuanced ideas to misleading fortune-cookie summaries and try to talk about your fortune cookies instead of the actual conversation.
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I never said anything of the sort.
All I'm saying is that we both agree that imaginary goblins are real.
All we need for evidence is that it is detectable to at least one person.
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@Los said
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@Legis said
"I think it would be good to try to get to the most concise statement of the idea. Something like:"That which exists is detectable.""
Well, the problem here is that what we're talking about is complicated enough that trying to condense it into fortune-cookie type sayings is inevitably going to lead to misunderstandings.
If we're talking about what humans are justified in accepting as existent -- speaking in practical terms, in the context of useful knowledge -- then I would say that "Someone is justified in accepting as existent that which is detectable, once the person in question has sufficient evidence for thinking the thing in question has been detected."
In that case, maybe we could use your fortune cookie statement as a brief summary of that concept.
But if we're talking about "exist" in the sense of being some real ontological object -- in the sense that it's possible for something to exist in another dimension, such that no human could ever possibly detect it -- then no, your fortune cookie statement wouldn't be sufficient.
In such a case -- where we're talking about, let's say, some being that inhabits another dimension that no human has ever detected and that no human, no matter what any human ever does, could ever possibly detect that being, ever -- I would argue that such a being, "existent" though it may be in some sense, is, from the perspective of humans, completely and totally indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist and that humans are more than justified as treating it as something that doesn't exist.
I don't think it particularly helps the conversation to try to boil these complex ideas into sentences of monosyllabic words."
That's kind of your problem, Los.
You tend to act as if it's so simple.
In the end, however, you can't state it simply and feel the need to make disclaimers about other dimensions and detectability (and we haven't gotten yet to what's "sufficiently" detectable).
@Los said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So are we back to your tautology, that only the material is material?"Look, buddy, if you're interested in having a serious, grown up conversation, you have to stop talking in riddles and fortune cookies.
"Av is already jumping ahead to your standards for "detectablity."
This is how the conversation you are attempting to avoid goes:
"Only that which is detectable may be said to be real."
"Can things that are not matter or energy be detected?"
"No. There is insufficient evidence for anything that is not detectable as matter or energy."
"So, only matter and/or energy are able to be detected?"
"Yes."
*"So only matter and/or energy may be said to be 'real.'" *
"Yes."
"But only matter and/or energy are detectable by that standard."
"Yes."
"So only that which is detectable (matter and/or energy) may be said to be real (matter and/or energy)."=* "Only matter and energy may be said to be matter and energy."*
= "Only the material is material."
Closed logical loop.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"I never said anything of the sort.
All I'm saying is that we both agree that imaginary goblins are real."
Sure, but they're real acts of make believe, not real honest-to-goodness beings in the sense that my dog is an honest-to-goodness being.
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@Legis said
"This is how the conversation you are attempting to avoid goes"
See? You have a script in your head about how I should be arguing. The fact that I don't argue this way -- that is, the fact that I don't agree with many of the statements you're trying to put in my mouth -- infuriates you because you can't pull out your canned responses.
Here, let's look at your script:
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[Imaginary Los:]"Only that which is detectable may be said to be real."
[Imaginary Legis:]"Can things that are not matter or energy be detected?"
[Imaginary Los:]"No. There is insufficient evidence for anything that is not detectable as matter or energy."
[Imaginary Legis:]"So, only matter and/or energy are able to be detected?"
[Imaginary Los:]"Yes.""I would broadly agree with the first statement you attribute to me ("Only that which is detectable may be said to be real"...that is, humans can only validly claim to think that something is real if they have reason to think that it is detectable and has been detected by someone).
I would not at all answer your first question above with the second line you attribute to me. In answer to your question, "Can things that are not matter or energy be detected?" I would say, "I don't have any reason to think that anybody has ever detected anything that's not matter or energy, so your question doesn't make sense."
Before you can ask me about the properties of things that aren't ultimately reducible to matter or energy, we have to establish what in the world we're talking about. I'm not aware of any such thing that actually exists and can be shown to be not reducible to matter or energy. Are you?
In other words, I'm not starting from the dogmatic, axiomatic position that only matter/energy is detectable. I'm starting from the position that before someone can accept that something exists, that person has to have reason to think that it is detectable and has been detected by someone. So far, the only things that humans have ever detected appear to be physical/material (i.e. matter/energy in some combination).
I'm not declaring that there are absolutely no things that are not matter/energy, nor am I declaring that it is impossible to detect something that isn't matter/energy...I'm just pointing out that nobody has ever detected anything that isn't matter/energy, as far as we can tell. In fact, I'm not even sure what you have in mind when you talk about something that's not matter/energy in some combination...if you could give a specific example of what you're talking about, it would be easier to have a conversation because, right now, I'm not quite sure it even makes sense.
Again, this is a big problem for you: you're so focused on the script in your head -- and trying to fault me for deviating from the way you think the conversation should go (i.e. in a direction that you think you can "win") that you're overlooking the actual positions I'm advancing.
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@Los said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
" Sure, but they're real acts of make believe, not real honest-to-goodness beings in the sense that my dog is an honest-to-goodness being."
"Yes, they're real in different ways.
An idea is much more real than a dog in the sense that it can have a much greater impact on the world. A dog is more real in the sense that it has more hair.
And our personal identity is just an idea (it's imagined, our consciousness is not a physical entity, like our bodies). So it's fair to say that a goblin is as real as "you" or "me".