I am not a "data or it didn't happen" person. I am sure I have magical beliefs that don't play out in reality.

I'm not convinced by the argument that this falls apart for your categories. Logic and reasoning still exists. Philosophy can be argued and principals agreed upon. Historical things leave traces. And I am appalled by blind faith.

At some point, our society and ways of doing things boils down to trust or faith. I trust that people thinking about things, trying to validate those things, and who employ a way to change their minds will move towards "more correct" understandings. People knew not to hang around people with the plague before germ theory.

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TeMPOraL 3 days ago | parent [-]

I used to look at things this way too, but I now see this picture as incomplete, missing a crucial detail. There exist another dimension to our reality, beyond the inanimate, objective one we normally study through physics and life sciences. That dimension is the social dimension. It has its own rules, and for everyone at almost all times, it's more directly relevant to survival and happiness than actual physics.

An example I also posted in another comment: you can be objectively right about the color of the sky, but that won't save you from becoming dinner to wild animals after your people cast you out for believing differently.

We've evolved to navigate this social dimension as much as physical one, because we're social creatures and other people have forever been a part of our environment. Recognizing that, and recognizing that this social reality is more relevant than physical one, is IMO the key to understanding why people behave they do - why they believe obvious bullshit, and refuse to align their beliefs with the truth of physical reality, despite ample and indisputable evidence. It's the key to understand why seemingly smart people say and believe dumb things, especially after they start a career in sales or politics. It's all because, for almost everyone and in almost every case, being seen as in good standing in one's social circles is much more directly relevant to everyday experience and long and happy life, than getting some facts right.

Having that understanding, it becomes more apparent than just about the only way to convince people to change their mind, is to make things relevant to them personally in either dimension, and at a larger scale, to bring those two dimension more in alignment.

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strogonoff 3 days ago | parent [-]

In a world where there is no way of knowing whether my blue is the same as your blue, can there be a way to be objectively right about the colour of the sky?

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balamatom 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. The color is exactly as you see it.

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strogonoff 2 days ago | parent [-]

Irrelevant. You cannot communicate what you actually see, you only communicate labels you assign to incommunicable, inaccessible between humans feelings.

Ergo, there is no “objectively right” about the colour of the sky (or anything). There is only “using the same labels” or “using different labels” compared to everybody.

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balamatom 2 days ago | parent [-]

Sounds about right, until the reality check. How often do you raise the problem of the incommunicability of qualia outside hacker news? With what purpose? How often does that conversation accomplish its purpose?

You know, I've always figured, if our culture was based on an epistemic fundament that acknowledged and properly accounted for the fundamental incommunicability of percepts, it probably would've been a better world. (One where it's much easier for everyone to communicate accurately and effectively; as people would not expect of themselves and of each other to be "objective", just verbalize their current understandings as best as they could, without stressing too much over how understanding can only ever be subjective and incomplete.)

Some of us do envision such a world, but instead find ourselves living in a planetary culture based on the very rejection of the exact distinction that you're trying to point out. Turns out Cartesian dualism offers a lot of leeway along the "is-ought" axis, huh. (Qui bono, et sapienti sat.)

Enough to make the generally accepted standard for "objectively right" to be "the house is always right". (Supposedly, a supermajority of objects does not a subject make - or vice versa. And yet post-Enlightenment history is rife with efforts to scientifically desubjectify subjects in the service of some objectively rational philosopher king.)

And yet it seems to work well enough for most prosocials, you don't see them complaining, now do they? (What's a little mass neurosis between civilized folk?) I think it's safe to say that a member of the general public is cognizant of the labels they've been accultured to, at least to the same extent as they're aware of the physical reality which surrounds them. (If not vastly more so, physical reality being the more predictable of the two.)

This would mean that they have not actually experienced the quale of "incommunicable, inaccessible between humans [qualia]" and therefore the distinction you're trying to point out here is not in fact something they are able to think about; only perhaps to construct sentences about it by example, much like a LLM or a(n M)BA does.

As I'm sure you already know your own subjective version of most of the above, but I'm guessing you maybe view it more like a problematic to be struggled with, rather than a natural paradox and absurdity deserving of a more playful approach, I'd totally leave the celestial color coordination (along with all the worrying about whether people get it) to you - you, personally, and certainly none of the other folks. Not in the least because agreeing with people on how colors are called does not seem to be inherently conducive to being able to fly.

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strogonoff 19 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t really understand the point you’re trying to make.

> Sounds about right, until the reality check. How often do you raise the problem of the incommunicability of qualia outside hacker news?

This is HN, and I was replying to a specific thought experiment posted in a comment:

> you can be objectively right about the color of the sky, but that won't save you from becoming dinner to wild animals after your people cast you out for believing differently.

That’s it.

You trying to bring into this people not complaining about it is, again, irrelevant. Most people, unless they are into philosophy, don’t tend complain about the inability to read someone else’s mind or feel what someone else’s feel. People also don’t tend to complain about the inevitability of death, the inability to go back in time, and in fact pretty much any fact of life that they cannot change. Yet, indeed, people absolutely do bring these up on regular basis in relevant philosophy-adjacent discussions and thought experiments, such as when correcting a claim that verbal labels assigned to feelings can be “objectively correct”.

	▲	balamatom 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>People also don’t tend to complain about the inevitability of death, the inability to go back in time, and in fact pretty much any fact of life that they cannot change. News to me. The rest is irrelevant.

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igobivm 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

your perception of blue might be different than mine, but as a society we have agreed that specific wavelengths of light are blue. those wavelengths are absolutely measurable.

	▲	strogonoff 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed, so if that particular society has apparently agreed to call “blue” a different wavelength then you are the one objectively in the wrong.