Philosophy Test 2 questions

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Philosophy Test 2 questions Week 6 Class 1 1. In the sense in which Pritchard uses the expression, what does it mean to reason inductively? “arriving at a general conclusion about either all members of a group (or all events including future events) based on a limited sample size. (Sometimes this is referred to as ‘enumerative induction.’) 2. Why does it seems as though induction is a source of knowledge? Give examples. So the basic idea here is that we observe a finite number of things, but then make a leap and form a universal belief – a belief about all of the members of a kind. Or, we may look only at a finite number of past events and then form a belief about future events. In both of these cases, we are claiming to have knowledge of things that we have not observed (either every single member of a kind, or future events) based on a limited number of things that we have observed. 1) (‘some to all’) Every observed emu has been flightless (i.e., every emu in our sample size has been flightless). Therefore, all Emus are flightless. (It would seem that we know that proposition to be true, even though our evidence is limited and we have not actually observed every single Emu.) 2) (‘past to future’) Every time I’ve let go of this marker, it has fallen to the ground. Thus, in the future, when I let go of this marker, it will fall to the ground. (It would seem that we know that proposition to be true, even though we haven’t actually observed that marker yet). 3. Why does Hume think that induction gives no justification whatsoever for our beliefs (and thus cannot be a source of knowledge)? The problem is that there is a powerful philosophical argument that shows that induction cannot possibly be a source of knowledge because beliefs that are justified with induction are not justified at all. Not even a little. Premise 1: My marker always fell to the ground in the past. Conclusion: Thus, when I let go of this marker in the future, it will fall to the ground. But this is incomplete it needs a second premise; P2 the future will resemble the past Big problem: P2 and C are identical. The argument is circular. It’s question begging. And for that reason it fails.

P1 In the past, on any given day, what we, on that day, called ‘the past’ ended up resembling what we, on that day, called ‘the future’ P2 The future will resemble the past. C Thus, the future will resemble the past. 4. What is Popper’s response to the problem of induction? How does the notion of ‘falsification’ play a role in Popper’s story? What’s wrong with Popper’s respond to the problem of induction? True, induction doesn’t produce knowledge, but not to worry – we don't make inductive inferences all that much anyway. Science, for example, does not advance by induction but rather by falsification. And the knowledge that things are false (which was not, as it happens, arrived at through induction) is real genuine knowledge. So let’s at least be happy that we have that. All is not lost. Problem? Popper essentially admits that we cannot arrive at knowledge through induction. So that’s not much of a solution, is it? All is not lost, true, but we’ve still lost a lot. 5. What is Reichenbach’s response to the problem of induction? What’s wrong with it? Hume is right, there is no justification for induction, but it is still rational to believe the things that we arrive at through induction. Are we justified in believing that this marker will fall? Nope. Is it rational to believe so anyway? Yep. We ought to believe that the marker will fall even though there is no actual evidence for the conclusion that it will fall. What makes it rational to believe in induction? Reichenbach answers if we don’t use induction, we won’t end up with any true beliefs at all (or very few in any case) but induction will give us at least some true beliefs – quite a few, in fact. Problem? Yes it’s true that it’s rational to have some beliefs as opposed to no beliefs. But that’s not really the issue. The issue is why it’s rational to form beliefs according to induction instead of forming your beliefs according to some other method. Reichebach’s claim is that induction is more likely to give you true beliefs than other methods of belief-formation, then presumably, he would have to give an inductive justification for that, and point out that induction has always worked in the past. 7. How is Reichenbach’s solution (at least on the surface) similar to Pascal’s wager? How is it different from Pascal’s Wager?

