How do we know there is a behind us?
https://www.quora.com/How-do-i-know-that-solipsism-is-false/answer/Gerard-Cec?ch=10&oid=22123926&share=593e9803&srid=uHpSfZ&target_type=answer
Just this answer. I mean I know memory is a thing but just because you can't see something doesn't mean it stops existing when you look away, and failing to remember where stuff is can bit you. Also a mirror isn't an illusion since it reflects what's behind you, otherwise rearviews would be worthelss.
Just this answer. I mean I know memory is a thing but just because you can't see something doesn't mean it stops existing when you look away, and failing to remember where stuff is can bit you. Also a mirror isn't an illusion since it reflects what's behind you, otherwise rearviews would be worthelss.
Comments (36)
You've demonstrated that it's possible to doubt it. That shows that the knowledge most be a posteriori. Yet, if you haven't seen it, what experience do you base the knowledge on?
:up: :100:
Is it possible coherently to doubt it? If it's true, all statements about the past are false. In that case, I didn't write the last sentence. I did not believe that I was writing it. I have not read the OP or looked at the quora link. There was no link.
The problem, mon ami, is we don't even know if there's a front us!
:cool:
I don't think it's possible to doubt that there is space behind me. I apparently know that there is space a priori.
But as for objects occupying that space, I can imagine that a void follows me around, so I can doubt the objects. That means if I have knowledge of them, it's a posteriori.
Quoting Cuthbert
Could you explain why?
Alas, no, because I misread the whole thing. I thought it was about whether we can doubt that any time exists except the present.
I suppose if there is no world out there (the doubt is coherent and the hypothesis happens to be true), but there is a past and there are other people, then it becomes testable. I could ask my friend, who was on the other side of the door, whether the world continued to exist while I had the door closed. Do that a few times in different circumstances and I might begin to wonder whether my being on my side of the door is wholly irrelevant to the question of what is on the other side of it. It sounds like a project for a baby of 4 - 6 months, when we are getting used to the idea that teddy hiding is still teddy.
The question isn't about whether there's a world. It's about whether there's anything behind you.
You can't do that continuously though.
As I mentioned, the knowledge that there is space behind you is probably a priori because you can't doubt it. If you tried to imagine no space, that would conflict with the idea of 'behind '
So you know there is space a priori. How do you know there are predictable objects behind you? I think that's part of a dynamic model that's coming from you. In other words, it's a hypothesis. You don't know what's behind you until you do ask a friend, or turn around.
Pretty sure we do.
The only sensible answer is to keep turning around, faster and faster, until you puke.
Deus deceptor? The whole thing could be a one giant illusion (maya). Magick! The question of front and behind or on the sides is moot.
Sure. You know there's "stuff" behind you. That's a model.
More like reality, no amount of philosophical musing will change that.
It is only an extension of your "behind us" idea which is basically a reserved skeptical argument; I just went the whole nine yards mon ami and let the seed you planted bloom in full glory.
Especially if you don't do any philosophical musing.
Whether you do or don't it won't change that there is something behind you. Though it does say something how philosophical musings don't change reality, sometimes it makes me question why even bother asking such questions.
Ok!
Well, there you have it.
I wouldn't say that's always true. As I write, my kitchen is behind me. You did not know that - but I did. That's a difference of the states of knowledge betwen us. If we deny knowledge to both of us - to you, because you have no idea where my kitchen is, and to me, because it's behind me - then I'm not sure how to express the clear difference between us in respect of knowledge. It seems as if there was a clear difference and now a theory has been introduced to smudge it or invalidate it. My first instinct is to doubt the theory and to preserve the phenomena - the phenomena in this case being that I do know which room is behind me, even without turning round, and most other people don't know.
What theory is causing the problem? Perhaps it's something like this: "If it's possible to doubt something, then the knowledge of that thing must be a posteriori [dependent on experience]." We now have a counter-example. It's possible for me to doubt that my kitchen is behind me. I can't see it. And still I have knowledge that it's there right now, because there is a clear distinction between the knowledge that I have and the knowledge that most people lack. So I have knowledge of something which it's possible to doubt and yet my knowledge is not based on up-to-the-minute experience. I don't have a problem with that. It's an interesting observation.
Yet you have neither empirical nor logical proof. That's the interesting part.
What's the logical argument?
Imagine an infinitely large line of people or a line of people that goes all the way around earth. Every person in each scenario has a person in front and another person behind them; in addition, each person is in front and behind two other people. Imagine you are the leftmost in a group of three people from one of these lines. How would you explain that the person in front of you is the person in front of you when that person is in the "behind" of someone else? In fact, how would you explain your existence when you are someone else's behind?
Furthermore, [s]Perception [math]\to[/math] Existence[/s] [Hallucination (mental illness/drug-induced)]. In other words there are no sufficient conditions, if perception is our benchmark, to decide whether something exists or not. We are left with only the ability to disprove existence (existence [math]\to[/math] perception) via modus tollens, but not prove it.
As is obvious to the reader, contrary to what we've been thinking all along, we don't have a definition of existence if perception is our standard/measure. Odd that!
[quote=Gorgias] Nothing exists [...][/quote]
Skepticism ne plus ultra.
Yes, we can't delete "behind" from the English language. Our philosophy super powers aren't that strong. :groan:
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all[/quote]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3Oc9C3EHLo
Hmm. While the philosophical point stands, I'm not too keen on the use of collective pronouns here. You are on your own as far as arse wiping goes.
Except that we do. Also good work showing how useless this sort of thinking is in day to day.
Looking back at the guy in the answer he's obviously wrong. Mirrors aren't an illusion, they show behind us because we can't see it. The part about memory doesn't change that either. Just because we can't remember what was in front or behind doesn't mean there aren't such things. not to mention is there is no behind you a car would never work.
Plus like I said before, there are dire consequences to thinking like the the guy in the quora answer. Break real hard on a busy highway and see how well that holds up.
It's actually kinda interesting how divorced from day to day reality a good deal of philosophy is, at least this topic anyway. I can't believe I took it seriously.
:D Might just turn around and take a look. Has this ever failed you? (Would you expect something more than that?)
No amount of skepticism changes the fact that I havent been failed by recognizing there is a behind me. If anything listening to that person actually hurt my ability to remember stuff and almost caused a few accidents