I accept that science has provided an objectively plausible account of my origin and all of my behaviour...

>It can be wrong in how it relates to the thing being percieved
But that's not perception, that's interpretation.

For example I currently perceive a laptop. That's just a fact, and can't be wrong. I could either interpret this as "the laptop is real", or "I'm in the Matrix", or "I'm hallucinating" or anything else. But those are secondary hypotheses.

"I am a mind that makes free choices" is a primary fact. It's true whether or not anything else is.

What justification do you have for your perception accurately reflecting external reality?

You can perceive a laptop without there being any laptop. You can perceive yourself making free choices without there actually being any free choices made

You're still wrong though. You can not assume you have free will just because you think you do, it is an unknown. It may appear to us that we do, but there is some evidence to suggest that we don't.

Even though it's a gross simplification, you seem like the sort of person who needs gross simplifications to understand the concept.

Imagine a DSLR operated by someone in another room. All they can do is operate the shutter remotely and view the images the camera records. If the camera returns a black image, they have no way of knowing whether the room is dark, the lens cap is still on or if a fault is causing the shutter to fail to operate. There might be a sensor which tells them that the shutter is operating but they have no incontrovertible proof that the sensor isn't also malfunctioning, or that the control systems in the camera are failing to correctly interpret the information it's receiving. The camera alone cannot objectively analyse itself and information from the camera cannot be objectively trusted to reach a single conclusion.

My perception doesn't make any assumptions about external reality. The idea of "reflecting external reality" is a concept introduced later.

My theories about the world are just theories. They can all be falsified. If they all collapse, I'll still perceive.

>The camera alone cannot objectively analyse itself
I am not a physical object. "Physical object" was a category I invented to explain the world around me.

You're still making assumptions about the mechanism behind your perception, specifically, you're assuming that they operate in a particular way ("I am a mind that freely makes choices"). That's an assumption and a very unsound one at that.

>I am not a physical object.

Cool beans, pull an airtight bag over your head for an hour and report back.

>That's an assumption
No, it's knowledge. I can't prove to you that I know this. And of course, the false objective theory of me would predict that I might say this sort of thing.

>Cool beans, pull an airtight bag over your head for an hour and report back.
I won't be able to, I can't control my body if it's broken.

Sure, but "perceiving" and making "free choices" are entirely different things

Sorry, I hate to shatter such an entrenched fantasy but it's an assumption (presumably) based on observations. You don't intrinsically know the reality of your situation any more than a photocopier knows its own situation.

Have you ever been intoxicated?

>it's an assumption (presumably) based on observations
No, it's a raw fact presented to me. It has nothing to do with the scientific method.

>"perceiving" and making "free choices" are entirely different things
Yes, I agree. I do both, and I know that I do both as primary facts.

I am a green bean. If I were not a green bean, then I would be unable to say that I am a green bean.

>objectively plausible account of my origin and all of my behaviour.
>: "I am a mind that freely makes choices."

These two ideas don't conflict in any way.
Even if we understood WHY you make the decisions you do (and we don't really understand that at all), that doesn't change the fact that you DO make those decisions.

>Have you ever been intoxicated?
Yes.

"Free choices" is clearly an interpretation of what you perceive. What does "free" mean and how do you know what you perceive is "free"?

>Yes, I agree. I do both
No all you do is perceive. One of the things you perceive is yourself making free choices, and we have already established that perceptions do not necessarily reflect reality

>it's a raw fact presented to me
It's really not. Unless you want to redefine the word 'fact' to something at odds with the modern English language.

I like your thread OP. It sounds to me like when you go from philosophy "I think therefore I am" to science which requires more, because now you have to also say something about my perception. Do I see the same perceptions you see during a scientific experiment? These kinds of questions then require faith. Science requires faith, like a religion.

This is why I've always opposed efforts by STEM students to change the acronym to STEPM, philosophy exists on a completely different level to STEM subjects and it would be invidious to try to draw it down to the level of STEM.

You don't understand the difference between faith and an assumption. Faith is blindly believing something regardless of reason and evidence. Assumptions on the other hand are discarded the moment they are proven wrong. Science works on assumptions, not faith.

>we have already established that perceptions do not necessarily reflect reality
No we haven't. My perceptions cannot conflict with "reality", because "reality" is a concept I invented based on my perceptions.

To go back to my laptop example, the fact that I perceive a laptop isn't false no matter how strange reality is. Even if the laptop isn't real, I still perceive a laptop.

>Unless you want to redefine the word 'fact' to something at odds with the modern English language.
A fact is a true statement. There are lots of ways to come to believe that a statement is true. This is the easiest way: I just know it. It's presented to me.

