And if not, what is the status of the rest of our knowledge about the world, or are they only beliefs?
Marius Cohen Galileo
Our lives are conducted based on the assumption that the other person is not a zombie, and that the mental world of other people is indeed similar to ours, but the "problem of other souls" arises in view of the way in which we perceive the concept of knowledge.
What justifies our belief that the other person resembles us not only in his body and behavior but also in his soul?
We have already seen that in order for a particular belief to be considered knowledge, it must be true and justified. And here, the fact that the other person's mental states are not directly accessible to us raises the question: what justifies our belief that the other person resembles us not only in his body and behavior but also in his soul?
The world is accessible to us through our senses, and only through them. We see, hear, feel, smell and taste, and in this way form our beliefs about the world. We do not have a direct way of experiencing the world in the same way that we experience our mental states.
To some extent we are confined within our bodies, and depend on our sensory experiences to make inferences about the world. But how reliable are our senses? Do they really show us the world as it is, or is the essence of the world completely different from the one shown to us?
We and the world
The sense of sight, for example, which teaches us about our surroundings more than any other sense, presents us with a bright and colorful world. However, light is nothing more than tiny particles that are emitted from a light source, strike the bodies around us and are returned to our eyes, allowing us to see our surroundings. During the day the world seems illuminated to us, but it is only presented to us as illuminated by our minds thanks to the enormous amounts of photons that reach our eyes.
The colorfulness of the world is also an illusion. The world itself is colorless. The colors we see are a product of our mind, which induces them in us according to the amount of energy of the photons that reach our eyes. So is our sense of hearing, which presents a world rich in voices and sounds, even though nature is completely still. The sounds that our mind instills in us correspond to the air vibrations that reach us from various sources, but the air vibrations themselves are silent.
All the voices and sounds we hear are in our mind only, not in our surroundings. We also perceive the world as rich in smells, but the smells are produced for us by our mind when molecules of different substances reach the receptor system located in our body. The world itself is odorless.
If so, our mind presents the world to us in a way that is completely different from its "true essence", and we have no way of experiencing this world directly, except through our senses alone. This fact raises the ultimate skeptical question: if reality is so different from the world that our senses present to us, why do we believe that the world presented to us is nothing but an illusion, either an illusion produced by our minds, or an illusion that is fed to us through artificial means by an unknown factor, such as the mass illusion described In the movie "Matrix"?
Solipsistic positions
Such a skeptical position, which doubts that the world we perceive with our senses is indeed the real world, is called solipsism. There are two main types of solipsism: epistemological solipsism, which claims that we have no way of knowing for sure that we are not living in one big illusion, and therefore it is impossible to know anything for sure, and ontological solipsism, which claims that the world is indeed an illusion, perhaps of only one person (you or the ), and apart from him (besides you) nothing exists.
If reality is so different from the world that our senses present to us, why do we think that the world that is presented to us is nothing but an illusion
There are few philosophers who really hold solipsistic positions (I always wondered why an ontological solipsist would bother to convince another person of the rightness of his position...), but these positions are sometimes offered as an epistemological challenge, the purpose of which is to bring about a search for convincing arguments against the possibility of our world being only an illusion, and if no such argument is found, then our belief That this world is real is not justified, and therefore it is not considered knowledge.
grip points
There is one thing we cannot doubt, and that is our mental world. This was also the point of reference of the 17th century philosopher René Descartes who formulated the sentence: "I think, therefore I exist". Our mental experiences are infallible - we experience them directly, without sensory mediation and therefore cannot be mistaken about them.
Some argue that our world cannot be an illusion (collective or individual's) because illusion lacks the coherence and reality of the tangible world. However, this position has two difficulties: first, in most cases when people hallucinate, they perceive the imaginary world unfolding before their mind's eyes as real. An external point of view is needed to recognize that this is an illusion.
The second difficulty is that to assume that there is a fundamental difference between the types of illusions known to us and the real world means to assume the desired: as long as we are not sure that this is indeed the real world, the comparison does not prove anything.
