Metaphysics

[Cognisant]

Alright so metaphysics is something I never really understood and with it being the centre of discussion recently I decided to find out what the heck everyone was on about.

Like mathematics, metaphysics is a non-empirical study which is conducted using deduction from that which is known a priori.

A priori knowledge, in Western philosophy since the time of Immanuel Kant, knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences, as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which derives from experience.

“I think therefore I am” is an inherently post priori statement as it is self-awareness coming from experiencing one’s own internal dialogue which necessarily comes before inferring one’s existence.

A priori knowledge either isn’t a priori, or it isn’t known.

Metaphysics is nought but baseless presumption, which is fine there’s nothing wrong with speculation, everything we think we know could be the demiurge’s illusions, just don’t go asserting that you know that knowledge is impossible because that’s inherently contradictory.

 

[Cognisant]

@The Grey Man
@onesteptwostep

Fight me.

 

[redbaron]

anything that impacts the physical world is by definition physical and not metaphysical

/thread

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

Is "I think therefore I am" a posteriori though? Descartes wanted to find one thing one could say for sure without the risk of being tricked by the senses etc. I guess one could claim that the point of the statement is that you can say it independently of experience.

 

[Cognisant]

...is that it, that is the entirety of your rebuttal? "Is it though?"

Yes it is, you need to experience your internal dialogue before you can be aware of it, without having experienced your internal dialogue how could you know that you exist?

 

[Black Rose]

subjectivity exists
I am able to ask questions about that existence.
I have the volition as a meta-entity to realize reality exists.
Without autonomous rational entities, there would be no way for reality to know itself.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

...is that it, that is the entirety of your rebuttal? "Is it though?"

Yes it is, you need to experience your internal dialogue before you can be aware of it, without having experienced your internal dialogue how could you know that you exist?

lol what's up with the confrontational attitude, cog. Having that time of the month again?

to answer your question: how would you make that statement without existing in the first place? The whole point of the quote is that you can infer something just by virtue of the statement being made – namely the existence of the entity making the statement. If you didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to say it – i.e. it's a purely logical thing, not an empirical thing.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Im lazy. Take a philosophy class and awake from your dogmatic slumber

 

[The Grey Man]

Understand that when Kant speaks of "knowledge independent of all particular experiences", he is not denying the empirical character of knowledge. He is speaking of certain faculties of the mind which are necessary conditions for the representation of particular experiences. Particular a posteriori experiences (e.g. that of a truck rolling down a hill) have a priori faculties as their conditions of possibility (in this case, space and time as the condition of possibility of the representation of a truck rolling down a hill). None of these a priori faculties would be known without a posteriori experience, as you pointed out, but neither would experience be possible without the faculties. To use a physical metaphor, the mind is a transparent cup whose shape is revealed when the opaque liquid of sensibility is poured into it; without the liquid, the cup may as well not be there, but without the cup, the liquid splatters on the floor and is no use to anyone.

The subject is the condition of conditions; just as space embraces all of the physical objects which are represented within it, so the mind embraces all of its faculties. So I hope you won't find fault in me when I say that the subject is characteristically meta-physical, as I did to Serac in the other thread.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Everything isn't one

 

[Rook]

Every thing is uncertain. Even uncertainty itself.

 

[The Grey Man]

Every thing is uncertain. Even uncertainty itself.

To quote G.E. Moore, here is one hand...and here is another. Are you uncertain of how many hands you have?

 

[Rook]

Every thing is uncertain. Even uncertainty itself.

To quote G.E. Moore, here is one hand...and here is another. Are you uncertain of how many hands you have?

In a metaphysics thread and on a scale of universal ungeocentric philosophy, yes.
As an ape, no.

Duality of thought is not an abomination.
That being said, I have nine fingers so perhaps my hands are expressable in a lesser than two fraction...

 

[washti]

“I think therefore I am” is an inherently post priori statement as it is self-awareness coming from experiencing one’s own internal dialogue which necessarily comes before inferring one’s existence.

In philo of Descartes apriori is knowledge through mental experience,
After it comes sensual experience - a posteriori. So "I think therefore I am" is a priori in this sense. This is mentalist paradigm after all. Serac is spot on here.

There is whole dispute about the epistemological aspect of a priori sentences among philosophers to read. If you care.

