Metaphysics - Ordinary Objects

[@KaneB]

Videos mentioned: The Problem of the Many kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6i6oIeBd7aHbpo Metaethics: The Evolutionary Debunking Argument kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqmVp2CrmNeGfaM Similar challenges as those raised in this video, though with a focus more on philosophy of science, are discussed in these videos: Biological Individuality (1) kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqG9Y5aQmbp0adE (2) kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmGugGWMecqJgbc Classification and Kinds kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6Onk6WDZ5ymatU

[@eapooda]

Can’t wait to watch this entire video Dr. Baker!

[@Mcristini1994]

I find it a bit confusing how the word "object" is used for several of these problems. For example, if I say that a baseball is a collection of atoms arranged in a certain shape (the shape of a baseball), I don't think I am advocating the existence of two "objects" (the ball and the ball-shaped atoms). I am only describing the same object in different ways, just as I could say that a circle is a) a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre, or b) the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is constant, or c) a simple closed curve that divides the plane into two regions: an interior and an exterior. If I describe the drawing of a circle on a piece of paper under those three descriptions, that does not mean that I am proposing the existence of 3 different objects occupying the same space. I am only putting the same object in relation to another set of objects or diverse processes (curves, points, distances, movement, etc.) to explain what it is. I believe that explanation basically works in this way: it subdivides the whole of what is conceived into parts and then explains the nature of those (arbitrarily) subdivided parts in relation to other parts. In that sense, for example, I would say that one cannot attribute causal power to the set of atoms arranged in the shape of a baseball without also attributing it to the baseball, because both things are simply different descriptions of the same object.

[@holdennnn555]

I found it funny that you referred to a “Statue of David” that is actually a bust of David Bowie rather than Michelangelo’s David

[@emmanuelperez9490]

Thank you for the black background. It is so much better for my sight.

[@jmike2039]

Agreed

[@thephilosophynerd7292]

"[15:16] We can give a complete causal explanation of everything by appealing to fundamental particles and their relations. The objects composed of those particles play no causal role." I have some reservations. First, this claim assumes that composition is _necessary_ for ordinary objects to exist. However, even if nihilism about compositions is true, there still can be arrangements. You give the example of the baseball. However, the _arrangements_ play a huge role. For if the particles, rather than being arranged baseballwise, those very same particles were scattered across the earth, then those particles would lack the causal power to shatter the window. And so, something in addition to the particles-namely, their arrangements-is required for the power to break the window.

[@omarhatem4207]

"and their relations"

[@sudipchakraborty4730]

Great video. You appeal to scientific realism while making some of the arguments agaisnt the existence of ordinary objects. How would these arguments fare if we were to take an instrumentalist view of science? Also, is there a way to define what it means for something to exist without leaving behind ambiguities, and can we then use such a definition consistently in our daily lives?

[@matriaxpunk]

From an instrumental view of science, the conceptual construction of an object must be functional to solving a particular problem. In other words, something is considered an object in so far as it's functional to do so. For example, a hand might be a functional concept, so it becomes and object worhty of consideration, while a small part of a finger nale might be not, and thus there isn't a clear concept to refer to it.

[@atlas4074]

In regard to function, I remember watching your philosophy of mind series and one of the objections to functionalism is that functions are agent-relative. I feel like this would be a nice idea for a short video

[@yannicentg3046]

Welcome to the Guild of Metaphysicians, doc!

[@justus4684]

I love everything you do So keep doing stuff🥺

[@rv706]

As a sympathizer of Carnap-style metaphysical deflationism, I find all these ontological questions about ordinary objects ludicrous. The more interesting question is the question of the definition of the various ordinary objects: it's about language, meaning, and perhaps also physics. --- Curiously, it's easier to rigorously (with the rigor that a hypothetical computer would need in order to operate with the concept) define "electron" than to define "chair". I suspect that neural networks (or an abstraction thereof) could be an integral part of what is needed to achieve a rigorous definition of "chair"...

[@vangoh6493]

Unleash Dr. Kane Baker!

