However I would like to learn more about evolution and how people think it is possible to evolve in an unnatural world. — bloodninja

I haven’t heard it formally addressed by name so far in this thread, though it’s been more or less directly alluded to: sexual selection is an important aspect of biological evolution in all species in which sexual reproduction occurs. For humans, for example, were all women to solely choose type X males to have sex with, and where all men to likewise solely choose type X women to have sex with, then our species would biologically evolve to eventually consist of only type X people (together with the variations that naturally ensue due to givens such as non-lethal mutations, recessive alleles, and the like). What I’ve expressed is the extremely simplified version, and it does presuppose the reality of biological evolution. That said, for as long as humans will have sex via any mode of choice in who we have sex with, and for as long as reproductions occur via sexual intercourse, the species will continue its "natural"--and typically very gradual--biological evolution. But again, there are a lot of additional factors involved in this; as one among very, very many: that of changing contexts leading to different attributes being most beneficial and, hence, potentially attractive.

Think I'm just re-expressing what Bitter Crank has in mind, just in more formal terms.

I too find myself between these two extremes:The one side denying any and all non linguistic thought and belief based upon an utterly inadequate framework that sorely neglects to draw and maintain a meaningful distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief; and the other side neglecting to draw and maintain the equally crucial distinctions necessary for taking proper account of the complexity of belief. — creativesoul

I’m currently interpreting the following to be in line with your outlook, and since it fits into the thread’s subject:

I’ve come to understand belief as the content to that which is trusted to be (including to have been and to will be). I’ve also come to find at least three categories for trust: trust-that (trusting that X in fact is; e.g. trusting that the earth beneath one’s feet is solid); trust-in (roughly, trusting that X can or will do Y; e.g. trusting in Ted’s capacity to do well in a marathon despite the uncertainty to this); and trust-between (roughly, trust existing between two or more agencies as pertains to implicitly maintained contractual obligations; e.g. Alice’s trust that Bill will not deceive her). “To believe” is to me then fully synonymous in all instances with “to trust”.

Curious to know what criticism of this overall proposition could be offered. (I’ve addressed one potential criticism below)

Thus understood, though, to believe is other than to think—for the latter requires connections made between givens whereas the former a) does not and b) is a prerequisite to thought’s occurrence (each associated given must be trusted in some way prior to associations between them being made).

When one ponders one’s beliefs, one is then thinking about what one generally trusts in manners that now abstract the formerly held enactive trust/belief—this into something now apprehended by the contemplator which enactively trusts. Again, such that one must enactively trust that one’s apprehended abstractions, memories, etc. pertaining to that which one trusts are valid. That which is pondered in some existential sense now becomes other relative to that agency which is enactively trusting.

Likewise, to think is also in similar manner different than thinking about thought—for the thought one thinks about is that which is apprehended by the thinker.

BTW, in conjunction with the aforementioned, one then can also classify trust as being innate (e.g., a calf’s innate trust that it must stand and run as quickly as it can); learned (e.g., one’s learned trust that Earth circles the sun and not the other way around); or enactive (e.g., one’s consciously held trust whenever some uncertainty is consciously discerned).

Thus understood, beliefs can be innate, learned, or enactively held. Animals not capable of any significant degree of intelligence will be largely guided by innate trust/beliefs that cannot be altered—save by processes of biological evolution acting out on the life or death of individuals relative to a given species (or, such as is the case with ants, individual colonies/cohorts). The more intelligent the animal the more learned trust/belief it will hold a capacity to gain via enactive trust/belief that later on become tacitly remembered. When it comes to humans, we’re intelligent enough to be capable of sometimes altering both our learned trust/belief and, less often, our innate trust/belief via our enactive trust/beliefs.

So it’s known: The major criticism that I know of concerns the way in which trust is typically thought of in English speaking communities, as strictly pertaining to agency in relation to other agencies (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(emotion)). But I believe (trust) that this is too narrow a demarcation of what is ontically occurring—brought about by how English conceptualizes reality via words’ connotations. For example, in Romanian (harkening to Latin) there is no linguistic disparity between trust and belief—both being addressable via the word “cred” (as per credo); and to have trust in another agency can (but is not necessarily) specified by “in-cred-ere” (akin to “to entrust”). Hence, “I believe you” gets translated as “te cred” [whereas “I believe in you” translates into “am incredere in tine”]; this while “I believe that […] gets translated as “cred ca […]”. To me this serves as one reason/example for why a more universal aspect of belief-as-trust is ontically present in mind processes than that which English specifies.

OK, all this is a mouthful. But then, propositional knowledge can roughly be expressed as “well-grounded trust-that that is true”. Criticisms of the aforementioned, wherever applicable, would again be welcomed.

Best advice I can offer follows from a translation technique I like to use when folk are using terms in a way unfamiliar to myself. We can replace the term with it's definition in every instance of use. If the overall writing still makes sense, then it's an acceptable manner of speaking. — creativesoul

Yes, its a promising idea; still, replacing words with definitions can make communication cumbersome. The longer a definition the more cumbersome the expressions become. And I don’t have a short definition. (more on this below)

The bit above regarding justification being a more advanced form of what occurs in pre-linguistic and/or non-linguistic creatures is not at all problematic for me. In fact, it would have to be that way, or similarly so, if my own position is right. — creativesoul

Very glad we concur here.

It seems that you're using this notion of 'evidencing' as a manner of talking about sufficient reason to believe... or warrant. It's commonly called "ground" for belief. Seems like nothing is lost if we swap "evidenced" and "justifies" with "grounded" and/or "warrants"... — creativesoul

“Grounded” and “evidenced” are indeed synonyms. But “evidenced” seems to me to provide the process by which the conclusion is obtained—that of data and reasoning about it—whereas “grounded” does not, instead simply serving as conclusion. No?

“Warrants”, I’ve wanted to make use of the word myself previously in this thread. Two issues that come to mind. One is that warranting has many other meanings such that when the word is used, to my ear, it does not specify reasoning as process. The second more directly concerns the thread’s subject: should propositional knowledge then be phrased as “warranted true belief”? Here again, the implication of “belief supported by reasoning to be true” seems to me to be connotatively lacking. I find that the continuum between nonlinguistic intelligent animals and adult humans should be expressible by a single terminology. Otherwise, it at the very least insinuates a division in attributes.

Still thinking about it, though. Part of why I’ve been thought-stuttering here (yes, unbeknownst to others, I have) is that I associate “justify” with “making just” and, in turn, “just” with a metaphysical principle for that which is … well, it’s hard to express in a few words. At any rate, here I deviate from a physicalist’s framework. To laconically express it would only be poetry and to justify it … well, it’s a very long analytical philosophy I’m working on. But on a whim, I’ll try anyway. You have the intra-subjective, this being what goes on in and only in individual minds; dreams for example, among many others. Then there’s the inter-subjective: languages, cultures, etc. Then there’s the dia-subjective: givens that are, curtly expressed, equally applicable to all intra-subjectivities; i.e. physical objectivity, inclusive of its natural laws. And the last category: non-subjective reality. This last category is, for lack of a better short phrase, metaphysical objectivity; hence, equally applicable, or impartial, to all intra-subjectivities. Justness, then, is in my view a property of non-subjective reality. By all means, no justification for any of this was provided so there’s absolutely no call to take any of this seriously; I’m saying this in all earnest. But with this as background, if non-subjective reality is, and if this metaphysical objectivity is in part synonymous to justness, then to justify something is to align it with that which, firstly, is metaphysically objective (via reasoning) and, secondly, as a derivative, to that which is physically objective (via reasoning + data). I understand if this brief account isn’t making much sense; never mind if it does not seem credible. I’ve nevertheless mentioned it, however, so as to illustrate why I’m so attached to the term “justify”, i.e. to make just. It fits well into the metaphysics I’ve in mind—and, here, it does not necessarily imply either linguistic manifestations nor thought which occurs after the fact.

If I’ve just spoken out of hand by mentioning my reasons for preferring the term “justify”, my bad. I’m pretty certain we share different metaphysical dispositions and, on my part, it’s by far not the most important aspect of this thread’s discussions.

I’m going to mull over the issue of terminology some more, though. Thanks again for your input so far.

Unfortunately for the debate, didn't find much of anything to disagree with.

Simply put, should we let evolution do what it does best which is filter out the weak? — intrapersona

I strongly disagree with this notion. But I’ll just address it in this way:

The Mike Tyson’s of the world can pulverize the world’s Einsteins; therefore we should let ear-biting boxers rule and do away with the Einstein’s (the guy had a weird kind of dyslexia or some such, which, naturally, is a disability). For evolution is about the culling of the weak.

Love is a weakness via which to manipulate others to one’s own will, say the unloving and self-proclaimed strong. Let all humans that love be enslaved by those who don’t till only the strong remain. For evolution is about the death of the weak.

Victims of rape were responsible for their own victimization, for they were not strong, say those rapists who are. Let all humans change into rapists or perish, for evolution is about the annihilation of the weak.

… And among this horrendously long list are those where born, or else become, disabled.

Um, nope; none of this sounds right to me. But it always was and always will be fodder for those who are waiting for the worms to come (a Pink Floyd reference). Whenever we are altruistic toward each other, we are strong; when we cull each other out, we become weak—this at the expense of a few who ultimately implode due to lack of social infrastructure. Or so evolution has selected to be the norm for social species. It’s why the “cheaters” among mankind that do things like bite off others' ears in a fair fight, lack love, or rape are not much liked.

Yes, evolution and ethics is a complex issue. Still, it’s not the ethics of a society verses biological evolution. Our ethics—with its cheaters and all—has evolved to so be. The only way to deny this is to deny biological evolution to begin with. And, to be clear, I do say this as someone who upholds something along the lines of an omega point.

