Philosophy Discussion Forums

Tamminen wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2018, 4:14 am

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑December 22nd, 2018, 4:04 pm Of course you know that your neighbor has thoughts. Why would you doubt it?

Right. Another quote from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:

I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking.
It is correct to say "I know what you are thinking", and wrong to
say "I know what I am thinking."
(A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar.)

This is applicable to RJG's confusion.

Thanks Fooloso4. Chili's point and my agreement with his point is that our belief that our neighbor has thoughts is via pure BLIND FAITH, that's it.

For us to assume that he has thoughts is just an ASSUMPTION, an educated 'guess' at best.

RJG wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2018, 11:02 am Thanks Fooloso4. Chili's point and my agreement with his point is that our belief that our neighbor has thoughts is via pure BLIND FAITH, that's it.

For us to assume that he has thoughts is just an ASSUMPTION, an educated 'guess' at best.

You are an other to me. You are not an object like a stone. I know you have thoughts, you have just given some of them to us. An other is by definition someone who thinks and feels like me. That is what otherness is. An other is an other 'me'. An other is a subject for me. This is part of our primary, certain knowledge of the world around us, along with the knowledge that stones do not think.

@RJG
You have got it backwards. It does not become a matter of something assumed until the problem of doubt is raised. It is only something you think must be assumed after you have assumed that it could be otherwise.

When did you first make this assumption? When did you first accept it as a matter of faith? Have you always thoughts from the first time you encountered another person that the people you meet might be automatons?

Fooloso4 wrote:You have got it backwards. It does not become a matter of something assumed until the problem of doubt is raised. It is only something you think must be assumed after you have assumed that it could be otherwise.

When did you first make this assumption? When did you first accept it as a matter of faith? Have you always thoughts from the first time you encountered another person that the people you meet might be automatons?

My point is that there is no rational logic that validates your assertion (your blind faith assumption).

P1. JFK was a great president who was born in Brookline MA
P2. I was born in Brookline MA
C. Therefore I would be a great president.

P1. I am a person that experiences thoughts.
P2. My neighbor is a person (that looks and acts like me).
C1. Therefore, my neighbor experience thoughts.

These are NOT VALID, NOR SOUND arguments, and therefore not rational, (...unless of course you think I would be a great president, then I am willing to agree to your irrationality )

Tamminen wrote:You are an other to me. You are not an object like a stone. I know you have thoughts, you have just given some of them to us. An other is by definition someone who thinks and feels like me. That is what otherness is. An other is an other 'me'. An other is a subject for me. This is part of our primary, certain knowledge of the world around us, along with the knowledge that stones do not think.

Tam, there is no logic that validates your assertion. You only see my words, not my thoughts.

RJG wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2018, 1:08 pm You only see my words, not my thoughts.

I understand what you are saying, so I know you are thinking, and if you succeed to say it clearly, I know what you think.

It is binary as in you know or you don’t know. Therefore, you do it or you don’t. It is not binary if we consider knowing as a spectrum and not as the task of knowing. ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull ‘.It is a novella to illustrate the opinion of task as knowing or of basic animal experience. What we have in the human experience is quasi consciousness as a precursor to our human consciousness. The distinctive is the ability to feel the Forms. NDE may well be another: the existence of the correspondent. As for animal experience: I had a cat friend named General. We played when General was little. One day he acted strange and made cat sounds and I had a feeling (). General never came close to me again. It took me years to understand he was breaking our friendship.

A language game is a natural social phenomenon and its rules serve the existence of the community. If we follow its rules of communication, we know what others think if they want us to know it.

RJG:

My point is that there is no rational logic that validates your assertion (your blind faith assumption).

My point is that there is no need for rational logic to validate that your neighbor has thoughts and subjective experience. If automatons were common then it might be reasonable to question the assumption, but unless there is good reason to think your neighbor is an automaton there is no reason to think it is reasonable to require rational logic to validate that he is human with ordinary human mental states.

Now if the premise is that there are automatons that are indistinguishable from humans then the question of whether your neighbor has thoughts and subjective experiences may be a reasonable one. Here the question is whether your neighbor is human.

If you agree that he is human then the question becomes whether there are humans without thoughts and subjective experience. This may be the case if your neighbor is in a permanent vegetative state, but there are objective measures to determine this. At a minimum if your neighbor is in a permanent vegetative state he would not respond to you and would not be able to talk to you. So then, the question is whether there are human beings who are indistinguishable from other human beings except they are zombies. If such a thing were possible, and it is highly questionable that it is possible, then whether or not that is the case with your neighbor depends on having plausible evidence that it might be. Otherwise there is no reason to assume it is. It is just idle speculation, unless there is some other point that this thought experiment is aimed at.

It should be noted that Descartes' method of doubt was reserved for the occasion when he was alone and safe. He is quite clear that the method is not applicable to everyday life.

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2018, 2:51 pm It should be noted that Descartes' method of doubt was reserved for the occasion when he was alone and safe. He is quite clear that the method is not applicable to everyday life.

Yes, his method was like Husserl's "bracketing" of the world to get to basics.