[@gabri41200]

Current understanding of gravity actually states that the movement of my finger directly influences the moon by gravity (although it is a microscopic force). So, all objects with mass directly interact through gravity with every other object with mass. So, we could say that every object with mass is performing some function.

[@coolkusti]

The borderline Sorites argument seems to be formally applicable to the real numbers in a computability context - but there it doesn't go through. There are numbers that are determinately positive, determinately negative, and exactly one ambiguous case about which nothing can be said (zero). Either the situation becomes that there is no "line" between the determinately positive and the ambiguous, or the ambiguous *itself* serves as that line. Something suggests to me that there are implicit assumptions on the "topology" of the space of objects that, were they not granted, would not allow the problem to arise, in the same way it can't happen in the case of real numbers. (Anticipating the need for clarification - what I mean by "the real numbers in a computability context" is characterized by the idea that you're given a sequence of nested ranges, narrowing down toward a particular real number, and exactly those properties are determinate for which you only need finitely many steps of this process to decide one way or the other. If I give you any sequence of ranges, all containing zero and narrowing toward it, any prefix of this sequence is consistent with the next step excluding zero and narrowing on some small positive or small negative number - which means you'd always need more data to conclusively decide if it's really going to be positive, zero, or negative. For any positive or any negative number, and any sequence of ranges narrowing toward it, there's a finite number of steps after which your range will exclude zero, and you can conclusively make your call about the number's sign.)

[@Trynottoblink]

Another banger from Dr. Baker

[@KaneB]

Thanks!

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

Take human subjectivity and intersubjectivity out of philosophy, and this is what you get... Here's a simple reply to all of these arguments: If people reliably perceive something as an object, interact with it as an object, and speak about it as an object, then, by definition, this object exists. That's what it means for an object to exist. And if this notion of existence is not to some people's standards of strict logical coherence, then, well, that's their problem. It only means they are trying to apply their standards where they don't belong.

[@nicolasavila6047]

Also, the Bradley regress is an argument against the "strong" existence of ordinary objects (they are "appearance")

[@justus4684]

5:08 Why not do: Two objects A and B form a further object iff S thinks that A and B form a further object ? For the scattered objects maybe propose something about object history

[@KaneB]

This would make composite objects mind-dependent, which is a conclusion that a lot of philosophers would resist. (I'm perfectly with this kind of antirealism about objects.)

[@WackyConundrum]

Then you would end up with incompatible objects. The shared ontology would be inconsistent.

[@Just_an_onion]

The natural next step now is to do a video on the metaontological debate between (metaphysical) deflationists and substantivists, since it typically refers back to the first-level ontological debate between realists and anti-realists about ordinary objects.

[@justus4684]

16:25 If a baseball just is identical to its parts, the baseball would have causal powers "Baseball" just is a proper name for "some arrangement of particles"

[@holdengoodall8213]

36:00 The sixth and correct option is that Theseus no longer exists because I was hungry.

[@__malte]

I think that we should take ordinary objects very seriously. If they were lost in the metaphysical wastebin, we would lose a very important, very central framework for understanding the world. In fact, a lot of science even supposes ordinary-like object-hood as an explanatory underpinning. (I’d say everything apart from fundamental physics does this to some degree. Biologist suppose there are biological objects, like plants and bacteria and animals. Chemists mostly suppose there are molecules and atoms. Psychologists mostly definitely suppose there are humans.) Now that is not to say we have to be total essentialist about it. Nor do we have to say that ordinary objects exist fundamentally (although I’m currently writing a thesis exploring the option that they are). But if we discard ordinary objects, and say that they are ungrounded, I think the concept of ‘object’ loses its meaning. We can no longer think in object-predicate terms if we are anti-realists about all ordinary objects. (Since ordinary objects like chairs are paradigmatic examples of object, through which we test and understand the notion in the first place. To preserve object-hood without ordinary objects would be like to reject that 1 is a number, but still think that numbers exist.)

