Matt, I enjoy these posts! I'm sometimes hesitant to comment because I have almost no background in formal philosophy, but I learn a lot from your essays and want to let you know.
I did the whole "we don't actually see anything, we just translate photons to illusions" philosophy in high school, and it really didn't take long of discussing it with several people that 'the mere operand' approach to phenomena doesn't really do anything to change the phenomena, or free you from their effects.
Over awhile I developed a simple but violent counterargument: if a person claims the world doesn't exist, stab them in the arm with a fork. Huh, your deduction that perceptions aren't the same as reality has not freed you from the consequences of pain; your deduction that morality is a construct does not free you from reflexes of self-defensiveness, outrage, and unfairness; in fact now all your responses are dedicated to claiming that the event is real because if it wasn't, you wouldn't be so aggrieved at me.
Matt, I enjoy these posts! I'm sometimes hesitant to comment because I have almost no background in formal philosophy, but I learn a lot from your essays and want to let you know.
Thank you Stephanie. I'll fix these goofy ideas about mind even if it kills me.
I did the whole "we don't actually see anything, we just translate photons to illusions" philosophy in high school, and it really didn't take long of discussing it with several people that 'the mere operand' approach to phenomena doesn't really do anything to change the phenomena, or free you from their effects.
Over awhile I developed a simple but violent counterargument: if a person claims the world doesn't exist, stab them in the arm with a fork. Huh, your deduction that perceptions aren't the same as reality has not freed you from the consequences of pain; your deduction that morality is a construct does not free you from reflexes of self-defensiveness, outrage, and unfairness; in fact now all your responses are dedicated to claiming that the event is real because if it wasn't, you wouldn't be so aggrieved at me.
Echoes of Samuel Johnson's refutation of the skeptic. "I refute it thus" (after kicking a large stone).