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I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes. how do you know you're not a brain in a vat. all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. ha

by platz 2y ago

I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes. how do you know you're not a brain in a vat. all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah.

hnfong 2y ago
> I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes That's fine. > how do you know you're not a brain in a vat. I don't. > all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah. No we don't, because I don't know. You're free to believe whatever though, just don't speak for everyone else.
- stale2002 2y ago
  > No we don't, because I don't know. The problem here is that people are making claims to the real world with this kind of stuff. They are advocating that we aught "do something" about this. But, if you retreat to such unfalsifiable claims, you are basically removing yourself from all normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world. To go back to the brain in the vat example, imagine someone was advocating for new laws to govern this brain in a vat theory. I would hope that you wouldn't support some significant legal change to society, merely because you "dont know" that we aren't brains in a vat.
  - bumby 2y ago
    >normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world. Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science? E.g., if their central question is about consciousness, science may not be equipped to answer it. Science is concerned with objective evidence, and the hard problem of conscience deals with subjective experience.
    - stale2002 2y ago
      > Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science? If you definitionally can't answer the question then I am not sure why people who are living in the real world should spend much time on it. So my point stands. Unfalsifiable claims that are "not even wrong" aren't particularly useful when discussing actual things of importance, like what kinds of laws we should make. Keep that stuff to the introductory college philosophy classes, while the rest of us work on the stuff that actually matters.
      - bumby 2y ago
        Please elaborate on how you define what “actually matters.” It seems to me that subjective experience is one of those things, if you value experience at all. If you don’t, I’m not sure anything matters. And there’s plenty both within and without science that can’t (currently, at least) be defined. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t worth probing.
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by platz 2y ago

I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes. how do you know you're not a brain in a vat. all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah.

hnfong 2y ago

> I don't believe we live in such epistemic black holes That's fine. > how do you know you're not a brain in a vat. I don't. > all we know is that we probably aren't a brain in a vat. hah. No we don't, because I don't know. You're free to believe whatever though, just don't speak for everyone else.

stale2002 2y ago
> No we don't, because I don't know. The problem here is that people are making claims to the real world with this kind of stuff. They are advocating that we aught "do something" about this. But, if you retreat to such unfalsifiable claims, you are basically removing yourself from all normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world. To go back to the brain in the vat example, imagine someone was advocating for new laws to govern this brain in a vat theory. I would hope that you wouldn't support some significant legal change to society, merely because you "dont know" that we aren't brains in a vat.
- bumby 2y ago
  >normal scientific claims that govern all parts of the rest of the world. Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science? E.g., if their central question is about consciousness, science may not be equipped to answer it. Science is concerned with objective evidence, and the hard problem of conscience deals with subjective experience.
  - stale2002 2y ago
    > Isn’t is possible that the problem can’t be answered by science? If you definitionally can't answer the question then I am not sure why people who are living in the real world should spend much time on it. So my point stands. Unfalsifiable claims that are "not even wrong" aren't particularly useful when discussing actual things of importance, like what kinds of laws we should make. Keep that stuff to the introductory college philosophy classes, while the rest of us work on the stuff that actually matters.
    - bumby 2y ago
      Please elaborate on how you define what “actually matters.” It seems to me that subjective experience is one of those things, if you value experience at all. If you don’t, I’m not sure anything matters. And there’s plenty both within and without science that can’t (currently, at least) be defined. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t worth probing.
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