If I go to verify that the horse exists, and I see a horse right there, but some other people are standing around saying it’s just an illusion, how do I verify it’s real? Maybe I’ll reach out and push it, then it turns and bites me, which hurts. Now I am more ready to take it seriously and say this thing exists, it really does matter for my future actions - e.g., I’d better not push it again. Still, someone could say all this is just an illusion. So there’s no way to really verify it, beyond simply making a judgment, and maybe seeing if other people make the same judgment.
There is no magical “definite objective existence that is unimaginable to the human mind.”
They may not be in good alignment with the rest of that set of sensations I call “the way things really are.” That’s in my revised definition above already.
no. the confusion here stems from the fact that something that really exists, in an agent neutral sense, may well affect your pain and pleasure and may dissapoint or delight you. This is because there was a universe existing before mind (humans evolved from simpler organisms that way down the line we wouldnt call agents). We have evolved to make sense of what we can in the world, this is an evolutionary adaptation which has benefits over being soooooo divorced from reality that we die before we procreate.
maybe we miss much because of our imperfections, maybe there are some inneffable mysteries out there, but there really is an out there that we are really in. I expect that you would admit that at least this much seems true to your agent-relative intellect, given the evidence you have gathered in your life. consider all the facts that you had mustered about things like the universe and humans and evolution, and the stock you place in science to be useful to you. I hope that this wealth of knowledge that your possess subjectively should amount to an acknowledgement that to your best understanding you exist somewhere.
Thats a good paragraph about the struggle to determine what the facts are, and about how ever present the danger of erring we come.
Your scenario would make perfect sense in a world of objective facts populated by imperfect agents as it does a crazy heraclation kaleidoscope populated by agents. so really proves nothing either way. Yet it probably does contradict your own best understanding of science, of accumulated evidence etc, because presumably you subjectively believe that the universe existed before you did based. Or at least you said you did to get a good grade at school
There’s nothing in my definition that precludes any of this. Note simply that when you make that statement, you’re making it from the perspective of your current perceptions. You’re perhaps seeing an image of planet earth in your mind, floating in the universe, with no people on it, and then you’re experiencing something else that signals to you that that image is supposed to be a long time in the past.
But these are all sensations, with no exceptions. You deem those sensations you call “a universe … before mind” to be useful to guiding your future actions, do you not? This is all “there was a universe existing before mind” really means to you - that’s the only reason it matters to you. Otherwise why would you mention it?
no. the confusion here stems from the fact that something that really exists, in an agent neutral sense, may well affect your pain and pleasure and may dissapoint or delight you. This is because there was a universe existing before mind (humans evolved from simpler organisms that way down the line we wouldnt call agents). We have evolved to make sense of what we can in the world, this is an evolutionary adaptation which has benefits over being soooooo divorced from reality that we die before we procreate.
maybe we miss much because of our imperfections, maybe there are some inneffable mysteries out there, but there really is an out there that we are really in. I expect that you would admit that at least this much seems true to your agent-relative intellect, given the evidence you have gathered in your life. consider all the facts that you had mustered about things like the universe and humans and evolution, and the stock you place in science to be useful to you. I hope that this wealth of knowledge that your possess subjectively should amount to an acknowledgement that to your best understanding you exist somewhere.
Yes, nirgraham, you make this so clear. Thanks for the clarity in what I was already thinking.
On a side note, aren’t we empiricists in the old tradition? Isn’t that the basic concept we’re arguing? (Please correct me if I’m wrong, as I very well could be).
Wikipedia says that this is what we are arguing about:
Anti-realist arguments
Anti-realism is the view of idealists who are skeptics about the physical world, maintaining either: 1) that nothing exists outside the mind, or 2) that we would have no access to a mind-independent reality even if it may exist. Realists, in contrast, hold that perceptions or sense data are caused by mind-independent objects. An “anti-realist” who denies that other minds exist (i. e., a solipsist) is different from an “anti-realist” who claims that there is no fact of the matter as to whether or not there are unobservable other minds (i. e., a logical behaviorist).
Yes, they are my sensations , but that is the least interesting thing about them, the interesting thing is how that fits in with all the other evidence I have subjectively gathered in my jaunt so far.
The world simply makes more sense existing without me in its past, than not, given the way it presents itself to me in my present existence. If you are going to adopt a pragmatic approach to truth, then you should adopt the agent-neutral things outside my mind exist position for this reason precisely !
Does the world make more or less sense to you , given what you think you know about things, if it had been present before your mind came to be than otherwise?
I find it cleaner to say that you experience something involuntarily (i.e., you observe it), then you voluntarily imagine some objects and try to make a movie of them in your head that ends with the observation. That is, the objects interact in such a way as to produce the observation. No need for the idea of existence. All we need to do is explain. Anyone who has observed the same phenomena will need no convincing that the observed phenomena “exist.”
In other words, something appears in your experience involuntarily. You then voluntarily conjure up experiences that would deterministically result in that involuntary experience because of the very nature of those experiences (in physics, those experiences would be shapes). Once you find some simple experiential movie that ends that way, you share it with other people who have experienced the same involuntary thing, and see if they like your explanation. This sidesteps the complicated-to-talk-about notion of existence. There is just explanation. Just cinematography.
This is what you guys think I am arguing about, but this this not what I am saying - I am neither a realist nor an anti-realist. I am not an “-ist” of any kind on this. I am simply trying to formulate a useful definition. Definitions are not propositions. It seems like I have to say this a lot these days.
Philosophers generally try to prove definitions. To me, this just indicates they are mightily confused and just shuffling words around. I am actually trying to get at the experiential, 5-sense aspects of what our everyday terms mean, because that is the only way we can be confident we are communicating. If I mention the smell of lemons, perhaps you will all imagine roughly the same thing. I want to have that level of clarity and consistency for every important or strategic word in science.