This might sound like Pascal’s wager (the claim that you ought to believe in God, not because there’s evidence, but rather because if you don’t believe in God, and you’re wrong, you’ll end up in hell) , but there is a key difference. Reichenbach is actually trying to get you to have a true belief, whereas Pascal is just trying to make sure you don’t end up in hell. 8. What is the singularity? A future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. 9. When will the singularity happen? 2045. 1O. Why will the singularity happen so soon? Why so soon? The Law of Accelerating Returns (exponential growth). Important things change – become more complex, (technology, evolution etc.) But the rate at which they change accelerates over time. When growth is exponential, there comes a point, ‘the knee of the curve’ at which the growth is noticeable and then explodes soon after. We are just at the knee of the curve now, where we can notice technological growth. The explosion of technology is soon to follow. 11. What is ‘exponential growth’ (in the sense in which Kurzweil is interested). Give examples. Gary Kasparov, “who scorned the pathetic state of computer chess in 1992. Yet the relentless doubling of computer power every year enabled a computer to defeat him only five years later.” Watson won at Jeopardy, Your iPhone can have a conversation. All of this is ‘due to’ Moore’s Law - an exponential law - (i.e., number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months) 12 . Describe any two of Kurzweil’s six epochs. Physics and Chemistry A few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, hydrogen and helium atoms (composed of familiar sub-atomic particles) condensed out of a soup of energy. Several millions of years later the other elements in the periodic table were formed inside of stars. The stage was set for increasing levels of order and complexity. Biology and DNA. About four billion years ago (at least here on earth) carbon-based molecules appears to have self-organized, forming incredibly intricate information

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storage devices – DNA being the most well known example. Once these molecules existed, the stage was set for increasing levels of order and complexity in the biological world. Brains. The brain is more flexible and much faster at making changes than the purely unconscious and mechanistic force of evolution. Animals act in accordance with desires and goals, and we use our intelligence to change the world, and quickly. Technology – one of the great accomplishments of the human brain (and body). We build tools, and the rate at which those tools improve over time (these days), and the transformative power that they have is unprecedented. Kurzweil says that the rate of milestones traced through these first four epochs follow a classic exponential growth curve. He says: “A billion years ago, not much happened over the course of even one million years. But a quarter- million years ago epochal events such as the evolution of our species occurred in time frames of just one hundred thousand years. In technology, if we go back fifty thousand years, not much happened over a one-thousand-year period. But in the recent past, we see new paradigms, such as the World Wide Web, progress from inception to mass adoption...) within only a decade.” The Merger of Human Technology with Human Intelligence. Here is where the singularity will begin. We become part computer. And computers become part person they become intelligent, and self-aware. Just like us. The Universe Wakes Up. “In the aftermath of the Singularity, intelligence, derived from its biological origins in human brains and its technological origins in human ingenuity, will begin to saturate the matter and energy in its midst.” 13. What exactly does Kurzweil mean when he talks about the universe waking up? He means we will reach out and colonise the universe with computer substrates. It will seem as if the entire universe is turning online and becoming a giant supercomputer intelligence. 14. What is a positive feedback cycle, and why is it an important part of the singularity? A positive feedback cycle occurs in nature when the product of a reaction leads to an increase in that reaction, enhance or amplify changes. It is important to the singularity because we are going at an exponential rate of technological evolution and each product, or in this case epoch, leads to a increase in that reaction, causing exponential growth like Kurzweil claims.

15. How does Kurzweil claim to know that the singularity is near? In other words, what is his justification? He claims to know that is it near because of this argument of exponential growth and we are at the ‘knee’ of the curve, since we are in a very evolutionized state of technology, AI is becoming more prevalent, as well as virtual reality. So, the explosion of technology is soon to follow. 16. What does it mean to say that futurism isn’t a body of knowledge? Why does Pigliucci think that Kurzweil specifically has shown that he does not have the ability to know the future? How might Kurzweil respond to Pigliucci's complaints? It means that futurists often get many things wrong when they make prediction, just like Kurzweil has done here, his past predictions have been frequently wrong. And it is not the same as history, you cannot make solid justified claims about what the future will be like. 17. Why does Pigliucci claim that the law of accelerating returns is mysterious? Kurzweil claims that exponential growth has been going on for billions of years, but here’ the thing: there’s no connection between technology and what came before it (e.g., evolution) they operate in radically different ways, and are driven by radically different engines, and it would be truly baffling – truly bizarre, if they were somehow continuations of the same thing. How could that be? 18. Why does Pigliucci claim that what counts as a ‘key event’ or ‘important event’ is arbitrary? What is his reason for claiming this, and what’s the upshot – what is Pigliucci trying to prove by making that point? How does Kurzweil respond to this charge? There’s no objective measurement of ‘important historical events,’ and so your graph of ‘key historical events’ can look however you want it to look, depending on what events you choose (arbitrarily) to pick out. But if that’s correct, then the graph doesn't prove anything – the graph is not accurate. An accurate graph plots the relationship between all the data that exists out there in the world, not the relationship between the data that you selected on the basis of a prior desire for your graph to look a particular way.