 

[The Grey Man]

In a metaphysics thread and on a scale of universal ungeocentric philosophy, yes.
As an ape, no.

What does this mean? Are not the ape and the person perusing the metaphysics thread one in the same?

 

[Rook]

In a metaphysics thread and on a scale of universal ungeocentric philosophy, yes.
As an ape, no.

What does this mean? Are not the ape and the person perusing the metaphysics thread one in the same?

Hmm ok Ill try to explain the overphilosophy of uncertainty. For now, I seem to be human, pretty certain that I have two hands.

But: If I were a deity being bigger than the universe, merely asleep, and this reality all a dream, would I still have two hands? If we were all in the matrix as tentacled silicon-based lifeforms, do we have two hands outside of the matrix? If I as a human dream that I have a hundred hands, do I have them upon awakening?

If I was a puppet created in the video game that might be this universe, do I have two hands, or am I simply a simulation of data inputs?

So far in life I have been human, little evidence of simulational or transitional existence in my little habitat. So day to day I live with the fact of two hands. But the ultimate uncertainty of existence, that which science might never be able to touch with a wooden pole a trillion light years long, stays constant. Who knows?

Practicality must guide us all, but to assert that uncertainty and the uncertainty of uncertainty is not the fundemental underpinning of all existence and thus philosophy is shear folly.

And the uncertainty of uncertainty means this: We might just be apes in an universe wholly describable by science.

My conclusion is that no philosoher can arrive at definite conclusions, unless they limit themselves to certain spheres, mostly pertaining to personal or cultural morality. Even then change is a given and this they must admit, or decieve themselves. Thus they may decieve their acolytes.

 

[washti]

If dreams, video game and silicon tentacle-owners realms have option: hands, then exists possibility of hands or at least the hands illusion.
If you live in one of these and you are able to think about hands, then option of hand forms also exists even if only as not yet realized potential.
If someone/something programmed you to be able to think about hands as existing but there is no physical possibility for hands to occur, then idea of hands is real as representation in programmer and your brain.

Philosophy doesn't aim in any definitive conclusion. It's ongoing iterative process of determining everything, through specifying categories, giving names, establishing relations and meanings. It's sharpening human cognition so humans can do more and different with everything.

It's one of two the best forms of masturbation. And it's possible exactly thanks to uncertainty. Apes have just one.

 

[The Grey Man]

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

@Rook why do you think that Macbeth is able to doubt that the dagger is not "of the mind"? If his sense of sight can deceive him, why can't his sense of touch? Even if he could feel the dagger in his hand, could he not still wonder if it was not a "false creation", a phantasm of his mind? And if so, what is the difference between a real dagger and one that is 'merely' dreamt or simulated?

The answer seems to be that virtual daggers and real daggers are indiscernible from each other; regardless of whether it's real or 'merely' simulated, here my hand is.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

In a metaphysics thread and on a scale of universal ungeocentric philosophy, yes.
As an ape, no.

What does this mean? Are not the ape and the person perusing the metaphysics thread one in the same?

My interpretations of what he said was "uncertain in theory, certain in practice". In theory there may be all kinds of alternate explanations that could explain his belief that he had 2 hands, so he could speak of a kind of uncertainty, but in practice, where it comes to making a decision based on whether or not he has 2 hands, he would be basically certain.

 

[Rook]

I agree. But Macbeth did not wake up to find after his demise that he is bigger than the universe. Look, for most intents and purposes I agree with the anthropocentric, realistic view, but uncertainty shall forever remain.

I do not say let us guide our lives by the what ifs, but rather admit that we are not now able to prove or disprove them. If I stab in a dream I do still stab in a dream, yet thereafter no victim upon my floor shall lay. Known phantasms of the human mind and the possible fundemental nature of our universe not a balanced comparison make, 'tis like comparing a grain of sand and a trillion deserts.

Proof is secondary, for by its very nature the existence of absolute uncertainty (cosmologically) defies it.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I think any time that a proposition is put forwards in words, there is doubt over it.

Like say I say "something exists". That sounds like the most certain thing I could say, but by the time it is put in words, there arises the question of "wait, what if I have misinterpreted the phrase? What if "something exists" doesn't mean what I think it does, so my line of reasoning is inherently flawed?". So if there is actual certainty over anything, it is pre-verbal. It exists in a form where there can be no doubt over it, but by the time we try to based something off of it, then uncertainty arises, unless perhaps we are operating completely within a zone of pure certainty, if such a zone exists.

