I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be.
— Mww
You're not a physicalist?
— Coben

That I think a way for an object to be necessarily presupposes the reality of it, which makes explicit my acceptance of the physicalist domain. — Mww

You could be an idealist, for example, instead.

The manner by which subjects and objects relate to each other is a logical condition, and no determination of the fundamental nature of either is given by their mere relation. — Mww

The mere assumption/conclusion that there are subjects and objects is an onlological assumption/conclusion. Perhaps there is just a kind of phenomenalism or experiencism. That the whole idea of subject -> perception -> external world is not correct. Whether it is or not is an ontological conclusion/assertion.

Please explain, bearing in mind the keyword fundamental. — Mww

I gave a short shot at that above.

I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be. — Mww

You're not a physicalist? Now perhaps you're not, but physicalism is an ontological monism. One that has been part of science for quite a while. One would hope that do some degree they do not claim to KNOW it is correct, but believe in it and it is part of the foundational assumptions that support their work. (of course scientists can have and do have other ontologies) If you think they are incorrect for having this as an ontology, it would seem to me you have two approaches: one epistemological, the other ontological. I don't think one have an epistemology without an ontology. You have to be taking a stand, say an empiricist one, or a rationalist one, that has inherent it it how subjects relate to objects, what perception is (given what the universe is), what subjects and objects are, etc. So, I think one is fighting fire with fire. This is obviously more clear if one differs from the scientists on ontological grounds directly.

And just to repeat one can have an ontology and work with it, without necessarily claiming one is completely sure.

One can be skeptical of a specific ontology, remain unconvinced. But once one starts to make proclamations, one it staking ones flag in some ontology or another.

There is nothing in my determinations which promise the correctness of them, except the laws of logic. — Mww

One does not need to be certain of an ontology to have an ontology. Scientists may be physicalists without assuming that it will in a thousand years be the accepted ontology of science.

Most people have, for example, some kind of model of perception that has ontologies in it. The very reasons you think one cannot know for certain what reality is made of or what your thoughts are has an ontology in it. Or how could you rule out knowing. Or even having a working ontology that you believe in but are not certain of?

Well, one ontological conclusion held by many scientists gets packaged under materialism (physicalism). Another set of ontological conclusions have to do with all perception being mediated and filtered. IOW empiricism being derived from perception of a subject separated from objects - no rationalism, no direct contact. This could also be, and often is, a materialism, though i don't think it has to be. The universe is such that things are always separate or in physics you might call it inherent locality.

So....no, ontology is irrelevant; — Mww

Doesn't your position depend on ontological conclusions about the way things fundamentally are? Doesnt' any epistemological position?

Ontology is the study of various ideas about the nature of reality. So materialism (or more commonly these days physicalism) is an ontology. So, science has a tendency towards one onotological position. Is it a monism? Is it really information? Most people don't think about the subject much, though they all have ontologies (perhaps often mixed contradictory ones).

Probably some things I believe in, from the criteria I see above, you would class as mere conspiracy theories. But in general I agree. People with power (and even people without much power) have committed various conspiracies, some with a great deal of subterfuge and propaganda and these have been quite effective. These are conspiracies we know about. But often once something is categorized as a conspiracy theory or really hypothesis, this is enough to rule it out for many people. Rule it out without looking at evidence. Or often finding poor proponents and poor arguments, rather than the best proponents and arguments about that specific possible conspiracy. Also if one believes in a what gets called a conspiracy theory, the immediate reactions often include a great deal of ad hominim arguments and insults and assumptions. The assumptions can be that one must be a right wing extremist. (when I was young it would have much more likely been an accusation of being a left wing extremist, back when the left often had conspiracy theories, a number of which were correct). Or that one must be racist or anti-semitic, even if the theory has nothing to do with race or Jewish people.

Is there anyway that every idea of life after death can be correct? — TiredThinker

Perhaps everyone could experience (or not experience anything) what they believe will happen or what they yearn for. I can't see how we can rule that out, though there's no evidence of this multi-afterlife ('multi' as in the multi in multiverse).

It's something that hasn't escaped my notice but be mindful that you used the word "simple" and substituted "diversity" for the word most often used viz. "complexity" when people describe the universe. Are you trying to avoid a contradiction here? — TheMadFool

Maybe unconsciously, but complexity also works I think. I mean a simple trial and error program - which I don't think is so simple since it depends on very complicated molecules - leads to complexity. Yes, I can stand behind that statement, not sure why I switched to diversity. It is both complex and diverse and the lifeforms in themselves can be incredibly complex.

So, you agree then that there are better ways to create universes. — TheMadFool

I didn't say that. Our minds can't create universes, at least, not yet. Unless we are somehow, not consciously.