Why wouldn't it be STEMP? STEPM sounds dumb.

STEM is for fields that follow the scientific method, philosophy doesnt even try to

>No we haven't. My perceptions cannot conflict with "reality", because "reality" is a concept I invented based on my perceptions.
That doesn't follow.

That's my other reason for opposing it.

>>"perceiving" and making "free choices" are entirely different things
>Yes, I agree. I do both, and I know that I do both as primary facts.
>No all you do is perceive.
[citation needed]
Even if OP is a deterministic system (and there's no evidence of that), he can still make choices.
I'm sure you'll insist that they are really *his* choices since they're allegedly determined by his life experiences and his genetic predispositions (even though you can't actually demonstrate this).
But his life experiences and genetic predispositions are a part of who he is.
He's still making choices.

Philosophy sits above it, it actually has the bravery and intellectual rigor to directly question the scientific method and its validity/enforceability.

When I first came into existence, the only things I knew were primary facts. Technically speaking, those are still the only things I know.

None of those primary facts require me to have any hypotheses about reality. In the end, I accepted most of the normal hypotheses about reality and they work great for me, except for a few areas where I can see they must be false because they contradict primary facts.

>My perceptions cannot conflict with "reality", because "reality" is a concept I invented based on my perceptions.

Reality is that which exists regardless of perception. Whether there actually is anything other than your perception is a moot point, because you cant prove it either way. I dont deny that you have the experience of making "free choices", only that experiencing something means it has to have an objective reality

stem and philosophy are not equatable disciplines in comparison. At least not in a capitalistic society. Maybe in Bernieland they have 60K philosophy jobs

>is the only thing that cannot be false
In general, as a philosophical thing, the only wrong thing you can say that is ever automatically wrong in all realities, is that there might exist a cannot in relation to potential falsity. There's no reason your datum can't be false, but it might still be true even if nobody cares to test its falsity.

>the objective scientific account of me is wrong
It's not, it's just a longer explanation. There is zero reason you can't be right about freedom of choice and the scientific explanation of origin at the same time. Basically you just posted the mother of all false dichotomies and my reply will be ignored for the entire rest of the thread.

You keep repeating that but it doesn't make it any more valid than the first time you spouted it.

You're assuming that there must be a mind in order for there to be thought. You can truly know nothing.

But there is an affirmative power in accepting the functional falsities.

There is no true a priori knowledge.

I don't disagree but earning potential isn't a direct reflection of the intellectual rigor needed to pursue a subject. If all you care about is money, enjoy being an intellectually shallow individual.

I can't convince you of what it's like to be me. I'm just telling you how it is. You can win any public argument with me by simply pointing out that science explains all of my behaviour. I am totally vulnerable and just telling you the truth.

Your words make sense on paper, but how is science practiced in the real world? It's more like: "science" says what's true (e.g global warming) and disagreeing with your assumptions means I'm an uneducated piece of shit.

All the questions eventually lead back to some level of faith.

>[citation needed]
Give me an example of something you do that isnt perceived then

>He's still making choices.
The question is whether those choices are "free". Does a rock choose where to roll down a hill? Could it have chosen differently?

OP, you're full of crap. You the same attention seeker who posted the epistemology shit a couple of weeks ago?

You ignore when the obvious flaws in your reasoning are pointed out to you, repeat your erroneous assumptions apparently in the hope that if you lie often enough people will believe you, and generally behave like an immature child. Just fuck off.

>"reality" is a concept I invented based on my perceptions
Not OP but, strictly speaking, it does follow from their claim that they created the concept of reality. They didn't actually create the concept, but if we assume they did, the logic holds.

You don't need a scientific explanation of how your mind works to explain how claiming to intrinsically perceive the workings of your own mind or even trying to internally analyse its functionality is wrong.

Except that free choice violates causality

>intrinsically perceive the workings of your own mind
Don't you mean brain? Who else is going to perceive the workings of my mind, other than me?

His argument is basically that because he perceives something, the thing he perceives, rather than just the act of perceiving itself, must be real. Which is not true

Stop feeding the attention whore.

Thats right, you PERCEIVE the working of your mind, and you cant prove that your perception reflects reality

>you cant prove that your perception reflects reality
What's "reality" to you The list of true statements?

If I was going to make a list of true statements, I would put things like "I am a mind that freely makes choices" at the top of the list. These are the unassailable facts.

Everything lower down the list is just a "model" that makes predictions about my future perceptions.

So, perception has to reflect the things at the top of the list, and if it conflicts with stuff further down the list, then that part of the list is wrong.

Reality is whatever exists regardless of perception. This could be absolutely nothing or almost identical to the universe described by scientific models. You cant prove it either way

>it isn't in the category of things that are falsifiable.
So you were lying when you said the science account of you is wrong, because if it's not falsifiable, then it's not science. That is the core of science.

