this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 69 points 9 months ago (3 children)

If the rationalist deduces what is logical based on their empirical experience then their reasoning is flawed. We have to accept the axiomatic truth that our senses are limited and cannot account for an absolute truth.

To separate valid perceptions from invalid ones, a person first must assume that the world can be known through the senses. They must also assume that the world is objectively real. These assumptions do not get along well with one other. To say the world is objectively real is to say it is independent of and indifferent to sense perception. Then what in the world can we know? We can know only the effects of the parmesan cheese upon our senses, not the cheese itself.

[–] mimic_kry 30 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Rofl

You jest, but some actually do often confuse objective perception with objective reality.

Fact is though, the pursuit of a perfect vessel with which to observe reality is silly and impractical, so we make due with common shared characteristics.

In other words, the cheese itself is not cheese, we only perceive it as cheese

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Ceci n'est pas fromage.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

How do they taste?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] mimic_kry 5 points 9 months ago

Lmao

The only truth is that there is no truth

I aspire to your level of philosophical ascension

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

But mightn't we perceive it as cheese because it is cheese?

Also maybe not, but I don't think we can say it is not cheese.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How would you define objective perception? If empiricism is equally problematic for all humans, then what could possibly qualify as objectivity in perception?

[–] maccentric 3 points 9 months ago

There is no spoon

[–] mimic_kry 3 points 9 months ago

Twas a joke

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

We experience a world through the senses. We have no other way to experience any world that may or may not exist. The world experienced through the senses is apparently consistent, and if we do not deal with it, we have bad sensory experiences, or cease to be experienceable to each other entirely. So, since this is the only world we can interact with, and how we do so matters to our happiness, all we can do is take this world on its own terms and deal with it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The objectively real world may be separate from and indifferent to sense perception, but sense perception isn't indifferent to the objective world. Sense perceptions are caused by an interaction of our sense organs and the world. Surely from repeated patterns of sense perception we can draw some correct inferences about the external world?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How can we be sure that those inferences are correct? Any appeal to empirical evidence would be circular reasoning.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

"correct" is a heavy word there. Would reproducible and predictable suffice?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And don't call me Shirley.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Surely you can't be serious

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You're supposed to taste it before you have them do their little cheese ritual. All that intelligence, and like 7 wisdom.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No you're supposed to take all the cheese and make little cheese angels on the floor while they grate it around you

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You and I may have different objectives at an Italian restaurant. Yours sounds more fun.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

I agree with the pasta, which questions if it's good enough and takes the notion of an implied revisit of another ingredient as a validation of its inadequacies.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I love parmesan and will take as much as I can before my spouse starts to scowl at me

[–] Socsa 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That shit is like $50/lb so just keep grating and I'll take it in a to go box.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

what would happen if you never told them to stop? would they eventually stop of their own accord or keep coming back with new blocks of cheese?

[–] Socsa 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Eventually the cheese would begin to form a singularity and the grater would exist on the boundary, slowing their own perception of time with each subsequent grate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

wormhole life hack

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Now I'm wondering if that's actually possible

If you had enough cheese would the collective mass create enough gravity to pull it all together and create a blackhole

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

I too love cheese and want to eat a shit ton of it but I count my calories because I don't want to end up fat

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

This is definitely the best thing I've seen today.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Why is he holding a cheese grater like that? I don't want any blood in my food tyvm.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

He's using the fine grating side, as is appropriate for parmesan

When using one of the small sides of the grater, you hold it by the large edges, but since you're not rubbing your fingers up and down the blades you will be uninjured

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Do you want some grated child on your pasta sir ?

Edit: typo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

gotta get your iron somehow

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh fuck I've had this same thought when the waiter offers pepper or parmesan.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

The philosophy is plagued with circular logic (thus is the joke). Occam's Razor would state that the guy probably just likes cheese.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I like it. It is a bit heavy handed with the philosophy. I would love to see more.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Existential Comics is a philosophical comic.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The gourmet has not proven that it is impossible to make a decision, only that it is impossible to make an optimal one. In order to do that, he would have to collect data, presumably by patronizing the restaurant multiple times and ordering the same dish each time with different quantities of cheese.

Had the waiter simply reminded the gourmet of this, he would have generated possibly substantial additional revenue for the restaurant, not to mention substantial savings on cheese. It is therefore my recommendation that

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't say "when" until there is a mountain of cheese 2 feet high on my plate. And I sit there watching the plate in awkward silence the entire time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Instead of making it awkward, perform the Austin Powers photography monologue.

"Yes. Yes! YES."

"NO! NO!"

"Yes"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I used to go thru this every night at the olive garden. 12yr olds can be so mean.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I see that the chef is of the same I Always Want More school of parmesan as Ben Lapidus and Heidi Klum.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If all knowledge is empirical, you have your solution already. Just make an experiment. Use a heuristic to estimate an amount, test it and adjust as you go.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

He did! The heuristic was "what the chef recommends" and the next meal will adjust that estimate downward... assuming "as much cheese as possible" doesn't result in the collapse of the universe.

[–] Socsa 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

All information is empirical, but all decisions are not. Life clearly requires approximation, and this is such a simple idea which a ton of really smart people fail to grasp.