I guess it depends on whether the complexity evident in the universe is part of god's plan. If it is then he truly is a being of incommensurable intelligence but if it isn't then so much for god's intelligence. A clue to decide which of these possibilities is true can be found in the many design flaws our bodies have. — TheMadFool

This is a different argument or a different facet of a larger argument. So we have the simplicity argument, which I responded to and I don't think it holds. Now we are looks at the flaw design argument....
It depends on the values of that deity. It depends on whether the deity is omnipotent or not. I don't think what we consider flaws means that God is not incredibly intelligent, since we don't know God's goals, at least those of us who don't nor God's value.

By the way, a trial and error method as a survival process for life only makes sense if the environment that imposes selection pressure is not something that god has control over. God, perforce, has to make life adapt to changing milieu that can come in the form of slow climate change or sudden asteroid impacts — TheMadFool

If God set the whole thing rolling then he set both nature and nurture in motion.

Either god is playing a macabre game with us, something the faithful will vehemently deny, or there are certain variables in creation that are out of his divine hands. If one runs with the latter possibility, we have a being that hasn't quite figured the nuts and bolts of creating universes capable of harboring life. — TheMadFool

Or the deity has values that are the same as ours or value that are similar but the deity can see more deeply into the consequences. Or there is a demiurge situation. Or the deity is not completely infallible. The Abrahamics have trouble with the idea of a fallible deity or a deity that is also learning, but other religions do not.

But now we seem to be rolling into a variety of arguments, more or less under the Problem of Evil baliwick. I hadn't encountered the simplicity problem before and was mainly interested in that.

RNA and DNA is the fundamental information creating life.
It is a fundamental truth. — Pop

RNA and DNA is a truth?


Wouldn't a truth be in words? Just as a falsehood is.

You made a good point. What of the so-called laws of nature? Don't they evidence a prodigious intellect? Yet, taking into account the fact that life is the pièce de résistance of god's creation, it's reliance on a method (trial and error) that's so simple that even animals and toddlers use it doesn't jibe with a conception of god as a supreme genius capable of creating universes. — TheMadFool

According to some theists it is the pièce de résistance of god's creation, mainly the Abrahamists, others not so much. But why does the magnificance of what we look at - the vast array of life on the planet - become less if a simple set of heuristics (and some rather incredibly complicated molecules) are what led to it. IOW one could argue that only a genius could find a simple process that would lead to such diversity. Whereas some lesser deity would have to have many more processes and complicated interventions and so on.

IOW if two extremely talented inventors (engineers) came to a company, each with a device that could do something very useful and complicated and one inventor had a very elegant simple set of programming, say, and the other had extremely complicated programming in this device, we would like think the one who managed to create a device with the same functions off a simpler set of processes is the better inventor, the greater genius.

If creation is wondrous, I don't see how having a simpler set of processes that led to it, takes anything away from the wonder of it, nor from the genius of the maker.

And just to repeat: to get something to 'learn' via trial and error what nature has learned is incredible - note I am not making a case for God, just noticing what an incredible result we have. And DNA is an incredible molecule and not a simple one. And trial and error led to the creation of minds that use more than trial and error, so if this was made by a deity, that deity chose a simple elegant solution to create something incredible. That to me is a sign of skill and it would be seen as a skill in science, business, art, whereever. The most skilled workers come up with elegant simple solutions if they can. If the process itself then leads to whatever the goal is, the simplicity is not leading to any loss, and it is likely easier and cheaper, but at root it shows mastery.

If I invent a robot that I have to constantly tell what to do, it is less effective than one that I can just set in motion once and it learns and does what I want it to. The former robot/supervisor heuristic is more complicated, but less elegant and a sing of a poorer product.

So, if I understand your argument, the idea is that if God created the universe, then he is simple because the method he chose for the unfolding of life forms (not the universe in general) is trial and error and this is simple. But then don't we fairly complicated creatures also use simple heuristics in all sorts of creating? And to create a universe that allows for unbelievably complex diversity (at least on earth) in forms, is no mean feat at least from our perspective. It is almost as if God should have had a more complicated set of processes, but since trial and error manages to be unbelievable creative when passed through DNA and selection, that it ends up being really quite effective. Is the universe simple because simple formulas like E=MC2 are in the background? I don't know. Elegance and simplicity can often go hand in hand. Simplicity couples with stochastic processes can create all sorts of wonders - though of course this is a subjective evaluation, but wonders to me.

There are no pure emotions. The emotions are not isolated processes, separate from the rest of the mental activity. — David Mo

I agree.

So this is a little personal, but I have had chronic depression since I was a teenager. Depression is not sadness, it is the absence of emotion. I have had to live my life despite this biweekly to monthly lack of emotion, and live my life by reason and a code.

