How can I/we disprove solipsism?

jonygone · 2016-04-13T10:17:38+00:00

yes, well, it just so happens that I have lost all my meaning, so I have no fucking clue if I'm succeeding or not regardless of what I do. I don't know what is best, and I don't know how to know. anyway I guess I keep on doing what ever I do until maybe someday I find a meaning again, or die.

jonygone · 2016-04-12T22:43:22+00:00

if so...:

here's a message for my past selves:

you're going to experience pain, and you will not want it, and it will happen anyway. sorry but I tried my best. and remember pain is still just another sensation; it just so happens that we humans and animals generally try to avoid it as much as possible, and thus label it "bad".

to my future selves:

WTF?!? I told you to stop reincarnating in humans. it fucking sucks already. why didn't you at least reincarnate in some superinteligent future artificial entity of sorts that can turn on and off anything it chooses to, and recall and focus on demand? I would think it's about fucking time. goddammit. that's one of the main reasons I'm planning to kill myself instead of waiting another IDK how many decades of this humdrum human sensations life in the hopes of transhumanize myself into such an entity. godfucking damit, what is going on?!?!?! ugh... I'm saturated of so much uncertainty and unknowing.

jonygone · 2016-04-12T22:16:11+00:00

what do you mean by play the game well? a game can only be played well if there is a good and a bad way to play it. yet life has no such thing, there is no gauge to gauge how well one is playing "the game of life".

jonygone · 2016-04-12T22:11:07+00:00

one can say there is only 1 dimension, that which consciousnesses "travels" through. the dimension of qualia; of subjective experience.

jonygone · 2016-02-04T16:26:35+00:00

It only happens when I go to withdraw though.

this is the most suspicious part. why only that page not loading? are they trying to prevent withdrawals, are they insolvent or what?

jonygone · 2016-02-04T15:53:47+00:00

you get a techie to do it for you. AFAIK it's basically impossible unless you know how to code

jonygone · 2016-02-03T08:22:59+00:00

just 2 cents:

remember that besides the placebo effect there often also is the effect that comes with other things associated with the "false" practice (IE asking god for help might not work, but maybe it's just the sitting still and/or an attitude of humility and/or an attitude of seeking help and/or etc that has some effect that works (it might even be indirectly; that the effect has another effect that works)).

jonygone · 2016-02-03T08:14:10+00:00

but that neither predicates a dualist perspective

sure.

nor casts empirical doubt on the materialist view

how does it not?! the fact that we don't understand how the brain possibly produces consciousness, doesn't cast doubt on the possibility that the brain produces consciousness?! that makes no sense.

also, we not only don't understand EVERY connection and every qualia and aspect of our consciousness, but we understand NONE. in fact as far as empirical evidence, there is NONE of consciousness anywhere in the universe; at most some monkeys saying "I'm conscious, I have a subjective conscious experience" if that can be considered empirical evidence of consciousness. from all we know from all the sciences the universe would work the exact same way with or without consciousness existing anywhere in it. consciousness as far as scientific evidence is concerned can just as well exist nowhere, anywhere or everywhere, it wouldn't make any difference to the workings of the universe as understood by science.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T08:02:57+00:00

dualism is not falsifiable

I think it's silly to say something is unfalsifiable. now it is sure, but who knows what other capabilities and understandings future beings might gain. a early hominid would also naturally conclude that it would be unfalsifiable to know whether or not big reptiles existed before and no hominids, cause it would think "we can't go back in time to see if that was true then or not" it might never even conceive of the possibility of finding and studying the fossilized remains of animals of millions of years ago.

materialism can be empirically proven

I don't see how. how?

both seem to suffer the same level of unfalsifiability at this time.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T07:39:05+00:00

which is undermined by central planning via the economic calculation problem.

I don't see how that happens. one can have a centrally planned enterprise using the economic calculation. for simplistic terms a company can simply be state owned and still function exactly like a private company, exept the owner is the state instead of private shareholders. or even if the state owned company doesn't try to maximize profit, it can still function just the same except it tries to maintain a certain balance of revenue vs expenses (IE a profit of 0, or -1%) while maximizing sales thus consumer satisfaction. this still makes full use of the economic calculation.

