https://philpeople.org/feed_items/556819617

Another thought experiment showing why an experiential world is not sufficient as a foundation for truth:

Two people, A and B, are stranded in a desert. They are the only conscious people in the world: everyone else is a philosophical zombie with no other experience in the entire universe aside from that of A and B.

They already know that there is a single lake in the desert, but they don't know its direction. A saw it to the right, and B saw it to the left. Based on this, they decided to split up, each pursuing their own experience.

The universe is an experiential universe.. there is nothing outside of experience, no external world, and everything is experience. The totality of experience consists solely of A and B's experiences... no more, no less.

What does this totality of experience say?

• Experience A: The lake is to the right.
• Experience B: The lake is to the left.
• Experience A & B: There is only one lake; one of us will die.

Now, the question: how does this small universe decide which experience is more privileged than the other? Which one will it favor in order to evolve and change its state in the future? Why would the universe choose A's experience and declare B's to be a hallucination? What is so special about the one experience that it chooses?

You might say: "It will correct errors, follow regularities, remove additions, and detect omissions."

Correct toward which target? If you remove omissions, how does the system know what counts as an omission or an addition in the first place? How can internal regularities within the streams of A and B decide which one gets to survive?

If there is an external world: the winning experience matches a fact that exists in neither experience, while the failing experience matches only itself.

A world without an outside, with only experiences, cannot solve the issue in this thought experiment. This is what we mean by a "foundation of truth": the world needs a foundation that it can use to decide how to evolve.

And by "evolve" I don't mean some "presumed external world", I'm talking about this totality of experience, how will it evolve?

Without an external world, experience alone cannot provide that foundation. If you say it can provide it, then solve the problem.

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