I thoroughly enjoy critiquing others' and my own writings, and do appreciate valid objections. I seek them out, in fact, often. Unfortunately, they're few to be found hereabouts. That said, you didn't elaborate upon one, but hinted at it. I agree with the sentiment about some saying that valid inference requires language use. I could probably make that argument against my claim. Kudos. — creativesoul

In the words of the British, buggers. I was hoping to get on with other things, but since this is intellectually stimulating …

What I was hinting at leads back to the way all languages I’m very familiar with (roughly, two: English and the other one being largely Latin based, Romanian) are structured. They very often presuppose linguistic capacity in the cognitive attributes they specify. In a way this makes a great deal of sense: we’re addressing these concepts to ourselves, not to non-linguistic creatures. In another way, to my mind, it handicaps philosophical enquiries into what is by predisposing our abstract thought to limit itself to that realm of linguistically-dependent cognitive givens. Add to this ego-centeredness and the anthropocentrism that naturally ensues in light of the problem of other minds and, to me, there’s something of a near universal cultural bias that obfuscates the way we, humans, contemplate all things pertaining to mind, most especially non-human minds. (And, for fairness, on the other side of the isle there’s the occasional character that believes lesser animals are just as aware of things as humans are, the anthropomorphizing crowd. Me, I’m stuck somewhere in the middle between what I deem to be these two, to me not very well-grounded, extremes.)

For example, we deem that one must first understand what “validity” and “inference” point to as words prior to being capable of engaging in valid inferences—for how can one engage in valid inferences (further complicated by the sometimes very formal structures we associate with them) when one does not know what the language-demarcated concepts are?

Somewhat tangentially, Descartes is well reputed to have believed that lesser animals are basically mind-devoid automatons. He’s anecdotally known, for example, to have kicked a pregnant bitch while believing she held no feelings to speak of. This being only rational to him. Because only humans have feelings, i.e. emotions—not to even bring up the capacity of reasoning and, hence, of making inferences … which are worthless if not somehow evaluated for their validity in contrast to their potential falsehood. (to those who go by anatomy, just as lesser mammals have their own limbic systems, so too do they have their own cerebral cortexes, these being less developed mirror images of our own ... not to even mention analogous evolution of intelligence as can be found in octopuses)

But this topic is to me a headache. One that should be resolved, but not a subject which data alone can resolve. To me, this issue requires reasoning concerning metaphysics—as far removed as it may sometimes be to immediate concerns. And so doing is too off-course from the thread’s intended subject—and debate via soundbites hardly does the topic justice. BTW, if at all of interest, the book Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal, et al. serves as a good example of these complexities—and of the difficulty in using data to resolve the matter. IMO, it sort of all boils down to preexisting metaphysical commitments on the part of each particular philosopher or scientist. And our language certainly conveys in implicit manners many of these metaphysical commitments—to not even bring up our culture(s).

That’s my general take in regards to language and cognitive processes—even if it is a bit too general. But if there’s something more specific that you’d like to address in terms of the capacity to reason among more intelligent non-linguistic beings, let me know what it is. Also, to the extent we differ in this just addressed outlook, I wouldn't mind finding out how.

I’ll address some of your other replies a little later on.

Hey, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Yea, human language is built to connote human language dependent concepts when it comes to many a mind-associated process or attribute. Talk to some and they’ll insist that “valid inference” necessitates the use of language as well. But be this as it may.

I’ve used “believed truth” as shorthand for distinguishing belief-that from belief-in, both of which are beliefs.

As to the criteria for “evidencing” … again, this would get deeper into interpretations of mind than I’d like. I’ll try though: that which evidences is that which suggests the truth of. One might object in that non-linguistic beings lack our linguistic concept of truth. Clearly they lack any account of what truth is; yet, again, for lack of better terms that are ready present, I uphold they do have understandings of that which conforms to reality, i.e. of that which is true.

I’ll provide an example (there are far better ones when it comes to lesser animals, such as those pertaining to great apes, but keeping this sufficiently common): a person’s petting a dog on the back typically evidences the person’s affection toward the dog to the dog. The dog’s memories of being petted will then evidence to the dog that the person who pets him holds affection for him. The data here non-linguistically justifies the given belief-that (haven’t yet come up with a novel term for the concept, though).

If I’m not mistaken, seems like our primary disagreements are over the words that should be properly used. And that no proper words exist for the intended concepts. To me, however, this is not to say that the concepts are lacking or that they’re not well-grounded, to use your semantics.

If they are well-grounded, then these currently ineffable (?) concepts do relate to the thread’s contents; this by illustrating how linguistic justification can be a more advanced, abstracted form of what occurs in pre-/non-linguistic intelligent beings so as to result in “well-grounded beliefs”. But it’s hard to debate most of this if the concepts are not understood via the words used. So, presently, I’m contingently planning on backing out of this discussion.

The act of justification is when a speaker provides the ground for his/her belief statement to another person. — creativesoul

In my previous post I addressed what I intended by the term "to justify" as process and "justification" as an instance of this process. The concept I have in mind and have described does not require language--thought it also applies to linguistic expressions. And, so far, I have no better term for it than that of "justify/justification". I won't rewrite it, but its there.

Linguistically, when asked, "how do you justify X?" what is typically asked is, "what are your reasons for believing X to be true?" One doesn't need to provide these reasons for the valid reasons to be there, i.e. for the belief to be well-grounded, I agree in this. But if reasoning is provided among us linguistic beings and if the reasoning is found valid, then the believed truth is then deemed to be justified--or, as I previously addressed, is "evidenced to be just/correct/right".

Intelligent animals and toddlers don't provide the reasoning for their beliefs to themselves or to others; of course not; they have no language by which to do so. But they can infer, reason, all the same. And via their inference their beliefs can be well grounded or not.

I guess what I'm driving at is that well-grounded-ness is always itself fallible, never infallible/absolute.This is what makes surprises possible in intelligent beings. As well as learning by trial and error.

In due measure with intelligence there are reasons--inferences--held for certain beliefs being maintained. And it is this reasoning that I'm currently terming "justification"--again, the evidencing of being just/correct/right.

Maybe this will better help in making sense of where we differ:

It is validly inferred from pre-existing true belief, actual events, the way things are, and/or some combination thereof. — creativesoul

How then do you believe this non-linguistic valid inference is different from “[non-linguistically] evidencing [that concerned] to be just/correct/right”?

Not sure who you’re addressing this to, but so it doesn’t go un-replied:

Once you get to the roundabout point you address, the ensuing issue is:

>>> How does a belief become well-grounded in the absence of actively manifesting language.

For example, what makes surprise—be it on the part of an intelligent lesser animal, a human infant, or an adult human—warranted and, thus, well-grounded?

Surprise is the act of finding our concepts of what is true to be unwarranted—this typically as they apply to expectations of what was, is, or will be, expectations assumed to be well-grounded. We adults will often linguistically warrant—i.e., linguistically justify—our surprise by explaining that we had good reason to think we knew that which we then discovered we didn’t. All the same, the act of being surprised precedes any and all linguistic justifications for so being. It is entwined with non-linguistic evaluations of what in fact is. Hence, surprise for the animal or toddler, for example, is the expression of a discovery assumed to be well-grounded that that which has been so far assumed to be warranted/well-grounded in fact isn’t.

Or, alternatively, what to a specific (intelligent) lesser animal or toddler warrants—makes well-grounded—that a specific sound is what they are intentionally called by? That the sound is made in representation of their personal being?

It certainly isn’t linguistic justification via linguistically classified abstract concepts. But it is, I uphold, a non-linguistic means of evaluating what in fact is from what isn’t, one that makes use of, at least, a very rudimentary reasoning—a far less developed reasoning that nevertheless remains true to the laws of thought.

Hence, my current position: the non/pre-linguistic believed truth is thereby believed well-grounded via some system of non-linguistic justification*. One which—among more intelligent sapience which adult humans are—becomes expressible via linguistic means and, thereby, certainly vastly more complex (by comparison to infants and to lesser intelligent animals). Yet one which—as we all experience when not linguistically justifying our beliefs and actions—does not stand out consciously as do our linguistic expressions of concepts. … But this, I acknowledge, gets a little deeper into hypotheticals of how the mind works (ones that are in keeping with biological evolution); all this likely not being a proper subject for this thread.

* By “justification” I here roughly intend “to reckon or surmise that that concerned is warranted due to interrelations between obtained data and, hence, due to some form of reasoning, be the reasoning linguistic or not (with “warrant” as verb here roughly meaning: to guarantee as true). Please let me know if this intended concept is better expressed by a term other than that of “justify”, as in “to evidence just/correct/right”. I’ll then use that term instead, if it indeed is more fitting of the concept.

As a heads up, I’m currently in no position to properly argue all of this stuff out. Just presenting it here as my upheld current opinion—which I hope I’ve to some small degree justified. All the same, the matter of explaining the occurrence of surprise in non/pre-linguistic beings still seems to me to be pertinent to the issue of well-grounded beliefs being knowledge.

I understand, but I think this is an error. — Sam26

Then illustrate how none of the three examples I provided for justification via causal reasoning is in fact a form of valid justification. Otherwise, if any of my examples of justification are valid, they prove my position's validity.

Also, there are no prelinguistic JTBs, but there are prelinguistic beliefs. Justification is a linguistic endeavor, and always has been. There is no medium for justification apart from language. It necessarily involves others within a linguistic setting. — Sam26

What you’re saying is mainstream. Right up there with all concepts being dependent upon language, rather than vice versa. But I disagree with this popular believed truth that you too uphold. To get a better understanding of your stance:

1) If the pre-linguistic child cannot discern via reasoning was is true from what is false by means of some form of implicit, non-linguistic justification applicable to its various empirical experiences and imaginations, then how—in your opinion—can such child come to know any particular language to begin with?

