Deme

Yeah that too. Could work for the niche applications mentioned, like low power satellites…

The waste heat generated by a person is one of the main concerns with designing space suits. If the tech can be scaled to accommodate that, it could change things. Unfortunately it’s less useful down here.

Ok so another definition: Metaphysics (at least as I use the word) is simply the branch of philosophy which deals with questions about the underlying structure of the world and nature of reality. The edges are a bit fuzzy and there is at times overlap with other branches like epistemology or philosophy of mind. Materialism is a metaphysical framework just as idealism is.

1+1=2 is in the realm of logic.

Yet it demonstrates that certainty does exists, at least in the realm of rational proofs. It’s something we can know without using our sensory organs, just thought alone. The Cogito argument is significant in that it’s the only such proof that can be made about the universe, and thus the only thing we can say with certainty about the universe.

Nice chat. It’s getting late and I should go to sleep. But before I go, do you have any recommendations to read up on the basics of dialectical materialism? It’s a subject I’ve been meaning to delve into for a while.

You seem to mistake epistemology and metaphysics. The Cogito argument is an epistemological claim about what can be known to be true. I do not believe that I am a Boltzmann brain or that we would be in the matrix. I only brought these ideas up as alternatives which can not be debunked with absolute certainty in the epistemological sense of the word. In case you’re unfamiliar, that’s the branch of philosophy which deals with the nature of knowledge and information. I already told you what I believe in terms of metaphysics: Materialism all the way.

We’re in !philosophy@lemmy.ml, entertaining ideas is what philosophy is all about. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it” and so on…

And about on the subject of certainty: Are you not certain that 1+1=2?

I’m sorry but did you even read my comment?

Edit: Or the one before it. I already said that I believe in the existence of an objective and purely material world.

The Cogito argument by itself doesn’t take sides on what’s real. It only talks about what can be known with certainty to be true. It’s an epistemological claim, not a metaphysical one! Well, apart from stating the obvious that one does indeed exist.

Thinking doesn’t make me exist. I am perfectly capable of existing without thinking. But the fact that I can ponder the question “what is real?” means that something (me) must be real to present the question. It’s a rational proof about reality, the only one that can be made. Everything else relies on empiricism.

Descartes himself was a dualist. He believed in the material and objective reality, just with some souls and stuff sprinkled in, ghosts in the machine and so on. (This is why the original, now out of fashion version of the argument also claimed to prove at least a god"

I never said that I was an idealist. I believe an objective and purely physical world exists. Everything points in this direction and Occam’s razor is harsh on the alternatives. But I do not claim to know this for certain. That’s all that I have been saying here.

Ok a counterexample then: How do you know that the scientific method isn’t iterating towards the rules that govern the simulation we might technically be in, instead of actual reality? How do you know that you aren’t actually a Boltzmann brain blinking into existence for a brief instant with the memories of your life thus far and the experience of this moment here? You do not, because you can not know this. That’s the whole point of the Cogito argument. All you can actually know for certain is that you exist. We make assumptions about the world around us because they seem to work fine, and without them we wouldn’t be where we are now, but absolute certainty is reserved for that one statement only: I think, therefore I am.

And one more thing about iteration: Any iterative process only seeks towards some local maximum, which may or may not be the global maximum. This depends entirely on the starting parameters. If you think that you’ll reach the highest mountain of enlightenment by just constantly heading uphill, you may instead end up at the top of some smaller hill next to it.

I didn’t say that there is no objective reality. I only said that we can’t be certain of it. That’s just an uncertainty that one must live with.

We like to think so, but in the end I can’t be certain of anything but my own existence. And you of yours.