andros

You might find Stef's interaction with the first caller in this radio show from about 3 minutes onwards helpful

I suppose an ordinary definition would do: ie to be measured it would have to have some physical properties like length, mass, volume, electrical charge etc. that could be quantified by a process of comparison with a standard measure Eg meter, kilogram, newton-meter-per-second, lux - etc according to some system of measurement. Some things can't be measured although they can be inferred to exist Eg empathy. There are no units of measurement for empathy, although I'd put costumed thug near the low end of any scale. Maybe an experience can be measured, but it begs the question what units of measurement would you use. Perhaps, for example, it might be possible to measure the (relevant) brain activity of a person who is experiencing pain. That would presumably mean measuring neural networks and their electrical activity. Definitely physical and measurable. That person could report their subjective experience, using words or a 'scale of one to ten' to report what that experience is like and it's intensity. That wouldn't tell me what the experience is like, other than via my imagination of what it might feel like to me - pretty much like knowing the pain of a sting from the Schmidt pain index. So it's not the brain activity that can't be measured but the quality of what it's like to have the experience - which is subjective.

That's got me thinking. I realize how little I know about epistemology. I do know that I'm having an experience - well perhaps someone could offer me a proof that I'm not, but I doubt I'd find it acceptable. I'd need to be awake to hear the proof. I don't believe in some kind of disembodied consciousness or soul or spirit so I'm quite happy that my experience is the result of evolution just as cognition in other animals is, and the assertion that it's an emergent property of cells seems reasonable. I don't understand the point about the can't-be-measured assertion being misleading, perhaps because I wouldn't claim that data on a disk doesn't exist, although I appreciate that one may not call it data until it's been processed in some way to make sense of it to a human or for data processing. Re: "Experiences can be measured." The physical correlates of consciousness or awareness can be measured but that doesn't address how or why processes such as brainwaves or neurons firing give rise to a subjective experience - why couldn't such processes happen without a subjective experience(?) I can imagine using a futuristic recording helmet that measured every brain cell and all the activity. I could put the hat on someone else and "measure their experience" or put it on me and measure mine (in either case I'd be using the instrument and my senses) - and it wouldn't explain my subjective experience. It seems to me that there is a hard problem of consciousness ie how to properly explain it. For anyone interested it's been much better stated by Chalmers here than I could. The assertion that an experience can't be measured seems to be the crux of the little chain of reasoning I attempted to quote. I don't recall any assertion about whether senses are real or not, but I do recall the use of the word "experience" and I recall that the general idea was that since it's subjective it can't be measured. If it can, then the conclusion is false. The chain of reasoning doesn't get into whether a thing is objectively real in the sense of being verifyable by others as in the seagulls, which perhaps weakens it, but to chip in on the side of the unknown creator I suspect the idea was supposed to be thought-provoking rather than a proof that we don't exist. The other thing I now notice is that the conclusion says "everything that we know.." which doesn't tie up with the first line. Perhaps it should be: Ergo: Everything that is considered real is based on something unreal. <--I've changed it to this

Many years ago I was given an argument about reality which seems to fit in this Philosophy section of the board. I don't know where I got it from, and I can't remember the wording, although I remember the essence of it. I tried to search for similar on the web but to no avail, so I thought I'd try to reconstruct it from memory. At the time I couldn't see anything wrong with any step so I found it to be an interesting paradox. My reconstruction may be a little logically leaky, but for what it's worth here it is: For something to be considered real, it must exist in physical reality For something to exist in physical reality it must be measurable In order to measure a thing we must use our instruments and our senses In order to use our senses we must be having an experience So we only know a thing exists by virtue of our experience An experience can't be measured so it must be unreal (not exist in physical reality) [Ergo: everthing that we know is real is based on something that is unreal.] EDIT: Ergo: Everything that is considered real is based on something unreal. Has anyone heard this or similar before, or can improve it?