It seems that even if one chooses not to accept it, it is difficult to completely rule out the solipsistic skeptical position, which bodes ill for everything we consider knowledge today, but epistemologists (who deal with the theory of knowledge) have one more card up their sleeve.
relative knowledge
Did Sherlock Holmes smoke a pipe? Did the snake tempt Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge? Is the sum of the angles in a triangle greater than 180? To answer these questions we must take into account the context in which they are asked.
There was never a detective named Sherlock Holmes in 19th century London - at least not the detective known as the hero of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books - and therefore in the historical context the answer to this question is negative.
From a secular starting point regarding the biblical story of creation, the answer to the second question is also negative. Also, under the assumption that the geometry of our world is Euclidean, it is likely that we will also answer the third question in the negative.
However, every such question also has a context in which the answer to it is positive: if the context is the fictional world of Conan Doyle, then Sherlock Holmes did indeed smoke a pipe; If the context is the stories of the Bible, then the answer to the second question is positive, and if the context is elliptical geometry, then the answer to the third question is also positive.
Hence, knowledge is relative to a certain context, and this approach can rescue us from the solipsistic mire: we do not have to know for sure that our world is real in order to assume that our beliefs are real, and therefore they are real knowledge.
Suffice it to say that our beliefs and knowledge about the world are beliefs and knowledge in relation to the reality we experience, whether this reality is the real world or whether it is an illusion: I know what day it is, I know what I am doing now, and I know when I ate lunch. Even if I am nothing more than a brain in a container, or even if there is nothing in the world but my consciousness (sorry, yours, the reader), then in this context of the reality we experience, all these are real and justified arts, and therefore can be seen as knowledge.
Dr. Marius Cohen teaches philosophy at Ben-Gurion University.
The article was published in full in Galileo magazine, September 2009
63 תגובות
Reality is one big illusion. Does a dog or any other animal see the world the same way humans do? Is man really the wisest of animals? Maybe the crow sees everything differently. He is the wisest of animals. Every animal has a different reality and sees the world in a different way, and there is no doubt that we are a type of animal. What you see and feel from your angle
Yair Israel Haroutz
Fools like you remind us all how real the world is. Sick, but true…..
It's okay, both the punch I'm going to the writer of this article is an illusion and the sharp pain he will feel in his face will also be a big illusion.
You have no justification to claim that this world is an illusion because the day you justify it I will stand with a knife and a gun and slaughter your children so that you do not reproduce and continue to spread your twisted teachings.
If this approach is correct it means that I am the only brain in the tank, can someone tell me why I do not create illusions that I am a billionaire or why I cannot control this virtual reality and in fact it controls me.
All the comments posted here are basically an illusion in my brain in a tank. Comments were written here that I didn't understand because they are complicated, so I created them, so why don't I understand them?
I attributed it to the "skeptic" part, of course 🙂
Standard canteenist approach - that's how I think, so it's true.
The problem with this approach is that everything becomes justified - Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Humanism and other ISMs of all kinds.
Secular culture so far has not been able to give a better explanation of our world, which makes the whole "science" part of the site (which is very nice) nothing more than scientific arrogance - which in my opinion is the main reason for the flourishing of the New Age - quite the opposite of the purpose for which the part was created.
This whole philosophy makes life seem trivial, and all the small problems of everyday life are meaningless and maybe even an illusion in themselves...
German:
To prove to us that you do believe what you said, I suggest you hold D's hand and cross the freeway while cars are speeding down it and see how that same inside of you will spill out when you are run over by an unreal car.
Ld) And don't be surprised at this, because according to this custom you will also find it in our physical achievement. Because for example, our sense of sight, that we see before us a great big world and all its wonderful fullness, we really do not see all this but only inside ourselves. That is, in our back brain, there is her name as a kind of patagraphic machine, which draws us her name apparently for us, and not anything outside of us.
And for all of this God made us a place in our minds, like a polished mirror, which transforms everything that is seen there, which we see outside our minds in front of our faces. And yet, what we see outside of us is not a real matter, however much we have to thank His Providence, who made this polished mirror in our minds, allowing us to see and achieve anything outside of us. Because in this He gave us the power to understand everything with a clear mind and attainment, to measure everything from the inside and the outside, and the like. And if it weren't for that, we would be missing most of our education.