[@KaneB]

>> If they were lost in the metaphysical wastebin, we would lose a very important, very central framework for understanding the world That would only be the case if a non-realist view of ordinary objects entailed eliminativism about ordinary object discourse. But there are plenty of options other than eliminativism. >> Biologist suppose there are biological objects, like plants and bacteria and animals I can't speak for other sciences, but I think this is straightforwardly false, at least if the claim is that biologists assume a realist interpretation of biological objects. There's a great deal of debate about what exactly, if anything, counts as a biological individual, and where the boundaries between different biological objects are, etc. Some biologists seem to favour nonrealist views here. See my videos on biological individuality that I linked in the pinned comment. Also, I doubt that most chemists have a view on whether, for instance, there are really molecules or only atoms-arranged-moleculewise. I grant that I haven't actually spoken to any of them about this though.

[@__malte]

@@KaneB As for the biologist: Of course I’m not saying that biologist are essentialists. There are many, many difficulties for biological individuals. And especially for small entities, like viruses, we start to get into really blurry stuff. *But* scientist, including most, if not all biologist, do engage in object-talk and do really carry on in science mostly as though there really are object. This is just the same as we all do for chairs and clouds. We know they are somewhat problematic. We cannot do without them nonetheless. (Similarly, I fail to see how a biologist can describe the world without either becoming a fundamental physicist, or latently accept some biological objecthood, if only to serve as an abstraction for the biological theories to range over.) Now indeed, we could somehow try to explain this merely using discourse. Perhaps facts about ordinary objects are *discursively* grounded in some more fundamental realist facts. However, I have yet to see a convincing theory as to how. But if there is such a theory, that theory would still agree that discursively there exist ordinary objects. Which is also to say that there are ordinary object, but that they are derivative objects. In contrast, total eliminativism, in my books, would also mean having an error-theoretical approach to ordinary object discourse. Everything we say about chairs is wrong, because there are no chairs. This, to me, is an extremely high cost to a philosophical theory.

[@KaneB]

@@__malte >> But scientist, including most, if not all biologist, do engage in object-talk and do really carry on in science mostly as though there really are object That doesn't entail a realist interpretation of object-talk. I suspect that plenty of biologists would explicitly reject such an interpretation in at least some contexts where the objects in question are biological individuals. >> We know they are somewhat problematic. We cannot do without them nonetheless. Again, non-realism about ordinary objects does not entail eliminativism about ordinary object discourse. Actually, it isn't obvious to me that we can't "do without" ordinary object discourse... I've never really tried to do without it (have you?) But even if we are for some reason compelled to engage in ordinary object discourse, this doesn't in itself commit us to believing that ordinary objects exist mind-independently. Similarly, it seems like most sciences can't "do without" idealizations such as ideal gases, infinite populations, and frictionless planes, but nobody is a realist about these things (indeed, in these cases, we don't even believe in e.g. atoms-arranged-frictionless-planewise!).

[@__malte]

@@KaneB I am reminded of discussions I’ve had with fellow mathematicians about the metaphysics of numbers. The interesting thing is that all the mathematicians I’ve talked to, talk about mathematics as though it is real. And they believe that their research/job is in some way shape or form about the world. Yet, many, when pressured relinquish these beliefs very quickly to just resort to mathematical formalism, eschewing any ontological commitments. I do not think this is fair. If you act like something is real, you must either be explicitly talking in elaborate fictions, or actually believe it’s real. I guess I just don’t agree with the idea that somehow the whole way we speak and act as though stuff is real, does not entail - or at least favour - a realist interpretation about that stuff. I would at least suggest that if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. So if it looks like it’s real, and is widely talked about as real, we’re probably committed to realism about it. Now, returning to the biologist: I do not say that every entity they need for their explanatory models, warrants a realist interpretation. But I disagree with your idea that we can somehow eschew realism all together in such domains. (If everything is either merely verbal or nonexistent or fictitious, while also being ungrounded, then what *are* we saying the stuff about?) As for talking without ordinary objects, I cannot even begin to imagine how one would go about it. I mean, we’re barely even capable of expressing the whole universe as wave-functions in physics, and return to object-talk the moment we leave pure equations. We need object-talk, to talk, I’d say.

