+Eliana de Mello I like Chalmer's argument too. He's saying even if the skeptics are right (and we can't prove they're wrong), our simulation world still has meaning in itself.
I agree. This has also been my philosophy towards skepticism even before knowing him and his response to skepticism. It does not solve any of the probems of skepticsm but it is a way of dealing with whatever threat it brings.
@@alrick3000 It's a terrible response, and Chalmer is a complete moron. With skepticism comes the possibility of unknown possibilities of unknown degrees and likelihoods of occuring. What this means is that you can suffer infinitely bad outcomes. A chance of an infinitely bad outcome occuring, is infinitely bad. How is any of this positive? Does the equal chance of infinitely good outcomes occuring cancel it out? Fuck no. If I could choose to be tortured for a finite amount of time to guarantee non-existence, I would do so in a heartbeat. I don't want to risk infinite torture, but I have no choice. The universe is an infinitely horrible place.
@@Kushufy You've talked me into liking Chalmer's views even more by highlighting how over-the-top horrible it would be if he were wrong. That seems unrealistically extreme, and undesirable to believe even if it were true.
Here's a way to combat skepticism combining both Moore's and Putnam's responses: *(AP) A subject can know, a priori, the contents of their thoughts.* - This is typically justified via an account a priori knowledge that your chosen theory of mental content satisfies. *(CE) Thought content is partly determined by environmental conditions.* - This is typically justified via a specific theory of mental content and/or through intuition pumps for content externalism (see Putnam's Twin Earth and Burge's Arthritis thought experiments). *(Definition) Let 'E' be the condition that (CE) requires for a concept to have external, and not simulated, hand content.* *(Premise 1) If subject S is thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)", then E obtains.* - Can be known a priori if (CE) is true, given that one's theory of content is entirely a priori. *(Premise 2) Subject S is thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)".* - Can be known a priori if (AP) is true, which again, rests on the a-priority of what you take mental content to be. *(Conclusion 1) Therefore, E obtains.* - i.e., there is external hand content. *(Premise 3) If S is a brain in a vat, then it is not the case that S's thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)" is true only if there actually exists both hands (i.e., that E obtains).* *(Premise 4) But S's thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)" IS true only if there actually exists both hands (i.e., that E obtains).* *(Conclusion 2) Therefore, S is not a brain in a vat.*
The "How" of how of how I know something is true is under no obligation to be explainable to anyone, not even myself. I don't have to know how I know - to know that I know. Because all I have to do is find something that doesn't know how it knows, and we don't know how it knows, but we know that it knows, and the suppressed premise of the Skeptic that 1) you can't say you know something is true without being able to make understandable to everyone how it is true and 2) that something can't be true unless everyone can understand an explanation as to how it is true, is utterly refuted. There are some truths that not everyone can understand. And the mere observation that someone doesn't or can't understand or explain how they know something, and just because you don't know how they know something, is not a valid argument as to why they, in fact, don't know what they are saying is true. Philosophical Skepticism is a form of the infinite regression fallacy.
Few arrive at that understanding, just as few understand that if it's alright, then nothing is right. Is it not axiomatic that a difference that makes no difference is artificial, or not a difference?
Interesting that Chalmers view resembles the view of Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna who is said to have live around 150-250 CE. Nagarjuna divided philosophy in practical and ultimate truth. Most of what we experience and that concerns our sciences is at a practical level. The practical level gives us knowledge of the world that is of practical use to us, in a wide sense, but it isn't ultimate truth. What is ultimate is not totally agreed on within buddhism (from what I understand) but an often appearing candidate is 'change' - what ultimate is true is that everything is in a constant state of change. Anyway, really enjoyed the video:)
If a thing is not a legitimate point then it wouldn't be a threat would it? Skepticism is legitimate, therefore it is a threat. It is a threat because it undermines the idea that we can know anything about the world. If we cannot know anything about the world, then not only is science rendered meaningless but also society.
Sophie Jones Yes and no. If everthing was an illusion it wouldn't really matter. Everything would still hold true within the illusion. Reality wouldn't become less real so to speak.
Scepticism does not render science obsolete, it is a fundamental part of science. We embrace the fact that you cant know anything for sure and include that in theories, every measurement has an intrinsic uncertainty, both through inadequate measurement devices, but also the through intrinsic uncertainty that comes from Heisenberg's principle. But that is fine, one simply uses abductive reasoning together with statistics to find the most probable theory. If a scientist were to claim that he has "proven" something through experiments, no one would take him seriously, but if he rather said that though some dataset from an experiment, he has calculated that a certain hypothesis has a certain probability of being true, one could take him seriously. The only science where that method is not used is mathematics, but even in mathematics, every single proof is based on some axiom, and there is no way to prove which axioms govern reality.
Global skepticism is a threat because if it's successful, true knowledge is impossible, which is a deeply troubling conclusion for a human to come to. We like to think that we know things, which is why skepticism is treated as a threat.
Chalmer's argument seems the most reasonable one, to me. He doesn't try to attack skepticism as if it was a bad thing, a problem to be solved. If anything, his argument is an acceptance of skepticism, while at the same time arguing that even if reality was "simulated" or "dreamed" or "non-physical", it would still be perfectly describable as real and valid. For example, imagine that a highly advanced society made a VR video-game in which you can truly feel sensations such as pain or pleasure. If someone were to stab you, it would be entirely valid to feel angry at that person. It would not be valid for that person to say that "Since this sword is virtual, your pain is false". In that way, it doesn't matter that the sword is virtual, it is still a "real" sword, and it still has real consequences. Just like a perfectly simulated universe would be "real", even if it was simulated. Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of the existence of consciousness and the moral questions that it entails, but as far as validating knowledge and perception, it's a good argument that I particularly agree with.
Well, I like the "Defensive Approach" actually. Relating it to our immune system is a good idea. Basically, if something exists in the "brain in a vat" world, then it exists in your simulated world too. Therefore it exists objectively as a part of reality. Regardless of whether it's simulated or not. What you THINK about those independent objects and their meanings and context, is your personal reality, whatever it may be. There are two realities, objective/shared reality, and personal reality. The objective/shared reality is like a chair existing for all of you- but your personal reality is how you think+feel about that chair. The chair is objective because it literally exists, simulated or not. Your thoughts+feelings are subjective because not everyone may feel the same way, simulated or not. But if everyone has thoughts+feelings, then you can say they are objective too, even as each person may be on a different terrain of thoughts+feelings, so to speak. However, it's good to doubt, question, disprove and investigate to actually know if you know anything. Sometimes there ARE lies, fabrications, misinformation and misunderstood information. But you can either wait until those rise up objectively as truth, or you can question them on your own. Either way you must validate your internal beliefs with the external world. If you cannot validate the two to create a synthesis, then it will either lead to two scenarios: 1. Whether or not the external world also believes my internal beliefs, has no effect on the fact that I believe it's true unless I let it be so. 2. Whether or not my own internal beliefs are in line with the external world, has no effect on the fact that it's externally true. Actually both of those are true because both realities exist. However this gets into the philosophy of Realism rather than Skepticism. Skepticism needs only know that it wants to disprove and clarify and refine information- that's what it does. Realism wants only know that there's a reality for what it is of objectivity+clarity.
I have a solution to skepticism. I assume every claim of knowledge begins with this prefix: "To the best of my knowledge, admitting that we cannot disprove global skeptical hypothesis, and that human memory and perception are often faulty:" I accept skepticism by splitting the definition of knowledge into two alternate definitions. 1) Perfect knowledge, which we never can have since you must know everything to know what you don't know, and you can't know if you know everything, since you can't know unknown unknowns. And 2) Practical Knowledge. When I claim I know something, it's relative to a task. "Do you know how to drive", I'll answer "Yes", meaning well enough to do my daily tasks or drive across the country. Others may argue I don't know how to drive because I cannot drive an 18-wheeler, but if someone wants to know if I can drive an 18-wheeler, that will be their specific question. In asking about knowledge, most people implicitly ask relative to a specific task. "Do you know the states?" with the implicit "well enough to list them, and tell me a bit about each." "Do you know your house/" with the implicit "well enough to find it in the world, navigate it, and list of its most important features". They don't mean "can you replicate the texture of every piece of wood". Likewise "Do you know your name", they're not expecting you to know if you've been deceived by an evil genius who's convinced you your name is something else. They just want to call you by the word or phrase that you think will most likely help them identify you in the world, and with which you identify yourself. Arguments about what constitutes knowledge seem to constantly fight over what gives a person perfect knowledge, hence the whole Gettier field of problems. At some point, when we start talking about sheep possibly being holograms, we leave practicality behind. I think Gettier problems are important, we need to stay humble, and the average person should be more aware of the threat of unknown unknowns. But my Practical Knowledge definition is an attempt to get us back to usable definition, one that facilitates clear communication and understanding. Next time you claim you know something, think about what tasks you know it well enough for, and what tasks you don't. Sometimes, you should make that explicit to the asker. And next time you ask, be explicit on what tasks you're asking relative to.
Skepticism is an argument about methodology. And it's premises are false. We can disprove their hypothesis. Just look at the suppressed premises --which is that if you can't explain how you know something to everyone, then it means that you don't know objectively know it. That is false. I am a professional singer, and some people don't have the capacity to pitch match or sing in tune. I can't teach them how I know or explain it because they don't have the capacity to understand. They don't and won't every have the capacity to understand how I know. I there is nothing that I can do to explain to them how I sing because they can't understand. That doesn't mean that I don't know that I know how to sing, and it doesn't mean that other people don't know that I know. The "how" of how we know something is true is under NO obligcation to make sense to everyone universally, not even to ourselves.
The "practical knowledge" is just intuitive belief. Without perfect knowledge about how accurate your "practical knowledge" is, any "practical knowledge" you have has the same validity as anything anyone ever feels to be true. Maybe you don't know how to drive, and just have fake memories and ways of thinking that deludes you into thinking you know how to drive. Without perfect knowledge, you can't measure how likely it is for that possibility to be truth. When you claim "I know how to drive", that claims is equally as valid as a blind, deaf 4 year old child with down's syndrome claiming "I know how to drive". These are the natural conclusions reached with skepticism, and your "solution" isn't solving it.
I have never heard the word vat until I watched this video; yet, somehow the digital information sent by this machine, which I am typing on now, was sent to my brain and now I have a clear understanding of what a vat is in the same way as I have an understanding of what a can, a box, a car, or anything else is
This was an extremely helpful video. My thinking has very strong skeptical tendencies, to the point where it actually is difficult for me to live day-to-day life sometimes because I'm always doubting everything. I've been trying to sort out my beliefs about morality, ethics, and God. But when even basic practical knowledge seems open to question, what hope is there of coming to terms with those higher-order concepts? On what basis could one even begin to make an argument? People I've spoken to about it have appealed to common sense (like the first and third arguments Professor Nagel presented), but so far I have not found such arguments convincing because they simply assume arbitrarily what must be proved: that human senses, cognition, and/or intuition provide accurate information about reality. It seems to me that we have no reliable way of assessing the accuracy of our own perceptions. It's quite possible (maybe even probable) that some of what we refer to as "common sense" is in fact a collective delusion of our species. It seems to me that David Chalmers's approach finally offers some hope, however. I may not be able to "know" whether or not I have hands, but I can know at least that I perceive myself to have hands. And it seems fairly reasonable to assert that such perceptions offer at least SOME true information about reality, provided we acknowledge that this information is very likely to be flawed or incomplete. For instance, if am hallucinating and perceive that I have hooves instead of hands on my arms, that perception corresponds to something real: in this case some kind of process going on in my brain that causes me to hallucinate. (This position still would seem to require the assumption that if I perceive something, then there must be some cause for that perception--but perhaps that is a rookie mistake on my part. I know that causality has been another hot topic among philosophers and one that I haven't been able to investigate much so far.) The most likely scenario would seem to be that there is an objective reality of some sort; that human beings have the capacity to acquire some knowledge of that reality through our sensory and cognitive abilities; but that the sum total of all possible human knowledge may well correspond only to a very tiny percentage of what a superhuman being could know about reality.
Being skeptical is good and healthy but falling into Humean radical skepticism is going to be ultimately destructive. That being said, no philosophers could provide complete one answer to skepticism and there's always going to be criticisms. Learning the history of philosophy and like Giambatisto Vico says "people had fundamentally different schema of thought in different historical eras", our current generation of thoughts are specifically made by the result of skepticism & naive empiricism. But no matter how many times naive empiricism & logical positivism has been defeated, it still revives back like a vampire and influences a generation... Probably we can't be certain of everything but still we can use the abductive principle of reasoning and conclude that a specific worldview to be more reasonable and plausible than the rest. To me it's the Christian worldview...
Why d-e-f-e-n-d against scepticism?-What is threatened by it?-Religion? What would be a clear example of "Knowledge"- or bench mark or comparator for establishing knowledge?- as " known" as what?
3:20 Someone living in that "Matrix" could describe what a Matrix is perfectly. Because lets imagine us humans creating the Matrix for whatever reason here in our world, and putting someone in it. We can, inside this Matrix, show him the movie "Matrix" and he will be able to perfectly describe what a Matrix is. 6:35 That is just paraphrasing Conan from The Queen of the Black Coast, chapter 2. "If we live in an illusion, then I am an illusion too, so that illusion is real to me." Of course this still does not address the Apathy/Madness issue. 8:54 is just a surrender. It's a guy saying "Well, I will be unhappy if I think about it, so I'll forget about it."