Kurzweil responds by saying he used an objective measure to pick the key events: Encyclopedia Britannica, Sagan’s cosmic calendar, and the museum of natural history 19. What is the ‘Pigliucci paradox?’ What is it meant to show? If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos, they should have gone through the singularity long ago. But it is obvious that no one else has gone through the singularity yet. And that means that we won’t. Ever (let alone in in a few decades). Week 6 Class 2 1. What is the doomsday argument? How is either the raffle argument or the ‘hat argument’ supposed to make the doomsday argument intuitive? The doomsday argument is a claim that mathematical formula can predict how long the human race will survive. It gives us the odds that our species will come to an end in the next 760 years. So, it claims that humanity isn’t going to last must longer and that you can justify that belief with nothing more than the simple fact that you exist right now, at this particular point in history. You enter a raffle and win. What’s more likely, that one million people entered, or that virtually no one, say, 15 people, entered? The latter is more likely. We are much more likely to be the winner if there are fewer entries. As such, from the mere fact that we won, it’s reasonable to conclude that few people entered. So, since we are the lucky winners to exist, we must conclude that we picked from the low hat, or the one where only 500 billion people are going to exist, so we are close to the end. 2. What are three objections to the doomsday argument, and three responses to those objections? OBJECTION 1: 100 000 years ago, the first humans could have used the doomsday argument to conclude that humanity would have been 95% likely to go extinct within a few thousand years, but they would have been wrong to do so. Response: Given the information that early humans had, they were not wrong to conclude that humanity had a 95% chance of going extinct within a few thousand

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years. In fact, there’s nothing strange about saying that, at that time, the odds really were against humanity. Nobody said that early humans could have used the doomsday argument to show that it is 100% likely humans would go extinct long ago. And if humanity is lucky enough to keep existing one trillion years into our future, then that also doesn’t show that the doomsday argument is flawed right now. It shows that human beings are lucky. OBJECTION 2: The future cannot affect the past. A future humanity-ending disaster cannot somehow go back in time to affect our present probability calculations. Response: that’s not how probability predictions work. You don’t need reverse-time causation in order to make reliable predictions about what’s likely to happen in the future. I can predict that there is a 90% chance of rain tomorrow without positing the weird hypothesis that the rain tomorrow somehow reached back in time to affect my present calculations. OBJECTION 3 Simple facts about little old me – namely my birth order, cannot possibly cause humanity to go extinct. If that’s what the Doomsday argument is saying, it’s absurd. Response: The Doomsday Argument does not say that you, or your position in the birth order, is causing humanity to go extinct. It’s simply saying that the fact that you are where you are in the birth order is reason to believe, is justification for the claim that, humanity will soon go extinct. OBJECTION 4: There’s simply no fact of the matter (yet) about the number of people ever to live. There’s no fact of the matter because humanity hasn’t ended yet. This makes it unlike any of the examples that we’ve considered. In the raffle example and the hat example and the ‘hospitality officer example, there is a fact of the matter about how many raffle entries there are, and how many hospitality officer members there are. And we are trying to figure out what that fact is. But there is simply no fact of the matter about how many people will ever exist. It has ‘yet to be determined’ and for that reason it would be absurd to make any kind of judgment about what the ‘fact’ is likely to actually be. Response: There’s nothing especially weird about using probability to establish the likelihood of events that are yet to be determined. There may be, right now, no fact of the matter about whether it’s going to rain tomorrow, but we can still know that there’s a 30% chance of rain tomorrow. Week 7 Class 1