Nir, you’re arguing as if I’m an anti-realist. I am simply trying to clarify what - precisely - we mean when we use words like “real” and “exist.” I am not taking a position; in fact I don’t even think it makes any sense to “take a position” on ontology. For me it is purely a matter of clarification, and I wish I had more time today to make it, well, clear.
My issue is with the whole “creating your own definitions for already existing words” idea. Why not (a) use the old, correct definition or (b) make a new word?
If I mention the smell of lemons, perhaps you will all imagine roughly the same thing. I want to have that level of clarity and consistency for every important or strategic word in science.
well cool.
but your definition is poor compared to my definition by my lights. since to you existance means your awareness of something and your expectation that that thing should prove a benefit or disservice to you. but this does not distinguish between agent relative and agent neutral quality that so marks our the real world from the dream world. did you know people can have lucid dreams, they can be aware that they are dreaming and not in the agent-neutral world they wakingly share with other agents, in theses dreams things exist in their imaginations in the way you have it, with their pragmatic element etc, yet we can credit a lucid dreamer with being comfortable with the fact that when they wake up the next day the dream elements that so affected their pleasure pain affected no-one else in the waking world since it was agent relative and not agent neutral, whereas things are different in the waking world.
now you can play around with, how do you know this isnt a dream, and maybe the dream is really real etc, but thats not the relevant aspect, its the extent to which you believe something to be accessable to other parties that is the demarkation between existance and imagination. on reflection it seems to me that by your definining existance not based on such agent-neutral/relative distinctions but rather on pragmatism/relevance that you really demarcate existance from ‘things that we dont care whether they exist or not’ (rather than demarcating existence from imagined)
He has a number of different formulations of the same proof. Some more specifically address the point about equivocating between descriptive and prescriptive statements than others.
The quote you were criticising was from Four Critical Replies. It can be found on pg. 412 of The Economics and Ethics of Private Property. He goes into much more detail in From The Economics of Lassez Faire To The Ethics of Libertarianism in the same book, on pg. 317-318.
So, his argument does not rest on equivocation. He is clearly saying, in this formulation, that it is the norm that must be recognized, and not just the fact of control over one’s body.
AJ: “Actually, the issue is whether it is an objective norm.”
And by what criteria are you going with “objective”? Pity you’re attacking a strawman.
AJ: “Hilarious? No one has ever addressed that equivocation, and your copypasta does not even mention it. That “tripe” isn’t going away just because people try to heap on more text to evade it. Hoppe was caught in a bald equivocation, revealing how he floundered into his argument by making a basic error.”
Yes, most amusing. My post referenced Hoppe’s universalizability video, you’re the one who has ignored it. The post was addressed adequately by Nir, and Knight of B… that you contend otherwise, need not make it so.
You’re yet to show Hoppe in any kind of equivocation.
Second, there is the logical gap between “is-” and “ought-statements” which natural rights proponents have failed to bridge successfully-except for advancing some general critical remarks regarding the ultimate validity of the fact-value dichotomy. Here the praxeological proof of libertarianism has the advantage of offering a completely value-free justification of private property. It remains entirely in the realm of is-statements and never tries to derive an “ought” from an “is.” The structure of the argument is this: (a) justification is propositional justification-a priori true is-statement; (b) argumentation presupposes property in one’s body and the homesteading principle-a priori true is statement; and (c) then, no deviation from this ethic can be argumentatively justified-a priori true is-statement. The proof also offers a key to an understanding of the nature of the fact-value dichotomy: Ought-statements cannot be derived from is- statements. They belong to different logical realms. It is also clear, however, that one cannot even state that there are facts and values if no propositional exchanges exist, and that this practice of propositional exchanges in turn presupposes the acceptance of the private property ethic as valid. In other words, cognition and truth-seeking as such have a normative foundation, and the normative foundation on which cognition and truth rest is the recognition of private property rights.
Will you address the content of the earlier post thanks.
Graham Wright: “Question for Nir / Conza… if I were to make the statement that “Picasso paintings are beautiful” and you disagree and we have an “argument” about it, would this be an “argument” in the sense Hoppe uses that term? I mean, it’s not like this is going to be “settled”. One of us is not going to prove the other person incorrect. Even if I persuaded you to change your mind, neither of us would say you were ‘incorrect’ before.”
“Argumentation is a conflict-free way of interacting. Not in the sense that there is always agreement on the things said, but in the sense that as long as argumentation is in progress it is always possible to agree at least on the fact that there is disagreement about the validity of what has been said. And this is to say nothing else than that a mutual recognition of each person’s exclusive control over his own body must be presupposed as long as there is argumentation (note again, that it is impossible to deny this and claim this denial to be true without implicitly having to admit its truth).” (TSC, p. 158)
Why is it relevant? Where is the property conflict? It is a proof that it is impossible to propositionally justify non-libertarian principles without falling into contradictions. Were they trying to justify non-libertarian principles?
Nielsio: "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?"
This is getting pretty close. There is “consensus reality” that involves other parties; however before I can even talk about other parties I have to decide whether they are “real or not” (relevant or not), so that is a question for after we settle on a definition of existence/reality, not before.
In the case of lucid dreams, as per my definition, it entirely matters whether the person thinks they are dreaming, which just means they deem the sensations they experience to be relevant/irrelevant to their more long-term future actions. To say “I know this is just a dream” is to say that I know whatever I do here won’t matter for my actions later today.
I believe I’m not dreaming now. But my typing those words is simply me saying that I’m going to -for example - have to deal with the repurcussions of posting this. (Such as missing my work deadline…)
