I am beginning to agree with Rationalbiker that this thread is going nowhere. I have stated my position, I am done.
I am still struggling to figure out why this is such a hard concept for many here to grasp, as not only is this the accepted philosophic use of the term “possible” but it is also exactly the manner the term is used in the English language.
It’s a very easy concept for nearly everyone here to grasp. It’s a concept that most of us have grown up with and lived with for many years, until learning of Ayn Rand’s trichotomy between the true, the false, and the arbitrary.
If you attempt to form knowledge objectively, specifically, based on reality, then that knowledge is either true or false according to whether your knowledge actually corresponds to reality. In other words, if you made mistakes in your observations of reality or in your application of logic to your observations, then the concepts you form are false. If you don’t make mistakes, and your concepts correspond to facts, then your concepts are true.
If you tell me, “I have reality-based reasons to suspect, though no hard evidence proving, that in certain specific circumstances quite different from the ordinary, water will float to the ceiling. Here is the physical equation governing this form of motion, here are the unusual parameters to that equation, and here’s a good way to test out this theory,” you have told me a possibility. Why is “water floating to the ceiling” a possibility in this scenario? Because the method of arriving at the conclusion of “possible” is reality-based. You have found hints of evidence for it, and you are following these hints where they lead.
But if you attempt to form knowledge non-objectively, specifically, based on non-reality (or alternate-reality), then that knowledge is arbitrary. It is neither true nor false, and must simply be ignored.
If you tell me, “I can imagine water floating to the ceiling,” you have not told me a possibility. What you suggest is not possible, but arbitrary. Why is “water floating to the ceiling” arbitrary, and not even a possibility, in this scenario? Because the method of arriving at the conclusion of “possible” is not reality based. You imagined something. Imagination does not make things real. It does not make things possible. It only makes hot air. Though you have convinced yourself that such a scenario does not violate a physical law of motion, you have not observed anything in reality, and moreover you have not applied logic to any observations you didn’t make, suggesting the possibility of such a scenario.
The suggestion that we may be in a matrix (or brain-in-a-vat) may indeed be arbitrary. But I don’t think the idea that somebody could be put into a matrix is not. The evidence for this fact come mostly from the Science channel (SCI):
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Ocular implants - bypass the defective ear and stimulate nerves to correspond to sounds recived by a microphone.
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Restoring vision to the blind - again, byass the defective eye and stimulate the optical nerve with visual signals from a video camera
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Computers with amazing 3d simulations and virtual worlds (mostly from the realm of movies and computer games)
So, given a century or two, this brain-in-a-vat capability may very well be an actuality. (Of course, ethically I highly doubt it will be actualized).
This alters the orginal posters query, from an arbitrary claim about our existence to something that at least has the cognitive status of the possible.
To me the interesting question is this: Could such person in a matrix, in principle, ever come to know that they are in the matrix and gain access to the “real” reality which we inhabit? And if not, how to reconcile this with the Objectivist belief that no aspect of reality is beyond mans capacity to discover.
As an aside, I can think of an trivial version of a “brain-in-a-vat” that is possible today. Just raise an infant in a sensory deprivation chamber (highly immoral, duh). It would be ridiculous to claim that such a person would be able to get outside of its vat and discover the rest of world.
I understand that, but principles regarding evidence in law are irrelevant to epistemology and especially science, for the reason that I explained.
I didn’t bring up the issue because the law is relevant to epistemology but rather the reverse. What the allowance of the arbitrary in a court room causes is a destruction of the concept of reasonable doubt.
I am beginning to agree with Rationalbiker that this thread is going nowhere. I have stated my position, I am done.
Hey, you never did answer my question about how you knew Queen Mary was not in the box. Nor Free Cap’s request then for you to prove that we aren’t in the matrix.
The point of that was to try to understand what the hell the difference is between the possible and the impossible. If there is no distinction that matters in any way, then I would wonder why you continue to need it, when the arbritrary does just fine to describe both.
It seems the only thing you want to use it for is to demand the need for faith as you did to this thread. The BIJ thought experiment is unanswerable I think is where you were headed. What else is your distinction good for.
1.) I don’t understand how the objectivist definition of “arbitrary” captures anything meaningful since it requires the underlying claim to never be able to be proven.