2) When we are not linguistically justifying out beliefs to ourselves or to others, do we know anything? If you answer that we do, how so? (Remembering of a linguistic justification seems to me to count as an instance of consciously apprehended linguistic justification for something—so I’m not here addressing recollections.)

Our views are likely to differ even after you provide answers for these questions, but I am sincerely interested in how you view the world in this regard.

In all fairness, the precise definition of reasoning is a fuzzy issue in philosophy, granted. But I’m hoping that some linguistic ambiguity might be the reason for our partial disagreements.

It might be that you’ve misinterpreted me as saying that to justify something one must provide for the cause of the very belief’s manifestation. This, however, would be a very incorrect interpretation of what I said/intended to say. What I was/am thinking is that justification requires reasoning and that reasoning sometimes consists of contemplated or expressed causal relations.

To keep this example simple, if person A asks person B to justify the truth to the eight ball being in a particular corner pocket, one valid justification could be as follows: It’s in the specific corner pocket by the cause of person C hitting it with a cue ball on the right. Less formally: it’s there because person C hit it with the cue ball.

Of course there are countless other ways to justify this, such as by having person B take a look into the corner pocket. But each different form of possible justification would likely be best suited to different particular contextual factors, such as that of why person A want’s to know.

If it’s a linguistic ambiguity that is the principle reason for our current disagreements, then our current disagreements have been caused by a linguistic ambiguity. In this case, the reason equates to that which has caused—and not to a motive, intention, etc. To justify the truth of our current disagreements, one could provide data to some other. But where this is not feasible, an alternative means of justifying this truth is by the causal reasoning just mentioned, by specifying that a linguistic ambiguity was the cause for it.

More complexly, since it’s the first thing that now comes to mind, to justify that change is real and not unreal as per the conclusion of Zeno’s paradoxes, data of itself will not suffice. So, here, one could try to justify this truth via causal reasoning: e.g., awareness, which is ever changing, is the reason, the cause, for Zeno’s being at all familiar with his paradoxes—for his being at all familiar with what logic and reasoning are, for that matter. Hence, due to Zeno’s conclusions being dependent upon awareness’s presence—i.e., due to awareness being a/the cause to the effect of Zeno’s conclusions—Zeno’s conclusion that change is not possible can only be somehow flawed. OK, this does not of itself find any fault with the specific reasoning that he used. But it does provide a valid (regardless of it being to whatever measure imperfect) justification for change being real.

I’m thinking this could unfold into what is meant by causation. Here, I simply intend the property wherein the existential presence of X (the effect) is determined by Y (the cause)—such that the cause produces the effect in due measure to which the presence of the effect is determined by the cause. It’s on the generalized side as definitions go, but it does encapsulate efficient causation fairly well, imo. This delineation can apply to physical entities but is in no way limited to physicality. Example: my thought of a freshly cut lemon causes me—is the reason for—my unexpected extra salivation; for, in this case, the presence of a watery mouth has been determined by the thought of a freshly cut lemon.

Again, I’m not saying that all reasoning consists of causal reasoning, but that some of it does—to me, a fairly good portion. And we justify things by use of reasoning—including, at least at times, that of causal reasoning.

If disagreement persist, I’m honestly unclear as to the reasons (not motives, but causes). So I’ll stop here and see what replies I get.

It is my intention here either to convince you that we make these decisions without justification, or to learn from you that there's something I've missed. Can you help? — Pattern-chaser

I’ve intentionally avoided this thread because it addresses a darn good, and very complex, question. Compliments to the chef.

Theories without evidence … This to me seems to make the issue revolve around empirical data. But, then, this would oust all metaphysical theories, including that of materialism among many others. In how we make sense of the empirical data is then embedded our reasoning concerning what is or, at least, what might be, given the empirical data we have. To some such as myself, non-empirical experiential data also gets tacked on; e.g. the presence of awareness, of emotions, and other aspects of mind is then intra-subjective data we all hold and can readily agree on intersubjectively … making their presence objective in the “impartial” sense of the word (it’s not an obsolete definition of objectivity by any means), or so I maintain.

The BIV scenario, as far as I can comprehend, is one asking how we can justify that we are not BIVs. Maybe this can be justified. My best go at it in a nutshell: The very idea of being a BIV is dependent on there being such a thing as real brains, wirings, and computers. Yet if we were BIVs, then all our empirical data would be bogus by entailment of so being BIVs. Thereby making our beliefs of real brains, wires, and computers bogus. Thus making the possible reality of being a BIV bogus. So the idea could maybe be argued to be self-annulling, if not necessarily self-refuting. Not claiming that in its current form this argument is failsafe, but with some tweaking, who knows …

At any rate, it’s an epistemological problem; one that, to me, addresses justification for the explanations of evidence we do have.

In thinking about the thread’s intended point, though, Zeno’s paradoxes of change/motion came to mind. How to justify that Zeno’s paradoxes are rationally flawed and that change/motion is real? Here again, the validity of what experience informs us and of what a certain set of reasonings conclude directly contradict, so the two conclusions can’t both be correct. Here, I trust the validity of awareness—which is ever-changing—far more than that of the reasoning specified, so I’m certain that the reasoning is flawed though, so far, I haven’t figured out how.

But again, to me the thread’s theme is complex. Me, I’d venture on teleological causation as it applies to choices made between mutually exclusive possibilities. We are driven toward an aim that is found in the not yet materialized future—one that is often enough itself chosen, and often enough changes via our choices—that then determines/causes us in the present to favor investigating some givens and to move on when it comes to others. Were the aims to change, the choices we make would follow suit. To me this is an intrinsic part of the logic—or, the justification—to why and when we move on from contemplating such things as BIVs or Zeno’s paradoxes.

Still, this in itself is a metaphysical position that, like others, attempts to make best sense of the evidence at hand.

All the same, I’d like to read of other logical reasons for dismissing some philosophical conundrums but not others.

That's fair, I wanted to give your replies more consideration, so I just replied to the aspects I had already thought through. I'll return in kind. — Cheshire

Cheers. We haven’t chatted before and it’s sometimes fuzzy what the other’s character is like. But, yea, if you can find a viable alternative account of what knowledge is—this as per the question asked—or else find faults with my reasoning, I’d love to hear bout it. Nice talking with you, btw.

If you ever prove that things are not subject to error [...] — Cheshire

Right. I hear that Descartes once tried it. Turns out he didn’t succeed. But his methodology also produced such philosophical questions as BIV scenarios. Meanwhile me and a few others are worried about the outcomes of increased global warming, a possible future politics of global Orwellianism, and other such philosophically trite things.

Look, to be less sarcasticalish, in the absence of proven infallible truths (and, thereby, infallible knowledge), we’re left with what we realistically have. We’re not discussing what knowledge is to aliens in some alternative parallel universe of our imagination, but what it is in the world in which we live.

I’ll grant that operational knowledge, unlike ideal knowledge, can hold degrees of strength. To intuitively know that the planet is round is not as strong a knowledge as to know so due to well justified empirical evidence—though both are fallible and both could be instances of ideal knowledge. So, if this makes sense to you, then you’re eleventh know could be stronger than the ten knowns it addresses. But you’d have to provide for why this is so.

Still, I’m not big on when I give replies without having my honest questions answered in turn. A personal quirk wherein I typically find other things I’d rather be doing. Again, why do you find some believed truths justified to the satisfaction of its bearers to be nonsense rather than knowledge?

It's a bit of straw-man isn't it? If an individual told me something absurd I wouldn't confuse it with the subject of knowledge. — Cheshire

No, not a straw man: Why do you appraise it as nonsense—this if it is a believed truth that is justified to the satisfaction of its bearers?

We have an ideal concept of circles, but we don't call the one's we draw operational circles. Because we never draw ideal circles, so the operator is redundant. — Cheshire

Yes, because here we clearly know that no drawn circle is an ideal circle—and so there’s no implicit equivocation involved.

Same with knowledge, from where I stand at least. You do recognize, however, that some hold their knowledge to in fact be infallible? Be this within religions, philosophies, or out in the everyday world. Here, there is equivocation between the operational and the ideal that is confused with unequivocal states of affairs which are in fact obtained ideals.

It would obfuscate if in fact the demon was necessary. In actuality, suppose all the things you know. I'm asserting 1 of them is wrong and you don't know which one. — Cheshire

In which case, why should I believe you in lieu of proper justifications for this? Due to an authoritarian commandment?

It was a false choice. In this experiment we know 11 things and 10 of them are subject to error. — Cheshire

Yes. Well, you’re discussing this with a fallibilist—i.e., a philosophical skeptic in the tradition of Cicero and Hume, among others (not Pyrrhonian and not Cartesian): a very broad, but different, matter. As I’ve indicated in my previous posts on this thread, all our held beliefs of what is true are—I argue—susceptible to error, hence to being wrong. Though this in no way entails that they are. Until they’re falsified in so being, there’s no reason to believe that they are wrong.

Hence, following your specifics, we fallibly know 11 things, all of which are subject to error.

At any rate, that we know 11 and not 10, 9, or 0 givens still does not answer the question of what knowledge is.

I'll try to better clarify my position:

The issue of terms is the very semantic facet that I’m yet trying to better specify. One could just as readily say “X knowledge” and “Y knowledge” instead of the “ontic knowledge” and “subjective knowledge”—but this is far less descriptive.

