On 6/20/2019 3:42 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 18 Jun 2019, at 20:41, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 6/18/2019 3:56 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
An overlooked simple possibility is that separating the notions of "consciousness" and
"reality" is nonsensical. There is no evidence of any "reality" outside of conscious
experience, nor can there be.
Weren't you ever unconscious and awoke to discover that reality had proceeded
without you? That's evidence.
I might agree. Perhaps Telmo was talking about a physical reality, as judged
independent of consciousness, which does not exist … physically, but still
arithmetically.
The physical reality is independent of us, with “us” = the terrestrial mammals
(say).
But the physical reality is not independent of us, with “us” = the universal
numbers.
Dinosaurs have existed in our human past. But things like past and future are
“invention” of numbers (to be short). We cannot prove this (in the strong sense
of proof), but in that sense, we cannot prove anything about Reality nor even
that there is a reality. To prove the existence of a reality is akin to prove
our own consistency. We cannot prove that, despite we cannot really donut that
we are (locally) consistent.
Some faith is unavoidable, if we want to do fundamental research, and avoid
pure instrumentalism, which leads to manipulations, lies, and the law of the
jungle ...
You seem to have a black-and-white view of knowledge: It's either faith
or proof. The first is unreliable, the second is inapplicable. What
everyone else relies on is evidence. It doesn't provide certainty, but
it reduces uncertainty.
And how does instrumentalism, the idea that theories are good or bad
according to how well they predict things, lead to "manipulaltion and
lies". Are you rejecting empiricism as a measure of knowledge?
Brent
Brent
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