While this is an extreme case, I have often faced great emotional frustration for a rational goal. I was a teacher for five years in inner city schools, and faced a lot of stresses and frustrations. If I were merely guided by my emotions, I would have quit in my first year. — Philosophim

Sorry to hear about the depression, I do know how serious and unpleasant that can be. But you must have desired to accomplish certain things, been concerned emotionsally about what would happen if you could not work. I do know that depression puts a dark haze (my words that may not fit your experience) over everything, but still, even depressed, unless completely bedridden and frozen, one has desires and concerns, sometimes emotions in relation to others that motivate actions. Thoughts cannot motivate on their own.

You definitely can live your life by emotions alone. — Philosophim

I am not advocating this, and also I think there is a false dichotomy, the parts of the brain are all meshed together, the limbic system involved in all thinking and even necessary for rational thinking.

Emotions are part of your thinking brain. They are absolutely essential as you grow when you are just learning about the world. As you age emotions are still important, but they are no longer your sole motivator for action. — Philosophim

Motivations are emotions. You may have reasoned ideas about why X is a good goal, but you are still motivated by the emotions and desires. These are now informed, by not motivated, by thoughts. Adults have more information, more types of goals and have more information including, for example, conclusions drawn from reasoning. But the motivation is still emotions/desire. You have to care and desire and dislike and want and hate and love to mobilize the body/self. Otherwise, however well reasoned, you just have thoughts moving through the screan of the mind.

Wishful thinking. — David Mo

Sounds at the very least a combinatin of emotions and thoughts.

Anxiety.

Ibid.

Unresolved fear (procastrination).

Ibid

Aggression (sadism).

Would as the others likely have non-emoitonal cognitive factors that set the emotions in this case aggression going.

The ultimIate technique in persuasion and rethoric is...
listening.

That's kind of a combined and answer, taking ultimate as meaning most effective but also as meaning 'best' (morally, socially). If you listen you know the person you are trying to affect. YOu know there values and needs. You can tailor your message to them. You also engage them. People want and need to be heard and understood. You are also being changed, in front of them, up front before demanding change from them. If you really listen you are affected. You role model listening for them, then see if they listen. You connect rather than coming at them as some Newtonian impact (subtly or not).

Obviously one needs to have an image of the colours in such a case. Likewise an architect imagines a building, and even a speaker foresees the end of his sentence. Buddhists are not idiots, and they do not seek to stop all thought or suppress all images. — unenlightened

Sure, it just seemed like the difference between apetite and desire in your schema was being in the now without imagining the future. (and I know a good number of Buddhist and in the past a really wide array of them so I am under no illusion they are idiots. My experience was they were academically ahead of most people (in the West that is, not so much in the East where I also used to know many. And those in the East were not idiots either.) To me the dichotomy between apetites and desires is not Buddhist, nor to I think the schema holds. It is how they relate to desires (and emotions) that is trained to be quite different over time.

This is the step that one does not need to make when buying paint. There is a whole process of knowledge from the past projected into the future that is the basis of science and much of what we do day to day. It is very effective as long as it is directed outwards to the world. It is when it is directed inwards that it becomes identification and gains the power to cause suffering. there, it extends the self in time.

So here's the Animal Farm slogan for you - Plan to do, good; plan to be, bad. — unenlightened

And this also feels no quite Buddhist to me. People can suffer immensely based on their plans to do. I don't think Buddhist is working on content, at least this is not my experience within both Eastern and Western Buddhism nor with the Buddhists I met. It has to do with how one relates to one's planning and the feelings around them. You disidentify with the emotions and desires. You observe them. You don't plan not to desire about yourself, that will go on anyway, but you no longer allow this to spontaneously express via the body (as emotions, facial expressions, movement expressing desires and emotions) and withing the mind the observing portion of the mind is all that is identified with. This disrupts the way the limbic system interacts with other parts of the brair or perhaps better put how they react (or learn not to) with the limbic system, it detaches action from emotions for example, and externalizes ALL content. That is not me. The inside of us is just like the external world. It is something to notice, not judge, not try to change and it is not me.

So what is appetite vs. desire in relation to intimacy, love, friendship, creativity.....

Appetite is the physiological condition of hunger, typically triggered by an empty stomach.
Desire is psychological; a thought; an image of hot crumpets dripping with honey (from memory) - the image of myself eating them - imagined pleasure - identification with this image (projected into the future).

It seems to me, then, one is trying to go back to an animal stage before the prefrontal cortex. How would one buy the particular paints one would need for a particular art project, without having a mental image of one's plan for the canvas or even wanting to trying painting. Or in social situations, I can spontaneously notice my appetite for someone who I can see, but I cause myself problems if I think of my friend Joe and go to the phone.

A related but separate issue is that since we are creatures with (more imagination) our apetities cause images. Because we have a tool that is more developed than other animals. So our apetites, which are much more complicated than other animals, have another tool at their disposal, an imagination. And the apetites lead to imagining...