I have a pretty stong argument against semantic externalism. We precieve vats brains and anything else through our sences. If a computer progtamm can reasonably accuratly recreate the impulses from our sensors to the brain what is the difference between simualtion and rality for an individual? In both cases you don't name actual objects but rather sensations that objects create in your brain. The sensations are pretty much the same, so why would a brain in a var have different concepts than a real person?
1st off if I come across a skeptic I am gonna have way more questions for them.Senses-1.It cannot just be a brain in a vat it's gonna need ears to transduce physical vibrations in the air into sounds 2.it's gonna need eyes to interpret light and texture 3.taste buds and a nose for smells and scents and nerves to feel.4Its gonna need fresh blood and oxygen to stay aliveThis machine is going to have to be really elaborate and able to create scenerios independent of my life.It will have to continuously have independent programs for various people who think like a Kardashin or like Einstein or anywhere in between.There are so many things we don't even notice going on in life. that we only notice them when we think about them. E.G. sounds of nature, bugs having sex, or Tom Cruise has a crooked smile.Variables-this machine would have to be constantly evolving to come up with all different kinds of people and their actionsAll of these things to trick just one mind ?How much does this computer cost?What kind of processor does it have?Can it program more hot girls ? What is the purpose of it?how many brainsare being used?
The way I use skepticism in everyday life is to look at things through the lense of "the best available evidence at this time points to X" and make decisions based on that, while acknowledging that the conclusion could still be wrong and that the evidence could evolve or be disproven later on. It doesn't lead to rational paralysis where I can't form opinions or beliefs about anything. I have been challenged by those who would say I should question even my ability to identify the best available evidence, and certainly, this is a problem worth examining especially in the age of disinformation and fake news. So how do we solve this problem and find a way to validate our ability to evaluate evidence? Possibly, we could set up test scenarios where a group of people set up a puzzle or mystery rooted in objective (or at least, intersubjective) reality and then bring in a third party participant to try and solve it. A pattern of success in these types of trials (especially in the face of red herrings and misinformation sprinkled in with the real evidence) would probably be the closest we could get to verifying our own rational abilities. That aside, I didn't really understand the first argument as it seemed to imply we couldn't possibly be in a simulation that provided information similar to reality outside the simulation (i.e. brains and vats); or did I misunderstand the argument? I don't really see how the second argument is an argument against the epistemological validity of skepticism so much as an axiological argument about the value of skepticism (whether our reality is made of matter or code, why does it matter/what's the point of asking?). Well to me, asking questions about the basic nature of reality is important because many logical assumptions depend on that. If we're inquisitive about whether reality is made of code written by a programmer, we could possibly anticipate and prevent scenarios where that code is drastically altered or deleted without our consent. We have no way of determining that at this time, but in the future who knows? If no one asked the question then nobody would look into it at all. We have the knowledge we have about our universe today BECAUSE people dared to ask questions about the nature of reality, and we have a better understanding of it now as a result of observation and data collection. On the other hand, if we just assume the world is controlled by supernatural deities we can never fully comprehend or unpredictably chaotic forces of nature, we will continue to sit on our hands and may learn nothing. Skepticism leads to investigation and learning because it causes us to consider all possibilities rather than a limited set of alternatives.
Could you cover the pragmatist approach to skepticism? Rorty, Dewey and Pierce all have very beneficial approaches to epistemology in a way that contextualizes skepticism to a certain fallacious notion that knowledge is representation.
I could never know, but it would be interesting to learn how Pyrro might have assessed " knowledge as justified true belief" which the author careful avoids addressing as she avoids all definitions-particularly a definition of " knowledge".
To me the underlying issue is a matter of practicality. The importance of the reliability of any information we might want to deem "knowledge" seemingly varies greatly from thing to thing. The matter of whether my hand exists or not in some particular notion of existing varies based on what value I place upon it (or you place upon it if we're assuming you exist too). "If my hand didn't exist, how could I have typed this?" I might ask me. Well, why do I care? What did I want in the first place? I wanted to type something. I'm convinced that I have done so due to several related experiences like typing it now, and reading it after typing it, the thousands of other typing stuff with my hands experiences that seem like part of my history, etc. What are the consequences if I don't really have a hand, yet my intentions for performing tasks with my apparently imaginary hand are satisfied quite nicely as far as I'm concerned by me being convinced that when I thought I used my hand to do stuff, the stuff I thought my hand should do seemed to happen? The consequences as far as I can tell, to me, are so nominal as not to invest in arguments to the contrary. "seemed real to me, who the hell really knows" suffices. If however, I shall be banned from the interwebs for all eternity based on whether or not my hand exists.. I'd have to ask the question that is embedded in so very much of what we say to one another but yet fail to realized matters. To whom? It seems to me like so much of our "common sense" use of language presumes an absoluteness to reality - as if the ideas we convey to one another exist in some authoritative reality of absolutes. My hand exists to me, but doesn't to you. If you encounter me and talk trash about how surreal my hand is however, I shall provide you with a visceral hypothesis test. :P (rick james style)
@@vhawk1951kl to me, information doesn't require a host. knowledge only exists in minds. perhaps knowledge is analogous to "information integrated into concepts". of course one can be presented with lots of information and fail to integrate it into their knowledge as well.
Some of these responses, old and new, aren't even real arguments. They're just people telling you to "build up your defenses" or "become stubborn and deny the pull of skepticism". And the ones that ARE arguments against skepticism all fall apart very easily. Why are people trying so desperately to stay away from skepticism, when it is obvious they can't find a single reason for it being false? Why are they attributing manipulative descriptions to "the skeptic", as if they were vile creatures attempting to doom us all. Some people think skepticism is just an excuse not to care about science, but that just isn't true, because even if everything is false, knowing that everything is false won't snap us out of the illusion. We're still always subject to it, so we would still live our normal lives, with our normal curiosity, with the knowledge of a possibility in the backs of our minds. So I just don't get the aversion people have to skepticism. Why are people so desperate that they would publish such weak arguments, just to get away from something so benign. Philosophy is the search for knowledge, the love of wisdom, so to deny a possibility because it is convenient for you to do so is the worst affront to the field, and betrayal of yourself you could possibly commit. Stop holding back knowledge by making us stagnate on this one point and just accept that you see nothing fundamentally flawed with the theory.
I think is just pisses a lot of people off because like existentialism it essentially makes life meaningless and on a large scale people like to have meaning in their life. Even smart people and philosophers do seem to be really aggressive towards it though I just saw a comment on another video of someone saying David Hume was just a "troll" because he used abstract concepts to attack abstract concepts I think he was missing the point but I wasn't about to get into a argument over it.
Uh. It would not make life meaningless. Like many have said as well as in the video if we were some computer generated thing we wouldn't know it but it wouldn't change the fact that the reality we are in even if its computer generated is true to us... so what difference does it make? none. Thats why, skepticism isn't a threat.. because it doesn't change anything practically speaking or meaningful to us and our relation with our reality its just mental masturbation.
The premises that Skepticism rest on are false, that is why people go against it. It assumes that everyone has a capacity to understand how something is or isn't true in all circumstances and that is false by our observation. We know that there are some truths that not everyone has the capacity to know, like how to pitch match so they can sing a song in tune. People who can't pitch match don't have the capacity to know when they are or aren't singing in tune, and you can't explain to it them. Skepticism places a false burden of proof on the person making an argument to say that their awareness of that something is truth can be always be questioned because they don't have the capacity to make explainable how they know their awareness is true to everyone. As long as I can find one example of something where not everyone has the capacity to understand how I know but that one other person can observe and understand that I know, then it makes the Skeptics position null and void. The truth being universally comprehensible and explainable is not a valid criterion for debating if it can in fact be known as truth. Just because not everyone can know how something is true, it doesn't mean it isn't true or that it can't be true or knowable.
Because, i think in theory it would undermine our whole view of the world, every philosophical theory outside of scepticism could be undermined, even though they could exist within a BIV. Its also just the nature of philosophy, i like to think of it as a sort of rap battle, where the different groups try to outdo eachother
Thanks for the videos, Jennifer Nagel. I am writing a book and I needed a quick crash course to understand some of the basics that must be discussed when it comes to "how do I know?" I'll listen my way through your course.
You had best start with defining or sating out clearly what the word "know" conveys to you or what associations it evokes in your associative apparatus or what you would seek to convey when you use it? If you have no clear idea what you mean by the noun knowledge or its verb to " know", how will you go about speaking of it to others?-or god forbid 'writing a book about it'. If knowledge is an out-of-focus photograph for you, how will you go about focussing it? What would be a clear example of knowledge and knowledge as opposed to what?- as known as what? Further you must address the questions is knowledge subjective and/or relative?-And if it is, what axiom flows from that?
10:32 awe its okay! Hold onto empathy and compassion, I agree with the second argument extreme skepticism is entirely logical, and we don’t know anything but that has zero relevance to conventional scenarios. If I’m A biological being, or computer generated makes no difference.
It has a ton of relevance. Without somehow "disproving" skepticism, you can't disprove infinitely bad possibilities. And that should be infinitely scary. When you take the world at face value; the world isn't very scary. When you die, that's it. Everything about you is contained in your brain, and it'll be destroyed when you die. You'll get a peaceful, neutral nothingness. In skepticism, this possibility is actually equally as likely (all likelihoods unknown) as being tortured for an eternal amount of time with no chance of escape. Nothing you perceive in this world can be used as proof towards that non-existence, since there's an unknown likelihood your senses are wrong or your thinking is illogical.
@@Kushufy smart, just enjoy the ride my dude, and live your best life, while being kind to others, and go vegan because that hell is real and it's here on earth through factory farming
@@clay89593 We're farming meat, not souls... It's not comparable at all. An eternity is a length of time that cannot end. There's no escape like death. The worst imaginable experience you can have on earth will always be nothing compared to it, the difference between a finite and an infinite amount of time is infinity
@@Kushufy I suppose it could always be worse that's true, but in a practical sense we don't need to fund the torture of animals in modern society, so why support it?
@@clay89593 Maybe torturing animals is good. Maybe the animals who get tortured go to heaven, and the ones who live free happy lives will go to hell. Maybe the more meat you eat, the better person you objectively are in the eyes of some meat-god. I really don't care about any of this, morality is nothing but intuition. "Good" and "bad" are just based on feelings. Maybe what happens on earth matters, however we don't know how it matters, so all political or moral views are just as valid from a subjective perspective
tl;dw: 1. You cannot be in a computer simulation because you don't have the words to describe outside of the simulation. It's not like a simulated world would be based on the outside world. 2. Even if you are in a simulation, your experiences are real to you. 3. What is even knowledge?
I feel NO obligation to 'prove' the skeptic 'wrong.' In such a patently ridiculous rabbit hole of mental gymnastics, the only question that matters is this: Does anything the skeptic is proposing, change whether or not they put gas in their car or buy eggs at the supermarket? If yes, then how? If no, then SHUT UP. I think therefore I am not distracted from living. I might be living in the matrix, or I might be dreaming this, or...etc., etc.. Descartes answered this: external considerations of 'reality' don't affect MY reality. Or has philosophy been jogging in place ever since? Now THAT would be something the evil genius could truly laugh at! Nothing changes! One very good reason to disbelieve ANY of this is: where's the evidence? If philosophers wish to go around saying, "Yeah, but..." for the rest of their lives, that's their problem. I guess it sells books. Rikki Tikki.
+Bram iets Hi, it is indeed a reupload! We tried to fix the audio which was done poorly the last time around. So don't worry you aren't going crazy! We just also released part 5 which is new so don't forget to check that out!
+Wireless Philosophy Haha! I thought the reverb/echo effect in that video was done with purpose! Did You reread everything or was it actually possible to filter the sound?
Whether you are given electronic signals of water, or are seeing actual water, the experience is the same. A brain in a vat could easily imagine the argument that a brain in a vat is unable to form meaningful ideas due to objects not being real. Besides, I would argue that some bits that have the information to produce the illusion of water is itself an object with real qualities. So, the brain in a vat is dealing with external objects - they're just of a different nature than they seem to be. (The same might be said of physical reality - it doesn't seem to be a bunch of atoms, for example).
And also... When Cypher said "ignorance is bliss" he was being absolutely 150-200% correct in both that blissful ignorance of the uncertainty of it all is great and that steak is reeaallly reaaaallly tasty! So why can't we all just enjoy the steak and then afterwards contemplate it's actuality over brandy and cigars???
Ultimately, the burden is on the skeptic to defend his position. Although the skeptical argument eliminates certainty in knowledge, it doesn't eliminate confidence in knowledge.
how do you- not anyone else, define Knowledge? What would be a clear example of knowledge against which other candidates for the term can be assessed or measured?-As "known" as what?
Wow, can't say how entertaining, interesting, and helpful this video series has been! I've been exposed to several arguments that dip their toes into these waters and getting a better grasp of the concepts--the philosophy behind them--is immensely helpful! I now have much more confidence in my beliefs and that confidence will continue right up to the point where my vat is switched off. =)
Do you have any experience of knowledge, and of what does that experience consist? what exactly is happening in you when you " believe"? - is it not the complete absence of any questioning?
Precisely: a terrible start that loses a huge potential audience. Even though I’m going to look it up myself, I may not even come back to this as a result. I will, however, bookmark it.