>Reality is whatever exists regardless of perception.
Okay, if we use that definition, then I would say that I know reality cannot conflict with perception. Because I know my perception is true, and I know that two contradictory things can't both be true.

>So you were lying when you said the science account of you is wrong, because if it's not falsifiable, then it's not science.
The current science account of me is falsifiable by science itself, of course. For example, if a scientist observed good evidence for me having psychic powers.

But the science account is also falsifiable by me, by comparing it to my primary facts. This is a private matter, and I would never try to label it as science.

>Which is not true
Not necessarily, no. But recall that OP's argument involves OP having created the concept of reality. If that's the case then their definition of reality might not have anything to do with nouns vs. verbs. They "win" by shifting the goalposts on the definition of reality rather than having an honest intellectual discussion with actual real people who don't abuse their ability to come up with aberrant definitions.

I was arguing as a logician there, not as a reality philosopher. Boiling things down to if-then clauses can help deal with definition abusers because if they consent to your if-then claim/logic/reasoning, then you can directly question the claim and the only thing they can do it backpedal or else fuck up their own goalposts.

>having an honest intellectual discussion with actual real people
OP here. I can't have an honest discussion with anyone about this. Because I know certain things by virtue of being me, and nobody else has reason to believe them.

I am intellectually isolated on this topic. I just thought that if there are any other minds reading this, they might not feel as crazy being surrounded by materialists.

Of course even that isn't a good reason to listen to me, because science could easily predict that I might say something like that.

>Because I know my perception is true
If you mean true as in your perceptions occurs, then sure, if you mean true as in your perception accurately reflects reality, given the definition we have agreed on, then prove it. You have yet to demonstrate how you can be sure that your perceptions accurately reflects objective reality, especially since you have already admitted hallucinations are a thing

>perceptions accurately reflects objective reality
My perceptions can't even touch objective reality. There is no possible contact between them, without the intermediary of an interpretation.

And of course, an interpretation can be wrong.

"I am a mind who makes free choices" isn't an interpretation, it's a raw perception. It makes no reference to objective reality at all.

Prove you are not sitting in a simulation feeding you the experience of making choices. Even if you cant prove that to me, how can you prove it to yourself?

trump'd

>feeding you the experience of making choices
Not possible. You can't design a system to feed an experience, because you would never know whether you had succeeded. Experience is invisible.

You could design a system to make a human brain tell you that it was making free choices, from my understanding of human brains.

I really am making free choices. I am a mind. I am only connected to my brain through a theoretical correlation which I will throw out if it conflicts with that I know.

>Experience is invisible.
Wrong. If it were invisible, there wouldn't be seven billion people clearly having them. You might not yet know it to be clear, but I can assure you that it isn't by interpreted proxy that it becomes clear.

>Not possible.
It is if reality is fairly close to the way science describes it.

>I really am making free choices. I am a mind. I am only connected to my brain through a theoretical correlation which I will throw out if it conflicts with that I know.
All your knowledge of this comes to you via perception, and we have established repeatedly that perceiving a thing does not prove that the thing perceived exists. You can perceive a laptop without an actual laptop existing, you can perceive yourself making free choices when no such freedom actually exists

>wouldn't be seven billion people clearly having them.
What's clear about it? I think neuroscience perfectly explains why people would talk about having experiences even if it's just me that actually has them.

>You can perceive a laptop without an actual laptop existing, you can perceive yourself making free choices when no such freedom actually exists
Not the same thing. A "choice" isn't an arbitrary mental model like "laptop". The idea of "choice" exists on the same level as my perception, as a fundamental concept.

>the way science describes it.
Science doesn't describe anything about conscious experience. It's not a possible topic for science.

It's barely even a possible topic for philosophy, and in fact the only philosophy I can do about it is with myself.

>A "choice" isn't an arbitrary mental model like "laptop". The idea of "choice" exists on the same level as my perception
Prove it, or at least walk me through your reasoning that you think proves it to yourself. And keep in mind we are talking "free choice" as in it was possible for you to choose other than the way you did

>Prove it
I can't! How could I?

I'm just shitposting, technically. There is nothing productive that can be done. I'm telling you the absolute truth, but it's not relevant to anything that can be described in third-person.

Experience is traced to nerve inputs from sensory organs plus a similar process based on internal processing

>Experience is traced to
"is traced to"?

What you mean is that subjects say "I am having X experience" under Y circumstance.

It's just a fact about human bodies' behaviour.

