[PilateDeGuerre]

>How could one study it objectively?

Here's a fix, and it comes from within: Give up the ideal of objectivity. Objectivity doesn't exist.

I see this fallacy all the time from hackers. We are not merely rational creatures we are also feeling creatures. Embrace it.

[philwelch]

I feel that you're wrong about that.

[quinnchr]

If you think their is such a thing as objective truth in this world you must be some sort of postmodern miracle.

[nileshtrivedi]

I think you missed his sarcasm. He feels that objective truth exists. :)

BTW, I have found Yudkowsky's "The Simple Truth" an effective argument against those claim that objective truth doesn't exist. If you walk in the way of a speeding train, you will die irrespective of your beliefs. Beliefs don't alter the reality. http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth/

[quinnchr]

Hmmm... yes let's disregard the last century of philosophical thought and the postmodernism movement as a whole because the dude who write's Harry Potter fan fic wrote a cute story.

How would you convince a Solipsist that there is an objective truth?

[nileshtrivedi]

> How would you convince a Solipsist that there is an objective truth?

I can't. But let me quote Bertrand Russell from "An Outline of Philosophy":

Solipsism (the theory that I alone exist) is a view which is hard to refute but still harder to believe. Solipsism is not really believed even by those who think they are convinced of its truth.

A solipsist would have no objection to jumping from a cliff, would he? But he won't actually do it.

[quinnchr]

Why would a solipsist have no objection to jumping off a cliff?

Just because you believe reality doesn't exist outside your own mind doesn't mean you can't die.

[philwelch]

Considering that everyone is a solipsist these days, that's an interesting problem but it's not a philosophical problem. If someone else is a solipsist I know from experience that they're wrong, and I'm not a solipsist.

[Double_Cast]

> How would you convince a Solipsist that there is an objective truth?

"I refute you!"

Joking aside, I feel Solipsism is immature. Do you know which demographic also comprises Solipsists? Two year olds. "Mommy doesn't exist when I close my eyes." This gives Solipsists an excuse to stop thinking critically about things like ethics, et al. So in this sense, Solipsism's just a cop-out which justifies laziness. When someone says "objective reality doesn't exist", what I really hear is "everybody's equal; you all get a trophy; we all have a right to our opinions". You might recognize this as the Red Herring Fallacy. I think Solipsism is a subtle version of this same fallacy.

Paul Graham says something similar about the subjectivity of aesthetics * : "Your mother at this point is not trying to teach you important truths about aesthetics. She's trying to get the two of you to stop bickering." I think this applies to Moral Relativism, Solipsism, and generally most philosophies which deny the existence of objectivity.

* http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

Post Modernism is often said to have been a reaction to Modernism. But I think it's even more important to realize that Post Modernism is a reaction to World War I and II. After WWII, I imagine people realized "Science and objectivity gave us cars and electricity, but it also gave us mustard gas and nuclear weapons. Maybe this whole Modernism gig isn't so great after all..."

According to Literary Post Modernism, there's lots of conflicting narratives rather than a single objective perspective. During the chaos of World Wars I and II, I imagine war-stories naturally contradicted one another. I like the conflicting POV aspect because it can encourage the reader to question the author's reliability, like in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Unfortunately, Post Modernism can also have the opposite effect: encouraging readers to quit thinking too hard and to accept the text as it is since "it's all equally valid". This negative aspect fits really well with the self-esteem movement, which (I'll say again) I think is a cop out for thinking critically.

You may notice I'm not refuting Solipsism per se, but ulterior motives for believing Solipsism is valid. This is because going down the road of "formal proofs" probably won't yield anything convincing. We'd simply talk past each other, and in circles, and bicker over definitions. But at the end of the day, it's pretty difficult to disprove abstractions and ideologies sin finding an inherent contradiction. And I'll even admit, maybe Solipsism actually is true. Who knows? I won't claim outright that Solipsism is false. But in my own experience, I find it very unlikely that Solipsism is true * . And I do want to acknowledge a possible bias for believing "Solipsism is true" due to it's convenience.

