The Young Thinkers' Society

[Seanan Fong]

Are you guys ready to handle one of the greatest epistemological questions of all time?

[Katie Kolodzie]

I personally think that there's a danger in this question of becoming too removed from everyday life and science. If you presume that there's an order to the world and it's not all just an illusion (which is a real philosophy), then it makes no sense for other peopel to be zombies or machines.
We're bound to a living, breathing and ALIVE world and the human mind doesn't do itself any favors when it distances itself from its enviorment. Also, where would books come from? If everyone else is just a machine or animal, then how come they produce so much literature? How can I keep finding new, interesting and challenging books if I'm the only *real*, thinking human? The only other option is that they're all created by aliens or whatever else is controling people. And Seanen and Zack have seen me sweat over my story.
As for the whole control issue, why in Orion's Belt should I be the one human who's real? Why would I be the one exception to the controled Zombie model? I can't see a good reason. The world is too real and incredible to be dreamed up by a computer or aliens. When I go camping and listen to owls at night (last weekend) everything seems to be put in its perspective.
Or maybe that's just what the aliens want me to think...
_________________
Despair is for those who can see all ends. Can you? Then hope.
-Gandalf

[Seanan Fong]

This question, really, is an epistemological one; i.e., it's supposed to exist in the most hypothetical realms of thought. So we are to entertain this possibility--indeed, it is a possibility (it is not necessarily precluded in our conception of the universe). So either we have to accept this hypothesis as a very real possibility of our existence, or we must discover how our premises leading into this conclusion are incorrect and thus refute its very possibility.

I'm willing to accept its possibility (i.e. I see no logical way out).

[Katie Kolodzie]

I'm sort of repeating myself, but I don't belive you can (or should) seperate the mind and thoughts wholly from the 'real (or realistic fake) world"
_________________
Despair is for those who can see all ends. Can you? Then hope.
-Gandalf

[Z. M. Davis]

To call this "one of the greatest epistemological questions of all time" is to dishonor epistemology. I'll concede that there's some sense in which I can't "know for certain" that (say) Inna is not a zombie. But it's the same sense in which I can't "know for certain" that the world wasn't actually created five minutes ago, or that I'm not actually a brain in a vat or a character in a dream of the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

It's all trivial.

[Seanan Fong]

Is not. These questions -- trivial as they may sound -- are important in establishing a priori the legitimacy of any statement of knowledge. To dismiss these questions as merely "trivial" or "unworthy of our attention" is to dismiss epistemology altogether. Epistemology is fundamentally nothing more -- and nothing less -- than the examples that you gave.

But philosophers have grappled with these questions and want to know how the knowledge of other minds is even at all possible.

[Z. M. Davis]

[Seanan Fong]

So you define consciousness as demonstrating the signs of consciousness. Inna fulfills that condition, so she is conscious.

Is that it?

[Z. M. Davis]

[Matthew Menard]

This is definitely a quintessential question of epistemology, regardless of how ridiculous it seems. Unfortunately for this question, it is too easy to say "But that's ridiculous! I know Inna is a person just like me!" The trouble is that response doesn't have any solid reason behind it. While there is no proof to the contrary, there is likewise no evidence which can discount the question entirely. This, of course, is the point of asking the question.

So while you may say that it seems natural to you to think Inna to be a conscious human being, I am equally justified in calling her a zombie. (Or as I prefer to see it Inna, as well as the rest of you, is simply a carefully calculated character in the dream-story that I am writing.)

I leave you with a (rather long and only tangentially relevant) quote from John Gardener's novel Grendel:

"I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly - as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe, blink by blink."

[Katie Kolodzie]

I think it makes perfect sense to argue that the world is compeltely different for each human being. This is actually a favorite question of mine: do others see the world as I do? I wish I could literally see the world through another's mind.
_________________
Despair is for those who can see all ends. Can you? Then hope.
-Gandalf

[Z. M. Davis]

[Katie Kolodzie]

Why should the scientific method not be used here? In science, if a body of evidence says something, we believe it. There's a fair amount of evidence that other minds exist, and, to my knowledge, no evidence otherwise. Why can't it be accepted, then?
_________________
Despair is for those who can see all ends. Can you? Then hope.
-Gandalf

[Tania Kohal]

I suppose that is satisfactory to many people (including myself), but then again there is no way to be absolutely sure of existence. That poses the question though, is there anything that is absolute, or absolutely true (this statement?)?
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tk ^ ^