The point is that one is a fully conceptual ideal—that is thereby non-operational as knowledge. It presents a knowledge that is infallibly justifiable and infallibly true—this not being possible to obtain in at least current practice. The other form is the only type of knowledge that can be had in practice. This, I’m thinking, is again best exemplified by the criterion of truth; there is the fully conceptual ideal of absolute truth which can never be wrong; and then there is the only operational form of truth that can be found: that which we believe to conform to the former type of ideal truth.

So—the thought just came to me, with the help of previous posters—scratch “ontic” and “subjective” and replace with “ideal” and “operational”, respectively. (seems to do a better job at describing what’s intended).

Operational knowledge, then, can only be evaluated via use of ideal knowledge. Without it needing to conform to ideal knowledge, any claim to have a justified believed truth will be knowledge. E.g., I know that it will be sunny today because—i.e., due to the cause of; or, on grounds that—my cat is out in the backyard and there are satellites in the sky. Now, in everyday life, were someone to tell you this, you’d think them to be, well, ignorantly mistaken. To not in fact know that it will be sunny today. But why come to this verdict if it’s a believed truth that has just been justified to the satisfaction of the bearer?

The answer I’m giving is that this believed truth does not conform to ideal knowledge—here, because it is deemed to not be validly justified. And, hence, is then judged to not be knowledge.

>>> At this point I should ask: If someone were to tell you it’ll be sunny today for the reasons just mentioned, and whether or not it’ll be sunny today holds some degree of risk/importance for what you do today, would you then yet hold their belief to be knowledge? And, therefore, act in accordance to this known?

Compare the aforementioned with: I know it will be sunny today because my cat has the odd habit of only going outdoors on days that are perfectly sunny, and he is now outdoors, and because the weather forecaster has picked up from satellites the depiction of weather patterns that nearly always entail that a sunny day is in store.

Here, while yet not being ideal knowledge—which is perfectly justified to be an absolutely true belief—the given justified believed truth nevertheless does conform to ideal knowledge (to our ideal of what perfect knowledge should be). And, because of this, can now be deemed to be operational knowledge. Hence, here, we will deem this person to in fact know what he is talking about—and will hold no reason to question this knowledge unless we hold other data or reasoning that appear to us to conflict with it.

So, I’m arguing, we can only appraise what is and is not operational knowledge by appraising whether or not it conforms to ideal knowledge. If it’s falsified in potentially so being, then we deem it to not be knowledge.

At a particular moment in time let's suppose you know 10 things. And then, my philosophy demon informs you that one of the things you know is wrong, but not which of the things you know is wrong. So, you turn and tell me you in fact know 9 things. I argue that, no you know 10 things because you can't tell me which 9 are actually correct or you know zero things because 1 of the ten is wrong and it could be any of the 10. — Cheshire

It’s an interesting thought experiment, but I think it obfuscates the primary issue. Here, we’re trying to apply (meta-)operational knowledge to what is and is not particular instances of operational knowledge given the circumstances. How do we know if we only know nine or none of the ten formerly thought to be know givens? The question of what knowledge is to begin with still remains.

So, in my own words, would you call this a metacognitive state of mind that Buddhism enforces [teaches], through the practice of mindfulness, compassion, and altruism? One then refers back to this state of mind, when dealing with depression? — Posty McPostface

Yes, of course.

There's the caveat, thought, that Buddhism is Buddhism and, thereby, not materialism. :wink:

This is an ongoing discussion we're having in the On Disidentification thread if you care to join us. In that thread, I attempted to disidentify from the condition and live by thinking that "I have depression, and not I am depressed." My trial ended with me feeling angry or frustrated that I still feel the symptoms of depression even if I didn't think I have the condition.

I suspect endogenous problems like depression, are very deeply embedded in one's persona, so it can be difficult to disidentify from or become detached. — Posty McPostface

Just perused the other thread. Since I’ve already replied on this one, I'll add to what Wayfarer said here:

There’s a different in ordinary cognition between, “I am angry/sad/jealous/etc.,” and “I feel angry/sad/jealous/etc.” The former captures that which you as first-person point of view momentarily is, what you as a conscious awareness is constituted of. The later captures what you as a conscious awareness introspectively apprehends as other than the you which is so apprehending.

If I feel envy within myself, I then have a choice as to whether to shun this emotion/mood till it vanishes from my total being or, else, to actually become envious in relation to that concerned. If, however, I am envious, this is a matter of fact that I have no choice over for as long as I so remain. Here, all choices I that I can make will by default be made by envious me.

As others have mentioned, to go from “I am depressed” to “I feel depressed” in a sustained way will take a good degree of cognitive work. And holding onto the belief that “I am depressed because it is how I am genetically; because I am ontologically predetermined to so be” is utterly antithetical to the process. Buddhism often has quite a lot to say about such forms of mediation in which one makes all experiences that which one in some way apprehends as an awareness—thereby experientially establishing the given awareness as ontologically independent of all which it otherwise will be constituted at any particular moment as a “self”. Note that within Buddhism, this is intended to be transformative in what one construes to be ontological, to be real, in regards to personal being. It is after all part and parcel of the ontological position of Buddhism. This process of meditation, however, is neither quick nor easy. It requires effort and perseverance. Still—in parallel to feeling envious v. being envious—until one experiences the “I feel myself to be depressed” reality one will perpetually experience the “I ontologically am depressed” reality: In the first there is a cognitive choice as to what to do about experiencing oneself to be depressed; in the second there is no such choice to speak of, for the depressed individual is who is doing the choosing by default.

Imagine an either obese or muscle-challenged individual wanting to become fit and muscular, but not having any will or desire to engage in any of the exercises that are required to so become, then asking, “so what else can I do to become muscular?”

If this is harsh, so be it: To what extent do you care about your own predicament of depression?

You want to hold onto the believed truth that “I can’t do anything meaningful to change it, for it is part of what I am” and, in this case, your held belief shall be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing otherwise—as with physical exercise to become muscular—also requires the needed effort and perseverance. Be this via dis-identification or some other means. Thought about action is not the action itself.

Well, again, I'm no psychiatrist. I also don't hold onto the ontological notion of (full) biological determinism, believing there's always some "nurture" involved in our behavioral phenotypes. This then makes the issue of heredity more complex: for then there is both some measure of biology at play as well as implicit learning, especially during the formative years.

To the extent that the depression is a biologically determinate property, where its physically caused, then physical remedies in the form of proper pharmaceuticals will be the proper remedy.

Still, my non-expert belief is that what we biologically inherit are predispositions to, and not the actual result. Any plant will grow one way when held in a closet and another when held in sunlight. Some are more predisposed to this or that ailment as a result of interactions with stressful experiences; don't know who wouldn't break (or, at least, bend) given sufficient stressors. But we're each predisposed to this differently. For example, we likely do inherit a risk gene of some sort, but this doesn't predetermine who we will be. Same with clinical depression--again, in my non-expert opinion.

What has helped me is this metacognitive attitude: Depression is nature’s way of telling you there’s something wrong.

Figure out what that is, and then you can directly, enactively, address the problem. This may be an oversimplification, but this by simply choosing between flight from the problem (and the best means of so doing) or fighting the problem (and the best means of so doing).

Otherwise, depression seems to me to be an unconsciously held certainty that there’s an insurmountable obstacle in the way. One that results in a consciously experienced blockage in motivation, often accompanied by great sorrow—again, this for reasons that are not consciously discerned.

With this as context, then, the more the given underlying problem—often in the plural—has been ignored, the deeper within the unconscious mind it becomes buried. And the harder it is to bring up into conscious awareness. At which point, a drastic change in behaviors—either consciously willed or else also assisted by prescription medication—can then serve as a break from the underlying issue. If the underlying issue is not of immediate pertinence to one’s life, then it will start decaying (a neuroscience term for when synaptic connections between neurons are not used and begin wilting and, eventually, because of this, eventually no longer physically exists—being instead replaced by other, new, now functioning synaptic connections).

If the depression is, for example, caused by a personal guilt—since this doesn’t apply to most here: say, that a woman began partying with booze when finding out that she became pregnant because she didn’t want to face the facts at the time, and then maybe had a miscarriage in the third trimester—then the depression could be resolved via meaningful self-forgiveness (such as by learning from the mistake and, maybe, helping others not to repeat it). If, on the other hand, the depression is, for example, caused by contextual factors such as our global warming, then making this explicit and consciously deciding to either do something about it (however small) or else deciding to live with the foreseeable consequences will get one to overcome the unconscious impediment.

And somewhere in-between all this you could hold onto Nietzsche’s’ statement that what does not kill you will only make you stronger. (There’s also the Neon Flux version of “what does not kill you maims”—but this one’s likely to not help out in this situation, unless one’s into dark humor and can have a good laugh about it. :joke: )

But I’m no psychiatrist. Still, hopefully some of this might help out.

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apropos, a joke about how things can always be worse: Guy gets a call form the doctor. Doctor says, "You're analysis is in. I've some bad news and some worse news for you. Which do you want to hear first?" The guy says, "Tell me the bad news." Doc says, "The results indicate that you only have 24 hours left to live." The guy is shocked, angered, and asks, "How can things possibly be worse?". The doctor replies, "Well, I forgot to tell you about it yesterday."