I've been wondering if we'll eventually run into the way I handle these kinds of skeptical arguments. (Not sure where I got it from--Rand and Molyneux maybe.) The way I approach this kind of question is to first note that the scenario itself turns on a sophistic trick; namely, shifting the burden of proof. You can't prove something doesn't exist. It's impossible. Prove to me that unicorns do not exist. Since proving a negative is impossible, the skeptic's scenario is simply a shift of the burden of proof. So right from the beginning you are outside of the bounds of reason itself. I guess the dishonest skeptic doesn't want you to realize that in the first place so that you're vulnerable to all kinds of nonsense. As Rand would say, Existence exists. It's axiomatic. Empirical data is empirical data. I have my hands before me--I need not "prove" them. The skeptic basically questions that from the beginning, which leads to nowhere. Skepticism is useful--within the bounds of reason itself. Outside of it, it only causes mischief. And while it is useful to question the limits of our perceptive powers, to deny that our perception has any kind of utility at all is not only foolish, it can be fatal.
I can certainly prove to you that a pint pot will not contain more than a pint, nor need I, since it is axiomatic. It is sometimes said that one cannot prove a negative, yet I can easily demonstrate that there is no Bengal tiger in my refrigerator. you had best first define proof. Proof to whom, and to what standard.
Very thought-provoking, but several questions emerge, perhaps addressed in future videos. First, why "evil" genius? Maybe the genius is GOOD. Second, if the genius is either good or evil, that requires a standard. Who came up with the standard? Third, where did this "genius" come from. If it's the eternally existent "I AM" - the God who has the power of being within Himself, then we assume complete and untainted goodness as a Divine attribute. Would this essentially and completely good Being then let an "evil genius" create or control us as brains-in-a-vat?
The senses of 'threat', 'challenge', 'problem', and 'bad case' derive from your 'bad case' world-scenario (if that is where you are); therefore, these senses cannot be guaranteed to obtain for fundamental reality. In other words, so far as your world could be an illusion, your worry about this being a threat or a problem is just as illusory.
Why is the 'bad case' considered intrinsically bad? Even if my hand is generated by a computer or real in the physical sence, doesn't it still hold the same essence, meaning and fuction to me, wether I'm a brain in a vat or a real person? If the difference doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form, why should I worry about it?
I actually had no idea what vat was or even if it was a real word. However I saw the picture and then I understood. However had his brain interacted with a vat at the brain level he would have memory of it and knowledge and meaning to it. We have meaning of things because of our brains, not because of expiernce. If you anything about neuroscience you know this explanation is insane because you derive meaning from things through interpretation from your brain and you would get this whether by actually experiencing it or experiencing it because of the computer. Chalmer makes a good argument. Williamson makes a good point as well, however the talker seems to be presenting skepticism as a thing many people have and something that's attractive to a lot of people when it isn't. Most people are on the other end of skepticism where they question nearly nothing, after all that's how faith rates are still high, why so many children believe in Santa and the Easter bunny, why so many people believe ghosts and the supernatural are real and why people believe others can talk to the dead.
that's what i feared, for the 3 seconds of the single video you have i understand your answer now, it's annoying when you tube recomends you this pointless channels or you end here by error :P
I think you mean 'you can only know it as if it was real'. Sorry for dwelling on diction and grammar. But having that focus is a vital part of being epistemic. But I'm stupid about moderating it. Since I think I knew what you meant, maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Wasn't meaning to seem a grammar marm etc.
I think that we can know that we're in the good case. We need what is called the ontological argument but we have to represent it correctly. First, let's agree that for something to be logically impossible is for that something to be false in every possible world. And here it is: 1. It is logically possible that a maximally great being exists. 2. If it is logically possible that a maximally great being exists, then that great being exists in some possible world. 3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then that great being exists in every possible world. 4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then that great being exists in this world. C. God exists. Now, I have two verses and a third one. I'll use the first two to show that God guarantees our knowledge in this world but by interpreting them, not by saying that that's exactly what they say. I reference the third one because it's a reflexion I have. Explanation follows after citing them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Numbers 23:19 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Proverbs 9:10 Explanations. We need to state an enthymeme. 1. There is one and only one God. 2. God is omnibenevolent. C. We're in the good case. Premise one would guarantee that there is no competition so that we may be deceived about reality. Premise 2 is needed so that we can trust Scripture. But I think we can just prove the second one because Scripture also affirms that there is only one God (Isaiah 44:6). I'll leave premise 2 for you to research (Hebrews 11:6). My final reflexion is this. I think that Proverbs 9:10 fits with this discussion. If knowledge is attainable by accepting God's existence, then we could say that knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Of course, there's probably more interpretations, like knowing the right thing to do, but all I'm saying is that it fits.
The Chalmers' response is the only argument that convincingly maintains meaningful individualistic knowledge, but has a pretty significant implication that string theory doesn't: that one's consciousness will continue after death.
"Meaningful" being supposed to convey what? May I substitute subjective for " individualistic"? Ho do you define " knowledge" or what exactly do you seek to convey when you use that term? As known as what is known?
I never assumed that phrase meant a literal vat but referred to the skull and the brain contained within. Alluding to the idea we are not directly connected to the real world and that our sensory experience can be very faulty in determining the external. Rather than an artificially generated world directed by someone in a real external reality. "Maybe" isn't a positive statement but more of a rhythmic parry that can be applied to any assertion. Rather than, Our brains float in a liquid encased in protective skull sheltered from the external world.
If the goal of humanity is to make more humans: if humanity as I know it, including me, is not real, why should I bother procreating? If the goal of humanity is to learn everything about the universe and its contents: if knowledge isn't real, why should I bother? You can see where this is going.
BluePrint If there is no way to prove that anything is real, why would you take a chance by doing something? It could all be pointless. While not all skeptics end up this way, it is a possibility, and a population full of those who choose not to take a chance would lead us nowhere. The same goes for those that come to the conclusion that life doesn't have a purpose.
Extremely Sketchy OK, I think I get it now. 'Skepticism' here is what outside of philosophy circles is referred to as 'solipsism' or 'global skepticism', which is the view that personal experience is the only thing verifiable.
I do like the idea of no meaning and all just cant see why that could make me pointless anyway, like can be pointless my life would yet be meaning to me, thats all I care, if Im a brain in a jar, why care, Im a happy brain in a jar anyway.
If we can understand what the skeptic means when they say someone could be a brain in a vat in the way the skeptic wants us to only IF we have had the right kind of experiences with physical brains and vats, then how are we supposed to know in the first place that we have had contact with physical brains and vats and not brains and vats that are computational in character?
Well simulation can also generate same kind of meaning by creating computer generated past experiences. So how to tell difference between both the experiences??? isn't that the whole argument?? how to tell if this is real or not??? AM i missing something out??
I can't believe that the "brain in a vat" simulation that Brian is experiencing is any less compared to that of a "real life" interaction. While Brian's life is electronically simulated, it is done so by a supercomputer. A supercomputer, to my imagination, would be capable of sending, receiving, and manipulating Brian's reality in a way that is actualized in better quality than our own. This supercomputer would be able to control Brian's reality so that it would be impossible to think otherwise, while still keeping set values that would make Brian feel in control of his own life. On a side note that I have just realized, how can two individuals discuss a philosophical argument, or anything, if the communication of set conditions is not apparent to each person. While from a third person perspective, the conversation may appear seamless and conducive, to each first person speaker, their own reality may distort the conversation so that neither actually understands the other.
@@vhawk1951kl “Real life” is the generally accepted concept of our physical reality: that we are born and raised in a physical world with real and direct consequences. Any theory that intends to disprove or misalign our understanding away from “real life” would reveal that the reality we are living is not “real.” For example, if life was a simulation and you died, you still may be alive in the real world, only to wake up from a virtual reality gaming experience. Theoretically, with a powerful enough super computer, there could be hundreds of different levels of these simulated realities, where we may never be able to wake up in the “real world.”
I don't agree with argument 1 against the brain in the vat concept, so clearly I don't get it. That said, "The thirteenth floor" is my favourite brain in a vat movie, how 'bout you guys?
yeah thanks. I think I already said that in this case below when I said "The 'solipsistic-ish' global skeptic argument is not fit." ... My question was I suppose kinda rhetorical. But's it's been a month and I'm not reconstructing the thought thread fully now.
Men(human beings) are best advised to avoid using the words, know, exist and *mean* because they are symbols for out-of-focus ideas. It is apparently common for men to deal in vague blurred out-of-focus ideas - if you ask them exactly what associations are evoked in their associative apparatuses by those symbols(what they m-e-a-n- or convey to them), they can never come up with anything clear, precise or exact, and come up with something that makes one recall castor oil(or root can al treatment) with a certain tenderness.
This series is very interesting but I can't help thinking (and being a little frustrated) that the positions taken by philosophers are the extreme ones and therefore not at all practical. I also have a problem with using labels as nouns rather than adjectives: "skeptics" vs. skeptical or in society "conservative" or "liberal" as an insideous nature rather than a descriptor - i.e. I am financially conservative. I understand why this is done but it sets up an argument from the extremes - more of a novelty rather than a rationality. It some ways these arguments remind me of watching the "news" - are we watching the norm or the exceptions?
Good for you. Thinking in labels is remarkably common amongst men(human beings); they never ask IS it X but rather might it attract the label or epithet X. They are often overly concerned with what it might be c-a-l-l-e-d, rather than what it IS(forgive the capitals). I would suggest that if it is-and-cannot-be-different, it really does not mater what you *call* it, however with labels or epithets it is often impossible to discover whether or not the employers of one and the same label are speaking of discussing exactly the same thing, see for example race, law, true, fact, right/rights, reality, god etc or any word you please. It is surely axiomatic that different words labels or epithets evoke different associations in different associative apparatuses or minds, and their employers can N-e-v-e-r" know"(whatever know means) whether or not they are discussing identical phenomena
Pierre: "Okay, so first put your hands on the keyboard." Brian: "Alright." Pierre: "They're on the keyboard?" Brian: "Yes." Pierre: "But Brian, those are simulated hands." Brian: "Listen here, wise guy!"
Im sure someone's said this before but why is this always talking about the skeptic trying to fool you and they like this belief? Maybe you're a skeptic out of necessity and it horrifies you but angry arguments don't make a difference. The most conpelling thing i see is just forget about it otherwise you can't base anything else on anything. It's not a great argument but its possibly the only logical one
There is also the possibility that we, as simulations, are surrounded by relative simulated objects, limiting our reasoning (even that which states we may be simulations) to that simulation. Whilst in reality there are no such things as computers, or brains, and instead something which is by definition unimaginable. Worth a thought :P *And - That chemistry professor is a physics professor in disguise...
You need to look at this with a wider scope. If we are trying to find out if anything at all is real or not, we cannot have a point of reference such as having been real but suddenly kidnapped. If anything.. we are real. At least until we are able to track exactly how far away the illusion began. And if we really are a computer simulation, its reasonable to think that so is him. Good points but as always more questions arise. It seems as our real-time reality making code keeps generating, we keep looping into the toroidal server with the redundancy system.
John Bennett Fuck crash courses and start reading philosophy for real.4min videos will get you nowhere. Reading one philosophy book requires 3 reading at least. It's not a novel.