You can tell what reasoning you sue to prove it to yourself. You are telling me what you believe, whether its true or not is debatable

>You can tell what reasoning you sue to prove it to yourself.
None. It's a basic fact about my perceptual history. "Choice" was a concept I had before anyone taught it to me. "Laptop" isn't.

Well, assuming you arent just lying (which i assume you are) then you are the only person ever to be born with a concept of anything at all

> you are the only person ever to be born with a concept of anything at all
How would you know? Looking at brains? Brains don't have concepts in them.

Because I am not aware of anyone other than apparently you who remembers coming into existence at all, let alone already in possession of a concept of "free choice"

>Because I am not aware of anyone other than apparently you who remembers coming into existence at all
I don't remember coming into existence. I'm saying that knowing that I am a mind who makes free choices, is just part of who I am. It's not learnable. Nobody could ever explain this concept to me if I didn't already know it.

>Nobody could ever explain this concept to me if I didn't already know it.
You can never prove that.

I hereby propose an experiment: We construct a version of you that doesn't have that, then teach it that concept, then measure the differences to see it you wouldn't be exactly the same whether it was taught to you or it was something that was always there.

Let's make it falsifiable.

No. Whether or not you "created" reality has no bearing on whether your "perceptions" are consistent with that reality. That depends on what specifically the reality is. Sure you can invent a reality that is arbitrarily consistent with whatever you interpret your perceptions as, but this does not follow from ANY reality. And this is all irrelevant when we consider that the utility of the concept of reality is that it is a shared objective space. You can create whatever "reality" you wish but it will be quite detrimental to not live in the reality of everyone else.

>When I first came into existence, the only things I knew were primary facts.
When you first came into existence you didn't know anything. Your interpretations are just naive philosophizing and not "primary facts" or even perceptions. Your dogmatic repetition of these claims without defending them only serves to signal to others their weakness.

>"created" reality
No, created the concept. OP has free reign to be a bitch about the names they give their own private notions. Debating our common intuitions about the nature of perception and reality is meaningless if OP has their own private notion for what "reality" is supposed to mean. Yes, by any sane definition of the term, OP's perception doesn't directly imply anything other than the act of perception itself. But when OP claims to have authored a notion of what "reality" is, that argument isn't automatically relevant anymore.

Ah then you are simply mistaken. You have a model in your head that you have constructed, and for some reason you think that because you constructed it yourself it has to be true

>for some reason
Literally only works with hard solipsism.

>You have a model in your head that you have constructed, and for some reason you think that because you constructed it yourself it has to be true
I didn't construct it. And it's not a model. I just know what sort of being I am.

The "model" comes later, when I try to align my theories of the physical world with what I know I am.

> I just know what sort of being I am.
No you dont, and you cant. You can think you do as much as you like but that doesn't make it true. You have direct access to nothing more than your perceptions just like the rest of us, and perceptions are not guaranteed to be an accurate representation of reality.

You do not KNOW what kind of being you are, you have a belief based on your perception and nothing more

human being

trump'd again autist friends

>You do not KNOW what kind of being you are
I really, really do. The physical world is something I got used to. It behaves in predictable ways, and I can navigate it. And it has a thing called "my body" that correlates to me in a variety of ways.

But I already knew what sort of being I am, before I investigated the physical world.

You dont understand. Im not saying I dont believe you, i'm saying your reasoning is faulty. You CANNOT know, you can only believe. Claiming you can "know" anything derived from your perception (and your experience of yourself IS part of your perception regardless of what you might say) is simply wrong. You can have as strong and certain a belief as you like, but its still just a belief

>You can have as strong and certain a belief as you like, but its still just a belief
No, that's backwards. My knowledge is restricted to things that I know simply because of my existence as a certain type of being. This includes mathematical truths that I can deduce in my head, the knowledge that I am a mind that makes choices, the knowledge that I have subjective experience, etc.

Anything about the physical world is just a "belief", not strictly knowledge. Or rather, the "physical world" itself is a hypothesis I came up with to explain my perceptions.

You dont know anything at all except that you exist. Everything else is a belief. Thats what cogito ergo sum actually means

>Thats what cogito ergo sum actually means
There's no point telling me what some guy said. I live it. There is a set of things I know just because of who I am. It goes further than "I exist".

Yeah, and your wrong. I am not denying your experience, im denying the necessary truth of your interpretation of that experience, and the fact that you seem to deny there is any interpretation at all.

>There is a set of things I know just because of who I am. It goes further than "I exist".

You have a very strong belief that you have confused for knowledge. Anything beyond "I exist" is belief

>Anything beyond "I exist" is belief
That's not only false, it's not even conceivable.

For example, if I know "I exist", then I also know "the statement "I exist" is true". I am a logical being, which means that if I know one thing, I know infinitely many things straight away.