Ian

The segment on epistemic hyenine is full of a lot of what I would consider "air quotes" for the steps. The increasing knowledge and skepticism could lead to the wrong conclusions especially when you're using a drug, even a lot of what you say for attention and DMT seems more subjective than anything about the drug. 

Also dangerous ideas seems more subjective then anything you could really watch out for. I mean everyone throughout history seems to have a different take on what is dangerous or the deep end. 

I think like any drug DMT only gives you what you bring into it, I've known some folks who weren't that different after it. That... (read more)

"Explain why scientists conduct experiments. How can that be relevant to internal consistency?

Explain why it is impossible for human knowledge to correlate to reality, even by accident. Is it because there is no external reality , as you sometimes say?"

It's how science is. Science itself admits that it doesn't prove anything and that our knowledge might be more instrumental than about reality itself. It's the first thing you learn and something each of them keeps in mind, that it could all be wrong, but it works.

As for external reality, I cannot say for sure, and there are plenty of arguments that show that skepticism about external reality cannot be refuted. 

"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts)"

Do I really... (read more)

"Again that's ambiguous between "reality doesn't exist" and "we don't know reality".

It happens to be the case that in English the word "reality" can be used both ways. You can use it in a territory sense, to mean an object of knowledge -- this book is non-fiction, so it is about reality; and you can use it in a map sense, to label a successful representation -- this portrait is highly realiastic.

But that's only a quirk of English, not a deep insight!"

It's only ambiguous if you don't understand it. It's pretty clear to me. It's saying that knowledge doesn't really correlate to some independent reality "out there" more like it just has... (read 413 more words →)

"No , that's not anti realism. Anti realism is the definitive , certain claim that there is no reality. As such, as an ontological claim, it cannot be based on a fallibilist epistemology."

That isn't anti-realism, anti-realism is against the claim that there is a definitive reality that our knowledge maps to and that knowledge is more instrumental rather than "About" anything. It's quite compatible with fallibilism,  not to mention recent findings in QM (allegedly).

"What you are saying isn't necessarily true either. So we ether give up entirely, or procede by some probabilistic balance of explanation and evidence."

Or just do what the Pyrrhonists do and go by appearances. But you are asserting that... (read more)

"The claim that it's all maps, ontologically, doesn't follow from the claim that we have no knowledge or reality at all, epistemically..and that doesn't follow from "might not describe reality at all".

You have a sort of motte-and-bailey or slippery slope going on. It's defensible to claim that our knowledge is uncertain, but it's not the same as claiming there is no reality .. as an ontological entity."

It is the same, in a sense. You could just say we have an expeirence at the most bare level, and that to posit a reality that exists beyond that is not justified. Claiming there is a reality as an ontological entity is similar to saying... (read 417 more words →)

"Any map that isn't explicitly fictional attempts to describe some sort of reality. The fact that they intend or purport to represent a reality outside of themselves is a feature they all have in common. They are all , at least, about reality , in general, aside from how exact they are

If we believe the map, we take it's details to be a detailed description of reality. Otherwise not. The theories we disbelieve in, we regard as failed attempts to describe reality ...but still attempts, unlike fiction.

You may be hung up on a "nothing avails except perfection" assumption...that a map cannot be said to be about reality at all unless it is... (read 537 more words →)

Those maps "Refer" to what we "assume" is reality, but like I said all we have is maps not reality. You say our "empirical data comes from reality" but it doesn't, it comes from our senses, which don't accurately reflect reality. 

The "evidence" is still just a map, because we cannot be certain such a thing is reality itself. Science isn't technically the study of reality, it's more like just about making models that work. Even science itself cannot prove reality is real and is more concerned with explanations or what's good enough rather than truth. 

The "knowability" of reality is a big part of many people's belief that drives them to engage with... (read more)