Last one can of course suffer if one does not get food, whether one imagines honey dipped anything or if one simply is hunrgy. Animals suffer. People with no social connections suffer and not simply because of images in their heads, but because we need closeness with others, just as we need air and food, though we can go longer (while suffering) without the first.

It states loosely that suffering is caused by desire. — Pinprick

Suffering would also be caused by a lack of desire. I am not hungry, I don't eat, I feel bad. I feel no desire to connect with other people. I do not try to get close to them. I live an empty, improverished existence. I feel no desire to create or make something. My life is less interesting and more boring. And so on. Now one can argue that I might not notice some of the things that are missing without desire, but there is an improvished life, and some degree of added suffering. I am a social mammal. Take away my desires and I am not really a social mammal anymore. There is something fundamentally anti-life in all this. We could all take pain killers and Valiums all the time and suffer less in a certain way, but the organism 1) is not longer as a live and 2) suffering things it may or may not notice.

you are a group of social mammals. The jealousy can help reorder the group so all members thrive. There is motivation for you to all get along and so for food and social contact to be distributed fairly, benefitting, potentially, all of you.

Happiness is, by and large, associated with order and sorrow with chaos. — TheMadFool

Perhaps a tangent, but it depends on the order and also the degree. Chaos is a generally a pejorative term and order generally is considered a positive term, especially with no context. But spontenaity, surprises, new experiences, diversity, non-repetitiveness, variation could all be called chaos by someone who wants everything to be strictly patterned with no unexpected experiences. And most dystopias have as their central problem too much order. In fact the move from rigid societies, where one was born into both permanent class and profession, where there was a tiny range of behavioral options and tremendous pressure to conform, to modern society with much less order, more variation, wider ranges of behavioral options, is often seen as positive. That we are moving in a direction towards something more life enhancing. We wants elements of expected and repeated events and behavior AND we want variation, change, surprises.

To the three of you: I'll attempt a simple proof of why we should be pessimists and why life is suffering. — TheMadFool

Is this you summarizing the Buddhist argument? To me it doesn't sound like Buddhism. Buddhism may or may not be correct. I haven't argued that it is wrong. It also seems like you are saying that Buddhism is pessimistic and that is not what most Buddhists think. And there are many presentations on line by Buddhists for what this is not a correct interpretation. In some ways it is wildly optimistic.

The practice of Buddhism can find appeal only when its core tenets make sense. At least that's how Buddhism is advertised - as a completely rational philosophy/religion based on hard facts. — TheMadFool

That's how some people advertise it, trying to draw a distinction, generally in the West, between Buddhism and other religions. But there is, as I said before, a very strong push for one to engage in practices and that this should, in the religion, dominate over rational thinking, argument, thinking in general, emoting and following desires. The idea is to set aside cognitive habits. Philosophical positions center themselves in thoughts, expect criticisma and active on verbal levels. (of course people check their experience within philosophical interactions, but the extreme emphasis is on words, dialogue, essays, argument, criticism, and verbal thinking. Buddhism does present philosophical positions. We don't have a binary or trinary choice. There is a Buddhist philosophy and sets of philosophical texts. But I can't see a reason to make this the primary descriptive word for Buddhism, GIVEN much of what it presents as facts: that the mind is problematic, the things it suggests one focus one's time on, the actual behavior of the Buddha, the behavior or the experts (as decided in the various branches) and the admonitions about what one should and should not do and what to prioritize in Buddhism if one wants to succeed. And all that is radically different from philosophical interaction. There are also implict and explicit criticisms in Buddhisms of folk and other philosophies of language. And that one should not get fastened onto what is a fact or not. Not that the word fact is tossed around much in Buddhism I don't think.

Philosophies tend to be about reality, about what is. Here we have a program of activity and one that runs in parallel to normal society, with the goals of changing things like the structure of perception, the way other parts of the brain relate to the limbic system, to states of mind not centered in words. And once one is trying to be an expert in Buddhism, one engages in non-verbal activities with specific practices for very large periods of time. Try to be an expert in Hegelian philosohpy, or Western philosophy,or existentialism or.....pretty much any philosophy, and you are engaged in mental verbal activities, with a strong focus on critical analysis, mental verbal processes, the trying to get a grasp, through mental paraphrase on concepts the philosopher has come up with, argument, counterargument....thinking, thinking, thinking........Which is why, despite my acknolwedging that Buddhism also includes a philosophy, it makes much more sense to say it is a set of practices that also have a supportive philosophy, and a religion.

The heart of philosophy is critical thinking and Buddhism meets that condition in being both based on facts (4 noble truths) and arguing for a worldview from them. — TheMadFool

I am not sure the cessation of suffering and enlightenment are facts, for example. That elimination of suffering and the hard to define state of 'enlightenment' are hardly testable. There is a great deal of evidence that Buddist meditation and other meditations can reduce suffering, but that's true of other things as well.

