Hm, good question. But does your question have an implicit premise -- that we do, or think we should, 'force' such people to change? When your conditions are truly met -- they're happy, not dangerous, and, presumably, adequately self-sufficient -- I'm not sure many people DO think we should treat them 'just for the sake of sanity' .... There's a nice novel called "Unless," by Carol Shields, that partly explores these themes -- a young woman suddenly decides to adopt a very alternative lifestyle and her very conventional mother can't help but think there must be something 'wrong' or 'mentally unstable' about her -- raises the question of when does 'difference' become 'illness' -- which I think is just underneath the surface of your question .... hope that helps-- best, ap

Hm, good question. But does your question have an implicit premise -- that we do, or think we should, 'force' such people to change? When your conditions are truly met -- they're happy, not dangerous, and, presumably, adequately self-sufficient -- I'm not sure many people DO think we should treat them 'just for the sake of sanity' .... There's a nice novel called "Unless," by Carol Shields, that partly explores these themes -- a young woman suddenly decides to adopt a very alternative lifestyle and her very conventional mother can't help but think there must be something 'wrong' or 'mentally unstable' about her -- raises the question of when does 'difference' become 'illness' -- which I think is just underneath the surface of your question .... hope that helps-- best, ap

Great question. You might try reading Peter Singer's recent book, "The Life You Can Save." In my view, once you start thinking this way then the most natural conclusion is that you should be, basically, a saint. That is, at almost every moment you are choosing what to do, and beyond providing for your necessities in life everything else is superfluous, or at least not necessary; and when you compare doing what is merely 'nice' for yourself with 'helping someone else in need,' you'll end up concluding, for almost each and every moment, that you should be doing nothing but helping others, once your basic minimum needs are met. But do you really think that you are morally obligated to renounce everything not absolutely necessary in your life, in order to help other people? If not, then there must be some cut-off point, some balance point -- helping others in need is obviously to be commended but it is not, at all moments, to be commanded ... (And put the other way around: if EVERYONE followed the...

My first question wouldn't be how -- since it does seem to me that such people can clearly be 'conscious' in most senses of that word, and dreams often recreate (perhaps altered versions of) conscious experience -- but rather of what? But then again, presuably the answer is of material evident through their other functioning senses ..... Why wouldn't you accept that as an answer? Or are you imagining that a blind and deaf person lacks all conscious experience altogether? best, ap

Terrific question! And of course there are reams of responses to and analysis of this very issue ... And you're certainly right that from a religious perspective, it's not entirely clear or obvious that 'happiness' would be (say) God's ultimate goal for human beings, for many different reasons ... But you know, the problem of evil is often framed rather differently -- not merely asking (say) how God can permit so much unhappiness, or so much suffering -- but so much *injustice*. The point of life may not be to be "happy" (whatever "happiness" exactly is, for various people) -- but surely it seems quite unjust when an innocent person, or a good person, is made to suffer in any number of ways -- or when small children are murdered -- and so on. What your point very nicely does (I think) is show that at least *some* of the things that people call "evils" really amount to their merely being inconvenienced or made unhappy -- and then you are right that these sorts of things would hardly disprove the...

I have nothing to add here except to say that this question has often occurred to me -- has anyone truly believed (say) that when spring rolls around each year, it is precisely the very same "time" that it was the year before, rather than being merely a "similar" environment recurring? I suppose if something like Nietzsche's 'eternal recurrence' were the case (taken literally), then there could be some question of a genuinely recurring ie cyclical time -- but even then wouldn't it be far more plausible to hold that time remains linear even if the events occurring in time might go through cycles? Will be curious if anyone else weighs in with an endorsement of the opposing view -- or even of the claim that any culture has endorsed such a view. best, ap

Great set of questions! Lots of literature for you to investigate (starting with Hardin's "Color for Philosophers"...) But let me just say briefly here that one typically begins by distinguishing clearly and purely physical properties (like "wavelengths") from "perceived color" -- for there are many demonstrable cases where a given perceived color can NOT be matched or mapped onto any given wavelength(s), and vice versa. Once you make this distinction then it is easy to hold that wavelengths (plus other factors) CAUSE perceived color, or at least are a causal factor therein, but are not identical to them. Then you will begin to ask whether perceived color can be identified with any clearly purely physical properties and will probably find out that the answer is no. (Or if so, it might end up being a brain property -- ie when you perceive color x you are always in brain state y etc. -- but that is a far cry from what we want to normally say about colors, namely that they are properties of surfaces of...

As with all excellent questions, this one is the tip of a very large iceberg! This one nicely ties in questions of meaning and truth, of literal v. metaphorical meaning, as well as of speaker-meaning v sentence-meaning. But rather than try to answer it here, why not simply observe that there's no reason not to treat it as "true", by common sense, just because of the equivocation in meaning -- for anyone who gets the pun involved will clearly understand that this sentence is a clever way of expressing the proposition 'Davis has an instrument and narwhals have a bony protrusion', which we have no reason not to think of as true. So since the sentence in its rather ordinary use, and context, with many people, expresses a true proposition, why not treat it as true? Meanwhile people who do NOT get the pun (for whatever reason) might understand this sentence to express the proposition 'Davis has a protrusion and narwhals have a protrusion', which they would take to be straightforwardly false (assuming...

Couldn't "empirical evidence" include that of which we are aware, during consciousness? Is there a major problem in holding that we are aware of our "minds", or at least of our 'awareness', which is a mental state or property? And once you've admitted empirical evidence for the existence of your own mind, are there *serious* objections to granting the existence of others? Alternatively, can't we have empirical evidence that is not of the 'direct observation' variety? I see footprints in the sand and I infer that a person recently walked by, because a person walking by would be the best explanation of what i directly observe. Why not allow that 'other people having minds' might be the best explanation for what we do observe, namely the way others behave and speak etc.? best, ap

This is a terrific question! But rather than answer it, let me direct you to someone who has treated it at some length with many interesting and provocative things to say. Check out Daniel Dennett's famous article "Quining Qualia," as well as his book "Consciousness Explained" -- you'll get some great material there, and then will probably come back and ask follow up versions of this question! good luck, ap

Thanks for this thoughtful question, and I'm sorry for what you're all going through! However I'm not convinced this is, in the end, a 'philosophical' matter -- it sounds more like one that's for the professional psychologists and therapists .... and I wonder if it might be useful even for YOU to consult with one, to get some useful advice about how to deal with this complicated situation! (There are some philosophers with some psychology expertise, but I don't know if any of the panelists on this site are those!) best of luck! ap