Let's make a single assumption to start the discussion: God doesn't exist (nor any evil spirit, ghost, dead people power... doubt any magical thinking). Now, we can discuss seriously about the skepticism point of view. For the presumably few people who are committed to science, philosophy and who ever tried marijuana for the first time late in life, they may have noticed the following phenomena: 1-each time I try it, I get different effect (one day, sound or voice are generated, other day, visual firework, other day, strange emotion, etc) 2- A recurrent philosophical though arising when "Hi" is that we live on Earth to entertain an audience of amused alien living on some other planet 3- Another recurrent though is that we receive and emit information using an unknown yet to science wave or who knows what since I know only a fraction of current science The random like effects of Marijuana becomes weaker over time, no matter if there is a pause of weeks in between experiments or if I try say after day. After about 2 years, there is no more detectable effect (talking about random hallucination, not the other effects of Marijuana which makes people want to use it). In other words, most of those who read this and started smoking pot at 12 years old, you may not understand what I am talking about. When I started to study arcade video game, I got some insight of the way the graphical image is generated when I could find a machine that has electrical problem. For example, a miss behaving pac man machine will show 8*8 pixels square shape here and there on the screen. These square may contain part of labyrinth or ghost or fruits. I concluded that the background image of labyrinth was generated as standard computers of that time were doing the text mode, to save RAM memory (2 kilobytes was the typical maximum amount at that time ; the space shuttle is rumored to use only 32 kilobytes). The pac-man video was using a standard computer monitor which was using the same scan rate as standard TV (15 KHz horizontal, 60 Hz vertical) and the resolution was fixed at 320*200, which gives 64000 pixels total. Using the 8*8 block trick, the computer needed only 1 kilobytes to paint the pac-man labyrinth (64000 pixels total / 64 pixels per square blocks = 1000). I was thinking about marijuana that it could help understand how the brain work. The theory is that pot was disturbing some specific part of the brain. Each time I tried, a random location was being affected. If I would seriously note the effect and analyze how they can be explained based on the current knowledge of brain operation, maybe I could confirm or refute some hypothesis. I won't continue to describe computers or brain here, it is already an unusual long text for youtube, but here is my answer to skepticism: 1- you are right, there is time when my brain is not working correctly and then can make mistake. The worst of all is when I can not, in all honesty, be sure if what I saw or the voice talking to me or other level of memory was a dream while awake or was real. 2- you are right about doubting even the most respected scientists. We can find many examples of ideas that were shared by all great minds but proved false. An example which is still going on is black holes and big bang. 3- you are wrong about an evil genius trying to confuse you. God, his son, the devil, ghosts, the Holy ghost, dead spirits, etc are all human inventions. At some point, we need to pick our battle. I consider much more important to try understand how the brain works. A correct understanding require an insane amount of work. Evolution show how neuron started firing in the first multicellulars animals, such as jellyfish. They are not bright! Looking at mammals, they share most features that humans have : two eyes (not 1 or 3, etc), 5 digits, etc. They share many common emotions, even though lack the facial muscle contraction that are exclusive to human when expressing joy or crying. I wanted to pick on the brightest mind currently alive : Noam Chomsky. The list of everything he debates which are right is overwhelming. However, referencing the chimpanzee, our closest relative according to DNA statistics, which learn sign language like human but can not speak any language, he goes on and on about the similarities of chimps with humans but fail to recognize that all mammals emit sound in an automatic way ; a dog bark to allow other dogs to join the chase or to express joy. I have a friend whose 15 years old dog is so well behaved ; she can refrain barking up to a point, but she don't fully control it. Think about barking like for our self when crying ; we can stop, or let it go. If we let go and cry, we can alter up to a point the kind of crying we produce. But we know that crying is mostly automatic ; the breathing, facial muscle contraction, constriction of vocal chords, it's all generated by autonomous part of the brain, genetically predetermined in our instinct, our physical nature. Chimpanzee obviously are like digs on the point of view of controlling the sound they emit. Only some birds evolved control of vocal system good enough to sound similar to a human talking. These equivalent to "tape recording / tape playing" type of birds evolved this capacity to reproduce complex sound for mimicry, exactly like early humans. Generating the sound of duck or a female dear in heat, for example, makes a hunter more successful. The language came progressively as hunters were proudly describing to the tribe their adventure using body gesture mimicking actions, a form a sing language. The stories around camp fire were animated laughs, each hunter taking turn showing how they walked low, like a cat, jumped, etc, all this story told with body motion illustrating what happened. Ok, I diverge from the subject of skepticism. Or do I really? Did I mention how humans used deceit to gain over other tribes? It was mortal mistake to believe everything even a close friend was telling you. Political alliances, which happen in Chimpanzee, could change. Even in-animated objects, like a tree or a creek, which faithfully provided fruits or water, could suddenly change. Praying to the tree, asking it to produce again next year, was example of pantheist religion. If I can ask a human to bring me water, or a dag to catch something, why not talk to a creek, asking it to bring water. We know the creek don't have ear so can not react to our voice. But talking to it is though to improve the chance to get the wanted result. What, we were talking about skepticism? I seriously don't believe my fellow Catholics who tell me that collecting water on a specific day makes it holy. I was skeptic about most assertions of people around me when describing that grandma can stop bleeding just talking to her on the phone. I was skeptic of magical though, such as your chance to win lottery because of the rabbit legs in your pocket, or the solar eclipse or any other incredible "facts" that everybody in my specifics culture were repeating.
Repost? Was it because of the sound or something? Anyway to me once you make a case for simulation, you have to make a case for foundation, if you concede to infinite regress, then it's just an argument from geography. The defensive approach is fascinating, the rejection of models is driven by political reasons imo but If it is seen as really difficult to justify like an extreme worldview. It may manifest in the domain of aesthetics (This movie sucks or this painting is glorious)
+rmeddy1 Hi, the sound was off before (too much reverb). We tried to fix it and this seems better than before, thus the repost. Video 5 (also posted today) is new though.
Concerning Putnam's argument, I don't follow it. Let's say I'm taught what a vat is by having someone show one to me, perhaps have me touch it or smell it or get other sensory info for it, and then I'm told the word for it is "vat". This creates a sensory activation pattern in my brain that is associated with the word "vat", and other possibly related activations about the capabilities or properties of vats might be added as well. Afterwards, any time I see the word "vat", this part of my brain will activate; conversely, if this part of my brain activates, I will think of the word "vat". Then I look at a picture of something in a TH-cam video: if it activates enough of the same pattern in my head, I will think "vat". It's not a real vat, but it causes the same area of my brain to activate, so we're good. (This has to be -- otherwise, communication and language would be impossible.) So poor Brian's brain-in-a-vat can be trained to associate the word "vat" with some activation area of his brain, and assumedly if he was suddenly exposed to the real world, the same activation would happen. What am I missing?
my relation to reality and myself aren't altered at all because of skepticism. Even if i was a brain in a vat my reality that is computer generated wouldn't change the fact id still act in relation to that reality whatever it would be. I think skepticism shouldn't stifle somebody from having convictions, this is why a lot of people dislike skepticism because they are interpreting it as them not being able to have 100% convictions. Although by philosophical standards convictions cant be certain.. but even if nothing can be certain that doesnt mean its of any use to the nature of the reality we are in wether it be computer generated or not. One also has no reason to be certain of the idea that "nothing can be certain" is true, if nothing is certain that statement would hold the same as anything else, like the statement "everything can be certain". Basically to me the way philosophy defines certainty, is not relevant to my convictions about this reality.
But how do you know our organic brain exist' ?and how do you know that the real brain that received output from supercomputer really exist, since the same argument apply to them ? and if this brain is fake and the other 'real brain exist how does it connect?
+AntiCitizenX I found that argument also not convincing at all...It seems just like word play. I think the best approach was the second one: there might be "other realities" behind my reality, but my reality is all I have, it is "real" to me and therefore I should go for it.
+AntiCitizenX I recently heard an interesting approach to the brain in a vat problem. It goes like this. How could an evil scientist know exactly which neurons to activate in a given brain to produce the particular experiences he wanted that brain to have? The only way to know which neurons are correlated with which experiences is to observe brain activity in an embodied person who takes action in the real world. Imagine a scientist is observing a person eating vanilla ice cream but his neuroscan is instead leading him to believe the person is drinking coffee. In this case, the scientist will make a correction so that he can properly correlate the brainscan's results to the behavior he actually observed. There is a dependence on real world behavior that is required, and it seems the brain in the vat scenario cannot satisfy that requirement.
+Lewis K. That's a bad argument just because we can recreate these things and we have without doing the things you've stated, at least not for every case, for the initial case sure but that was all.
In my opinion, none of those approaches made a really good point against Skepticism. They kinda only tell, that it's not HELPFUL to be skeptical ALL the time. They neither proof skepticism wrong nor gave a better Idea. I liked the second respond (of this video) - that's kinda the closest to what I think. I guess, it's no threat, too. I kinda even like the Idea of never being able to proof anything to be ultimately true. I simply don't get what's the problem with Skepticism at all. It is a model of the world. We should use it, whenever it's helpful (like in arguments about certainty) but shouldn't use it, if it keeps us from results (empiric science). It's just like newtonian Mechanics VS relativistic Mechanics. Both are models, both are "true" for certain situations. And so we still use the good old newtonian Mechanics, if we have big and slow objects (relatively big and slow, compared to light and quantum objects), but go for relativistic Mechanics, if we deal with high energy particles, as in atomic reactors. Why don't we apply that method to Skepticism?
We're off to a crappy start. Again, sceptics do no argue that their possible scenarios are reality. And I could also say "magnula psak piruga", anyone know what that means? No? Well, maybe that nonsensical array of letters is the actual word for what we really are, but we have no concept of "magnula psak piruga". To make a meaningful argument, we have to use words everyone understands. Sceptics don't argue that we really are "brains in a jar" or programs, they just argue that we could be something that is not what we think ourselves of. They could also introduce new words for that purpose, but most people wouldn't understand what they're trying to say. The concept of these things could be categorised as "disconnected consciousness", there are a few of these scenarios. It's a thought experiment, why do people think taking it literally is going to help them solve it? The second approach is fine, but it also starts with the stupid premise that sceptics believe their scenario to be reality. They (almost all of them) don't. You can't take scepticism too far, unless you take scepticism over reality, in which case you'd rather be called a conspiracy nutjob than a sceptic. No sceptic that I know of actually argues that we are X, X being any extreme claim sceptics use for their thought experiment. Scepticism is just a hypothetical reminder to help us realise that we know next to nothing for sure, so we should take things with a grain of salt and not grow too stagnant in our beliefs about reality, since those can be inaccurate and you'll do better with being proven wrong if you accept that you could be wrong from the beginning.
8:40 uhm uhm, u mean 10 dimensional strings, while an even more hypothetical über-string theory known as M-theory requires 11 ... i just wanted to point it out to seem smart and attentif
Putnam's semantics simply describe Cartesian skepticism and does absolutely nothing to disprove it. The fact that thinking that you're a brain in a vat could be completely false and that we are just in a computer simulation does not mean skepticism is false, it only means that our thoughts can be inaccurate. Even still, the human-borne concept of a "vat" and a "brain" must still exist, even if through a computer simulation, precisely because one has thought of it. This doesn't mean the vat or brain DOES exist, only that their CONCEPTS exist. It's entirely possible to think of concepts inaccurately, and if one has thought about it, then the computer must generate the thought, hence the thought is generated (exists).
I see no reason to reject or defend against utter, complete skepticism. Even the most thorough and "radical" skeptic can still pretend to have "knowledge" of some "external reality" and play the game along with...everybody else. Ultimately it doesn't matter if I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a human, or vice-versa. Not in terms of getting through the day: which is all we do.
Philosophy is the art of sounding profound and useful or wise, while being entirely worthless and impractical. If it were practical it'd be doing science.
Way to completely misunderstand the point of philosophy. You sound like a Lawrence Krauss fan science and philosophy don't attempt to answer the same questions so why would philosophy attempt to "do science"?
Mims Zanadunstedt Philosophy kind of is doing science because science is based on philosophy (see philosophy of science) and philosophy can help uncover errors in scientific practice. But I agree that philosophy is much more useful when it comes to refining scientific practice than it is for most other purposes.
Just another way of saying that a skeptic is a bad thing is just to relate it to a disease, and place negative condentation to a challenging view point? Can we truly say that a theory is true or just widely accepted?
I had a buddy of mine ask me how I know I'm not just a brain in a box being fed my experiences by aliens in a lab. I bag-tagged him and called the aliens "sadist assholes" lol
Seems like the second argument refutes the first. There's no difference between thinking you're a brain in a vat and thinking you're a 'brain' in a 'vat' therefore brains in vats can meaningfully ponder being brains in vats
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry; but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" Btw, you cannot define yourself as a skeptic person, because, if you do, you are admitting that at least skepticism is real...
I don't believe skepticism has to be bad, just because I didn't believe I can know anything doesn't mean i can't believe anything, doesn't mean i have to question everything, and it means i can approach ideas i don't currently believe in with respect, god might be real even if i don't believe he is, it also means I can change my beliefs more easily if better evidence comes along, a good skeptic may be racist for example but i don't believe the would be for very long
![PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Analyzing Knowledge #3 (Causal and Reliabilist Theories) [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3z8sDiaY65Y/mqdefault.jpg)
![PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Three Responses to Skepticism [HD]](/img/n.gif)
I liked Chalmer's argument, it seems to me the most humble (not sure if this is the right english word)
+Eliana de Mello
I like Chalmer's argument too. He's saying even if the skeptics are right (and we can't prove they're wrong), our simulation world still has meaning in itself.
I agree. This has also been my philosophy towards skepticism even before knowing him and his response to skepticism. It does not solve any of the probems of skepticsm but it is a way of dealing with whatever threat it brings.
It fails to answer important questions like if God exists? Questions like this has an impact on our realities even if it is simulated.
@@alrick3000 It's a terrible response, and Chalmer is a complete moron. With skepticism comes the possibility of unknown possibilities of unknown degrees and likelihoods of occuring. What this means is that you can suffer infinitely bad outcomes. A chance of an infinitely bad outcome occuring, is infinitely bad. How is any of this positive? Does the equal chance of infinitely good outcomes occuring cancel it out? Fuck no. If I could choose to be tortured for a finite amount of time to guarantee non-existence, I would do so in a heartbeat. I don't want to risk infinite torture, but I have no choice. The universe is an infinitely horrible place.
@@Kushufy You've talked me into liking Chalmer's views even more by highlighting how over-the-top horrible it would be if he were wrong. That seems unrealistically extreme, and undesirable to believe even if it were true.
That immune system analogy is surprisingly satisfying.
I am largely in support of the second method. I am also really enjoying this channel so far.
It is an overly complicated view though. I wish for a simpler response
Here's a way to combat skepticism combining both Moore's and Putnam's responses:
*(AP) A subject can know, a priori, the contents of their thoughts.*
- This is typically justified via an account a priori knowledge that your chosen theory of mental content satisfies.
*(CE) Thought content is partly determined by environmental conditions.*
- This is typically justified via a specific theory of mental content and/or through intuition pumps for content externalism (see Putnam's Twin Earth and Burge's Arthritis thought experiments).
*(Definition) Let 'E' be the condition that (CE) requires for a concept to have external, and not simulated, hand content.*
*(Premise 1) If subject S is thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)", then E obtains.*
- Can be known a priori if (CE) is true, given that one's theory of content is entirely a priori.
*(Premise 2) Subject S is thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)".*
- Can be known a priori if (AP) is true, which again, rests on the a-priority of what you take mental content to be.
*(Conclusion 1) Therefore, E obtains.*
- i.e., there is external hand content.