:smile:

Fire causes discomfort when touched. That doesn't require language to learn. Is it not the ground for believing that touching fire caused pain? — creativesoul

There are causal beliefs. For example, my belief that snakes are dangerous was caused by the bite of the snake. But I would take issue with the idea that the cause is a ground or justification, as in an epistemological ground. Why would you think that causal effects are a grounding. Moreover, to answer the question why I believe something, it may take into account both causality and reasons/evidence, but there is a big difference in terms of epistemology. If a cause is the same as a justification, then we can justify all kinds of weird things. When I talk about justification or a grounding, I'm talking about reasons/evidence, and I think most philosophers are talking about reasons/evidence. — Sam26

A reason, by definition, is a cause, motive, or explanation. It then naturally renders reasoning as the process of providing causes, motives, or explanations for. To justify a belief as true, I then argue, is to provide valid reasoning (a set of valid, i.e. consistent, causes, motives, and/or explanations) for a belief being true.

The argument can be made that most of our justifications are non-linguistic at any given time. We could linguistically express them, but we generally don’t. It is only when we want to convey these to others or else deliberate upon some issue internally that we make use of language. For example: When playing a sport, one knows to move left instead of right at a certain juncture—for example—without need for linguistic expression of beliefs, truths, or justifications; this while one yet holds a justifiable true belief that so moving is optimally advantageous at the given moment.

A lesser animal pet can thus be argued to know what its name is—for example—for it holds a pre-linguistic believed truth which is to it justifiable via its experiences of causes and motives (with explanations here being deemed to always be linguistic for the sake of simplicity. Although, when defined as “to make something understandable”, explanations then will not necessarily contain human language: e.g., an animal’s body language (which sometimes can be intentionally deceptive in more intelligent lesser animals) explains its states of mind to other like—and often unlike—animals; or, an animal’s memories of motives and causes will serve to explain to the animal the meaning of some given).

An animal can then be upheld to know that fire burns—especially when it is an acquired belief of what is true that is itself in keeping with the animal’s set of learned causal relations and motives for actions (i.e., with the animal’s non-linguistic reasoning regarding what is). Here especially thinking of the more intelligent lesser animals: canids, corvids, dolphins, elephants, great apes, etc.

But here things can get complex very quickly: an ant innately knows its cast and what to do for the colony (just as we innately know how to suckle when birthed, among other forms of our innate knowledge). And in such instances, the issue of JTB becomes murky—although, imo, not necessarily invalid (especially when the property of justification is not conceived as entailing human language: e.g., a human baby is justified in holding a pre-linguistic belief that suckling will satisfy its pangs of thirst/hunger, thereby knowing it must suckle in order to live).

While I’m at it: Knowledge by acquaintance, broadly defined, can be deemed in similar enough fashions to be believed truth justified by first-person experience. Example: I am justified in holding the believed truth that I am psychologically certain by my experienced feeling that I am—which is itself the valid reason (cause, motive, or explanation) for my belief being true. Thus, one can validly affirm, “I know I’m certain (or happy/sad; etc.).

as a sub-quote taken from the one above:

If a [presumed] cause is the same as a justification, then we can justify all kinds of weird things. — Sam26

Yet this is how we get to certain people knowing that the Young Earth model of the universe is true. Or that eliminative materialism is true. What stands in the way is that their specified causes, motives, and explanations for so believing will not be fully coherent and, thereby, will contain contradictions. This, at least, in principle wherever the justified believed truth is in fact false.

How would Aristotle respond to idealism? (I understand that there are many types of idealism but I'm thinking in general terms - the concept that all reality consists of mind and its ideas?) What would Aristotle say about this concept? — DS1517

The question is framed through our modern-day Cartesian spectacles. Is it mind, matter, or is it both distinct and incommensurable substances acting in parallel? Mirroring what Wayfarer said, to my best knowledge, this contextualization—this means of compartmentalizing and viewing—that which is never held a significant foothold prior to Descartes. (Noteworthy: Among pre-Socratics there were however occasional suppositions of everything being one of the five elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, or some varient of what is now sometimes addressed by the Sanskrit Akasha (e.g. the Apeiron)—but I strongly believe these basic elements meant things far different than what we now most often interpret them to be via our Cartesian glasses. For example: water, fire, air, and void (the latter being one commonly known take on the fifth element; again, others can be found) could not have been meant to have been physical—at least not by the more learned crowds—but metaphysical. For were these elements to have been physical (e.g. Heraclitus addressing physical fire rather than a metaphysical property or process of transformation which is only tangibly represented by physical fire), then they all would have pertained to the one basic substance of Earth (matter/mother, Gaia, Scythian notions of Pon, non-satyr interpretations of Pan, the matrix (womb) … to list just a few ancient concepts for the physical, most of which strongly differ from our own in significant ways.)

But as to Aristotle’s more down to earth approach relative to Plato, one of the more pivotal elements of his philosophy was that of teleological causation—very much including there being a first teleological cause to all that otherwise is. To a Cartesian-contextualized mindset we currently live in, this primordial final cause (the unmoved given that teleological moves everything which is remotely other) cannot be neatly compartmentalized into either materialism or substance dualism.

A small side-note for technical purposes: to Aristotle this primordial final cause is some given that holds real presence and not what we would affirm as nothingness. (A wink to Apokrisis)

So my inference: Given the common modern mindset that only these three possibilities exist—again, that of materialism, idealism, and substance dualism—Aristotle, for the reasons just provided, would then by default fall within the one category that remains: idealism.

However, whether or not Aristotle would have himself taken issue with this label where he to have been alive today … I’ve no way of knowing. And, again, I very much agree that this forced choice between Cartesian substances of mind v. matter would have been utterly foreign to Aristotle.

But I’ve mainly added my thoughts within this thread because I’m honestly curious (this after my best attempts at reading the writing on the walls):

To use a post-Cartesian notion provided by Charles S. Peirce: if everything physical were to be nothing else but effete mind, what difference would it make for all practical purposes as regards anything physical?

(There’s at minimum this one connection between Peirce’s Objective Idealism and Aristotelianism: both maintain a globally applicable, primordial final cause—which is neither of a materialism nor a dual substance mindset (if it needs stating, this without denying all the un-pleasantries that occasionally are to be found within reality.))

I suppose the way to proceed is abandoning the notion there's a set of criteria which knowledge contains and disqualifies all else or change JTB, or change the philosophical definition of knowledge. It's a bit Gettierish, but saying all knowledge is JTB or Not would technically silence my objections. — Cheshire

Maybe this will help. The way I view things: There are two types of knowledge, the ideal, purely conceptual standard by which all practicable knowledge is appraised—I’ll call this “ontic knowledge”—and that which is within our capacity to hold and engage in—I’ll call this “subjective knowledge”. The former is that by which the latter is measured against as means of appraising the latter’s validity.

A leading issue with knowledge is with the notion of truth. To believe that something is is to believe ones notion/idea/conceptualization/etc. to be true (other types of belief are however possible). However, so doing, of itself, does not signify that any given belief of what is true is in fact true/accurate. In these statements there are two implicit concepts: in parallel, an ideal and conceptual understanding of truth—call it “ontic truth”, or the factual state of being wherein that believed accurately conforms to that which is real—and, secondly, our awareness-based appraisals of what is and is not true—call this “subjective truth”, or the subjectively, and sometimes tacitly, made appraisal that that which is maintained accurately conforms to that which is real. It might be subtle, but the two concepts are distinct.

Most implicitly interpret in JTB is the notion of ontic truth—which, by its very idealized property of being ontic, or factual, cannot ever be mistaken in any way. And it is this notion of ontic (factual) truth which brings about our ideal notion of ontic knowledge. Yet this can only be a conceptual model of that which is aspired for; that which “knowledge intends” as you’ve mentioned. Yet the knowledge in this latter statement is not the conceptual standard of ontic knowledge—which is ontically true belief that can thereby be justified upon request—but is, instead, the only form of knowledge that can be had in practice: subjective knowledge.

Subjective knowledge, then, can be defined as: a notion that is believed to be true and which can be justified at will in so being true. If that which is believed is in fact ontically true, then it will in deed accurately conform to that which is real. Yet this is where ontology plays a crucial role: Where that which is real is itself factually interconnected in coherent manners (for example: physics, chemistry, biology, and awareness are all coherently related in some manner—this despite our lack of full understanding regarding these coherent interconnection), then there will always be means of justifying that which is in fact real. Where contradictions are found in one’s justifications, for one example, this will then illustrate that one cannot account for what one believes to be true, for one cannot provide how it accurately conforms to what in fact is real.

The just stated would take a lot to unpack—particularly in regard to the nature of reality (an aspect of ontology) and to the nature of valid, ontology-contingent justification in general (an aspect of epistemology). Doubtless there would be much contested in any such account, but I yet find the overall relation to reality and to reality-contingent justification to be rather intuitively valid for most, if not all, people.

So there’s JTB, our conceptualized ideal form of knowledge (which cannot be had in practice unless one were to evidence one’s belief of what is true to be infallible); and there’s validly justifiable believed truth—I’ll term this JBT—the only form of subjective knowledge possible to hold in practice when lacking truths that have been demonstrated to be perfectly secure from all possible error (i.e., when lacking truths that have been infallibly demonstrated to so be).

Now, for all practical purposes, our knowledge that the sky is blue, as one example, is absolute (also that 1 + 1 = 2; etc.). But these instances of knowledge are not (perfectly) infallible in technical philosophical jargon; their truth is not proven to be perfectly secure form all possible error via means that are themselves perfectly secure from all possible error.

More concretely, though, the way I view things is that those people that once asserted knowledge of the sun circling the Earth can, presently, be confidently stated to not have held knowledge of this. This is so because their JBT did not conform to JTB; their subjective knowledge did not conform to ontic knowledge.