1. What is the ‘big universe’ argument for the existence of intelligent aliens? What’s an objection to it? Argument 1: the universe is so big that there has to be intelligent life elsewhere. After all, there are a few hundred billion planets in our galaxy, and at least a few hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Objection: If the odds of intelligent life forming are small enough, it doesn’t matter how big the universe is. To point out that the universe is extraordinarily huge is only reason to believe in IA if we already know that the probability of intelligent life evolving is not extraordinarily small. But we don’t already know that. That’s precisely what we’re trying to figure out! 2. What is the ‘principle of mediocrity’ argument for the existence of intelligent aliens? What’s an objection to it? The principle of mediocrity. We’ve looked at all the planets in our solar system, and one of them has life. And so it’s reasonable to conclude that on average, one planet per solar system has life. After all, there’s no reason to believe that we are atypical. Statically speaking, our solar system is probably typical, because any given solar system is by definition probably typical We’re not allowed to invoke the principle of mediocrity when it comes to making generalizations about the likelihood of intelligent life in other solar systems. Here’s why: whether or not there are millions of planets with life in the cosmos, or rather just a single one, we would have found that our solar system with at least one planet that has intelligent life. Of course, we would have found that, since our solar system having a planet with life is a necessary condition for us to exist here in this solar system (which we most certainly do). As such, we can’t take the fact that our solar system has one planet with intelligent life to be evidence for how common life is throughout the cosmos. 3. What is the ‘natural law’ argument for the existence of intelligent aliens? What’s an objection to it? Life is law-like/ follows from basic natural laws. There’s something written in the laws of nature (perhaps a law of entropy maximization, as has recently been proposed) that dictates that life should be quite common – a ‘cosmic imperative.’ According to this view, we ought to view life like stars. Stars are the sort of thing that the universe can’t help but to form again and again and again, because the existence of stars follows from the basic laws of physics (as run on the basic building blocks of the universe).

Objection: There’s no compelling evidence that life is law-like or follows from basic laws. Life might well be a one- off fluke. Francis Crick says: “the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to have been satisfied to get it going.” And that’s just life itself – intelligent life is even more unlikely. French biochemist Jaceus Monad, says “The universe is not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man... Man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he emerged only by chance.” Davies says “It all looks random. If the laws of physics and chemistry are somehow conspiring to fast- track matter to life against the raw odds, it’s not showing up in the end product — the molecular structures themselves.” 4.What is the ‘Stanley Miller experiment’ argument for the existence of intelligent aliens? What’s an objection to it? The 1952 Stanley Miller experiment shows that the stuff of life is easy to make. With a little electrical or UV stimulation, you can turn basic molecules into amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins – and proteins are the building blocks of life itself. Objection: The 1952 Stanley Miller experiment does not show that life is easy to make. The experiment turned simple molecules into amino acids, but an amino acid is to a protein what a brick is to the Empire State Building, says Davies. Furthermore, nucleic acids cannot be produced via the Stanley Miller experiment, and nucleic acids are a necessary condition for life as we know it. 5. What is the ‘Kepler Space Telescope discoveries’ argument for the existence of intelligent aliens? What’s an objection to it? Thanks to the Kepler Space Telescope, NASA is finding new planets every week. Also, NASA keeps finding water (on Mars and Europa, for example). And life needs planets and water. And so life must be common. Objection: Planets and water may well be necessary conditions for life, but that doesn’t mean that they are sufficient conditions. If there were no planets with water, then perhaps there could be no life, but that doesn’t mean that if there are planets with water, there will be life. 6. What is the ‘fast life’ argument for the existence of alien life? What’s an objection to it? Life got started quickly. Life started on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago. The Earth is 4 billion years old, and it took a while to cool down enough for life to have any

