What are the thoughts of Less Wrong on property dualism?

casebash

What are the thoughts of Less Wrong on property dualism? — LessWrong

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[anonymous]12y-30

If you're not going to trust empirical evidence, what on Earth are you going to trust?

Critical rationalism.

How is dismissing empirical evidence the definition of rationalism?

"Rationalists have such a high confidence in reason that proof and physical evidence are unnecessary to ascertain truth – in other words, "there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience".[4] Because of this belief, empiricism is one of rationalism's greatest rivals."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism

If you believe that you get truth from the senses, you are missing the part where the mind processes that sense experience in a conceptual framework.

The biases in the conceptual framework need to be analyzed through rational processes, as they are already apparent in the observations we make, and thus observation alone will not reveal them.

JoshuaZ12y20

Critical rationalism.

Do you mean critical rationalism in the sense of Popper? I find this strange given your other comments since Popper's notion of critical rationalism does allow one to use empirical data to falsify hypotheses.

(This is aside from the fact that critical rationalism is an utterly unsatisfactory approach to epistemology.)

3gjm12y

I'm sure it's been explained to you several times that the meaning of "rationalism" prevalent on LW is not the technical philosophical meaning that makes it opposite to "empiricism". There is nothing wrong with using "rationalist" in this way rather than with the technical philosophical meaning; e.g., the second definition in the OED (the first being a theological one) is "The doctrine or belief that reason should be the only guiding principle in life, obviating the need for reliance on, or adherence to, any form of religious belief" which isn't quite the LW usage but is a clear ancestor of it. I have the impression from your comments about "rationalism" here that either (1) you think that no one uses the term "rationalist" with any meaning other than the technical philosophical one, or (2) you think that no one should and are interpreting every use of the word that way even though you know that's not how it's really being used, presumably to make a point. If #1, you are simply wrong. If #2, you are being pointlessly rude. [...] Do you expect us to disagree? If so, why?

3polymathwannabe12y

I'm not advocating naive realism, and I don't think anyone at LW does. The map-territory metaphor, much beloved at LW, is a comprehensive rejection of naive realism. However, I see "the part where the mind processes that sense experience" as being exactly the part where you "get truth."

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