*(Premise 3) If S is a brain in a vat, then it is not the case that S's thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)" is true only if there actually exists both hands (i.e., that E obtains).*
*(Premise 4) But S's thinking that "here is one hand (and here is another)" IS true only if there actually exists both hands (i.e., that E obtains).*
*(Conclusion 2) Therefore, S is not a brain in a vat.*
The "How" of how of how I know something is true is under no obligation to be explainable to anyone, not even myself. I don't have to know how I know - to know that I know. Because all I have to do is find something that doesn't know how it knows, and we don't know how it knows, but we know that it knows, and the suppressed premise of the Skeptic that 1) you can't say you know something is true without being able to make understandable to everyone how it is true and 2) that something can't be true unless everyone can understand an explanation as to how it is true, is utterly refuted. There are some truths that not everyone can understand. And the mere observation that someone doesn't or can't understand or explain how they know something, and just because you don't know how they know something, is not a valid argument as to why they, in fact, don't know what they are saying is true. Philosophical Skepticism is a form of the infinite regression fallacy.
"A difference that makes no difference is no difference." answers almost everything in this video.
Few arrive at that understanding, just as few understand that if it's alright, then nothing is right.
Is it not axiomatic that a difference that makes no difference is artificial, or not a difference?
Extremely well said.
How does it "answer" even one thing in this video? It just sounds like gibberish to me.
Interesting that Chalmers view resembles the view of Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna who is said to have live around 150-250 CE. Nagarjuna divided philosophy in practical and ultimate truth. Most of what we experience and that concerns our sciences is at a practical level. The practical level gives us knowledge of the world that is of practical use to us, in a wide sense, but it isn't ultimate truth. What is ultimate is not totally agreed on within buddhism (from what I understand) but an often appearing candidate is 'change' - what ultimate is true is that everything is in a constant state of change. Anyway, really enjoyed the video:)
sounds like a fancy way of saying "the only certainties in life are death and taxes". XD
Why is scepticism presented as a threat - As an opponent? As if it was not a legitemate point? Is it maybe just a bit biased?
If a thing is not a legitimate point then it wouldn't be a threat would it? Skepticism is legitimate, therefore it is a threat. It is a threat because it undermines the idea that we can know anything about the world. If we cannot know anything about the world, then not only is science rendered meaningless but also society.
Sophie Jones Yes and no. If everthing was an illusion it wouldn't really matter. Everything would still hold true within the illusion. Reality wouldn't become less real so to speak.
Scepticism does not render science obsolete, it is a fundamental part of science.
We embrace the fact that you cant know anything for sure and include that in theories, every measurement has an intrinsic uncertainty, both through inadequate measurement devices, but also the through intrinsic uncertainty that comes from Heisenberg's principle. But that is fine, one simply uses abductive reasoning together with statistics to find the most probable theory.
If a scientist were to claim that he has "proven" something through experiments, no one would take him seriously, but if he rather said that though some dataset from an experiment, he has calculated that a certain hypothesis has a certain probability of being true, one could take him seriously.
The only science where that method is not used is mathematics, but even in mathematics, every single proof is based on some axiom, and there is no way to prove which axioms govern reality.
Global skepticism is a threat because if it's successful, true knowledge is impossible, which is a deeply troubling conclusion for a human to come to. We like to think that we know things, which is why skepticism is treated as a threat.
@@SpionCTFT That's Chalmer's point in fact!
my dad's name is Brian, therefore my dad is a brain in a vat. This philosophy is way ahead of its time.
Chalmer's argument seems the most reasonable one, to me. He doesn't try to attack skepticism as if it was a bad thing, a problem to be solved. If anything, his argument is an acceptance of skepticism, while at the same time arguing that even if reality was "simulated" or "dreamed" or "non-physical", it would still be perfectly describable as real and valid.
For example, imagine that a highly advanced society made a VR video-game in which you can truly feel sensations such as pain or pleasure. If someone were to stab you, it would be entirely valid to feel angry at that person. It would not be valid for that person to say that "Since this sword is virtual, your pain is false". In that way, it doesn't matter that the sword is virtual, it is still a "real" sword, and it still has real consequences. Just like a perfectly simulated universe would be "real", even if it was simulated.
Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of the existence of consciousness and the moral questions that it entails, but as far as validating knowledge and perception, it's a good argument that I particularly agree with.
Well, I like the "Defensive Approach" actually. Relating it to our immune system is a good idea.
Basically, if something exists in the "brain in a vat" world, then it exists in your simulated world too. Therefore it exists objectively as a part of reality. Regardless of whether it's simulated or not.
What you THINK about those independent objects and their meanings and context, is your personal reality, whatever it may be. There are two realities, objective/shared reality, and personal reality.
The objective/shared reality is like a chair existing for all of you- but your personal reality is how you think+feel about that chair. The chair is objective because it literally exists, simulated or not. Your thoughts+feelings are subjective because not everyone may feel the same way, simulated or not.
But if everyone has thoughts+feelings, then you can say they are objective too, even as each person may be on a different terrain of thoughts+feelings, so to speak.
However, it's good to doubt, question, disprove and investigate to actually know if you know anything. Sometimes there ARE lies, fabrications, misinformation and misunderstood information. But you can either wait until those rise up objectively as truth, or you can question them on your own.
Either way you must validate your internal beliefs with the external world. If you cannot validate the two to create a synthesis, then it will either lead to two scenarios:
1. Whether or not the external world also believes my internal beliefs, has no effect on the fact that I believe it's true unless I let it be so.
2. Whether or not my own internal beliefs are in line with the external world, has no effect on the fact that it's externally true.
Actually both of those are true because both realities exist. However this gets into the philosophy of Realism rather than Skepticism. Skepticism needs only know that it wants to disprove and clarify and refine information- that's what it does. Realism wants only know that there's a reality for what it is of objectivity+clarity.
what neeeds to be " defended" against scepticism?-What is threatened by it?
I have a solution to skepticism. I assume every claim of knowledge begins with this prefix: "To the best of my knowledge, admitting that we cannot disprove global skeptical hypothesis, and that human memory and perception are often faulty:"
I accept skepticism by splitting the definition of knowledge into two alternate definitions. 1) Perfect knowledge, which we never can have since you must know everything to know what you don't know, and you can't know if you know everything, since you can't know unknown unknowns.
And 2) Practical Knowledge. When I claim I know something, it's relative to a task. "Do you know how to drive", I'll answer "Yes", meaning well enough to do my daily tasks or drive across the country. Others may argue I don't know how to drive because I cannot drive an 18-wheeler, but if someone wants to know if I can drive an 18-wheeler, that will be their specific question. In asking about knowledge, most people implicitly ask relative to a specific task.
"Do you know the states?" with the implicit "well enough to list them, and tell me a bit about each."
"Do you know your house/" with the implicit "well enough to find it in the world, navigate it, and list of its most important features". They don't mean "can you replicate the texture of every piece of wood". Likewise "Do you know your name", they're not expecting you to know if you've been deceived by an evil genius who's convinced you your name is something else. They just want to call you by the word or phrase that you think will most likely help them identify you in the world, and with which you identify yourself.
Arguments about what constitutes knowledge seem to constantly fight over what gives a person perfect knowledge, hence the whole Gettier field of problems. At some point, when we start talking about sheep possibly being holograms, we leave practicality behind.
I think Gettier problems are important, we need to stay humble, and the average person should be more aware of the threat of unknown unknowns. But my Practical Knowledge definition is an attempt to get us back to usable definition, one that facilitates clear communication and understanding. Next time you claim you know something, think about what tasks you know it well enough for, and what tasks you don't. Sometimes, you should make that explicit to the asker.
And next time you ask, be explicit on what tasks you're asking relative to.
good answer!
Skepticism is an argument about methodology. And it's premises are false. We can disprove their hypothesis. Just look at the suppressed premises --which is that if you can't explain how you know something to everyone, then it means that you don't know objectively know it. That is false. I am a professional singer, and some people don't have the capacity to pitch match or sing in tune. I can't teach them how I know or explain it because they don't have the capacity to understand. They don't and won't every have the capacity to understand how I know. I there is nothing that I can do to explain to them how I sing because they can't understand. That doesn't mean that I don't know that I know how to sing, and it doesn't mean that other people don't know that I know. The "how" of how we know something is true is under NO obligcation to make sense to everyone universally, not even to ourselves.
Contextualism!
The "practical knowledge" is just intuitive belief. Without perfect knowledge about how accurate your "practical knowledge" is, any "practical knowledge" you have has the same validity as anything anyone ever feels to be true. Maybe you don't know how to drive, and just have fake memories and ways of thinking that deludes you into thinking you know how to drive. Without perfect knowledge, you can't measure how likely it is for that possibility to be truth. When you claim "I know how to drive", that claims is equally as valid as a blind, deaf 4 year old child with down's syndrome claiming "I know how to drive". These are the natural conclusions reached with skepticism, and your "solution" isn't solving it.
@@smilyle Your post is a massive false premise.
I have never heard the word vat until I watched this video; yet, somehow the digital information sent by this machine, which I am typing on now, was sent to my brain and now I have a clear understanding of what a vat is in the same way as I have an understanding of what a can, a box, a car, or anything else is
This was an extremely helpful video. My thinking has very strong skeptical tendencies, to the point where it actually is difficult for me to live day-to-day life sometimes because I'm always doubting everything. I've been trying to sort out my beliefs about morality, ethics, and God. But when even basic practical knowledge seems open to question, what hope is there of coming to terms with those higher-order concepts? On what basis could one even begin to make an argument? People I've spoken to about it have appealed to common sense (like the first and third arguments Professor Nagel presented), but so far I have not found such arguments convincing because they simply assume arbitrarily what must be proved: that human senses, cognition, and/or intuition provide accurate information about reality. It seems to me that we have no reliable way of assessing the accuracy of our own perceptions. It's quite possible (maybe even probable) that some of what we refer to as "common sense" is in fact a collective delusion of our species.
It seems to me that David Chalmers's approach finally offers some hope, however. I may not be able to "know" whether or not I have hands, but I can know at least that I perceive myself to have hands. And it seems fairly reasonable to assert that such perceptions offer at least SOME true information about reality, provided we acknowledge that this information is very likely to be flawed or incomplete. For instance, if am hallucinating and perceive that I have hooves instead of hands on my arms, that perception corresponds to something real: in this case some kind of process going on in my brain that causes me to hallucinate. (This position still would seem to require the assumption that if I perceive something, then there must be some cause for that perception--but perhaps that is a rookie mistake on my part. I know that causality has been another hot topic among philosophers and one that I haven't been able to investigate much so far.)
The most likely scenario would seem to be that there is an objective reality of some sort; that human beings have the capacity to acquire some knowledge of that reality through our sensory and cognitive abilities; but that the sum total of all possible human knowledge may well correspond only to a very tiny percentage of what a superhuman being could know about reality.
Being skeptical is good and healthy but falling into Humean radical skepticism is going to be ultimately destructive. That being said, no philosophers could provide complete one answer to skepticism and there's always going to be criticisms.
Learning the history of philosophy and like Giambatisto Vico says "people had fundamentally different schema of thought in different historical eras", our current generation of thoughts are specifically made by the result of skepticism & naive empiricism.
But no matter how many times naive empiricism & logical positivism has been defeated, it still revives back like a vampire and influences a generation...
Probably we can't be certain of everything but still we can use the abductive principle of reasoning and conclude that a specific worldview to be more reasonable and plausible than the rest. To me it's the Christian worldview...
Wow, that must be a bad constructed simulation, if the simulation questions itself...
...why would that make it bad?
Thats what they want you to think
@@Kushufy Good point. It's not a bad thing necessarily
Maybe that is precisely the purpose of our simulation, to produce new ideas about the nature of reality :D
Why d-e-f-e-n-d against scepticism?-What is threatened by it?-Religion?
What would be a clear example of "Knowledge"- or bench mark or comparator for establishing knowledge?- as " known" as what?
3:20 Someone living in that "Matrix" could describe what a Matrix is perfectly. Because lets imagine us humans creating the Matrix for whatever reason here in our world, and putting someone in it. We can, inside this Matrix, show him the movie "Matrix" and he will be able to perfectly describe what a Matrix is.
6:35 That is just paraphrasing Conan from The Queen of the Black Coast, chapter 2. "If we live in an illusion, then I am an illusion too, so that illusion is real to me." Of course this still does not address the Apathy/Madness issue.
8:54 is just a surrender. It's a guy saying "Well, I will be unhappy if I think about it, so I'll forget about it."
I'm all for the Timothy Williamson approach
Very partial approach to skepticism. No skeptics would describe themselves as having those goals or beliefs.
this video couldn't misrepresent skepticism any more than it did.
I have a pretty stong argument against semantic externalism. We precieve vats brains and anything else through our sences. If a computer progtamm can reasonably accuratly recreate the impulses from our sensors to the brain what is the difference between simualtion and rality for an individual? In both cases you don't name actual objects but rather sensations that objects create in your brain. The sensations are pretty much the same, so why would a brain in a var have different concepts than a real person?
1st off if I come across a skeptic I am gonna have way more questions for them.Senses-1.It cannot just be a brain in a vat it's gonna need ears to transduce physical vibrations in the air into sounds 2.it's gonna need eyes to interpret light and texture 3.taste buds and a nose for smells and scents and nerves to feel.4Its gonna need fresh blood and oxygen to stay aliveThis machine is going to have to be really elaborate and able to create scenerios independent of my life.It will have to continuously have independent programs for various people who think like a Kardashin or like Einstein or anywhere in between.There are so many things we don't even notice going on in life. that we only notice them when we think about them. E.G. sounds of nature, bugs having sex, or Tom Cruise has a crooked smile.Variables-this machine would have to be constantly evolving to come up with all different kinds of people and their actionsAll of these things to trick just one mind ?How much does this computer cost?What kind of processor does it have?Can it program more hot girls ? What is the purpose of it?how many brainsare being used?