When we say, “I thought I knew,” we affirm that we once held our JBT to be an instance of JTB—but that we were wrong in so thinking. (It’s telling to me that we don’t say “I believed I knew”—though we can say “I believe I know”. I’m thinking we don’t say the former because it’s redundant without rhetorical purpose and because upon discovering our mistake we acknowledge it to be due to faulty justifications then held (our beliefs of what is true, of themselves, not being at fault; for they are not knowledge in themselves). We can say the latter because, until we consciously discern we hold justifications for what we believe to be true, we do not hold a conscious awareness of the given belief being knowledge—though we can intuitively sense that it is. Hence, we can believe we know.)

To sum things up: Any validly justifiable belief of what is true (JBT) can well be an instance of a belief that is ontically true and thereby justifiable (JTB). If inconsistencies are lacking, then there’s no justification by which to assume that an instance of JBT is not an instance of JTB. Nevertheless, until we can infallibly prove ontic truths (something which fallibilists will uphold cannot be done by us), we could, hypothetically, be mistaken in our upholding any instance of JBT to be JTB. But: until evidence presents itself to the contrary, because all our JBTs could all (or at least mostly) well be instances of JTB, we then are justified in proclaiming that we hold knowledge (JTB).

I’m still working though some of the connotative facets of this myself—making a concept simple and unambiguous from multiple vantages if sometimes harder than it should be. However, I again find that this outlook does justify why the guy who “knew” that the Earth is flat didn’t in fact hold knowledge of this: we currently have ample means by which to evidence that his JBT did not conform to JTB.

So JTB stays, imo, at least in the ways just outlined.

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I'm appending this in attempts to be clearer: I understand and agree with all our held knowledge being fallible, and that we thereby (to incorporate the semantics I previously used) can only hold onto JBT that has so far not been falsified in being JTB—and which, thereby, can very well be JTB (as here interpreted: ontically true belief that is thereby justifiable).

Like this? — Andrew M

Certainly describes my attitude toward work some days. — Marchesk

I picked this lyric up from my stay in boot camp (was in the army reserves for a while a whiles back, to be precise): “If it don’t make money, it don’t make sense.” OK, to be fair and put it in context, the song was about it not making any sense to kill, harm others, or otherwise engage in criminal activity just for the hoot of it (because without these activities making you any money … ) Ethics from another corner of the world. What can one say.

Still, it reminds me that there’s something to be said about work.

Placing this on a philosophy forum I sort’a feel that there might be a shark frenzy of argumentation soon to unfold. Hopeful the humor intended is just understood.

But yea, work. Man, one of the funnier t-shirts I came across as of late simply read in all places till there was no more space, “work, work, work, work, work, work, work”. I instantly got it. But, yes, work does “make money”.

(Late night humor of a SNL “Deep thoughts by Jack Handy” variety. That said, unless there'll be a need for me to reply to my previous posts, I'll be away for a while)

Hume, who was a global skeptic, believed in causation just as we all do (it’s why he was a stringent causal compatibilist, for example; he only illustrated how our knowledge of causation is inductive. This wasn’t an problem for him in terms of acknowledging causation, but it did make sense of things such as purported miracles not being outside the spectrum of ordinary causation. I distinctly remember his example of ice being given to someone who'd never seen it before in some desert; to them it would be a miracle, but it would still be bound bycausal processes--as the British (and we) know it to be. Same thing, he argued, with any so called miracle that occurred in the West). Kant, on the other hand, was not a global skeptic—not that I’ve so far heard of at any rate.

Part of the problem with skepticism is it’s commonly used current connotations: that of being dubious about. When addressing global skeptics such as Hume or many of the ancients, they weren’t dubious about things; at least not any more or any less than any self-proclaimed non-skeptic is. Tracing the word to its origins, in Ancient Greek where it was first used it literally meant to be thoughtfully inquisitive. It had absolutely nothing to do with being doubtful about things. For example, even Pyrrho—who’s reputed to have been quite extreme in his suspension of all beliefs—was not a dubious person. For instance, he held a firm, though obviously to him fallible (not infallible), conviction in how to best attain happiness; he had no doubts about it.

To cut to the chase, Hume was tied into many an ancient Academic in his skepticism, a mindset which does not in any way rely upon the presence of doubt. This may be hard to be believe for some, but historical records attests to this form of skepticism being a different thing than that of a dubious disposition. Kantian skepticism (don’t know of the extent to which Kant might have used this term himself) is however tied into Cartesian notions of skepticism, for which doubt is quintessential. Though, again, Kant to my knowledge was not a global skeptic. His skepticism was particular to a set of gives; in this case, what things in themselves actually are.

Maybe this is novel to some. :grin: Know all too well it's not to others. :cool: Anyways, was just shooting the breeze. Didn't intend to make a thing out of it unless there's a need or an interest.

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At any rate, thanks for bringing up possible discrepancies. Its among the best things that a philosophy forum has to offer: others' perspectives.

Well, there is the ancient skeptical approach. To paraphrase, the awareness of leaky compartments leads to ataraxia, in which one suspends work on leakproof compartments. After which, the leaks are no longer bothersome. — Marchesk

Darn. That’s quite an accurate paraphrase. Giving credit where it’s due.

Btw, been working on better addressing the subject of skepticism, this since it’s such a big deal to so many. I think I’ve got global skepticism nailed down to three distinct and conflicting categories that I believe are comprehensive as a set. Here also paraphrased:

• negating infallibilism*: when you doubt everything that isn’t proven to be infallible in order to at last arrive at infallible truths and knowledge--because you faithfully believe infallible truths and knowledge can be proven to be via your methodic doubts. This mindset makes you an infallibilist, hence the name of the category. Exemplified by Descartes’ use of Cartesian Doubt.
• negating fallibilism: when you denounce all beliefs upon discovering they’re all fallible because you don’t ever want to run the risk of being wrong. Exemplified by Pyrrhonian skeptics.
• positing fallibilism: when you discern that everything epistemic is fallible (including the affirmation that nothing is infallible), take a deep breath of relief in so discovering, proceed to posit conclusions drawn from experience and reasoning with this discernment in mind, and confidently hold onto these conclusions till something comes along that evidences you wrong via experience or reasoning—because, until that time, as far as you know you could be perfectly correct. Exemplified by people such as Cicero, David Hume, likely the Socrates/Plato duo (the two never called themselves skeptics so I guess whether or not they were is up in the air), and, maybe, Charles S. Pierce, the guy who came up with the term “fallibilism” (I’m thinking he might have been a closet skeptic of this third ilk, because his take on epistemology nicely speaks to this (though I have yet to finish reading my collection of his works)).

* the fourth category that’d naturally fit into this set would be positing infallibilism—where you posit instances of infallible truths and knowledge—such as that of “The Truth”—that you neither substantiate to be infallible nor even try to so substantiate, but insist are infallible all the same (likely on grounds that this is self-evident to you and because you don't give a shoot about all the evidence against it being infallible). However, this category wouldn’t be a distinct type of global skepticism.

Yea, thought I’d share. Maybe it’ll help to make better sense of this taboo topic of skepticism. If not I’m sure I’ll hear of it. I think it also better speaks to the issue of fallibilist accounts of the Truth v. infallibilist accounts.

Some of the most inspiring individuals were those who didn't care if they died in the process. Why do we admire these heroes? Because they were not afraid of death. Imagine this kind of radical detachment towards your own existence - does not everyone wish they could simply let go? — darthbarracuda

The person who said “It’s a good day to die” right before charging into a very perilous battle didn’t commit suicide on the spot due to his conviction. He struggled, endured, and fought. But those who live by not being afraid of death—be they aikido practitioners, samurai, of Native American tribes, firemen that run into burning buildings to save a life, or your run of the mill altruist (to list a few)—can all be said to give their life if needed for some less egotistic, greater good that they believe themselves a part of. Sometimes it’s spiritual; sometimes it isn’t, e.g. for the sake of humankind, the species, or some such.

The person who believes that death is in an instant get-out-of-suffering card can well construct their valid logical reasoning for pursuing death. But the premise is just as silly as that of it being “an instant beam me up to a suffering devoid heaven” premise. Death is both experientially and rationally the ultimate unknown. But we don’t like the unknown, do we; we feel antsy with unresolvable mystery; so we then impose a known truth upon it. By analogy: Dark energy and matter that composes most of the universe and most of us; phooey; we all know damn well that we’re made up of atomic billiard balls darn it (with nothing spooky or mysterious about it, to boot); and we certainly don’t have time for the unknown constituting most of what is physically real. Just so with the nature of death: an unknown what happens after a life takes its last breadth in this world? Horse manure. Right?

I’ll take the bull by the horns and acknowledge the unknown as being unknown. But to each their own, I guess.

Just one thing, though. Those who risk their own life without fear of personal death are not to be mistaken for those who are suicidal. Everyone from warriors to pacifists, they didn’t—and still don’t—go into some state of mind where the intention is to engage in self-murder.

I can't see how you got "Drop a particular relation between sentience and reality" from "Drop truth, as a relation between one or more points of view". — Banno

I’m surprised beyond belief that this needs to be stated. The conjunction used was “or”, as in “between X or Y […and...]”; not “and”, as in “between X and Y […and...]”. Not taking half a sentence to be a full sentence, but instead interpreting what you’ve quoted within the context of the full sentence I originally wrote is, well, just common sense grammar skills. The issue of charitability—or of the lack thereof—doesn’t even enter the picture.

With that level of misunderstanding, why continue? — Banno

Well said.

Drop this. The problem dissolves. — Banno

Don’t follow you so far. Drop the part about a particular relation between sentience and reality and what alternative meaning remains for the word “truth”? Somehow came to believe that truth was an important thing for you as well (here thinking in relation to Trump and friends).