The same is the case with a divine object in the divine intelligences, although all these changes are made internally by the receiving souls, in any case they see everything in the effector itself, because only in this way do they get to receive all the intelligences and all the pleasure in the thought of creation. And likewise judge from the aforementioned parable. However, in practice we see everything right in front of us, in any case, any intelligent person clearly knows that what is visible to us is only the interior of our minds. Yes, the souls, even though all the characters see the influencer, in any case they have no doubt that all these are only in themselves and nothing in the influencer.
There is an answer in the introduction to the Zohar book, a sign for...
If this article exists - it is really fascinating!
"My hovercraft is full of eels."
Maybe our senses are similar but the soul is different from person to person..
We are similar in that we all have the same body structure and the same 5 senses, but everything changes from person to person when his inner soul tries to describe the same senses and external appearance..
So for example the first person (before the woman came) when he could not share his thoughts with anyone and the sight that was before his eyes, what would he say about reality?
In conclusion, Michael, according to you, reality creates us and not the other way around..
A little imagination won't hurt anyone's life in my opinion..
That's all I tried to do 🙂
Michael is right: complete nonsense
End:
You are rambling but the time I was willing to devote to you is over.
Maybe talk about it here?
http://www.tapuz.co.il/Communa/userCommuna.asp?communaID=35337&r=1
To Michael again:
This article is not "nuclear physics", and does not talk about physics at all.
There is a philosophical question in the article.
I know from personal observation that if you look at the sky with normal eyes you will see a lot of darkness and stars, if you use a telescope you will see even more stars, and if you use a "telescopic satellite" you will see even more stars, but always before you looked you first saw darkness where now you see there is something.. This is how I compare the current reality, right now we see something when in a moment something else will be there..
You can be both right and wrong at the same time, it's a paradox 🙂
This article asks if I sustain reality (you), or you sustain me, since at the moment no one has the answer, the easy solution would be that there is nothing here (darkness, metaphorically) and we create everything.. until proven otherwise..
Even "Einstein" and "Stephen Hawking" believe in something beyond normal science, and want to keep an open mind on the subject. Why is it so difficult for you?
"Reality is only an illusion, but a constant one.", I use a freestyle and keep an open mind, copying answers from old books is not called being smart, it's being a smart parrot.. You are probably a very smart parrot..
To Michael:
If the question is whether there is no reality, then anything related to reality such as "quantum theory" or people connected to a computer, cannot exist in the absence of reality!, everything can change and so can quantum theory, and the planets, was 9 not long ago wasn't it?, once upon a time the world Be flat.., reality is always changing and you will never catch both ends of the beginning and the end, that's for sure.
Ockham's razor is meant to describe something in its simplicity, and if the question asked here has no answer then this law must be used until you find a better answer, and yes I may be foolish and stupid, but if everything is relative what are you compared to me?
End:
Arya quoted a question someone asked to demonstrate the strangeness of quantum theory.
I don't know what you want to say.
It is impossible to be right and wrong at the same time (on a single claim). Every statement is either true or false.
The fact that you can put these and other punctuation marks at the end of every sentence (including the sentence "I think means I exist") does not mean anything. The phrase is said and written with one and only one punctuation mark, which is the exclamation mark. Therefore it is also not relevant to talk about the "answer" because there is no question here.
Your prophecies should not interest anyone - not even a prophesy that says we will never grasp the edges and complete a circle.
You probably know to whom the prophecy was given since the Temple was destroyed.
Ockham's razor is not a law - certainly not a law of nature - and you, in general, use it on the "curve".
The rest of your words mean nothing either.
Yes Michael..
Arya brought a good response..
If I'm in the dark then nothing exists around me?, we are always in the dark, each time groping in a different corner of reality..
Einstein once asked "What if I close my eyes and the moon disappears?"
In connection with Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, read about it
End:
Did you want to say something?
According to the law of "Occam's Razor" the solution is darkness, dark, dark (whatever you want to call it)..
The darkness is like a "green background screen" for a movie, in the darkness everything exists but there is nothing there!