I was recently talking about this and came up with some statements with the flavour of "we developed from stone age tribes with alpha-males and dominance hierarchies" and was recommended a really good book on the topic. It seems my understanding was far too simplistic and I really needed to read this book. I would describe it as a scholarly work in that it has plenty of references not only to the author's own papers but to a couple of well respected people I'd heard of -that is E.O. Wilson and Diane Fossey, as well as many I hadn't heard of. The author has obviously studied extensively as well as studying the works of others. The book looks at our nearest relatives chimps, bonobos, gorillas etc as well as evidence from studies of tribes and hunter-gatherer societies. Obviously hominid evidence is only fossil / archeological. However given the evidence it is possible to come up with some interesting hypotheses and reasoning. It seems that for many thousands of generations we may well have lived in egalitarian humter-gatherer societies in which despots and upstarts who tried to take over and become the alpha were made fun of, ostracised or even killed. Although natural law or natural justice is not mentioned, for me reading this bought those issues to mind. Our ancestors had to be politically astute and not just kill off anyone they didn't like or the family could well retaliate. There also had to be a large majority who simply would not accept the right of any individual to bark orders. The author gives some reasons as to why humans could get to this state from ancestors that were probably more like chimp hierarchies. I think you'll find these and much else in this work both interesting and relevant. The book is 'Hierarchy in the Forest' by Christopher Boehm, 1999 250 odd pages and well worth a read. (You and I probably have a different idea from Boehm as to what democracy is.)

Firstly, I don't have any children and am no longer married, but for what it's worth, here goes... I recall as a child being very curious about the truth. I obviously must have gone through the stage where I just believed without question (that right time to be entrapped by priests et.al). When still quite young I found out that I could be told things that weren't true. Eg the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas. It seems to me that you can't rely on "we'll present statements as belief only, not fact", because it seems from what your saying that your wife may not know the difference(?) Instead you need to educate your children to explore such differences between beliefs, facts, truth etc., and to hopefully ask their own questions like "what constitutes good evidence?" I recently saw this book http://www.crownhouse.co.uk/publications/product.php?product=805 which I offer as evidence that children can and do think philosophically and can be helped in that endeavour even at a young age. I think some items in the book are for as young as five year olds. I would have thought it quite possible to discuss with an 8 year old questions like "what is a fact?", "what is a belief?", "how do we know if something is true?" (Is it by the number of people who agree it's true?) Of course there are age-appropriate considerations and perhaps the Gettier problem is not for the beginner - but who knows - we're all unique and you can guide your children in a way only you know how. I'm not suggesting a one-time intervention of some sort. Children are exposed to all sorts of other influences at school or elsewhere other than the wife. Better to ask interesting questions and start an ongoing enquiry regarding truth in the form of discussions, with no claims to giving "the" correct philosophical answers but instead fostering curiosity and truth seeking. I believe that it is important for children to have examples in their lives of adults who freely admit that they don't know. In my day we sat in school and got asked questions and put our hands up if we knew the answers. This sends a message that knowing the answer is good and not knowing is bad. But IMO this is a terrible thing to teach. Better to teach that not knowing is a great place from which to start an enquiry. Can your child appreciate that when asked a question sometimes adults give an answer they think is true (and present it as fact), but it turns out not to be true. At what age can a child appreciate differences in the quality of evidence. I don't know. No harm in mentioning at some stage that some people believe that because something was written in a very old book it must be true. Is that good evidence? (Obviously there's a time and a place and an age for this kind of question ie not now). It should be possble to have such discussions about truth regarding non-religious issues. No need to start with "does God exist?" How about "I can make traffic lights change just by staring at them." Is that true? What is the evidence for that? Can someone choose to believe that whether or not it's true? Does it matter that they believe it if it is not true? What is belief? The questions are more important than the answers. A related point is that to avoid becoming an indoctrinator yourself, sometime's you'll need to answer a question with a question like "what do you think?", and listen. I believe it's a good lesson for a child to learn that you care what they think and aren't just going to just tell them what's so. I've no idea what to suggest regarding including your wife in such discussions. It sounds like she wouldn't really be interested so maybe your current agreement is enough. I really can't help on that question. Even if your 8-year-old is now a believer I would characterise this as a stage (although some people never get further). It's often later in life, perhaps as a teenager, that people start to question the sources of authority Eg Church, school, parents - and raise doubts regarding what they've been told and its basis. Hopefully they then take a fresh look and make up their own minds. This may be useful at some point, or not. Consider the following statements. Do you believe them?: * I am not my body. I have a body. * I am not my mind. I have a mind. * I am not my beliefs. I have beliefs. If these are true, then if you find out that one of your beliefs wasn't true would you change it? I find I usually get a 'yes' even though that person may be unwilling to change in practice, but it might open a door. The Dalai Lama was once asked "what would you do if someone could prove to you that reincarnation is not true?" His answer was "I'd go round telling people that reincarnation isn't true". I wonder if the pope would be so flexible. I hope I've provided some food for thought. All the best