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chance of forming. Thus, life got going on Earth pretty much as soon as it had the chance. The astronomer Carl Sagan says that the fact that life formed on Earth quickly goes to show that it must be easy to form, and thus common throughout the cosmos. Sagan has no right to generalize from what happened on the Earth, says Davies. Why not? Because life getting started quickly on Earth is a necessary condition for intelligent conscious observers to exist on Earth. If life hadn’t gotten started quickly on earth, human beings would not have had time to evolve before the sun turned into a red giant and destroyed all life. As such, the fact that we find ourselves on such a planet tells us nothing about what’s going on elsewhere universe – it tells us nothing about how common it is for life to get started quickly. 7. What is the ‘Fermi paradox’ argument against the existence of intelligent aliens? What’s an objection to it? Premise 1: If there were intelligent aliens, we would have heard from them by now. Premise 2: We haven’t heard from them. Conclusion: There are no intelligent aliens. Objections: The standard objections to this argument are objections to premise 1. There are at least 50 of them (see the book Where is Everybody? 5O Solutions to the Fermi paradox ). Here are five: * aliens are scared to communicate * aliens think it’s not worth their trouble to communicate with primitive beings like humans * exploring the cosmos is prohibitively expensive * the aliens have uploaded themselves into computer simulations. * aliens are so advanced, that even though they are trying to communicate with us, our primitive receivers cannot detect them. Week 7/8 Class 2/1 1. What does it mean to say that the universe is ‘fine-tuned’ for conscious life? It which maintains that our existence in a universe that is fit for life shows that God likely exists. We will also consider the argument that what our finely tuned universe really shows is that we live in a multiverse.

P1 The universe is finely tuned for life (i: It’s extremely improbable for the physical laws and initial conditions of the universe to be as they are, and ii: if the laws/initial conditions were any different, the universe could contain no life.) P2 If the universe is finely tuned for life, then the best explanation is that a conscious being intentionally fine-tuned the universe (because it wanted life and consciousness to exist). C. A conscious being (namely God) created the universe and our laws of physics. 2. What is the alleged justification for the premise that the universe is fine- tuned for conscious life? There are four fundamental forces: gravity (necessary for stars and planets), electromagnetism (necessary for chemistry) The strong nuclear force (holds atom nuclei together) and the weak nuclear force. Also, the ‘Pauli- exclusion’ principle which prevents electrons from occupying the same orbit is what makes chemistry possible. Had these laws (excluding, perhaps, the weak nuclear force) been different, then no life, no consciousness. And they easily could have been different. It needed these constants and initial conditions in order for life to exist in our universe which have such a low chance of occurring exactly in that way, someone must have finely tuned them into existence. 3. What is the alleged justification for the premise that the best explanation for the fine-tuned universe is design by a conscious being? The idea that the universe formed and just so happened to be the one-in-trillion- trillion way it had to be for life to exist is certainly possible. But it’s extremely unlikely! What’s more likely is that it was created this way by a designer. By analogy, if you played the lotto and won every day for 1O years, it could be luck. But a far better explanation is that somebody ‘upstairs’ (maybe at the lotto corporation) is rigging things in your favor. Sometimes, we see something that can be explained by luck, but it is far better explained by conscious design. Our universe is like that. Another analogy that might help. Suppose that we go to Europa and find what appear to be robots. We could conclude that those robots formed by a freak occurrence of geology. Or we could conclude that they are designed. Design is a far better explanation, as the geological explanation only has a one in a trillion trillion- trillion chance of being correct. 4. Describe Stenger’s objection to the claim that it is extremely improbable for the laws and initial conditions of the universe to be as they are.

