Hence saying “X=X; X exists” just doesn’t tell me anything.
Why? It’s just true, is it not?
And for purposes of commnicating clearly, I’m going to stick with the OED definitions in this case. So it seems we’re at a stalemate, for I’m not going to accept your definitions (which objectively exist but are false), and you’re not going to accept mine (which objectively exist but are true).
It seems we are in agreement.
If you don’t like my definition, tell me why, and propose your own - one more precise than OED, one that is not obviously circular.
The OED definition isn’t circular, though, which I already explained. For objects “to have place in the domain of reality” is simply the way of the world. You seem to think you’re the centre of everything, whereas nothing else exists, save for what you make of it. I contest this notion.
I can’t know until I know what you mean by exist. Right now it’s the same as if you’d written “X=X; X snorgelorp.” The OED is, at face value without looking up any of the other terms, like “Snorgelorp is flibberitch, noobergat and zicklewomp.” I mean, I do get the point the OED is driving at, and I am saying that the point it is driving it is close to my definition. I’m saying that my definition is functionally what people really mean when they say “exist,” “real,” “real world,” etc. It’s just that in everyday talk it is not necessary (and very difficult) to state it so precisely.
If you don’t accept my definition and won’t say why you don’t think it’s useful, then I guess yes we are at a stalemate. Or actually we haven’t even begun to have a discussion yet, because we haven’t even settled on any definitions.
AJ,
Do you agree/disagree with Murphy @ http://www.anti-state.com/murphy/murphy19.html ?
If you agree with Murphy, what is your opinion on morality? Do you side with Mises/Daniel James Sanchez?
Is anyone aware what Murphy’s stance is?
Won’t say why you don’t think it’s useful.
It’s not useful because there is indubitably a reality beyond my or your perception.
I read that a long time ago and I recall thinking that M&C made some good points, but that it might be possible to work around them. I don’t know that they really hit on any of the fatal problems with AE, so it seems like kind of a softball to me.
I think that beauty is not an agent-neutral term, so necessarily there is no sense in arguing whether picasso paintings just are beautiful. I think Picassos paintings are beautiful to me.. we could have a discussion where we try to persuade each other so that our subjective opinions are affected but I dont think there is any agent neutral truth about the beauty of picasso paintings that can be found.
We could have a proper argument about whether that there thing over there really is a picasso painting and not something else… ‘its a fake look at this’, ‘no you are wrong about that because of x’ ‘oh ok I see I made a mistake because I missed X, I agree with you now’. ← this one requires interpersonal-norms
This would depend on what ‘best’ meant… If you mean something like,a norm is better than another when it can be asserted without falling into performative contradiction whilst the other cannot. then its a truth claim, because it would only remain to be shown that the nap can be asserted without falling into performative contradiction whilst any other cannot
However if by ‘best’ you mean ‘i have the internal psychological state of liking it more than other norms’, then its a truth statement still because it may or may not be true that you like it more or less than you like other norms ..
however if by ‘best’ you mean ‘everyone should have the internal psychological state of liking it more than other norms’ then that seems out of reach…
so too is you leave ‘best’ ambigious because then three different folks could consider the proposition in the three different ways laid out above and there will be no settling the truth of the matter since ‘best’ has been left as an agent-relative statement
So my definition of “exist” is not useful because things exist?
So my definition of “exist” is not useful because things exist?
Precisely. To say otherwise is circular logic.
I’m not sure you know what a definition is.
It’s what is objectively in a dictionary, specifically that greatest of dictionaries.
I rest my case.
I read your repost and I don’t see why he can’t go on and make his argument. At worst, you show that he is not sufficiently explicit with his terminology and that his argument can be taken to mean different things at different points. If you interpret it one way, you can make the argument that he is just conflating. If you take his wording correctly within its proper context, then his argument is sound and robust.
To put it into my own words, the reason why argumentation implies that one has the right of self-ownership and the right to standing room is this:
For an argument to count as an argument, both participants must accept the property norm that they each have exclusive control over their own bodies and standing room. If any proposition is justifed at all, anything which logically presupposes it must also be justified. The norm of each participant having exclusive control over his own body and the standing room his body occupies must be assumed to be justified by both participants, otherwise no proposition could ever be, and there simply would be no point to arguing at all.