This is plainly and shockingly false. An arbitrary claim may end up being proven true. In fact, this right here indicates to me that you simply do not understand the concept.
2.) In this thread numerous people have mis-defined the word “possible” as to require any statement of possibility to be backed up with positive evidence of the underlying assertion. This is in direct contradiction to the accepted definitions of the word, both in everyday English and in philosophy.
As far as how it’s used in philosophy, we do reject what I think is the majority view of contemporary philsophers. And what of it? This is not an error, it is a virtue. The everyday English understanding does not definitively include the arbitrary; some people, especially undergraduates, tend to assimilate the philosopher’s view, but then not all do. And in the general population, I see no evidence that “It is possible that cows created the universe” is held to be a true statement.
Coupled with the uselessness and ambiguity of the term “arbitrary” this mis-definition only increases the complexity and confusion of the issue.
You are the one purporting that “arbitrary” is ambiguous, because you simply refuse to read and grasp that one section of OPAR. That section points out how “arbitrary” is essential in the development of a rational epistmology, which I take it is why you consider it useless.
3.) I don’t see how using the accepted definition of “possible” in any way contradicts the goals of objectivist philosophy or philosophy in general.
It doesn’t; the “anything stateable” view is only accepted by a small minority.
After spending four years in the philosophy department of a major university, the most common resistance I found to objectivist philosophy being taken seriously was its redefinition of already well-accepted terms with a known meaning to philosophers.
Don’t the philosophers feel embarasssed that they have so completely screwed up basic concepts? Only philosophers believe that it is possible that cows can fly, and only Brouwerians believe it to be possible that A&^A.
As a funny aside, I just caught an episode of Futurama that made a joke about this:
Bender: “Uff. If that stuff wasn’t real, how can I be sure anything is real? Is it not possible, nay, probable that my whole life is just a product of my or someone else’s imagination?”
Clerk: “No, get out. Next!”
As a funny aside, I just caught an episode of Futurama that made a joke about this:
I seem to remember Dr Peikoff recalling a similar story from Ayn Rand about the only rational way to answer the arbitrary. A student asking his teacher “How do know I am really here?”. The teacher replied, “Well, I hope you are or I am talking to myself!”
Just to clarify- An arbitrary claim has no evidence. A possible claim has some evidence AND nothing known that contradicts it.
I want to go back to the posted topic, and skip any of the extra talk (because I think its besides the point).
The basic point of this topic is to prove that our brains are NOT in a vat/ wired into a computer/ in a dream, etc. To prove this idea is impossible. one would have to prove a negative.
In the history of philosophy, no one has been able to prove a negative. For example, Ayn Rand never proved that God DIDN’T exist (a negative), she proved that reality existed (a positive). Physics didn’t dis-prove that the earth was flat (a negative), but proved that the earth was round (a positive).
Therefore, can I prove that our brains are NOT in a vat? No. Can I prove that I do exist? Yes. What is your opinion on this?
In the history of philosophy, no one has been able to prove a negative.
Per se, that is a meaningless claim, and I hope you don’t seriously believe it. What to you think that means. For example – do you think that you can prove that George W. Bush is living? If you say no, then you’re simply taking the epistemological nihilists’ line. But supposing you say that you can prove that George W. Bush is living, then according to the “can’t a negative” slogan, you still can’t prove that George W. Bush isn’t dead. That does seem to be exactly what you’re saying, given your examples. You would be willing to accept the conclusion that George W. Bush is the living dead (hmmm, that might actually be true…), because both are positive claims.
I find it interesting that the skeptic camp is divided into these two factions, where each side desparately tries to deny being nihilist. You have the “non-negativists” like the Brouwerians, and the “anti-positivists” like Popperians, one side saying that you can’t prove a negative and the other saying that you can’t prove a positive. Were I to be a Popperian, I’d insist that any positive proof is no proof at all, it’s just a declaration that you don’t yet know that the claim is false. According to them, nobody has ever proven a positive.
I think they are both nuts. They both fail to grasp that their philosophies reduce to the crudest of word games, plus happily embracing contradictions such as “the living dead”.
I want to go back to the posted topic, and skip any of the extra talk (because I think its besides the point).