[@carnap355]

@@__malte will ship of Theseus be the same ship? We can choose arbitrarily and agree on the chosen definition for the sake of allowing us to talk clearly, or we could argue that there is something objective that makes one or another answer really true. What you are arguing for seems to be the first option, while any essentialism is closer to the second option

[@lloydgush]

Objects are it's properties. For survival, predictions based on the inferred properties of an object matters more. For cognition as well.

[@Opposite271]

I would like to give five possible solutions to those problems for Realism about ordinary Objects. Boundaries: -It seems to me that fuzzy boundaries are only a problem if you already think that something has to have binary boundaries to be real, but this is not obvious to me. Why shouldn’t there be real fuzzy boundaries? -The same applies to sorites argument, why should it be a binary or ternary process in which the Hand flips suddenly into a non-Hand or semi-Hand if one atom is removed? One could simply say that it comes with different degrees instead of clearly defined binary or borderline cases. -I have no problem with Incars, this would make perfectly sense in a relational view of the world. It then depends on the relationship between car and garage. Identity: -I would separate the question of existence from that of the conservation of identity. The Identity of a object has to be conserved over time, but if there is no such thing then it may still exist in one single moment. -When it comes to „lump“, it may be a different temporal identity, but then if one identity dissolves then the other can still survive. So they may be identical in existence but not in temporal identity. -This seems to imply a difference in ontological and temporal Identity. Mereology: -I am not convinced that anything needs to be added to the composed object. -If I would have to bet, then I would say that a composed object is identical to the set of things that compose it. So it exists and has causal powers because it’s parts exist and have causal powers. -This could imply mereological universalism which means that we have many strange objects, but I don’t see what the Problem is with strange objects. Science: -It seems to me that a Realist about ordinary objects could simply dismiss arguments from science if he is not a scientific realist. -I mean the motivation for scientific realism is the success of predictions while that of realism about ordinary objects is that we seem to experience them on a daily basis, ordinary objects seem to force the concept upon us on a daily basis. -But the Realist could say that a table is not just atoms but also the spatial relationships between them, and this would then constitute taking up space. -And when it comes to qualitative aspects like color, then the direct Realist could say that science is not mistaken but incomplete. So it is not completely obvious to me if there is a contradiction. Genealogy: -I am unconvinced by the theory of evolution, but even if I where convinced, that doesn’t justify sense-data. -It is also unclear to me what the relationship between experience, evolution and talk about experience even is. So it is not clear to me if experience even is a evolved feature or simply a refined feature or just a Epiphenomenon. All of this doesn’t justify believing that there are ordinary objects. Maybe there are good arguments for Antirealism I never heard of or maybe there are good arguments against my counterarguments. But even if not, this wouldn’t justify believing in their existence. So the only thing for me left to do is a suspension of judgment.

[@attackdog6824]

Afternoon *Dr* Baker

[@uninspired3583]

I think its an epistemic problem rather than an ontological one. Rocks for example do have a function, the concept of the rock lets us imagine and communicate our ideas about the rocks. We don't have a concept of your finger plus the moon because there's no function we can apply to that category. With sufficiently accurate physics, we can predict what composites do based on the fundamental elements. It doesn't seem to be the case that the reverse is true, predicting the fundamental elements from the composite. We don't get from a chair to the position of the individual particles that make up the chair. We name things because its useful to do so. Brains are even hardwired to group perceptions into objects, because trying to mentally process an object one perception at a time takes too long. They're just generalizations we make in order to navigate the world.

[@KaneB]

>> We don't have a concept of your finger plus the moon because there's no function we can apply to that category Couldn't we say the same thing here that you say about rocks -- the concept of the finger-moon lets us imagine and communicate our ideas about the finger-moons?

[@uninspired3583]

@@KaneB absolutely, if that was a useful way to communicate or think about finger + moon. Presumably this example was chosen specifically because it doesn't seem to have any utility, and this highlights the arbitraryness of composites. Are there reasons this way of looking at composites might be a problem?

[@charlesvandenburgh5295]

The obvious resolution of all of these problems is to reduce them all to mental objects that exist only as experienced. When mentally seen as parts, they are the parts as mentally seen. When mentally seen as a single object, it is the single object as mentally seen. Neither exist when not mentally experienced. This is just a strict application of the idealistic claim that "to be is to be perceived."

