If your brain stops, the sun will cease to exist to you. The only thing you can ever know with absolute certainty is what you perceive.

How did you measure its diameter?

I don't require this level of certainty, but it seems to me you're changing the subject. I'm sure you can reach all kinds of weird conclusions if you begin by assuming solipsism.

Either something is true or something is not true. Everything in between is "I dont know."

We can come up with fancy little frameworks that conclude something is "most probably true" but they violate the laws of logic. What were really saying when we say something is "most probably true is both "we dont know" and "theres no way to know."

Solipsism is all you've got to start with. That your perceptions often confirm your perceptions is circular reasoning.

I didn't, I just asked google.com. Why, do you think the sun really is small enough to fit in my head?

For my next feat I will attempt to pull a concrete rabbit out of an abstract hat:

1) Human beings are part of humanity.
2) Human beings have properties.
3) Properties of parts of humanity are properties of humanity.
4) Human beings are self-aware

Conclusion: Humanity is self-aware.

Meaning: There is a entity termed ‘Humanity’ experiencing self-awareness.

So you're a rationalist solipsist who rejects empiricism entirely?

The thing is though, no matter how highly you privilege deductive logic you still have the problem that all of your logical arguments have been invalid.

The representation of whatever the sun is, is small enough to fit in your head.

I ask again, prove that you have an experience of "the sun" beyond what's going on in your brain.

You're just assuming the sun is outside your head, and then relying on perception (your 'eyes', of google, of scale-type instruments, etc) to prove it. Sorry, but that's begging the question again.

You do that a lot.

Representations of the sun are in my head, and depend for their existence on my head existing. Agreed. Stop arguing for something we already agree about. Here's the claim we don't agree about. The sun itself - the giant, blazing hot, 864,337 mile-wide ball of gas is also in my head and so depends for its existence on my head existing. That I don't agree with.

Nah, I can't prove the existence of an external world. I also can't prove the existence of an internal world, of other minds, of moral rules, of god, of the self, of immortality or mortality, of the laws of logic, mathematics, or really just about anything except perhaps perceptions happening.

Nonetheless, I believe in some of these things and not in others of them. One thing I believe in is the existence of the sun as a giant gasball in space approximately 93,000,000 miles away and that it is way too big to fit inside my head.

No it's not. Begging the question is when I use the conclusion of an argument as one of its premises. I've not presented an argument at all. I'm merely stating facts about the world, such as the size of the sun and the size of my head. If you disagree about how big either of these things are, let me know.

EDIT: Or maybe you don't disagree, but you think a sun that is 864,377 miles wide can fit inside my less than a mile wide head?

All you get is your perception of the laws of logic, which are in your head, not the actual laws of logic, so deductive arguments don't get you anywhere either.

[QUOTE=Original Position;54653398]Representations of the sun are in my head, and depend for their existence on my head existing. Agreed. Stop arguing for something we already agree about. Here's the claim we don't agree about. The sun itself - the giant, blazing hot, 864,337 mile-wide ball of gas is also in my head and so depends for its existence on my head existing. That I don't agree with.



Correct. So you cant prove the existence of the sun.

You probably just did.



Yep, and you believe it without logical justification and you cant prove it. The only thing that you can prove (and only to yourself) is that you perceive things. Good. Im glad we agree and that's out of the way.

That matches quite well.

it made me quite happy

The statement "the sun exists outside my head" is in fact a conclusion about reality whether or not you realize it. You also use your perception (which should be your premise) to prove that conclusion. That is, in fact, begging the question.

The assertion that the sun has diameter is a conclusion about the nature of reality. You then use your perception, which is a premise, to prove that conclusion. You are begging the question, whether or not you realize it.

I lol'd

Lol. This way of arguing is great. Let's see...two-parent households are an important part of successful child-rearing in the modern world. No, they aren't, because the only thing you can prove is the cogito.

tbh OrP isn't begging the question about the size of the sun, he's just making a bare assertion :P

He is assuming the conclusion is true by virtue of his premise. He is begging the question.

"I can see outer reality so outer reality is actually there."

Partially true. The primary thing you can know with absolute certainty is that you perceive

The opposite is rendered absurd when it's attempted.

"I do not perceive" assumes the existence of I, which requires perception of I

This is why logic is true.

Assume: A v ~A
Asserting the contrary: A is ~A
Assertion requires the law of identity you attempt to disprove
Assertion is false, assumption is true

I've perceived that nothing brings you more joy than making up claims and arguments to put in my mouth, but my perception of your joy in doing so doesn't logically imply that I actually made those arguments. Rather, here's an assertion:

The sun is 864,377 miles wide.

I believe this assertion is true. I don't believe that perception proves this assertion to be true. My belief that this assertion is true is a belief that is not proven as I have acknowledged. Nonetheless, it is my belief about reality. You making up an argument I didn't use myself and declaring it fallacious is your own problem.

I've now asked this numerous times without an answer and it is a really simple question: do you also believe that the sun is approximately 864,377 miles wide?

Nah, he didn't make that argument. That's why it's better to call it a bare assertion. It's not reasonable to infer that argument.

Of course his point is that on a reasonable conversation you would be expected to accept well established scientific facts without requiring a laborious demonstration of the fact that the sun is really big compared to his head.


The retreat to philosophical skepticism is boring but also mostly self defeating

But as you said earlier:

So I guess you just don't know and there's no way to know about those two-parent households and whether they are better for raising children.