The way I use skepticism in everyday life is to look at things through the lense of "the best available evidence at this time points to X" and make decisions based on that, while acknowledging that the conclusion could still be wrong and that the evidence could evolve or be disproven later on. It doesn't lead to rational paralysis where I can't form opinions or beliefs about anything. I have been challenged by those who would say I should question even my ability to identify the best available evidence, and certainly, this is a problem worth examining especially in the age of disinformation and fake news. So how do we solve this problem and find a way to validate our ability to evaluate evidence? Possibly, we could set up test scenarios where a group of people set up a puzzle or mystery rooted in objective (or at least, intersubjective) reality and then bring in a third party participant to try and solve it. A pattern of success in these types of trials (especially in the face of red herrings and misinformation sprinkled in with the real evidence) would probably be the closest we could get to verifying our own rational abilities.
That aside, I didn't really understand the first argument as it seemed to imply we couldn't possibly be in a simulation that provided information similar to reality outside the simulation (i.e. brains and vats); or did I misunderstand the argument?
I don't really see how the second argument is an argument against the epistemological validity of skepticism so much as an axiological argument about the value of skepticism (whether our reality is made of matter or code, why does it matter/what's the point of asking?). Well to me, asking questions about the basic nature of reality is important because many logical assumptions depend on that. If we're inquisitive about whether reality is made of code written by a programmer, we could possibly anticipate and prevent scenarios where that code is drastically altered or deleted without our consent. We have no way of determining that at this time, but in the future who knows? If no one asked the question then nobody would look into it at all. We have the knowledge we have about our universe today BECAUSE people dared to ask questions about the nature of reality, and we have a better understanding of it now as a result of observation and data collection. On the other hand, if we just assume the world is controlled by supernatural deities we can never fully comprehend or unpredictably chaotic forces of nature, we will continue to sit on our hands and may learn nothing. Skepticism leads to investigation and learning because it causes us to consider all possibilities rather than a limited set of alternatives.
Hilary Putnam died of cancer on 13 March 2016.
How do you know?
Could you cover the pragmatist approach to skepticism? Rorty, Dewey and Pierce all have very beneficial approaches to epistemology in a way that contextualizes skepticism to a certain fallacious notion that knowledge is representation.
I could never know, but it would be interesting to learn how Pyrro might have assessed " knowledge as justified true belief" which the author careful avoids addressing as she avoids all definitions-particularly a definition of " knowledge".
To me the underlying issue is a matter of practicality. The importance of the reliability of any information we might want to deem "knowledge" seemingly varies greatly from thing to thing. The matter of whether my hand exists or not in some particular notion of existing varies based on what value I place upon it (or you place upon it if we're assuming you exist too).
"If my hand didn't exist, how could I have typed this?" I might ask me. Well, why do I care? What did I want in the first place? I wanted to type something. I'm convinced that I have done so due to several related experiences like typing it now, and reading it after typing it, the thousands of other typing stuff with my hands experiences that seem like part of my history, etc.
What are the consequences if I don't really have a hand, yet my intentions for performing tasks with my apparently imaginary hand are satisfied quite nicely as far as I'm concerned by me being convinced that when I thought I used my hand to do stuff, the stuff I thought my hand should do seemed to happen?
The consequences as far as I can tell, to me, are so nominal as not to invest in arguments to the contrary. "seemed real to me, who the hell really knows" suffices.
If however, I shall be banned from the interwebs for all eternity based on whether or not my hand exists.. I'd have to ask the question that is embedded in so very much of what we say to one another but yet fail to realized matters. To whom?
It seems to me like so much of our "common sense" use of language presumes an absoluteness to reality - as if the ideas we convey to one another exist in some authoritative reality of absolutes.
My hand exists to me, but doesn't to you. If you encounter me and talk trash about how surreal my hand is however, I shall provide you with a visceral hypothesis test. :P (rick james style)
if you do make a distinction between knowledge and information, wherein lies that distinction? Few are even aware that there is a distinction.
@@vhawk1951kl to me, information doesn't require a host. knowledge only exists in minds. perhaps knowledge is analogous to "information integrated into concepts". of course one can be presented with lots of information and fail to integrate it into their knowledge as well.
Some of these responses, old and new, aren't even real arguments. They're just people telling you to "build up your defenses" or "become stubborn and deny the pull of skepticism". And the ones that ARE arguments against skepticism all fall apart very easily. Why are people trying so desperately to stay away from skepticism, when it is obvious they can't find a single reason for it being false? Why are they attributing manipulative descriptions to "the skeptic", as if they were vile creatures attempting to doom us all. Some people think skepticism is just an excuse not to care about science, but that just isn't true, because even if everything is false, knowing that everything is false won't snap us out of the illusion. We're still always subject to it, so we would still live our normal lives, with our normal curiosity, with the knowledge of a possibility in the backs of our minds. So I just don't get the aversion people have to skepticism. Why are people so desperate that they would publish such weak arguments, just to get away from something so benign. Philosophy is the search for knowledge, the love of wisdom, so to deny a possibility because it is convenient for you to do so is the worst affront to the field, and betrayal of yourself you could possibly commit. Stop holding back knowledge by making us stagnate on this one point and just accept that you see nothing fundamentally flawed with the theory.
I think is just pisses a lot of people off because like existentialism it essentially makes life meaningless and on a large scale people like to have meaning in their life. Even smart people and philosophers do seem to be really aggressive towards it though I just saw a comment on another video of someone saying David Hume was just a "troll" because he used abstract concepts to attack abstract concepts I think he was missing the point but I wasn't about to get into a argument over it.
Uh. It would not make life meaningless. Like many have said as well as in the video if we were some computer generated thing we wouldn't know it but it wouldn't change the fact that the reality we are in even if its computer generated is true to us... so what difference does it make? none. Thats why, skepticism isn't a threat.. because it doesn't change anything practically speaking or meaningful to us and our relation with our reality its just mental masturbation.
The premises that Skepticism rest on are false, that is why people go against it. It assumes that everyone has a capacity to understand how something is or isn't true in all circumstances and that is false by our observation. We know that there are some truths that not everyone has the capacity to know, like how to pitch match so they can sing a song in tune. People who can't pitch match don't have the capacity to know when they are or aren't singing in tune, and you can't explain to it them. Skepticism places a false burden of proof on the person making an argument to say that their awareness of that something is truth can be always be questioned because they don't have the capacity to make explainable how they know their awareness is true to everyone. As long as I can find one example of something where not everyone has the capacity to understand how I know but that one other person can observe and understand that I know, then it makes the Skeptics position null and void. The truth being universally comprehensible and explainable is not a valid criterion for debating if it can in fact be known as truth. Just because not everyone can know how something is true, it doesn't mean it isn't true or that it can't be true or knowable.
The "defensive approach" is literally ad-hominem. "It's just a phase dude, ur wrong"
I dont understand why skepticism is seen as a "problem" that needs solving?
Because people can't accept that they are just a brain in a vat or in a simulation... at least that's what I think.
Because, i think in theory it would undermine our whole view of the world, every philosophical theory outside of scepticism could be undermined, even though they could exist within a BIV. Its also just the nature of philosophy, i like to think of it as a sort of rap battle, where the different groups try to outdo eachother
Thanks for the videos, Jennifer Nagel. I am writing a book and I needed a quick crash course to understand some of the basics that must be discussed when it comes to "how do I know?" I'll listen my way through your course.
You had best start with defining or sating out clearly what the word "know" conveys to you or what associations it evokes in your associative apparatus or what you would seek to convey when you use it?
If you have no clear idea what you mean by the noun knowledge or its verb to " know", how will you go about speaking of it to others?-or god forbid 'writing a book about it'. If knowledge is an out-of-focus photograph for you, how will you go about focussing it? What would be a clear example of knowledge and knowledge as opposed to what?- as known as what?
Further you must address the questions is knowledge subjective and/or relative?-And if it is, what axiom flows from that?
Maybe I'm just a Brian in a vat.
Jonathan Gillmann hi brian
maybe i'm just a simulated brain imagining a simulated brian in a simulated vat, imagining brian in a vat
10:32 awe its okay! Hold onto empathy and compassion, I agree with the second argument extreme skepticism is entirely logical, and we don’t know anything but that has zero relevance to conventional scenarios. If I’m A biological being, or computer generated makes no difference.
It has a ton of relevance. Without somehow "disproving" skepticism, you can't disprove infinitely bad possibilities. And that should be infinitely scary. When you take the world at face value; the world isn't very scary. When you die, that's it. Everything about you is contained in your brain, and it'll be destroyed when you die. You'll get a peaceful, neutral nothingness. In skepticism, this possibility is actually equally as likely (all likelihoods unknown) as being tortured for an eternal amount of time with no chance of escape. Nothing you perceive in this world can be used as proof towards that non-existence, since there's an unknown likelihood your senses are wrong or your thinking is illogical.
@@Kushufy smart, just enjoy the ride my dude, and live your best life, while being kind to others, and go vegan because that hell is real and it's here on earth through factory farming
@@clay89593 We're farming meat, not souls... It's not comparable at all. An eternity is a length of time that cannot end. There's no escape like death. The worst imaginable experience you can have on earth will always be nothing compared to it, the difference between a finite and an infinite amount of time is infinity
@@Kushufy I suppose it could always be worse that's true, but in a practical sense we don't need to fund the torture of animals in modern society, so why support it?
@@clay89593 Maybe torturing animals is good. Maybe the animals who get tortured go to heaven, and the ones who live free happy lives will go to hell. Maybe the more meat you eat, the better person you objectively are in the eyes of some meat-god. I really don't care about any of this, morality is nothing but intuition. "Good" and "bad" are just based on feelings. Maybe what happens on earth matters, however we don't know how it matters, so all political or moral views are just as valid from a subjective perspective
Great channel!
+Jeff Shoemaker Thank you!
tl;dw:
1. You cannot be in a computer simulation because you don't have the words to describe outside of the simulation. It's not like a simulated world would be based on the outside world.
2. Even if you are in a simulation, your experiences are real to you.
3. What is even knowledge?
I feel NO obligation to 'prove' the skeptic 'wrong.' In such a patently ridiculous rabbit hole of mental gymnastics, the only question that matters is this: Does anything the skeptic is proposing, change whether or not they put gas in their car or buy eggs at the supermarket? If yes, then how? If no, then SHUT UP. I think therefore I am not distracted from living. I might be living in the matrix, or I might be dreaming this, or...etc., etc.. Descartes answered this: external considerations of 'reality' don't affect MY reality. Or has philosophy been jogging in place ever since? Now THAT would be something the evil genius could truly laugh at! Nothing changes! One very good reason to disbelieve ANY of this is: where's the evidence? If philosophers wish to go around saying, "Yeah, but..." for the rest of their lives, that's their problem. I guess it sells books. Rikki Tikki.
High quality video as always! Thank you.
+Caius Filimon Thank you!
i really hope this is a reupload because i remember everything in detail...
i'd be scared if i had such a clear deja vu
+Bram iets Hi, it is indeed a reupload! We tried to fix the audio which was done poorly the last time around. So don't worry you aren't going crazy! We just also released part 5 which is new so don't forget to check that out!
+Wireless Philosophy okay ty
was a little scared for a sec
I though I had become a time traveler. It was the reality of my environment.
+Wireless Philosophy Haha! I thought the reverb/echo effect in that video was done with purpose! Did You reread everything or was it actually possible to filter the sound?
+Pär Johansson Hi, we were able to clean up the sound a bit. I know it's not perfect but hopefully it was an improvement over the previous version!
I like so much your videos... I didn't even know how skepticist I had been being. :D Thanks, Jennifer!
Whether you are given electronic signals of water, or are seeing actual water, the experience is the same. A brain in a vat could easily imagine the argument that a brain in a vat is unable to form meaningful ideas due to objects not being real.
Besides, I would argue that some bits that have the information to produce the illusion of water is itself an object with real qualities. So, the brain in a vat is dealing with external objects - they're just of a different nature than they seem to be. (The same might be said of physical reality - it doesn't seem to be a bunch of atoms, for example).
And also...
When Cypher said "ignorance is bliss" he was being absolutely 150-200% correct in both that blissful ignorance of the uncertainty of it all is great and that steak is reeaallly reaaaallly tasty! So why can't we all just enjoy the steak and then afterwards contemplate it's actuality over brandy and cigars???
Ultimately, the burden is on the skeptic to defend his position. Although the skeptical argument eliminates certainty in knowledge, it doesn't eliminate confidence in knowledge.
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Why is the next video private?
Knowledge is justified belief. It cannot be more than that, it cannot be less than that.
Great series about knowledge!
how do you- not anyone else, define Knowledge? What would be a clear example of knowledge against which other candidates for the term can be assessed or measured?-As "known" as what?
Wow, can't say how entertaining, interesting, and helpful this video series has been! I've been exposed to several arguments that dip their toes into these waters and getting a better grasp of the concepts--the philosophy behind them--is immensely helpful! I now have much more confidence in my beliefs and that confidence will continue right up to the point where my vat is switched off. =)
Do you have any experience of knowledge, and of what does that experience consist? what exactly is happening in you when you " believe"? - is it not the complete absence of any questioning?