In the darkness we all exist but there is nothing there.. even the sun is engulfed in this darkness.. in the darkness there is everything but there is nothing there..
There is no darkness in the dark, because there is nothing there.
Man has always been afraid of the dark and still is.
A philosophical question will not be solved on the laboratory board.
You are all right here and you are all wrong together..
"I think means I exist" can be put at the end of this sentence: ?,!,?!,.. each time the answer will change..
Reality has a beginning, an end, and a middle, but it always turns, everything always changes, you will never grasp the ends and complete a circle..
point:
What is this nonsense?
An electron has both charge and mass.
Proton also has.
A triangle can also be red and not just a triangle.
In nature, cases of crooked common sense have also been discovered.
Michael, the law of contradiction says that it is not possible for a thing to be a thing and its opposite at the same time. The intellect does not accept that such things exist.
Therefore, by simple logic, it is not possible for A to have a property that is not A.
A simple example: it is not possible for an electron to have both electric charge and mass. This means that the electron does not really exist.
Simple logic, all other conclusions stem from prejudice.
There are quite a few crazy people who are hospitalized and don't even know they are crazy
They just don't get it.. They don't get it. Everyone around tells them but they don't understand.
You can go further towards the matrix. Maybe only I exist in the world, and there is no one but me. And there is simply an instrument connected to our senses.
Just as it is hard to believe our senses, so it is hard to believe things in the past and history, but both have the same chance of being true.
point:
You really made a strange statement here.
If it is a "basic law of contradiction" (Whatever that is), then you can probably point to it in some book and give examples of contradictions resulting from its violation.
I would appreciate it if you would.
If you don't, I'll thank you if you tried to confuse us and failed.
To the point, I wonder where that 'basic law of contradiction' exists that you talk about so much and what does it contradict?
I also wonder where the illusion of our conversation takes place?
And I didn't understand why each object has only one attribute?
And what we see (the world) that does not exist?
I have another problem if my question in the 30' response is: that reality is one constant, and our dreams change, but on the other hand there is no day like yesterday, and no minute like the last..
Another interesting question that has been digging into my head for a long time..
"When I sleep I dream, am I dreaming or am I in the real world, and the real world is my dream.."
"Whoever saves one soul, it is as if he saved the whole world"
"One must say the whole world was not created except for me
If I am not for myself, who
When I am to myself what I am
and if not now, when" ..
I know that the science site is not a religious site, but you can find a lot of "Matrix" sentences in the Torah itself..
And this raises a difficult question, was the whole world created only in my misery?, is everything a test?, are the religious playing us?
Michael, your demand for the existence of something real, which is an illusion, is a mistake. It is not possible for things that are not illusions for an illusion to occur, a fundamental law of contradiction. Illusion only happens in illusions.
Regarding your question Yossi for existence, in order for something to exist it must have only one attribute and that is to exist (and we did not even go into the meaning of the concept exist). In reality there are no things that have several properties. This is a basic law of contradiction. And the fact that we see the world as very complex with many properties for each object (even the physics that performs reduction) only proves that the world we see does not exist and cannot exist.
In my opinion, one of the things that gives you the feeling that not everything is an illusion just for you and you are the only one who is real is that too many things happen without your knowledge or without needing your knowledge. To such an extent that you would actually believe in reality as it is even without them happening.
Therefore instinctively there is an affinity not to waste energy for nothing. Here, energy or calculation is wasted for nothing, so really there is no reason why it is being wasted. Therefore, if everything is indeed an illusion, I am sure that I am not alone in the illusion.
It's like if my brain calculated the illusion for me then it wouldn't bother so much because much less than that is definitely still enough to say it's too much.
Too late for me to continue thinking about expanding the idea but it's good enough for one more reason why we assume it's not an illusion even if it is.
By the way, in my opinion, an illusion that is as realistic as ours is good enough to be called reality in any case. At least for our current Cayman.
a question
If we find out everything about the brain we will get an answer as to whether a soul exists
P.S. The sentence will apply to soluspism
the show must go on
One moment, I want to understand
Is a possible conclusion of the article that I, Yehuda Sabdarmish doesn't really exist, and all my unacceptable scientific ideas are just crazy ideas that actually came up in the delusional mind of Michael who thinks of a virtual someone named Sabdarmish???