As for your question of what I’m going to do about the paradox I addressed, I’ll face the facts and pursue less trodden paths till I find something worthwhile. Since your question almost sounded sincere, here’s a crudely expressed working idea: truth (that which is true) is conformity to that which is ontic (such that to be true is to conform to that aspect of the ontic specified). This laconic phrase nicely accounts for all examples addressed by correspondence theory but doesn’t get limited by the latter—e.g. if the target as an aim is ontic, the arrow can then be stated to be true due to its path’s conformity to the ontic end it was intended for. Other examples can be given, like true to one's spouse (to the implicit yet ontic understanding held with one's spouse), and so on. At any rate, my given hunch doesn’t pre-judge any particular ontology as being true prior to accounting from what “true” is; it merely affirms that something ontic is—and the latter can only be rationally doubted via contradiction (e.g. there ontically is nothing ontic; hence, both A and not-A at the same time and in the same way). But it does require there being some sentience for truth to be.

If you have quibbles, would like to hear them.



Darth, am I hearing you right? All life that intends to live is cowardly? Including that which perseveres against what can nearly be insurmountable odds? There something in the way to this. At any rate, it’s not how I ascribe meaning to the desire to live, nor to what courage is all about. But maybe this isn’t at all what was intended in your last post after all.

As for philosophy, I hear even David Hume had to play billiards as a diversion every now and then. I’m imagining with a little bit of beer and a good amount of laughter. Maybe it’s not the best example, point being The Truth can and does a/wait with or without us philosophy interested people; life not so much. If we take a breather from philosophical topics they’ll still be there after we recharge our allegorical batteries, if we find we’re still interested in philosophical topics afterward.

That would make sense in an intuitive way. I’m interpreting it as “the map is not road”. Still, don’t all philosophical narratives intend to expound of that which is real or reality? This taking it for granted that they’re not instances of intentional deception. So, allegorically speaking, if the map is true because it accurately depicts the road, then wouldn’t the map be an expression of Truth?

I’m not big on Truth myself, by the way. It to me reeks of infallibilist mindsets—and the authoritarianism that too often accompanies them. All the same, I confidently uphold that there is a set of factual givens that occur in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals—a reality that we can ever-better approximate in our collective body of knowledge.

So "Snow is white" is a statement, and not a state of affairs, but that snow is white is a state of affairs, but not a statement?

This line of thinking is quite confused.

Can we get by without it? I think we can. — Banno

The confusion might be worse than it first seems:

Awareness of what is ontic (i.e., of what factually is in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals) precedes our understanding for the epistemological criterion of truth.

This is so because truth, as it’s commonly understood, is a relation between one or more points of view (the existence of which is itself an ontological position; i.e., is itself a judgement concerning a state of affairs) and that which these apprehend to be ontic, i.e. to factually be (aka, to be reality or real, but here not necessarily limited to semantics associated with materialistic realism).

The philosophical paradox emerges in that we thereby need to first philosophically know of an ontology, of some state of affairs in general, in order to then discern what particular truths are and, consequently, what is knowledge (this when knowledge is in any way contingent on the property of truth—don’t know what knowledge would be otherwise).

So ontology predates epistemology, but we need epistemic criteria by which to appraise and establish some ontology.

Is this chicken and egg conundrum between ontology and epistemology itself an inherent aspect of Truth? Don’t know. But it certainly isn’t a consciously intended falsehood.



The heck is capital-T Truth supposed to be anyway—other than a nifty synonym for that which factually is in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals? In which case why not just call it reality, or that which is real? And don’t we all then have a working model of what reality is, one which we sometimes attempt to enlighten others about in places such as these? Maybe it’s the lack of acknowledged fallibilism involved with many such affirmations.

Just passing through. Interesting stuff so far. Thought I might be able to stir up the waters a bit.

Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life seems the obvious candidate, but a more contemporary read seems good too. — darthbarracuda

In terms of basic principles that are universal to all life—this rather than the mechanisms via which these principles apply—everything contemporary will be an interpretation of the original you’ve listed. “Origin of Species” is well argued, well structured, with plenty of examples, and will appeal to the philosophically minded with interest in the topic. It is the 101 of any biological evolution reasoning which makes concrete the foundations to which mechanisms can then be applied and, even today, yet proposed.

If you read it and like it, also try his The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals—though short on mechanisms, it too is very philosophically robust, well-supported with evidence, insightful, with special attention given to the cognitive evolution of life.

Ditto to this:

Forget The Selfish Gene, it's outdated science and badly misleading outdated science at that. — StreetlightX

In terms of accessible new stuff that isn’t pop-sci, The Genial Gene is a well-supported alternative perspective to that which the culturally beloved Dawkins provides. Though a bit of the underdog since it emphasizes the cooperation required for life to be.

"Ontic reality of life"; why not just "life"? Or is there an ontic reality of life, that isn't life - I don't even know what that means! — tim wood

Wikipedia: In philosophy, ontic (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence.

Example: Unicorns are not ontic—and, hence, not ontically real—despite being real as human concepts of the imagination, i.e. despite being real concepts of what could be ontic in some fictional, alternative world.

You can either like or dislike my use of the adjective “ontic” to emphasize the difference between 1) that which is in ways independent of thought and theory (that which is ontic) and 2) that which is strictly a product of the human mind's theorizing.

Yet something is to me extremely amiss with the overall replies you’ve provided to my questions.

Whatever it might be—an ongoing lack of attention to what I write, an ongoing lack of charitability, I don’t know—I’ve encountered it too often on this thread between us. We have been and continue talking past each other … And, for better or worse, I no longer hold any interest in this discussion. Goodbye for now.

I burned my hand this morning under some hot water. My hand moved involuntarily. Later, when my toast was done, I had a choice between raspberry and blueberry jam; I chose both. The hand movement I call immediate, unmediated. The behaviour of choosing which jam, mediated.

Perhaps another way. The immediate action just happens, it couldn't be any other way. The mediate action represents a decision, and the action could have been this or that. — tim wood

Yet this does not address my question of which causal mechanisms are at work. But be this as it may.

So now we’re at the apparent impasse of what life is in general. I presented this summation:

Life is a gestalt process. Any portion of the physical substrata which serves as a constituent of the gestalt process of life will be dead or dying when isolated from its interactions with all other material subcomponents from which life emerges as a gestalt process. — javra

And instead of having this proposition regarding the existential reality at hand—that of life—replied to, you provide examples regarding human thoughts so as to evidence that gestalts are strictly products of human cognition and imagination.

I’m not, for example, addressing the concept of a table as something which is other than the sum of its conceptual parts. I’m addressing the ontic reality of life as being something that is other than the sum of its ontic parts. This too is in keeping with the definition of gestalts, which are forms (the second definition on Wiktionary) And no, to me this is not axiomatic; it is, as you say, a conclusion obtained from discernments of what is.

(BTW, other terms and positions could be used to address this same conclusion, such as holons and the position of holism; but by now I presume so doing would only needlessly complicate matters.)

You maintain that a human’s life (this being a very applicable example of a life) is not an ontically gestalt process—is not a process which is other than the sum of its parts. These following four questions might help me to better understand your worldview:

1) Is a human’s life then nothing but a product of human cognition and imagination, holding no ontic reality of its own (other than as an abstract human thought)?

2) If no, is a human’s life in your opinion then present strictly within parts of the human body—such as, for example, strictly in the body’s individual cells?

3) If no, is there an ontic distinction between a humans’ life and the same human’s total but dead corpse—this even when many of the given body’s individual cells are yet living?

4) If yes, what is the ontic distinction in your opinion between a human’s life and the same human’s life-devoid body—if not that of the human’s life being a gestalt process which vanishes when the processes of its physical substratum no longer interact in a certain way (decomposition too is a process of the physical organic substratum)?

I don’t know how these questions will come across, but our worldviews now appear too far apart for me to presume what your answers to any of these questions might be. I’d usually take it that we could agree that a human’s life cannot be dissected with a scalpel nor placed into a jar—but I’m no longer certain of even this.

I have a problem with "self-regulating" because it implies a self. Will you accept "internally regulated"? — tim wood

Internal entails a threshold between that which is within some given and outside of this same given. Where this very given whose internal aspects are solely address is an autopoietic system resulting from the simultaneous interaction of all subcomponents, the autopoietic processes of this system is the self that is being addressed. For clarity, because autopoiesis is negentropic, metabolizing, and homeostatic, it is that which we consider to be life. In the case of a tree, the living tree as opposed to a dead structure of wood protruding out of the ground.

What do you have in mind by the term “self” that serves as metaphysical impediment to its use in the context just outlined?

So its known, the term “self” is common to biology in addressing that which pertains to a living organism (to the “self” in relation to the "non-self"); see for example Wiktionary definition of “self” #4, including its example.

In any case I still hold to the mediate/immediate distinction. — tim wood

I would like for you to better spell out this distinction via causal processes. What I currently understand by it is that, from your belief system, “immediate” entails effects fully caused by efficient causation—something like billiard balls hitting each other at molecular and sub-molecular levels of reality. If my current interpretation is accurate, I as of yet do not understand what alternative causal process your belief system ascribes to “mediated” actions and reaction. Are they also fully composed of efficient causation, only that there just happens to be a medium in-between the stimuli and the outcome (with this something in-between also being a product of efficient causation)? If not, what causal mechanism other than that of efficient causation is at play in mediated reactions?

I'll also say that intra-tree communication occurs only via channels within the tree, presumably by a cell-to-cell transmission of an electro-chemical signal. — tim wood

So its known, electro-chemical signals solely define neurons and, hence, the processes of nervous systems. To the best of my knowledge they are not applicable to any known plant cell(s), which is one of the reasons that plants are such alien lifeforms to us nervous system endowed lifeforms.

I think the only argument - disagreement - I have lies in what I take to be a reification of motive, purpose, telos, and now gestalt. — tim wood

????