 

[The Grey Man]

@Rook aren't you begging a question? If you stab someone to death in a dream and wake up to find no body, why can't you wake up again to find a body once again? If dreams are indiscernible from reality, what are the "known" phantasms?

 

[Cognisant]

Ok let me reiterate for the slow people.

A priori knowledge is inherently contradictory.

Bob thinks he's real, Bob thinks that because he thinks therefore he knows he exists, Bob isn't real and only exists as a fictional character, you could say that I am Bob's demiurge.

All of reality could be an illusion, likewise your own thoughts might not actually be your own, it's epistemological skepticism and it goes both ways.

Once you play the epistemological skepticism card that's it, debate over, it is an absolute argument, you can't them go on to say "oh but there's an exception" because there isn't, there's no exceptions, if knowledge is impossible then nothing can be known, NOTHING.

It's the same fucking bullshit over and over and I am sick of it.

 

[Rook]

Ok let me state it like this: Here is us. There is Antares. Here's a galaxy, there are billions. We have looked farther and decided to formulate a big bang. Beyond that? What is our universe?


This is the uncertainty that I refer to. The hypothosized dreams (simulation, overworld, christian heaven?) are of a type that transcends the universe. Much like a video game: A character has two arms, yet... it is a created thing, dependant on human action and thought. Does it have arms?

So this is the fundemental all-prevailing uncertainty that surpasses science in its current scope: Is there only this universe? Are we gods? A game? Nothing? Or just as we seem to be? What?

We have answers inside the universe, outside(?), no. Thus we can view the answers inside as uncertain, just as a fish in a bowl can not concieve of the earthquake that shall kill it.

I do not proffer answers. This is uncertainty.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

@Cognisant I don't think a priori is the same as 100% certain is it?

The Grey Man explains the a priori earlier in the thread with the cup metaphor.

 

[washti]

Can you dream not about objects or a mixture of objects that you perceive using senses when awake?

Can you create a thought experiment without using them?

Aren't abstract concepts objectified or personified in dreams as symbols - objects from sensual reality?

The human brain has the ability to create mental constructs from the attributes of the perceived environment. This skill is extrapolated to the idea that the constructs of the imagination have or may have the same status as the objects of the material world.

Since we are still in a process of discovering and exploring sensual phenomenons and their atributes - we are somehow very eager to give our imaginable constructs posibility for existance in material plane. We ask what if. This question itself gives as ideas how to act and manipulate material world. It's proved to be useful.

But if is used without assumed practical application - only as speculation in imaginable realm - it's become erroneous attribution of mental simulation to physical reality and creates existential uncertainty.

 

[redbaron]

guys stop i've already said /thread

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

anything that impacts the physical world is by definition physical and not metaphysical

/thread

Does consciousness impact the physical world? Does goodness, or truth, impact the physical world, or qualia?

You could say "yes, conscious beings impact the physical world" however you could surely imagine that these beings could impact the physical world even if they were not conscious, put performed the same actions as someone who was.

Likewise for goodness - we might have a tendency to strive for actions which are in an absolute sense good, but chances are our actions could be explain without making reference to this.

So just because something has some kind of relation to the physical world, does not mean it directly impacts the physical world.

Also, couldn't something be both physical and metaphysical?

 

[The Grey Man]

@Rook I think I tripped myself up by originally referring to the phantasms as "false" even though they're indistinguishable from reality.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that because we have knowledge of only empirical phenomena, of "phantasms", whatsoever is beyond experience is beyond our ken? This I agree with. It resembles also Kant's doctrine of the unknowability of the thing-in-itself beyond experience.

 

[Black Rose]

A priori knowledge is inherently contradictory.

Kant labels causality as what we know a priori. Empirical measurements will in no way allow you to know why any instance of action happens or why it is causality obeys rules uniformly with time and space.