He claims that at least some of the numbers that are employed in the fine- tuning argument might be wrong. For example, the cosmological constant might actually be zero. He says: “Theoretical physicists have proposed models in which the dark energy is not identified with the energy of curved space-time but rather a dynamical, material energy field called quintessence . In these models, the cosmological constant is exactly O, as suggested by a symmetry principle called supersymmetry.” And if the CC is O, there is no issue about how it was tuned that way. Better to say that it wasn’t tuned at all. A different way to put it is that zero is much more probable an outcome for the CC than any other possible value that we can imagine. As such, it’s not unlikely that it has the value that it has (if the value is zero). 5. Describe Everitt’s objection to the claim that it is extremely improbable for the laws and initial conditions of the universe to be as they are. He claims that we have no idea how probable it that the laws/initial conditions of the universe are what they are. Fine-tuners say that actual laws and initial conditions have a 1 in 1OO trillion chance of ending up where they actually did. But this is a mistake. You cannot determine the probability of the laws/initial conditions just by looking at all of the possibilities and counting them. You also need to know how probable each possible outcome actually is. 6. Why does Stenger claim that it’s too quick to conclude that life couldn’t exist in a universe with different laws of physics (i.e. what is the, uh, Jeff Goldblum objection )? He says that there could be no life as we know it, like no carbon-based life, but others we may have not thought of. That there could be life made from metal, silicon or non-atom building blocks that don’t exist in our universe, but if the physics were different. 7 What is The Weak Anthropic Principle? Why is it a bad objection to the fine- tuning argument? "Weak Anthropic Principle: The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities... takes on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon- based life can evolve” The fact that the universe is fine tuned for life requires only this explanation: if it weren’t fine tuned, we wouldn’t be around to witness it. There is no explanation for ‘fine-tuning’ other than the fact that we wouldn’t exist if the laws and constants weren’t as they are. There’s no need for a God explanation at all. Weak anthropic principle is a better explanation. The weak anthropic principle does not explain why our universe has the laws and initial conditions that it has. This is clearly a bad explanation for why they all missed. The weak anthropic principle explains NOTHING. And by the same token, the weak anthropic principle is a non- explanation for the problem of why the universe is fine tuned for life. Uses the firing squad example, if they all miss you

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assume someone upstairs had something to do with it, but the weak anthropic principle would say if the firing squad didn’t miss, you wouldn’t be around to question why they all missed. 8. Why does Craig think that the multiverse objection to the fine-tuning argument fails? Craig says that if there is a multiverse, there would be trillions of universes that contain conscious life. But here’s the problem: almost all of them would be far simpler than our universe. They would contain just a single solar system, or even just a single brain floating around in space. If the multiverse exists, then for each universe as grand and complex as ours, there are trillions of universes with nothing more than these ‘Boltzmann brains’ floating in space. Those universe are much easier to make, and as such, would be much more common than our own. As such, if there were a multiverse, you would almost certainly be located in one of the universes that has nothing more than Boltzmann brains. But you are not in a universe like that. And thus there is probably not a multiverse. 9. Why does Stenger claim that a fine-tuned universe is exactly not what God would create? He claims that the fact that the universe is fine-tuned in the first place implies that god did not create it, this is because if god wanted a reality for life why did he create a reality in which the raw probability of life-congenial laws is one in a trillion, instead he would create a reality with just one in one, it would be contrary to (God’s) nature to create a universe which would in all probability fail to realize his intention unless he intervened to engage in the requisite ‘fine tuning.’ 1O. What is the inverse gambler’s fallacy, and why does Goff think it shows that fine tuning does not imply the existence of a multiverse? believing that ‘typical trials’ must have happened many times in the past (or must be happening many times elsewhere), just because an event that you witness is statistically unlikely. In other words, one concludes that because one sees a slot machine pull win, there must be many other losing pulls elsewhere – a multiverse of losing pulls. It's a mistake to conclude that there has to be a multiverse of slot machine pulls. Thus, Goff claims, it’s a mistake to conclude that there’s a multiverse (of loser universes) just because we won the jackpot.

