Reminds me of the G.E. Moore’s epistemological argument against universal skepticism:
- Here is one hand,
- And here is another.
- There are at least two external objects in the world.
- Therefore, an external world exists.
Chad Diogenes
Submitted 7 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to memes@sopuli.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5df8426c-767b-4aad-b021-a6634cccd5ca.jpeg
Comments
balderdash9@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
Nougat@fedia.io 7 months ago
The conclusion in line three does not follow from the premises in lines one and two, because perception is not reality.
Klear@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The correct argument against universal skepticism:
- Here is a fist
- (Punch the other guy until he begs you to stop)
balderdash9@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
The argument makes less sense outside of it’s context. Moore was responding to the skeptical position that we’re all in a simulation. Moore argues that this skeptical argument undermines itself: all of the language, terms and concepts which form the simulation argument are based on the sensory experience that the argument would effectively dismiss. Furthermore, any argument that we’re in a simulation is epistemologically on a par with the argument that we’re not. Therefore we should have less confidence in the skeptical argument than the common sense conclusion that we have hands.
exocrinous@startrek.website 7 months ago
I disagree with Moore’s first point. Hands are a social construct and are not imbued with inherent reality. They gain reality only when observed by a conscious agent.
Katrisia@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I get rather irritated with those arguments because they only return to the start. “Here, a world”. “Is it how we experienced it, though, and why and how; if not, what’s behind?”. “Bullshit, a world”. That’s hardly an answer. And, personally, it feels intellectually dishonest because the question was larger than just “is there a world?”.
I prefer an answer like saying that doubting the world in any form might be a mistake on its own because [reasons]. I do not agree, but at least there’s explanations and communication.
Also, I think they are fighting a straw man. For instance, I doubt many things about the Universe, our knowledge, our minds, etc. Yet, I accept there are phenomena which appear to me. This has been the case since the ancient school of skepticism, and I have yet to meet a person which declares themself a skeptic and does not do this to some degree. For example, I know I’m hungry right now. I don’t know if the pain is real in any other deeper level, or if it is like the pain in a dream that goes away when one wakes up, or a delusion that is felt without external stimuli, or whatever. I don’t know the nature of it, yet it is an experience I must attend. I can even add that the mechanisms behind, the anatomical knowledge and such is useful, but it might be entirely wrong or be as illusory as the pain itself. The straw man is that skeptics would say: “I don’t know if I’m really feeling hungry”, “I don’t know if I want to eat” or something like that.
Why does it matter, then? Because it changes everything. In my case, it made me go from a realist teenager to an instrumentalist adult in science. From an atheist teenager to an agnostic adult.
The discussion derives in many interesting branches too. The mere “does it matter if the world is different from what we perceive if we cannot perceive it in any other way?” is an example. Many people answer yes or no without justifying it. And, at this point, some people might be wondering why we need to justify every single belief we hold and every single thing we say, like the ones throughout my comment, and that in itself is a new good question that emerges. The possibility of having any of these conversations is also a good question, and so on…
So philosophy is not going too far, in my opinion. Some philosophers might go too far, but I really think they are rare (or misunderstood).
RandomStickman@kbin.run 7 months ago
Diogenes is truly the wisest man
Nougat@fedia.io 7 months ago
There is a fine - but very important - line between someone who lives in a barrel and jerks off in the middle of the street and someone who lives in a barrel and jerks off in the middle of the street for philosophical reasons.
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 7 months ago
“We are not the same”
eestileib@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
This is some fucking wisdom right here.
nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
The line between those men is literally made out of jizz.
cumskin_genocide@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Was he Indian? Jerking off and shitting in the middle of the street sounds very Indian.
dudinax@programming.dev 7 months ago
Parmenides: I never noticed people could move before.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 7 months ago
Diogenes: I was actually just leaving because that shit wasn’t worth a response
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Zeno you tool of course things can move
automaticdoor75@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
Centuries before Samuel Johnson’s “I refute it thus!” moment.
canis_majoris@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
He’s also the one who told the Emperor to move out of his sunlight..
Man, what a guy.
Alexander the Great comes up to you and says “if I was not me, I wish I were you” and your response is “If I wasn’t myself, I’d still wish to be myself”.
Unfathomably based.
Nougat@fedia.io 7 months ago
Fucking savage.
Cruxifux@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Alexander the Great was captured by pirates too. He forced them to increase his ransom because he was insulted that it was so small, and spent much of his time forcing them to listen to the poetry he wrote. Which is also hilarious IMO.
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Greek philosophers had no chill apparently
Gigan@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Goddamn. Is there a list of Diogenes quotes? I’ve heard a couple but this one was new to me.
clark@midwest.social 7 months ago
And the time this dialogue took place during that same meeting…
fckreddit@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Diogenes is the GOAT.
meep_launcher@lemm.ee 7 months ago
He also would masturbate in the middle of the market, and when confronted said “if only hunger could be satisfied by rubbing your belly”