[@esthersmith3056]

im having some serious deja vu over the composition problem, have you covered it in another video before?

[@KaneB]

Maybe. I don't remember covering it before.

[@Ffkslawlnkn]

This is a linguistic confusion so typical of philosophy. 'exists' is a sound that we have come to use in certain circumstances and not use in others. There is a tree in front of my window. The word exists is used in such a way that it is correct to say that the tree exists. It doesn't make any sense to ask if the tree "really" exists - as if there were our rule-governed use of the word exists AND the "real" property of existence. There is not.

[@KaneB]

Yeah, this is the kind of view I'm inclined to take about this, although I'm not sure I would frame it as a linguistic confusion. I think the philosophers are right that there are puzzles here, and these puzzles seem to me to generated by our ordinary ways of speaking and thinking. That is, it may be that we use words in ways that are inconsistent, so that the puzzles remain even if we deny that there is a "real" property of existence. But I'm inclined to think that we simply have various "object-languages", and in the common sense object-language, there are certain circumstances where we consider it appropriate to say e.g. "there is a tree". We can speak of correctness within a language, but there is no way to evaluate the language itself except in pragmatic terms. Even if the common sense object-language is inconsistent, this simply doesn't matter, because it still permits smooth prediction and control of experience.

[@Ffkslawlnkn]

@@KaneB I'm calling it linguistic confusion because questions like 'do objects really exist', 'is this really the same river as yesterday', 'am I really the same person as 10-year-old-me', 'does time really exist' seem to suppose that words denote things in the world - they are confused about how it is that words have meaning. Maybe linguistic confusion isn't the best term for that, not a native^^

[@ExistenceUniversity]

Philosophy: Who needs it? Philosophy before Ayn Rand was begging to kill itself and this video is a nice summary of why Hume and Kant were so willing to put an end to it 😆

[@mkhex87]

Most of the puzzles (Theseus, tibbles, colocation, the general composition problem, etc.) don't arise if you don't try to stray from mereological nihilism (At least they don't arise in their most difficult forms). Perhaps that constitutes an argument of some type for the view

[@KaneB]

Yes, I think one of the main arguments for nihilism is its purported problem-solving power.

[@WackyConundrum]

I can't understand why all these philosophers basically ignored the revolution in metaphysics of Immanuel Kant. Had they had just a cursory familiarity with The Critique of Pure Reason, they could switch from guessing "what's out there" to focusing on analyzing how the mind constructs the objects.

[@Opposite271]

Transcendental Idealism seem to rely on the idea that experience is internal which is not obvious to me. Even if the mind actively orders one’s experience that doesn’t imply that experience is not external.

[@WackyConundrum]

@@Opposite271 What would it mean to say that experience is external to the subject?

[@Opposite271]

@@WackyConundrum It means that the content of experience is not sense-data inside the mind of the observer but some aspects of the external world itself. But the arrangement and relations between those aspects that are experienced can be organized by the mind, so this is not a naïve „perceiving things exactly as they are“ view.

[@WackyConundrum]

@@Opposite271 Unfortunately, I don't quite understand that. But the main point remains: (nearly) all of these analytic philosophers ignore a lot of work in epistemology that is very relevant to our understanding of ordinary objects. And they would do good to familiarize themselves with that.

[@Opposite271]

@@WackyConundrum What do you have in mind? I mean, it seems to me at first glance that one’s understanding about ordinary objects are more fueled by one’s philosophy of perception, ontology and mereology then by epistemology. Edit: What I mean is radical phenomenal externalism in which the mind spreads spatio-temporally beyond the skin.

[@j.samuelwaters81]

What is state of reality is being indicated in the hypothetical scenario where it is "false that atoms-arranged-lionwise composed lions" ? Aside from, of course, a world where we call the lionwise atom cluster by some other name. Which would fit the description, but would be a bit underwhelming 😅

[@silver_colonel]

The problem is the same as any paradox. Our perspectives can't be forced onto objective reality. "Objects" and "Functions" are obviously just useful framings in our minds, and that ought to be enough.

[@davidferrer6771]

Interesting!