11. Describe Goff’s revised monkey analogy, what it’s meant to show, and one objection to it. Ok fine, change the monkey example so that you can exist only if Hamlet is typed. Suppose that you are frozen and put in a state of suspended animation, and put in a cage with Joey the monkey. The rules are that if Joey the monkey types Hamlet in the next ten hours, you will wake up. Suppose that a few hours later, you wake up in front of Joey, seeing that yes indeed, he typed all of Hamlet. You could have only woken up if he typed Hamlet, but even in this case, you have no reason to conclude that other monkeys are typing random nonsense. What happened to you is unlikely, but it gives you no reason to think that there is a multiverse of other monkeys. Goff’s assumption #1: we could not have existed in a different universe. For Goff, a monkey represents the universe. And Goff stacks the deck in his favor by assuming, from the outset, that the only possible universe you could exist in is the Joey-universe. But this seems to be a bad analogy for our situation. Surely we could have existed in any universe in which the laws of nature had been fit for life. Keeping that in mind, let’s consider a better analogy for our situation. Goff’s assumption #2: we don’t live in an ocean universe, with island mini-verses Goff makes a second assumption that is problematic. So for the sake of argument, let’s grant Goff’s first assumption that you could have not existed in a different universe. The fact remains that it may well be the case that THIS UNIVERSE has, during the course of its evolution, split into billions of little ‘islands’ that have different physical laws and initial conditions. Nothing that Goff says rules out this possibility. And if this is a possibility, Goff’s argument, once again, seems to fail. Week 8 Class 2 1. What are the four theories of perception mentioned in Pritchard Ch. 7? A) Indirect realism (representative realism): John Locke (1632-1704) B) Idealism: George Berkeley (1685-1753) C) Transcendental Idealism: Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) D) Direct Realism (the ‘commonsense’ view). 2. Describe indirect realism. Indirect realism is that we don’t directly observe objects and the things around us, instead it is merely a hypothesis (infer) that you make in order to explain your evidence of what you are perceiving. It is however a reasonable

one, what we infer is there because of what we see. Objects are cause by and represent mind-independent objects, our sense data represent physical objects so they come from them and are like them, leads to skepticism about the existence of the world. 3. Which theory of perception claims that experience is evidence, and objects are something like theoretical posits? Explain. The theory of indirect realism says that thing that we experience or observe is evidence for things like objects that our theoretical hypothesis of what we are perceiving. That we are just infering what we are seeing based on our experiences, or sense data. 4. What’s the difference between primary qualities and secondary qualities? Primary qualities are properties that cause in us ideas that resemble those properties, like the shape of a basketball. Secondary qualities are those powers that objects have to produce in us, ideas that do not resemble the source of those powers, like the redness idea of an apple caused by a molecule that we cannot see, as what we see as red does not look like whatever this molecule is. Or how our taste of sugar is sweet by does not resemble the shape of the molecule. the key difference, is that primary qualities produce in us ideas that resemble those qualities, and secondary qualities produce in us ideas that do not resemble those qualities. 5. If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? According to indirect realism it depends on what you mean by sound, if you mean the sound experience then is doesn’t make a sound, or if you mean that sound is something that causes the experience, namely the vibration of air molecules, then the tree does make a sound. 6. Why is it a problem to explain how secondary qualities produce in us the ideas that they produce in us? Locke denies (at least most of the time) that secondary qualities actually refer to our ideas or experiences. They do no such thing. They refer to the powers that objects have to produce particular qualities or experiences in us. In that regard, secondary qualities have a lot in common with primary qualities. They both exist in objects, and both ultimately can be cashed out in terms of the way that matter is behaving. The difference, the key difference, is that primary qualities produce in us

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ideas that resemble those qualities, and secondary qualities produce in us ideas that do not resemble those qualities. 7. What is idealism? what we call ‘the world’ – what we call ‘tables,’ ‘chairs,’ ‘trees,’ etc. are composed of experiences. All that we ever refer to are experiences, and there is nothing else beyond experiences for us to refer to. When no one is perceiving tables, chairs and trees, they disappear. 8. List Berkeley’s four main arguments for idealism. Epistemic argument Argument for the conclusion that primary qualities are in fact subjective (and thus mind independent ideas) Argument for the conclusion that the notion of pure material substance is incoherent The consequences of the alleged fact that it is not possible to think of something that is unthought of. 9. Describe Berkeley’s epistemic argument. Berkeley says: Locke claims that some of our ideas resemble the world and that some of them don't. Berkeley asks: what gives Locke the right to say this? How can he ever get outside of his ideas to check to see whether they correspond to the world in itself. He has no access to the world itself – none of us do. So Locke’s whole distinction between ideas that mirror reality and ideas that do not mirror reality is one that he has no right to make. Locke also says that some facts about things are subjective (like colour-sensation or sweet-taste) and that some are objective (like mass and shape), but what gives him the right to say that some are objective? Has he checked to see whether or not those things in the world have those properties when no one is perceiving them. Oh wait, HE CAN’T. And thus he can’t reasonably claim that things have those properties objectively either.