Justice is just. We may try to substantiate this sentence with memetic content and the usual x,y,z of language. The degree of zombieism is inversely proportional to a/this feeling of Justice and not to the characteristics of the acquired memes or the easiness of communication. There is obviously synchronicity for the like-minded with the resulting transformative use of semantics. As such (my memes) and the correspondent (Society) I judge. Would I die for it? … NO. Would I fight for it? … NO. Would I look for it? You bet. Again. It is the spectrum of certainty. In addition...

Fooloso4 wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2018, 10:01 am

Tamminen wrote: ↑December 23rd, 2018, 4:14 am
Right. Another quote from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:

This is applicable to RJG's confusion.

Just for clarity ... Wittgenstein uses the term “thought” in respect to “worded thought”.

RJG wrote:My point is that there is no rational logic that validates your assertion...

Fooloso4 wrote:My point is that there is no need for rational logic to validate that your neighbor has thoughts and subjective experience. If automatons were common then it might be reasonable to question the assumption, but unless there is good reason to think your neighbor is an automaton there is no reason to think it is reasonable to require rational logic to validate that he is human with ordinary human mental states.

It seems that you are trying to assert/claim -- 'beliefs' should be considered as 'truths' ...correct?

Including "reasonableness" in your argument as a qualifier is seemingly non-sensical and redundant. Firstly, "reasonableness" is determined by the beholder (the believer) himself, not by some outside independent party. Secondly, "reasonableness" is already implied in one's belief (or assumption). If one thought their belief "unreasonable", then their belief would not be a belief. In other words, EVERYBODY believes their beliefs are "reasonable"!

One's (reasonably held) 'belief' that the moon is made of cheese, does not necessarily mean that it is 'true', ...right?
One's (reasonably held) 'belief' that ghosts and demons invisibly fly around, does not necessarily mean it is 'true', ...right?
One's (reasonably held) 'belief' that one's neighbor is/is not a zombie, does not necessarily mean that it is/is not 'true', ...right?

So why is it that so many of us continually and insistently assert/claim our 'beliefs' as 'truths'??
Why can't we just leave 'beliefs' as 'beliefs', ...and leave the 'truths' (and falses) to 'logic'???

RJG:

It seems that you are trying to assert/claim -- 'beliefs' should be considered as 'truths' ...correct?

No, that is not correct.

Firstly, "reasonableness" is determined by the beholder (the believer) himself, not by some outside independent party.

You might believe it is reasonable to doubt that your neighbor has thoughts, but if that is the case I don’t think the gap will be closed through this discussion.

Secondly, "reasonableness" is already implied in one's belief.

Do you think it is reasonable to believe that your neighbor is a zombie? What is it about your neighbor that would lead you to believe such a thing? What are your reasons for believing your neighbor is or might be a zombie?

One's (reasonably held) 'belief' that one's neighbor is/is not a zombie, does not necessarily mean that it is/is not 'true', ...right?

You begin with a hypothetical and since the hypothetical cannot be proven wrong you conclude that your neighbor might be a zombie. You treat the belief that your neighbor is a zombie as equivalent to the belief that your neighbor is not a zombie, as if both require the same degree of evidence or that both rather than only one needs any evidence at all to be "believed".

Why can't we just leave 'beliefs' as 'beliefs', ...and leave the 'truths' (and falses) to 'logic'???

The plea to leave ‘beliefs’ as ‘beliefs’ indicates that you are unaware of the problem of belief and the incommensurate ways in which the term is used.

Logical “truths” are formal, without content. They tell us nothing true about the world.

RJG wrote:It seems that you are trying to assert/claim -- 'beliefs' should be considered as 'truths' ...correct?

Fooloso4 wrote:No, that is not correct.

Your words seemingly indicate otherwise.

RJG wrote: Firstly, "reasonableness" is determined by the beholder (the believer) himself, not by some outside independent party.

Fooloso4 wrote:You might believe it is reasonable to doubt that your neighbor has thoughts, but if that is the case I don’t think the gap will be closed through this discussion.

Non-sequitur. How is this relevant to what I've said?

RJG wrote:Secondly, "reasonableness" is already implied in one's belief.

Fooloso4 wrote:Do you think it is reasonable to believe that your neighbor is a zombie? What is it about your neighbor that would lead you to believe such a thing? What are your reasons for believing your neighbor is or might be a zombie?

Again, non relevance here. Your response doesn't follow my comment.

RJG wrote:One's (reasonably held) 'belief' that one's neighbor is/is not a zombie, does not necessarily mean that it is/is not 'true', ...right?

Fooloso4 wrote:You begin with a hypothetical and since the hypothetical cannot be proven wrong you conclude that your neighbor might be a zombie. You treat the belief that your neighbor is a zombie as equivalent to the belief that your neighbor is not a zombie, as if both require the same degree of evidence or that both rather than only one needs any evidence at all to be "believed".

Is this a "YES" or a "NO"?

RJG wrote:Why can't we just leave 'beliefs' as 'beliefs', ...and leave the 'truths' (and falses) to 'logic'???

Fooloso4 wrote:The plea to leave ‘beliefs’ as ‘beliefs’ indicates that you are unaware of the problem of belief and the incommensurate ways in which the term is used.

So then are you trying to assert that "beliefs" should be considered as "truths"?