[Halc]

I separated this diversion from the mother thread. If you want me to discuss your existence, I’m not going to do it buried thousands of posts in a topic that has long since lost its focus on a completely different subject.

If you add enough "necessary axioms", you can end up believing whatever made them necessary. Hence religion, a flat earth supported on turtles, and other kinds of foolishness.

Better to start with observations.

Totally agree. I also agree with marklivin, at least on the ontology points.

The only thing we can be sure of is our own existence.

You seem to contradict yourself very quickly on this point:

Any reasoning must start somewhere, which is the basic assumption.

That's why this assumption is necessary.

If it’s an assumption, then it must be because it cannot be demonstrated. So how can you be so sure of something for which there is no empirical evidence, necessitating this assumption?

Which is sort of like asking if 3+5 is actually equal to 8, or only if 3 and 5 exist.

I think this is a false equivalence. Can those numbers have subjective experience?

I never said anything about 3+5 having subjective experience. I said that their property of existence or lack of it has no bearing on whether their sum is 8 or not. That’s the premise that I hold, because I cannot prove or disprove it.

Perhaps it would be best to actually give your definition of existence, to prevent us from talking past each other. It’s so important in topics like this, but is typically omitted by the naive poster. My own definition is doubtless quite different from yours, but I’m not using my definition, only guessing at yours.

You can't be aware of your own existence while not existing.

Nonsense. Any illusion is by definition the awareness of something that isn’t there. Your property of existence (probably, depending on definition) has no bearing on your awareness of it, since there’s no empirical test for such a property.

Is it possible for anything to be conscious while not exist?

Again, depends on your definition, and in this case, it seems to require a definition based on consciousness, which is bordering on idealism.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If it’s an assumption, then it must be because it cannot be demonstrated. So how can you be so sure of something for which there is no empirical evidence, necessitating this assumption?

Any theory starts with assumptions or axioms. Euclid's Element, Newton's Principia, and Einstein's Relativity theories state them explicitly, while some others use them implicitly.
Cogito ergo sum is necessarily true because it's negation leads to contradiction.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I never said anything about 3+5 having subjective experience. I said that their property of existence or lack of it has no bearing on whether their sum is 8 or not. That’s the premise that I hold, because I cannot prove or disprove it.

A conscious agent can only be sure about its own existence. It can't be sure about the consciousness of other things. It  It can only conclude about them through observations, which may or may not be correct. Someone seeing a marionette in action may think that it's conscious.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Perhaps it would be best to actually give your definition of existence, to prevent us from talking past each other. It’s so important in topics like this, but is typically omitted by the naive poster. My own definition is doubtless quite different from yours, but I’m not using my definition, only guessing at yours.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exist
Definition of exist
intransitive verb

1a: to have real being whether material or spiritual
//did unicorns exist
//the largest galaxy known to exist
b: to have being in a specified place or with respect to understood limitations or conditions
//strange ideas existed in his mind
2: to continue to be
//racism still exists in society

Thinking alone can only guarantee the existence in definition #1b. The conscious agent can turn out to be a brain in a vat or a computer simulation.
For definition #1a, especially the material portion, more evidences are required to demonstrate that the agent exists in objective reality. The conclusion can be made as a Bayesian inference.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The emergence of consciousness can be observed in a process with manageable time span, like the growth of a zygote into a normal/average adult human. Most of us agree that a zygote is unconscious, while a normal/average adult human is conscious. It shows that consciousness is not a binary function. Otherwise, there would be a day when someone switches from non-conscious state to become conscious.

[alancalverd]

You assume that your current model of reality is the most correct one.

Until proven otherwise by observation. It's what distinguishes scientists from believers.

[alancalverd]

What if we are in a simulation

A simulation of what?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You assume that your current model of reality is the most correct one.

Until proven otherwise by observation. It's what distinguishes scientists from believers.

What makes scientists disagree with each other?

[alancalverd]

Different interpretations of data, or more often, failure to appreciate the differences between data sets.

A good example is [mod edit: Not dragging your personal climate change agenda into yet another thread]

[alancalverd]

You see my point! I don't have an agenda, just lots of data and respect for the laws of physics and the opinions of others.