But I am not arguing that there isn't a Buddhist philosophy, but I think that's only a portion of Buddhism and hardly the most important. The practices are vastly more important and this is inherent in most Buddhisms. IOW you will be encouraged not to think a great deal, at least in comparison with how much you are encouraged to engage in the practices.

While religion may not be all blind faith, argumentation is frowned upon for the reason that god is perfect - among other things, is infallible and all good - and so to argue against good becomes, in the eyes of the faithful, both foolish and evil, with greater emphasis on the latter. — TheMadFool

I am not sure how well it would go in much of the East if you wanted to argue about Buddhism. I wouldn't recommend going into temples and giving that a shot, though Buddhism covers such a wide variety of people, it might go over well in some places. Yes, Buddhism is less focused on morals, which are actually more like practical heuristics, but then it seems to me you are conflating religion with Abrahamic religions. And even in that group you have Judaism which has much more focus on argument, reasoning the like than Buddhism.

Religion, philosophy, and sets of practices with goals are not mutually exclusive categories. I think Buddhism is centered on practices and eliciting responses, rather than arriving at mental verbal models of the universe than other philosophies. This is most clear in the Zen version of Buddhism, but other branches are really quite wary of trying to arrive at truth via mental verbal practices.

I would add that Buddhist texts are often accumulations of assertions, often with a lot of metaphors. This does not rule it out as being philosophy, but it is nothing at all like modern philosophy which is more focused on critical thinking.

I'd say Buddhism is batch of practices where even language is considered a practice that leads to certain effects and states (processes). Language as pointing. What leads to a goal.

Aren’t emotions just chemical changes in the brain and thus merely subjective experiences? — Roy Davies

That would hold for thoughts also. Those would be just chemical changes in your brain. It should be noted also that these are changes that are parts of the processes of brains that took millions of years of survival to develop. These processes are part of things like 'motivation', which has its uses.

Sad and mad are both kinds of bad (negative affect), and people always forget the second kind of good (positive affect): — Pfhorrest

I don't think sad and mad are bad emotions, though they can certainly arise where they are not helpful. It would be odd not to get angry in many situations and in those situations, anger is a motivator. We evolved or the trait evolved because it is useful in many situations, including many social ones where protection, appropriate relation, boudndary setting and other issues need to be addressed. As social mammals sadness is not simply inevitable - as a byproduct of valuing other people - but even has advantages in general....
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/four_ways_sadness_may_be_good_for_you

https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/is-crying-good-for-you#1

Everyone has a right to an opinion just as much as cosmologists do. Many cosmologists think time has no start so clearly there is a considerable number of them that do not know their arses from their elbows on even basic matters. And speculating deductively is surely what this site is about? — Devans99

Sure, as long as people know they are speculating. I said nothing about you shouldn't have had an opinion or expressed it here.

If I go back to where I came in...

The universe can only have one of the following as its average long term behaviour:

1. Expanding. This is what science says.
2. Contracting. Impossible. One big black hole
3. Steady state. Impossible. Leads to 2
4. Cycling. Impossible. Loses energy on each cycle, leading to 3 then 2

Any expanding universe must have a start in space and time (see BGV theory). — Devans99

which was a response to my response to....

↪Coben

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book 'demonstrating' how something can come from nothing. — Zelebg

I see statements of certainty.

And I guess if I was ruling something out via deduction, I would wonder why many of the experts in the field are not ruling it out. I could of course be right and they, wrong. But I would wonder why the experts do not rule out what I rule out and try to explain why they are off base. What they are missing. Deduction's accuracy is affected by assumptions, including metaphysical ones.

Useless and mean-spirited? For pointing out that it's absolutely wrong on every level to claim to have a right to others life even if they suffer horribly and want to end it? — Zn0n

Unless I am mistaken we are in agreement on this one. I don't think one has the right to expect others to live for us. Potentially a child in relation to a suicidal parent, though even there it is mainly that I would deeply understand the feeling of betrayal rather than thinking it is a right.

1. We often say that those who commit suicide are selfish for taking themselves out of others' lives and I wonder if sometimes we are the selfish ones for wanting them to continue living for us? — Anthony Kennedy

I think it is a useless criticism, often meanspirited. I do think that suicide may be an act of rage, which isn't precisely selfish, but it is aimed at others or the universe or God. But most likely the person was in incredible emotional (and/or physical) pain and this was them wanting that to stop. Perhaps drugs or alcohol added to an impulsive decision. But again to call that selfishness doesn't add much for me.

And I think your point is precisely spot on. It's a guilt trip. Even if you can't stand living, keep going and suffer for me. I certainly understand the feeling someone who is heartbroken might have that the person is selfish, but I think it's both poor psychology and guilt that adds nothing.