Also with regard to space, we know space exists because of extension synonymous with the accepted view that matter (in Descartes time) was infinitely divisible. Leibniz invented the infinitesimal which was an infinitely small dot used in a formula. Space was not something like infinitely divisible matter. In fact, space lacks any attributes at all and is only possible because matter creates the illusion from the relationships of infinitely divisible matter. Looking in the empty space of a room that's not space that is negative space, matter creates space which means empirical investigations into what space is like investigating the 3-dimensional space in a videogame by assuming that the 2D monitor of the computer contains something called 3D space, to begin with. The problem of perception is that we see a 3D world when that is opposite, we construct a reality from a reality that is not true the construct we have instantiated.

We know space to exist not because of the perception of matter but because matter gives us the reference form by which to project where space is supposed to be. In a dark room space is infinite yet matter cannot be the reason we can experience this. Infinite black space holds no perception by which empirical we verify it exists. Space is a mind devoid of perception and empiricism comes from perception.

Any prediction we make is a causal one. We know when a cup falls what happens next is a shattered cup. Seeing the cup as it falls does not imply what comes next. We know the cup will shatter not because we see the cup falling because inside us is an invisible knowing that it will shatter. Jung calls that intuition but back in Kants day intuition was no a perception. This invisible thing inside us that just knows what will happen is not empirical. It is the metaphysical a priori of the causal.

 

[Kakariki]

All hail metaphysics!

Let me explain why: Getting rid of all metaphysical assumptions also means denying the reality of the external world independent of the observing subject. Physics is always done from the viewpoint of an observer, and to talk about reality regardless of an observer is not physics but metaphysics. The positivists, instead of simply accepting a bit of metaphysics in order to save the reality of the external world, denied the reality of the external world because of their blind hatred of anything beyond physics. (Rejecting all metaphysics also means rejecting materialism.)

The most brilliant physicists, aware of what accepting only physics implies, have consequently always defended metaphysics. Einstein’s reaction to positivist reflections such as:

The scientist postulates nothing of the world beyond sense; The ghostly world of
“things-in-themselves” behind sense he leaves as a playground to the metaphysician and the materialist. There these gymnasts, released from the dreary bondage of space and time, can play all sorts of tricks with the unknowable, and explain to the few who can comprehend
them how the universe is created out of atom and ether, and how a knowledge of things beyond perception, i.e. beyond the knowable, may be attained. The scientist bravely asserts that it is impossible to know what there is behind sense-impression, if indeed there can “be” anything ; he therefore refuses to project his conceptions, atom and ether, into the real world of perception until he has perceived them there.

was, “I am particularly pleased to note that one can, after all, not get along without ‘metaphysics’.”

When we hear positivists talk like that —although we have to admit that they are undeniably right when they say that physics alone tells us nothing about the world as it is independently of observation— do we in that case not even sympathize, as far as he defends materialism, with Lenin, who says with frustration:

Those who hold to the line of Kant or Hume ([positivists such as] Mach and Avenarius are among the latter, in so far as they are not pure Berkeleians) call us, the materialists, “metaphysicians” because we recognise objective reality which is given us in experience, because we recognise an objective source of our sensations independent of man.

 

[kora]

*Yawn*

Metaphysics is simply speculation on the fundamental nature of reality. If you say "everything is physical" (as you do eh) and then perhaps go into more depth on what you mean by "physical" then you're doing metaphysics as far as I'm concerned.

As for the rest of your post, sorry if I'm one of the slow ones but I don't understand how the cogito and metaphysics are causing or linked to rampant epistemological nihilism. I mean, as far as I'm anyone who understands the actual argument is concerned, the cogito shows that epistemological skepticism has limits, if you keep doubting everything you eventually arrive at an unbreakable cornerstone whereby you cannot doubt your own existence because the act of doubting means there is something that exists that is doing the doubting. (you can take issue with the "I" or the self doing the doubting as many have done, but the fundamental still stands: there is something that exists that is doubting.)

As for the non existence of any priori knowledge, that's quite an interesting remark, I think you may be misconstruing what a priori means though? From the Internet Encyclopedia of Phlosophy :

The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used primarily to denote the foundations upon which a proposition is known. A given proposition is knowable a priori if it can be known independent of any experience other than the experience of learning the language in which the proposition is expressed, whereas a proposition that is knowable a posteriori is known on the basis of experience. For example, the proposition that all bachelors are unmarried is a priori, and the proposition that it is raining outside now is a posteriori .