From Wiktionary: gestalt:

A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being)

Where on earth do you find even a smidgen of reification in what I’ve said (here keeping things simple by only addressing gestalts)? Here; again summed up just for this purpose:

Life is a gestalt process. Any portion of the physical substrata which serves as a constituent of the gestalt process of life will be dead or dying when isolated from its interactions with all other material subcomponents from which life emerges as a gestalt process.

But in my view they are not things. They can't be dissected with a scalpel or stored in a jar. — tim wood

Yes, this is one of the attributes which gestalts hold (see definition above).

Since the issue of final causes, i.e. teleology, won’t go anywhere prior to resolving the basic issue of what is doing the responding to stimuli, I won’t currently address these portions of your last post.

An interesting tidbit I just haphazardly came across - this due to the wonders of directed advertising. Among all the other things that trees do, turns out trees also sleep at night … in an non-anthropocentric way.

Why the scientific finding that trees “sleep” at night is beautiful

You’re wanting to further engage on the issue. There’s a lot in your last post that I disagree with. I’ll take one issue at a time. We so far seem to agree that a tree can respond to stimuli. So I’ll start with this.

1) We have stimuli (which stimulate actions) on the one hand and something which is responding to it (via actions and reactions) on the other. The two—the stimulus and that which responds to it—cannot logically be identical.

Do we agree?

2) You presume that what is responding are specific parts of the tree’s DNA (which cause immediate actions on their own, to use your terminology) rather than the tree as the total metabolizing process of a multicellular organisms—a total self-regulating process that results from the set of its individual molecular subcomponents (including nucleic acids) found within its many individual cells.

Is this correct?

If (1) and (2) are deemed correct by you, please explain how DNA can respond to anything when addressed as a physical molecule operating in isolation—explaining this in manners either accordant to the empirical sciences of biology or to metaphysical logic.

Why I disagree with this just mentioned hypothesis: A living cell is negentropic, metabolizing, and homeostatic. These attributes apply to a total gestalt process that results from all molecular subcomponents interacting with each other. In rough parallel to a brain that is removed from the rest of a body being dead, a cell’s nucleus removed from the rest of the cell is non-negentropic, non-metabolizing, and non-homeostatic; i.e. non-living, and hence dead. This same attribute of nonliving is even more applicable to portions of DNA isolated from the nucleus. A tree is a multicellular organism, meaning that what is negentropic, metabolizing, and homeostatic is the gestalt process resulting from the collection of all individual tree cells simultaneously interacting with each other. Therefore, when a tree responds to stimuli, it cannot be due to some portions of its physical DNA holding immediate mechanical effects upon both the tree’s behavior and physiology. Rather it is due to the negentropic, metabolizing, homeostatic process of the tree in total—itself a gestalt, or at least collective, manifestation of the negentropic, metabolizing, homeostatic process of its individual cells (of which nucleic acids serve as only one molecular constituent of). This, in turn, entails that that which responds to stimuli is not individual portions of DNA but the negentropic, metabolizing, homeostatic process of the tree as a living multicellular organism.

If you find errors to this argument I’ve provided, either due to a disparity with the data obtained from the empirical sciences of biology or due to erroneous metaphysical logic, please inform me of what these errors are. But please ensure that these disagreements you might hold are based on facts or on logic, and not on imaginative hypotheticals.

What, here, do I have to justify? I think you want to expand this list into areas where, if you make a claim, it's you who have to justify it. — tim wood

In the list you’ve provided, the need for justification would apply to (4). You state as fact that telos is “simply abstract fiction” when applied to trees. If this proposition is true, what is its justification? Can you justify it by any other means than the supposition of a causally deterministic physicalism fully composed of infinite chains of efficient causation?

One should keep in mind that awareness of other and its processes is not located within something physical, like in a pineal gland when it comes to vertebrates. Awareness is a gestalt form that is—I’ll say “fully correlated” to keep the causal process as ambiguous as possible—fully correlated with its substrata of physical information. This applies to living humans—at least when not addressing eliminativism. On what rational grounds would it not also apply to living dogs, insects, nematodes, sponges, fungi, plants, and prokaryotes?

I’ve done my best to try to introduce arguments for telos to you—this in a longwinded post that someone hereabouts bothered to write and to post to you. Its introductory arguments have been wholly ignored as though never posted, and I don’t like repeating arguments that then go unaddressed.

I’ve also warned against anthropocentric mindsets when it comes to awareness and goal-seeking. But your arguments keep coming back around to anthropocentric concepts of each, and this without bothering to enquire into what non-anthropocentric aspects of these would be. Awareness of other is not necessarily something visual, nor something contingent on the presence of a skull, nor something one must be capable of thinking about. Goal-searching does not need to be about consciously formulating a plan and then setting out to achieve it; it is often enacted instinctively even in us self-aware humans. We ourselves are aware of gravity via our vestibular ducts that facilitate balance—and most often are not conscious of it. And this only one example. We ourselves do things essential to the purpose/goal of sustaining life—from our breathing and blinking to our drive to eliminate wastes when present—without a prevailing conscious apprehension of purpose in so doing. Nevertheless, we are aware of gravity and we do breath so as to facilitate the cellular respiration required for the metabolism of our bodies’ individual cells.

I’m not looking for bickering. From the sum of our previous posts, however, it appears to me that we’ve been talking past each other. It happens sometimes, but there's not much point to further debate when it does. I’m more than OK with currently letting things be as they are.

What I read in your post is a statement of your beliefs sans justification for them. It bares notice that the same argument for “chemical interactions via efficient causation devoid of something experiencing” can just as easily be applied to all life, humans included. It’s the basic stance of many physicalists, including Dennett, replete with an illusion of human consciousness. This is where the heavy-duty metaphysical arguments are needed, or so I’ve always thought. But that’s not what this thread is about.

Still, if it is as you believe, then there is nothing regarding life that is not thoroughly within the realm of a strictly efficient-causation-grounded reasoning.

OK. It turns out that your beliefs conform to a causally deterministic physicalism. My own do not—and, as with the physicalist, I find a dualistic metaphysical divide between the processes of human life and those of lesser lifeforms untenable. Yet since this is a difference of metaphysical views concerning causal mechanisms—one which you don’t appear interested in arguing for via justifications—I personally don’t find anything to further debate in this thread.

I'm an atheist but some things I cannot allow myself to believe, determinism being one of those things. Even if it comes to be that all of accepted human knowledge concludes that is in fact correct. Am I wrong? Why? — AlmostOutlier

If its of help: In my younger days held the belief that we are causally predetermined to innately live as thought the illusion of freewill was not illusory. In brief, this due to our causally determined ignorance as it pertains to every single cause further causing us to need to act as though we make our own choices, and hold responsibility for these. For instance, one could become unmotivated due to the thought of “its all predetermined” or motivated due to whatever reason; regardless, its all predetermined and perfectly fixed metaphysically; but because we cannot hold a cognizance that knows everything, we have no way of knowing what our predetermined future will be. Because our future is always determined by the actions we take and the thoughts we hold that motivate these actions, our causally predetermined conditions predetermined us to always act and choose as though we do have freewill. Hope that makes sense … even though nowadays I’m a metaphysical compatibilist and no longer subscribe to causal determinism. (I now disagree with this argument, but maybe you can find a way to make it work.)

There’s a lot unspoken about atheism, including that it necessitates a causal determinism (often coupled with the belief that good old science could no longer be valid were causal determinism to not be). I challenge you to come up with a conclusive argument of why this is true, and I bet you won’t be able to come up with one. Atheism can exist just fine devoid of a substratum of causal determinism. If a concrete example is needed, some types of Buddhists are atheists … despite believes in an afterlife and in karma. No god/s, and the afterlife for them is not god-given but just part of the course (never for better since their point is to no longer be reborn and die ad infinitum)—this just as much as the most profane aspects of life are part of the course. OK, many other types of Buddhism, such as the Tibetan brand, is theistic. Still, I would think other established examples can also be found.

My main problem with believing X and not-X to be true at the same time is that it’s, technically, what George Orwell termed “doublethink”. And, personally, I find it to be a disorder of mind which generally makes our social existence worse. Like obesity: it’s perfectly OK for some, but not societally as the norm. Holding some degree of open mind about whether X or not-X is true is something altogether different, though.

My take is: steadfastly justify that your believed truths are in fact true up until you find out you’re wrong—and this time might never happen, especially where your beliefs are in fact true. Or, else, maintain an “I’m not fully sure attitude” till further information develops for you. But, at the end of the day, don’t ever start worshiping your beliefs as though they were absolute truths. I believe this latter part is what most, if not all, of the non-Cartesian skeptics ultimately want to get at.

This contradiction you rightly find between causal determinism and responsibility, till resolved to your satisfaction, should—to my mind—fall into the “I’m not yet fully sure” group (this now that the contradictory reasoning is present within consciousness). Else it would smell too much of a doublethink with belief worship to me.

(Already wrote this darn thing. So I'll post it despite Apo having already answered.)

Hey, for my part, the philosophical problem with homeostasis you address is the same problem we hold for the continuity of an ever changing self. There is some organic structure which remains relatively stable over time—be it organism, somatic cell, or something else—by means of self-regulating an internal equilibrium of things (such as temperature in the case of mammals—but the list can be very long) despite in some ways always changing both internally and as an overall organic structure—and this in relation to an ever changing environment it is situated within and to which it acclimates. This philosophical topic of homeostasis can get into the metaphysics of identity given a world of change, can be addressed by top-down and bottom-up causal processes, and—considering the self-regulation involved—is an unique attribute of living things (to me, an inherent part of the thread's theme regarding reason and life).