[@TheGlenn8]

I always wondered about this: What if we slowly replace the brain? A problem with immortality research is that we currently don't really know of any way to keep the brain alive past a certain point where the neurons being to die. A solution could be replacing the brain. But there's an obvious problem with that. If you just swap out my old brain and put a new one in than the "original" version of me is dead the body with the new brain in it will effectively be a different person. But what if we replace the brain neuron by neuron over a long period of time, making sure that nothing is lost among the way. Like, no memories or skills will be lost. They'll be recreated if necessary. Would I by the end of this process still be the "original" me or would I be a different person? And just for the sake of the thought experiment, what if instead of slowly replacing my neurons with other neuron you replaced my neurons with some kind of mechanical equivalent. Would my consciousness survive this process? Would it be transformed from a biological one into a digital one, or is there some point in between where the biological one died?

[@carnap355]

This is one of the many thought experiments Derek Parfit described in his Reasons and Persons. In his view there is just no objective truth about whether you will remain the same person or not, and I am very sympathetic to that. We are still biological organisms evolved to care about our future self, whether a given person in the future is my future self is entirely subjective. Our brains have not evolved to have an opinion on what our future self will be after teleportation, cutting brains in half, slowly replacing brains, etc, but caring about one's future self is the central point of all our conscious behaviour so we did evolve a very strong sense of persistence of self through time, which is why the cases seem so puzzling.

[@Ffkslawlnkn]

Neurons are being replaced constantly - or at least the particles they consist of are. We have come to agree to use the word 'identical' to describe the relationship between 10-year-old-me and today-me. I was the same person back then, that's how 'same person' or 'identical' is used. If you are looking for whether I "really" am identical to 10-year-old-me - there is no such thing as being "really the same". There are just things we call the same and things we do not call the same.

[@jeffreyscott4997]

The atoms that are arranged baseballwise don't cause the window to shatter. Those same atoms arranged in a lattice with lattice points one lightyear apart, would not have shattered the window. The arranged-baseballwise-ness of the atoms puts the atoms-as-system into a class of systems they must be in in order to have the causal power to shatter the window. Which means that it is the atoms-as-system-arranged-baseballwise that caused the window to shatter. But what is a baseball if not atoms-as-system-arranged-baseball-wise? In otherwords, what Aristotle called Formal Causation can not be dispenced with. The error seems to come from insisting both the part and the whole must be Efficient Causes, which indeed does result in unnecessary duplication But if the parts alone have all the causal powers, then any whole made of those parts must have those causal powers. If there is a difference in causal powers between two wholes made of the same parts, the causal explanation must be in the whole, not the parts. So if necessity for causal explanation is your criteria for existence, wholes exist.

[@konge_nich6571]

underrated comment! i think maybe the "...-wiseness" of a system of atoms could be represented by the physical concept of entropy? In relation to the many many possible arrangement states of a bunch of atoms only a few billion states allow this bunch to have the properties of a baseball. the concept of entropy may also dissolve the "david-lump" Problem. The lump is the bunch of clay atoms viewed through a lense with very little regard to the entropy of the system. David is the bunch of clay atoms with a much lower entropy (work from outside was put into the system) and the viewer recognizes the entropy of the system.

[@sticlavoda5632]

Wow, beautiful. Thank you!

[@silverharloe]

Well of *course* neither ship is identical to Theseus, because Theseus was a person who owned an unnamed ship which just happened to be used in the oldest written version of this problem of which we are generally aware. (the clue is the word "of" in the name "ship of Theseus.") Random pedantry.

[@JXZX1]

Does a doctorate exist?

[@rolandshanders2090]

alternatively you could say that yes, there are no "ordinary objects" such as baseballs but no "fundamental particles" either, there is only one Object, which consists of all which is not Subject within the Universe (which here is defined as 'the perspective of one subject')

[@MagnumInnominandum]

Achilles and the tortoise. It would seem the material easily solves problems insoluble to the mind. A mirror twisting itself to know the world and only seeing itself ad infinitum. The confuting words with actual things leads to no end of pseudo profound revelations.

[@neoepicurean3772]

Oh, I sense a Moorean shift coming.