The basic point of this topic is to prove that our brains are NOT in a vat/ wired into a computer/ in a dream, etc. To prove this idea is impossible. one would have to prove a negative.
In the history of philosophy, no one has been able to prove a negative. For example, Ayn Rand never proved that God DIDN’T exist (a negative), she proved that reality existed (a positive). Physics didn’t dis-prove that the earth was flat (a negative), but proved that the earth was round (a positive).
Therefore, can I prove that our brains are NOT in a vat? No. Can I prove that I do exist? Yes. What is your opinion on this?
Proving a negative (i.e. proving that the arbitrary) is a non sequitir. It is not that it is a “feat” that no one has been able to do (like climbing everest, which is difficult). It is that it is gibberish. If I were to say “a;lsdf a;lakfa ;laksjdf ;lijaowiej” I would have communicated more meaning than saying that I can’t prove that my brain is not in a vat. That is the point.
Accepting such a statement and then using it in as if it were just a difficult feat is completely invalid. Don’t go there. Don’t accept the premise. Treat the person as if they had just uttered gibberish, because that is what it is.
The suggestion that we may be in a matrix (or brain-in-a-vat) may indeed be arbitrary. But I don’t think the idea that somebody could be put into a matrix is not. The evidence for this fact come mostly from the Science channel (SCI):
Ocular implants - bypass the defective ear and stimulate nerves to correspond to sounds recived by a microphone.
Restoring vision to the blind - again, byass the defective eye and stimulate the optical nerve with visual signals from a video camera
Computers with amazing 3d simulations and virtual worlds (mostly from the realm of movies and computer games)
So, given a century or two, this brain-in-a-vat capability may very well be an actuality. (Of course, ethically I highly doubt it will be actualized).
This alters the orginal posters query, from an arbitrary claim about our existence to something that at least has the cognitive status of the possible.
To me the interesting question is this: Could such person in a matrix, in principle, ever come to know that they are in the matrix and gain access to the “real” reality which we inhabit? And if not, how to reconcile this with the Objectivist belief that no aspect of reality is beyond mans capacity to discover.
As an aside, I can think of an trivial version of a “brain-in-a-vat” that is possible today. Just raise an infant in a sensory deprivation chamber (highly immoral, duh). It would be ridiculous to claim that such a person would be able to get outside of its vat and discover the rest of world.
After reaching the lectures on Hume and Kant in the ARI Campus’, I recently began to think about exactly this question of whether somebody could be put into a Matrix or not:
http://campus.aynrand.org/classroom/22/
(BTW, excellent series, thank you very much ARI!)
What I have come to discover in particular, is the distinction between the sensual and the perceptual level summarized somewhere at the end of the Hume lecture. There is also an entry on perception that deals with that distinction in the Ayn Rand lexicon:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/perception.html
What I am still confused about is Objectivism’s actual position on percepts:
A “perception” is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli, but of entities, of things.
I am not sure what to make of this. I am confused about the fact that Objectivism makes such an assertion on this relationship between sensations and perceptions, as if the latter is just a composition of elements from the former. Doesn’t this mean that percepts, e.g. a particular tree or a building, are really just pieces of sense data all over again? I mean, the idea that they are grouped, retained and integrated and thereby experienced as a “whole” - how would any of that in essence make percepts anything different than sense data? It seems then that perceptions are merely a form of experiencing sense data. So after the baby stage, all we have really developed is just new forms of experiencing sense data?
Maybe it would also help to explain the difference between “grouped” and “integrated” here. Does “grouped” refer to space (the leaves, branches etc. of the tree in a single snapshot) and “integrated” to time (multiple snapshots put together)? Otherwise I don’t see why one of the two words shouldn’t be enough.
