People do not exist

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Well, to get back to the original thread, and ignore later nominalist arguments, there are tons of human beings out there, but none of them are people by the definitions I've given for personhood.


Well, I wanted to make a controversial claim, but also justify it. I mean, I think the definition I am using is relatively good because people consider the attributes I am disproving to be rather central to being a person, and because I think that the possibility of non-human persons needs to be considered in some philosophical manner, but yeah, the thread did start off somewhat out of a silliness.

No person exists.
Awesomelyglorious is the username of a person who posts on WrongPlanet.
Awesomelyglorious does not exist.

And for the heck of it, WrongPlanet does not exist either!! !

Well, if I were to be consistent, I would deny premise 2.(which your argument requires as done)

I think there is a basic argumentative issue that both sides are seeing past each other, and it is essentially illustrated by GE Moore's "here is a hand" argument.

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

The issue is that we have different starting points. I am starting from essential traits of personhood to disprove personhood, you are starting off assuming personhood, and working backwards from that. Thus there is no discussion, as Orwell is the only person to suggest other aspects of personhood to address.(I still stand behind my assessment of those being lacking considering personhood to be a more philosophical issue)

I think we are using different definitions of "existence" then.

I do think we are dealing with a definition issue, however, I do think that once my point is grasped, it will seem kind of mind-twisting but obvious.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be downplaying the importance of schemas in representing reality. This I do not agree with. Yes, it can be argued that many concepts (city, forest, family, chariot, etc) are just convenient ways of organizing information that we deal with. But I tend to think that there is at least some validity to our categorizations. I won't try to defend Platonic realism, but going so far to the opposite conclusion seems like a huge stretch to me.

Validity or utility? I can admit to the latter, but I would still deny the former.

Haven't read most of the thread, a quick reply for this thing I noticed, that I too recognize Orwell as a person or that he must be a person, regardless issues with the ontology of personhood.

*sigh* I'll argue it this way: the term "person" is easy shorthand that even I tend to use, however, persons do not really exist. Honestly, I can say that utility allows us to declare something a person, however, that this definition is just an arbitrary reflex, and this gets me out of the situation somewhat.

Utility is unquestionable. Validity I suppose depends on how you're viewing it, and how for you take the idea. I can accept a claim that, for instance, a forest does not exist. Trees exist, and when we have a large collection of trees we call it a forest. A forest is obviously not a discrete identity. But breaking it down further? I suppose we can, but it gets harder and harder to do so as you move to a smaller scale. After all, a tree removed from a forest is still a tree. A leaf removed from a tree is nothing. A single cell removed from a leaf is even less.

Figures that people would be so opposed to a concept of Gestalt on an Aspie forum.

Why say that a tree is a different object than the dirt surrounding it? Even the air surrounding it? In both cases, we just see collections of molecules.

well yes, utility allows us to define person and identify subjects with the concept, and that seems enough of a justification to recognize the importance of the concept, and I would say that the term 'person' exists as a concept, and ideas and concepts do exist, as long as the human species continue existing and perpetuating these ideas then these ideas and concepts will continue to exist. I suppose you could say that people was created by people and even so, denying its existence can be rejected.

Personhood is related to ethics, in which denying the concept of personhood seems to implicate ethics as well, and the issue would seem to lead to moral nihilism in the end, anyway, wether that is the case or not, it is an interesting thing to see.

Another interesting thing is that of denying to existence of people, and that leading to deny everything else, such as: children don't exist, apples don't exist, trees don't exist, human beings don't exist, etc.

Because the issue seems to lead to the complete disregard of abstractions and identification, and that seems a problem.


There is a quote from the link above:

well, I actually tend to see that as valid and few people who not only would reject philosophical skepticism but philosophy as a whole could argue this exactly, although not necessarily in favor of common sense but empiricism.


well, different arrangements of different collections of molecules seem to make the difference and the need to recognize and identify that difference. Adding apples to the picture, I believe there is some difference between eating apples and eating dirt and eating a tree.

By "importance of the concept", do you mean utility? Because utility is good enough for it's own justification, but I don't see it as enough for the justification of any philosophical stand about an external existence. I don't think the argument is about the existence of the mental schema though.


Depends on whether you believe in objective ethics. You are right, the lack of an objective personhood also means the lack of an objective ethical stand.


Actually, the arguments are somewhat disconnected, they have similarities in both being skeptical but one could believe in personhood while denying applies, or believe in apples while denying personhood.


No, the latter argument leads to the notion that abstractions and identification are mental constructs. If you read the last link in the OP, one sees an argument that selfhood is a narrative fiction created by the mind, this does not mean it is irrelevant, only that it is not an actual defined notion.


I would actually see this argument as invalid. I tend to be skeptical towards "common sense" notions(which I do think you'd have to accept rather than just going to empiricism) and thus there is no reason that the argument necessarily tells us that an external world exists, as the non-existence of that world and the viability of hands being representative of that outside world is in question.


Well.... in the context of a human being, yes, there is a difference. Really though, if we relate all things back through a human perspective, we only get subjectivism, unless you say that the entire world is really just made out of mindstuff or something.

If you get rid of abstractions, you run into too many problems. For example, how do you deal with mathematics?

AG: I'm going to claim that utility is at least an indicator of validity. Correct beliefs should be more likely to lead us to useful results than false beliefs. And in order to even function or communicate, you have to disregard the philosophical claims you are making.

Math is a useful approximation of reality by identifying issues with one's conceptual scheme and determining outcomes within the rules of that conceptual scheme. The only number in existence is 1 though, we invented 2 and 3. ;-P


Utility isn't completely unrelated to validity, but it is too great of a leap to say that they are one and the same. Not only that, but I doubt that our beliefs are going to be built in respect to metaphysics.

Many people say the same thing about free will Orwell, but we both reject that. Not only that, but I don't think that anyone has to disregard my philosophical claims in order to exist. It might alter a person's existence, but "my conceptions aren't features of an underlying reality" is perfectly compatible with "I find my conceptions useful".

We, the people? topic

Methinks there is a category situation going on here.

People versus persons. From what I know about grammar, the word 'people" is not plural for persons. But in ordinary language, or at least the everyday language of humans who are functionally literate, the word is used as such. But 'people' is the word used after an adjective like American, German, English, Japanese, African, and so on. Nationalities. Categories. Very arbitrary. This argument could become very tangled as definitions are accepted and discarded on the way to agreeing on the premises.

People do not exist? Depends on accepted definitions and parameters. Nice one, AG.