Does anything exist?

[turingtest]

OMG, not another ******* interminable solipsism thread

Does anything exist?

Answer: Yes

I exist
My family exists
Our houses and places of residence exist
My country and everyone and everything in it exist
The world and everything on it and in it exist
The universe and everything in it exists

/thread

Normal person: "I think, therefore I am."
Solipsist: "I think, therefore you are."

It really is a waste of time arguing with people whose entire schtick is gaslighting.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It really is a waste of time arguing with people whose entire schtick is gaslighting.

Yeah the problem is that's all philosophy is and it's not going away.

 

[theprestige]

A lot of philosophers ask questions about the nature of reality and our perception of it. But I don't think even solipsists lie about reality in order to make a victim question their own sanity.

 

[Belz...]

A lot of philosophers ask questions about the nature of reality and our perception of it.

And the ironic thing is, they are probably the least-equipped people to answer those questions. So far it's science and technology that have provided answers. Answers that the philosophers never anticipated. They suck.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Descartes was a man of his time, and philosophy moved on after him. I wish people would stop quoting him as a relevant authority just as much as I'd like people to stop quoting Freud as if his view on psychology still matters.

Not only that, but Descartes used self knowledge as a starting point, upon which to build a foundation for an argument against solipsism.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Ponder the thought that using ideas like the Uncertainty principle and Quantum Strangeness , you are everywhere and therefore anywhere at the same instant .

You are omnipresent .
You are the Universe .

That's not really what quantum physics says.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well that's the problem. If your mentality is infinite recursive "And then what? Okay prove that. And then prove that. And how can you know you really know that? And then and then and then and then and then...." where else do you expect to wind up?

That's I've always said all philosophy is solipsism. It's just a matter of waiting for it to eat itself into a corner.

 

[theprestige]

Who cares if philosophy has moved on? As Belz says, philosophers suck. There's no reason to think that anything they've done lately invalidates Descartes' observation: A thing must exist, in order to contemplate existence. Or to contemplate anything.

However much I don't know about reality and the nature of existence, I know at least that I exist. Even if I exist only in your imagination, I exist.

I don't quote Descartes because I think he's an authority. I quote him because it's his coinage that cuts through all wrangling and equivocation and anti-philosophical prejudice, to this one basic axiom.

And as far as I'm aware, no philosopher, and no scientist, since Descartes has come up with anything that invalidates or renders obsolete the principle, "I think, therefore I am."

 

[Belz...]

Who cares if philosophy has moved on? As Belz says, philosophers suck. There's no reason to think that anything they've done lately invalidates Descartes' observation: A thing must exist, in order to contemplate existence. Or to contemplate anything.

However much I don't know about reality and the nature of existence, I know at least that I exist. Even if I exist only in your imagination, I exist.

I don't quote Descartes because I think he's an authority. I quote him because it's his coinage that cuts through all wrangling and equivocation and anti-philosophical prejudice, to this one basic axiom.

And as far as I'm aware, no philosopher, and no scientist, since Descartes has come up with anything that invalidates or renders obsolete the principle, "I think, therefore I am."

It's not that short quote that was later critiqued but his larger arguments.

It reminds me of when people quote Shakespeare's "To be or not to be", thinking that's some sort of deep existential declaration, apparently completely unaware of the larger context, and of the fact that Hamlet is with those words contemplating suicide.

 

[LarryS]

The question isn't whether anything exists, it's whether anything exists context-free.

Harry Potter doesn't exist as a person in the real world (yeah, yeah, a loaded term, but this is just making a comparison) but he does exist as a character in various works of fiction. Also in the context of intellectual property law. Sexy Draco Malfoy Who's Secretly In Passionate Love With Harry Potter doesn't exist even in that context, but does in the different context of works of fan-fiction. Pain exists in the context of conscious experience. Scorpion's ex philosophy teacher exists in the context of Scorpion's dream; and a different entity matching that description may or may not also exist in the real world.

So, what context does the tree I'm looking at exist in? Only in my perception? No; there's plenty of evidence that a material object somewhat matching my perception actually exists there, that's actually quite a bit more dynamic and complex than my immediate perception of it. Does that mean the tree, or at least the material it's composed of, exists apart from any context? Does there have to be a simulation that encodes it, or a deity that contemplates it into existence, or is it just there?