( A )
Before the lecture, I kind of used to equate the sensual with the perceptual level, but still distinguished it from the conceptual one. According to Peikoff, this is Locke’s position. I had considered the experience of entities to be a conscious, willful and conceptual achievement, i.e. that we learn to integrate our sensations into concepts to such a degree throughout our early years that at some point we automatically see certain entities. I also considered the sense organs to be just another form of sense data and, e.g., the experience of a smell (one sense data object) to be a learned necessary correlation to the presence of a nose (another sense data object). But still I didn’t see a need for any subjectivity: If all is just sense data, then there can be no need to bother about some distinction between an external world vs an internal one in our minds, since all - sensations and sense organs - are just external sense data, i.e. external to our consciousness of them. Called “sense” data btw., only because of its discovered correlation to our senses: It simply is the case that any sense data only enters our consciousness if those particular sense data objects called sense organs are also available. Otherwise reality for some reason doesn’t permit us to experience the data. Just like in an ego shooter computer game, the screen turns black once your character is shot down and disappears from the screen. Of course, I didn’t think that the world exists only as long as we perceive it, since like in the computer game, the software program, i.e. the sense data itself, still continues to exist. We merely loose contact with it.
I would like to compare my view of the unexplained necessity of the sense organs to the Ayn Rand lexicon’s entry on sensations:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sensations.html
where it talks about ostensive definitions:
Sensations are the primary material of consciousness and, therefore, cannot be communicated by means of the material which is derived from them. The existential causes of sensations can be described and defined in conceptual terms (e.g., the wavelengths of light and the structure of the human eye, which produce the sensations of color), but one cannot communicate what color is like, to a person who is born blind. To define the meaning of the concept “blue,” for instance, one must point to some blue objects to signify, in effect: “I mean this.” Such an identification of a concept is known as an “ostensive definition.”
What I am saying is, it is not clear why wavelengths produce sensations of color, or how any scientific discovery could ever explain why this is so. This is because you cannot construct the meaning of any particular blue without first knowing blue. For the same reasons, you cannot explain why the sense organs we know and our brain have to be there in order for us to have consciousness. It’s just a learned correlation. It just is the case. Not that I’m saying it happens to be so - since everything has a nature and must act according to it so therefore it must be so - but I don’t see how we could logically deduct why it must be so from any other given facts. Neither physics nor biology can deal with the essence of consciousness - its actual meaning - by themselves. Only philosophy can. So the whole apparatus of sensory perception and processing in the brain becomes a side issue to me and of lesser relevance to the philosophic debate regarding the question at hand.
So with pieces of sense data and our consciousness of them being the only two fundamental things there really are, and sense data as such being quite a simple thing to recreate, creating the Matrix seemed quite possible to me. Consciousness remains consciousness of something that exists, but the only kind of something necessary to create and exist is sense data. Anything else, such as entities, is then conceptualized from that. So there’s no conflict here. Although it seemed questionable to me whether building the Matrix with all its energy requirements wouldn’t actually just mean rebuilding the world that already exists, so the whole effort might turn out to be pointless.
( B )
Then, through the lecture, came the distinction between the sensual and the perceptual level and the idea that entities are the result of an automatic process, i.e. that we experience entities directly without prior conceptualization. I am still considering this idea but I do not believe the perception of an “entity” to really mean a composition of sensations experienced as a whole, but merely of some whole that could not be reduced to any composition of sense data, but simply to “that thing”, i.e. “that tree” or “that building”. Something that cannot be fully identified otherwise and for which no allegedly retained, grouped and integrated sensations can really fully describe or explain any such experience as of “that thing”. So there’s also an analogy here: Just as certain wavelengths don’t define blue but merely correlate to it, so those pieces of retained, grouped and integrated sense data don’t define an entity but merely correlate to it. So I’m puzzled how the Ayn Rand lexicon can define perceptions the way it does.
The kind of relationship of experiences to the sense organs I described earlier remains unchanged to me, it’s merely just direct entities experienced now, not conceptual ones.
But all this makes building the Matrix a problem: Since consciousness is still consciousness of something that exists and entities are things irreducible to sense data, you need to have real entities in the real world to feed the Matrix, in other words, no Matrix at all, but a real world. So in this my second view, no one can be put into a Matrix.
( C )
But then, as I said at the beginning, looking at the Ayn Rand lexicon’s definition of perceptions that apparently reduces entities to sense data essentially, the Matrix seems possible again if one believes what that lexicon entry seems to imply about entities: If perceptions are in essence reducible to sensations and if artificially creating sensations is not a problem, then retaining, grouping and integrating them artificially to create any percept of desire shouldn’t be a problem either, or should it? But then, it would also completely raise questions of what it actually means to be a tree or a building or at least about how these things relate to the rest of the world. They could be both particular kinds of things that exist out there independent of us created by nature or architects through a lenghty process - or they could be particular kinds of things that exist out there independent of us created by the Matrix out of the blue at any moment.
