[tangent] Hi Brandon, you may find my post on The Problem of Other Minds to be of interest—note that the usual justification is to argue inductively from analogy (others are externally similar to ourselves, so most likely have similar inner lives).
I think you’re right that the diverse experience hypothesis (my red is your yellow, etc.) is ‘illogical’, at least in the weak sense of ad hoc or less than perfectly coherent/reasonable. It is logically possible, mind you—there’s no reason the would couldn’t have turned out that way, if the laws of nature had been different. But we are generally justified in believing that reality is governed by systematic laws. That is, a variation of Ockham’s Razor will prevent us from positing unnecessary arbitrary distinctions.
So you’re right that the diverse experience view is ‘baseless’. But note that it can’t be for the reason that it is “purely metaphysical with no implications for reality”. For the same could be said of the reasonable (and presumably true) view that in fact we both experience the same colour qualia when looking at a tomato. That too is a ‘metaphysical’ view with no scientific implications. But it’s also plainly reasonable. So, not all ‘metaphysical’ views are on a par. [/tangent]
[tangent] Hi Brandon, you may find my post on The Problem of Other Minds to be of interest—note that the usual justification is to argue inductively from analogy (others are externally similar to ourselves, so most likely have similar inner lives).
I think you’re right that the diverse experience hypothesis (my red is your yellow, etc.) is ‘illogical’, at least in the weak sense of ad hoc or less than perfectly coherent/reasonable. It is logically possible, mind you—there’s no reason the would couldn’t have turned out that way, if the laws of nature had been different. But we are generally justified in believing that reality is governed by systematic laws. That is, a variation of Ockham’s Razor will prevent us from positing unnecessary arbitrary distinctions.
So you’re right that the diverse experience view is ‘baseless’. But note that it can’t be for the reason that it is “purely metaphysical with no implications for reality”. For the same could be said of the reasonable (and presumably true) view that in fact we both experience the same colour qualia when looking at a tomato. That too is a ‘metaphysical’ view with no scientific implications. But it’s also plainly reasonable. So, not all ‘metaphysical’ views are on a par. [/tangent]