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Physicalism doesn't actually imply realism and vice versa. You're talking about realism--the belief that there are things (whatever their nature) external to oneself. That would be ontological realism, and then epistemological realism is that we can know (either in an acquaintance or at least a propositional way) the things that are external to oneself

It both make a difference and doesn't make a difference at the same time. With respect, I think that is exactly the point: it could be true. That is the only useful lesson (that I am aware of) that such speculations offer. There are some things we simply can't know, and can't be sure of. The world, as we experience it, is uncertain. Much more uncertain than we admit to. Isn't it insane the way to experience a reality is with fives senses to pretty much know a universe actually exist. The five sense are pretty translating to the mind what it thinks reality looks like and then the mind makes logic out of it for your human understanding. Reality is stuck in the mind and since it's in the mind it may not even exist, the mind just thinks it does, which can mean that the people who you come in contact with are stuck in your mind, so the mind can be pretty much be communicating with itself, these are mental problems, seems to me the mind is stuck in a world of illusions that itself has made up for no apparent reason. The very essence of insanity. "Reality is not reality, there may be no reality but certainly this is not it."

you will find that you cannot actually defend a contra-solipsism position. After reading around, there is one basic detail that is entirely unassailable: the simply analytic unavailability. Whatever it is, a couch, the moon, an oceanic tidal wave, if it is going to be accepted as there, outside of consciousness, your are going to have do the very obvious task of explaining how that thing out there puts itself into your brain. The brain in a vat is just an illustration of inaccessibility and you have to allow your thinking to focus on the simplicity of the problem. It has to be acknowledeged that in philosophy, what appears to be the case at first blush is always in error.

@Mason Riggle I agree ?

@LastThursday here is my overall point that I'm trying to make in this thread..... It is as absurd to assert the correctness of solipsism (or brain-in-a-vat, or any other example) as it is to assert its incorrectness. Neither of these assertions can be justified. The facts are that solipsism is possible, and that this possibility cannot be refuted. No more is, or can be, known. An associated understanding is that it is also absurd to assert that apparent reality is Objective Reality. All of these things are unfounded speculations; they cannot be confirmed or denied.

I disagree with the "no self " philosophy. At least partially. There is a self. The only problem is how you define the self .if you define it as unicorn then it doesn't exist. But if you define it as the body-mind phenomenon..then it does exist as that. You can't deny that you exist at the physical level of the body . So back to solipsism..how do we know that our existent self and the content of our perceived world is not a simulation? Ever heard of the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis? the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis might be true, whatever we might think. There are no grounds at all to assert its utter falseness. That's the point, just as there are no grounds to assert its truth. It is unknown, and a great example of something we can't know. The probability of us being brains in vats is not calculable; there is no evidence at all upon which to base our statistical speculations, so there can be no statistical speculations.

Could be. The thing is...It seems to me that we are all born solipsistic, and immediately learn that there is a world ouside the womb. The idea that all the sensory input might be as the result of some mad scienctist who has your brain in a vat is a useful, though utterly flase, thought experiment based on a healthy skepticism. Where this experiement is useful is to teach us that all we see and feel of that world is interpreted and filtered through our existing conception and set of expectations of the world. This is useful to give us caution that the way we perceive the world can be less than perfect. Beyond that to make a fetish out of solipsism is not way to live your life, and you might as well shut yourself in a box and beleive all your imaginings. Pretty soon you'll get hungry and ask mummy from some tea and biscuits.

Is your point that there is no self which is said to be alone? I think we can bypass that and assume that there is in fact a constant consistent agent that is self. Since reality is only subjective to you and no one else i don't believe there i s a need to prove anything to anyone. In the objective reality the people use the scientific method to prove something the we can agree upon. We are all sharing the experience of reality. The objective reality only appears in your subjective point of view, inside of your mind. Even the tools and measurements you use, come from the objective reality, you're using the objective reality to prove an objective reality. This isn't to say that there is no objective reality, its to say the objective reality only exist in the subjective experience.

I think we at least have enough to on to suggest that there's 'something' there in its consistency that we're reading, ie. there is some sort of landscape. it's an additional leap to say that we're seeing the world exactly as it is through our five senses. What we do have is consistency in certain kinds of information. The paradox is that Solipsism cannot be proven to be false or true. To find out what is really outside the mind you'll have to step outside of it to observe, however, the moment you do that you end up back in the mind. At first i was confused by solipsism trying to fully understand it, referring to people who hear about solipsism for the first time. If I were to propose that everything I perceive via my senses might not exist because my senses might be deceiving me, would that be confusing?

@Knowledge Hoarder fair enough ?