1O. Describe Berkeley’s argument for the conclusion that primary qualities are in fact subjective (and thus mind dependent ideas). Locke says that these are objective primary qualities. But fast to one person is slow to another. So ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ are subjective. And thus mind dependent. So, things that locke considers to be primary qualities are actually subjective to the person experience, and every person has a different experience that we cannot see or experience ourselves. Even things like numbers and motion that are supposed to by primary can be subject or relative and thus subjective, is a function of the succession of ideas before our mind. 11. Describe Berkeley’s argument for the conclusion that the notion of pure material substance is incoherent. Locke claims that there is such a thing as material substance which causes of the idea, like all of our experiences in our mind. The notion is incoherent, it is impossible to think of a substance that is an object in itself, if we get rid of all of the subjective ideas we associate with it, you are left with nothing at all, to get rid of the ideas that we associate with a object is to get rid of the object itself. 12. What does Berkeley take the alleged fact that it is impossible to think of something unthought of to show? What’s a response to Berkeley’s claim here? We cannot conceive of objects as existing independently of our minds, or you cannot think of an object that is not being thought of. So the notion of an object that exists when it is not being thought of must be incoherent. He uses this to show that to be is to be perceived, so when you are not looking at it or thinking about it, it disappears, but god it always perceiving so it actually doesn’t disappear. A response to his claim is that it is ture that you cannot think of an object that you are not thinking of, but that doesn’t follow that you cannot think of an object that can continue to exist when you are not thinking of it, that should be coherent. 13. What does ‘Esse Est percipi’ mean? how does Berkeley’s appeal to God ensure that his theory doesn't end up forcing us to claim that things disappear when no people are looking at them?

It means to be is to be perceived, so when you are looking at something or perceiving it, that object or things exists, but when you look away, it disappears. He then try to save his theory by using god to explain that things do not actually disappear when we look away, and that is because god is perceiving them at all time. 14. How is transcendental idealism like Locke’s view? How is it unlike Locke’s view? How is it like Berkeley’s view? How is it unlike Berkeley’s view? It is like Lockes view in the sense that Kant thinks that there is a mind objective reality that exists beyond this world of experience, but unlike Locke we cannot know the world-behind-the-curtain and that we cant even really meaningfully talk about it because none of our concepts apply to it. But it has to be there, the objective world, of things in themselves. But Kant holds that the world we talk about, the things that we refer to are things that depend on our mind for their existence, like Berkely. 15. What is the phenomenal world, according to Kant? What is noumena? The phenomenal world is the world that we talk about and the things that we refer to, are things that our mind depend on for their existence. Noumenon is the objective world, this world is things in themselves. 16. What is direct realism? What’s a problem with it? Direct realism is that we are directly aware of an objective world, and the world is not a hypothesis we produce to explain our experience unlike indirect realism. There is just seeing a tree, and there is no tree experience, or inference we are seeing a tree. The problem with direct realism is that most of the time our perceptions are right, but there are other times were there is not, like when we have hallucinations and see things that are not really there. So, we have to admit that sometimes the things that we perceive something that does not correspond with reality. So, it seems wrong that direct realism does exist, because you are not always directly acquainted with our experience. 17. Does Berkeley believe that objects exist?

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He would not admit to such a belief, if by objects you mean things that we ordinary point to and call table and chairs, then he does believe that they exist, because they are bundles of ideas. If however objects means things that are composed of mind-independent substrate, then he does not believe that objects exist .

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