But to me, the earlier version ( B ) of what I think about entities seems most sensible to me, so the Matrix is out. Or am I wrong here anywhere theoretically? What the heck should I make of the Ayn Rand lexicon’s definition of perceptions?
BTW, I’m not sure now, whether in ( A ) I used to equate the sensual with the perceptual level or the perceptual with the conceptual one, or any of that, but I hope you still get my approach.
Have you checked out Notes on “The Evidence of the Senses”? This link should direct you to Chapter 2 Sensation and Perception.
What evidence is there that suggests that you do live in the matrix?
This. This person gets it.
This is the exact response I had in mind. All arbitrary hypotheses _ must be thrown out._
How do you know “it could exist”? What evidence do you have that “it could exist”?
Bingo.
Is it correct to say that there could be a white porcelain teapot orbiting the sun between the Earth and Venus with a little pink heart on one side and the Chinese character for ‘Happiness’ on the other side of exactly 750g in mass and 50cm in diameter.
Is it correct to say that there could be an intelligent parasite species that lives in all our brains that alters our sense data such that we behave in ways that are beneficial to it and that we cannot percieve it.
The answer is actually no. Is it correct to say that there could be an infinite number of arbitrary facts? No. There is no evidence for their probability.
If you have no evidence to suggest it, then it is not a probability at all, cognitively speaking, it is arbitrary. A maybe or a ‘could’ requires some evidence.
I can think of several ways I can be misinterepreted here. Language is so frustarting.
It is possible that evidence exists that we do not have. But we cannot know of what we do not know, and speculating about it is invalid.
And now probability in terms of a dice role or the like is different. A probability of a certain outcome may exist metaphysically, but unless we have evidence to suggest it, we are invalid epistemologically in considering it a possibility. (We may get a result we had no idea was even possible. It was always possible metaphysically, but we had no reason to suggest it was possible.) So you have to remember what is metaphysical, actual, and what is epistemological, or cognitive, based on knowledge and the proper rules of thinking. I am talking here about the epistemological ‘could’. But we are locked into that, so we cannot not then go and say, ‘so it could be that it could be’. Ad absurdum. Once again we have no evidence. Distinguish between a metaphysical probability, a dice role/the actual reality, and an epistemological probability. (The proposition about reality: this could be/there is a probability for this.)
It’s very easy to fall back into the old pattern and then think ‘OK, so it could be that it could be…’. That’s epistemological though, so you cannot do it. Our statements of reality and reality itself are different concerns. Since we cannot think or discuss reality without making statements about reality, we can get lost.
“How do I know I’m not in the matrix?”
I’m sure this has been pointed out before, but it’s because that was a movie. We know it’s fiction.
I’m late to this discussion, but a good rule of thumb for handling spurious arguments like that is to ask the person, “and why would you care if we were?”. Make them explain in detail why this would be bad. Then you get a nice context to work within, which tends to force the argument to come back down to Earth, and eliminates hypothetical escalations.
Turns out it is very easy to know you’re not in the Matrix. Not everything has a green tint to it.
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“How do I know I’m not in the matrix?”
This question boils down to - “how do I know I am not being deceived”
A more positive question is “what can I trust?”
The answer is: whatever is non-contradictory.
Start with the statement: “I am not in the matrix”. Can you find anything to contradict it? I can’t.
“How do I know I’m not in the matrix?”
This question boils down to - “how do I know I am not being deceived”
A more positive question is “what can I trust?”
The answer is: whatever is non-contradictory.
Start with the statement: “I am not in the matrix”. Can you find anything to contradict it? I can’t.
You would have to go through an infinite number of 'I’m not’s if you had to assume the negative of any arbitrary assertion. Just throw it out wholesale. Don’t even go looking for evidence that you are ‘not in the matrix’. There can be none. If there is any evidence that arises that suggests you are in a matrix, then you can look into it, but until then you should not even consider it.
But we can know that an objective reality does exist somewhere. Even if we were in the matrix, that means there are computers in the real world that simulate it. I think many people are implying that reality itself does not exist and that maybe reality is just a simulation, but that makes no sense.