Basically saying the proposition is a priori or a posteriori is talking about how it is justified or verified. Bachelors are unmarried is justified internally, through internal coherence, as 2+3=5 is as well I guess. "It's raining" is justified through empirical verification.

As for the cogito, well I think there's a large debate on what kind of justification it has. The act of doubting pre supposes existence, so I guess it could arguably be construed as a priori, as it's justification is internal? I think Descartes is very careful about the nature of the argument though, so I might be going out on a limb. Here's what he says:

"When someone says “I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,” he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind. (Replies 2, AT 7:140) "

He seems to be saying it's not even inference or anything, just self-evident. Sounds like a bit of a cop out to me, but I'm pretty rusty on any philosophy pre 1850s tbh.

For more: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/#4

Bob thinks he's real, Bob thinks that because he thinks therefore he knows he exists, Bob isn't real and only exists as a fictional character, you could say that I am Bob's demiurge.

The cogito only works to give certainty in first person perspective. If that's meant to be some kind of refutation, you're misconstruing what it is.

In short, if you don't like epistemological nihilism, you should damn well like the cogito. (not Descartes in general, we all know he goes off the rails a bit after the first meditation with the god god god stuff XD)

 

[The Grey Man]

Metaphysics is simply speculation on the fundamental nature of reality.

It's notable that it's virtually impossible to discuss metaphysics without resorting to physical analogies. Even this common definition of metaphysics is a physical analogy, "fundamental" being an allusion to the phenomenon of one object resting on another, its foundation.

Kant has been mentioned a few times in this thread already. His mission in writing the Critique of Pure Reason was to to lay the foundations of future metaphysics (there's that analogy again!) as Copernicus had done for physics. And yet, where in that book is there any "speculation on the fundamental nature of reality"? His method, no less than that of Descartes, is introspective; the C.P.R. is an analysis of the principles whereby the physical world is structured by his own mind as a specimen of humanity.

It seems to me that Kant is the paradigmatic example of a Western metaphysician not because he sought some fundamental structure or omnipresent occult sub-stratum of the world, as the physicists do, but because he sought the conditions needful for any physical structure to appear, thereby embodying Aristotle's original conception of metaphysics as the investigation of "being qua being".

The real speculation, the real philosophy starts when a philosopher, scorning the intellectual hypocrisy of metaphysical solipsism, attempts to reconcile physics and metaphysics, object and subject, structured and structurer, multiplicity and unity, inevitably producing some sort of dual-aspect theory of everything. You've probably seen enough posts of mine to infer whom I believe the real philosopher in the Western tradition to be

 

[redbaron]

the common usage of metaphysics is unfortunately more complex than that, even though that's what it ideally should just be

naturalists make a few basic assumptions about the world:

- it's governed by natural forces
- that these forces are consistent throughout nature
- that because these forces are the basis of the world around us, and that they are consistent, we can therefore learn about the world through observation of these forces

metaphysical discussion of the kind higs mentions (the nature of reality) is realistically still just 'physics' to a naturalist

doesn't matter what it is to non-naturalists because they're dum anyway

:^)

 

[kora]

I'm still perfectly satisfied with my definition because the word itself is vague, I think it includes many of the thinkers and perspectives in philosophy across history and today.

Metaphysics is a very hazy shove-all term for a bunch of stuff that we don't know where to put but that some people feel it's worth talking about, scientists included.

A short history and etymological lesson @Cognisant :
Some dude, the librarian or whatever classified all the lectures by Aristotle thematically and compiled them, first he put all the biological empirical stuff in one slot and named it "phusis" (physics) then he had all this other stuff left over that was about logic, causality, teleology, identity and forms and things and so he put them on the next rung and labeled it "meta phusis" or "after physics".

1560s, plural of Middle English metaphisik, methaphesik (late 14c.), "branch of speculation which deals with the first causes of things," from Medieval Latin metaphysica, neuter plural of Medieval Greek (ta) metaphysika, from Greek ta meta ta physika "the (works) after the Physics," title of the 13 treatises which traditionally were arranged after those on physics and natural sciences in Aristotle's writings. The name was given c.70 B.C.E. by Andronicus of Rhodes, and was a reference to the customary ordering of the books, but it was misinterpreted by Latin writers as meaning "the science of what is beyond the physical." See meta- + physics. The word originally was used in English in the singular; plural form predominated after 17c., but singular made a comeback late 19c. in certain usages under German influence.