@Inliytened1 Yep. Seems simple at heart to me. I have all these conscious experiential states about stuff existing and things happening, but there's no way of knowing if any of it exists independently of those images, sounds, feelings, sensations, memories, etc. Even my own body and brain. You just have to acknowledge that, then you can forget about it and get on with acting as if there's a real world, because if you don't it will bite you in the bum anyway.

Are you sure you are 100% straight? Because imagining that you are a woman might be suspicious.

Good question. It's normal to feel attracted to both girls and boys when you're growing up. Find out about coming out, safer sex, and how to deal with bullying if it happens to you. During puberty, you have lots of emotions and sexual feelings. It's normal for girls to think about girls in a sexual way, and for boys to think about boys in a sexual way. Some people realise they prefer people of the opposite sex, while others feel they prefer people of the same sex. Some people realise they are gay, lesbian or bisexual at an early age, while others may not know until later in life. Some young people may also be confused about their sexual identity. They may be asexual, where you're not interested in sex at all, or transgender, where people believe there is a mismatch between their biological sex and identity as a boy or girl. You do not choose your sexuality, it chooses you. Nobody knows what makes people gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans. Whatever your sexuality, you deserve to be with someone you love.

There is indeed a general tendency of people to sympathize with Islam. But this general tendency is not restricted to the left and liberals. The figures and worldwide statistics show that there is a general and global tendency of people to sympathize with Islam, whether in the West or the East, or whether from the left or the right! From the USA, through Europe and Africa to Japan, people are not only just sympathizing but are massively converting to Islam. However, this is not a new phenomenon but it has always been the case. For example, demographers predict that by 2050-2070, Islam will equal Christianity as the world’s dominant religion in terms of number of adherents to the faith. And from there, it will displace and surpass Christianity and become the world sole dominant religion, if God wills. Some people might consider this as a new phenomenon, but it is truly not. This has been going for centuries, since Islam started to spread from the Arabian Peninsula. For example, today the largest Muslim population in the world is in the area of Indonesia and Malaysia, which together amounts to roughly 250 million Muslim living in those countries. So, nearly a quarter billion Muslims look more like Bruce Lee than Omar Shariff! One may be asking: How is that possible? The complete and concise answer is: God, the Almighty does what He intends. The long answer would require a historical perspective. At around the 12th century CE, Hinduism and Buddhism were the dominant religion in Indonesia and Malaysia. Near that time some few Arab Muslim sailors, would start to commerce with the people there. These early Indonesians and Malaysians would be so impressed by the impeccable manners and personal ethics of these sailors that they started to inquire with them: why they were like that!! The sailors would then inform them that, their honesty and good ethical manners were made compulsory on them by God, the Almighty in the Holy Quran. As a result, many of these early Indonesians and Malaysians started to convert to Islam, and they would then bring the religion to their families. From a handful of Muslim sailors’ impeccable manners, today we have the largest Muslim community in the world!

My view; the problem is from the Quran [partly] which has loads of evil elements. The Quran is the "constitutional" doctrine of Islam supposedly directly from Allah while the Ahadiths [by humans - subject to Chinese Whisper] are secondary to the constitution. There it is goes again, terror, terror here, there and everywhere, now in London, then Manchester, way back to 1,400 years ago when Islam was initiated by one or a group of psychopath.

@itachi uchiha The fact is the Quran has various strategies to strive to dominate the world and non-Muslims. One of these strategies is to continually cast terrors on the non-Muslims to keep them in check till they [Islam] execute their offensive strategies to take total control. Such objectives may look like wishful thinking but it is a fact the Islamists [many, not all] are striving very hard and zealously as a divine duty to carry out what Allah wants them to do. Here is one verse [amongst many] in the Quran that command Muslims to case terrors into the heart of disbelievers, i.e. non-Muslims. 3:151. We [Allah] shall cast terror [R3B: l-ruʿ'ba] into the hearts of those [infidels] who disbelieve because they [infidels] ascribe unto Allah partners [ShRK: ashrakū idols and deities], for which no warrant hath been revealed. Their [infidels] habitation is the Fire, and hapless the abode of the wrong doers [l-ẓālimīna] [infidels]. Muslims are exhorted to carry out terror activities at least twice a year to terrorize to keep them in check to maintain Islam's dominance and superiority. The critical point here these evil intentions in the Quran are leveraged on an existential crisis and immutable holy texts within the threat of Hell if believers do not comply with whatever is commanded in the holy texts. This is why such religious-based ideology is more dangerous than Nazism, fascism and other ideologies which can be suppressed. The above strategies is working very well judging from how so many non-Muslims are affected by the real terrors that are committed around the world at present. The effect is subliminal and many non-Muslims [especially the regressive left] are mentally subdued and cowered to be cowards into a state of apathy. [take to 'flight' instead of 'fight'] This mental torture is so bad on their part that they do whatever it takes to silent critiques of the ideology Islam [not Muslims] so as not to aggravate those SOME Muslims to strike more terror. Meanwhile other groups of Muslims are portraying themselves as victims by pulling the emotions of the non-Muslims. Unfortunately many [especially the regressive left] are taking this bait.