This video felt a bit confusing. It should start explaining skepticism. And I lost the line of thought several times throughout
Precisely: a terrible start that loses a huge potential audience. Even though I’m going to look it up myself, I may not even come back to this as a result. I will, however, bookmark it.
They have a video on it called "The Problem of Skepticism". This is a series of videos.
Love Chalmers' response!
I've been wondering if we'll eventually run into the way I handle these kinds of skeptical arguments. (Not sure where I got it from--Rand and Molyneux maybe.) The way I approach this kind of question is to first note that the scenario itself turns on a sophistic trick; namely, shifting the burden of proof. You can't prove something doesn't exist. It's impossible. Prove to me that unicorns do not exist. Since proving a negative is impossible, the skeptic's scenario is simply a shift of the burden of proof. So right from the beginning you are outside of the bounds of reason itself. I guess the dishonest skeptic doesn't want you to realize that in the first place so that you're vulnerable to all kinds of nonsense. As Rand would say, Existence exists. It's axiomatic. Empirical data is empirical data. I have my hands before me--I need not "prove" them. The skeptic basically questions that from the beginning, which leads to nowhere. Skepticism is useful--within the bounds of reason itself. Outside of it, it only causes mischief. And while it is useful to question the limits of our perceptive powers, to deny that our perception has any kind of utility at all is not only foolish, it can be fatal.
I can certainly prove to you that a pint pot will not contain more than a pint, nor need I, since it is axiomatic. It is sometimes said that one cannot prove a negative, yet I can easily demonstrate that there is no Bengal tiger in my refrigerator. you had best first define proof. Proof to whom, and to what standard.
I really liked this one :)
Very thought-provoking, but several questions emerge, perhaps addressed in future videos. First, why "evil" genius? Maybe the genius is GOOD. Second, if the genius is either good or evil, that requires a standard. Who came up with the standard? Third, where did this "genius" come from. If it's the eternally existent "I AM" - the God who has the power of being within Himself, then we assume complete and untainted goodness as a Divine attribute. Would this essentially and completely good Being then let an "evil genius" create or control us as brains-in-a-vat?
The senses of 'threat', 'challenge', 'problem', and 'bad case' derive from your 'bad case' world-scenario (if that is where you are); therefore, these senses cannot be guaranteed to obtain for fundamental reality. In other words, so far as your world could be an illusion, your worry about this being a threat or a problem is just as illusory.
Why is the 'bad case' considered intrinsically bad? Even if my hand is generated by a computer or real in the physical sence, doesn't it still hold the same essence, meaning and fuction to me, wether I'm a brain in a vat or a real person? If the difference doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form, why should I worry about it?
this video couldn't misrepresent skepticism any more than it did.
Congratulations on this amazing channel. It's been very useful!
I actually had no idea what vat was or even if it was a real word. However I saw the picture and then I understood. However had his brain interacted with a vat at the brain level he would have memory of it and knowledge and meaning to it. We have meaning of things because of our brains, not because of expiernce. If you anything about neuroscience you know this explanation is insane because you derive meaning from things through interpretation from your brain and you would get this whether by actually experiencing it or experiencing it because of the computer.
Chalmer makes a good argument.
Williamson makes a good point as well, however the talker seems to be presenting skepticism as a thing many people have and something that's attractive to a lot of people when it isn't. Most people are on the other end of skepticism where they question nearly nothing, after all that's how faith rates are still high, why so many children believe in Santa and the Easter bunny, why so many people believe ghosts and the supernatural are real and why people believe others can talk to the dead.
Its pretty simple really. It doesnt matters.
That's what Chalmers says
+FermiToll Nope. That's what I said.
that's what i feared, for the 3 seconds of the single video you have i understand your answer now, it's annoying when you tube recomends you this pointless channels or you end here by error :P
+FermiToll No man, Im serious. It doesnt matters because by principle you must act as if reality was real.
I think you mean 'you can only know it as if it was real'. Sorry for dwelling on diction and grammar. But having that focus is a vital part of being epistemic. But I'm stupid about moderating it. Since I think I knew what you meant, maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Wasn't meaning to seem a grammar marm etc.
I think that we can know that we're in the good case. We need what is called the ontological argument but we have to represent it correctly. First, let's agree that for something to be logically impossible is for that something to be false in every possible world. And here it is:
1. It is logically possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is logically possible that a maximally great being exists, then that great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then that great being exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then that great being exists in this world.
C. God exists.
Now, I have two verses and a third one. I'll use the first two to show that God guarantees our knowledge in this world but by interpreting them, not by saying that that's exactly what they say. I reference the third one because it's a reflexion I have. Explanation follows after citing them.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20
God is not human, that he should lie,
not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?
Numbers 23:19
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10
Explanations.
We need to state an enthymeme.
1. There is one and only one God.
2. God is omnibenevolent.
C. We're in the good case.
Premise one would guarantee that there is no competition so that we may be deceived about reality. Premise 2 is needed so that we can trust Scripture. But I think we can just prove the second one because Scripture also affirms that there is only one God (Isaiah 44:6). I'll leave premise 2 for you to research (Hebrews 11:6).
My final reflexion is this. I think that Proverbs 9:10 fits with this discussion. If knowledge is attainable by accepting God's existence, then we could say that knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Of course, there's probably more interpretations, like knowing the right thing to do, but all I'm saying is that it fits.
The Chalmers' response is the only argument that convincingly maintains meaningful individualistic knowledge, but has a pretty significant implication that string theory doesn't: that one's consciousness will continue after death.
"Meaningful" being supposed to convey what? May I substitute subjective for " individualistic"?
Ho do you define " knowledge" or what exactly do you seek to convey when you use that term? As known as what is known?
Is any of this really worth holding on to?
Thank you
I never assumed that phrase meant a literal vat but referred to the skull and the brain contained within. Alluding to the idea we are not directly connected to the real world and that our sensory experience can be very faulty in determining the external. Rather than an artificially generated world directed by someone in a real external reality.
"Maybe" isn't a positive statement but more of a rhythmic parry that can be applied to any assertion. Rather than, Our brains float in a liquid encased in protective skull sheltered from the external world.
Question, how do you make those animations?
Why is 'skepticism' referred to as a 'threat'?
If the goal of humanity is to make more humans: if humanity as I know it, including me, is not real, why should I bother procreating? If the goal of humanity is to learn everything about the universe and its contents: if knowledge isn't real, why should I bother? You can see where this is going.
No.
Can't even see where you're coming from.
BluePrint If there is no way to prove that anything is real, why would you take a chance by doing something? It could all be pointless. While not all skeptics end up this way, it is a possibility, and a population full of those who choose not to take a chance would lead us nowhere. The same goes for those that come to the conclusion that life doesn't have a purpose.
Extremely Sketchy
OK, I think I get it now.
'Skepticism' here is what outside of philosophy circles is referred to as 'solipsism' or 'global skepticism', which is the view that personal experience is the only thing verifiable.
I do like the idea of no meaning and all just cant see why that could make me pointless anyway, like can be pointless my life would yet be meaning to me, thats all I care, if Im a brain in a jar, why care, Im a happy brain in a jar anyway.
Chalmers is the man!
If we can understand what the skeptic means when they say someone could be a brain in a vat in the way the skeptic wants us to only IF we have had the right kind of experiences with physical brains and vats, then how are we supposed to know in the first place that we have had contact with physical brains and vats and not brains and vats that are computational in character?
6:04 the cat is Richard Dawkins 🤣
*Pawkins
Well simulation can also generate same kind of meaning by creating computer generated past experiences. So how to tell difference between both the experiences??? isn't that the whole argument?? how to tell if this is real or not???
AM i missing something out??
I can't believe that the "brain in a vat" simulation that Brian is experiencing is any less compared to that of a "real life" interaction. While Brian's life is electronically simulated, it is done so by a supercomputer. A supercomputer, to my imagination, would be capable of sending, receiving, and manipulating Brian's reality in a way that is actualized in better quality than our own. This supercomputer would be able to control Brian's reality so that it would be impossible to think otherwise, while still keeping set values that would make Brian feel in control of his own life.
On a side note that I have just realized, how can two individuals discuss a philosophical argument, or anything, if the communication of set conditions is not apparent to each person. While from a third person perspective, the conversation may appear seamless and conducive, to each first person speaker, their own reality may distort the conversation so that neither actually understands the other.
What exactly is it about "reality" that makes it reality or real?
@@vhawk1951kl “Real life” is the generally accepted concept of our physical reality: that we are born and raised in a physical world with real and direct consequences.
Any theory that intends to disprove or misalign our understanding away from “real life” would reveal that the reality we are living is not “real.”
For example, if life was a simulation and you died, you still may be alive in the real world, only to wake up from a virtual reality gaming experience. Theoretically, with a powerful enough super computer, there could be hundreds of different levels of these simulated realities, where we may never be able to wake up in the “real world.”
I don't agree with argument 1 against the brain in the vat concept, so clearly I don't get it.
That said, "The thirteenth floor" is my favourite brain in a vat movie, how 'bout you guys?
Jeepers. People hate skepticism. That's creepy.
Do you think that irrational global skepticism is not an intellectural pathology? That it's healthy in a critical intellectual sense?
yeah thanks. I think I already said that in this case below when I said "The 'solipsistic-ish' global skeptic argument is not fit." ... My question was I suppose kinda rhetorical. But's it's been a month and I'm not reconstructing the thought thread fully now.
Men(human beings) are best advised to avoid using the words, know, exist and *mean* because they are symbols for out-of-focus ideas. It is apparently common for men to deal in vague blurred out-of-focus ideas - if you ask them exactly what associations are evoked in their associative apparatuses by those symbols(what they m-e-a-n- or convey to them), they can never come up with anything clear, precise or exact, and come up with something that makes one recall castor oil(or root can al treatment) with a certain tenderness.
This series is very interesting but I can't help thinking (and being a little frustrated) that the positions taken by philosophers are the extreme ones and therefore not at all practical. I also have a problem with using labels as nouns rather than adjectives: "skeptics" vs. skeptical or in society "conservative" or "liberal" as an insideous nature rather than a descriptor - i.e. I am financially conservative. I understand why this is done but it sets up an argument from the extremes - more of a novelty rather than a rationality. It some ways these arguments remind me of watching the "news" - are we watching the norm or the exceptions?
Good for you. Thinking in labels is remarkably common amongst men(human beings); they never ask IS it X but rather might it attract the label or epithet X. They are often overly concerned with what it might be c-a-l-l-e-d, rather than what it IS(forgive the capitals).
I would suggest that if it is-and-cannot-be-different, it really does not mater what you *call* it, however with labels or epithets it is often impossible to discover whether or not the employers of one and the same label are speaking of discussing exactly the same thing, see for example race, law, true, fact, right/rights, reality, god etc or any word you please. It is surely axiomatic that different words labels or epithets evoke different associations in different associative apparatuses or minds, and their employers can N-e-v-e-r" know"(whatever know means) whether or not they are discussing identical phenomena
Pierre: "Okay, so first put your hands on the keyboard."
Brian: "Alright."
Pierre: "They're on the keyboard?"
Brian: "Yes."
Pierre: "But Brian, those are simulated hands."
Brian: "Listen here, wise guy!"
Im sure someone's said this before but why is this always talking about the skeptic trying to fool you and they like this belief? Maybe you're a skeptic out of necessity and it horrifies you but angry arguments don't make a difference.
The most conpelling thing i see is just forget about it otherwise you can't base anything else on anything. It's not a great argument but its possibly the only logical one
I'm new to all this but isn't the brain in a vat issue basically solipsism?
There is also the possibility that we, as simulations, are surrounded by relative simulated objects, limiting our reasoning (even that which states we may be simulations) to that simulation.
Whilst in reality there are no such things as computers, or brains, and instead something which is by definition unimaginable.
Worth a thought :P
*And - That chemistry professor is a physics professor in disguise...
You need to look at this with a wider scope. If we are trying to find out if anything at all is real or not, we cannot have a point of reference such as having been real but suddenly kidnapped. If anything.. we are real. At least until we are able to track exactly how far away the illusion began. And if we really are a computer simulation, its reasonable to think that so is him. Good points but as always more questions arise.
It seems as our real-time reality making code keeps generating, we keep looping into the toroidal server with the redundancy system.
I thought Knowledge was the product of thought that is both Valid and True.
Valis and true ? Something can be valid and not true or true and not valid ?
+a true, but would that be knowledge?
Have you watched the first video of the series ? They explain quite well.
You may want to check out the phil section of CrashCourse
John Bennett Fuck crash courses and start reading philosophy for real.4min videos will get you nowhere. Reading one philosophy book requires 3 reading at least. It's not a novel.
The 1st one destroys the ultra skeptic.
Yeah it was great! But i also think that Robert Nozicks 'tracking theory', denying closed implication, is worth concidering.
Let's make a single assumption to start the discussion: God doesn't exist (nor any evil spirit, ghost, dead people power... doubt any magical thinking).