I'm not using "fundamental" to mean some kind of substrate of matter or whatever, (though I guess it could cover that?) I mean fundamental as in the most essential concepts that seemingly structure/compose what we call "reality". Physics and science in general charts, records and predicts relations between observed phenomena, cause and effect. Metaphysics is speculations of all sorts about these relations and phenomena. Examples of "Metaphysics" today includes asking stuff like for example "what is causality", "what is time", "what are numbers", "idealism vs physicalism/naturalism" (or dual aspect monism ofc a lot of that ties into phil of mind), other common themes are modality (necessity, contingency, possibility), nominalism, I guess there's the classic determinism/free will stuff in there too and you could also throw in questions of what properties are, why there is something rather than nothing, existence of God, intentionality etc.

Metaphysical discussion cannot and does not happen in a vacuum divorced from science. This apparently wide-spread illusion that philosophers have given science the finger and walzed off into the corner to intellectually masturbate to a priori unicorns or something is ignorant, many scientists are philosophers and vice versa, and they are not operating on baseless presumptions but informed empirical data and formal logic rules. This is why it's useless to attack "metaphysics" as a whole. Yes a lot of it is shoddy and doesn't have a rigorous methodology, it's just people thinking stuff on various topics that can't be categorized under "physics". However, contemporary analytical philosophy imposes some kind of norm of rigor, formalization and clarity on all parts, including its metaphysics. All super rAtIonaIIts DiSSiLLUSIONED ATHEISTS EMPIRICIT WARRIORS can stop kissing Stephen Hawkin's ass when he says philosophy is dead now, because he is and philosophy is not (bad taste joke I know I actually like him, currently reading a brief history of time ), and it's not coming over to divert precious cognitive or financial resources from science, because essentially, no one gives that much of a fuck about it.

Every time someone says "metaphysics/philosophy are dead" (it's happened plenty of times) in some kind of nerd equivalent of punk rock jerking off to da powa of empiriks science it still comes back because there is legitimate speculation to be made on the phenomena recorded and dissected by the empirical scientific method and actually the nerd in question is assuming a "metaphysical" stance in doing so anyway. Logical positivism failed:

"The meaning of a statement consists entirely in the predictions it makes about possible experience"-> Famously meaningless when applied to itself. (Must have been a bit of an embarrassment...)

Also I forgot to mention it's mostly all INCREDIBLY dull. Science is waaaay more exciting and easily conclusive so anyone who decides not to care about it is absolutely right. Epistemology and ethics are a lot more fun imo, though of course there's always cross over. Check out this page on causality for an example and taste of contemporary metaphysics :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-metaphysics/#ProProPro

WOohOoOoO fOrmAL LogIc and ClArifYing CoNcEPtS.

We can get rid of the term though I guess, I mean, I don't care. Fuck it all. Burn it all down. Choke them on hemlock. They're all pretentious pricks tying themselves in circles. No one knows what the hell is really going on and philosophers are reminders of this, which is why everyone hates them, peace out. <3

 

[onesteptwostep]

People here seem to equate metaphysics with ontology here, but we have to remember that metaphysics also touches into politics, morality, God, aesthetics, and so on. It's not just about being/existence or epistemology.

 

[Cognisant]

@higs

Metaphysical discussion cannot and does not happen in a vacuum divorced from science. This apparently wide-spread illusion that philosophers have given science the finger and walzed off into the corner to intellectually masturbate to a priori unicorns or something is ignorant

But there's people who have and they're calling it metaphysics.
Here let me get him for you. @The Grey Man

I'm not saying there's no value in abstract thought experiments, I'd be a hypocrite if I did, the whole Bob thing was a thought experiment and you could say since it isn't based on actual real world experience that I was making an a priori argument. But that's not what "a priori" means to TGM and the other subjectivists, they're trying to make an ontological argument for subjectivism over materialism because they suppose internal experiences (including one's own internal dialogue/reasoning) aren't subject to the same potential fallibility of external experiences.