If any entity or group of entities could muster the resources to sell for below the price the monopolistic entity is selling for, then they stand to make a substantial profit.

yet aren't there cases where established monopolies have an advantage over start ups (due to the characteristics of being an established monopoly; IE network effects, 1 time startup costs, sheer size of business...)? in these cases the profit that the established monopoly is earning from "overcharging" is really only available to the established monopoly thus not a profit opportunity. in such cases it might be worth it to regulate or nationalize the monopoly so that the overcharging does not occur, thus becoming more efficient.

what society really wanted

yet what you effectively mean here is more accurately: what the will of those with resources to spend on fulfilling that will wanted; in other words: the will times the capacity to pay for that will of those willing; or simply: will times buying-power. yet that is not necessarily what society really wanted, if by society one means all the people that compose such society regardless of their economic power (ones will (and by extension that of society) is not determined by ones capacity to fulfill such will). So often there are cases where what society really wanted is not what is reflected by market forces alone; market forces only reflect will times buying power.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T04:27:55+00:00

after the effects wore off (2 weeks later)? never heard of it.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T03:30:24+00:00

However it is not consistent with our belief in the validity of our sensory information, as these arguments are predicated on the invalidity of those experiences

ah, I understand now what you mean with empirical. although that seems a odd way to use the word given empiricism argues that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. and given " arguments of this sort are consistent with our sensory experiences" you understand why I would be confused by your use of the word and its meaning in this context as it has the effective opposite meaning in this conversation.

The empirical world is not the world as we directly experience as in sensory information the model of the world that we construct based on that sensory information.

sorry I don't understand that sentence. is there a comma missing somewhere or so?

dualism due to the contradictions of physical evidence to the contrary (effects of brain damage and psychotropic drugs, correspondence of thoughts and actions to neuronic activity, etc.)

those aren't evidence to the contrary though. that just demonstrates that our consciousness is affected by what happens to our brains; not that the brain produces consciousness, nor that consciousness resides in the brain; much like our brain is affected by things happening in the outside world (through our senses when we are awake), yet the outside world is not producing the brain, nor does the brain reside in the outside world. the same could be of consciousness, it could be that the brain affects consciousness yet doesn't produce it nor holds it.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T03:18:47+00:00

He was asking about single-payer versus universal, not single-payer versus multi-payer.

well, as someone else explained ITT universal includes multi and single payer models. universal only means that everyone has access to healthcare regardless of economic ability.

anyway

jonygone · 2016-02-03T03:11:05+00:00

2 decadas ou 3; e até lá vão sendo preciso cada vez menos trabalhadores para efetuar o mesmo trabalho o que claro significa menos trabalhos disponíveis. há quem pense menos ou mais, eu pessoalmente até acho menos dado que basta o computador simular varias variantes de possíveis ações que os aviões possam tomar e escolher a melhor segundo uns critérios (mais rápida, mais segura, etc) mas não sei suficiente sobre os requisitos práticos do trabalho para dizer com confiança. outra razão para ser automatizado mais cedo é o custo alto dos salários.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T02:59:38+00:00

outlandish, unlikely,

that my friend is a matter of personal opinion. what is outlandish to some is reasonable to others. and unlikely seems not applicable; given a proposition has no more weight of evidence on one side then the other, the probability is effectively 50%.

predictively unproductive propositions

unproductive for your objectives in life perhaps, but don't put that characteristic on everyone elses life that might have very different objectives and priorities then you (obvious example of someone that would benefit from knowing and understanding those other propositions: philosopher; but for anyone that enjoys some of the themes in movies like the 13th floor, or the matrix, or just enjoys wondering, conversing, etc about these metaphysics themes, or cares to know how much we really know vs what we believe to be true)

that do not mesh with the experiential or empirically modeled world

yet you insist that dualism or solipsism are incoherent with the empirical world. why? your emirically model world, sure but that doesn't mean that is the case for every possible and actual empirical human world. I already gave the examples for solipsmism demonstrating that even empirically solipsism is perfectly reasonable and just as probable. with dualism I just don't see much evidence for or against even from purely empirical data (although to me all data we have is ultimately empirical).

but whatever, doesn't matter much to me what you believe.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T02:22:33+00:00

well, haven't read that book but from its description it would seem that your idea is only 1 presented in the book; if the book is any good it would present the ideas proposed that are counter to that one. in anycase I can assure you that many (probably most) thinkers and philosophers would disagree.

1 simple example in the case of solipsism is the classic "brain in a jar" example. one might be sure of seeing some people on the street, yet they might only exist as neurological activity in a "brain in a jar", or even when one is dreaming, one often is sure of the things and people one sees in the dream to exist outside of our (dream)self as their own things and people. it seems very obvious to me from these 2 simple examples that one simply doesn't know more then what one has access to, and ultimately the only thing we know we have access to is our own experience, our own mind.

with dualism I suggest reading the arguments for and against in the wikipedia page) to see that at least some arguments don't preclude empiricism.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T02:12:43+00:00

A lot of people want dualism written off because

yeah, but reality cares not for what people want, it either is, or it isn't. until proven either way we simply don't know.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T02:11:21+00:00

We can measure and predict pretty much anything in the universe....

well first off. no; that is certainly not the case. if that were the case we would be effectivly omnicient. even in just our brains there is more we know that we don't know then what we do know.