2. If someone has decided to make the rational decision to commit suicide, does people trying to deter them from their rationality take away from their person? — Anthony Kennedy

I guess I have felt that if a person wants to die, they will manage. I think that there is little downside and much positive side to trying to intervene with words or actions. If you can stop them, they probably were not sure. They might be high or impulsive or in an extremely painful state that need not go on for years even. Another chance seems to have little downside. And in some sense they 'did it in front of you' and failed to have an effective method.

Agreed. But still curious. A bit suspicious. Even skeptical. Why are we so interested in engaging in an activity built upon exposing flaws articulated by others? Why did we choose this hobby instead of say, playing the piano? — Hippyhead


This point of view only makes sense if you believe YOU ARE RIGHT and that anyone who points out an error IS ATTACKING YOU. It's that millennial mentality that says you have the right to go unchallenged in life. — Kenosha Kid

That conclusion seems unwarranted along with the psychologizing of, at the very least, people like the person you are quoting. The word 'agreed' by Hippyhead was in response to

Exposing flaws in a position or argument is, well, part of the act of doing philosophy. — TheMadFool

IOW he agreed that is one is doing philosophy, presenting one's ideas, is part of philosophy to face criticism. He then wonders what draws people to engage in an activity that as opposed to others where finding flaws is not such an essential part. The response to this is that he thinks people are attacking him if they critique his ideas and that he has a millenial mentality.


In the OP which you consider backing up your interpretation he says...

First, a process of challenge and counter challenge is obviously a key part of the philosophy process, so the Gotcha Game is hardly off topic. My parents taught me the Gotcha Game when I was a teen. Any idea I brought home from school they would always jump to the opposite side of the case. I found this really annoying, until I realized that they were teaching me how to think. — Hippyhead

Where he says this is a key part of philosophy and in fact seems if anything grateful because it taught him to think!!!!!!!!!

Now it's not binary. Perhaps there is some part of your interpretation that fits, but his OP and responses actually seem curious and interested and not fitting your interpretation of his position (nor of his psychology, which really need not have been brought in at all.

There are likely a wide range of answers:
1) positions that one does not like seem weaker if can undermine a specific argument in favor of them - it seems more likely they are false
2) someone thinks people arrive at confidence rather too easily, in general, so it is fun or noble work, to show them, hey, it ain't so easy and you're believing stuff on weaker grounds than you realize.
3) you consider yourself a filter or a test. Perhaps you're not good at coming up with new ideas, but you have a set of skills you like to use as a kind of decomposer. I mean, vultures and fungi and worms play a vital role in ecosystems.
4) the position is threaten and finding holes in specific arguments for that positions reduces anxiety.
5) you're mean and get off on frustrating people
6) you're a negative type person, you like to tear things down and you might not even be good at it.
7) people are always telling you what to think, finally you can make them look foolish, trouble them, get in their way
8) you like to probe worldviews and see what happens
9) you actually agree with them, but think they are making mistakes and their arguments could be better
10) you hope they are right, but present your own nagging doubts, either to find they can reduce your nagging doubts or to at least bring them to your level of concern and frustration.
11) you are generally skeptical about knowledge


I am sure there are many other reasons to what may seem like a Gotcha move but might be something not quite Gotcha or a great example of Gotcha.

The point of stating "not contradict reality", is to spell out what "being the case" is in a less clearly abstract manner. Basically, what is true is what cannot be contradicted. — Philosophim

This would mean your definition of knowledge is even more rigorous than, for example, that in science. Because science is always - at least theoretically - open to revision. At the point in time something gets accepted as knowledge, the scientific community has not evidence to contradict the theory, however it is not determined that it cannot be contradicted.

That is a very hard thing to predict. Strong evidence and nothing to falsify it now and no competing theory with either more evidence or less posited entities is more or less current practice in science. No claims are made that it cannot be contradicted.

Though perhaps you meant 'cannot be contradicted now as far as we know.'

roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true.


Being co-existent with reality is an assertion of your belief "being the case", or yourself regarding it as true. — Philosophim

I think everyone beliefs that their beliefs are the case and regard them as true. They may have different degrees of certainty. It might be a shaky belief as a kind of working hypothesis or it might be something one considers must be the case.

Knowledge is a communal belief - at least in many epsitemologies. What beliefs do we decide are knowledge? And some set of criteria are put forth.