This is my restatement of the core of his thesis as I understand it. Now, is it possible to subject it to the same criticism? What I am asking is, does your argument address a systemic problem with his thesis, or is it only incidental to that particular formulation of it?
I rest my case.
Haha, because of the circular idea that everything is subjective, and that there are not abstract, objective concepts. xD
Cool.
AJ,
Re: softball.
They do start with more softball objections, but go deeper as they go along. It appears thorough to me.
Also, my other questions?
Anyway, my whole point in a nutshell. There must be an objective reality which exists, otherwise you would have nothing to subjectively judge and analyse. It would be impossible and circular. If we are living in a dream, then that is the objective reality which we are subjectively judging.
Rothbard’s Disciple -
“but the food still objectively and with certainty exists.”
Is there a physical intermediary between the food and your eyes that you call light? How do you know the food exists when you believe that something has to travel between it and your retinas? What you are saying is that you strongly infer that the food exists because you are looking at it. This also implicitly assumes something about the definition of “existence,” namely that existing things have the potential to influence other existing things. The food influences the light which influences your retinas. The assumption is that this all occurs independent of any thoughts about it.
“Also, let’s say person X is eating lunch in England. I may not perceive it, but it is an the object of reality. And if I perceive it, that object of reality becomes the object of perception. (On which I may have many subjective thoughts, such that their meal looks delicious).”
Whether or not they are eating lunch in England in no way depends upon your thoughts or observation of it. If you observe them eating, your sensory faculties are somehow producing an image within your experience. That image is not the same thing as the people eating, you assume that if you think the facts about their lunch of not contingent upon your thoughts/observations. I can reinforce that by pointing to the general belief that there is some physical intermediary we call light which explains how the information about the objects traverses a distance. What we point to in perception, ie, a sensory observation, is assumed to be different than the “objects of reality” which are the way they are even though you aren’t in England to attempt to verify it.
Existence in general is when you treat something in your experience as being a representation of something other than the immediate experience. I assume that the moon I imagine is not the “real” moon because the real deal doesn’t care whether humans are there to look at it.
This forever severs us from the “facts of reality.” We assume that there is a reality beyond our ideas and thoughts, and we infer things about that reality based upon what we observe. Our knowledge, ie, immediate experience, never meets “reality” but only the models we formulate to understand it.
In the conext of physics, this demands that the qualities we apply to this external existence be imaginable. If I can’t imagine what exists, and what is responsible for the explanation, then I can’t imagine the explanation. If I can’t understand unambiguously what “warped spacetime” means for example, then I have no ability to understand how or why the Earth is held in rotation by the Sun. What is it that pushes on the Earth? Does it have a surface? This has led me to conclude that the only inherent quality of a physical object is its shape. All the definitions of physics can be derived from physical shape (ie, that which occupies space) and space (formlessness, emptiness, nothingness), and as a result these definitions can be used consistently in the course of an explanation, or in connecting that explanation to the observations/evidence/experiments.
In the conext of economics, this demands similarly that what we are saying exists can be imagined. We can imagine the difference between a mindless robot and a sentient human being. The human makes value judgments, experiences profit and loss, consciously conceives of possible future states of affairs and consciously formulates means and a plan to arrive at the desired end, etc. I’m not sure how much Mises would agree with everything I am saying here, but I think the whole reason he was able to discover economic explanations was because he zoned in on that notion of “what exists.” What is really out there? The concept of human action is just the picking out of the qualities inherent to an action, separating them and recognizing their distinctions. I imagine that this required enormoues effort on the part of Mises, but lucky for us once discovered it was easy to communicate. The facts of human actions are not open to us, we assume that they occur and that they entail certain thingsentering into the field of the actor’s awareness, such as means, ends, planning, etc.
It’s possible that physics and economics, although different in their assumptions about existence, share a common methodology. The often held critique against Austrian economics, ie, that it is unscientific because economic theory cannot be falsified or verified, holds no water in this world view. Explanations deal with existence, and the existence “out there” is assumed to be beyond knowledge, ie, one’s immediate experience. Nothing about it can be verified or falsified, we can only attempt to formulate rational explanations for what we observe. I don’t see why there should be any difference between economics and the physical sciences in this respect.