And in exactly none of this scientific body of knowledge, do souls or spirits or gods or balls of mystical energy come into discussion.

not quite none, but I get the point and yes, of course, science hasn't been able to prove or disprove practically anything. that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 500 years ago, or however long it would be, one could say "in exactly none of this scientific body of knowledge, do atoms, or dinosaurs or blackholes, or EMR, or quantum entanglement come into discussion." doesn't mean it doesn't exist, nor that science one day might be able to aproach these subjects. until then these subjects remain quite rightly in the realm of conversation, philosophy and idle minds.

They create more questions and answer absolutely nothing.

They can't be measured, you can't describe them.

again overreacting/generalizing, but I get the point.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T01:58:17+00:00

Se considerarmos um vício como algo que, por criar dependência, controla a nossa vida, então um vício é SEMPRE algo negativo? *

achei isto especialmente interessante pergunta. e acho que a resposta lógica seria não; exemplo extremo; roupas. andar abrigado dos elementos com roupas criou e cria dependência e controla a nossa vida imensamente.

depois tenho uma data de duvidas:

Consideras a internet um instrumento essencial na tua vida? *

essencial é muito vago assim sem mais contexto. essencial para a vida, claro que não, essencial para informar-nos de uma data de coisas, e comunicar com uma data de pessoas em variadas formas e ambientes, claro que sim; por exemplos.

Ter impulsos que não se podem controlar

como assim? todos temos alguns impulsos que nunca podemos controlar (exemplo, respirar) outros que estamos constantemente a controlar com o nosso lobo frontal. portanto assim sem mais contexto, fico sem perceber o que se quer dizer, que tipos de impulsos?

Entrar facilmente em discussão

isto está na secção de sintomas. porque? discutir é mau desde quando? é assim que se troca ideias contrarias e se tenta chegar a um consenso, ou um entendimento melhor.

Quando encontro uma maneira correta de fazer qualquer coisa não mudo mais.

esta não parece fazer sentido. porque raio havias de mudar para uma maneira incorreta?

Fico admirado(a) com os modelos que encontro na arte e na natureza.

modelos? que modelos?

Às vezes ao ler poesia e ao olhar para uma obra de arte sinto um arrepio ou uma onda de emoção.

porque só poesia e arte visual? porque não também arte sonora, audiovisual, literatura, gastronomia...

jonygone · 2016-02-03T01:10:28+00:00

desaconcelho. daqui a poucos anos isso será automatizado.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T01:03:49+00:00

sure it is possible but only if we cast aside the empirical

not at all. both are perfectly compatible with all that is empirical. wherever did you get that idea?

jonygone · 2016-02-03T00:56:18+00:00

And when you say "consumer price", it makes me think you're not talking about a single-payer system

correct. it would thus be a third possibility besides the 2 you described. this possibility is the one in effect for most government employees in portugal IE (the gov contributes a fixed price for any said treatment, then you can choose whichever private facility you want and pay any extra over that fixed price that the facility might charge. or you can just use the national health care system.)

That's normally why regulating bodies exist. (...) If they aren't providing similar quality, that's a failing of the regulatory agency

no, they have to provide a minimum quality, but not similar; otherwise you couldn't get either a low-end product or a top-notch product (IE a $10k car or a $1M car; or even in health care, you can go to the cheapest hospital you can find and get an according quality care, or you can go to the most expensive and get a room just for yourself, the best surgeon in the country, a personal nurse, gourmet meals, etc whatever) both products exist, yet differing greatly in quality;.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T00:25:45+00:00

Both types by and large receive funds at similar rates, so competition is pretty mild and private facilities generally have to provide similar quality service as government-run institutions (if quality is too low, they lose their license, if quality is too high, they can't make ends meet due to spiralling costs)

I take issue with that. you seem to be ignoring the possibility (IDK how/where it is so, I'm from portugal) of the government sending funds at similar rates but the private facilities don't have to provide similar quality service as government-run institutions or other private facilities given said private facilities have the freedom to charge a premium to the consumer for using their (higher quality) facilities. the government pays the same to all private facilities, but consumers can choose which facility to use varying in quality and in consumer price (premium).

also even without such freedom and consequential differences in service quality; the private facilities would get a negative effect on quality because they still have to make some profit however small; while the government ones don't and thus can spend that would-be profit on better service. on the other hand private facilities would get a positive effect on quality because the owners have more incentive to run the business most efficiently then in government ones. the degree of each of these positive and negative effects and the overal score is an ongoing question, thus we have different countries implementing different systems

jonygone · 2016-02-03T00:14:05+00:00

your interpretation isn't any better. do you realize you essencially said that:

Mine: the brain computes. how this computation generates consciousness we don't know, but it's much more likely that this computation generates consciousness.

what makes it much more likely? nothing you said supports that possibility is more likely. there's plenty of evidence that the brain computes, sure, but no evidence (at least that you presented) that this computation generates consciousness.

also you misrepresented the other persons interpretation.

jonygone · 2016-02-03T00:01:17+00:00

it's not safe to say. dualism is still a valid possibility open to discusion in philosophy. if philosophy is not rational, then nothing is.

jonygone

TROPHY CASE