Food for thought
Happy New Year
Sabdarmish Michael
To the point, it seems to me that you are mixing concepts. First you must find out what the concept of existence is that you hold. For example, do only physical objects exist? Note that Descartes when he formulated the famous cogito claim did not claim the existence of the physical world but only the mental existence of his thought. In order to re-prove the existence of the physical world, as well as to solve the problem of solphism presented in the article, Descartes needed an additional set of controversial arguments (including, as is known, three proofs of the existence of God). If so, you may be interested in maintaining only a mental existence of reality and accepting an idealistic position as Berkeley formulated. There are still problems with this position also regarding the position of the illusion as Michael points out in his response to you. worth reading.
But we've already been here and repeating the same things won't convince anyone.
Well, point, I was just pointing out that the writer and many others in my opinion and my opinion is that you are completely wrong and that for there to be an illusion there must be something real that the illusion is pretending and any other claim is absurdity of the worst kind.
A huge part of the paradoxes stems from self-reference errors of this type.
And regarding the second question of why I am trying to convince you, this is a form of demagoguery that stems from a lack of understanding of what is being said. It's like asking why we continue to see colors after realizing that what's out there are photons. This is the essence of an illusion, that it happens.
Michael that firm position is man's greatest lie, even more than God's. And almost everyone falls into this trap.
After all, the whole argument of illusion is precisely about this matter that awareness itself is illusory in the sense that it thinks itself into existence a priori. This is the great illusion.
And regarding the claim "I think => I exist" is just an unrelated word, there is no logical step that does not assume its readiness in hiding that can make a jump from thought to existence, just the opposite, I think means I do not exist, because the existing is only existing, it cannot to be other things like thought or consciousness.
Very nice article
There is no doubt that philosophy is an interesting subject "at least for me it is so"
and in particular the issue of epistemology.
in the cell:
These concepts are also quite clear and indeed - they are also internal contents.
We are surprised when we experience something that is different from what we expected.
For this matter, it is not really important if we interpreted our observation as something that should come true in the real world because this world is only accessible to us through the senses, and therefore when we develop observations about something, we actually develop observations in relation to our feelings.
Even when we miss - what is clear is that we miss what we experienced at a certain time and the question of whether this thing is reality itself or just an interpretation given to it by our senses and consciousness does not change that.
Regarding leaving things in the realm of poetics - I hope you didn't mean that we wouldn't really try to understand.
Someone once said that there is more poetry in a table of logarithms than in the entire Iliad and Odyssey.
I tend to agree with this and that statement - not out of disdain for Homer's poetry but out of understanding the depths of mathematics.
In light of what has been written, it is useful to find out concepts such as - "surprise", "curiosity", or "longing", if everything is internal content - then what are you surprised by? What do you miss?" The idea is unusually poetic, it should be left there, in poetics.
To Michael Rothschild, I read your comment again, and I did miss it. Thanks.
In the golden column of the Oriental,
The most famous example is
A prince named Gautam Siddhartha who devoted quite a few years to researching the truth - and by chance he reached it.
Today he is known as Gautam Buddha - Buddha is light in Hebrew - this is just a nickname.
He discovered in retrospect that the biggest mistake in the search for truth is seeing thinking as the basis for the "perception" of truth - when consciousness is the basis.
See it as the discovery of Thomas Bell - years of failures and finally success.
But there is no need to reinvent the light bulb.
The right way to discovery is through consciousness and not thinking - as this is not the basis.
The first step is the most important step in the investigation.
Ron,
what did you want to say? It seems to me that philosophy deals with both cases together...
It sounds like jumping to conclusions in the dark - you'll never be sure.
Two things are essential -
Wide/close your eyes - what do you see?
darkness.
That is, there are two phenomena of darkness and experiencing it.
The philosophical approach is wrong in that it deals with the darkness and tries to reach conclusions - which of course it cannot be sure of.
