(Replying to this comment rather than your latest, as that's been downvoted out of existence.)
> In that case sorry for the accusation.
No worries.
> With this you haven't given me epistemic justification, you're just telling a story. How do you know that the past happened at all on your criteria of what constitutes reasonable evidence? It isn't material. You can't touch the past, you can't pick the past up and move it. You can't actually observe it at all. If the only evidences we are allowed to use are physical evidences, it's impossible to know that the past wasn't just an illusion. The point is that in your criteria for what constitutes reasonable evidence, knowledge of anything becomes impossible - all things could simply be illusory.
While that's great for stoned conversations at 3am, it's not very useful.
If I'm going to come to any reasoned conclusion about the world at all, I have to make certain working assumptions, most fundamentally that my perceptions, memories, and my powers of reason are all more or less generally reliable (e.g., I'm currently in my kitchen, and not on top of Mount Kilimanjaro; I was born and brought up in 20th-century Britain, not 14th-century Vietnam; if X implies Y and Y implies Z, then X does in fact transitively imply Z). Obviously, these are all subject to the proviso that I may be (and often will be) mistaken in any specific instance.
If I don't make such assumptions -- if I just conclude that I can never know anything about the world, not even provisionally -- then what's the point in doing anything? I may as well just sit here and rot. After all, my life (and my growing hunger and thirst pains) are all just illusions, for all I know.
Finally, if you're going to insist that something as basic as the existence of change needs to be demonstrated with "epistemic certitude" for any debate, then such debate is going to be needlessly prolonged and tiresome -- and arguably in bad faith, as the very existence of a debate is predicated on the existence of change.
I hope this comment is actually readable, because someone, totally ignoring HN guidelines on flagging, keeps downvoting and flagging my comments seemingly just because they disagree. I'd prefer if they engaged in the debate instead of simply shutting it down so that none of us can learn anything.
I'm not saying it's impossible to know anything about the world, I'm making an internal critique of your worldview. I'm saying that in your worldview, which seems to be pure materialism, it is impossible to justify epistemic claims about the world. To reduce thousands of years of philosophy to "stoned conversations at 3am" is disingenuous and, forgive me, points to a lack of understanding of the history of philosophy on your part.
These aren't just points I'm pulling out of thin air, I'm simply rehashing dialogues and arguments made by the likes of Aristotle and David Hume - arguments which have not been refuted since, at least in the public domain. I urge you to read about Hume's theory of Induction, and the Is/Ought distinction. You could also do well to read Aristotle's dialogue with the sophists.
>While that's great for stoned conversations at 3am, it's not very useful.
What is "useful" in a purely materialist worldview? How can the objective "usefulness" of something be ascertained in a world where nothing objective exists, since universals and objectivity are in the domain of metaphysics?
> If I don't make such assumptions -- if I just conclude that I can never know anything about the world, not even provisionally -- then what's the point in doing anything?
Exactly! You've hit the nail on the head. In a purely material universe, where to know anything is impossible without "pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps" (so to speak) in terms of metaphysics, there is absolutely no reason to do anything. The universe becomes totally without meaning, aka "Disteleological".
But then this creates a paradox - if everything is meaningless, even the claim that everything is meaningless becomes, itself, meaningless. This is an impossible position to hold, and is self refuting.
So the only other position we can hold is that there are metaphysical concepts, and that they do hold ontological status (they exist) and relate to our universe. To suggest that consciousness, which is as invisible and untouchable as logic, yet has a similar effect on the physical world, isn't one among these metaphysical concepts is absurd.
> In that case sorry for the accusation.
No worries.
> With this you haven't given me epistemic justification, you're just telling a story. How do you know that the past happened at all on your criteria of what constitutes reasonable evidence? It isn't material. You can't touch the past, you can't pick the past up and move it. You can't actually observe it at all. If the only evidences we are allowed to use are physical evidences, it's impossible to know that the past wasn't just an illusion. The point is that in your criteria for what constitutes reasonable evidence, knowledge of anything becomes impossible - all things could simply be illusory.
While that's great for stoned conversations at 3am, it's not very useful.
If I'm going to come to any reasoned conclusion about the world at all, I have to make certain working assumptions, most fundamentally that my perceptions, memories, and my powers of reason are all more or less generally reliable (e.g., I'm currently in my kitchen, and not on top of Mount Kilimanjaro; I was born and brought up in 20th-century Britain, not 14th-century Vietnam; if X implies Y and Y implies Z, then X does in fact transitively imply Z). Obviously, these are all subject to the proviso that I may be (and often will be) mistaken in any specific instance.
If I don't make such assumptions -- if I just conclude that I can never know anything about the world, not even provisionally -- then what's the point in doing anything? I may as well just sit here and rot. After all, my life (and my growing hunger and thirst pains) are all just illusions, for all I know.
Finally, if you're going to insist that something as basic as the existence of change needs to be demonstrated with "epistemic certitude" for any debate, then such debate is going to be needlessly prolonged and tiresome -- and arguably in bad faith, as the very existence of a debate is predicated on the existence of change.