The Brass Goggles Occult Society...The Esoteric Order of the Brazen Dawn...

[Deimos]

...
So: I believe nothing. I suspect a great many things; I suspect that some of my suspicions might even turn out to be true, in some sense; or at least, to point towards some kind of truth; but I don't believe in any of them.
.....

Athanor, TOAOTAGO 33^o

But you believe  that your thoughts exist, that your thoughts (and opinions) are real, do you not?
They are real enough that  you can express them in the written word, are they not?
And since you are expressing them, i.e., writing them down and posting them in this thread, does that not make you real, and not just "suspected" real?
After all, a figment cannot do that.  

And I am reading them and commenting on them; and I am not part of your conditional, "suspected" existence, because other people respond to my posts, so does that not make all of that "suspected" existence objectively real, concrete?  

Just askin', juneau....  

Well, it's all a matter of subjective probabilities, I guess. I seem to be real, as far as I can tell, so I suspect that I give myself a high subjective probability of being real; probably approaching 100%. You're replying to my posting, Deimos, and making points that seem quite intelligent, so I suspect that the probability - for me - of your existence is also quite high, but not quite as high as my subjective probability of my own existence. I suspect that you're not one of the moons of Mars . . . but, obviously, I can't be 100% sure of that . . . .

I suspect that you might see these things differently, and that's perfectly fine. Or am I getting just altogether to convoluted???

It's "perfectly fine" until I have to decide if I can rely on you for .....well, for anything.
I can't rely on someone who suspects all of reality to be up for debate.
If I ask you to give me a ride because my car is on the fritz, and you say, yes, I'll be by at 8AM to give you a ride to work, how do I know that at 7:30 you may decide that
1) I don't exist, or
2) I exist but what I said is suspect (that my car is not working) because you believe that I am seeing a situation that isn't real.  

I mean, I can't even take you up on an invitation to your home to have a dinner or a drink, because I don't know how you view the bottle that says "drain cleaner" vs the bottle that says Scotch, or the box that says "rat poison" vs the box that says "sugar."

It's not only you about whom I would have reservations in my dealings; it's anyone who espoused your philosophy.

Let's say the city/ county hired an "inspector of bridges" (here in the US it would be someone with a Degree in Mechanical Engineering) who decided to embrace your philosophy.
So he goes out to inspect bridges and when he sees a weakened weld or a severly rusted bolt he decides that what he is seeing might not be the real situation and so doesn't note it.
He thinks " Well I can't be certain of what I am seeing."

And if you (or he) argues that you wouldn't do that where safety or other people's lives are concerned, it still doesn't change anything.
You have already put me on notice that all of reality is subjective to you, so I have to conclude that even your own convictions don't hold sway with you because at any time they are suspect.
You stand entirely on shifting sands.
(Good heavens!...If my Doctor thought the same way I'd have to find another doctor!)
 

[J. Wilhelm]

Deimos just described a *fuzzy* reality. It's a good thing that Planck's Constant is such a small number and we are nowhere close to being the size of an atom. Were we much smaller, the scenario described would be quite plausible. That's the other limit of this universe, in the scale of the very small causality loses presence in the universe.

[Deimos]

Deimos just described a *fuzzy* reality. It's a good thing that Planck's Constant is such a small number and we are nowhere close to being the size of an atom. Were we much smaller, the scenario described would be quite plausible. That's the other limit of this universe, in the scale of the very small causality loses presence in the universe.

Please elucidate. In detail. (Really.)

[J. Wilhelm]

Deimos just described a *fuzzy* reality. It's a good thing that Planck's Constant is such a small number and we are nowhere close to being the size of an atom. Were we much smaller, the scenario described would be quite plausible. That's the other limit of this universe, in the scale of the very small causality loses presence in the universe.

Please elucidate. In detail. (Really.)

Oohh! That's a physics class.  I can do, but just let me collect my thoughts, I'm having a hard time with my mother's affairs at the moment. This Thursday I'll be working all day long in a 10 hour shift.

[Deimos]

Deimos just described a *fuzzy* reality. It's a good thing that Planck's Constant is such a small number and we are nowhere close to being the size of an atom. Were we much smaller, the scenario described would be quite plausible. That's the other limit of this universe, in the scale of the very small causality loses presence in the universe.

Please elucidate. In detail. (Really.)

Oohh! That's a physics class.  I can do, but just let me collect my thoughts, I'm having a hard time with my mother's affairs at the moment. This Thursday I'll be working all day long in a 10 hour shift.

No hurry...take your time.

[J. Wilhelm]

Deimos just described a *fuzzy* reality. It's a good thing that Planck's Constant is such a small number and we are nowhere close to being the size of an atom. Were we much smaller, the scenario described would be quite plausible. That's the other limit of this universe, in the scale of the very small causality loses presence in the universe.

Please elucidate. In detail. (Really.)

Oohh! That's a physics class.  I can do, but just let me collect my thoughts, I'm having a hard time with my mother's affairs at the moment. This Thursday I'll be working all day long in a 10 hour shift.

No hurry...take your time.

It's basically Intro to Quantum Mechanics - Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and wave functions of macroscopic objects assuming that Planck's Constant was different. It's interesting.

[Athanor]

Deimos, you are completely missing my point. I do not suspect all of reality to be up for debate. That is not what probability means.

When I talk about subjective probabilities, I mean something like . . . well, if I had been hired as a bridge inspector and found a bad weld, I would rate it as a high probability that this would be dangerous to the structural integrity of the bridge, so I would get it fixed. If I was your doctor and found an anomaly in your lung X-ray, I would say that it indicates a high probability that you have lung cancer, so you can be sure I would order a biopsy. I perhaps would not be 100% certain - maybe the anomaly was a benign cyst - but perhaps a 75% probability of cancer, so . . . .

Surely this should have been obvious, but I guess not.

[Deimos]

Deimos, you are completely missing my point. I do not suspect all of reality to be up for debate. That is not what probability means.

When I talk about subjective probabilities, I mean something like . . . well, if I had been hired as a bridge inspector and found a bad weld, I would rate it as a high probability that this would be dangerous to the structural integrity of the bridge, so I would get it fixed. If I was your doctor and found an anomaly in your lung X-ray, I would say that it indicates a high probability that you have lung cancer, so you can be sure I would order a biopsy. I perhaps would not be 100% certain - maybe the anomaly was a benign cyst - but perhaps a 75% probability of cancer, so . . . .

Surely this should have been obvious, but I guess not.

Oh....OK. My mistake; sorry for being obtuse.