Phlogiston and a flat earth are harmless interpretations of partial data, but the thing I'm not allowed to discuss is causing a lot of harm.

[Halc]

Cogito ergo sum is necessarily true because it's negation leads to contradiction.

If that were true, it wouldn’t need to be an assumption, so you’re contradicting yourself yet again. Kindly show (without begging any other assertions) how its negation (I think and not I am) leads to a contradiction.

I never said anything about 3+5 having subjective experience. I said that their property of existence or lack of it has no bearing on whether their sum is 8 or not. That’s the premise that I hold, because I cannot prove or disprove it.

A conscious agent can only be sure about its own existence. It can't be sure about the consciousness of other things. It  It can only conclude about them through observations, which may or may not be correct. Someone seeing a marionette in action may think that it's conscious.

Yet again, I was not talking about consciousness when bringing up the sum of 3+5. You persist in giving irrelevant replies to what I feel is an important point to the topic at hand.
I’m not asking if 3 or 5 ‘knows’ that their sum is 8. Please answer the actual question: Does the property of existence or lack of it have any bearing on whether the sum of 3+5 is 8 or not.

Perhaps it would be best to actually give your definition of existence, to prevent us from talking past each other. It’s so important in topics like this, but is typically omitted by the naive poster. My own definition is doubtless quite different from yours, but I’m not using my definition, only guessing at yours.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exist
1a: to have real being whether material or spiritual
//did unicorns exist
//the largest galaxy known to exist
b: to have being in a specified place or with respect to understood limitations or conditions
//strange ideas existed in his mind

Thinking alone can only guarantee the existence in definition #1b. The conscious agent can turn out to be a brain in a vat or a computer simulation.
For definition #1a, especially the material portion, more evidences are required to demonstrate that the agent exists in objective reality. The conclusion can be made as a Bayesian inference.

OK, you’re essentially quoting the everyday language definition of ‘exist’, which is in short: “Is (currently) part of our universe”. I was speaking more of the metaphysical existence that Descartes was trying to doubt.

I will agree that the everyday definition isn’t very deep, and that everything nearby exists in that sense.
You said that things in simulations exist, so if you see the cup, the cup must be part of the simulation (or part of the experience feed into the BIV), and so the cup exists just as much as do you.

The everyday definition is very classical, and falls apart at the quantum level. Does a given photon exist? It seems not. It might be measured, but once measured, it’s no longer in existence, and until measured, there’s no way to show that it has any sort of classical existence like position or something. But this is well beyond the classical definition you gave, and even beyond that for which Descartes was reaching since the QM implications were completely unknown at that time.

but the thing I'm not allowed to discuss is causing a lot of harm.

You can discuss it all you want in relevant topics. Don't derail unrelated ones.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If that were true, it wouldn’t need to be an assumption, so you’re contradicting yourself yet again. Kindly show (without begging any other assertions) how its negation (I think and not I am) leads to a contradiction.

Do you doubt your own existence?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum
The Latin cogito, ergo sum,(a) usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am",(b) is a philosophical statement that was made by René Descartes. The phrase originally appeared in French as je pense, donc je suis in his 1637 Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed.[1] It appeared in Latin in his later Principles of Philosophy, and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito.[2] As Descartes explained it, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt." A fuller version, articulated by Antoine Léonard Thomas, aptly captures Descartes' intent: dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am").[c][d]

Descartes's statement became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it purported to provide a certain foundation for knowledge in the face of radical doubt. While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception, or mistake, Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one's own existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one's own mind; there must be a thinking entity—in this case the self—for there to be a thought.

One common critique of the dictum, first suggested by Pierre Gassendi, is that it presupposes that there is an "I" which must be doing the thinking. According to this line of criticism, the most that Descartes was entitled to say was that "thinking is occurring", not that "I am thinking".[3]


While we thus reject all of which we can entertain the smallest doubt, and even imagine that it is false, we easily indeed suppose that there is neither God, nor sky, nor bodies, and that we ourselves even have neither hands nor feet, nor, finally, a body; but we cannot in the same way suppose that we are not while we doubt of the truth of these things; for there is a repugnance in conceiving that what thinks does not exist at the very time when it thinks. Accordingly, the knowledge,

• I think, therefore I am,[e] is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophizes orderly.[p]

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Does the property of existence or lack of it have any bearing on whether the sum of 3+5 is 8 or not.