The second approach deals with the witness phenomenon - the name of the key.
Joseph:
I think you missed something.
I did not say anything about the meaning of the word "truth" which I do not see as a state of mind but as a relationship between a claim and the facts.
I was talking about the meaning of the word "knowledge".
I strongly agree and I assume that if humanity ever encounters intelligent life from an alien source we will have to adopt this way of thinking in order to start communicating at the most basic level..
To Michael Rothschild, I am glad that we agree on this subject as we agreed in regards to the reasons for wars that appeared in the article 'Forever Eat a Sword'. However, I think it is more correct to refer to the concept of 'truth' from the point of view of (American) pragmatism, whether that of James, Peirce or Dewey, and this means more in the direction of truth as a convention and less as a state of mind. Mental state refers more to psychological states of feelings, experiences and beliefs. 'Real' is a kind of attitude towards facts in reality and not necessarily a 'state of mind'. Although it is possible that I am in a state of mind of faith regarding a certain fact in reality and I believe that certain facts are 'true' and this is still a form of faith. The concept of 'truth' functions in language as a kind of description of a certain fact and its relation to reality - 'concordant truth' or its relation to other truths - 'coherent truth'. The agreement on what is the criterion to accept a fact as true is the accepted convention in the society to which a certain detail belongs.
Joseph:
Your words are correct and they are the reason why in a previous article in this series of articles I said that knowledge never describes a true and justified belief and that the "true" use of the word merely describes a state of mind of the "knower".
Regarding the possibility that we are nothing but a brain in a container - there are people for whom this is quite true and these are all the girls called "Michal".
Note, one point, that precisely with regard to one point on which we argue a lot, he presents a firm position - Descartes' position - according to which the only thing that has no possibility of being an illusion is consciousness.
He also quotes the question that I have often asked you and that is "Why are you trying to convince me if I don't exist?".
The description of the difference between what we feel and what happens in reality (in case it is not a hallucination) is not serious, to me.
After all, everything needs some kind of representation in the brain and there is no significance to the fact that this representation is actually a "color sensation" and not a graph of the intensity of the wave as it is distributed according to its length.
As soon as we talk about **representation** of reality, then by definition it is not reality itself.
What the author does in this matter - when he asserts the claim - is not to address this essential matter - but to give priority to one representation over another.
Relative knowledge is a partial escape but does not solve the problem. First, he still cannot provide the answer to the question 'Am I brain in the bath' and therefore he does not have full knowledge of reality. Secondly, relying on relative knowledge does not allow to meet the criterion of knowledge which, as you mentioned, is supposed to be true and justified. If you change the context, you can get a new 'news' set that is different from another set. For example: the fact: 'The big bang took place 15 billion years ago' will be found to be a false fact if it turns out that the fact that I brain in the bath is a real fact. (in any case her justifications will be false)
And of course, I forgot,
Happy New Year!
Point, maybe he thought about it in your universe, but in my opinion anyone who knows a thing or two about philosophy (for example Dr. Marius Cohen who teaches philosophy at Ben-Gurion University) must have already formed for himself (or lives in a reality in which he formed for himself) a solid opinion (in a reality where he lives) on the subject.
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to use the phrase rescue attempt, because any such attempt will end in a predetermined failure. Everyone who has tried until now has failed (including Descartes) and I think everyone who tries in the future will also fail. The relative knowledge presented here sounded like a really good idea to me on first reading. On second reading it sounds to me like sticking your head in the sand. Even if the chance is slim or even there is no chance of finding an answer to the question, it does not mean that the question should be ignored...
It seems that the author started thinking about this only recently, perhaps following the discussions here at Hidan.
It is inappropriate to use the phrase "rescue operation" for a situation where the rescuer ends up staying in the mud, even if they convince him that there is nothing left but mud.
Total footnotes to my argument with Michael
If the illusion meets the definition of reality, then call the illusion reality, what does it matter.
Excellent article! I used to think about it... but apparently it's impossible to know for sure if life is an illusion and it could be that I'm actually the only person in the world! Maybe the person who will respond after me is actually some kind of illusion and maybe I'm actually his illusion? Think about it...