[@KaneB]

Worst argument of all time. It puzzles me how the folks who find that argument convincing ever got interested in philosophy in the first place.

[@__malte]

@@KaneB I really disagree. The Moorean argument has many interesting interpretations, that are philosophically rich. The interpretation I like best is methodological: In philosophy we can only accomplish so much. At a certain point we hit the bottom and need to somehow just compare the plausibility of basic premises, since an argument is only as good as its premises. The Moorean argument is an invitation to do just that. It invites us to compare some revisionary philosophical argument with a very basic induction from a very plausible premise. Any abstract theses of a sceptical argument are simply less plausible than the fact that here is a hand. (That is not to say that we should *never* reject Moorean certainties. It’s just that they win in almost all plausibility comparisons.) We *always* weigh the plausibility of premises in this sort of way in philosophy. And I view the Moorean argument as an effective way of making this methodology explicit.

[@KaneB]

@@__malte >> Any abstract theses of a sceptical argument are simply less plausible than the fact that here is a hand One of the many, many problems with Moorean arguments is that in many cases, those "abstract theses" strike me as having just as much claim to being part of common sense -- they strike me as just as plausible -- as propositions such as "here is a hand".

[@__malte]

@@KaneB This is an interesting type of reply that I come across too rarely in literature about Moorean arguments. It does not structurally critique the Moorean argumentation, but merely critiques the matter-of-factness of the relative plausibility of particular Moorean certainties. I concur that we are married to some abstract philosophical thesis as much, if not more, than a claim like ‘here is a hand’. The law of noncontradiction is an obvious example of a more plausible (and indeed plausibly necessary) claim. And maybe some principles are on the same plausibility level as ‘here is a hand’. (Is the statement “my senses and mind are not constantly wildly deceiving me” not also a certainty in and of itself? It certainly seems a necessary principle if we even want to engage in meaningful philosophical debate.) But I’d be interested to hear which set of principles for external world scepticism is as plausible as ‘here is a hand’. I still find ‘here is a hand’ generally effective at combating the vast majority of claims. But indeed I agree that this had to be viewed on a case by case basis, and we cannot assume beforehand that Moorean certainties are always more plausible than their abstract philosophical counterparts.

[@KaneB]

@@__malte I'm not talking about external world skepticism, though as it happens I would say the same thing about Moorean arguments in that context too. I did a video on the Moorean argument against skepticism here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2jdpWCqer6jpbc Anyway, here are a couple of propositions that I find just as plausible as "here is a hand", and that are used in the arguments that raise trouble for ordinary objects: (1) If X and Y have different properties, then X is not identical to Y. (2) For any number n, if n atoms do not compose a hand, then n+1 atoms do not compose a hand. >> Is the statement “my senses and mind are not constantly wildly deceiving me” not also a certainty in and of itself? Not to me. In fact, I would offer as another proposition that is at least as plausible as "here is a hand": (3) For all I know, I might be hallucinating everything. I remember thinking about this proposition when I was about 5 years old, and it struck as totally plausible back then as well. I also remember talking about similar topics with my friends, well before I got into philosophy (these discussions happened a lot after The Matrix came out). I don't buy that this kind of skepticism is something that only arises in the philosophy classroom.

[@Kamfrenchie]

I dont find a lot of these questions particularly hard, and the table one leaves me puzzled as to how the scientific table would even qualify as a table. If that scientific table is just an area where a swarm prevent objects from falling, we're dealing with a swarm programmed to do things, in a table shaped area. Not a table at all. In the case of the ship, the metal ship is the original one. You would just have to apply this logic to any animal to see other possibilities wont work. We renew our cells over time, so if you were to gather all our dead cell and rearrange them somewhere into the being's shape, it would be obvious the original person is the living individual

[@moussaadem7933]

The problem is that what you are saying is arbitrary. You need to give a principle

[@Kamfrenchie]

@@moussaadem7933 how is that arbitrary ? I explaine dmy reasoning

[@moussaadem7933]

@@Kamfrenchie you just said what *seemed* right to you without providing a principle one could follow to reach these conslusions. anybody could do that. The video started by trying out some principles to see if they work, such as "parts that touch define the boundaries of an object" or "parts that fuse are what define the boundaires of an object". What objective principle are you following to identify ordinary objects ?