Evaluating the sum 3+5=8 requires the existence of their respectable concepts, i.e. the numbers 3, 5, 8, also operators of sum and equality. If they are not well defined, the evaluation process is meaningless.

[alancalverd]

They are fully defined in "elementary"* arithmetic, but cardinal numbers are essentially adjectives, not nouns, so "existence" is not a required quality for them to be useful.


*i.e. advanced number theory - the elements of arithmetic - not the arithmetic that is taught in elementary schools!

[alancalverd]

Quote from: alancalverd on Yesterday at 16:35:44

but the thing I'm not allowed to discuss is causing a lot of harm.

You can discuss it all you want in relevant topics. Don't derail unrelated ones.

OK, let's consider phlogiston. You heat glass in air, it loses weight and you can see the moisture being driven off. You heat a metal in air and it gets heavier. Therefore heat is driving off something invisible, with negative weight. Massive consensus based on uncritical observation of a correlation. Sun rises in the east every day, therefore it goes round the earth: ditto.

People have been vilified and even killed for suggesting that there might be a better explanation.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

They are fully defined in "elementary"* arithmetic, but cardinal numbers are essentially adjectives, not nouns, so "existence" is not a required quality for them to be useful.

Online dictionaries say that they are nouns. Did they make a common mistake?

[alancalverd]

Ordinal numbers have the property of nouns, but cardinals are counting numbers which define the property of a set - how many eggs in the basket. A word that describes something is an adjective.

To amalgamate sets with similar contents we can add their cardinals: {eggs, two} + {eggs, three} = {eggs, five}

You can create a superset by amalgamating sets with dissimilar contents {apples, 10} + {oranges, 15} = {fruits, 25} 

The word "number" is a noun, but that's not the point! "Color" is a noun, but "blue" (or any color) is an adjective.

[Halc]

As Descartes explained it, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt."

I do not believe this was his axiom, but if it is, then all you need to do to doubt it is to not posit this premise.

A fuller version, articulated by Antoine Léonard Thomas, aptly captures Descartes' intent: dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am").
…
One common critique of the dictum, first suggested by Pierre Gassendi, is that it presupposes that there is an "I" which must be doing the thinking.

I also don’t think that this was his base assertion, since as I recall it was something more along the lines of “there is doubt, therefore there is something to instantiate the doubt”, and only later on was the “I” concluded and Descartes makes his famous ‘cogito ergo sum’ conclusion. I could be wrong, but a base premise rarely has a 'therefore' in it.
Point is that if ‘there is thinking’ as metaphysical axiom (as opposed to the everyday language definition that you are using), then he’s alreaady begging his conclusion. I do not accept the bold statement above if the metaphysical existence of the doubt is exactly what is in question. That would be completely fallacious reasoning.

Does the property of existence or lack of it have any bearing on whether the sum of 3+5 is 8 or not.

Evaluating the sum 3+5=8 requires ...

I’m not talking about requirements of its evaluation.
Actually, the discussion has delved into the mathematical definition of ‘exists’, and all of 3, 5, and 8 exist (mathematical sense) as integers, and that’s enough for the sum of the first two to be the other. No evaluation, process, awareness, or physical instantiation is required for this to be true. Those things are only required to show or realize that this is true, but I’m not talking about that part.
The implications of this are very relevant to the topic at hand, which is why I’ve been stressing this point.

Online dictionaries say that they are nouns. Did they make a common mistake?

Online dictionaries tend not to give mathematical, metaphysical, or physics definition of words that have everyday meaning. Some do. Your webster quote gave none of these.

Do you doubt your own existence?

To be honest, the answer isn’t short.
I am well aware of there being multiple components (processes if you will) to my thinking and beliefs. I have a pragmatic part and a rational one, and they don’t always agree with each other. The pragmatic side believes that “I exist” in the dictionary sense. I am part of the universe. So that’s simple. That side has little use for more than that, and it is in charge.