Can you give a summary to what he is saying?

@itachi uchiha I am sure you think you have intellectual integrity – but I do not see it - actually quite the opposite. I brought up many issues with Islam today in our world – these issues are not really theoretical – rather they are actual problems. Specifically is Muhammad a philanderer – misogynist – pedophile and a genocidal murderer? Is he an ideal man as Daviddunn professed? Are women in Islam generally oppressed and used as breeding machines? Is Islam taking over the world by numbers? Is Islam a real political movement as part of its theology?

@itachi uchihaI have mentioned, all evils from all sources must be addressed. This OP is specifically about Islam thus we should focus solely on Islam and do not bring other topics to conflate and confuse the topic. I have mentioned many times, my thesis do not blame Muslims [human beings] as the primary cause of all Islamic-related evils and violence. Basically most humans who are evil prone are unfortunately [nature] born that way, they did not ask to be evil prone. The real culprit and primary cause of all Islamic-related evils and violence is from the ideology of Islam [partly] which trigger the evil gears in those who are evil prone. Re OP, the regressive left must not be sympathetic to Islam but understand Islam [partially] has malignant and evil elements that are a threat to themselves and humanity. I think the bottle neck in hindering our ability to move forward in this discussion is your lack of knowledge of the Quran and Islam thoroughly and objectively. I suggest you suspend judgment on all matters related to Islam till you have understood Islam thoroughly.

@Preety_India You must clear your ignorance first on what Islam really is by researching and understanding the Quran thoroughly before you can insist your views on Islam are credible. I am not speculating, I have researched sufficiently to understand that Islam [partially] is inherently evil which is inspiring some Muslims who are evil prone to commit terrible evils and violence as it has happened over 1,400 years ago till the present.

Contrary to the pro gay marriage argument that some different-sex couples cannot have children or don’t want them, even in those cases there is still the potential to produce children. Seemingly infertile heterosexual couples sometimes produce children, and medical advances may allow others to procreate in the future. Heterosexual couples who do not wish to have children are still biologically capable of having them, and may change their minds.

To deny people the option to marry would be discriminatory and would create a second class of citizens. Same-sex couples should have access to the same benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples

@Reciprocality So my point is when it is convient you say they cannot intepret the text any way they wish you also say the opposite. Of course to can refute this by using semantics and thus giving an example of the duplicites of language in general. In the name of Christ people Crusaded to the Middle East raped, murdered, and even ate people. Just because Chiristians don't do so today does not mean their religion is more "moral". And in the Quran it says, quite clearly (if I "interpret"/"twist" the words) that being the aggressor is against the beliefs of Muslims. Right now in the world there is a situation where violence is being used and people are using hatred to use an ideology to grind their personal axes.

Like heterosexuals, many lesbian, gay and bisexual people want to form stable, long-lasting relationships and many of them do. In fact, researchers have found that the majority of lesbian, and gay, adults are in committed relationships and many couples have been together 10 or more years. Being denied the right to marry reinforces the stigma associated with a minority sexual identity. living in a state where same-sex marriage is outlawed can lead to chronic social stress and mental health problems. Psychologists are particularly concerned that such stigma may undermine the healthy development of adolescents and young adults.

My point was quite simple. If you insist that Muslims do not twist the words of the Quran, yet also admit that there are different interpretations by Muslims, then some may view the words as being "twisted" and some not. The Muslims discussing headscarfs on TV were using direct quotes from the Quran and openly disagreeing with translations/interpretations. I know enough about language to know it is not static, although the written word has remained the same for a logn period of time in the Islamic world, actual spoken language everywhere does change. Langauge is alive and I have seen this in biblical texts too. My fav example is "apolocalypse", because the true meaning is not what most people expect it to be. How open child rape in the Catholic church in the west and across the globe? How about nuns teaching Africans they won't catch HIV if they believe in god and are pure of heart? The IRA bombings targetted innocent citizens and blasts were set up to have people run from one explosion into another ... and they didn't scream in the name of Jesus or Allah, yet they still did it because the hatred was there and they felt justified in some way. If we look at all the instances of "evil" we see a pattern of human psychology that propogates these things. Islam as much as Christianity could be argued to both fan or douse the flames. Some people will see it more one eay than the other, but none can seriously conclude and say one is worst than the other where some instances are peaceful and others violent.