[@Kamfrenchie]

@@moussaadem7933 I dont see why these same principles wouldn't work with my example.

[@moussaadem7933]

@@Kamfrenchie I am just asking you to choose principle by which you can identify objects

[@Locreai]

Its my opinion they exist. Even if I am a brain in a jar they exist. The persistent delusion still have causes and effects that have direct impact on my perception of reality and the way I operate within the paradigm. It just wouldnt be practical to disqualify them as things to me regardless of if we can beat the hypothetical and semantic drum about their being. If I manifest them they are that they are manifest through me anyway.

[@WackyConundrum]

Not discussing Nagarjuna and The Middle Way and dependent origination when discussing the metaphysics of ordinary objects is unseemly.

[@JumperDorian]

DR BAKERRRR

[@markuslepisto7824]

The FUNCTION of your left index finger and moon IS "example".. The are CONNECTED as an example..

[@InventiveHarvest]

There are no "lines of reality". The universe is simple in its nature. Humans do the demarkation. Objects are not things. Objects are concepts applied to things. When does removing atoms from a hand make it not a hand? Simple, either when what remains is not sufficiently a hand or something necessary for the concept of a hand has been removed. The concept of a hand can still remain with no thing present. If a person were born without hands, we can say "his hands are gone." The concept remains even without the actual thing. Thus, we can have objects that never existed like unicorns and the number 2. There are "S cars" in France. They keep saying S car go!!!!

[@transcendentphilosophy]

100%!! 👏 👏 👏

[@scambammer6102]

the "actual thing" in the case of a unicorn is a mythological being. The number 2 is just a tool humans use for counting stuff. Neither of these things would exist without a physical origin.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@scambammer6102 what is the physical origin of the number two? If you are saying that concepts would not exist if there were not minds to think of those concepts, then that is trivial. These objects were created by physical minds, but that does not mean the objects are physical or have a physical origin.

[@scambammer6102]

@@InventiveHarvest the number two would not exist if there wasn't stuff to count. It takes 2 things to have a 2. Stuff, and something that wants to count it.

[@InventiveHarvest]

@@scambammer6102 nope. I can count concepts.

[@xiutecuhtli15]

I think that we see phenomena and like, using abstraction we imagine that there are simpler thingies like hands and trees, which isn't quite true but it's helpful so we evolved to do it. And the correspondence between the phenomena and the abstractions is just informal intuition and probably can't be turned into solid formal rules. I think the phenomena we see and/or the "simples" underlying them like physics particles are the only real things, but im not sure if i have a definition for "real".

[@KamikazethecatII]

form

[@WackyConundrum]

Interestingly, all of these positions naively assume a common sense physicalism, where an object is composed of some things made of "matter substance".

[@sticlavoda5632]

Could you please elaborate, I am curious.

[@WackyConundrum]

@@sticlavoda5632 These positions assume that there is something like "matter". And if you see one or two objects made of matter (hands), then you see some objects in the (external / objective) world. But it's clear that this just begs the question.

[@sticlavoda5632]

@@WackyConundrum Interesting.

[@brianarcher8339]

Didn't the natives of central america Aztecs think the Spanish on horse back were one super animal? Myth? if It is why do we believe it?

[@bobwilkinsonguitar6142]

This is a misappropriation of the human capability for language

[@aaronchipp-miller9608]

It is a meta joke that there is no thumbnail?

[@KaneB]

The thumbnail is displaying for me.

[@aaronchipp-miller9608]

@@KaneB got it now!

[@justus4684]

*Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*

[@DaKoopaKing]

Mereological nihilists, RISE UP

[@carnap355]

why do we need objects at all, why not ontic structural realism

[@donanderson3653]

Fundamental particles arranged mereological nihilist-wise*, rise up!

[@snowfall1238]

CosmicSkeptic:😀

[@MagnumInnominandum]

Does KZbin exist? 🤔🤭

[@BatmanArkham8592]

NO