So, if we go with the encyclopedia definition, we can go back to the first sentence that I quoted from your paper:

[Knowledge] is both the belief in something, and a further belief that “the something” is co-existent with reality — Jarmo

Yes, to me the encyclopedia definition cannot fit that sentence because any belief in something already includes the further belief. It is implicit in that sentence that one can have a belief in something but not believe it is coexistant with reality. (I am also not sure what this latter phrase means. I assumed at first it meant something like 'real' or 'the case', but actually co-existent means lives or occupies the same space as something else. If I believe in yaks, then this means I believe yaks are not part of reality but in the same space as it. Not a subset) Further it makes for an odd epsitemology. Knowledge is not a belief that meets certain criteria (generally rigorous ones) but a belief that is two beliefs, neither of which must meet certain criteria.

So, pick a belief you consider false: an Abrahamic God, alien abductions, whatever you considera false belief. It is clear that believers in alien aductions believe in alien abducutions and consider these to be coexistant with reality. Or real. So this would mean it is knowledge. Or perhaps he is saying they consider it knowledge, which is often also true. Since most people conflate belief and knowledge or don't have any extra criteria except degree of certainty not based on thought out criteria.

The progress of society if one could call it that has been one from chaos in prehistoric times to order in modern times. This transformation of society has been mirrored by a shift in emphasis from emotions to reason. Am I correct? — TheMadFool

I guess I'd first wish you'd respond to points I made. It's now as if they never happened and a new set of extremely complicated ideas are raised by what I think is an unclear binary chaos/order now added on top of an already complicated, but I don't think analogous, emotion/reason dyad.

First, I doubt it was chaos or we would not have survived. It was a different kind of order and a simpler one. I think, for example, that herds of zebras, say, or schools of fish, are vastly more ordered than most groups of humans. Though they lack the additions our primate brains have on top of their brains. We both have limbic systems, but they lack the parts of our brains we associate with verbal reason. But order can easily be had without those things. IOW now we have shifted to new criteria (order vs. chaos) and I think that gets extremely complicated trying to relate these to emotions and reason. And also raises all sorts of issues around the implicit value judgments. Fascists have often thought that more liberal societies are less rational precisely because there is greater diversity of actions, association, cultural options and choices, sexualities, art forms, etc.. They see this as chaos. Are they more reasonable or less reasonable than their liberal opponents? Is order the best priority/evaulation point? and what order? Modern society in the Europe and the US is vastly more complicated and chaotic (certainly by many criteria) than that of a tribe or a middle ages serf and lord society. And please don't think this means I prefer feudalism. I just think this raises all sorts of new issues without really laying that out. Japanese culture pre-interaction with the West (certainly before WW2) was vastly less chaotic by most measures than Western societies and certainly the way WEstern societies are now. Does this mean it was better or more reasonable? Does order actually correlate with reason? Creatures with incredibly small and simple brains with nearly no reasoning power can live in extremely orderly groups:ant for example.

Emotions can drive violence, but it takes reasoned arguments to get a genocide going. You have to convince the limbic system not to feel group X is human and feel empathy for them.

And animals without anything resembling our swirling cities can lead extremely ordered lives, with clear expectations being met with incredibly regularity by the other members of their groups. A coterie of prarie dogs is extremely well organized, much lower chaos than much of our modern society. The act as a cohesive group with vastly more predictable behaviors. IOW they work well as groups and rarely really hurt each other, for example. That's much futher back in evolutionary time than human brains, as far as the evolution of the complexity of human brains. I don't think order and chaos are an easy correlation with reason and emotion. And while of course I want many things ordered, I want many things vastly less ordered than some societies have had them.

I also just don't understand why for one second I must choose. Any one who thinks one should be suppressed is denying one facet of themselves. They are immersed in each other. They, in us, need each other. They have different approaches but neurologically cannot be neatly separated. And reason cannot function without emotions.

Does fault imply decision or consciousness, then?
— dussias

It doesn't matter. It matters for psychological reasons of explanation, but not for the present context. The present context seeks to uphold the integrity of intellectual standards above and beyond the regress (manipulation) of emotional states. — JerseyFlight

I agree. Here we are typing responses. We are not blurting something out when someone walks up to us on the stress telling us what they think. Here whatever we write, whether driven by huge emotional reactions or more calm ones, is a conscious choice. I don't think one can argue that one flinched and produced a post or an adrenalin surge caused one to post here. Some posts of course trigger huge emotions, but one you get down to the really rather fine tuned actions of typing and generally sitting really quite still, you are not in a fight or flight state. You are responsible for your choices and you have time to focus on the assertions and arguments in the post you are reacting to. Someone runs into my bedroom as I am waking up and tells me there is no free will or there is no persistant self really has to accept the fact that I may focus on them, their emotions, their attitude and no give a good critique of their argument. I might even hit them, even if I agreed with their position.

