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RobbBB comments on Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project - Less Wrong
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Cucumbers are neither experiences nor models. Yet I'm pretty sure reality includes at least one cucumber.
Cucumbers are both experiences and models, actually. You experience its sight, texture and taste, you model this as a green vegetable with certain properties which predict and constrain your similar future experiences.
Numbers, by comparison, are pure models. That's why people are often confused about whether they "exist" or not.
Are experiences themselves models? If not, are you endorsing the view that qualia are fundamental?
Experiences are, of course, themselves a multi-layer combination of models and inputs, and at some point you have to stop, but qualia seem to be at too high a level, given that they appear to be reducible to physiology in most brain models.
How do you know models exist, and aren't just experiences of a certain sort?
How do you know that unexperienced, unmodeled cucumbers don't exist? How do you know there was no physical universe prior to the existence of experiencers and modelers?
I've played with the idea that there is nothing but experience (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rather convincing). However, it then becomes surprising that my experience generally behaves as though I'm living in a stable universe with such things as previously unexperienced cucumbers showing up at plausible times.
I think there are three broadly principled and internally consistent epistemological stances: Radical skepticism, solipsism, and realism. Radical skepticism is principled because it simply demands extremely high standards before it will assent to any proposition; solipsism is principled because it combines skepticism with the Cartesian insight that I can be certain of my own experiences; and realism is principled because it tries to argue to the best explanation for phenomena in general, appealing to unexperienced posits that could plausibly generate the data at hand.
I do not tend to think so highly of idealistic and phenomenalistic views that fall somewhere in between solipsism and realism; these I think are not as pristine and principled as the above three views, and their uneven application of skepticism (e.g., doubting that mind-independent cucumbers exist but refusing to doubt that Platonic numbers or Other Minds exist) weakens their case considerably.
Radical stances are often more "consistent and principled" in the sense they're easier to argue for, i.e., the arguments supporting them are shorter. That doesn't mean their correct.
This question is meaningless in the framework I have described (Experience + models = reality). If you provide an argument why this framework is not suitable, i.e., it fails to be useful in a certain situation, feel free to give an example.
If commitment to your view renders meaningless any discussion of whether your view is correct, then that counts against your view. We need to evaluate the truth of "Experience + models = reality" itself, if you think the statement in question is true. (And if it isn't true, then what is it?)
Your language just sounds like an impoverished version of my language. I can talk about models of cucumbers, and experiences of cucumbers; but I can also speak of cucumbers themselves, which are the spatiotemporally extended referent of 'cucumber,' the object modeled by cucumber models, and the object represented by my experiential cucumbers. Experiences occur in brains; models are in brains, or in an abstract Platonic realm; but cucumbers are not, as a rule, in brains. They're in gardens, refrigerators, grocery stores, etc.; and gardens and refrigerators and grocery stores are certainly not in brains either, since they are too big to fit in a brain.
Another way to motivate my concern: It is possible that we're all mistaken about the existence of cucumbers; perhaps we've all been brainwashed to think they exist, for instance. But to say that we're mistaken about the existence of cucumbers is not, in itself, to say that we're mistaken about the existence of any particular experience or model; rather, it's to say that we're mistaken about the existence of a certain physical object, a thing in the world outside our skulls. Your view either does not allow us to be mistaken about cucumbers, or gives a completely implausible analysis of what 'being mistaken about cucumbers' means in ordinary language.
There may be a cerrtain element of cross purposes here. I'm pretty sure Carnap was only seeking to reduce sentences to epistemic components, not reduce reality to ontological componennts. I'm not sure what Shminux is saying.