So far, there seems to be no advantage to proposing any special context in which I or the tree exist, apart from as a result of the evolution of the quantum fields of the universe since their origin.

Agreed, except quantum fields are not the context. Quantum fields are simply additional 'characters/content'. Can we discover the 'context' - can we discover the backside of a one-sided coin?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Oh goodie one of the philosophizers is here.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

Well, clearly special pleading exists, if nothing else.

Special pleading exists, therefore anything at all that I want to exist, exists.

Good game, this one!

 

[Belz...]

Agreed, except quantum fields are not the context. Quantum fields are simply additional 'characters/content'. Can we discover the 'context' - can we discover the backside of a one-sided coin?

Quantum fields are what remains when you remove everything else, and are probably the source of everything else. Sounds pretty damned contextual to me.

 

[IanS]

Even if this philosopher wasn't correct in some regards it doesn't mean that all his (especially philosophical) ideas were wrong. If you have better ideas about this epistemological problem I'll gladly accept them.

The problem with people studying to become professional philosophers (e.g. with doctorates & professorships and such-like), is that when modern science was discovered (starting roughly with Galileo circa 1600-ish) it slowly became more-&-more apparent that we could not genuinely understand & explain the universe around us merely by intellectual philosophical deliberations and pronouncements alone.

In fact, it has now finally become glaringly apparent (400 years after Galileo) that academic philosophy of that sort has a record and an ability that is only marginally better than religious faith when it comes to discovering real events and real objects in this world & accurately explaining those things. But unfortunately much of philosophy goes further than that ... further down the route of quite deliberately trying to engage people in a scandalous waste of everyone's time seemingly just to indulge the ego and pomposity of academic philosophers who think they still have something useful to educate us all about (e.g. trying to tell scientists what science is really doing, as if scientists did not have a far better understanding of that than most philosophers anyway, and telling science what it ought to be doing/studying and what it's limits are claimed to be … as if scientists had not long ago worked out all of that for themselves ).

 

[LarryS]

Quantum fields are what remains when you remove everything else, and are probably the source of everything else. Sounds pretty damned contextual to me.

we can describe these fields, and the fundamental constraints that allow for specific types of particles (except for dark matter/energy); but not knowing the origin/how/why ratio of matter/antimatter and of fundamental constants - - that is what I mean by inching towards 'context'

 

[Belz...]

we can describe these fields, and the fundamental constraints that allow for specific types of particles (except for dark matter/energy); but not knowing the origin/how/why ratio of matter/antimatter and of fundamental constants - - that is what I mean by inching towards 'context'

I don't understand what you mean in relation to my post.

What I meant is that the fundamental quantum field IS the context in which everything else exists.

 

[Scorpion]

The problem with people studying to become professional philosophers (e.g. with doctorates & professorships and such-like), is that when modern science was discovered (starting roughly with Galileo circa 1600-ish) it slowly became more-&-more apparent that we could not genuinely understand & explain the universe around us merely by intellectual philosophical deliberations and pronouncements alone.

In fact, it has now finally become glaringly apparent (400 years after Galileo) that academic philosophy of that sort has a record and an ability that is only marginally better than religious faith when it comes to discovering real events and real objects in this world & accurately explaining those things. But unfortunately much of philosophy goes further than that ... further down the route of quite deliberately trying to engage people in a scandalous waste of everyone's time seemingly just to indulge the ego and pomposity of academic philosophers who think they still have something useful to educate us all about (e.g. trying to tell scientists what science is really doing, as if scientists did not have a far better understanding of that than most philosophers anyway, and telling science what it ought to be doing/studying and what it's limits are claimed to be … as if scientists had not long ago worked out all of that for themselves ).

Seems to me your post is a basis for another thread called 'scientists versus philosophers' It could be interesting to argue that people steeped in scientific methods are not qualified to make intellectual judgements about their work.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It could be interesting to argue that people steeped in scientific methods are not qualified to make intellectual judgements about their work.

No it wouldn't. It would just be sad.

 

[ynot]

What's the sound of one brain wanking?

It's the sound of mental masturbation (aka - philosobabble).

 

[Belz...]

Seems to me your post is a basis for another thread called 'scientists versus philosophers' It could be interesting to argue that people steeped in scientific methods are not qualified to make intellectual judgements about their work.

As opposed to philosophers, who are not qualified to make any intellectual judgments at all.