* http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

p.s. I do find the Harry Potter fan-fic kinda weird...

[quinnchr]

I wasn't necessarily saying that solipsism is a good philosophical framework. I personally think it's rather limiting. My point was simply that you can't refute centuries of philosophical thought with a story, you actually have to put in the effort to critically examine existing theory and and address the actual arguments of the ontological frameworks you are trying to refute.

"Unfortunately, Post Modernism can also have the opposite effect: encouraging readers to quit thinking too hard and to accept the text as it is since 'it's all equally valid'"

Isn't deconstructionism sort of a core component of Postmodernism? Doesn't the deconstructionist view say that you shouldn't accept the text as it is?

[vdaniuk]

Thats a good argument and may be generalized by quoting George Edward Box "Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful."

[Double_Cast]

I occasionally reread Isaac Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. While Yudkowsky's The Simple Truth is more rigorous, I find the brevity of Asimov's essay more refreshing. Another perennial favorite of mine is George Orwell's Politics and the English Language.

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[vdaniuk]

Great links, thanks.

[telephonetemp]

There is mathematics and physics, at least. A lot of arguing can be, and has been, had here but it's largely arguing about definitions; you cannot deny that they allow you to obtain the "truth" in the sense that that truth can be used to predict and affect what happens in the real world as far as your senses can best tell you. There's no arguing away fire or public key encryption.

[quinnchr]

Yes all of those things exist and can make predictions about "reality," but that doesn't mean reality exists outside of my own experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)

[telephonetemp]

>that doesn't mean reality exists outside of my own experience.

I am aware of phenomenology and I've read some Merleau-Ponty. To my taste, however, the situation where an objective/"objective" scientific truth makes consistent predictions about my sensory experiences that suggest a physical outside world and another where that truth makes consistent predictions about the outside world itself, which in turn causes the sensory experiences, don't seem different in a meaningful way. Why make that distinction?

[quinnchr]

I mean yeah if you don't care about understanding the nature of existence, the distinction doesn't matter. If all you're concerned with is making useful predictions, there is no point in quibbling about the subjectivity of experience.

My point is simply that just because the scientific method leads to useful predictions that doesn't make it objective truth nor does it invalidate the importance of subjective experience.

[emil0r]

Is that statement objective or subjective?

[telephonetemp]

There's a good deal of middle ground between the self-evident

>We are not merely rational creatures we are also feeling creatures

and a thought-terminating cliche like

>Objectivity doesn't exist.

The latter doesn't seem like a helpful response to someone who is apparently asking for scientific evidence for long working hours and/or overtime doing harm to you. If anything, knowing what science says on the matter is emotionally important as it could either (if the possibility of permanent harm is limited) provide some relief to or (otherwise) justify the indignation of a person currently doing overtime and unhappy about it (and hopefully lead to action on their part). Both scenarios seem desirable to me.

Edit: Could you explain the downvotes? In case it sounded dismissive I changed "thought-stopper" to the more formal "thought-terminating cliche" above and added the ellipses for clarity.

[barry-cotter]

You pissed off those who are highly invested in either side without provoking any support from the middle; your rewording is no less offensive, especially with the pointer to the pre-edit version, and your usage of parentheses necessitates an above average working memory or rereading.

[telephonetemp]

Thanks for your insight. I'm genuinely surprised if I did come off as being against both sides. I thought my comment was obviously pro-rationalist (my reasoning being that a deliberately rational person would recognize the importance of one's emotional state and use rational thought to improve it). I may have inadvertently stumbled upon a trolling strategy: in what appears to be a binary choice don't be recognizably for either.

I was also apparently too sleepy to call parentheses by their name.

[gruseom]

I'm in favor of what comes from within, but it's important not just to repeat what one already believes.