I have absolutely no idea why you are being so weird about this since obviously if the spring does not exist then it cannot be drunk from. However, what you are working bizarrely hard to go out of your way to miss is that, regardless of whether the spring itself exists in objective reality, the experience of seeing it has objective existence.
Phrased in a different way: if you see something that looks like a spring in the desert, then that might not mean that you will be able to drink from it, but you can be certain that, in that moment, you are seeing something that looks like a spring in the desert.
Edit: Actually, this is a teachable moment to illustrate my point: I highly suspect that you experiencing a feeling of being clever after deploying these non sequiturs is something that objectively exists, but that does not mean that you are objectively being clever.
Phrased in a different way: if you see something that looks like a spring unicorn in the desert, then that might not mean that you will be able to drink from pet it, but you can be certain that, in that moment, you are seeing something that looks like a spring unicorn in the desert.
I know you think I am trying to be clever, but I don’t need to be clever to see through such simple nonsense which you are unwilling to defend.
You can answer the question or you can stop wasting my time. Tanks. :)
You can answer the question or you can stop wasting my time. Tanks. :)
Ah, so I am the one responsible for you “wasting [your] time”? That is an interesting transferal of agency on your part, but given that you are clearly waiting with baited breath for my response, here it is:
Yes, if you see a unicorn in the desert, then you might reasonably conclude that this is only because you just ate a particular cactus, given that unicorns aren’t objectively real, but that doesn’t make your experience of seeing it less objectively real. But seriously, are you next going to make me defend the objective existence of the book The Last Unicorn, given that unicorns aren’t real? (To save us from another back-and-forth: yes, the book does exist, so please don’t actually ask me this!)
Here, let me try a thought experiment that actually leads the discussion in a useful direction. Suppose you watched someone eat this very same cactus, after which they said, “Oh, whoa, there is a unicorn over there!” You might not consider it to be an objective fact that there actually is a unicorn over there, but I suspect that you probably would consider to be an objective fact that they are currently having the experience of seeing one. (And if the possibility that they could be lying is a problem for you, assume that the cactus was infused with truth serum.)
In fact, it is not hard to imagine a future where we have sufficiently advance neuroscience that we can detect what is in a person’s consciousness by monitoring how their neurons are firing and looking for particular patterns. In that case, you would not even have to rely on a self-report to observe the objective existence of the image of a unicorn popping into someone’s vision after they ate that cactus. Heck, you could use this device on your own brain and observe a device whose objective existence you believe in produce objectively real reports about what you are experiencing.
So experiences have objective existence, even if they do not refer to anything that objectively exists. (And, just to be clear, I am not arguing in favor of anything magical like a “soul”; I think that consciousness in the brain is just an approach that it uses to aggregate and share information amongst several subcomponents.)
And this leads us to the fundamental point that you keep willfully missing: your experience of the world might be lying to you in any number of ways, but by definition what it cannot be lying to you about is the fact that you are having an experience of the world, because if you were not having such an experience then you would not be able to make such an observation. Even if it were entirely a fiction created by your brain, it is nonetheless a fiction that exists.
If you see a mirage of a spring in the desert can you quench your thirst?
The fact that there is word for this experience demonstrates that the experience itself objectively exists, which only serves to prove my point.
Answer the question.
I have absolutely no idea why you are being so weird about this since obviously if the spring does not exist then it cannot be drunk from. However, what you are working bizarrely hard to go out of your way to miss is that, regardless of whether the spring itself exists in objective reality, the experience of seeing it has objective existence.
Phrased in a different way: if you see something that looks like a spring in the desert, then that might not mean that you will be able to drink from it, but you can be certain that, in that moment, you are seeing something that looks like a spring in the desert.
Do Unicorns exist?
Does asking inane questions make you feel clever?
I think you need to work on your argument.
Edit: Actually, this is a teachable moment to illustrate my point: I highly suspect that you experiencing a feeling of being clever after deploying these non sequiturs is something that objectively exists, but that does not mean that you are objectively being clever.
I know you think I am trying to be clever, but I don’t need to be clever to see through such simple nonsense which you are unwilling to defend.
You can answer the question or you can stop wasting my time. Tanks. :)
Ah, so I am the one responsible for you “wasting [your] time”? That is an interesting transferal of agency on your part, but given that you are clearly waiting with baited breath for my response, here it is:
Yes, if you see a unicorn in the desert, then you might reasonably conclude that this is only because you just ate a particular cactus, given that unicorns aren’t objectively real, but that doesn’t make your experience of seeing it less objectively real. But seriously, are you next going to make me defend the objective existence of the book The Last Unicorn, given that unicorns aren’t real? (To save us from another back-and-forth: yes, the book does exist, so please don’t actually ask me this!)
Here, let me try a thought experiment that actually leads the discussion in a useful direction. Suppose you watched someone eat this very same cactus, after which they said, “Oh, whoa, there is a unicorn over there!” You might not consider it to be an objective fact that there actually is a unicorn over there, but I suspect that you probably would consider to be an objective fact that they are currently having the experience of seeing one. (And if the possibility that they could be lying is a problem for you, assume that the cactus was infused with truth serum.)
In fact, it is not hard to imagine a future where we have sufficiently advance neuroscience that we can detect what is in a person’s consciousness by monitoring how their neurons are firing and looking for particular patterns. In that case, you would not even have to rely on a self-report to observe the objective existence of the image of a unicorn popping into someone’s vision after they ate that cactus. Heck, you could use this device on your own brain and observe a device whose objective existence you believe in produce objectively real reports about what you are experiencing.
So experiences have objective existence, even if they do not refer to anything that objectively exists. (And, just to be clear, I am not arguing in favor of anything magical like a “soul”; I think that consciousness in the brain is just an approach that it uses to aggregate and share information amongst several subcomponents.)
And this leads us to the fundamental point that you keep willfully missing: your experience of the world might be lying to you in any number of ways, but by definition what it cannot be lying to you about is the fact that you are having an experience of the world, because if you were not having such an experience then you would not be able to make such an observation. Even if it were entirely a fiction created by your brain, it is nonetheless a fiction that exists.