The rational side however requires all the words to be redefined to make any sense since the English language has too many naive assumptions built in for the question as worded to even make sense. So instead of using first person A-series language that the pragmatic side uses, the question needs to be answered in third-person B-series to be expressed properly.

The metaphysical definition of “exist” used is a relation, as described by Rovelli.  System X exists in relation to system Y if Y has measured X. So if an event X (a system at a specific time) is hamdani yusuf that posted post 2 of this thread (designated HY2) is system X, then HY2 exists to Halc20 because Halc20 has measured HY2 by being in a state of having read that post and replying to it, but neither HY21 nor Halc30 exists to Halc20 because Halc20 has not measured either of them.
Per Rovelli, a given system can measure its parts, but cannot meaningfully measure itself (the system). This is illustrated by Schrodinger’s can not being able to collapse its own wave function while in the box. The cat is still in superposition relative to Schrodinger on the outside of the box. The live cat state is simply in a coherent state as is the dead cat state.

Thus, it is meaningless to ask if I doubt my own existence because that requires a self-reference. Yes, Halc30 (of whom the question was asked) does exist to Halc37 (the answerer of the question). Halc (no number, the identity that the pragmatic side cares about) does not define anything that logically obeys the law of identity, so the rational side does not believe that Halc exists.
Also, while part of the universe may well exist relative to Halc37, Halc37 does not exist relative to the universe except as a superposition of multiple states.

You didn’t answer this question (or retract your assertion):

Cogito ergo sum is necessarily true because it's negation leads to contradiction.

Kindly show (without begging any other assertions) how its negation (I think and not I am) leads to a contradiction.

I think your attempt was to quote the thing in bold at the top of this post, but that’s exactly the begging assertion I was talking about. Apparently you agree that Descartes' statement is not necessarily true since its negation only contradicts assertions that are equally not necessarily true.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I also don’t think that this was his base assertion, since as I recall it was something more along the lines of “there is doubt, therefore there is something to instantiate the doubt”, and only later on was the “I” concluded and Descartes makes his famous ‘cogito ergo sum’ conclusion. I could be wrong, but a base premise rarely has a 'therefore' in it.
Point is that if ‘there is thinking’ as metaphysical axiom (as opposed to the everyday language definition that you are using), then he’s alreaady begging his conclusion. I do not accept the bold statement above if the metaphysical existence of the doubt is exactly what is in question. That would be completely fallacious reasoning.

Any new knowledge starts with inductive reasoning, in which a body of observations is synthesized to come up with a general principle. That's exactly what Descartes did. He said:

Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; And because some men err in reasoning, and fall into Paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of Geometry, I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for Demonstrations; And finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be something; And as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am,[e] was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.[h]

Keppler formulated his laws from observational results of planets appearance positions through out many years. Newton formulated his universal gravitation from observing a falling apple and compared it to the moon orbiting the earth. Einstein postulated his constancy of speed of light from other scientists' experimental results.

Once a general principle is obtained, it can be used as the basis to make predictions using deductive reasoning. Follow up observations can be done to check if the predictions are correct. If they turn out to produce deviations, the previous general principle might be rejected or modified, like the case of MOND.

The 'therefore' you found in Descartes' writing can be seen as the result of further reasoning, testing the obtained basic assumption which ends up as confirmation of previous result. It's comparable to discovery of Neptune as confirmation of Newtonian gravitational theory.

The something in bold above doesn't have to be a brain inside a complete human body. It doesn't have to be biological, nor even carbon based. It just cannot be nothing at all. IMO, it must involve some information processing. It reminds me of the movie Free Guy.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The word "number" is a noun, but that's not the point! "Color" is a noun, but "blue" (or any color) is an adjective.

You're right. Blue is primarily classified as adjective, although some sentences can treat it as noun or verb.
Interestingly, the word "three" is primarily classified as number, although it can be treated as noun. But Google's dictionary doesn't say that it can be an adjective. Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster primarily classified it as noun, although it can also be used as adjective and pronoun.
The word "half" is primarily classified as noun. Although it can also be used as adjective and adverb.