Now, we can discuss seriously about the skepticism point of view. For the presumably few people who are committed to science, philosophy and who ever tried marijuana for the first time late in life, they may have noticed the following phenomena:
1-each time I try it, I get different effect (one day, sound or voice are generated, other day, visual firework, other day, strange emotion, etc)
2- A recurrent philosophical though arising when "Hi" is that we live on Earth to entertain an audience of amused alien living on some other planet
3- Another recurrent though is that we receive and emit information using an unknown yet to science wave or who knows what since I know only a fraction of current science
The random like effects of Marijuana becomes weaker over time, no matter if there is a pause of weeks in between experiments or if I try say after day. After about 2 years, there is no more detectable effect (talking about random hallucination, not the other effects of Marijuana which makes people want to use it). In other words, most of those who read this and started smoking pot at 12 years old, you may not understand what I am talking about.
When I started to study arcade video game, I got some insight of the way the graphical image is generated when I could find a machine that has electrical problem. For example, a miss behaving pac man machine will show 8*8 pixels square shape here and there on the screen. These square may contain part of labyrinth or ghost or fruits. I concluded that the background image of labyrinth was generated as standard computers of that time were doing the text mode, to save RAM memory (2 kilobytes was the typical maximum amount at that time ; the space shuttle is rumored to use only 32 kilobytes). The pac-man video was using a standard computer monitor which was using the same scan rate as standard TV (15 KHz horizontal, 60 Hz vertical) and the resolution was fixed at 320*200, which gives 64000 pixels total. Using the 8*8 block trick, the computer needed only 1 kilobytes to paint the pac-man labyrinth (64000 pixels total / 64 pixels per square blocks = 1000).
I was thinking about marijuana that it could help understand how the brain work. The theory is that pot was disturbing some specific part of the brain. Each time I tried, a random location was being affected. If I would seriously note the effect and analyze how they can be explained based on the current knowledge of brain operation, maybe I could confirm or refute some hypothesis.
I won't continue to describe computers or brain here, it is already an unusual long text for youtube, but here is my answer to skepticism:
1- you are right, there is time when my brain is not working correctly and then can make mistake. The worst of all is when I can not, in all honesty, be sure if what I saw or the voice talking to me or other level of memory was a dream while awake or was real.
2- you are right about doubting even the most respected scientists. We can find many examples of ideas that were shared by all great minds but proved false. An example which is still going on is black holes and big bang.
3- you are wrong about an evil genius trying to confuse you. God, his son, the devil, ghosts, the Holy ghost, dead spirits, etc are all human inventions.
At some point, we need to pick our battle. I consider much more important to try understand how the brain works. A correct understanding require an insane amount of work. Evolution show how neuron started firing in the first multicellulars animals, such as jellyfish. They are not bright! Looking at mammals, they share most features that humans have : two eyes (not 1 or 3, etc), 5 digits, etc. They share many common emotions, even though lack the facial muscle contraction that are exclusive to human when expressing joy or crying.
I wanted to pick on the brightest mind currently alive : Noam Chomsky. The list of everything he debates which are right is overwhelming. However, referencing the chimpanzee, our closest relative according to DNA statistics, which learn sign language like human but can not speak any language, he goes on and on about the similarities of chimps with humans but fail to recognize that all mammals emit sound in an automatic way ; a dog bark to allow other dogs to join the chase or to express joy. I have a friend whose 15 years old dog is so well behaved ; she can refrain barking up to a point, but she don't fully control it.
Think about barking like for our self when crying ; we can stop, or let it go. If we let go and cry, we can alter up to a point the kind of crying we produce. But we know that crying is mostly automatic ; the breathing, facial muscle contraction, constriction of vocal chords, it's all generated by autonomous part of the brain, genetically predetermined in our instinct, our physical nature.
Chimpanzee obviously are like digs on the point of view of controlling the sound they emit. Only some birds evolved control of vocal system good enough to sound similar to a human talking. These equivalent to "tape recording / tape playing" type of birds evolved this capacity to reproduce complex sound for mimicry, exactly like early humans. Generating the sound of duck or a female dear in heat, for example, makes a hunter more successful.
The language came progressively as hunters were proudly describing to the tribe their adventure using body gesture mimicking actions, a form a sing language. The stories around camp fire were animated laughs, each hunter taking turn showing how they walked low, like a cat, jumped, etc, all this story told with body motion illustrating what happened.
Ok, I diverge from the subject of skepticism. Or do I really? Did I mention how humans used deceit to gain over other tribes? It was mortal mistake to believe everything even a close friend was telling you. Political alliances, which happen in Chimpanzee, could change. Even in-animated objects, like a tree or a creek, which faithfully provided fruits or water, could suddenly change. Praying to the tree, asking it to produce again next year, was example of pantheist religion. If I can ask a human to bring me water, or a dag to catch something, why not talk to a creek, asking it to bring water. We know the creek don't have ear so can not react to our voice. But talking to it is though to improve the chance to get the wanted result.
What, we were talking about skepticism? I seriously don't believe my fellow Catholics who tell me that collecting water on a specific day makes it holy. I was skeptic about most assertions of people around me when describing that grandma can stop bleeding just talking to her on the phone. I was skeptic of magical though, such as your chance to win lottery because of the rabbit legs in your pocket, or the solar eclipse or any other incredible "facts" that everybody in my specifics culture were repeating.
Repost? Was it because of the sound or something?
Anyway to me once you make a case for simulation, you have to make a case for foundation, if you concede to infinite regress, then it's just an argument from geography.
The defensive approach is fascinating, the rejection of models is driven by political reasons imo but If it is seen as really difficult to justify like an extreme worldview.
It may manifest in the domain of aesthetics (This movie sucks or this painting is glorious)
+rmeddy1 Hi, the sound was off before (too much reverb). We tried to fix it and this seems better than before, thus the repost. Video 5 (also posted today) is new though.
Concerning Putnam's argument, I don't follow it. Let's say I'm taught what a vat is by having someone show one to me, perhaps have me touch it or smell it or get other sensory info for it, and then I'm told the word for it is "vat". This creates a sensory activation pattern in my brain that is associated with the word "vat", and other possibly related activations about the capabilities or properties of vats might be added as well. Afterwards, any time I see the word "vat", this part of my brain will activate; conversely, if this part of my brain activates, I will think of the word "vat". Then I look at a picture of something in a TH-cam video: if it activates enough of the same pattern in my head, I will think "vat". It's not a real vat, but it causes the same area of my brain to activate, so we're good. (This has to be -- otherwise, communication and language would be impossible.) So poor Brian's brain-in-a-vat can be trained to associate the word "vat" with some activation area of his brain, and assumedly if he was suddenly exposed to the real world, the same activation would happen. What am I missing?
my relation to reality and myself aren't altered at all because of skepticism. Even if i was a brain in a vat my reality that is computer generated wouldn't change the fact id still act in relation to that reality whatever it would be. I think skepticism shouldn't stifle somebody from having convictions, this is why a lot of people dislike skepticism because they are interpreting it as them not being able to have 100% convictions. Although by philosophical standards convictions cant be certain.. but even if nothing can be certain that doesnt mean its of any use to the nature of the reality we are in wether it be computer generated or not. One also has no reason to be certain of the idea that "nothing can be certain" is true, if nothing is certain that statement would hold the same as anything else, like the statement "everything can be certain". Basically to me the way philosophy defines certainty, is not relevant to my convictions about this reality.
But how do you know our organic brain exist' ?and how do you know that the real brain that received output from supercomputer really exist, since the same argument apply to them ? and if this brain is fake and the other 'real brain exist how does it connect?
Words mean things. Therefore, I'm not a brain in a vat...
huh?
+AntiCitizenX I found that argument also not convincing at all...It seems just like word play. I think the best approach was the second one: there might be "other realities" behind my reality, but my reality is all I have, it is "real" to me and therefore I should go for it.
Johnny Jakuleg
I agree. That's how I solve the problem. Just accept that you can't solve it and move on.
+AntiCitizenX I recently heard an interesting approach to the brain in a vat problem. It goes like this.
How could an evil scientist know exactly which neurons to activate in a given brain to produce the particular experiences he wanted that brain to have?
The only way to know which neurons are correlated with which experiences is to observe brain activity in an embodied person who takes action in the real world.
Imagine a scientist is observing a person eating vanilla ice cream but his neuroscan is instead leading him to believe the person is drinking coffee. In this case, the scientist will make a correction so that he can properly correlate the brainscan's results to the behavior he actually observed.
There is a dependence on real world behavior that is required, and it seems the brain in the vat scenario cannot satisfy that requirement.
+Lewis K. That's a bad argument just because we can recreate these things and we have without doing the things you've stated, at least not for every case, for the initial case sure but that was all.
+Lewis K. And plus the scenario is not that the real world doesn't exist but that we may not be in the real world.
In my opinion, none of those approaches made a really good point against Skepticism. They kinda only tell, that it's not HELPFUL to be skeptical ALL the time. They neither proof skepticism wrong nor gave a better Idea.
I liked the second respond (of this video) - that's kinda the closest to what I think.
I guess, it's no threat, too. I kinda even like the Idea of never being able to proof anything to be ultimately true.
I simply don't get what's the problem with Skepticism at all. It is a model of the world. We should use it, whenever it's helpful (like in arguments about certainty) but shouldn't use it, if it keeps us from results (empiric science).
It's just like newtonian Mechanics VS relativistic Mechanics. Both are models, both are "true" for certain situations. And so we still use the good old newtonian Mechanics, if we have big and slow objects (relatively big and slow, compared to light and quantum objects), but go for relativistic Mechanics, if we deal with high energy particles, as in atomic reactors.
Why don't we apply that method to Skepticism?
We're off to a crappy start. Again, sceptics do no argue that their possible scenarios are reality. And I could also say "magnula psak piruga", anyone know what that means? No? Well, maybe that nonsensical array of letters is the actual word for what we really are, but we have no concept of "magnula psak piruga". To make a meaningful argument, we have to use words everyone understands. Sceptics don't argue that we really are "brains in a jar" or programs, they just argue that we could be something that is not what we think ourselves of. They could also introduce new words for that purpose, but most people wouldn't understand what they're trying to say. The concept of these things could be categorised as "disconnected consciousness", there are a few of these scenarios. It's a thought experiment, why do people think taking it literally is going to help them solve it?
The second approach is fine, but it also starts with the stupid premise that sceptics believe their scenario to be reality. They (almost all of them) don't.
You can't take scepticism too far, unless you take scepticism over reality, in which case you'd rather be called a conspiracy nutjob than a sceptic. No sceptic that I know of actually argues that we are X, X being any extreme claim sceptics use for their thought experiment. Scepticism is just a hypothetical reminder to help us realise that we know next to nothing for sure, so we should take things with a grain of salt and not grow too stagnant in our beliefs about reality, since those can be inaccurate and you'll do better with being proven wrong if you accept that you could be wrong from the beginning.
8:40 uhm uhm, u mean 10 dimensional strings, while an even more hypothetical über-string theory known as M-theory requires 11 ...
i just wanted to point it out to seem smart and attentif
And why is the brain theorized to be the center of experience?
Putnam's semantics simply describe Cartesian skepticism and does absolutely nothing to disprove it. The fact that thinking that you're a brain in a vat could be completely false and that we are just in a computer simulation does not mean skepticism is false, it only means that our thoughts can be inaccurate. Even still, the human-borne concept of a "vat" and a "brain" must still exist, even if through a computer simulation, precisely because one has thought of it. This doesn't mean the vat or brain DOES exist, only that their CONCEPTS exist. It's entirely possible to think of concepts inaccurately, and if one has thought about it, then the computer must generate the thought, hence the thought is generated (exists).
I see no reason to reject or defend against utter, complete skepticism. Even the most thorough and "radical" skeptic can still pretend to have "knowledge" of some "external reality" and play the game along with...everybody else. Ultimately it doesn't matter if I'm a butterfly dreaming I'm a human, or vice-versa. Not in terms of getting through the day: which is all we do.
Skepticism isn’t actually a bad thing.
No Cavel, no Rorty, no Conant??
Philosophy is the art of sounding profound and useful or wise, while being entirely worthless and impractical. If it were practical it'd be doing science.
And if skepticism is a threat, the foundation of your logic must be fundamentally flawed.
Way to completely misunderstand the point of philosophy. You sound like a Lawrence Krauss fan science and philosophy don't attempt to answer the same questions so why would philosophy attempt to "do science"?
Mims Zanadunstedt Philosophy kind of is doing science because science is based on philosophy (see philosophy of science) and philosophy can help uncover errors in scientific practice. But I agree that philosophy is much more useful when it comes to refining scientific practice than it is for most other purposes.
Don't suspend judgement on matters for which you have sufficient evidence - that's The Cult of Open-mindedness.
Just another way of saying that a skeptic is a bad thing is just to relate it to a disease, and place negative condentation to a challenging view point? Can we truly say that a theory is true or just widely accepted?
I had a buddy of mine ask me how I know I'm not just a brain in a box being fed my experiences by aliens in a lab. I bag-tagged him and called the aliens "sadist assholes" lol
How would your "aliens" have any idea of what would constitute an " experience for you?
Are they psychic 'aliens?
Seems like the second argument refutes the first. There's no difference between thinking you're a brain in a vat and thinking you're a 'brain' in a 'vat' therefore brains in vats can meaningfully ponder being brains in vats
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry; but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
Btw, you cannot define yourself as a skeptic person, because, if you do, you are admitting that at least skepticism is real...
I don't believe skepticism has to be bad, just because I didn't believe I can know anything doesn't mean i can't believe anything, doesn't mean i have to question everything, and it means i can approach ideas i don't currently believe in with respect, god might be real even if i don't believe he is, it also means I can change my beliefs more easily if better evidence comes along, a good skeptic may be racist for example but i don't believe the would be for very long