No, what I’m saying is that there is no evidence beyond what our conscience perceives is external. You are saying that you are going to use sources you can’t verify to verify sources you can’t verify. Use a common rock for example. You point to a rock and say ’ that’s a rock. ’ How do you know it’s a rock? Well because it looks and feels like a rock. Vision and feeling are interpretations of an outside world. So that is assuming there is an outside world. You say you corroborate with other people. Well that assumes that there is an outside world, or an alternate realm to your consciousness. You check with scans on a computer, readouts on screens, but you can’t even verify the very senses you use to perceive these tools.
You aren’t even getting the basic concept I’m putting forth. I propose nothing. I’m providing a starting point. I say ’ I exist. ’ I must or else I can’t propose my own existence. That’s called a self proof. So next I say ’ there is x that isn’t me ’ . Unfortunately this isn’t self proving. I need to figure out how to determine something x that isn’t just a part or function of my consciousness. How do I do this?
You say that you verify it by checking external sources. Which is a non-starter, because you can’t say there is an external at all without some form of verifiable way of identifying an ‘external’ .
I would be inclined to say ’ I have senses that relay information from the outside world. ’ But again, these senses like sight and sound are not self verifiable either because they are simply interpretations or even just manifestations of your consciousness, you can’t verify anything about the origin of any ‘input’ or manifestation of your consciousness.
For the sake of argument, let’s say the assumption of an outside world is correct, and that the idea of our mind as a brain in the head of our body is correct. In such a case our brain is a collection of synapses etc. interpreting input. So, how does a brain interpret the outside world and how does it verify the outside world is there? Well it collects information, yes? It uses electrical signals travelling through the optic nerve to be interpreted as optical data. Signals through your system also interpret electrical signals for smell, touch, etc. The brain in question receives signals and interprets these signals. How does this brain determine the accuracy of these sources without the ability to experience anything outside of itself? To be perfectly transparent, it really can’t. It’s just a brain that houses a consciousness.
What we do is collect as much of what seems to be input, and then organize. We assume SOME of what is collected is accurate, and try to compare, and verify. On the most basic level, we DO assume that at least some of what we perceive is useful. If we don’t then everything gathered, all evidence cannot be verified and thus means nothing. Mountains of inaccurate, or falsified evidence equates to no evidence. The evidence you suggest cannot be verified, so the evidence you suggested doesn’t amount to anything more than you saying your senses indicated you observed the outside world, and when pushed to look for evidence you provide sources in the outside world as if they are self verifying, when even these sources are still just being perceived.
This may come off as a damnation of evidence, but it isn’t. Pointing out restrictions, doesn’t mean that you give up does it? On the contrary, I think it makes it even more important to be critical of everything, even our own sensory input.
Many people will say ‘I know’ as if it’s a term that can be easily used. These people don’t KNOW anything they claim to KNOW. Yes we must start from some basic assumption about our interpretations of reality, but that doesn’t mean that we throw away the only tools we have. If this were to be done and reality DOES have some bearing then ignoring the tools we have is dangerous. What I mean to say is, no I can’t prove to myself than I’m standing on a bridge at all, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not. I can’t prove I’m not just a brain in a jar hooked up to electrodes, and this brain thinks it’s in a body that is on a bridge. None of that possible illusory of life means it’s a good idea to ignore my senses and my knowledge of gravity and what it implies. To put it bluntly, I should not just stroll off a bridge.
The point is that I can accept that I assume reality is in some way as I perceive it. I have to really. We cannot use this as an argument though. I can assume the person I’m talking to isn’t really there, but it’s not a good start. It doesn’t benefit my understanding to do so.
It’s just annoying that when you provide evidence, and you get the response. ‘You can’t really know anything.’
No, I can’t really KNOW anything. But there needs to be a start point or else conversations don’t go anywhere. Where do you go in a rational conversation, or discovery if at every turn you say to yourself ‘I can’t prove any of what I’m perceiving is true so I’m going to ignore it’ . That’s silly.
So it shouldn’t be used as a conversation stopper. It does come up a lot in religious conversations. When people say that evidence for ‘God’ is impossible because he/she is non-physical. You have to stop because it’s not a useful conversation. Could it be true? Yes. Is there evidence against it? No, not really. But it’s not useful in any way because anything non-physical that is in no way perceptible isn’t impacting on us in any way.
It also happens when people make claims about psychic abilities, or mystical abilities. When pressed you’ll often times get responses like ’ you don’t know ’ or ’ you don’t understand ’ this is followed by obscure claims of differences in understanding or that it’s something they ’ just know ’ . When you point out that it’s impossible for them to just know and that you have evidence against their claim, they may reply with ’ well we can’t really know anything ’ Yes, I must concede, I can’t really know anything about anything, but there still needs to be a starting point.
IF what we perceive is real, but none of us ever accepted anything as real, we would never have gotten to where we are. But we make that first assumption because we must. It’s not an excuse to ignore evidence. In fact, i think it means that we must work towards creating strong evidence. not gather weak evidence and twist it to make it more palatable to what we want to believe.
This whole thing is WAY overly long as is, but for the closing TL;DR version. I disagree with Danielsangeo. I can accept that I cannot know anything outside of myself. I still think it’s dumb to just sit on it though. If a conversation degrades to this initial point then I just exit because it’s useless. How far does everyone here go back? If you think you don’t make any assumption where is the line where you say ’ this is real’ ?