 

[Black Rose]

How does potential fallibility of subjectivity even work in the mind-matter problem?
The ontology of subjectivity means either monism or dualism.
So is materialism and subjectivity the same or are they mutually exclusive?
A monism where only subjectivity exists is a stance not easily dismissed.
What can be easily dismissed is one where only material exists and no subjectivity at all.

Should I seriously consider that I am not having any subjective experience right now just because that experience is not 100% accurate?

Cog is saying no consciousness exist at all because it is fallible?
And therefore idealism(only mind exists) is false?

Again this must resolve back to monism or dualism.

mind only exists
matter only exists
mind and matter dualism

(fallibility is no proof consciousness does not exist, nor that monist materialism is true)

(Fallible experience is even proof consciousness does exist because: if consciousness did not exist it could not be fallible, Therefore consciousness must exist necessarily to be fallible in the first place to disprove the existence of mind. -You cannot use the existence of consciousness to disprove consciousness. And so monist materialism must be rejected if mind exists, whether fallible or infallible.)

mind only exists
matter only exists
mind and matter dualism

 

[The Grey Man]

I'm not saying there's no value in abstract thought experiments, I'd be a hypocrite if I did, the whole Bob thing was a thought experiment and you could say since it isn't based on actual real world experience that I was making an a priori argument. But that's not what "a priori" means to TGM and the other subjectivists, they're trying to make an ontological argument for subjectivism over materialism because they suppose internal experiences (including one's own internal dialogue/reasoning) aren't subject to the same potential fallibility of external experiences.

Fallibility? I don't see what fallibility has to do with anything I've said.

Here is one hand. You can't see it, but I'm holding my hand in front of my face right now. I am having an experience of an external object. It would be ludicrous for me to say that this experience is somehow fallible, that I might be wrong about my hand being here—because here it is!

All I'm saying is that my experience of the hand would not be possible without the mental faculties necessary to represent it as an object in space—its a priori conditions of possibility. In other words, objective experience requires a subject.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

The world is my representation.

You might say to Schopenhauer, "How can you say that the world is my representation when I rely on predictions of things beyond my sight to make my way every day?" The answer is that, while not confirmed by experience, predictions based on hitherto exceptionless patterns in nature are the safest option you have. When one is lost, it is safer to follow the road one is on than to stray into the wilderness looking for another one. There is no reason to think that your road does not lead to a dead end, but there's just as little reason to think that there even is another road. Such is the reckoning of all human ingenuity.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Alright so metaphysics is something I never really understood and with it being the centre of discussion recently I decided to find out what the heck everyone was on about.

Like mathematics, metaphysics is a non-empirical study which is conducted using deduction from that which is known a priori.

A priori knowledge, in Western philosophy since the time of Immanuel Kant, knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences, as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which derives from experience.

“I think therefore I am” is an inherently post priori statement as it is self-awareness coming from experiencing one’s own internal dialogue which necessarily comes before inferring one’s existence.

A priori knowledge either isn’t a priori, or it isn’t known.

Metaphysics is nought but baseless presumption, which is fine there’s nothing wrong with speculation, everything we think we know could be the demiurge’s illusions, just don’t go asserting that you know that knowledge is impossible because that’s inherently contradictory.

The standard idea of a priori and a posteriori that seems to me to be prevalent these days is that what is a priori and what is a posteriori do not depend on the actual source of knowledge, but on how they can be verified or justified. For a priori facts like "all bachelors are unmarried" one doesn't have to go around asking all bachelors (empirical investigation) if they are all married to determine it. Same for mathematical facts and logic.

Though by that standard, Descartes cogito could be made out to be a posteriori - it is not a tautology or analytical fact that I must exist - it is a contingent fact discovered from perception and NEEDS perception as evidence. (though, technically for anything to be verified to someone, that one needs to perceive - but that's not the point)

Galen Strawson's arguments against free will may be some example of non-trivial more or less a priori arguments against it.

Metaphysics is a subject that deals with nature of existence, ontology, free will and stuff. You say that metaphysics is bullshit, but when you speak of non-existence of soul, no free will etc. you are still doing metaphysics. Materialism and physicalism is also a metaphysical stance.

 

[computerhxr]

Metaphysics is useful.

 

[QuickTwist]

Metaphysics is useful.

You show up at the most random times, LOL.

 

[computerhxr]

You show up at the most random times, LOL.

It's Metaphysics.