Do I love some reasonable arguments! But it's funny, emotions many times provide so much more information about the world. Pride, jealousy, disgust; these have steered humanity since its beginning. The problem is that, to obtain information from emotions, we need to open different channels, those more fit to noise and sights rather than words and meanings.
— dussias

Steered?! You might want to rethink that. Does a drunk driver steer himself at 100 mph into a tree? — TheMadFool

For example, your reaction to this. Pride in one's work can be excellent for the creation of anything from a vaccine to a great work of art. It is an emotional assessment and most highly skilled people will have pride. Of course there is problematic pride, but in your response it is as if these emotions are necessarily metaphorically the equivalent of a car crash. Disgust is something we evolved to protect us from, for example, disease and also to enforce social norms. It creates societal cohesion. Obviously if one differs with others about what is disgusting (and what is moral) one can consider their disgust wrong. But likely we accept our own. It is part of being a culture/group. Jealousy is, just on my gut (emotional:razz: ) reaction, the trickiest. Now as I hone in more with my analytical mind I still think it is the most likely to be problematic, however it is a natural byproduct of the strong feelings of attraction/love we feel for certain people. In a philosophy forum, I can't really see it being helpful.

Most of the time I feel the same way but which would you rather have around you when a tiger or lion makes its way toward your family? Cold logic or warm love? — TheMadFool

Absolutely no question: emotions. Who is better at logic, you or a gazelle/gorilla? Emotions are motivators and make fast decisions. In that case smell or sight of lion triggers a wash of emotion: fear and motivation based on it....running or hiding or defending/protecting, depending on what the family is doing. Ever see how musk oxen deal with an approaching lion. They are not using deduction, but intuitive and emotion driven choices. Also you are contrasting emotions with logic, which I think is a problem. Emotions are neither logical nor illogical. Though obviously a gazelle or me seeing a lion is being perfectly logical in getting scared and running. You certainly don't want to stand there and do some deduction. There is a lion. Lions are dangerous. It is running toward me. If it reaches me a dangerous animal is close to me. Therefore, I will create distance between me and....

dead.

Many emotional reactions are perfectly in line with what logical conclusions would dictate. And in fact millions of years of evolution have given us a great base for making all sorts of decisions. Of course emotions can mislead us. It's a bit like comparing bicycles and hammers. But further in most situations we need them both.

In my humble opinion the two emotions that matter the most are sorrow and joy - both, I'm led to believe, are causes of woolly thinking. Other emotions like jealousy, anger, hate, love, etc. are usually stumbling blocks insofar as clear and logical thinking is concerned. — TheMadFool

I disagree, though I also know that what you say here can be right. Anger for example can inform reason that there is a problem with someone. In a crisis situation, someone attacks your child, it is a motivator that revs the body up to defend the child. In a workplace situation where the boss treats you unfairly it can be a signal to a distracted mind that there is a problem and then also a motivator to assert yourself/deal with the problem. Of course one can come up with situations where emotions are problematic, but one can do this for reasoned conclusions. How connected are the emotions to what is happening? How well do we use these facets of ourselves? How connected are we between reason and emotion or are these functions too separate from each other as if we have two modes of dealing with situations? (when in fact we don't)

]This is an exclusive OR disjunction meaning only one must be selected to the exclusion of the other. I bet most if not all people will choose reason over emotion any day but that's just my opinion of course. — TheMadFool

A devastating choice either way, but I would choose emotion. I'd rather be a rather poor primate than someone with no emotions. To no longer love my wife, nature, my kids. To no longer care about myself, kindness, connecting to others. To not have motivation for anything even to reason. To be a think, a calculator and one with no reason even to calculate since I have no motivations anymore. No goals that I care about.

And also without emotions we have a lot of trouble reasoning.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/06/17/172310/the-importance-of-feelings/

Emotions and reasoning are not neatly separated in the brain. Further you need non-rational - as opposed to irrational - processes when reasoning. Intuition and feelings of correctness, completion, having checked carefully enough, feelings that something is missing
surround and support the process of reasoning. Reasoning in human brains is not like programming. Small bits of feelings are present throughout the process and necessary for that process.

A person without emotions is severely handicapped as a thinker.

Ah, ok. Yes, sure. Yes, ad hom and insult are often conflated. Some seem to think they have found a fancy way of saying 'that's an insult.'

Sure, but it seemed like your focus was on ad homs. They dismiss the argument through saying it is based on emotion or merely that the person is emotional. The ad hom may be implicit: 'since you are emotional, your argument is wrong', but it is present. I said nothing about insults nor did you. I thought the examples you were think of were where the person making the accusation was dismissing the position of the supposedly emotional person on the grounds they were emotional.

Rather than that they were merely saying 'oh, you are an idiot you are so emotional'.

For example...

By characterizing a rational position, as an emotional position, the defender is trying to dismiss it without actually having to deal with it. — JerseyFlight

Here the person is saying that because it is emotional (you have emotions) it is wrong. The emotions are not part of the position/argument, they are part of the person. What difference does it make to the position or the argument?